by Mim E. Rivas
As everyone took their seats, Albert and Stanley entered through the doorway from the horse stalls and sat down with the rest of the audience, followed next by Dr. Key and, at last, the star—who stepped carefully, almost shyly, as he was led to the stage. This was not what the Orange Chronicle reporter had expected. Perhaps local detractors were right to say that the fuss being made over the Southern horse was unfounded. Under the correspondent’s objective scrutiny, the large dark bay horse at first sighting was far from noteworthy, except perhaps for his “remarkably bright and clear eye,” which was evident as Jim turned to take in the audience. But was he beautiful? No, not to the man from the Chronicle, who stated that in appearance there was nothing unusual at all in the horse’s makeup. He described Dr. William Key, Jim’s trainer, in passing as “an old colored man.” Despite the later explanation given for the efficacy of the rabbit’s feet festooned over the enclosure, he seemed to find them to be rather off-putting.
And yet, no sooner had Dr. Key made a short introduction and asked Jim to bow to the ladies—which he did, of course, repeatedly and excessively, his shyness suddenly replaced by an equine expression of romantic ardor as he gazed with unapologetic longing at a giddy spinster—the applause and laughter that filled the carriage house made it very difficult for the reporter not to become as riveted as everyone else. He managed to suggest that some of the tricks, like Jim’s shaking of his head no and bowing of his head for yes, might have been indicated by the position “in which the short whip was held by the trainer.” But that was all the skepticism he could muster. For the rest, he wrote that Beautiful Jim Key’s other feats defied explanation. In his estimation, proof that no deception was being used lay in the fact that almost all of the questions were posed to the educated horse by different audience members; the responses were clearly unrehearsed.
One of the first questions to Jim was to pick out the name of McKinley, which he did, not surprisingly, without hesitation. Then the name of New Jersey Governor Grigg, a guest of the evening, was called, and Jim trotted over to the card reading GRIGG and brought it to Dr. Key. The name of a former mayor, TRUMAN, was asked for when someone in the audience had to add, “the best Mayor Orange has ever had,” and that card too Jim unerringly selected and took to the Doc. The next request was for the name of the current mayor, GILL, which Jim also had no trouble selecting. A voice from the back, possibly that of Albert Rogers, stirred up some fun, asking, “Is Mr. Gill a better mayor than Mr. Truman was?”
Jim took a beat, milking it so that both the former and current mayors could brace themselves, before nodding his head with an emphatic yes. Politically savvy as Jim was in certain circumstances, he might have understood that one ought always to advocate the current administration, if one wanted to succeed on a grassroots basis, or at least if one wanted to receive one’s better share of sugar.
Jim was next asked to spell the name Gertrude and after that his own name, doing so as he had been taught by bringing the letters one by one from the rack and lining them up on his spelling stand. What astounded the audience was that while this required two Rs and two Es, there was only one of each letter on the main rack; a secondary display of letters was on a smaller screen close to the front of the railed-off space. The Orange Journal reported that in each instance, “Jim hunted over the rack and not finding the letter there turned around and picked out the desired one from the supplementary list in front of the audience, all this with no apparent indication from his trainer as to what he should do, just the simple reminder of, ‘Now, Jim, get an E ’, repeating the direction in exactly the same tone of voice and using the same words in the case of the R.”
For the next exercise, Dr. Key announced, “Now, Jim, I want a letter from the post office.” Jim turned toward the letter cabinet with the numbered pigeonhole mail slots and waited for someone in the audience to request a particular box number.
“Box 18,” one of the guests volunteered.
Dr. Key made the request official, asking in a kindly though firm manner, “Bring me a letter from box 18.”
Beautiful Jim Key did so, drawing the unmarked envelope out from the niche marked 18 with his teeth and walking it to his trainer, who slipped him just a taste of sugar as he opened the envelope. “This letter is addressed to Colonel Morrell,” the Doc said, while a trill of laughter elapsed close to where Colonel Morrell was sitting. Doc Key placed it back in Jim’s mouth, telling him, “Please file it in its proper place.”
