Agnes Louise Mersman possessed an affinity and gift for horseback riding, and became one of America’s most famous equestriennes. She performed for some of America’s most famous circuses and later successfully ran her own. Her fame reached its pinnacle for one of the most famous murders in American history.
A New Country
Early 19th-century France was a country of political and social instability thanks to the ongoing power struggle between the Monarchist and Republican factions. Shortly after the July Revolution of 1830, in which Charles X abdicated the throne, Frederick Mersman came to America with his 4-year-old daughter, Agnes Louise Mersman (1826–1907). His wife, Anna, had died only a few months prior.
The father-daughter duo moved to Cincinnati, where Agnes Mersman developed a gift for horseback riding. Her father helped develop her skill into a circus routine, and it was in the circus where Mersman would make her name.
Love and the Circus
William Lake Thatcher began his circus career as a show horseman, but an injury relegated him to being a circus clown. When Thatcher and Mersman met in 1841, he helped get her a job in the Spalding and Rogers North American Circus. Thatcher and Mersman’s business relationship developed into something much more lasting. Around her 16th birthday in August 1842, despite her father’s disapproval, Thatcher and Mersman eloped while with the circus in Louisiana. The match proved successful in both love and business. In order to fit their name on the billings for shows, Thatcher dropped his last name, and the two were advertised as Bill and Agnes Lake.
Agnes’s circus acts included more than just equestrian showmanship. She was also a lion tamer, and more famously, a slack-wire performer, a skill she first exhibited performed in 1847. Her skill for the act eventually gave her the title of “queen of the high wire.” It was her skill on horseback, however, that truly made her name, and she soon became the nation’s most famous equestrienne. The two remained with the Spalding and Rogers North American Circus for over a decade before joining John Robinson’s Circus.
An advertisement for the circus Agnes Thatcher Lake and her first husband performed in for over a decade. (Public Domain)
The Lakes agreed to partner with John Robinson and established the Robinson & Lake’s Combined Menagerie & Circus, but the couple started saving much of their earnings to fulfill their dream of starting their own circus.
Robinson & Lake’s circus included a humorist who doubled as a Shakespearean clown, ballet performances, equestrian performances, wild animals (including ostriches, lions, tigers, bears, birds, leopards, zebras, a 17-foot-tall elk, and “The Horned Horse, the Last of His Race”), and a “grand operatic string and brass orchestra.” Bill Lake appeared as “the Northern Jester and Comic Delineator,” and “Mlle. Agnes” as “The Invisible Wire Performer.”
During time with this circus, Agnes gave birth to the couple’s only child, Emma, in 1856. During the winter of 1862, Bill made the acquaintance of James McGinnis, and introduced the young boy to Robinson. McGinnis later changed his last name to Bailey and eventually partner with P. T. Barnum, which became the Barnum & Bailey’s Greatest Show on Earth. That same year, Agnes left for Europe to tour with Barnum’s circus. When she returned in 1863, Bill had finally launched the couple’s own circus.
The Lake Circus, and Tragedy
The couple’s circus was called Lake’s Hippo-Olympiad and Mammoth Circus. It proclaimed in one 1869 newspaper advertisement to be the “largest and best circus on earth, comprising 240 men and horses.” The advertisements often referred to Bill as “The Napoleon of Showmen” and Agnes as “Madame Agnes Lake.” Her experience in Europe was used to great effect by trumpeting “her over 100 nights at the Victoria Theatre, Berlin, Prussia, where she achieved a most unparalleled success both as an actress and equestrienne.”
In the 1869 season, the Lakes planned to purchase a horse ranch in Kentucky. Tragically, during one of the season’s shows in Granby, Missouri, Bill was murdered by a disgruntled and drunken attendee, Jake Killian (or Killen), who had tried to sneak into the performance without paying. Differing reports suggest Killian drew a gun on Bill when first confronted, but was disarmed by Bill and subsequently tossed out of the tent. Unbeknown to Bill, Killian had another gun. He returned, shot, and killed him. Whether Killian was disarmed and returned with a second gun, or was tossed from the tent only to return with a pistol, shooting Bill in the chest or the head (reports differ), Agnes was now a widow.
Managing the Circus, and a Second Tragedy
Agnes buried her husband and suspended performances until she could get her and the company’s affairs in order. When she opened, she became the first woman to own and operate a circus. It continued to thrive under her guidance.
On July 31, 1871, Agnes made the acquaintance of another Bill while touring in Kansas. He was the marshal of Abilene, and his actual name was James Butler Hickok, but everyone called him “Wild Bill.” The two started a correspondence and incidentally met again Rochester, New York, while Agnes was working with the Great Eastern Circus and Hickok had joined “Buffalo Bill” Cody’s “wild west show.”
Hickok was one of America’s most famous and eligible bachelors, but when the two met again in February 1876 in Cheyenne, Wyoming, Hickok proposed. The two married on March 5. According to one newspaper report, “Wild Bill of western fame has conquered numerous Indians, outlaws, bears and buffaloes, but a charming widow has stolen the magic wand.”
Tragedy, however, would strike again in a very similar fashion. Before Agnes and Hickok met in Cheyenne, Hickok had been planning a trip to the Black Hills of the Dakotas to search for gold. Shortly after the wedding, Hickok headed off to make his fortune for his new family. In one of his letters to Agnes, he wrote, “Pet, we will have a home yet then we will be so happy.”
Wild Bill Hickok, as he was known, was Agnes Thatcher Lake's second husband. (Public Domain)
On Aug. 2, 1876, during a card game in a Deadwood, South Dakota saloon, an angry Jack McCall, whom Hickok had beaten in poker the day before, walked up behind Hickok and shot him in the back of the head, killing him instantly. Reports suggest that Agnes traveled to Deadwood the following year to place a memorial and a fence around his grave, while others suggest it was Calamity Jane, who professed to love Hickok, who did so.
A Circus of a Life Remembered
Agnes had lost two husbands to murder, but she still had her daughter, Emma, who was now married to Gil Robinson of the Robinson Circus. Emma and Gil had taken a page out of Agnes and Bill Lake’s book (as well as Gil’s parents) and eloped. The couple had two daughters, and named the first after Agnes. The second daughter died in infancy. Emma, like her mother, had a gift for horseback riding and soon became a famous equestrienne. Known as “The Beautiful Emma Lake” and trained by her mother, Buffalo Bill considered her “the greatest equestrienne in the world.”
When Agnes died in 1907, she was remembered in The Spokesman-Review newspaper in Spokane, Washington, as ”known to generations of circus lovers, and who in her time was one of the most famous bareback riders and slack-wire performers” and whose “career was an eventual one and was marked by two tragedies.”
Would you like to see other kinds of arts and culture articles? Please email us your story ideas or feedback at [email protected]
Dustin Bass is an author and co-host of The Sons of History podcast. He also writes two weekly series for The Epoch Times: Profiles in History and This Week in History.
