Struggles and Triumphs - P. T. Barnum (top 20 books to read txt) 📗

even moderate means to “own everything that joins them,” and I knew that Iranistan would so increase the value of surrounding property that none but first-class residences would be possible in the vicinity. But there was other work to do, which, while affording advantageous approaches to my property, would at the same time be a lasting benefit to the public; and so I opened Iranistan Avenue, and other broad and beautiful streets, through land which I freely purchased and as freely gave to the public, and these highways are now the most convenient as well as charming in the city.

To have opened all these new avenues, in their entire length, at my own cost, and through my own ground, would have required a confirmation of Miss Lavinia Warren’s opinion, that what little of the city of Bridgeport and the adjacent town of Fairfield was not owned by General Tom Thumb, belonged to P. T. Barnum. It is true that, apart from my East Bridgeport property, I became a very large owner of real estate on the other side of the river, in Bridgeport proper and in Fairfield, my purchases in Fairfield lying on and so near to the boundary line⁠—Division Street⁠—as virtually to be in Bridgeport. Everywhere through my own lands I laid out and threw open to the public, streets of the generous width which distinguished the old “King’s roads” in the colonies, before grasping farmers and others encroached upon, and fenced in as private property, land that really belonged to the public forever; and on both sides of every avenue I laid out and planted a profusion of elms and other trees. In this way, I have opened miles of new streets, and have planted thousands of shade-trees in Bridgeport; for I think there is much wisdom in the advice of the Laird of Dumbiedikes, in Scott’s “Heart of Mid-Lothian,” who sensibly says: “When ye hae naething else to do, ye may be aye sticking in a tree; it will be growing when ye’re sleeping.” But, in establishing new streets, too often, when I had gone through my own land, the project came literally to an end; some “old fogy” blocked the way⁠—my way, his own way, and the highway⁠—and all I could do would be to jump over his field, and continue my new street through land I might own on the other side, till I reached the desired terminus in the end or continuation of some other street; or till, unhappily, I came to a dead standstill at the ground of some other “old fogy,” who, like the original owners of what is now the shore-front of Seaside Park, “did not believe there was money to be made by giving away their property.”

And this is the manner in which these old fogies talked: “We don’t believe in these improvements of Barnum’s. What’s the use of them? We can get to the city by the old road or street, as we have done for forty years. The new street will cut the pasture or mowing-lot in two, and make a checkerboard of the farm. It was bad enough to have the railroad go through, and we would have prevented that if we could; but this new street business is all bosh!” And then, singularly enough, every old fogy would wind up with: “I declare, I believe the whole thing is only to benefit Barnum, so that he can sell land, which he bought anywhere from sixty to two hundred dollars an acre, at the rate of five thousand dollars an acre in building-lots, as he is actually doing today.”

It is strange indeed that these men, who could see the benefit to “Barnum’s property” by opening new streets which would immediately convert cheap farm and pasture land into choice and high-priced building-lots, should not see that precisely the same thing would proportionately increase the value of their own property. Conservatism may be a good thing in the state, or in the church, but it is fatal to the growth of cities; and the conservative notions of old fogies make them indifferent to the requirements which a very few years in the future will compel, and blind to their own best interests. Such men never look beyond the length of their noses, and consider every investment a dead loss unless they can get the sixpence profit into their pockets before they go to bed. My own long training and experience as a manager impelled me to carry into such private enterprises as the purchase of real estate that best and most essential managerial quality of instantly deciding, not only whether a venture was worth undertaking, but what, all things considered, that venture would result in. Almost any man can see how a thing will begin, but not every man is gifted with the foresight to see how it will end, or how, with the proper effort, it may be made to end. In East Bridgeport, where we had no “conservatives” to contend with, we were only a few years in turning almost tenantless farms into a populous and prosperous city. On the other side of the river, while the opening of new avenues, the planting of shade-trees, and the building of many houses, have afforded me the highest pleasures of my life, I confess that not a few of my greatest annoyances have been occasioned by the opposition of those who seem to be content to simply vegetate through their existence, and who looked upon me as a restless, reckless innovator, because I was trying to remove the moss from everything around them, and even from their own eyes.

In the summer of 1867, the health of my wife continuing to decline, her physician directed that she should remove nearer to the seashore; and, as she felt that the care of a large establishment like Lindencroft was more than she could bear, I sold that place. I have already spoken of my building of this residence. It was