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| Photo courtesy of Tufts Digital Collections and Archives |
Photo Quiz
Tufts Magazine
Spring 2005
"One Fire's Tale " -- On the morning of April 14, fire broke out in Barnum Hall, named for famed showman P. T. Barnum. This 1884 stone structure had evolved, over time, into both a natural history museum and biology laboratory. Its most famous resident was the stuffed hide of Tufts’ beloved mascot, Jumbo the elephant. Sadly, the fire, traced to faulty wiring, swiftly destroyed years of faculty research, numerous animal specimens, Barnum’s desk and bust, and the towering pachyderm. But Jumbo was not gone in spirit. His humble tail, which had wisely been removed for safekeeping, resides in the Tufts archives. And some of his revered ashes are safe in an “unassuming” peanut butter jar in the athletic department, bringing good luck to Jumbo teams.
Marlena Corcoran, J76
My namesake, Marlena Mouse, died in this fire, along with many other much-loved mice named after the friends of “Robert the Graduate Student.” The mice ran around in a labyrinth Robert had built at the very top of Barnum Hall. I remember the fiery glow in the sky at the top of the Hill, and the tears in Robert's eyes as he told me his mice had perished. It was only on that terrible night that he finally told me his dear lab animals all bore our names.
Bill Loughlin, A78
If I am correct, this would be the Barnum Hall fire. I was a freshman at the time, living in Carmichael , and I recall sitting in my dorm-room window for hours, having an eagle-eye view of the disaster.
Interesting, in light of the student/faculty work/research that was lost, I recall most of the focus was on the loss of “Jumbo,” the legacy gift of P. T. Barnum to the university. Jumbo was of course the “stuffed” remains of the circus icon of many years ago (and the Tufts mascot) that resided in the Barnum Hall lobby. I believe all that remained of Jumbo was his glass eyes (from when he was stuffed), and possibly his tusks.
Jumbo also had a memorable role for students, as some would touch his tusks for luck prior to going into an exam, and others said they would put a penny in his trunk—like a wishing well. Thirty years seems like a long time now, but seeing that photo brought back a rush of memories.
Louis Drouin Jr., A57
The picture shows the burning down of Barnum Hall in 1974. The stuffed skin of Jumbo, the Tufts mascot, was tragically lost in the fire. Jumbo had been given to Tufts by P. T. Barnum in 1882. I remember hearing about the fire and wondering why the building hadn’t been protected by smoke detectors and a sprinkler system.
Tom Denly, E68
I remember that Jumbo had a place to put a penny in his trunk (heads up) for help in your upcoming test. I put pennies and even a quarter, but Mechanical Vibrations exams were absolutely impossible with or without Jumbo’s help.
Jeff Nickless, E78
There is no way I could forget. I was a freshman at the time and lived in Miller Hall, room 202. I remember being woken in the early hours of the morning by the sounds of loud truck engines and being really annoyed at that, as was my roommate, until we realized that it seemed awfully light outside. We had ringside seats from our dorm window, but we walked over anyway. The entire building was ablaze, fire engines were everywhere. My roommate, who was a bio major, found out that his advisor has lost his entire life’s work in the blaze (including one upcoming exam). The fact that we all lost Jumbo, our mascot, was the most depressing thought. Was there life at Tufts without its mascot? In the end, other news occupied our minds, Barnum Hall was rebuilt, but for us lucky enough to have seen the real Jumbo, the memory remains.
Mark Bresler, E76
I distinctly remember waiting until 7 am to call my father, who as assistant provost at the time had a small research office there. I do not remember if my brother Joel, A77, was enrolled, but my brother Ken, A79, was still in high school, and my sister, Faye, was not attending Tufts yet in Special Studies during spring 1976.
Kristin Mulready-Stone, J92
This must be the April 1975 fire in Barnum Hall that consumed the stuffed remains of Jumbo, Tufts’ beloved mascot. Whenever the subject of school mascots comes up, I tell the story of P. T. Barnum’s affiliation with Tufts and of Jumbo, including the part about his sad, second demise.
William Green, M75
My guess is April 16, 1975. The place: the Barnum Museum at Tufts. I was a fourth-year student at TUSM. I had finished all my electives, and my roommate, Alan Ruskis, and I made an operatic tour of Europe. That is so long ago that I can’t remember if I was still in Europe, or exactly when and how I got the news. It seemed so bizarre. I had never been to Medford before graduating and I couldn’t begin to understand why or how the fire happened.
Marc McGee, A78
I was a freshman pre-med bio major in late winter/early spring of 1975 when I walked by Barnum Hall late one night/early morning. All was quiet and deserted except for another individual, whom I recognized, walking toward me as I passed Barnum. Next morning, it was a smoking ruin. Some interesting points of recollection:
* Norton Nickerson, one of the world's foremost authorities on mangrove swamps, lost much/most of his original research since it was housed at the third floor apex of the old building;
* An immunologist (whose name escapes me) snuck past firemen to retrieve a canister of Agent Orange before it could possibly be disbursed into the air;
* There were/are photos floating around which actually show “Jumbo,” whose stuffed skin was prominently displayed in the lobby (skeleton is in the Smithsonian), in flames through one of the large arched windows.
