September 15, 2026
Across the Medicine Line: Tales From the 49th Parallel.
The articles in ‘Across the Medicine Line’ are written in hopes of learning more about how North America came to be. How our peoples lived, ate, drank, travelled, loved, fought and thought during the time between the discovery, founding and solidification of our long partnership and our current society. We believe that learning these stories can further strengthen the many ties that bind our two nations and better understand – or even heal! -- the divisions that still separate us.
The Legend of Jumbo the Elephant
On September 15, 1885 the celebrated attraction Jumbo the Elephant was tragically killed in St. Thomas, Ontario
Transcription of a Memorial Plaque in the Elgin County Museum.
Jumbo was a large Arican bush elephant born circa 1860 and brought into captivity after his mother was killed by hunters in Sudan. Shortly after, he was exported to Paris, then was sold to a zoo in England in 1865. In 1882, he was brought to the USA by P.T. Barnum, owner of the Barnum & Bailey Circus for an exhibition. At this point there was public backlash, where 100,000 school children wrote to Queen Victoria begging her not to sell Jumbo. People viewed the loss of Jumbo as a loss for the British Empire.
Jumbo Emerging from his Crate after Being Shipped to North America
Jumbo was a Sensation. The massive elephant led parades announcing the arrival of Barnum & Bailey’s Circus, drawing a crowd of 10,000 on his first day in New York and grossing millions.
Jumbo died in St. Thomas, Ontario, in a railway classification yard on September 15, 1885. Jumbo and the other animals had finished a circus performance that night and as they were being led back to their boxcar, a locomotive came down the tracks and struck Jumbo. He died in minutes from internal injuries.
Engraving From a New York Newspaper Account of Jumbo’s Death. Photo by C. Bertram.
There is a much speculation around the Jumbo's death. Some stories have Jumbo saving two smaller elephants which were travelling with him. Another common story is that Jumbo was sick or dying from maltreatment and was intentionally led in front of the train to cover up the abuse.
Jumbo’s skeleton was donated to the American museum of national history in New York City, where it remains. Jumbo’s heart was sold to Cornell University. Barnum had his hide stuffed and stretched to a size which was larger than he had been in life. The hide travelled with Barnum’s circus for two years and was eventually donated to Tufts University where it was displayed at P.T. Barnum Hall. Jumbo also became the mascot of Tufts University. The hide was destroyed in a fire in 1975, but it is believed that the ashes from the fire are stored in a peanut butter jar in the office of the Tufts’ athletic director.
Additional Jumbo Facts from ‘Across the Medicine Line’:
by Clifton Bertram, September 15, 2026
The use of the term ‘Jumbo’ as a synonym for something large did not exist until the elephant became a Victorian era celebrity. His name originated from either the Swahili word jambo or jumbe (meaning chief) or onjamba, which in an Angolan dialect means ‘elephant’. St. Thomas’ official website, railwaycitytourism.com tells us:
“Every time you order a jumbo coffee, spot a jumbo jet, or watch a jumbotron, you’re referencing St. Thomas’ most famous historical visitor.”
Boeing 747 ‘Jumbo Jet’. The use of the word ‘Jumbo’ to denote large size did not exist in the English lexicon until Jumbo the Elephant.
Jumbo's star power was undeniable, drawing 10,000 people on his first day in New York, and grossing $1.75 million in his first season. Barnum billed Jumbo as ‘the biggest elephant in the world’, and it may have been more than just hype. A forensic analysis of his skeleton conducted by CBC’s ‘The Nature of Things’ found that he was 3.2 metres (10.5 ft) tall, 20% larger than the average height of elephants his age, and he had another 16 years of growth left to him. By performing isotope analysis of samples of Jumbo’s bone and tail hairs, the program also found that he suffered from a poor diet consisting mostly of grasses, hay and oats.
Jumbo: The Life of an Elephant Superstar. David Suzuki’s ‘The Nature of Things’ performed a forensic analysis on Jumbo’s skeleton in 2019.
During the dry season elephants in the wild can eat as many as 300 kg of twigs, leaves and bark a day. The grinding effect of this more varied diet wears down their teeth, making room for new molars, something that happens up to six times during an elephant’s life span. In Jumbo’s case, his soft diet meant that his teeth did not wear down as intended, which blocked new sets of teeth from coming in properly.
