Willison’s Circus tours Kauai

Prior to Willison’s Circus having arrived in Honolulu on Jan. 20, 1898, Bert Willison, its American owner and ringmaster, had taken it on tour to South America, England and Europe, India, Ceylon, Malaysia, Java, China, the Philippines, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

And, following several successful shows in Honolulu and elsewhere on Oahu, the circus embarked aboard a special steamer at Honolulu on Wednesday, Feb. 10, 1898, for a voyage across the Kauai Channel to the Garden Isle.

After landing safely at Nawiliwili on the 11th, Willison’s Circus went on to perform under a big two-pole tent for large audiences paying from 50 cents to $1.50 per ticket at Lihue from the 12th through the 15th, Koloa on the 16th, and Waimea on the 17th, 18th and 19th, after which the circus returned by steamer to Honolulu.

Among the circus’s featured performers were trapeze artist and acrobat Alfred St. Leon and his wife and little daughter, both trick horseriders.

Other trick riders in Willison’s Circus were the phenomenal Harry Dixon, who juggled and jumped atop two hurdling horses, Miss Willison, highly skilled with four horses, Miss Wallett, a fine rider and an expert on the trapeze, and Miss Frederica.

“Funny Peanuts,” a Japanese dwarf from Singapore, who spoke half a dozen languages, carried out his clown acts accompanied by two baboons and four little ponies, while other clowns teamed up with three donkeys.

The Viret brothers were fantastic contortionists.

There was a giant giraffe, a Ceylon bull a little larger than a dog that performed in the ring with a donkey, a monkey that rode a horse, and a dog that somersaulted in the air like an acrobat.

Especially well-liked were the Royal Amazonian Club Swingers, an act in which the ladies of the circus swung flaming clubs round and round in the dark.