USA > California > San Francisco County > San Francisco > San Francisco, a history of the Pacific coast metropolis, Volume I > Part 60
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Lotta Crabtree who attained to extraordinary popularity during the Sixties, is another actress who had the endearing "our" applied to her by all San Franciscans. She was born in New York City in 1847 and was brought by her mother to Cali- fornia, and lived in La Porte, Plumas county, during her childhood. In 1856 she danced at the American theater and her career was fixed for her by the enthusiastic audience. In 1860 on the opening night of the Apollo New Melodeon on Market street, she began her professional career in real earnest, and in 1864 she had made such a reputation for herself that she received an invitation to appear at Niblo's in New York. While acting in the East, Lotta was always known as "the California Girl." Her success on the other side of the Rocky Mountains was as great as it had been in San Francisco, and when she returned to the City, San Franciscans appropriated her honors and made them part of its dramatic history. In 1869, at
Drama During the Sixties
Ada Isaacs Menkin as Mazeppa
Actors and People
"Our Lotta"
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a farewell benefit Lotta was presented with a wreath of gold and a package of $20 gold pieces by her admirers. Later, in 1876, she reciprocated by presenting to the City the drinking fountain which marks the busiest spot in the City in which she won her first triumphs.
Benefit Performances
The early practice of throwing nuggets and coins on the stage did not persist many years in San Francisco, but the strong predilection for the drama found ex- pression in many other ways, some of which, while not original, attained a rela- tively greater vogue than in many of the Eastern cities where appreciation of the actor and his art was not so highly developed as it was in this City in the Sixties. The number of benefit performances during this decade, and the one preceding it, was very great, and the reciprocal relations implied are in marked contrast to the matter of fact attitude of the public since catering amusement for the public has become a strictly business proposition. If an actor was popular they gave him a benefit to emphasize the fact; if he was out of luck and needed to have his purse replenished the public turned out to help fill it; if he died impecunious he was buried with the aid of a benefit. The manager had benefits when he did well because the theatergoers desired to show their appreciation of the ability with which he con- ducted his place of amusement; if he had a bad season a testimonial performance was given to make his balance sheet look better.
But the benefit business was by no means a one sided affair. If the public was frequently invited to help the profession, it was by no means slow in calling upon actors and managers to help forward every movement of a public character. All the hospitals were constantly being helped in this fashion. Did a newly formed military company wish to provide itself with a stunning uniform a benefit was given, and the older organizations when they felt like furbishing up would apply to the actors, and never in vain. In the Fifties, and until the volunteer fire organizations gave place to a paid department in 1865, the various companies seemed to have ben- efits at regularly recurring intervals. On these occasions the organization to be benefited would turn out in full force, properly uniformed, and all their friends bought tickets and went to the show which would invariably be a bumper affair, evoking an enthusiasm which did much to promote that love of the drama which was so characteristic of San Francisco, and for many years gave it the reputation of being, in the parlance of the profession, "a great show town."
There were other modes in which the San Franciscan delighted to show his appreciation of the dramatic art and its exponents. In 1866 Edwin Forrest, esteemed as the greatest tragedian of his times, appeared in San Francisco. The opening night was May 11th, and as the demand for seats was great the expedient of auctioning them was resorted to by the management. R. I. Tiffany obtained first choice, paying $500 for the privilege, and $437 were paid as premiums for 58 other seats disposed of under the hammer. The remainder of the house was sold out in the regular way, and at good prices. The engagement was a great pecuniary success and when it was concluded the San Francisco critics were united in the opinion that Forrest was the greatest tragedian of the age. He played dur- ing the time lie was at the Washington street opera house, Richelieu, in which part he made his first appearance; Virginius, Lear, Othello, Damon, Macbeth, Brutus, the Broker of Bogota and Jack Cade several times. In other plays of his repertory he appeared less frequently although he was urged to repeat them by his admirers.
Edwin Forrest's Great Popularity
Appreciative Actors
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SAN FRANCISCO
Among the actors who came from the East with Forrest was John Mccullough. He played with the great actor on the opening night and took the part of De Mau- prat in "Richelieu," making a distinctly favorable impression. He succeeded in winning many friends through his genial manners, among them the banker, William C. Ralston, who took a lively interest in the drama and conceived the idea that it would be a distinct advantage to the community to have a theater presided over by a man of real histrionic talent. Later when the opportunity presented itself Ralston, who for a period was the local Maecenas, was instrumental in promoting a movement which resulted in the building of the California theater, the management of which was tendered to Mccullough. The new place of amusement was opened on January 18, 1869, by McCullough, who had associated with him Barrett, and for a period the theater had a remarkable success. Forrest had predicted that the mantle of his greatness would fall on the shoulders of Mccullough, but the latter never realized this expectation. He had modeled himself closely upon his great patron, and his impersonations were characterized by so many of the peculiarities of Forrest, a strong disposition existed to accept him at the tragedian's valuation; but the critics, despite their partiality for Mccullough as a fellow citizen, for he had virtually become a Californian, before a couple of years had passed were pleased to find fault with his imitativeness, and condemned as mannerisms tricks of rhetoric and action which only a short time previously they had extolled as the perfection of dramatic art.
