156 IVORY AND THE ELEPHANT 



business and established the Farmers' and Drovers' Bank 

 in one half of the "Elephant Hotel." This was regarded 

 as one of the strongest banking institutions in the State; 

 it went into liquidation in 1905. Many distinguished men 

 found their way from time to time to Bailey's hotel, and it 

 was here that Commodore Vanderbilt became acquainted 

 with Daniel Drew; Washington Irving and Nathaniel Haw- 

 thorne were also visitors. 



How old the elephant was when Mr. Bailey bought it 

 of his seafaring brother we do not know, but it survived 

 until 1845, and the skin was then mounted by the great 

 showman, Phineas T. Barnum, and shown for several years 

 in his "Museum" in New York City, where it was destroyed 

 with the other objects of the heterogeneous collection gath- 

 ered there when the building housing them was burned 

 down in 1866. The man to whose enterprise our country 

 owed its first example of one of these great pachyderms 

 passed away at the ripe age of seventy, September 2, 1845, 

 the very year in which his elephant died, and his life seems 

 to have illustrated the words chiselled on his tombstone: 

 "Enterprise, Perseverance, Integrity." 



A notable case of self-immolation on the part of a military 

 leader to secure a victory is told of Eleazar, brother of Judas 

 Maccabee. At the battle of Bethzacharias, in 163 B. C, 

 between the Jewish forces and those of Antiochus V. Eupa- 

 ter, the valiant Eleazar noted that one of the war elephants 

 of the Syrians was conspicuous for its size and especially 

 richly caparisoned. He therefore concluded that this animal 

 bore the king. Animated by the desire to strike terror into 

 the hearts of the Syrians and also to earn immortal fame 

 for himself, he forced his way through the ranks of the 

 enemy until he had reached this elephant. Crouching 

 down, he then got under the animal's body and wounded 

 it mortally with his sword, but was crushed to death 



