John Adams (also known as James Capen Adams and Grizzly Adams) (October 22, 1812 – October 25, 1860) was a California mountain man and trainer of grizzly bears and other wild animals he captured for menageries, zoological gardens and circuses.
Early years Grizzly Adams was born John Boyden Adams to Eleazar Adams and Sybil Capen on October 22, 1812. His parents were of English ancestry.Adams, pp. 568-9 Born and raised in Medway, Massachusetts,Hayden, ibid. a suburb of Boston, he received little to no education. Adams began as an apprentice in the footwear manufacturing industry at age fourteen.Adams At age twenty-one, he left that occupation, seeking to satisfy his true love – the outdoors and nature. He signed on with a company of showmen as a zoological collector. John hunted and captured live wild animals in the wildest parts of Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire, where he honed his woodsman, survival, and marksmanship skills. However, Adams told writer and historian Theodore H. Hittell, his early hunting and trapping career ended abruptly when he received severe back and spine injuries from a Bengal tiger he was attempting to train for his employers.Hittell 1911, pp. 1–3Dillon, p. 24 Not wanting to become a burden on his family, after a year of recuperating he returned to his cobbler's bench in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1836, John married Cylena Drury and they had three children: Arabella, Arathusa, and Seymour.Adams, p. 661
California and Western States, 1849–1860 In 1849 with the California Gold Rush in progress, John invested his life savings of over $6,000 (~$ in ) to buy a large supply of footwear, and had it shipped to St. Louis, Missouri. He intended to sell his goods at great profit to the thousands of forty-niners passing through St. Louis. Through no fault of his own, he lost the entire investment in the St. Louis wharf fire. Shortly thereafter, John's father committed suicide;Dillon, p. 9 – it is possible that he had invested heavily in John's plans. At this point, John felt he had nothing to lose. He had a touch of gold fever and a yearning for adventure. He knew even if he failed to recoup his lost investment in the mines, he could at least support himself by hunting and trapping in the untapped wilds of California. He left his family and relatives behind in Massachusetts and joined the 49ers on their way to California. On his journey via the Santa Fe and Gila trails, he twice survived near fatal illnesses and arrived at the gold fields of California late in 1849.Dillon, p. 25
Adams tried his luck at mining, hunting game to sell to the miners, trading, and finally, ranching and farming. At times he was rich and then, just as quickly, broke. Late in 1852, having lost his ranch outside of Stockton, California, to creditors, he took the few items he could salvage and headed into the Sierra Nevada mountains to get away from it all. With the help of the local Miwok Indians, Adams built a cabin and stable and spent the winter alone in the Sierra.Hittell 1911, p. 7 John was an expert hunter and his New England training in shoemaking and leather craft gave him the necessary skills to fashion buckskin clothing and moccasins (the clothing he adopted as normal attire for the remainder of his life). He also made his own harness, pack saddles, snowshoes and other items he needed.Schaefer, p. 3
Adams traveled great distances from his California base camp on foot, on horse or mule, or in an ox-drawn wagon. In 1853, he made a hunting and trapping expedition some from his base camp in California to eastern Washington Territory (what is now western Montana).Storer, p. 218 While there, he caught a yearling female grizzly that he named Lady Washington.Haynes, pp. 91–106Dillon, P. 37 Even though she was already a year old and very wild, he managed to tame her and taught her to follow him without restraint.Hittell 1911, pp. 186–7 Later, he trained her to carry a pack and then to pull a loaded sled. She even cuddled up near John to keep him warm in freezing conditions. Eventually, Lady Washington allowed John to ride on her back.