Strolling to a second cabinet, his rolltop mail center, Jim scanned the drawers until he saw the one marked M, pulled it open, and dropped the letter into it, then nudged it shut. He sauntered back to receive his next request before stopping, as though he had forgotten something. No, it was the audience who had forgotten to applaud! He did a slow take to the guests, which earned him the laughter and applause he wanted, along with unmasked expressions of awe.
The next letter, addressed to Miss Myrtie Peek, a noted horsewoman present for the gathering, provided more of a challenge, since the proper mail drawer was not labeled with the letter P but with N–Q. Jim scrutinized other drawers to make sure P hadn’t been placed elsewhere and then turned to Dr. Key, stumped.
“N, O, P, Q, Jim,” his teacher reminded him, and that was all Jim needed to deliver his letter to Miss Peek in the proper drawer.
The Orange Chronicle reporter, like the Newark Evening News writer who observed a similar challenge for Jim during the post office demonstration, may have used the fact that Jim did not execute each task perfectly as proof in his own mind that no fraud or contrivance was being employed. He became even more convinced that he was in the presence of true genius when Jim did his show-stopping retrieval of a silver dollar tossed into a glass jar full of water, and when he imperfectly “wrote” his name “with some wiggles” on the chalkboard, plunked out a few notes on his organ (music was not Jim’s forte), performed his ever popular bit of feigning lameness in response to being sold, and acted out his newest roles as streetcar conductor and store cashier.
To operate his streetcar register, Jim was tasked with answering how many five-cent fares were represented by any coin named by ringing the trolley bell the correct number of times. Beautiful Jim Key’s general store was a more elaborate affair. When a member of the audience decided to purchase any item, Dr. Key announced its price and asked how much money the “customer” was prepared to pay for it. Jim then pulled tabs on his customized National Cash Register to enter the purchase price, say, $2.37, by pulling the cent tab seven times, the dime tab three times, and the dollar tab two times. In this instance, a request was made for an item costing $3.46 and a $5 bill was offered. Dr. Key told Jim, “Go to the cash drawer and ring up a $3.46 sale and bring me back the change for a $5 bill.” Jim efficiently did so, ringing up the correct amount and bringing back, piece by piece, four pennies, a fifty-cent piece, and a paper dollar.
Prices for the various items at Beautiful Jim Key’s store might have been based on the going rate for dry goods at the well-known Bamberger’s, “the always busy store” on Market Street in Newark, where a pair of men’s imported black cotton socks sold for eighteen cents, ladies’ cotton hose for twenty-five cents, a yard of fine silk lace for fifteen cents ( Jim could figure the price of two yards), and a bed quilt was listed at $1.69. To deliver the thirty-one cents change, Jim was able to choose the three coins—a quarter, a nickel, and a penny—without verbal prodding, unless, of course, he brought the wrong change, as he did occasionally, and he would be given a second chance.
The select citizens of the Oranges rewarded Beautiful Jim Key, Dr. William Key, and Albert Reynolds Rogers with a standing ovation. During the walk back to the main house, where refreshments were served, a couple of directors from the Orange Riding and Driving Club proposed to Albert that he exhibit his horse at their clubhouse, even though such a show broke daringly with club tradition.
Rogers attempted to seem unsure as to whether Jim’s schedule could accommodate their interest
. But after giving it some thought, he confirmed that they would be available.
The whirlwind began. The clubhouse on Halstead Street sold out a total of four performances, which took place on Tuesday and Wednesday, September 21 and 22, with matinees at three-thirty in the afternoon and evening shows at eight-fifteen both nights; evening prices were fifty cents (including a good seat) and one dollar (front rows), while matinees were twenty-five cents for the balcony and back rows, fifty cents for down in front.
By the time his hired men had finished setting up the new tent and stage at the Casino Hall Summit on Thursday, September 23, for the Trenton Interstate Fair, Albert had in hand another stack of crisp press releases and effusive endorsements, including a testimonial from the Orange Riding and Driving Club’s president Charles Hathaway, “and other prominent Orangeites,” and a commendation from none other than Major Pond himself, “under whose management all the celebrated lectures and entertainment of the past twenty years have been given.”
Pond’s golden endorsement read: “I have been twice to see the wonderful performance of Beautiful Jim Key and it was hard to come away. His performance is almost human. Everybody will surely see this remarkable horse as soon as he is known.”
