“The Prince of humbug,” they called him. “The Shakespeare of advertising,” “the king of adjectives.” He was a man with a genius for inspiring lucrative curiosity, like a circus parade lures spectators to the paid admission of the big top. He could convince hundreds of thousands to step right up and inspect the 160-year-old nurse of George Washington, the bearded lady, the smallest man in the world. With whirlwind tours of circus freaks, exotic animals and human feats, he cranked out humbug by the yard.

Phineas Taylor Barnum knew better than anyone else in creation that every crowd had a silver (dollar) lining. Barnum was the master mythmaker and he’s still a favorite subject of playwrights and authors because he was so upfront and amiable about his humbuggery. “There’s a sucker born every minute” is a Barnum quote entrenched in cliché history. Now more than 100 years after his death it’s in some ways fitting and in other ways sad that he is most esteemed and credited for that oft-parroted apocryphal expression. If he ever said it, no historian has ever been able to document it. The statement may have found its place as a corruption of a Barnum suggestion or attributed to Barnum by one of his circus rivals.

The real legacy of Barnum—showman, circus innovator, author, philosopher, humanitarian, public servant, humorist and even Bridgeport mayor—has been clouded over by the obfuscation of the man’s many promotions.