It didn’t take Herbert Barnum Seeley long to run through his share of the inheritance. According to The San Francisco Examiner, he burned through $2 million in a single year. Among his extravagant expenditures, Herbert spent $28,000 (more than $1 million in 2023) on a bachelor party for his brother Clinton held on December 19, 1896, at a posh Manhattan restaurant. The 17-course meal included risque performances by several dancers, including Ashea Wabe (better known as Little Egypt), who had become famous after she introduced America to belly dancing a few years earlier, per the New England Historical Society.
The police raided the party, and the ensuing scandal ended with Herbert being indicted for causing a public nuisance and conspiracy to induce the dancers to commit a crime, per The New York Times. Nothing came of it. Herbert continued burning through his money and in 1904 ended up in an Arizona jail for writing a bad check for a gambling debt. He died at age 43 in 1914.
His brother Clinton fared better. P.T. Barnum left Clinton one-ninth of his estate and on top of that gave him $25,000 (almost $1 million in 2023) with the provision that Clinton officially go by Barnum so that the showman’s name would live on, per The Boston Globe. Clinton lived to be 90 and before his death in 1958 had become a banker and philanthropist, per the Associated Press.
[Featured image by Benjamin Falk via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled]
