In 1842 Barnum met Charles Sherwood Stratton, a 4-year-old midget whom he christened General Tom Thumb. For four decades the general starred at the American Museum and on international tours, charming Queen Victoria and trading witticisms with the Duke of Wellington.In 1863 Tom Thumb and the equally diminutive Lavinia Warren Bump, the “Loving Lilliputians,” were wed at Grace Episcopal Church, the Gothic Revival masterpiece at Broadway and East 10th Street, consecrated in 1846. Commodore Nutt, another of Barnum’s little people who had been a rival for Lavinia’s hand, graciously served as best man.The “Fairy Wedding” was the social event of the season. The cream of New York society, including the Vanderbilts and Astors, were among the invited guests; Mathew Brady took the wedding photos. The tiny couple stood on a platform so that they could be seen during the ceremony. Afterward they climbed onto a grand piano at the Metropolitan Hotel (next door to Niblo’s Garden) to greet 2,000 well-wishers. Their honeymoon trip included a stop in Washington, where the Lincolns received them in the White House.The couple visited President and Mrs. Lincoln in the White House after their grand wedding and reception, at which Tiffany and Co. gifted a silver miniature horse and chariot.The New York Times put it simply: “Those who did and those who did not attend the wedding of Gen. Thomas Thumb and Queen LAVINIA WARREN composed the population of this great Metropolis yesterday, and thenceforth religious and civil parties sink into comparative insignificance before this one arbitrating query of fate-Did you or did you not see Tom Thumb married?”[1]
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