Do you know the story of the first elephant to arrive in America? It’s a rather remarkable tale. Gather ‘round for a #WorldElephantDay story… 
In 1796, a ship captain named Jacob Crowninshield went to go pick up a merchant vessel, called America, for a commercial fleet owner in Boston. But there was no sense in bringing home an empty ship. So Jacob stopped in Calcutta. That’s where he saw an elephant—and hatched a plan.
Jacob Crowninshield asked his brother Ben to invest in his plan. When Ben declined, he wrote to his other brothers. “I suppose you will laugh at this scheme,” Jacob wrote, “but I do not mind… of course you know it will be a great thing to carry the first elephant to America.”
In Calcutta, Jacob Crowninshield purchased a two-year-old elephant for $450. The chances of her survival in a months-long sea voyage weren’t good. (As late as 1980, about 25 percent of calves making the journey to the U.S. died within months.) archive.sltrib.com/story.php?ref=…
If the elephant calf endured the trip, Jacob Crowninshield figured he could pick up $5,000 for the animal. (It would also mark the return of a member of the family Elephantidae to the North American continent for the first time in about 4,000 years.) smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/las…
Among the sailors on America was Nathaniel Hawthorne, Sr.—the famous novelist’s father. On Feb. 17 he wrote in his logbook: “took on board several pumpkins and cabbages, some fresh fish for ship’s use, and greens for the elephant.” Then he added, in all caps: “ELEPHANT ON BOARD.”
Somehow, the elephant survived, and Jacob Crowninshield sold her for TWICE the amount he’d hoped. He later parlayed those riches into a successful political career as a U.S. representative for Massachusetts in a Congress that included John Quincy Adams and Aaron Burr, sir.
The historical trail of the first elephant in America grows cold around 1800. Four years later, though, an elephant called Old Bet, possibly the same animal and perhaps named for Jacob Crowninshield’s long wager, was touring around Boston for a quarter-a-look.
(It’s conceivable that Old Bet was a different elephant, perhaps even an African one, but no one I know of has yet turned up an account of a ship other than The America that carried a pachyderm to the United States at the time.)
In the next few years, it appears, Old Bet fell on hard times. After being passed from owner to owner, she was held in a pen at a cattle auction in New York City. That’s where a farmer from Somers, New York, first saw her.
The farmer figured Old Bet might prove useful for plowing his fields, but soon learned he could make more by showing her to curious people across the country, particularly if he augmented her sheer impressiveness with his flair for the dramatic.
The farmer’s name? Hachaliah Bailey, and the traveling menagerie he founded went on to become the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus — "The Greatest Show on Earth."
For two centuries to come, the Bailey Circus and its progeny of traveling performances toured the country with a collection of elephants in tow. Over time, our ideas about how we should treat animals—and particularly large charismatic ones—began to change. For the better.
Eventually bowing to the steady pressure of animal rights advocates, circus managers put the elephants in the ring a final time in 2016. Ticket sales plummeted. A year later, the Ringling Brothers shut down. usatoday.com/story/news/nat…
What started with an elephant ended with the elephants. But that, of course, shouldn't be the end of our relationship with them. Here's how you can help: savetheelephants.org
