The Man-Bear: Unmasking One of America's Strangest Sideshow Acts
During the late 19th century, crowds across America eagerly paid a dime to meet the "Man-Bear," a snarling creature advertised as half man and half beast. Behind the sensational ads, however, stood David Mysherall, a man whose severe congenital deformities were transformed into a successful sideshow attraction.
Man-Bear advertising illustration. Colorized.
By Kevin J. Guhl/American Strangeness
Late 19th-century America loved human curiosities. Traveling sideshows introduced audiences to giants, dwarfs, tattooed men, bearded ladies, and numerous other "freaks of nature" whose extraordinary appearances were embellished by imaginative showmen. Few attractions embodied this fascination better than the "Man-Bear," whose lurid advertisements promised visitors the chance to gaze upon one of nature's greatest aberrations, a terrifying hybrid of man and beast.
Throughout the spring of 1891, the Man-Bear hit Kansas and surrounding areas like a furry tornado. A lengthy newspaper advertorial heralded the monster's appearance in each town it visited, enticing residents to visit a local storefront that would contain this abnormality of nature. "A rare opportunity will be afforded our citizens in general of seeing one of nature's greatest freaks—alive and living—that may not occur again in a life time," the article promised. All that was being asked for was the small admission fee of 10 cents, simply to "cover current expenses occasioned by stopping over."
According to the announcement, which included a fierce and sneering illustration of the hybrid, the Man-Bear was alive (a qualifier that presumably assured the skeptical public it wasn't a taxidermy specimen), white, weighed 153 pounds and was about 27 years old. Man-Bear was able to speak plainly and distinctly (if insensibly), a very human trait. However, his head was said to greatly resemble a bear's, along with a complete absence of knee-caps, forcing him to walk on all fours. His feet were "formed exactly as those of a bear, being entirely devoid of heels." He reportedly had "claws, six in number, on each of his fore limbs, webbed out beyond the second joints, while the nails split in the middle and hook at the ends." His forehead was about an inch in height, with deep-set eyes about half the natural size, under long, black eyebrows. The Man-Bear's ears were described as being "as large as a silver quarter," and the lower part of his face as halfway between that of a man and the muzzle of a bear. He lacked any teeth except for a few "snags" in the front. Notably, an earlier version of the illustration showed the furry Man-Bear with a more human head.
Earlier version of the Man-Bear ad illustration.
The Man-Bear was presented by Dr. Ezra L. Buckey, "a man with a melodious voice" stated to be an enterprising agent in the employ of the Northwestern Museum Syndicate, headquartered in Chicago. Buckey was accompanied in his traveling show by another man named E. L. Sanderson. The Man-Bear, displayed to the public on a platform elevated five feet above the floor, was said to have attained his odd appearance due his mother having been frightened by a bear during his gestation. In another version of the Man-Bear's origin, his brutal father cut the throat of a bear cub and tossed it onto his pregnant wife's lap. Her baby thus inherited two birthmarks on his neck that looked like the healed scars of two knife thrusts, as well as ursine characteristics. Buckey cordially offered all practicing physicians, city and county officials, and members of the press a free pass to examine what he purported to be a genuine freak of nature, or "Lusus Naturae."
The press, at least, took Buckey up on the free tickets, and the reviews it published ranged from glowing to condemnation...
"Dr. E. L. Buckey was in town yesterday and raked in many a dime by exhibiting his Man-bear. This is certainly one of nature's greatest freaks, a human being with power of speech but the actions and movements of a bear. It is no fraud," proclaimed the Territorial Topic of Purcell, in the Chickasaw Nation (today within Oklahoma). The Weekly Telegram of Winfield, Kansas wrote, "The man-bear which was exhibited here last week was a most wonderful monstrosity and well worth the small admission fee. Notwithstanding the gentlemen in charge have been maligned by some newspapers, they are gentlemen in every way and advertise nothing which they do not show."
More common were reactions like that of the Osage County Times, which wrote, "The two fellows with what they call a 'Man-Bear' ought to be arrested as frauds. Their exhibit is nothing more than a deformed human being—an idiot. Every town they stop at they tell the story of being on the way to the Chicago Zoological Gardens, and have a day or so to spare. They are frauds." Or the Newton Daily Republican, which stated, "The 'man-bear' is merely a deformed man who has no more of the appearance of a bear than has a cow. Nor does he resemble in the least what his published portrait would indicate him to be... The 'man-bear' is a fraud, and should be avoided."
Some reporters just had fun with the Man-Bear's visit. "The bear man scared J. A. Bills so badly that his hair actually stood up on the top of his head," wrote the Arkansas City Traveler. "Charles Barnett is hiding out. When the man bear took after him he broke out of the room on a run. He has not been seen since." When the Man-Bear toured Indiana that November, the Evansville Journal quipped, "The 'Man Bear' on exhibition on Main Street isn't a marker to the women bare who will be on exhibition at The Grand to-night."
