The tale of Crawfordsville’s greatest showman begins on a warm day in 1875 when the John Robinson Circus wended its way through Crawfordsville in a splendid procession through the streets. An eight-year-old boy, Lew Graham, stood on the curb near his father’s dry goods store at the corner of Washington and Main streets to watch the spectacle. He was most mesmerized by the circus announcer Cal Towers who was dressed in a plain black suit and a silk hat. He stood upon an orange and purple platform and used his booming voice to entice the crowd to freely attend the upcoming tight wire act. Graham compared Towers to the Pied Piper for Graham was so engaged in memorizing Towers’ speech and enunciation that he left his prime spot to follow the circus parade to the lot where they would set up their tents. On that day, Graham discovered his occupational calling.
Not long after the circus left town, tragedy struck Lew Graham and his family. He lost both his father and his mother, Nathan L. and Mary Beard Graham, in a matter of months. After becoming an orphan, his story took on a Tom Sawyer/Huck Finn vibe, for he and three of his sisters went to live on Wabash Avenue with their aunt, Elizabeth D. Tiffany, a widow considerably older than their mother from a 15-year difference in age. Maybe she was sweet, maybe she wasn’t, but regardless, one source says that Lew ran away in 1881 at age 14 to join the Barnum & Bailey Circus, but Graham himself never confirmed this information.
In an article Graham co-wrote for The Elks Magazine in 1926, he said his first circus engagement was in 1887 at age 20 playing the tuba for the Charles Bartine Circus in Ohio. The gig did not last through the winter because the circus was shut down by the sheriff of Greenville, Ohio, so he pawned his tuba and used the money to return to Crawfordsville. However, Graham found the winter so dull, he again took off in the spring — this time for Coney Island in Brooklyn, New York. He became an announcer enticing crowds to visit Professor Worth’s American Museum that was located beside the Brighton Beach Bathing Pavilion. It was full of oddities and rare specimens. (A circa 1870 carte de visite card of a baby mummy in a coffin from Professor Worth’s American Museum sold in 2016 on eBay for $610). After another temporary job at the Ninth and Arch Street Museum in Philadelphia, Graham landed a job with the Barnum & Bailey Circus in New York. From that appointment, he worked his way up to become a sideshow manager and ringmaster.
Lew Graham, Ringmaster
W.P. Henritze circus collection, ms2504, Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library. University of Georgia Libraries.
One of the tasks Graham had to do as a sideshow manager was to find new people, acts or exhibits. He was looking for three things in a successful act. “The abnormality must be remarkable, if possible unique; it must be exploitable by an accompanying talent or dexterity; and it must be inoffensive to public taste,” he said. One of his most famous acts was the rebranding of the Muse brothers, George and Willie Muse. They were African-American albinos discovered in Truevine, Virginia. They were consistently passed between various circuses when Graham met them (he was still working for the Barnum & Bailey Circus but by then the circus had merged with the Ringling Brothers). He outfitted George and Willie Muse in dapper tuxedos and rebranded them as Eko and Iko, Ambassadors from Mars, found amidst spaceship wreckage in the Mojave Desert in California. A further investigation of their story is in the 2016 book “Truevine: Two Brothers, a Kidnapping, and a Mother’s Quest, A True Story of the Jim Crow South” (791.35 Mac) by Beth Macy, available to check out at the Crawfordsville District Public Library.
Graham continued to rise in the circus business. His most valued accolade was given to him from P.T. Barnum who recognized his talent and told him “we seem to have in you one who can speak from the center of the ring and be heard all over the pavilion.” Likewise, circus clown Felix Adler described Graham as the GOAT (greatest of all time) of ringmasters. He said Graham would walk into the spotlight and his impressive baritone would thunder into all corners of the largest tent, and effectively capture the audience’s attention, in a time when there was no loudspeaker systems. A newspaper described him as a splendid personage. And though Graham could only visit Crawfordsville every once in a great while, residents knew he was making it in the circus big leagues in his own black suit and silk hat booming these words in some American town, “Lad-ieez and Gen-tle-men …”
Stay tuned for the rest of Graham’s story in Crawfordsville’s Greatest Showman (Part II) – A Gothic Turn.
Amie Cox is a local history specialist at the Crawfordsville District Public Library and the district media specialist at the Crawfordsville Community Schools.
