“The . . . equestrian called “The North Star”. . . Levi J. North was small, only five feet six, but so proportioned that he looked his best on the back of a horse. . . . Just twelve years old, he made his debut in 1826. . . . Before long, North’s dark-skinned, light-haired good looks and consummate grace on horseback had made him the leading principal rider in the United States. . . .

In fact, using the word star to mean a person distinguished in his field may have originated with North. “The North Star brightens the ring,” one newspaper put it, and so it was for forty years, either in his own circus or those of others.”

—John Culhane, from The American Circus: An Illustrated History, 1990.