The Buffalo Courier - 13 January 1889
THK BIGEST ELEPHANT.
Forepauph's Gift to the City of Philadelphia.
Philadelphia Times.
PHILDELPHIA, Dec.26 - Adam Forepaugh's famous elephant Bolivar, the greatest pachydermatous bulk in the realms of civilization, entered the Zoo yesterday morning at the veteran showman's Christmas gift.
Bolivar left his old quarters at Richmond at 7 o'clock. He traveled to his new home in great state. Adam Forepaugh, jr., attended him in a carriage, An aid rode by his side on horseback carrying a spear. Keeper Johnson, a colored groom and two escorting elephants completed the party.
The strange maintinal excursion caused a sensation in the line of march, even at that early hour. The passage of the Girard avenue bridge was made with an escorting contingent of a million small boys. At the entrance of the Zoo the waves of juvenility proved resistless and a flood of sight-seers swept on to the elephant house.
Superintendent Brown and Head Keeper Byrne were on hand to receive the hugh gift. The head keeper swung back the door in the rear of the elephant cage and Bolivars attendants urged him in. In the cage were the two female pachyderms, Jennie and Empress. Jennie is twenty-six years old, and has worn widow's weeds for a number of years. Empress is a maiden of sixteen. The only lover she ever had was toe youthful Don Pedro, whose lamentable death happened two years ago.
At Bolivar's intrusion Jennie, with matronly rage, trumpeted and then struck the prince of pachyderms a remonstrating whack with her trunk. Empress looked on shyly. At the sight of the two female occupants of the room Bolivar modestly withdrew. For some time Head Keeper Byrne and Bolivar's trainer labored in vain to induce him to re-enter toe apartment. A bright idea occurred to Byrne. He chained the expostulating female elephants to opposite corners of the room. Then Bolivar entered.
Although Jennie sulked in her corner all the morning, the innocent young Empress expressed the greatest delight for her new companion. She caressed him all day. He soon appeared to be perfectly at home.
Old Pete, the ugly thirty-six-year-old rhinoceros next door, was the only one who, as the day went on, refused to become reconciled to the new arrival. His jealousy was excited, explained Head Keeper Byrne, because be feared that he wouldn't get his usual holiday supply of peanuts. For hours, snorting with rage, he hurled himself against toe brick partition separating him from the obnoxious newcomer.
At about noon Charles Johnson, who has been Bolivar's keeper for many years, and Keeper Pendergrast of the Zoo, served Bolivar and his new roommates with an elaborate Christmas dinner. Bolivar ate a barrel of cabbage, two bushels of potatoes, which he crushed under his feet and then mixed with hay, forming a sandwich loved by all healthy elephants, a peck of onions, twenty-five loaves of bread, a bushel of carrots and half a bushel of bran mush. He washed this down with sixty gallons of water and then used two hundred pounds of hay to pick his teeth.
Before entering the house he weighed only about three hundred pounds less than five tons. Head Keeper Byrne said that when he had been in the Zoo a few weeks two tons would be added to his weight.
During the day the peanut basket in the elephant house, holding three bushels, was filled six times for Bolivar's insatiate maw. The keepers said that Bolivar would be dieted to-day in order to give his deranged digestive organs a chance to heal.
Bolivar is twenty-six years old. He is the largest elephant in captivity and is still growing. He is ten feet high and is heavier than Jumbo was. Adam Forepaugh, jr., said yesterday that his father, as a Philadelphian, wished to present something to the Zoo that couldn't be excelled. He thought he had done it. The management of the Zoological society now claim to have the finest elephants, lions, tigers and snakes in the country.
Large crowds filled the gardens yesterday. The weather was autumnal and inviting, and Bolivar was an irresistible attraction. Many prominent people took part in his reception.
The women and children in the garden did not forget their favorite chimpanzee, Miss Topsy. They brought her little Christmas toys and bon-bons, What delighted her above all were a number of little looking-glasses. She spent the remainder of the day after receiving them in arranging her toilet. The two little lemurs who are her companions were also made happy with appropriate gifts.
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