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When P. T. Barnum Tried to Buy The Jaw of the Great Sperm Whale ONE OF THE FEATURED attractions at the famous Nantucket Whaling Museum is the great sperm whale's jaw, which meas ures 18 feet in length and contains 44 teeth. It is not generally known that only a few years after it was brought to Nantucket aboard the whaleship Islander, under Captain William Cash, there was an offer for its purchase by the well known promoter Phineas T. Barnum, who wanted the extraordinary relic for his "Barnum's American Museum" in New York City. His letter, written in August, 1866, reads: Captain Cash, Dear Sir, When I was at Nantucket recently, I called to see your Whale's Jaw. It is a stunner, and I was sorry I could not see the man who captured it. I hope you will carefully read the enclosed circular. Perhaps you will then feel that if the Jaw was properly placed in my Museum, and its history and your name legibly inscribed on it, more of your friends (as well as the great public) would see it, than they would on your own premises. Perhaps, also, these considerations would induce you to hand your name down to a grateful posterity by being identified as the Donor of this Jaw to the Free Museum in New York. However, if you don't see it in that light, will you please inform me whether you will sell it to be placed in my Museum and, if so, for what price. & oblige, Yours truly, P. T. Barnum Fortunately, Captain Cash decided not to accept the offer. Perhaps it was because he knew the background of how the jaw happened to become his property. The late Nancy Grant Adams, for many years the Curator of the Nantucket Histor ical Association, and also serving as its President, learned from Miss Emeline Christian, of Nantucket, that the jaw was actually from a huge sperm whale taken by one of the boats of the whaleship Niger, commanded by Mrs. Adams' father Captain Charles Grant — a whale harpooned by Miss Christian's father, James Christian.
