Emily Chan
After a few years in the wilderness, he once again began to seek out ways to make money. He cultivated a name for himself as an entertainer. He traveled around, putting on exotic animal shows, and declared himself to be an expert animal trainer.
Although he may have painted a pretty picture of his pursuits, it was anything but. A historian wrote that lions often escaped their enclosures and devoured the Shetland ponies. Tents would collapse, resulting in the injury of many women and children.
Adams also treated the animals with cruelty. For example, his most famous bear, Ben Franklin, was obtained by killing its mother before the cub could even open its eyes. Then, he forced a greyhound to suckle the bear cub by killing all the pups in the dog’s litter except for one.
He kept the bears from acting out through frequent beatings but was never able to truly tame his bears. He described himself as being “beaten to jelly” and “torn almost limb from limb” because of the bears.
In 1858, he suffered a serious head injury during a wrestling match with one of his bears. The next year, he ended up bankrupt after Ben Franklin died suddenly. So he sold his collection of wild animals to P.T. Barnum and worked with him briefly before returning home to his family.
A year later, Adams died at the age of 48 due to complications from his head injury.
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