Cannibalism in our Midst?
In celebration of the Halloween season, here’s a bit of dark history from York’s past.
Today the site of the York County Judicial Center, the southeast intersection of North George Street and Philadelphia Street was once the site of the Pennsylvania House hotel and later the Hotel Penn. According to newspaper accounts of the day, a horrific event occurred in the Pennsylvania House.
The year was 1872 and Barnum’s Museum, Menagerie and Hippodrome was in town. They set up a massive canvas tent that held 5,000 people. The tent was located where the Soldiers & Sailors monument stands today and was overflowing with people eager to see such spectacles as the bearded child, the armless woman, the man in miniature, and the strange and brainless being, among others. Rather than retell the story, it is best to read it firsthand from the York Daily from Wednesday, May 15, 1872:
DEATH OF THE CANNIBAL DWARF A HORRID SCENE Cannibalism in our Midst.Barnum’s Museum, Menagerie and Hippodrome met with quite a loss yesterday in the death of the notorious Cannibal Dwarf, which occurred at the Pennsylvania Hotel, in this place. The little Fiji exhibited symptoms of indisposition several days ago, and the Manager, Mr. W.C. Coup, sent “the General” as he is called, to New York, to be cared for by Mr. Barnum’s family physician. But the little savage becoming restless in the absence of his associates, he was returned to the company. Like all of his race he had a native horror of shoes and clothing, and even in the wet, cold days that came upon the company in New Jersey, the Manager was unable to force shoes upon the General, and make him dress with sufficient warmth. Yesterday the man in charge noticed that his fingers were constantly in motion, while he muttered continually the only word he ever pronounced intelligibly “Fiji.” He refused everything like food or nourishment, and apparently thought of nothing but his native island. Dancing or violent gesturing of any kind was always a source of great merriment to “the General,” but now the keeper could not provoke even a smile. The miniature being was dying and while his keeper was doing his best to cheer him up and make him take his medicine, he rose up in bed, muttered “Fiji” in a whisper and fell back dead. His three native companions, who up to this time were wholly indifferent, now exhibited all the symptoms of genuine grief. They howled incessantly, and such fearful physical contortions were probably never before witnessed in a civilized community.
A HORRIBLE SCENEThe death of this dwarf savage was not an unexpected event. The scene subsequent, however, sent a chill through each of the very few conversant with the facts. Shortly after the corpse was placed in the coffin, last evening, Mr. S.S. Smith, the keeper, locked the door upon the three companions in an adjoining room, and left the building for the purpose of consulting with the manager at the National Hotel. He states that he was not absent thirty minutes, but that upon returning a scene presented itself too horrible to detail. The two male associates had gained access to the corpse, and were biting and gnawing at the fleshy parts of the body with all the eagerness of their native cannibalism! The female stood aloof in one corner, and by sign, word and gesture was entreating them to desist. It is understood that this woman is a convert to the teachings of English Missionaries, and looks with abhorrence upon all the unchristian habits of her tribe. Mr. Smith promptly interfered, and the two miserable beings went sullenly to their apartment. All regret the unnatural affair, and none more than the parties directly interested. The remains were quietly buried in the evening.
A few days later a competing newspaper, the True Democrat, stated that “there is not a word of truth in the story, that the Daily was liberally paid for the insertion and the whole thing was furnished to that paper, cut and dry, by the proprietor, as an advertising dodge.” Both articles were widely distributed throughout the media. So what really happened? Was the York Daily story accurate? Or was it a hoax like the competing True Democrat claimed? Alas, the cannibal was buried in an unmarked grave, and when his coffin was found during an 1897 disinterment of Potter’s Field, the body was missing from the coffin. The York Dispatch subsequently reported that a prominent physician had hired a grave robber in 1872 to obtain the cannibal, then dissected him and placed his skeleton on display in his office.
Is truth stranger than fiction? Or did the world’s greatest showman, PT Barnum, succeed in “humbugging” the unsuspecting Yorkers?