Despite the critics, it appears the Man-Bear show was a success. "The room where the Man-Bear was exhibited was crowded all afternoon, and the dimes contributed by the curious kept up a continuous jingle at the door-keepers stand," reported the Winfield Tribune. According to the Wellington Monitor, "A travelling showman was in town this week with a poor, deformed creature, whom he exhibited as a 'man-bear,' in the old Campbell show store room. It was a fake of the rankest description, but lots of people squandered a dime to see it, though a minute's look at the unfortunate 'freak' satisfied the curiosity of nearly everybody."
Contemporary reports described the Man-Bear's raucous antics, showing he was as much an entertaining personality as a freak show. As a staple of the act, doctors would step up on stage to examine the hybrid, after which the keeper would "foolishly" bring his charge down onto the floor. At this point, Man-Bear would break free and rush toward the audience, knocking things over and aiming to catch spectators in his "playful, loving, strong-armed" embrace. During a stop in Ludlow, Illinois, several ladies stepped into a caboose in which Man-Bear was housed without knowing of his presence "and were somewhat hysterically embarrassed, so to speak."
The Freeport, Illinois Bulletin even once managed to snag an "interview" with the Man-Bear. The reporter was ushered through a doorway that actually had a doorplate reading "Man-Bear" above its entrance. There he found the Man-Bear seated on a table with his hind feet crossed wobblily underneath him, clad in the remains of a sleeveless flannel undershirt and trunks that reached halfway to where a person's knees would normally be. "His face is not handsome. It looks like something like a ripe squash hit with an axe," the writer brutally assessed, further describing the Man-Bear's forehead that retreated back to just over his eyebrows and merged with a "door mat" of back hair. "He has an eye like a seed-onion and as expressionless as the platform of the Greenback party. When he looks long and earnestly at you, you simply form the impression that it is good to be somewhere else," the article continued.
According to the Bulletin, "His arms are one of his main features. They are long and thin and the muscles vary from the usual program by being on the under side, so that when he wants to show off he has to do his fighting backward. At the end of these arms come a couple of hands—hands that are dreadful to contemplate. Not content with a double thumb he has five fingers beside, so that when he pours out a drink he could cover anything not larger than a seltzer bottle. His lower limbs are not mates and he walks with equal facility whether standing up or sitting down, by reason of this curious malformation. The soles of his feet come where the inside of the ankle ought to be. He has no knee-caps and therefore the manager takes a night-cap instead."
The Man-Bear spoke to the reporter in "a sort of hand-me-down English," spewing a torrent of curse words and requesting chewing tobacco, puppies and cough medicine. To close the interview, Man-Bear playfully grabbed the writer's ear and yelled in his face until his "whiskers vibrated."
"It is not given to him to lead victorious armies or to place the banner on the farthest outpost. He can not sway vast audiences with inspired eloquence nor can he play slide trombone in a German band," the Bulletin surmised. "But as a man-bear he occupies a field hitherto untrodden by the foot of man. Without fear of losing his job, with no dread opposition of rivalry, no fear of monopolies or trusts, he goes through life with no thought of the morrow or what may be bruin for him."
So, who was the man behind the Man-Bear? His biography derives from the numerous articles planted in the press by his promoters over the years, so it's hard to parse fact from fiction. Although the details drifted slightly over time, nearly identical articles were published by the local press coinciding with the Man-Bear's appearance in any given town. It can be gleaned that the Man-Bear's real name was David Mysherall (possibly Myshrall or Norceau) and he was born about 1858. It was consistently stated in his bio that he came from a large family living on the frontier in St. Johns, Queens County, New Brunswick, Canada, although they were later reported to be living in Armstrong County, Texas. His father was French and his mother was Irish. David was apparently one of a dozen brothers and sisters, but the only one born with such deformities.
A likely (hopefully) fictional part of David's story was that he was kept in solitary confinement until his cruel father set him loose outdoors at the age of 12. He was discovered there by Mr. H. E. Sproul in June of 1881, eating nuts and bark in the woods and acting like a wild animal. As the lore goes, Sproul tamed the wild man to be "modest, docile and harmless." David was said to be mischievous, playful and inoffensive despite his immense strength. He also had a fondness for music, and would entertain by singing and playing the organette. Sproul caused a splash in the fall of 1881 as he toured the Man-Bear throughout New England, news of their appearance in Providence, Rhode Island reaching Great Britain.
David was able to capitalize on his Man-Bear sideshow act for several years. By 1887 he was managed by Buckey, drawing large crowds at they toured states such as Kentucky, Arkansas, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana and Texas. (It is unclear if Sproul was another showman who originated the Man-Bear act or just an alias for Buckey.) One 1891 article referred to Mysherall not just as the Man-Bear but as "the Wild Man of Borneo," associating him similar popular sideshow acts of the era under that name, in which performers were presented at semi-feral man-beasts captured in the wild.
Buckey and Mysherall appear to have continued their Man-Bear act through at least 1893. Despite David's presentation as a fearsome man-beast, it seems he attracted many fans. "The Man-Bear is our idea of an ugly man," wrote the Atchinson Daily Globe in May 1891. "Yet it is said that wherever he goes, he attracts great attention from giddy women. These show people are great for flirting. The Man Bear's correspondence is said to be very large."
