The Story of the Gnome Fly Part 1 - The American Dwarf; Harvey Leach (1801-1847)

From the February 1954 issue of the US comic 'Nightmare'

I believe the name "Hop-Frog" was not that given to the dwarf by his sponsors at baptism, but it was conferred upon him, by general consent of the seven ministers, on account of his inability to walk as other men do. In fact, Hop-Frog could only get along by a sort of interjectional gait - something between a leap and a wriggle … But although Hop-Frog, through the distortion of his legs, could move only with great pain and difficulty along a road or floor, the prodigious muscular power which nature seemed to have bestowed upon his arms, by way of compensation for deficiency in the lower limbs, enabled him to perform many feats of wonderful dexterity, where trees or ropes were in question, or anything else to climb.

Edgar Alan Poe – Hop-Frog (1849)

On the 4th April 1840 the Philadelphia Gazette suggested its readers take themselves to see “Signor Hervio Nano, the dwarf, who is performing at the Chestnut Street Theatre... this evening. His strength and agility, notwithstanding his peculiarities of figure, are very extraordinary, and his feats, especially as the ape, are of a surprising character.” An advertisement for the theatre on the following page, promised that “SIG. HERVIO NANO, the celebrated Metempsychosian Actor, the greatest wonder of the day,” would be starring as “Bibboo, the Island Ape, or Ourang Outang,” in the new drama of The Shipwreck. One of those who almost certainly took up the Gazette’s suggestion was the newly appointed editor of Graham’s Magazine, Edgar Allan Poe. He was probably a member of the audience for at least one of Hervio Nano’s performances and Dwight R. Thomas in ‘Poe in Philadelphia’ (1978) speculates that Nano “is a probable source for Poe's story ‘Hop-Frog,’ whose title character is a crippled dwarf. Possibly Poe had Nano's portrayal of “Bibboo” in mind when writing “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”; certainly both men were trying to capitalize on the contemporary fascination for ourang outangs and other large primates.” Poe’s revenge story also captures something of Nano’s irascible personality, his pugnacity and, when his amour-propre was threatened, his occasional swings into violence.  

Leach as portrayed in Sir William Fergusson's  ‘Lectures on the Progress of Anatomy...' 1867  

Hervio Nano was the stage name of the American performer Harvey Leach (1801-1847). Although only 3 foot 5 inches tall and generally described as a ‘dwarf’ Leach did not suffer from achondroplasia or any of the other medical conditions that are generally considered to constitute dwarfism.  His diminutive stature was the result of a congenital deformation of the bones of the leg in which the tibia of the right leg was missing and the femurs of both legs almost entirely absent.  His right leg, from heel to hip measured only nine inches and his left, sixteen. Despite this he “was one of the most remarkable gymnasts of his day. Notwithstanding the distortion of his lower limbs, he had marvellous power in his feet. As an arena horseman he was scarcely excelled whether in sitting or standing He walked and even ran fairly well, and his powers of leaping, partly from his hands, partly from his feet, were unusual, yet his lower limbs were so short that as he stood erect on the floor, he could touch it with his fingers.” (Sir William Fergusson ‘Lectures on the Progress of Anatomy and Surgery During the Present Century’ 1867) Other extraordinary feats regularly performed by Leach included ‘following a horse at full speed on the hands and feet, and suddenly springing on its back like a monkey, or jumping ten feet in the air’ and in theatres ‘walking on the ceiling, head downwards’, an accomplishment which earned him the dubious sobriquet of the ‘gnome fly’.   Although contemporary newspapers occasionally lapsed into the use of derogatory language when discussing Leach, the Literary Gazette for example called him an ‘extraordinary cripple’ and a ‘man-monkey’, but generally this happened only after his death.  The relatively polite tone most newspapers adopted when writing about him may have had something to do with his rather touchy temperament and, as the Gazette also noted, that ‘his mode of fighting, too, was most original; he used to spring in the air, and at the same instant deal the most terrific blow upon his unwary antagonist's head, so that he was a very formidable combatant.’

