Props to H. B.

[Mayerling]

Thanks Jeff...great material there !
When you brought up the Draft Riots, I thought that they might have been a factor in Tumblety steering clear of NYC and heading to the western part of New York State. However, those riots occurred on the 13th through the 16th, the middle of the month.
You might have missed the one scan I posted of the performance of the The Marble Heart..which Booth did perform in Philadelphia, but not Buffalo when he was there during July.

Hi Howard,

I seemed to recall a mention in an earlier posting of Booth in his only self-written part. I have never read "The Marble Heart", so I can only assume it is...err...typical of the claptrap that was popular dramaturgy in Britain, the U.S., and most of Europe in the 19th Century (possibly the most dismal century of recent ones in terms of creating living theatre - at least until Ibsen, Shaw, Pinero, Gilbert, Jones, Chekhov, Wilde, and Strindberg show up at the end of the century). The only successful one from earlier in the British Isles and America who still pops up is Dion Boucicault ("The Octoroon", "London Assurance", "The Colleen Bawn"), while a few of the French ones (Victorien Sardou, Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas Pere, and Alexandre Dumas Fils - the latter for "Camille"), and one Russian (Gogol - for "The Inspector Genera) hang in there.

A small volume of Wilkes Booth's surviving writings was published in the 1990s, and included the text of "The Marble Heart".

Maybe it was realizing what crap his repertory actually was made up of that turned Booth off from a stage career. Most likely though it wasn't.

Jeff

[mklhawley]

Outstanding, Howard! The volume of angles to work from here is incredible. Jeff's probably the only one more excited than me.

Sincerely,
Mike

[Mayerling]

Outstanding, Howard! The volume of angles to work from here is incredible. Jeff's probably the only one more excited than me.

Sincerely,
Mike

Damn straight about that Mike. Not only does it allow me to show my knowledge of theatre history, but it touches on my love of American Civil War era history and the soon to be 150th Anniversary of Lincoln's Assassination!

Jeff

[Howard Brown]

I did a little searchin' and found that Booth's sister, Asia Booth Clarke, owned a home on 13th & Callowhill ( downtown Philadelphia ) in the late 1850's. IF Asia and her husband still lived there in 1863, its likely Booth stayed there and not at the Girard House, which stood at 9th & Chestnut, a fairly prestigious hotel in those days...actually a place you can imagine Booth wanting to stay at.
Tumblety stayed at the Girard House during 1863 before fleeing the city in late May.
If Booth was at that location and Tumblety was at Girard House...that's a 15 minute walk from Booth's sister's crib to Tumblety at the Girard House.
By the way, and I can't pin down the date....Booth got into a fistfight with a guy ( Figures, its Philly ! ), an actor named Roberts at the Girard House.
Back to the mines......

[Mayerling]

I did a little searchin' and found that Booth's sister, Asia Booth Clarke, owned a home on 13th & Callowhill ( downtown Philadelphia ) in the late 1850's. IF Asia and her husband still lived there in 1863, its likely Booth stayed there and not at the Girard House, which stood at 9th & Chestnut, a fairly prestigious hotel in those days...actually a place you can imagine Booth wanting to stay at.
Tumblety stayed at the Girard House during 1863 before fleeing the city in late May.
If Booth was at that location and Tumblety was at Girard House...that's a 15 minute walk from Booth's sister's crib to Tumblety at the Girard House.
By the way, and I can't pin down the date....Booth got into a fistfight with a guy ( Figures, its Philly ! ), an actor named Roberts at the Girard House.
Back to the mines......

Hi Howard,

From what I recall, Asia was Wilkes' favorite sibling, so it is possible he did stay with her and her husband while in Philadelphia, but he also did enjoy the amenities and luxuries of being in that first or second generation of American stage celebrities living in the finest hostelries in the major cities.

One problem Wilkes had as the War continued was his morose anger at Yankee victory talk. In November 1864 Wilkes was in New York City, as he was to appear (for the only time in all their careers) with brothers Edwin and Junius Brutus Jr. on stage in a special benefit production of Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" (ironically, given future history, Wilkes played "Marc Anthony", while his brothers were "Brutus/Edwin" and "Cassius/Junius"). The appearance of the three together (there is a famous photo still of them that is frequently reproduced) was on the night of that attack I mentioned by Confederate agents led by Col. Robert Martin and John Headley on the city, resulting in some damaging hotel fires and an attack on the piers and wharfs as well as Phineas Barnum's "American Museum".*

[*An interesting sidelight to the attack and the performance of the Booth Brothers was that as the fire alarms and fire engines roared throughout Manhattan that night (New York City was much smaller, concentrated really below 14th Street for the most part), the audience at the theatre panicked. While Edwin and Wilkes attempted to calm everyone from the stage, one of the audience people stood up and began to speak too and helped restore order our of the potential disaster. This was Mr. John McCunn, then a rising Police Court Judge, and his quick actions saved the people from injuring themselves. McCunn would eventually become a New York State Supreme Court Judge through his membership in Tammany Hall, but would be under a cloud due to his connection to Boss Tweed, and would be removed from the bench in 1873 (unfortunately he died shortly afterwards). It's interesting that McCunn acted so intelligently during the attack, as it is remarkably like his friend Tweed's similarly brave and intelligent behavior cooling down segments of the Draft Riot mobs a year earlier.]

Despite efforts by historians like Nat Brandt ["The Man Who Tried to Burn New York"]. Wilkes has never been found to be linked to this attack. But Wilkes stayed at Edwin's Gramercy Park home (the current "Player's Club"), and they had a major row the following day when Wilkes basically defended the attackers (it would have been like a New Yorker post "9/11" defending the "terrorists"). As a result Edwin, ever the loyal Union supporter, threw Wilkes out of his home.

I mention all this because Asia and her husband were like Edwin, in their pro-Union stand, and if the Draft Rioting of July 1863 incited Wilkes' southern patriotism he might have had a similar confrontation with his sister.

Jeff

[Howard Brown]

Excellent stuff, Jeff. Thank you !
Ran into a bit of a brick wall trying to find another reference to Booth & Tumblety, aside from that newspaper article.
I'll keep at it.

[Mayerling]

Excellent stuff, Jeff. Thank you !
Ran into a bit of a brick wall trying to find another reference to Booth & Tumblety, aside from that newspaper article.
I'll keep at it.

I look forward to it when you do Howard.

Jeff

[mklhawley]

Hi Jeff,

Quick question - Did David Herold work for Tumblety (1864) before he met Booth?

Mike