Barnum, Phineas T. (1810-1891) Two Autograph Letters Signed, 1856.

Barnum, Phineas T. (1810-1891) Two Autograph Letters Signed, 1856. Both letters likely addressed to the Reverend Bishop Samuel Fallows (1835-1922), Head of the Reformed Episcopal Church in the United States, and brevet brigadier general of volunteers during the Civil War; (letters addressed "My Dear Bishop," and "Friend Bishop") both men shared the same strong beliefs supporting the temperance movement; the first letter on Barnum's American Museum letter paper, with a large advertisement printed on the conjugate featuring Barnum's Museum and his project publication, The Gallery of American Beauty, concerning a company that "are just the men for keeping a church Hotel in Milwaukee," and trying to find the address of a Henry Doolittle in New York, on laid lined blind-embossed seal, both secretarially docketed and dated on the versos by the recipient's staff, sizes vary. (2)

Bishop Fallows suspected that men who spent time in bars did so mainly for the social experience and not to consume alcohol per se. He therefore established The Home Saloon, where aproned waiters served soft drinks to patrons, a venture that ultimately failed. During the period when these letters were written, Fallows served as Superintendent of Public Instruction of Wisconsin for the church, thus the reference to Milwaukee. British-born and a graduate of the University of Wisconsin, at the time of his death in 1922, Fallows was described in the media as the "oldest badger graduate."