Today is the birthday of Edmund Newell (1857-1919), usually billed as either Major Edward Newell [sic] or General Grant Jr. One of many little people in the employ of P.T. Barnum, he is best known today for having married Lavinia Warren’s sister Minnie in 1877. She died in childbirth a year later, whereupon Newell moved to London and married a woman of conventional height named Mary Ann Drake.
For more on performing little people please check out Rose’s Royal Midgets and Other Little People in Vaudeville.
(Travalanche) 