Windswept House-Topsy (circa 1875 – January 4, 1903) was a female Asian elephant killed at a Coney Island, New York amusement park by electrocution on January 4, 1903. Topsy was born in the wild around 1875 in Southeast Asia and was captured soon after by elephant traders. Adam Forepaugh, owner of the Forepaugh Circus had the elephant secretly smuggled into the United States with plans that he would advertise the baby as the first elephant born in America. At the time Forepaugh Circus was in competition with the Barnum & Bailey Circus over who had the most and biggest elephants. The name Topsy came from a slave girl character in Uncle Toms Cabin. Without Alt to handle Topsy, the owners of Luna Park, Frederick Thompson and Elmer Dundy, claimed they could no longer handle the elephant and tried to get rid of her, but they could not even give her away and no other circus or zoo would take her. On December 13, 1902 Luna Park press agent Charles Murray released a statement to the newspapers that Topsy would be euthanized within a few days by electrocution. At least one local paper noted the steady drone of events and reports regarding Topsy from the park had the hallmarks of a publicity campaign designed to get the new park continually mentioned in the papers.On January 1, 1903 Thompson and Dundy announced plans to conduct a public hanging of the elephant, set for January 3 or 4, and collect a twenty-five cents a head admission to see the spectacle. The site they chose was an island in the middle of the lagoon for the old Shoot the Chute ride where they were building the centerpiece of their new park, the 200 foot tall Electric Tower (the structure had reached a height of 75 feet at the time of the execution). Press agent Murray arranged media coverage and posted banners around the park and on all four sides of the makeshift gallows advertising OPENING MAY 2ND 1903 LUNA PARK $1,000,000 EXPOSITION, THE HEART OF CONEY ISLAND. The date of Topsys execution was finally set for Sunday, January 4, 1903. The press attention the event had received brought out an estimated 1500 spectators and 100 press photographers as well as agents from the ASPCA to inspect the execution. Thompson and Dundy allowed 100 spectators into the park although more climbed through the park fence. Many more were on the balconies and roofs of near by buildings, which were charging admission to see the event. The Electric Tower had been re-rigged with large ropes set up to strangle the elephant, which were inspected by the ASPCA agents to make sure it conformed to what had been agreed to. The details of the electrocution part of the execution were handled by workers from the local power company, Edison Electric Illuminating Company of Brooklyn, under the supervision of chief electrician P. D. Sharkey. They spent the night before stringing power lines from the Coney Island electrical substation nine blocks to the park to carry alternating current they planned to redirect from a much larger plant in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. At Bay Ridge the staff was told to get an engine ready and clear a feeder and bus to Coney Island Station For more information, please visit Wikipedia.org, Love History? Please Share and do give our page a LIkE. Thank you. :)
Posted on: Sun, 04 Jan 2015 04:21:47 +0000
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