Tom Thumb Wedding Still Inspires Mock Marriages

Spent the week reading two new books about 19th-century showman P.T. Barnum and his exhibition /exploitation of 25-inch-tall Charles Stratton, aka Gen. Tom Thumb. And yes, I have seen the musical “The Greatest Showman” starring Hugh Jackman, which is based on a splinter of reality. 

After hugely successful tours of Europe and the United States, Charles married Lavinia Warren, a former schoolteacher from MIddleborough, MA who also became a Barnum employee. P.T. Barnum paid for the February 10, 1863 wedding in New York that created a media frenzy, a distracting moment during the protracted Civil War. Abraham Lincoln invited the newlyweds to the White House. Their show business marriage lasted until Charles died in 1883 at age 45.  

Researching Tom Thumb in the local newspapers, I frequently bumped into articles about “Tom Thumb Weddings” held on the seacoast in the early 20th century. These were mock marriages in which a little boy wearing a tuxedo wed a little girl in a bridal gown. And yes, the ceremonies continue to this day.

In 1912, for instance, the Ladies Aid Society of the Methodist Church in Kittery, Maine, held their third annual Tom Thumb Wedding ceremony.  In June of 1922, the Storer Relief Fund of Portsmouth advertised what appeared to be a veteran’s memorial fundraiser. The 25-cent admission included ice cream, folk dancing, and a Tom Thumb Wedding.

The most frequent notices appear in the Portsmouth Herald for the annual lawn party at the First Baptist Church in Hampton. The July 1932 festivities, for example, featured, popcorn, candy, plants, and “mysteries.” A dozen girls participated in a doll carriage parade with a prize going to the best decorated carriage. All the girls were listed by name and the winner received a “mammy doll” from the judges.

The Tom Thumb Wedding that followed was “greatly enjoyed by all.” During the ceremony performed by the minister, Roland Baranby, a young bride named Glendeau Nelson “married” a little groom named Greeley. The best man, maid of honor, bridesmaids, ring bearer, and flower girls were all named. The ceremony was “most  “colorful and cute” according to the newspaper.

For the record, Tom Thumb died soon after performing at the Music Hall in Portsmouth. Mercy Lavinia Warren Stratton (nee Bump) married Count Primo Magri two years after Charles’ death and they toured occasionally and later performed in Exeter and Portsmouth. Lavinia and Count Magri appeared in a 1915 silent film, The Lilliputians Courtship. Lavinia died in 1919 at age 77 and was buried next to her first husband in Bridgeport, CT. 

Copyright J. Dennis Robinson