Although no diagnosis can be made with certainty from 19th-century newspaper descriptions, Mysherall appears to have suffered from a complex congenital disorder affecting multiple parts of his skeleton rather than the excessive hair growth that characterized many famous "man-beast" sideshow performers, such as Julia Pastrana ("The Bear Woman") and Fedor Jeftichew ("Jo-Jo the Dog-Faced Boy"), who were afflicted by hypertrichosis, abnormal hair growth over the body. Contemporary reports consistently described severe malformations of David's limbs, including absent kneecaps, unusually formed feet, and abnormal hands with extra digits and malformed nails. Collectively, these traits resemble features found in a variety of rare congenital skeletal and developmental disorders recognized today, including conditions affecting the head, limbs, hands and feet. For example, Nail-Patella syndrome can involve absent or underdeveloped kneecaps together with nail abnormalities, while other rare syndromes can produce combinations of extra digits, webbed fingers, and a malformed skull and limbs. However, David's reported deformities were quite extensive, and given the limitations of 19th-century newspaper accounts, as well as the likelihood of promotional exaggeration, any retrospective identification of his condition must remain speculative.
Buckey himself was an interesting character. He was born near Middleburg, Maryland and graduated from Jefferson Medical College in 1883. But Buckey had a "roving disposition," leaving home as a young man to spend six years at sea, and touring around the world three times with entertainment acts. Buckey was described in an 1883 Dallas Herald newspaper article as having light blonde hair, wearing glasses, and claiming to be from London. The doctor professed to have originated the Parisian art of window decorating with silk handkerchiefs. The Herald labeled a Buckey a "fearful fraud," though, after he stiffed their printing room for 1,000 business cards and convinced the Sanger Bros. department store into paying for lessons in the art of hanging goods. After his years touring with the Man-Bear, Buckey managed other sideshow acts including sharpshooter W. J. "Wild Jim" French and Chiquita, a little person who danced and sang. Buckey also entertained children with a traveling puppet and magic show.
In May 1897, the dashing young Dr. Buckey scandalized Richmond, Kentucky (where he was known for his Man-Bear shows) by eloping with Lulu Shearer, oldest daughter of Capt. T. R. Shearer, proprietor of the Shearer House. The couple, who had been corresponding for some time, married in Lexington. It does not appear that this marriage lasted, for later in life Buckey was married to a woman named Myra. (A 1925 issue of Billboard mentioned that Buckey's first wife predeceased him, but stated that she was from Gallipolis, Ohio.)
In another widely circulated story, Buckey was twice the victim of monkey theft. While residing in Sandusky, Ohio during the summer of 1896, Buckey was entertaining two visitors from Cleveland. As the "wine flowed faster than water from the old town pump," the Clevelanders befriended Jocko, a "naturally destructive" monkey the doctor kept chained in his home. Surely not sober, the guests decided to purloin Jocko and took him back with them on the boat to Cleveland. But Buckey beat them there by train and met the thieves at the docks with police. It cost the monkey-nappers $68 to get out of trouble, and Jocko was returned to his rightful owner. A year later, while living with Buckey in Cleveland, Jocko was once again stolen, this time by a local bookkeeper, A. C. Berry. Jocko was retrieved from where Berry had stashed him and the bookkeeper was locked up on the charge of petit larceny. It is unclear why Clevelanders were so obsessed with stealing monkeys.
Buckey eventually settled in Brooklyn and amassed a large fortune in the real estate business. He was half-owner and resident manager of L. A. Thompson's scenic railway in Buffalo, New York and for 17 years was the American representative for "Animal King" Frank C. Bostock, managing the trained wild animal exhibits at Bostock's Animal Arena on Young's Pier in Atlantic City. During his final world tour in 1914 as manager for Leroy, Talma and Bosco, illusionists, Buckey had to cut short the Australian leg due to the outbreak of the First World War. He and the company of 27 people, a hundred animals and 70 tons of equipment had a harrowing voyage back to San Francisco on an English steamship, all the time carefully evading the patrols of hostile German vessels. Buckey, 62 and by then retired, died of pneumonia on Jan. 13, 1925. He was eulogized as one of the best-known of the United States' old school of showmen.
More than a century later, David Mysherall, the "Man-Bear," remains an enigmatic figure. The sensational stories invented by his promoters have obscured what was almost certainly the life of an individual born with extraordinary congenital deformities during an era when mainstream employment and social acceptance for people with such disabilities were often limited, making the sideshow one of the few avenues through which some could earn a living. The newspapers preserve flashes of his mischievous personality—his fondness for music, practical jokes, and startling spectators—but little else survives of the person behind the performance. In separating advertising fiction from eyewitness accounts, the Man-Bear emerges not as a monster or even a fraud, but as another reminder that many of the greatest curiosities of the 19th-century sideshow were, in the end, simply human beings whose humanity was often overshadowed by the legends created around them.
Of course, there are also the infamous reports of a "ManBearPig" in South Park, Colorado, during the early 2000s, but that is a story for another time...