Now and Then "Devoted to Local History, Amusement, Instruction and Advancement of the Borough and the Valley of Muncy, Penna." was a privately printed magazine published at irregular intervals between the years 1868 and 1878. Its publisher was Jeremiah Meitzler Mohr Gernerd, who started a music and variety store in Muncy, Pennsylvania, which he continued until 1872. His magazine was devoted to preserving local history in the Muncy area of Lycoming County.

The following story from 1888, talks about the arrival of the North American Circus of Spalding and Rogers in September of 1849. It caused a great deal of excitement, and also provided what Gernerd called a “humbug.”

THE FORTY HORSE SHOW

The North American Circus, of which Spalding & Rogers were proprietors, was advertised three or four weeks in advance in the Muncy Luminary, and conspicuously posted in all the taverns in the valley, and throughout all the adjacent country. Then shows visited our town much oftener, averaging probably one a month in some seasons, and it seems to us that they were always far better patronized than now. And looking back at them again, as we saw them with our very young eyes, it also seems to us that they were then a great deal better. The admission to each was only 25 cents, but it made the boys save, and ready for odd jobs, to raise the quarters needed on show days. To be deprived of the pleasure of going to the show was something not then compliantly endured by a boy. And well the showman understood how to attract the crowd. Advertising was almost reduced to a science, and the artifices resorted to were almost endless. The North American was pre-eminently successful in its advertising tricks, for, as already stated, no show ever before or since drew such a multitude together in Muncy.

But the great ruse that drew and disappointed, and yet intently amused the crowd, was the wonderful mechanism that was to make the music in the street parade and in the show.

The bills represented it as a great, imposing structure about the size of a Reading Railroad baggage car and described it as " by far the most stupendous musical project of the age, composed of over 1,000 distinct musical instruments, more powerful than a band of fifty musicians, and drawn by forty horses." It was the Apollonicon, as the stupendous thing was called, and the amazing forty horsepower by which it was to be drawn, and by which we have been told some even supposed it was to be operated, that brought the yeomanry to town and that crowded Main Street for squares into a jam. It was truly a big affair, as described, and was drawn by forty horses, as advertised, but some things were said about it that naturally caused some disappointment. It was declared, for instance, that the music could be plainly heard at a distance of five miles. The truth was it could hardly be heard at the distance of five town blocks.

We remember hearing John DeHass say that he and his sister drove down from Montoursville, and it being the time for the street display when they were about five miles from town, they stopped and listened, and as they drew nearer paused from time to time to listen, but never heard a note of music until almost up against the wonderful musical project of the age. Some declared it was only an old, abandoned church organ. The statement that it was composed of over 1,000 distinct musical instruments was now understood to mean that the stupendous thing was only composed of over 1,000 distinct “pieces.” It had, as some of the more inquisitive persons soon discovered, a hidden bank of keys, like the keys of an organ, and was played by a man concealed within the ponderous case.

But it brought in the multitude, and was therefore a successful musical project. It was something, too, to see forty horses drawing such a pile. The affair was therefore regarded in a very good-natured way as a grand musical joke. It has often and truthfully been observed that we Americans love to be humbugged.