Hitherto not much has been known about Leach’s early years. In the Auguste Rondel collection of the National Library of France, there is an undated, autographed note by Leach which confirms that he was born on the 27th July 1801 in New York State (some sources say in Westchester County). The note goes on to say that he, “after having travelled south to Savanah in 1810 took a passage to Liverpool in England, went to London for an engagement at Drury Lane Theatre after many successes contracted engagements for all the country theatres in 1829 was engaged at Paris Theatre du Cirque Olympique.” An article occasioned by Leach’s engagement for the Christmas Pantomime at Drury Lane, originally from The Herald (presumably the Glasgow newspaper) but reprinted in the Morning Advertiser of 25 November 1828 gives further details of the ‘American Dwarf’s early life and career. It claims that Leach’s father, perhaps both in the United States and in England “was wont to wrap a blanket round the boy and go a-busking with him, as professional technicalities term it: that is, carry him round to the parlours of public-houses, and seek his reward for exhibiting the natural prodigy from the voluntary contributions of the company.” The writer of the notice implies that the elder Leach was given to abusing his son, claiming that he was neither “exceedingly abstemious nor yet over careful” and that Leach junior “often felt the effects of it.” With the death of his father Leach took over the direction of his own career, demonstrating rather more ambition and drive than the old man had, showing “himself a man of business he soon arrived the top of his profession as a master exhibitor and proprietor of a splendid travelling pavilion, with a numerous train or suite in gaudy fantastic liveries, who trumpeted his fame throughout the towns and villages in the kingdom,” where he “was considered the first object of attraction at all the fairs and rural festivities which he attended, for the peculiar structure of his person, as well as for his performances.”

According to the writer of The Herald article Leach then ran into problems in Ireland where he “had the misfortune to form a partnership with a brother exhibiter, and not being in the habit of attending to the out-door departments of the concern, he was run aground in his affairs, and was involved in many difficulties.” The Dublin Correspondent of 28 August 1823 details that among the attractions that year at Donnybrook fair were “the Irish giant; in another the American dwarf,” (as well as a “lady so highly accomplished, that you are told that she will put her body into a hundred different positions, and no two positions alike.”) The Irish Giant was almost certainly Charles Hamilton (7 foot six inches) and it seems probable that the American Dwarf was Leach.  Following his troubles in Ireland The Herald says;

he appeared in public on ordinary occasions, and only attached importance to his feats. He might then have been often seen exciting the merriment of the rustics by bis matchless drollery, as Vampo the Clown on the stages of the respectable show folks, and in this capacity be acquired great notoriety. Mr. Bannister, who was monarch of an extensive equestrian travelling establishment, afterwards allowed him the use of a horse and his riding school to practise equestrian exercises and our hero so soon became a proficient that henceforth he started in a new train of wonders as a horseman, and introduced feats before unheard of, and which none but himself are ever likely to repeat.

The tricks Leach learned at Bannister’s Circus were put to good use and soon he was appearing in theatres all over the United Kingdom. At the Olympic Circus in Newcastle, an advertisement from 1822 bills him as ‘that astonishing Phenomenon, THE AMERICAN DWARF. (One of the greatest Wonders of the age) who will ride his Act of Horsemanship on his Hands!!! And whose and Agility cannot be imitated by any other Man.’ A notice in the Tyne Mercury dated 19 November 1822 notes that the “American Dwarf, as he is called, is a kind of natural phenomenon. His face and body are those of a full-grown man, but he has no thighs, and his feet resemble those of a boy. We find that when nature denies particular members or organs, she makes up for the defect by some extraordinary gift in other respects. This American Dwarf appears to have as much strength in his hands, as others have in their feet, and shows it by walking, rather running on them perpendicularly as fast other people run or walk in the natural way.”