In 1854, Adams retrieved a pair of two-week-old male grizzly cubs from the den of their mother near Yosemite Valley.Hittell 1911, pp.191–205Dillon, pp 96–101 He named one of them Benjamin Franklin. Ben saved John's life a year later in 1855, when a mother grizzly attacked Adams.Storer, p. 220Dillon, p. 151 John and Ben both bore the scars of that attack the rest of their lives.Hittell 1911, p. 306 The head injury John received in the attack led to his demise five years later. In the summer of 1854, John traveled to the Rocky Mountains to hunt and collect more live animals.Storer, p. 294ShenkHittell 1911, pp. 266–268 He and his hunting companions sold meat, hides and some live animals to the emigrants along the Emigrant Trails near where the Oregon Trail and the Mormon Trail split away from each other (southwestern Wyoming). They also sold and traded at Fort Bridger, Wyoming and Fort Supply. During this expedition, Lady Washington mated with a Rocky Mountain grizzly, resulting in a male cub that was born the next year when she was with Adams in Corral Hollow on the eastern side of the California coastal mountains. Adams christened her cub General Fremont, in honor of John C. Frémont.Hittell 1911, p. 304Hittell 1911, p 279
In the winter of 1854, Grizzly Adams captured a huge California grizzly in the largest cage trap Adams had ever constructed.Storer, pp 177–179 John named him Samson.Dillon, p.p 139-144 When the bear was later weighed on a hay scale, it tipped the beam at 1,500 pounds (one of the largest grizzly bears ever captured alive).Wright, p. 46
During 1855, Adams and his companions hunted and trapped game in the California Coast Range mountains, journeyed to the Kern River mines, then proceeded southward to the Tehachapi Mountains and Tejon Pass. Returning from the Tejon Pass area, Adams followed the Old Spanish Route via San Miguel and San Jose.Hittell 1911, p. 363 Due to interest of the curious people the group met, John set up impromptu shows of his bears and other animals he had collected on his summer excursion. These shows, a precursor to his circus career, were conducted in San Miguel, Santa Clara, San Jose, the redwoods and finally San Francisco.Dillon, p. 197
In 1856, John retrieved all of his animals from Howard's Ranch near Stockton, California, where he had left them to be cared for while he was absent. He then opened the Mountaineer Museum in a basement on Clay Street in San Francisco.Dillon, p. 197 Due to notices T. H. Hittell printed in the San Francisco daily Evening Bulletin, Adams' show drew many more patrons. Soon thereafter, Adams was able to move his menagerie and museum, now called the Pacific Museum, to a better location. The new building could accommodate larger audiences and house more animals and displays. By 1858, he was referred to as the "Barnum of the Pacific", in a San Francisco newspaper.Evening Bulletin, January 18, 1858 In January 1858, tragedy struck when noble Ben, John's favorite grizzly, died of an illness for which no remedy could be found. Adams was devastated at the loss, but continued to show his animals daily. He also continually added more animals and other attractions to his museum. In 1859, due to such overextensions, he lost his museum building to creditors. However, he was able to save most of his menagerie, which he relocated temporarily to another building.Dillon, p. 210
Grizzly Adams' health was deteriorating and he knew his life would soon end. Since he had been away from his wife in Massachusetts for over ten years, he wanted to earn enough before he died to leave her a comfortable sum. He made arrangements to relocate his menagerie and collections to New York, in hopes of joining P. T. Barnum as a part of his show.Andronik, p. 47Wallace, p. 245 On January 7, 1860, Adams and his menagerie departed from San Francisco on the clipper ship Golden Fleece on their way to New York City via Cape Horn, a -month voyage.Dillon, p. 210
In New York City, Grizzly Adams, still representing himself as James Capen Adams, joined with Barnum to perform his California Menagerie in a canvas tent for six weeks. His health continued to decline and after a doctor told him he had better settle his affairs, Adams decided he would sell his menagerie to Barnum. However, disregarding his doctor's prognosis, he managed to persuade Barnum to agree to let him perform his animals for another ten weeks for a $500 bonus. Adams' willpower held out for the full contract, though at the end he could hardly walk onto the stage. From the proceeds of the sale of the menagerie and the bonus, he had accomplished his goal of providing a comfortable sum for his wife.Barnum, pp. 510–513
Death Adams suffered head and neck trauma during a grizzly attack in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California in 1855. His scalp was dislodged, and he was left with a silver dollar-sized impression in his skull, just above his forehead. Adams had made pets of several grizzlies, and often wrestled with them while training them and in exhibitions. During one such bout, his most delinquent grizzly, General Fremont (named for John C. Fremont), struck Adams in the head and reopened the wound. It was subsequently reinjured several times, eventually leaving Adams' brain tissue exposed.
The damage was further exacerbated while Adams was on tour with a circus in New England during the summer of 1860, when a monkey he was attempting to train purportedly bit into the wound.Hutching's After more than four months performing with his California Menagerie, complications from the injury led to Adams' inability to continue with the show. After completing his contract with P. T. Barnum, he retired to Neponset, Massachusetts, where he died of illness (possibly meningitis) just five days after arriving at the home of his wife and daughter (October 25). Upon hearing of Adams' death, Barnum was deeply grieved.
Adams was interred at the Bay Path Cemetery in Charlton, Massachusetts.McClung, p. 180 It is believed P. T. Barnum commissioned the creation of his tombstone.McClung, p. 181 Also buried there nearby are his mother, father, a sister, his wife, his son and one of his two daughters.
Association with Theodore H. Hittell and Charles C. Nahl During Grizzly Adams' exhibition of his grizzly bears and other trained animals in San Francisco, he was working with Hittell from July 1857 until December 1859. Hittell listened to Adams narrate his adventures almost daily for an hour or so and took careful notes, cross-questioning Adams to assure he had it straight. Adams knew, and was apparently flattered by the fact Mr. Hittell intended to write a book based upon Adams' talks.Hittell 1911, Introduction, pp. ix–xiii Also, during this time, the artist Charles C. Nahl took an interest in Adams' grizzlies and, working with Hittell, prepared illustrations (one of which is at the head of this article) that would be used in Hittell's forthcoming book. One of his paintings eventually became the model for the grizzly bear on California's State Flag.Storer, pp. 276–7 In 1860, after Adams had relocated to New York, Theodore H. Hittell published his book, The Adventures of James Capen Adams, Mountaineer and Grizzly Bear Hunter of California, in San Francisco,Hittell 1860 and then later that year, in Boston.
Association with circus people