Click Here to Return To Milestones Vol 10 No 4
Two incidents concerning Jenny Lind, the famous Swedish singer connected her with Beaver County history.
America fell in love with the Swedish Nightingale, Jenny Lind. She was made world famous by P.T. Barnum in America. Later P.T. Barnum was busy with the "Greatest Show on Earth" while Jenny Lind was presenting her last forty concerts in America and Canada "on her own". She made appearances in Cleveland, Cincinatti, Wheeling and Pittsburgh.
At Pittsburgh she appeared at the Masonic Hall on Fifth Avenue which was brand new when Jenny Lind sang there on November 13, 1851, to a packed audience, every ticket having been sold.
While in Pittsburgh a very rich man living there tried to give her a pair of beautiful, diamond bracelets but her Victorian code made her return them. America had already made her wealthy.
The New Brighton History 1838-1938 page 32 lists the following incident concerning Jenny Lind in Beaver County:
Samuel Funkhouser, brother of Jacob 0. Funkhouser was a short, extremely strong man with a singular formation of twelve fingers and twelve toes and for fifteen years was daily on the streets delivering light freight and baggage from the New Brighton railroad station to local businesses. He used a two wheeled hand cart in which he sometimes pushed loads that were worthy of the strength of a drag horse, often singing as he trod the pavement. He had a pleasing personality and an excellent singing voice which he exercised frequently. For this reason and his physical peculiarity, the trainmen nearly all knew him. Upon one occasion when the train bearing the famous singer stopped at the station, the railroaders persuaded Samuel to sing for her and held the train until he finished. He was somewhat embarrassed when she complimented him upon the sweetness of his voice.
He died about 1884.
The great Mendelssohn was a personal friend of the singer and she was a guest at his home. Otto Goldschmidt was one of Mendelssohn's brightest pupils and they shared mutual grief when the composer died in 1848.
Frederick Bremer, the Swedish writer and early feminist advocate, during a meeting in Cuba assured Jenny that age and religion were not a barrier if they were truly in love. Jenny and Otto Goldschmidt, her young Jewish pianist, were married in Boston, February 8, 1852.
After a farewell New York concert May 27, 1852, where she sang to an audience of over seven thousand, the bride and groom sailed on the ATLANTIC with their friend a Captain Smith who brought Jenny to America twenty-two months before.
The second incident which tied her story to Beaver County was that Grace Greenwood who had lived in New Brighton was also a passenger on the same ship with Jenny and her new husband.
Grace Greenwood was the pen name of Sarah Clarke Lippencott whose success as an authoress is attested to by a state landmark marker in front of her former home in New Brighton.
Grace Greenwood was seated next to Captain Smith and the Goldschmidts sat opposite her at the Captain's table.
In her book HAPS and MISHAPS of a TOUR IN EUROPE Grace Greenwood wrote a vivid description of the voyage home of the famous couple.
The most cherished gift which Jenny took home with her from America was a patch work quilt with a floral pattern made by children in an orphanage where she had given a concert for the children. She had allowed them to crowd around her afterward and run their hands over her body so they could "see her".
For thirty-five years she kept the quilt on her bed until she died in November 1887 and it was buried in her coffin along with a shawl given her by Queen Victoria.