In November 1824 Powell’s Olympic Circus on Chichester Street in Belfast staged a performance:

For the Benefit of Mr. LEACH,
THE AMERICAN DWARF,
And his LAST NIGHT; having to fulfil Engagements in London
and Paris, who will, for this Night, take the part of
CHATTER-BOX, GOBBLE-JOKE, CLOWN
POWELL’s OLYMPIC CIRCUS
Chichester Street
This Present Evening Saturday, November 6^th
the following entirely new Performances will be
brought forward: —For this Evening only, Mr. LEACH’s
wonderful and most surprising
DESCENSION
On his Hands, from the top of ladder, FORTY FEET HIGH!!
without touching the rounds; he will also
Climb a Pole to the Roof of the Circus,
And extend himself on the top to an horizontal position, and support himself
on one hand, at same time take up several pieces of money with the other;
with numerous other unequalled Feats peculiar to himself,
and which have never been attempted by any other person. 

And if that wasn’t enough Leach would finish the evening with the circus’ equestrians, riding ‘his antipodean act of horsemanship, on his hands, the horse in full speed,’ and when he wasn’t performing, ‘tickets to be had of Mr Leach, at the circus from Eleven till Two o’clock.’

The Nelson monument at Calton Hill, Edinburgh, the scene of one of Leach's exploits in 1826

In 1826 we catch glimpses of Leach in Scotland where he played at the Caledonian Theatres in Edinburgh and Glasgow. In February he was making his way to the theatre when he was “attacked in Goosedubbs by a lame fellow, with a crutch, who attempted to snatch off his hat”, according to the Glasgow Chronicle.  “In this he failed, but soon after his accomplice succeeded in the attempt. Mr. Leech passed on, and saw his first assailant standing in an entry, and immediately seized him, and the night being exceedingly wet, threw him down in the gutter, and ducked him very handsomely. He then took his prisoner to a public-house, and detained him there till the accomplice coming in, restored Mr. Leech's property.” A couple of months later in Edinburgh, the Scotsman reported that “Mr Leach, the dwarf of the Caledonian Theatre, ascended for a wager to the top of the flag staff on Nelson's Monument, Edinburgh, to which he fixed his hat, where it still remains. The wind at the time he went up was blowing with great violence, otherwise he would have gone through some manoeuvres at that great height.”

The marriage of Harvey Leach and Elizabeth Martin at St Peter's Liverpool 22 June 1828

The Herald piece ended by noting that “should the little stranger make a hit in London at a winter house, it will be the means of shedding comfort more amply to an accomplished wife and an interesting daughter that compose the family of the American Dwarf.” Leach had married Elizabeth Martin at St Peter’s in Liverpool on the 22nd June that year. He gives his occupation as ‘Equestrian’. Although she must have been born before November 1828 to be mentioned in The Herald’s article, the couple’s daughter Elizabeth was not baptised until September 1829 at St John the Evangelist on Waterloo Road, a short distance from where they were then living at Charlotte Terrace, just off the New Cut in Lambeth. Leach gave his occupation as ‘gentleman’ on this occasion, no doubt raising some eyebrows in the church vestry. The reference to Leach’s infant daughter as ‘interesting’ in the newspaper may suggest that she too suffered from some physical abnormality. But we know very little of Leach’s family and nothing of their eventual fate; Elizabeth is sometimes mentioned as accompanying her husband’s act on the piano but I have been unable to trace her or her daughter in official records other than the marriage and baptism in Liverpool and Lambeth. 