Paleopathologist Richard Thomas said in the documentary: “What is immediately striking is the deformity that we see in Jumbo’s teeth is like nothing I’ve seen in any other elephant. It would have been really painful.”
The team also found that, even though he was 24 years old at his time of death, his bones and joints looked like those of an elephant aged 60, most likely because of frequently being chained up due to night rages, which in turn were almost certainly brought on by his extreme tooth pain.
Immediately after the accident, numerous myths began to surround his life and death, amplified by the sensationalistic yellow journalism of the day. One anecdote published in newspapers at the time of his death tells of Jumbo reaching out to pull his beloved keeper, Matthew Scott, close for a final hug as he took his very last breath.
Another account in the Railway City Tourism website, and the one most told by P.T. Barnum, said that:
“Jumbo heroically threw himself in front of the train to push little Tom Thumb (a dwarf elephant) off the tracks and shield his keeper. While a heartwarming circus legend, eyewitness reports confirmed it was a tragic railway accident—though Barnum's story cemented Jumbo as a gentle hero forever!”
Saving Tom Thumb. Contemporary artist’s depiction of Jumbo sacrificing himself to save his friend. Note the dwarf elephant cradled in Jumbo’s trunk.
The site of the St. Thomas accident immediately attracted hordes of sightseers and souvenir seekers, many of whom were said to have cut off locks of hair from Jumbo’s trail and even used pocket knives to carve chunks of flesh off the corpse. Less gruesome were the many photographers who converged on the tragedy, eager to capture such a newsworthy event. Photography in that era was exploding in popularity, and just beginning to replace engravings in the popular press.
The most famous of these images was captured by local photographer Thomas H. Scott, proprietor of Scott & Hopkins studio. In 1883, Scott had been acclaimed as the first photographer in the region to do photography by gaslight. An article in the Elgin County archives tells us that the photos Scott took of Jumbo that day would have been:
“…a real technical challenge. However, even in a setting as awkward as this one, Scott strove for artistry in the composition of the photograph. He arranged for a locomotive to park on the tracks behind the body of Jumbo; this provided both setting and a block to the sunlight. Glass plates on which the picture would be taken were coated with emulsion in the Scott Studio and rushed to the site, still wet. Once photographs were taken they were rushed back to the studio to be developed.”
Thomas H. Scott’s Glass Plate Photograph of Jumbo. Here, his famous photo is used in a circular published by Anderson’s Limited, a St. Thomas department store popular in the day. James L. Hutchinson, a partner in the circus is pictured in the front of the image; Jumbo’s keeper, Matthew Scott, is shown standing beside the elephant’s head.
On a personal note, I first became aware of the story of Jumbo – and realized how iconic an attraction he was – when I found an old Superboy comic book in a hotel room in Perdue, Saskatchewan, around 1972. Since this particular issue is worth somewhere between $160 and $1100, it’s yet another comic book I wish I’d kept!!
Cultural Icon. Jumbo was even featured as a character in comic books, like Adventure Comics No. 128, December, 1947. C. Bertram photo (March 19, 2024.)
Today, St. Thomas honors this giant’s legacy with a life-sized 38-tonne monument, commissioned in 1985, the centennial anniversary of Jumbo’s death. The sculpture was created by New Brunswick artist Winston Bronnum at a cost of $70,000, paid for by donors in the Railway City, and transported 1,722 km from Sussex, New Brunswick.
Every year, hundreds, if not thousands of tourists from across North American and around the world to view and pose with Jumbo’s statue, and it is arguably the city’s most beloved icon.
The Jumbo Monument in St. Thomas, Ontario. C. Bertram photo (Sept. 14, 2026)
Across the Medicine Line: Tales From the 49th Parallel.
The articles in ‘Across the Medicine Line’ are written in hopes of learning more about how North America came to be. How our peoples lived, ate, drank, travelled, loved, fought and thought during the time between the discovery, founding and solidification of our long partnership and our current society. We believe that learning these stories can further strengthen the many ties that bind our two nations and better understand – or even heal! -- the divisions that still separate us.
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