John Wyman

John Wyman Jr. (January 19, 1816 – July 31, 1881), known professionally as Wyman the Wizard, was a magician and ventriloquist who was popular in the United States during the mid-19th century. Biography Wyman was born in Albany, New York. His father, a merchant, planned a business career for him, and after attending Albany Academy Wyman found work in a Baltimore auction house. His interest in magic and ventriloquism, however, led him to begin his performing career with a show at Baltimore Museum. According to a possibly apocryphal account related to Harry Houdini, Wyman managed his own career and never had a manager except for a single 1850 appearance in New York City, managed by P. T. Barnum. However, other records indicate that he made his 1836 Baltimore debut under the management of Charles D. Selding, and for sixteen years was under the professional management of George Wood. Wyman's early skills improved after a journey abroad, during which time he likely made purchases from Voisin's Repository, a shop in Paris which sold magical novelties. He also bought a number of techniques from the Scottish magician John Henry Anderson, including the secret to performing the "Magic Cauldron," "Nest of Boxes," "Aerial Suspension," "Inexhaustible Bottle," and "Gun Trick." During his career, Wyman made a regular circuit of smaller cities and towns, which he tended to prefer over large cities. He is recorded as having performed at Lynchburg in 1855 and at Richmond in 1857, where he made use of a ventriloquist dummy and an "egg-bag." It was in 1857 that Wyman joined the committee convened to investigate the Fox sisters on behalf of the Boston Courier, eventually concluding that the sisters were fraudulent. Wyman also had the honor of performing for three U.S. presidents: Martin Van Buren, Millard Fillmore, and Abraham Lincoln. During his performance with Lincoln, Wyman produced an illusion by which several copper pennies were made to pass through the president's hand; those pennies are now among the collection of artifacts owned by David Copperfield.