Notable Facts About The
Iconic Grizzly Adams
Grizzly Adams (John C. Adams, 1812-1860) hailed from the same Massachusetts family tree that included the two Adams’ United States Presidents and Revolutionary War patriot, Samuel Adams.
For sixteen years Grizzly Adams lived a regular life as a Boston shoe cobbler until a fire destroyed his business, resulting in his father’s suicide by hanging and leading Adams to join-in on the Great California Gold Rush of 1849.
Once out west, Grizzly Adams settled near Sutter’s Mill in California and proved himself industrious as a miner—until he was repeatedly conned out of his land holdings and claims. Fed-up with a greed driven society, Adams abandoned civilization in late 1852 in exchange for the solitude of the Sierra Nevada Mountains near Yosemite.
Grizzly Adams adapted to the wilderness and collected and tamed many wild animals to include grizzly bears, elk, wolves, foxes, and deer.
For three years Grizzly Adams led expeditions with his tamed bears as both travelling companions and pack mules, roaming mountain ranges stretching from the Canadian border, to the Great Salt Lake, and to the Mojave Desert.
Grizzly Adams grew to be an expert tracker and hunter who befriended and regularly supplied Native American tribes with meats and hides during his three and a half years of mountain-man living.
Admitting he’d grown tired hunting, when he left the mountains for good in early 1856, Grizzly Adams settled in San Francisco after parading his menagerie of sixty wild animals down Market Street, including his prized grizzly bears ‘Benjamin Franklin,’ ‘Lady Washington,’ ‘General Freemont,’ ‘Funny Joe,’ and his caged giant grizzly, ‘Samson.’
Famous California artist Charles Nahl drawing of Mountain Man Grizzly Adams 1856
For four years Grizzly Adams was a celebrated showman with his animals in San Francisco, performing in the city’s finest theaters. Curiously, while there he used the aliases of ‘James’ and ‘William.’ He was also sometimes billed, “The Wild Yankee.”
In 1860, after the sad passing of his favorite bear, Benjamin Franklin, Grizzly Adams loaded his large menagerie of other bears and wild animals onto the clipper ship, ‘The Golden Fleece’ in order to head back to the east coast—via a three month ‘Noah’s Ark like’ ocean voyage that sailed around Cape Horn.
After arriving in New York City, Grizzly Adams paraded his menagerie on Broadway until he arrived at the office of P.T. Barnum, who quickly signed him to a performance contract.
P.T. Barnum’s promotion of Grizzly Adams’ animal shows made them a popular attraction in New York and in other east coast city locations.
Grizzly Adams was decently educated for his day, and was a good orator and a capable writer.
Famous Gold Rush era artist, Charles Nahl’s drawings and etchings of Grizzly Adams and his bears and other animals were featured in Theodore Hittell’s 1860 book that chronicled Adams’ western adventures, and left Adams further described by historians as, “California’s greatest mountain man ever.”
When famous Civil War photographer, Matthew Brady, photographed Grizzly Adams in New York in 1860, Adams wore a new, flamboyant showman costume gifted to him by P.T. Barnum.
After his eleven years of absence, Grizzly Adams was reunited in New York with his wife, Cylena, who assisted him as his health failed during his final east coast animal shows.
“ OLD GRIZZLY ADAMS. [37-*] James C. Adams, or “Grizzly Adams,” as he was generally termed, from the fact of his having captured so many grizzly bears, and encountered such fearful perils by his unexampled daring, was an extraordinary character. For many years a hunter and trapper in the Rocky and Sierra Nevada Mountains, he acquired a recklessness which, added to his natural invincible courage, rendered him truly one of the most striking men of the age. He was emphatically what the English call a man of “pluck.” In 1860, he arrived in New York with his famous collection of California. ”
– Author: P.T. Barnum
The term GRIZZLY ADAMS is a registered trademark of The Grizzly Adams® Company.
The Grizzly Adams® Company
8306 Wilshire Boulevard, #582
Beverly Hills, CA 90211
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