Topsy The Circus Elephant
Born in Southeast Asia around 1875, Topsy was a female elephant who was secretly smuggled into the United States and placed among a herd of performing elephants. Despite her true origins, she was marketed as the first elephant born in America — a claim that couldn't have been further from the truth.
Topsy The Circus Elephant
For 25 years, Topsy performed with the Forepaugh Circus, where she quickly built up quite a reputation.
She became widely known as a bad elephant, and public opinion turned sharply against her after she killed a spectator in 1902. Following this incident, she was sold to Sea Lion Park on Coney Island. Even after changing hands, Topsy continued to be involved in multiple incidents — problems largely attributed to poor handling or the actions of her soon-to-be owners, Frederick Thompson and Emer Dundy.
Topsy's Death
It wasn't long before the new owners hatched a plan to put Topsy down as part of the grand opening of their new venture, Luna Park. They intended to charge admission for spectators to watch the event. However, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals stepped in and derailed those plans.
Originally conceived as a public spectacle tied to Luna Park's opening, the execution was dramatically scaled back by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which restricted attendance to just a handful of onlookers. The organization also insisted on three methods to ensure the elephant's death: poison, strangling, and electrocution.
On January 4, 1903, Topsy was given 460 grams of carrots that had been laced with potassium cyanide. Electrocution and strangling followed. When it was all over, electrocution was officially determined to be her cause of death.
Edison Makes A Movie
Thomas Edison's film production organization, Edison Manufacturing Movie, was an American company that played a notable role in documenting this grim event. They were the firm invited to capture the euthanization of the circus elephant on camera. The resulting film, titled Electrocuting an Elephant, was released shortly after and was probably the first filmed death of an animal ever recorded.