Mary (elephant)

Mary

Mary hanging from a 100-ton derrick in Erwin, Tennessee.
Species	Asian elephant
Sex	Female
Born	1894
Died	September 13, 1916(1916-09-13) (aged 21–22) Erwin, Tennessee
Nation from	United States
Occupation	Circus performer
Employer	Charlie Sparks
Years active	1898–1916
Training	Playing musical instruments Pitching baseballs Standing on head
Weight	5 short tons (4,500 kg)
Height	11 feet 9 inches (3.58 m)

Mary (c. 1894–September 13, 1916)^[1] was a five-ton Asian elephant, also known as "Murderous Mary",^[2] who performed in the Sparks World Famous Shows circus. After killing a trainer in Kingsport, Tennessee, she was hung in nearby Erwin, Tennessee in 1916. Her death is sometimes interpreted as a cautionary tale of circus animal abuse during the early 20th century.^[3]

Death of Red Eldridge

On September 11, 1916, a hobo named Red Eldridge who landed a job as a transient hotel clerk^[4] was hired as an assistant elephant trainer by the Sparks World Famous Shows circus. He was killed by Mary in Sullivan County, Tennessee, on the evening of September 12. Eldridge led the elephant parade, although he was not qualified, riding on the top of Mary's back; Mary was the star of the show, riding at the front.^[5] There have been several accounts of his death. One, recounted by W.H. Coleman who claimed to be a witness, is that he prodded her behind the ear with a hook after she reached down to nibble on a watermelon rind. She went into a rage, snatched Eldridge with her trunk, threw him against a drink stand and stepped on his head, crushing it.^[4]

A contemporary newspaper account, from the Johnson City Staff, said that Mary "collided its trunk vice-like about [Eldridge's] body, lifted him 10 feet in the air, then dashed him with fury to the ground... and with the full force of her beastly fury is said to have sunk her giant tusks entirely through his body. The animal then trampled the dying form of Eldridge as if seeking a murderous triumph, then with a sudden... swing of her massive foot hurled his body into the crowd."^[4] (It should be kept in mind that Mary was tuskless.)

Execution

The details of the aftermath are confused in a maze of sensationalist newspaper stories and folklore. Most accounts indicate that she calmed down afterward and didn't charge the onlookers, who began chanting, "Kill the elephant! Let's kill it." Within minutes, local blacksmith Hench Cox tried to kill Mary, firing five rounds with little effect.^[4] Meanwhile, the leaders of several nearby towns threatened not to allow the circus to visit if Mary was included.

The circus owner, Charlie Sparks, reluctantly decided that the only way to quickly resolve the potentially ruinous situation was to kill the elephant in public. On the following day, a foggy and rainy September 13, 1916, Mary was transported by rail to Unicoi County, Tennessee, where a crowd of over 2,500 people (including most of the town's children) assembled in the Clinchfield Railroad yard.

The elephant was hung by the neck from a railcar-mounted industrial crane between four o'clock and five o'clock that evening.^[6] The first attempt resulted in a snapped chain, causing Mary to fall and break her hip as dozens of children fled in terror. The severely wounded elephant died during a second attempt and was buried beside the tracks. A veterinarian examined Mary after the hanging and determined that she had a severely infected tooth in the precise spot where Red Eldridge had prodded her.^[7] Although the authenticity of a widely distributed (and heavily retouched) photo of her death was disputed years later by Argosy magazine,^[4] other photographs taken during the incident confirm its provenance.^[8]

References in popular media

• Mark Medoff's dramatic version of the story, entitled "Big Mary", was first produced by Great Valley High School in Pennsylvania, in 1989 and was published by Dramatists Play Service in 1990.^[9]
• George Brant's play Elephant's Graveyard tells the story of Mary's execution through the circus members and the residents of Erwin, first produced by the University of Texas at Austin in 2007 and was published by Samuel French in 2010.^[10]
• Writer Caleb Lewis wrote a play about Mary and the events that led to her execution entitled Clinchfield. The play premiered at Flinders University on 22 July 2009.^[11]
• Singer songwriter Chuck Brodsky wrote a song entitled "Mary the Elephant".^[12]
• Acoustic band Dead Tree Duo wrote a song about the incident titled "The Hanging of Mary".^[13]
• Writer Sharyn McCrumb referred to the hanging of Mary in a few of her Ballad novels. In "She Walks These Hills", a radio DJ uses the example of 'hanging the elephant' as a warning, begging people not to use vigilante justice against an escaped convict. In the first chapter of "The Devil Amongst the Lawyers", an elderly reporter brags to a cub reporter about the power of the press, insisting that the circus owner was forced to hang the elephant as a result of his inflammatory newspaper articles.^[14]
• Dana Adam Shapiro told the story of Mary in her book "You Can Be Right (or You Can Be Married): Looking for Love in the Age of Divorce".^[15]
• Performance troupe Miniature Curiosa created the original puppet spectacle, "Tonight a Clown Will Travel Time", based on the execution of Mary the Elephant. The show toured in 17 cities across The United States in the summer of 2013.^[16]
• In September 2014, Dennis McNett, visiting artist at East Tennessee State University, constructed a nearly life-sized sculpture of Mary covered in McNett's distinctive printmaking style. Rather than a recreation of the events, McNett's work was an effort to artistically heal the old wounds.^[17][18]
• "Man's Dominion," a one-person play written by David Castro, directed by Dennis Neal and featuring Tim Powell^[19][20] playing 10 characters (including the victim, ringmaster, and elephant), began a limited run in Los Angeles^[21] before touring the continental US and Canada in 2015.^[22][23]
• In the short story anthology McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales, Glen David Gold's story "The Tears of Squonk, and What Happened Thereafter" tells a fictionalized version of Mary's story.
• The Peculiar Pretzelmen a Voodoo Blues band released a song titled "Big Mary". They referred to it as "the saddest story in circus elephant history".^[24]

See also

• List of individual elephants
• Chunee
• Topsy (elephant)
• Tyke (elephant)
• Ziggy (elephant)

References

External links

• "The Hanging of Big Mary: Someone Worth Remembering" by elephant advocacy expert Mike Jaynes
• The Moonlit Road: Murderous Mary
• The Hanging of Mary the Elephant