One of the characters in “Pet Lions & Well-Dressed Elephants” that shows up in 1846, was a clown by the name of Joseph Pentland. Clowns in Victorian circus were not the same as the clowns of the twenty-first century. They were meant to entertain the crowds in between the real acts of the show like equestriennes and acrobats. Joe travelled in England before coming home and touring with the Sands & Lent and Co. American Circus, where he meets up with our book’s hero, Alasco Charles White. He sang, did ventriloquism, juggled, and rope walking.
How did Joe Pentland become important in the telling of the story of Charley White (menagerie) and Anna White (Matchett/Donovan)? Well, as I researched the lives of the two main characters a distinct and clear pattern emerged of circus people working together, parting ways, and then meeting once again in new shows.
Joe Pentland, in my novel, became friends with 14-year-old Charley White during his first circus experience in upstate New York. Both worked under the management of Lewis B. Lent.
During the Civil War years while our hero Charley White fought in the war, Joe traveled with the Equescurriculum (a conglomerate show of many shows combined) run by Lewis B. Lent. Coincidentally Anna (married to William A. Donovan/Acrobat at the time) also worked as a seamstress and traveled with the Equescurriculm. Due to an injury, Anna’ husband worked as one of 4-great-clowns” in the show. Joe Pentland was the lead.
Fast forward to 1873. Barnum, Coup, and Castello and their “Greatest Show on Earth” was mostly destroyed in a fire Christmas Eve, 1872. They are frantically rebuilding the show and Barnum is determined to make 1873’s show the biggest ever by the first of April. They already have Anna as wardrobe mistress and our friend Charley White as menagerie manager. Down the street in Manhattan is Lewis B. Lent who has replaced the “Equescrurriculm” with his “New York Circus” scheduled to open in March.
7 February 1873 word is received that Joe Pentland died in the insane asylum. He had been tortured by a brain wasting disease for the better part of two years. On the 10th of February friends of Joe Pentland from all the shows attend the funeral including Charley, Anna, and Lewis B. Lent. It was a much smaller world and more tightly knit than anyone imagined.
Joe was born in Boston 19 November 1811 to Joseph and Thankfull Pentland. He was a talented and much sought-after clown and yet it appears even he had to seek out and claim new jobs every year. He even had his own circus for a while (1854-1857).
His funeral was held at his home at 317 East Thirteenth Street “on Monday, at eleven o’clock A.M.” His remains are interred at Cypress Hills. RIP Joseph Pentland. Not forgotten.