Albert, Bill, and Jim hoped that he was right.
The New Jersey coronation continued at Trenton, where as many as five thousand spectators came to see Beautiful Jim Key with their own eyes. Area newspapers ran daily updates, sometimes with multiple articles in the same edition. Temporarily silencing the cynics, they depicted Jim as more beautiful than ever. The Trenton Sunday Advertiser proclaimed him the “handsomest and most intelligent horse ever seen upon any stage.” A testimonial by editor Thomas Malone stated, “The person who misses seeing Beautiful Jim Key, the educated horse, whose blue-and-white-striped tent is located near the entrance to the fairgrounds, misses the best of the fair.” The fair’s promoters ran their own endorsement.
Besides the mounting numbers of testimonials, at the Interstate Fair—through no strategy of Albert’s—Jim started to receive gifts and letters from admirers. Following a benefit performance for the student body of the New Jersey School for Deaf-Mutes, the children were asked to put in writing what they had been saying to each other in sign language, and several did so, addressing their letters to Beautiful Jim Key at Glenmere in South Orange, known by this juncture as the horse’s own palatial estate—thus launching his collection of the hundreds of thousands of postcards and letters sent to him by youngsters that were to amass in one of his several monogrammed steamer trunks. Rogers couldn’t refrain from including one letter in his press materials, identifying it as a “composition from an eight-year-old deaf and dumb scholar”:
Dear Jim Key—You are a very wise horse. I am surprised that you can count, telephone, write, subtract and add better than other horses. I want to see you again. Do you know all deaf pupils? Do you like deaf or hearing people best? A man told you things through a telephone. I would like you to come to school. You can write a letter to me. I am amazed to see such a cunning animal. You must be very polite. Good-bye. Your loving friend, Jennie Cohen.
Crates of apples and sugar began showing up at his stall, giving Stanley even more responsibilities for keeping track of Jim’s things. The Doc and Rogers agreed that a second groom should be hired, along with a few more roadmen to help transport the tent, sets, and props. After this discussion, Rogers had to rush off to interview a line of waiting applicants for the job he’d listed the day before in the Trenton Sunday Advertiser: “WANTED—A good BARKER who has had experience. Apply early Monday at the Fair grounds, Beautiful Jim Key’s Tent.”
The next stop for the rising star was in western Pennsylvania in the town then known as Pittsburg. In 1890 an official decision by the United States Board on Geographic Names had abruptly snatched the h from Pittsburgh, along with all the h’s from cities across America whose names ended in -burgh. Later, in 1911, the same board reversed its decision by declaring its name: “Pittsburgh, a city in Pennsylvania (not Pittsburg).” Nonetheless, in the years that Beautiful Jim Key became a local folk hero to the city, as he would have asserted, its spelling was decidedly P-I-T-T-S-B-U-R-G.
In fact, the first week at the Pittsburg Exposition generated so much press that even with shows running on the hour from nine in the morning to nine at night, Jim’s tent couldn’t accommodate the crowds. On October 5, three days into the first week, the exposition management paid Rogers in full and implored him to extend the engagement for a second week. If he accepted, the West Pennsylvania Exposition Society would build a larger pavilion to house the Beautiful Jim Key exhibit and move it to a site more easily accessed than the tent had been, just to the left of the main entrance to the fairgrounds.
Albert brought the offer to the Doc. The problem was that if they stayed on at Pittsburg they would have only two days to travel to Cincinnati to open The Scholar and a Model Office Boy. Could they be ready? This was a close call.
Dr. Key felt that Will Griffin, a new member of their entourage, could help rehearse with Jim on the train, so they were probably going to be in fine shape—as long as their star could manage to get his beauty rest, no pun intended. That too would be Will’s job. Raised in the North, Afro-American Will Griffin—a multilingual college graduate with classical stage training who also happened to have worked with horses before—had not only been cast in the play but had also come on board to serve as Jim’s secondary groom and valet, officially as an assistant to the younger Stanley. Though they came from different worlds, Davis and Griffin made a friendly team, working together to groom Jim and tend to his various needs. But when Griffin placed a silver bell in the stall for Jim to ring whenever he needed something, Stanley put his foot down. Somebody had to try to keep the “Equine King”—as the papers had started calling Jim—from getting too big of a head.
