Mary the Elephant and The Hartlepool Monkey
Mary the Elephant and The Hartlepool Monkey
During the Napoleonic Wars the good people of Hartlepool, according to Legend, discovered a Monkey. Not understanding it, they put it on trial, accused of being a French Spy. Unable to offer any defence the Monkey, and again, this is according to legend, was found guilty and executed. Mary the Elephant, on the other hand, was lynched in the USA.
Legends such as this are fascinating. It shows to some extent how much (or little) was known about the wider world. It demonstrates how spies would be treated during the Napoleonic Wars. It also shows that legends can become widely accepted as facts. There is nothing but legend behind this particular story which can be read about in more detail; on the This is Hartlepool Website.
Whilst that is a very well known legend, it can be and is surpassed for animal trial stupidity.
The people of Ermin, Tennessee, have most definitely surpassed the legend of the Monkey Trial. Furthermore, theirs is no legend, we have the photos to prove it!
In September, 1916, Mary the Elephant was hung by her neck from a crane until she was dead. The same punishment that a human would have received for being found guilty of Murder.
Travelling Circuses were incredibly popular in both the US and throughout Europe at the time. Charlie Sparks owned one such circus. It came complete with a menagerie of exotic animals. Fiery and fearsome wild cats, timid but amazing animals such as Zebra’s and the piece d’resistance, the huge Elephant, Mary.
As the Circus paraded through the town of Ermin, the Elephants keeper stuck Mary the Elephant with a spear. Contemporary accounts say that the spears point stuck a wound that the Elephant was recovering from.
The Elephant was clearly pained by this prod on a wound: who wouldn’t be? She reared up, knocking her inexperienced keeper over. He landed, foot first on the keepers head. Death was instant.
Mary was brought under control and the remains of the keeper dealt with. The locals though were not happy. They had witnessed the ‘killing’ of the keeper. They wanted revenge for the atrocity.
They wanted blood and soon there was some unrest. Confronted by a baying crowd, Sparks was left with little option but to allow mob rule to take over.
This may seem bizzarre but there appears to have been a great deal of debate about how to dispatch Mary. It is known that she was shot 5 times, with little apparent effect due to the thick skin of a large Elephant. Reports suggest that crushing between two locomotives was mooted. It is possible that electrocution was considered: Thomas Edison had electrocuted an Elephant in 1903 as a means of putting it to sleep. In the end the crowd found a solution that would satisfy their gruesome wish.
The crowd untethered Mary the Elephant and took her to the railways sidings. Once there they wrapped a chain around the neck of the Elephant and attached it to one of the nearby railway cranes. Soon, Mary the Elephant was being hung. A victim of a Deep South lynch mob that, at that time, was not all that uncommon (214 lynchings recorded between 1882 and 1930 in this US state).
Whilst not a formal trial and execution, this real life and well documented lynch mob execution puts the stupidity of a Monkey Trial well into the shade…
What we know about Mary the Elephant:
She weighed in the region of 5 Tonnes
She was one of a number of Elephants in Charlie Sparks’ Circus
Part of her routine in the Circus included blowing a large baseball out of her truck as pitcher in the Circus Baseball Team!
Links:
The Daily Mail ran a very good feature about this bizarre incident in February of last year.
Wikipedia has an entry about Mary the elephant and the Execution
The Blueridge County website has a detailed account of the events
