In 1862, I sent the Commodore to Washington, and joining him there, I received an invitation from President Lincoln to call at the White House with my little friend. Arriving at the appointed hour I was informed that the President was in a special cabinet meeting, but that he had left word if I called to be shown in to him with the Commodore. These were dark days in the rebellion and I felt that my visit, if not ill-timed, must at all events be brief. When we were admitted Mr. Lincoln received us cordially, and introduced us to the members of the cabinet. When Mr. Chase was introduced as the Secretary of the Treasury, the little Commodore remarked:
“I suppose you are the gentleman who is spending so much of Uncle Sam’s money?”
“No, indeed,” said Secretary of War Stanton, very promptly: “I am spending the money.”
“Well,” said Commodore Nutt, “it is in a good cause, anyhow, and I guess it will come out all right.”
His apt remark created much amusement. Mr. Lincoln then bent down his long, lank body, and taking Nutt by the hand, he said:
“Commodore, permit me to give you a parting word of advice. When you are in command of your fleet, if you find yourself in danger of being taken prisoner, I advise you to wade ashore.”
The Commodore found the laugh was against him, but placing himself at the side of the President, and gradually raising his eyes up the whole length of Mr. Lincoln’s very long legs, he replied:
“I guess Mr. President, you could do that better than I could.”
Commodore Nutt and the Nova Scotia giantess, Anna Swan, illustrate the old proverb sufficiently to show how extremes occasionally met in my Museum. He was the shortest of men and she was the tallest of women. I first heard of her through a quaker who came into my office one day and told me of a wonderful girl, seventeen years of age, who resided near him at Pictou, Nova Scotia, and who was probably the tallest girl in the world. I asked him to obtain her exact height, on his return home, which he did and sent it to me, and I at once sent an agent who in due time came back with Anna Swan. She was an intelligent and by no means ill-looking girl, and during the long period while she was in my employ she was visited by thousands of persons. After the burning of my second Museum, she went to England where she attracted great attention.
For many years I had been in the habit of engaging parties of American Indians from the far West to exhibit at the Museum, and had sent two or more Indian companies to Europe, where they were regarded as very great “curiosities.” In 1864, ten or twelve chiefs of as many different tribes, visited the President of the United States at Washington. By a pretty liberal outlay of money, I succeeded in inducing the interpreter to bring them to New York, and to pass some days at my Museum. Of course, getting these Indians to dance, or to give any illustration of their games or pastimes, was out of the question. They were real chiefs of powerful tribes, and would no more have consented to give an exhibition of themselves than the Chief Magistrate of our own nation would have done. Their interpreter could not therefore promise that they would remain at the Museum for any definite time; “for,” said he, “you can only keep them just so long as they suppose all your patrons come to pay them visits of honor. If they suspected that your Museum was a place where people paid for entering,” he continued, “you could not keep them a moment after the discovery.”