Until 1828 when he was engaged for the Christmas Pantomime at Drury Lane, Leach seems to have worked almost exclusively in the provincial theatres or, perhaps when other work was in short supply, in the Freak shows. The Nottingham and Newark Mercury of 03 January 1829 mentions that “Mr Leech, the American dwarf who exhibited at Cooke’s Circus during Nottingham Goose fair” would be performing in the Drury Lane pantomime. In September 1828 he had appeared at London’s riotous St. Bartholomew’s Fair in Smithfields among “a collection of nondescripts, which was veritably stated to be ‘under the patronage of his Royal Highness Prince George of Cumberland, and the rest of the Faculty’!!! Under this head were exhibited, as the placard had it, ‘a nondescript pig faced lady, a Burmese giant, captured at the siege of Bhurtpore, by Lord Combermere, with his own hand, and presented with unanimous approbation to his Majesty — a wonderful Scotch Boy and an American Dwarf." (New Times (London) - Thursday 04 September 1828) Times must have been very hard for Leach to demean himself by taking part in an exhibition of nondescripts; he also now had, of course, a wife and child to provide for.  

The Drury Lane pantomime proved to be Leach’s big break. It was reviewed in the London Evening Standard of 27 December 1828 where he received a glowing notice:

DRURY LANE THEATRE The Queen Bee, or, Harlequin and the Fairy Hive, the new Christmas pantomime at this. house, was very successful last night, and we have no doubt that it will have a considerable run……Certainly, the most extraordinary exhibition of the night was the American Dwarf -a human being, whose arms serve him instead of legs, and they had need to do so, for his legs are only two or three inches long. His name is Leech; and though a native of the United States, he has been long in this country, exhibiting his most strange performances in Scotland and Ireland, as well as England, Wales, and the town of Berwick upon Tweed. He leaps down half a dozen tables placed upon each other, upon his hands only, and balances his whole body on his thumb: we are told that he can do so on horseback at full gallop, and we should say that to him nothing of the kind is impossible. He is first dressed like a gouty old man upon crutches, and then, his legs being mowed away, he slips off his dress, and appears as some wild animal, more like a bear with the activity of a monkey than anything else; and as Arbuthnot says, "Astonishes all beholders most astonishingly." His proportions above the waist seem to be those of an ordinarily well grown man. The pantomime was given out for repetition with encouraging applause.

Leach as Le Nain Americain, pictured during his time in France

There were no further London engagements, by 1829 Leach was engaged at the Theatre du Cirque Olympique (also known as the Cirque Franconi) in Paris as ‘le nain americain’, and by the end of September The Age was reporting that “Apropos of Hans of Iceland [Victor Hugo’s first novel, published in 1823]: a melodrama, founded on that extraordinary production, called The Dwarf of Sunderwald, is now performing at the Theatre Franconi, which the American dwarf, who was, I think, at the Coburg Theatre some time since, performs the principal character.” Leach spent most of the 1830’s on the continent, dropping out of sight of the English newspapers until 1837 when Freeman’s Journal reported (20 September) that “Mr Harvey Leach, the extraordinary dwarf man, with the long arms and short legs, who excited much attention in Ireland some years ago, and has since been making a tour of the continent with great success, has been performing at the Varieties in Paris, as a baboon, in a piece called Les Betes Feroces de Bois de Boulogne, to the infinite delight of the amateurs of the Boulevards, and is shortly to come out as a ‘Fly!’ and crawl about the ceiling of the theatre &c. What will our ingenious neighbours think of next?” This is the first mention of what was to become the mainstay of Leach’s act when he returned to England a few months later. There are no further mentions of his prowess as an equestrian; instead, he was become the “that extraordinary and unrivalled Metempsycosian Performer” who has been “celebrated on the continent for his wonderful illustrations of that fanciful doctrine, which in his person, must be called TRANSMIGRATION OF BODIES”. Indeed, when he returned to England he was no longer Mr Leach, the American Dwarf, but Signor Hervio Nano who Mr Yates, the manager of the Theatre Royal, Adelphi, had “succeeded, after a long correspondence with the Italian Managers of Rome, Milan, Naples &c,” in bringing to England to star in “an entirely New Bizarre Flight of Fancy, entitled THE GNOME FLY”! (advert in the Weekly True Sun of 28 January 1838). 

To be continued....