This is a digression — there is a very interesting historic house that’s marginally involved — but who knew that two guys from Burlington started a big-time circus? Here’s a brief history, necessarily brief as there’s not a lot of information about it online (or probably anywhere else). I’ll post this to Wikipedia if I can figure out the coding on the footnotes.
The Heritage Brothers Circus had the distinction of being the only circus ever organized in Burlington. Circus veterans and brothers Albert and Arthur Heritage put the show together in the winter of 1925-26. It began operations by April 6, 1926, when it visited Raleigh. It closed on September 1, 1926, in Stafford, Kansas. The Greensboro Record reported that “it is thought that the show closed because it was not making good financially, as there were many misfortunes at different points in the itinerary.”
The mauling of lion tamer Captain John “Chubby” Gilfoyle was one such misfortune (he nearly lost an eye; a year later, with another circus, he lost an arm). The weather was a worse problem, though, with the Greensboro Daily News reporting “bad weather earlier in the season had resulted in such poor business that it was unable to meet promptly its obligations.”
What a show it must have been. “Heritage Brothers had worked out a fast, clean, snappy circus performance, judged from reports and Billboard reports, and during the few weeks preceding the close, had been showing almost capacity business,” the Greensboro Daily News said.
The circus billed itself as the Heritage Brothers Big Three-Ring Trained Animal Circus (brevity, like modesty, had no place in the circus business). “No feature of the circus world has been overlooked by Heritage Brothers to make this brand new enterprise the outstanding tented amusement organization of the world,” the company said. It advertised “200—Circus and Animal Acts—200.”
The circus somehow needed just 15 railroad cars to carry its “Peerless Program of Pre-Eminent Performers — 300 people, 200 finest horses, Herd of Elephants, Drove of Camels. A complete circus program of Startling Circus Sensations, offering scores of lady and gentlemen riders, acrobats, gymnasts and aerialists, together with the largest collection of wild beasts ever embraced in a single exhibition.”
The animals were the main attraction, advance agent James M. Beach told a Utah newspaper ahead of a show there. “Heritage Brothers are pioneers in the animal form of circus entertainment, according to Mr. Beach, who declared that these showmen were the first to realize that the animal acts were the big feature of the circus program,” The Spanish Fork Press reported. “That is why the performances of Heritage Brothers circus consists mainly of acts that serve to introduce the college graduates of the animal world.” That’s some first-class circus spiel.
It included a Wild West show as well, though, having “annexed the cream of the Wild West folk,” including “a band of Sioux Indians.” It promised “roping, bulldogging, cossack riding and the picturesque tribal dances of the first Americans” (and at this point it’s worth acknowledging that, yes, by today’s standards, some of the “entertainment” was no doubt inhumane and racist).
Although other shows were eliminating the circus parade, general manager Arthur Heritage was particularly committed to staging one in each city the circus visited. “In his kid days, there was no extra money as a rule to pay the circus admission of the seven Heritage brothers and all the circuses billed to play the home of the boys advertised a parade at 10 a.m. Seldom was this promise made good,” The Chronicle of Two Rivers, Wisconsin, wrote. “Disappointed is a weak word to describe the feelings of a poor country boy who expects to see a parade and feels he has been cheated.”
The circus performed in small towns throughout the United States and even ventured into British Columbia for at least one show. In its five-month run, it raced through Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Montana, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Utah and Wisconsin.
The Heritage brothers were born in Burlington, two of 12 children of James Henry Heritage Sr. and Martha E. Marshall Heritage. Arthur Heritage (1878-1966) had worked for the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus and the Clyde Beatty Circus. Albert Heritage (1880-1957) ultimately spent 35 years in the circus industry, mostly as an advance man.
At least $100,000 was invested by the brothers and their financial backers. All but one of the investors were local business owners and executives. The out-of-towner was Burlington native William W. Workman of Richmond, Virginia, a prominent billboard executive and state senator who had worked for the Barnum and Bailey Circus. Workman served as president of the company.
Other backers included C.F. “Diamond Pete” Neese, a Heritage brother-in-law and the second-generation owner of Burlington’s first jewelry store, and R.H. Whitehead, manager of the Whitehead Hosiery mill. It was Diamond Pete’s house, now for sale, that led me into all this.
Piedmont Historic Homes 