Jane Thomsen, J69
If this is the burning of Barnum Hall on April 17, 1975, I have lots of memories. I was married in Goddard Chapel two days later . . . with some amazing adventures in between as a result of that fire.
Matthew White ,
Would this be the great Barnum Hall fire? If so, it was in the spring of 1975. I was a senior biology major and living in the Zeta Psi house at the bottom of the Hill. As I watched the fire, I could only imagine the loss of years of faculty research and was grateful that no one was injured. Jumbo’s stuffed carcass resided in the lobby of the building and was lost in the blaze. Rumor had it that the only thing left was part of one tusk and one of the glass eyes.
Susan Lockwood, J78
I remember that image very distinctly because I arrived at Tufts as a transfer student, mid-year, the night before that fire. For years afterward, friends used to enjoy teasing me by telling me I was a jinx because the elephant burned right after I arrived on campus. (The joke would be funnier if you knew me, because I have always had a knack for being a “calamity magnet.”)
But the significance of the fire wasn’t due to my unlucky nature. It was significant because so many brilliant scholars and scientists lost years -- if not their entire careers’ worth—of research notes, as this was in (quite literally!) another century—long before computer disks and CDs and God-knows-what-all-else. I can’t remember the name of the professor who lost his entire life’s work—which had to do with his research findings about some kind of mountain goat—it all went up in smoke.
Afterward, the fire sparked a flurry of activity on other campuses and in the hallowed halls of research labs all over the country. People were scurrying around Xeroxing everything they had—all their precious notes—filing cabinets full of all sorts of scraps of paper on which they had jotted down brilliant snippets—kernels of ideas—to be developed some other time. . . The Barnum fire hung over all of them like the worst kind of harbinger of what could be—what might be—if they too did not have copies of their notes, their research, something recoverable, retrievable, a “plan B.”
The only time I was ever actually in the building, was when I came to Tufts for my interview, in the winter of 1974, and whoever was dragging me around for my little tour told me that if I were ever lucky enough to be accepted to Tufts and I became a student there, it would probably become my custom, as it had been for so many students before me, to put a penny in Jumbo’s trunk the night before a big exam, and it would bring me luck. But I never had that chance. The elephant was gone, as was the science building. I had to pass those exams on my own steam.
Susan Wilson, J69, G75
I was in grad school at Tufts at the time, and saw the blaze in person when I drove in for classes that day. Sometime after midnight on April 14, 1975, faulty wiring in a refrigeration unit ignited a fire in Barnum Hall that, by daybreak, had consumed the building and most of what once lay within. (Only Dana Laboratory, first opened in 1965, survived intact.) Lost were numerous biology specimens, laboratory animals, irreplaceable items of faculty research, books, circus posters, letters, a marble bust of Phineas T. Barnum by sculptor Thomas Ball, and the showman’s own desk. Lost too was Jumbo the elephant’s stuffed hide, which was totally incinerated in the blaze. Thankfully, Russell L. Carpenter— Tufts professor, curator of the Barnum Museum, and preeminent chronicler of Jumbo history—had moved most Barnum memorabilia and correspondence to the Tufts archives over the years.
Phyllis Byrne, the athletic department’s administrative assistant, rushed into the office of longtime Tufts athletic director Rocco J. (Rocky) Carzo the morning of April 15, with the frightening news of the fire. “I remembered that Barnum Hall was a stone building,” explains Carzo, “and I said, ‘What’s goin’ on here?’ Next thing I knew she told me that she went and got a peanut butter jar and gave it to a guy named George Wilson, who was on the maintenance staff. Phyllis said to him, ‘I want you to get me some of Jumbo’s ashes up there. He’s our mascot and we ought to save these ashes.’ So [George] came back later with this jar filled with these ashes. . .”
For Carzo and his colleagues in intercollegiate sports, Jumbo continued to live on in this unassuming little jar. Since 1975, teammates who formerly popped pennies into stuffed Jumbo’s trunk have instead rubbed the fourteen-ounce Peter Pan Crunchy Peanut Butter jar for good luck. In 1999, when Carzo retired after 26 years of directing Tufts athletics, a ceremony of “passing the ashes” to new director Bill Gehling, A74, was performed.
And thanks to those who called in:
Samuel Rapp, A75, recalls hearing the fire engines going to put out the fire as he was en route to Somerville High School to student teach.
Gerald Guild, E51, said his son was a freshman at the time and witnessed the whole fire. He said it was a great tragedy. He suggests a different type of Jumbo statue outside of Barnum, noting that the current statue is an Asian elephant and that Jumbo was an African elephant.
Jeanne Clark, J53, was devastated because she spent a lot of time in Barnum and “there were a lot of interesting papers kept in the attic.”
Cheryl Teare, J77, said “it was a sad day” when the hall burned down.
Michael Steinhauer, A76, said his closest friends lived right across from Barnum Hall and watched the fire.
