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Seth Benedict Howes (August 15, 1815 - May 16, 1901 ) has been called “The father of the American Circus”   and was “famous when [P. T. Barnum] was still wondering what peanuts were.” He was born in Sodom, New York, the son of Daniel and Ruhama Reed Howes. He was one of twelve children, six of whom were boys.

When he was 16, he joined with his older brother Nathaniel A. Howes (who, along with Hackaliah Bailey, was an owner of “Old Bet” the elephant who met an sad end in 1816) to create a traveling menagerie. They went to Mobile, Alabama where they acquired a lioness and her two cubs. These were the first lion cubs to be shown in The United States. In the 1830s the traveling menageries common in the Hudson Valley of New York expanded to include trick horseback riders. From roughly 1832 to 1838 Seth was the equestrian manager for his brother Nathan’s menagerie and show. He also performed as the Peruvian Hunter or a South American Indian Chief in daring tricks with spear, shield, war club, or bow and arrow. In 1848 he and his brothers Nathan and Jacob combined form the Great Howes American Circus, the largest of its time. After Nathan’s death he continued to work as an equestrian manager and rider for small menageries in the New York area.

In 1851 along with P. T. Barnum, In 1851 he imported the first herd of elephants (10 in all) and the first drove of camels trained to work in harness. He joined with Barnum and manager Lewis Lent to form Barnum’s Great Asiatic Caravan. In 1852, while in Paris, he visited Henry Franconi, the owner of the Great Paris Hippodrome and decided to found a similar attraction in the United States, opening in 1853. While on tour he engaged the Siamese twins Chang and Eng and Tom Thumb in 1855 (P.T. Barnum is generally given credit for this.)

In 1856 he, along with Joseph Cushing, took the Great United States Circus (as it was then called) to London where it stayed until the end of the Civil War. There he acquired a team of seventy cream-colored horses which he used to draw a circus wagon and formed an American Indian Troupe (whose authenticity is debatable) which proved to be a great attraction. In 1865 he returned to this country with what was then called Seth B. Howes Great European Circus featuring a whole den of lions and a circus parade with ornate circus wagons.

Though he went into semi-retirement in 1865 the call of the circus beckoned and in 1870 and formed yet another circus, Seth B. Howes Great London Circus, which he brought back to the United States in 1871. He turned this over to his twin sons, Egbert and Elbert, and then retired to managing his real estate and railroad holdings in Chicago. The Great Howes London Circus was sold to James A. Bailey in 1879. In 1881 Bailey partnered with P.T. Barnum and James L. Hutchinson to form the Barnum London Circus. later The Greatest Show on Earth.

Seth died in 1901 at his mansion “Morningthorpe” in Brewster, New York, a wealthy man. The Howes, the Baileys and the Barnums are all interred in Milltown Cemetery in Brewster, New York.