Jumbo
Jumbo was an African elephant, born in 1861 in the French Sudan from where he was imported to
France and kept in the old
Zoo Jardin des Plantes close to the railway station
Gare d'Austerlitz in
Paris. In 1865 he was transferred to the
London Zoo, where he became famous for giving rides to visitors. The London zoo-keepers gave Jumbo his name; it is likely an afflicted version of one of two
Swahili words:
jambo, which means "hello," or
jumbe, which means "chief."
Jumbo was sold in 1882 to
P. T. Barnum, owner of "The Greatest Show on Earth", the
Barnum & Bailey Circus for $10,000 US.
Encyclopedia
Jumbo was an African elephant, born in 1861 in the French Sudan from where he was imported to
France and kept in the old
Zoo Jardin des Plantes close to the railway station
Gare d'Austerlitz in
Paris. In 1865 he was transferred to the
London Zoo, where he became famous for giving rides to visitors. The London zoo-keepers gave Jumbo his name; it is likely an afflicted version of one of two
Swahili words:
jambo, which means "hello," or
jumbe, which means "chief."
Jumbo was sold in 1882 to
P. T. Barnum, owner of "The Greatest Show on Earth", the
Barnum & Bailey Circus for $10,000 US. Estimated to be 3.25 metres high in the London Zoo, it was claimed that Jumbo was approximately 4 metres tall by the time of his death. Jumbo died at a train station in
St. Thomas, Ontario,
Canada, where he was crushed by a locomotive. Many believe that he was killed trying to save a young elephant known as
Tom Thumb, but this is likely a myth. A life-size statue of the elephant in St. Thomas commemorates the tragedy. Many metallic objects were found in the elephant's stomach, including pennies, keys, and rivets.
Jumbo's skeleton was donated to the
American Museum of Natural History in
New York City. The elephant's heart was sold to
Cornell University. Jumbo's hide was stuffed and traveled with Barnum's circus for a number of years. In 1889, Barnum donated the stuffed Jumbo to
Tufts University, where it was displayed until destroyed by a fire in 1975. Jumbo's tail, which survived the fire, is kept in the University archives. The great elephant's ashes are kept in a 14-ounce Peter Pan Crunchy Peanut Butter jar in the office of the Tufts athletic director. A statue of "Jumbo" was purchased from an amusement park and placed on the Tufts campus after the fire, however this statue erroneously depicts an Asian elephant, not an African elephant. In honor of Barnum's donation of the elephant's hide and more than $50,000, Jumbo became the university's mascot, and remains such to this day.
As a result of Barnum's publicity the word "jumbo" is now synonymous with "large" or "huge": a large
hot dog sausage may be called a "jumbo hot dog"; the
Boeing 747 is known as the "Jumbo Jet".
See also
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