The Duration (36 page)

Where Do Elephants Go to Die?

Legend says pachyderm's grave in Lenox

By Derek Gentile

Berkshire Eagle Staff

Lenox—The elephant was tired. He had walked almost 15 miles on a leg that was badly injured, possibly broken. His breathing was coming in long, heaving wheezes, like a bellows.

Suddenly, despite entreaties from his handler, Columbus the elephant veered off the road, stumbled a few yards into a nearby shed, and collapsed. A week later, he was dead, and was buried a few dozen yards from where he died. Somewhere in Lenox.

That's the story. It is also the legend.

The death of Columbus occurred in October 1851 and was written about in a number of publications. This year, Margaret Biron, a teacher at Lenox Memorial Middle School, assigned the story as an extra-credit research project for her social studies class.

“It's an interesting story,” said Biron. “I'm not sure how true it is, but I thought it would be a good project for the students.”

The story of how Columbus died began in Adams. According to Adams historian Eugene Michalenko, the 33-year-old male Indian elephant had been displayed in North Adams the day before he was injured.

The elephant came to America in 1818. At the time he was in the Berkshires, Columbus was apparently part of a traveling menagerie that also included a rhinoceros, a hippopotamus, lions, tigers and cougars.

Columbus, however, was one of the stars of the show, so the story goes. His handler, a man named Raymond (no one is sure if this was his first or last name, or if he was the elephant's owner, James Raymond), would attach a “salon car” to the elephant's back and allow children to ride him a short distance.

The kids loved it. It is unlikely that Raymond mentioned to anyone attending his shows that Columbus had a bit of a temper and, according to the Adams Historical Society Newsletter had, over the previous 15 years, killed four people.

The North Adams show had apparently gone well. Columbus and the rest of the menagerie were to travel to Stockbridge the next day, to set up the exhibition in a field in that town. The trip was about 24 miles, a good day's hike.

That October day, (the date is not certain) the troupe traveled down Route 8 and walked through the center of Adams. Meandering down Park Street, the elephant came to a bridge at the intersection of Park and Center streets, which spanned the south branch of the Hoosic River. The bridge is now made up steel and cement but then, said Michalenko, it was made of wood, “and probably not that sturdy.”

It wasn't. Columbus, who weighed about 10,000 pounds according to the menagerie's handbill, got about a third of the way across and the bridge collapsed, dropping the elephant about 20 feet onto the rocks on the west side of the river. There was a “mighty crash,” according to the Berkshire Hills Monthly, an historical magazine published at the turn of the 20th century.

Accounts differ as to the nature of the elephant's injuries. Judy Peters, an historian from Lenox, recalled that she had heard the elephant had injured one of his legs. The Berkshire Hills Monthly speculated the animal had “internal injuries.” Perhaps it was a little of both.

But Raymond had a schedule to keep. He “cajoled” Columbus out of the riverbed and got him walking south again. It's unlikely that Raymond used sweet reason to get Columbus out of the riverbed. What is more probable is that he used a quirt or a whip or, more probably, a training hook -- a metal or wooden rod two or more feet long with a sharp hook at the end.

Columbus rose awkwardly out of the riverbed. With his handler leading him, he headed south.

Several hours later, Columbus made it through the center of Lenox, moving slower and slower, despite the physical entreaties of his handler. Columbus continued south, along what is now Old Stockbridge Road. Route 7 would not be built for decades, and Old Stockbridge Road was the main road to Stockbridge in 1851.

But it was tough going. About two miles from the center of town, Columbus stumbled off to the side of the road. There was a shed a few yards off the road. The elephant headed for the tiny structure and once inside, he collapsed. No further entreaties by Raymond would get him up.

The elephant was in obvious pain. According to The Pittsfield Sun, a weekly newspaper, “his groans and cries could be heard from an immense distance.”

But Columbus did not die right away. The curious came from miles around to see the gigantic creature. Columbus lay in the shed for about a week before finally expiring. He was dragged a short ways away from the shed and buried.

But exactly where all this happened is something of a mystery. An Eagle account of the event, written by columnist Dick Happel in 1951, suggests the shed was on the former Bishop estate. The shed was apparently located “across the road from the entrance to Elm Court.”

The Bishop estate was cut up into lots for single-family homes many years ago. And any sheds or structures that might have housed a sick elephant are long gone. Understandably, none of the current residents of that portion of the road know much about it.

“I've never heard that,” said Coreen Nejame, who lives at 238 Old Stockbridge Road, and whose land is not quite opposite the entrance to Elm Court. “That's an interesting story.”

“That's interesting, but I don't know anything about it,” said Lucille Friedson, who, with her husband, Belvin, owns property at 245 Old Stockbridge Road.

Peters, however, recalled that years ago she spoke with the late May Butler, a longtime resident. Butler's father was a superintendent at the Bishop estate and he apparently knew where Columbus was laid to rest. Peters said Butler described the elephant grave as being “near the entrance to Elm Court, across the street.”

One of the people Butler's father showed the grave to was, according to Peters, the late Dick Happel. But his column about Columbus did not specify exactly where the grave was.

At one point, there was speculation that the stuffed body of Columbus was somewhere at Williams College. This was probably generated when it was discovered that the elephant's owner, a man named James Raymond of Carmel, N.Y., sold the body to the Williams College Lyceum of Natural History.

But, at five tons, Columbus was so large that there were no local taxidermists available to stuff and mount him. So the lyceum officials decided to wait a few years until the body decomposed.

They waited six years, according to this story. It wasn't enough. A group from the college dug up the body, but, to put this politely, it had not decomposed sufficiently. Columbus was reinterred, and the lyceum officials vowed to return in another few years. But the lyceum went out of existence in 1871. Columbus was never stuffed.

“I'm almost sure he never went to Williams,” said Michalenko. “He's still somewhere down in Lenox.”

About a week ago, a reporter drove slowly along Old Stockbridge Road, a copy of Happel's column in hand. There was the entrance to Elm Court. There was the Friedman parcel, and there, slightly to the north and across the street from Elm Court, is the Nejame parcel.

Coreen Nejame graciously allowed access to the parcel she and her husband own.

But, besides a very nice home, there's really nothing there. No shed, no huge mound of dark grass that might conceal a mighty body, no rusty training hook hidden under a bush, nothing. The next parcel is heavily wooded, with old growth. Wherever Columbus is, he may be hidden forever now.

And there is a postscript. Owner Raymond sued the town of Adams for a “defective” bridge. (Adams officials countered that the bridge was fine for people, wagons and most animals, except elephants.) Raymond sought $20,000. The case was settled out of court for about $1,500.