Information about the Lambertville Music Circus Website

About This Website

This site was launched on January 16, 2005. It was re-launched on September 1, 2021 using 'responsive web design' to accommodate devices with various screen sizes.

The intent and purpose of this website is to document and preserve the history of St. John Terrell's Lambertville Music Circus by gathering and displaying materials from Internet databases and news articles, existing printed material, and gracious contributors who were as touched and influenced by the theater on Music Mountain as I was.

A setback in the effort to do such a history was tragically impeded in the 1980s by a fire that destroyed a barn where Mr. Terrell had stored his extensive collection of memorabilia, files, photos and other artifacts he had collected over the 20 years the Music Circus existed.

This is a non-commercial, informational site maintained by volunteers. It is our effort to make the information presented on this web site as accurate as possible. However, we gather our information from many different sources. Consequently some data may be inaccurate, or even contradict other information presented. If you find any inaccuracies and wish to have them corrected, please contact us; include the web page address, the information you believe to be inaccurate and the correction you wish made.

If you find exaggeration, puffery, or grandiosity, remember, this is the Theatre.

Please Note:
I have tried to give credit and provide a web links to every resource where I found or was sent information for this site. Over time some of these links will probably stop working as web pages and sites are changed or no longer exist. I will still keep them as a record of where the information or photos were originally obtained.

About the Developer

For years I have intended to write about my few years of experiences at the Lambertville Music Circus. At times it was going to be a book, then a movie; I even imagined what a good TV show it would make. Not because of what I did while working there, but what I saw and experienced. The theater, as we all know, is rife with wonderful, colorful personalities and characters. The great and small glories and heartbreaks I witnessed in the 5 years I was there must be only a small glimpse of the many stories played out over the 21 years the Music Circus existed.

Of course, I was a young stage-struck kid and was lucky enough to get a few small roles, like the one pictured with me and Mr. Terrell, and in the chorus of "Bye Bye Birdie," and would you believe, "Three Penny Opera." But most of my time was spent either running scenery, working in the scene shop, or in the box office. It didn't matter. I was around the theater and the people I loved.

So, before there is a book or TV show, there is this web site. I hope to be able to fill it with photos, stories, and memories of this very magical time on a hilltop above Lambertville, NJ.

Please help me by letting others you know who might have something to contribute visit this site. Thank you.

Jon Case as Elliot Roosevelt and St. John Terrell as Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 'Sunrise at Campobello' — Jon Case as Elliot Roosevelt and St. John Terrell as Franklin Delano Roosevelt in "Sunrise at Campobello" September 20 to October 2, 1960. Shirl Conway played Eleanor and Nancy Cushman played FDR's mother, Sara Delano Roosevelt.