Historedia
AmericasEvent

Jumbo the elephant killed by a train at St. Thomas, Ontario

When
1885
Where
St. Thomas, Ontario
Episodes
1

Jumbo, a large African bush elephant touring with Barnum's circus, died in St. Thomas, Ontario, on September 15, 1885, after being struck by a locomotive. Accounts vary regarding whether he was saving a smaller elephant or simply crossing tracks. Post-mortem evidence suggests internal bleeding from hip injuries caused his death.

Episodes

  1. 15 September 1885 · St. Thomas, OntarioTrain Collision at St. Thomas

    Jumbo was struck by a locomotive in St. Thomas, Ontario, on September 15, 1885, resulting in his death.

Background and detail

Background. By 1885, Jumbo was touring with Barnum's circus. On July 6, 1885, he was paraded in Saint John, New Brunswick, celebrating his first appearance in Canada, and the tour subsequently brought him to Ontario in September.

The Collision. On September 15, 1885, Jumbo was killed in St. Thomas, Ontario, when a freight train struck him. Barnum claimed Jumbo was attempting to save a young elephant named Tom Thumb from the locomotive, but newspapers reported the train hit Jumbo directly while Tom Thumb suffered a broken leg. Post-mortem photographs showed abrasions consistent with being hit on the hip from behind.

Legacy and Remains. Jumbo's skeleton was donated to the American Museum of Natural History. A stuffed specimen traveled with the circus for two years before being donated to Tufts University, where it was destroyed by fire. Ashes believed to contain his remains are kept at Tufts, and his taxidermied tail is held in the Tufts Archival Research Center.

People involved

Sources

  1. Jumbo Wikipedia, revision of 2026-08-28
  2. St. Thomas, Ontario Wikipedia, revision of 2026-10-04

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.