P.T. Barnum is known as the world's greatest showman. He was born on July 5, 1810 in Bethel, a small town on the outskirts of Danbury, Connecticut. P.T. Barnum's parents were Philo Barnum and Irena Taylor.
P.T. was sent to the district school at age 6, where he proved to be one of the brightest boys in the class. His favorite school subjects were English and math. After learning everything he could at the district school, P.T. went to study at the Danbury Academy. He left school some time before his 16th birthday and went to work as a clerk in a general store in Bethel.
Barnum's father died about 2 months after his 16th birthday. He was still working as a clerk in the general store then. But working there paid him little and gave him no chance to make any extra money, so he left to clerk in a similar store about a mile away from there in the city of Grassy Plain, where he met a woman named Charity Hallett.
Barnum Pond - Paul Smiths, New York
Barnum-Bailey Show - Model Artist Horse Posing (L...
Barnum Pond - Paul Smiths, New YorkAfter a while, Barnum left to New York City. There, Oliver Taylor, one of his relatives, offered him a job in his Brooklyn grocery store, which Barnum accepted. He returned to Bethel within a year. There, his grandfather offered him half of his carriage house near the center of town to open a business. Barnum accepted the offer, but he wanted to go back home first, because of Charity Hallett.
In the summer of 1829, Barnum asked Charity to marry him. She agreed and on November 8, the couple was married in New York City, then returned to Bethel a few days later. Barnum opened a shop in the one half of his grandfather's carriage house, and later became an agent for several lotteries. He called his...