ine clock, if I am
rightly informed. That Company failed, and Barnum took the stock as
security for endorsing and furnishing them with cash. I do not suppose
the whole of the effects were worth transporting to Bridgeport, although
estimated by him at a large amount. About this time Theodore Terry's
clock factory, at Ansonia, was destroyed by fire. A large portion of the
stock was saved, though in a damaged condition, much of which was worth
nothing--the tools and machinery being but little better than so much
old iron. Terry knowing that Barnum was largely interested in real
estate in East Bridgeport, and anxious to have it improved, thought he
could make a good arrangement with him for building a factory there for
the manufacture of clocks, and did so. Terry had a large quantity of old
clocks in a store in New York--many of them old-fashioned and
unsaleable, and thousands of these were not worth fifty cents apiece.
Terry and Barnum now proposed forming a joint-stock company, putting in
their old rubbish as stock, and estimating it, most likely, at four
times its value in cash. They built a factory in East Bridgeport, and
made preparations for manufacturing. Terry knew ten times as much about
the business as Barnum did, and knowing, also, that the old stock was
comparatively worthless, held back while Barnum was urging him to push
ahead with the manufacturing. Terry made a great bluster, saying that he
was going to hire men and do a great business, while, unknown to Barnum,
he was trying to sell the stock he held in the company. They finally
cooked up a plan to sell their New York store and the Bridgeport factory
and machinery, if they could, to the Jerome Manufacturing Company,
taking stock in that company for pay, and--the Jerome Company stock
being issued to the owners of the Terry & Barnum stock--thus merge the
two companies into one. This transaction was made and closed without my
knowledge, (I being at the time from the State,) though the "old man"
has had to bear all the blame. As I afterwards found out, Barnum told my
son, the Secretary of the Company, that Terry & Barnum owed about twenty
thousand dollars: this was the amount Terry had drawn for on the New
York store. They made a written agreement with the Jerome Manufacturing
Company, to this effect;--that our Company should assume the liabilities
of their old Company, which were stated at twenty thousand dollars, and
Barnum was to endorse to any extent for the