But it was too late. A reporter for one of the Pittsburg newspapers had already leaked the story about Beautiful Jim Key’s new attendant, writing that the educated horse “has the services of a groom who happens to be a college graduate and speaks six languages. When the horse needs the services of his valet he rings a bell the same as a man of wealth would do to summon his servant.”
Rogers and the Doc agreed there was more to gain by doing the second week of the exposition and decided to stay on. In accepting the offer, Rogers did not ask for more than the $500 fee he had been paid for the first week, but only with two conditions—first, that the West Pennsylvania Exposition Society sign an endorsement testifying to the fact that “Beautiful Jim Key is the best draw we ever had; he is high priced but he is worth it,” and second, that Jim Key be put on the same promotional bill as John Philip Sousa. The endorsement was not a problem, but the Society members balked at making the great and almighty Sousa share a bill with anyone, let alone a horse.
A. R. Rogers stood his ground, confidently assuring the exposition management that the March King would be an even greater draw with the Equine King on his figurative marquees. On this gamble for all concerned, flyers and ads were hurriedly made up:
THE LAST WEEK! A Fitting Finale to this Most Successful Season of The Great Pittsburg Exposition. Beyond Comparison the Greatest Musical Organization in the World, JOHN PHILIP SOUSA And His Band of Fifty Five Artists. Conductor—John Philip Sousa, THE MARCH KING. Mr. Arthur Pryor, the greatest living Trombone Soloist. Mr. Franz Hell, Fluegelhorn Soloist. Mr. Albert Bode, Cornet. Mr. Jean Moeresman, Saxophone. Every Resident of the Two Cities Should Hear SOUSA. And: THE WONDERFUL EDUCATED HORSE. On account of the unprecedented demand to witness the marvelous feats of BEAUTIFUL JIM KEY by those who were unable to attend the Exposition last week, the management have determined, not withstanding the great expense, to retain JIM KEY at the Exposition all of this week.
Not every Pittsburg Exposition director thought Jim was worth the expense, some complaining that he was an inflated “side show.” Although Rogers was sure they would be proven wrong, he ran his own series of small ads
in area newspapers with the adamant lead line: “Jim Key Not a Side Show.” The numbers told that tale too, as an estimated 35,000 clamored to see Jim in the two-week period.
The staggering turnout quieted the naysayers. While John Philip Sousa may have been initially peeved about the attention given to a horse act, when Dr. William Key visited him to express his personal appreciation for the maestro’s musical genius and to extend his personal invitation for the bandleader and band members to attend one of Jim’s shows, Sousa accepted. Albert Rogers reserved seats for the conductor and his entourage in the front, where, his eyes brimming with tears, John Philip Sousa became a humble fan. Afterward, he went up to embrace Jim and to shake Dr. Key’s hand, saying, as was extensively quoted, “I cannot refrain from expressing my admiration for the marvelous intelligence of Beautiful Jim Key. I consider him the most accomplished specimen of his kind I have ever seen.” Rogers took this as an endorsement and added it to the press materials, inscribing the quote as FROM THE GREAT AND ONLY SOUSA.
Not every promotional ploy by Rogers met the approval of Key and Key. Since Rogers did not exactly own Jim—but it had been agreed that he could say so—the byplay in the press that was made of escalating offers to purchase Jim by outsiders may have chaffed at the Doc. In the private New York gatherings in August, Rogers had boasted that he had been given several offers of $10,000 for the educated horse but had turned them down, stipulating he wouldn’t consider any amount under $25,000. In early September he told the Newark papers that despite many individuals’ attempts to purchase Jim for $25,000, he would only entertain amounts of $40,000 or more. At Glenmere, the Orange Chronicle reported that he had turned down at least two offers for $50,000; and, in fact, Rogers now listed that as Beautiful Jim Key’s value on the cover of his promotional pamphlets. In Pittsburg, a representative from Barnum & Bailey verified that he had tried to buy Jim for $60,000. Albert’s youngest son, Archie, later recalled that it was Bailey himself who came to Glenmere with cash to pay in full.