3: Mary the Elephant
Born: c.1894, Southeast Asia
Died: 13 September 1916, Erwin, Tennessee
Mary was an Asian elephant who performed with the Sparks World Famous Shows circus, which traveled by railroad all over the country. She was purchased by the Sparks circus at the age of four and spent the remainder of her life with the Sparks family. How Mary was captured in the wild and transported to the United States has been lost to history.
Her owners billed Mary as “The Largest Living Land Animal on Earth” (which probably wasn’t true, but it sure sold tickets!)*. Her owner also liked to make up all sorts of rumors about Mary to make her more famous—or infamous—depending on how you looked at it. He claimed she had killed somewhere between two and eighteen men (according to one source—which also probably isn’t true, Mary is only known to have actually killed one man in her lifetime) and that she was worth $20,000.
Mary had been trained to perform all sorts of tricks in her circus, including tossing the first pitch in a baseball game, playing different notes on a horned instrument, and always led the parade whenever her circus rolled into town.
Mary was hung to death from a crane after she killed a man, earning her the nickname “Murderous Mary.” Evidently Mary’s trainer was upset by her attempting to eat a watermelon rind without his permission, so he hit her extremely hard with a sharpened stick or bull hook.
Mary, incensed by this, picked her “trainer” up off her back with her trunk, throwing him to the ground—and may have stomped on his head—killing him instantly. The trainer had never worked with elephants before the day of his death, and was actually a handyman, janitor, and hotel porter who had simply wanted to test out his luck as a pachyderm handler.
Mary didn’t rampage or run free, just calmly let her handlers get her back under control. A local blacksmith reportedly fired at her with his pistol, but she didn’t even react because of her rough hide.
Mary’s final performance went ahead as scheduled that night in Kingsport, Tennessee, where she had killed the man. The following day, Mary and the circus continued on to Erwin, where they were supposed to perform.
Instead of the circus going on as scheduled, however, the people of Kingsport (and Mary’s owner) decided it was time to hang an elephant instead. Mr. Sparks loved Mary like one of his own children, but he also knew that in order to save his business--and potentially the lives of others should Mary (rightfully) become enraged again--Mary would have to be put down.
The rest of the circus put on a matinee show in the neighboring town of Erwin, and after it was over, the people of the town killed Mary by hanging her from a crane in the railyard. Surviving witness reports state that Mary knew something was wrong. She acted nervously and was suspicious of those around her. In order to get Mary to cooperate, the other elephants she lived and performed with were marched alongside of her across town to the railyard.
After reaching the yard, the railroad workers used a chain to attach Mary’s leg to the railroad itself, and another chain went around her neck that led to the crane that would kill her. Then the circus employees marched the other elephants back the way they had come. The other elephants, also realizing something was now very wrong, trumpeted back to Mary as they were led away.
Mary was then winched into the sky by the chain around her neck. Some witnesses said she was only raised a few feet, others said as many as eight. As she was lifted, the workers realized her leg was still chained to the railroad and they heard a horrific cracking sound as the bones in her leg were torn apart. Soon after lifting her into the air, the chain snapped, and Mary fell onto her rear end. The fall was so heavy, Mary broke either her hip or her pelvis (sources differ). She was still alive, but now she was unable to move and in tremendous pain. Workers quickly threw another chain around her neck and lifted her into the air again, where Mary would struggle for a short while before falling still, dead. The crane workers held her in the air for between fifteen and thirty minutes, to ensure Mary really had died, before lowering her back to the ground.
When Mary was executed, thousands turned out to watch her die. After her death, Mary was unceremoniously buried in a large pit on the grounds of the railroad yard. Her grave is a source of fascination today, but the actual site was lost because it is located on private property. The owners, and the town of Erwin in general, are desperate to distance themselves from the horrifically sad story.
Mary was executed via hanging, instead of the more “humane” electrocution as Topsy had been killed, because of the fact that rural Tennessee did not have enough electrical power to kill her. Other methods of execution that were thought of but decided against included having two trains smash into either side of her, or having two trains pull her apart limb from limb.
The famous photograph of Mary’s hanging has been the subject of controversy to say the least. Some say its fake, others say its real. One way people have said its fake is because Mary doesn’t seem to have any tusks in the picture. Either her tusks were removed before she was hung (which has never been part of the story), they were removed after she was killed and then she was re-strung up for a photo opportunity, or the tusks are still on her body but because it’s a photograph from 1916 its just really hard to see them. Those are all possible explanations—or the photo is simply fake. Unfortunately, it seems the internet cannot make up their mind on which theory is the correct one.
*At the time, the largest elephant in the world was supposedly Jumbo, an elephant owned by Barnum and Bailey’s Circus. Mary was purportedly three inches taller than Jumbo and weighed five tons, or ten-thousand pounds.
Badges Earned:
Find a Grave Marked
Sources:
https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/murderous-mary-1916/
https://blueridgecountry.com/archive/favorites/mary-the-elephant/
https://allthatsinteresting.com/murderous-mary-the-elephant
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/122059661/mary-the-elephant