Admiral Dot,
was born Leopold
Kahn in 1857(?). He was uncle
of Samuel Kahn, "Major Atom," according
to contributor Elizabeth Anderson.
From
James Mundie (Prodigies):
In 1870, Phineas Taylor Barnum
traveled with friends by train across the western United States. In
San Francisco, a German named Gabriel Kahn offered the showman his dwarf
son, Leopold. Barnum was quite taken with the little fellow, whom he
said was "a dwarf more diminutive in stature than General Tom Thumb
was when I found him." Barnum promptly signed up Leopold under
the new name of Admiral Dot, otherwise known as the
the El Dorado Elf because he was such "a valuable nugget".
Later that autumn, after several more excursions (including a buffalo
hunt in Kansas organized by General George Custer) Barnum entered into
a new partnership and a major business venture:
P. T. Barnum's Grand Traveling Museum, Menagerie, Caravan and Circus.
Barnum considered this project to be the reincarnation of his dear American
Museum, but on wheels. Admiral Dot was prominently
featured in the museum tent alongside some of Barnum's best known old
friends, including the giantess Anna Swan, bearded
woman Annie Jones, Zip the "What
is It?", and conjoined brothers Chang and Eng Bunker,
recently emerged from retirement. This museum tent, seperate from the
menagerie and main performance tents, marked the beginning of the sideshow
as we know it. Patrons flocked there to see the greatest human curiosities
and latest mechanical wonders and waxworks - all for an extra fee.
As early as 1872, Barnum had already coined the phrase "The Greatest
Show on Earth", and now referrred to his circus as "P. T.
Barnum's Great Traveling World's Fair". At the time, Admiral
Dot was touted as being sixteen years old, twenty-five inches
tall, and a mere nineteen pounds. At least initially, Dot appeared on
stage with his mother.
Admiral Dot's career lasted for approximately
the next twenty years, despite the fact that as he aged and grew taller
he was soon eclipsed in size by smaller performers such as Major
Atom, with whom he occasionally performed. Not one to rest
on his laurels, Dot developed a stage persona that at one time saw him
billed as "The Smallest Character Actor in the World". During
the 1880's, Dot traveled with the Locke & Davis Royal Lilliputian
Opera Company, which was populated by other famous little people such
as the Magri Brothers and and Colonel Speck.
By the turn of the century, Leopold Kahn had settled in White Plains,
New York, with his twenty-six-inch-tall wife Lottie Swartwood
(a fellow performer in the opera company) and their two normal-sized
children. Seeking respectability, Dot joined the Elks, sang with the
town choir, and opened the Admiral Dot Hotel. The citizens of White
Plains named the admiral honorary chief of the fire department, but
unkindly referred to his business establishment as the Hotel Pee Wee
(which, ironically, burned to the ground in 1911). Admiral Dot
died of influenza in his home in White Plains on 28 October 1918, aged
54 years.