Edward Harrigan, who at a later period developed the play illustrative of tenement house life in New York, and which had a great vogue for a while, com- menced his theatrical career in the Bella Union theater in San Francisco in 1868. He was a great favorite and to some extent the precursor of the monologuist of the modern vaudeville stage. The minstrel troupes of the Sixties following the example, it is said, of a Philadelphia burnt cork "artist," usually included as a feature of their entertainments a stump speech which, as the name implies, parodied politics. Harrigan's "stunt" was more in the nature of singing, interspersed with remarks which he made with a naturalness suggesting spontaneity, and doubtless much of his talk had that element, for he was fond of chaffing the gallery and measuring his wits against those of "the gods." Annie Yeamans, who contributed so largely to the success of Harrigan's plays appeared at the Eureka theater in San Fran- cisco in 1865. A local newspaper, when Harrigan's plays began to attract atten- tion in New York in the late Seventies, stated that the versatility shown by Mrs. Yeamans in 1865 in Irish comedy parts helped to crystallize the idea which he already at that time entertained of writing a series of plays of the sort which met with such a warm welcome when they were produced in the Eastern metropolis.
During the Fifties and Sixties Irish melodrama and comedy had a great vogue in San Francisco. In 1854 Mr. and Mrs. Barney Williams, "the Irish boy and the Yankee girl" took the town by storm. Charles Wheatleigh who had won consid- erable popularity in 1854 and 1856 returned to the City in 1860, and played en- gagements in every year of the decade in such pieces as "Arrah No Pogue" and the "Connie Soogah," the popularity of which showed no signs of waning until well into the Seventies. In 1869 John Brougham, an Irish American actor of consider- able note, gratified the partiality for this school of acting and was very well received. In the same year John T. Raymond, who subsequently popularized the character of Colonel Sellars in Mark Twain's "Gilded Age," played an engagement in San
John McCul- lough's San Francisco Career
Edward Harrigan
Irish Plays in the Sixties
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SAN FRANCISCO
Francisco, but he appears to have made no marked impression, although he found his way back to the City regularly every year between 1869 and 1876 when he was the star in Twain's play. Another American who afterward attained great promi- nence and won for himself an enduring fame appeared at the Opera House on July 8, 1861, in burlesque. They called him "Joe" Jefferson then; later when he attained his extraordinary success in "Rip Van Winkle" he became Joseph Jefferson.
It would be an oversight to neglect mention of the fact that during the Six- ties returning favorites frequently had their opening night ovations anticipated by demonstrations such as visiting delegations and serenades. These exhibitions of appreciation were usually reserved for the feminine professionals, and were not in- frequently prompted by the desire to reciprocate courtesies as in the case of Madame Anna Bishop, who on her return to San Francisco in 1865, was serenaded at the Occidental hotel by the Philharmonic society as a testimonial of its appreciation of the part she had played in fostering the love of music in the City.
Vaudeville had an early vogue in San Francisco, and there were numerous houses at different times devoted to that form of entertainment. They were usually known as music halls or "Melodeons," but while they enjoyed a large patronage they never were fashionable and nearly all of them during the Sixties were rather indiscriminately classed with, or put on the same plane as the dance hall, which was usually, when at all pretentious, conducted after the style of the Parisian "Cafe Chantant." There was not even a remote approach to exclusiveness, and as a result the audiences were rather mixed, a fact which tended to debar many from enjoying very good performances, as there was generally a fairly good supply of "talent" to draw upon for specialties. The demand for entertainment during this period was so marked that year after year an organization known as "The Old Folkes" gave successful concerts, filling houses night after night. As the Philhar- monic and the Handel and Hayden society, the Amphion quartette and similar organizations devoted to the interpretation of classical compositions were in the habit of giving performances in public halls, at this time it may be said that the musical taste of San Franciscans was very catholic.
The theatrical business of San Francisco shared the vicissitudes of the City. So many houses of entertainment were burned during the early Fifties and recon- structed that chronologists found it necessary to distinguish them by prefixing the words "first" or "second" and sometimes "third." There was a great partiality exhibited for English names, but some departures in the direction of originality were made in the selection of designation. Jenny Lind, who became famous about the time of the gold discovery, was honored by having three separate theaters named after her. The first and second built in 1850 and 1851 were destroyed by fire, and the third was converted into a city hall. They were erected on the east side of the Plaza, now known as Portsmouth square, on the spot where the new Hall of Jus- tice now stands. All the amusement places of the Fifties were in this vicinity. The Adelphi (first) was on the south side of Clay street, and the second of that name was on Dupont between Clay and Washington. The Italian theater was on the corner of Jackson and Kearny, the National on the north side of Washington near Kearny; Washington hall, opened December 24, 1849, was on Washington between Dupont and Kearny; the Phoenix Exchange opened March 24, 1850, was on Portsmouth square; on August 13, 1850, the Atheneum opened with model artists on Commercial street between Montgomery and Kearny; Armory hall, afterward
Location of Theaters
Compliments to Actors
Early Vaudeville
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the Olympic, was first on the corner of Washington and Sansome streets and was reopened on the corner of Sansome and Jackson in 1856; the American theater (first) erected in 1851 was on the northeast corner of Halleck and Sansome; it was rebuilt on the same spot December 4, 1854. On May 19, 1851, the Theater of Arts opened on Jackson near Dupont. The circuses were in the same neighborhood. Foley's Olympic, formerly Rowe's, which opened for bull fights in May, 1860, the Mission being considered too remote for such spectacles, was on Montgomery be- tween Sacramento and California; his new amphitheater was on the west side of Portsmouth square, as was also Donati's museum opened in 1850.
There was no tendency to move from this location during the sixty decade, the most adventuresome manager penetrating no further south than Market between Second and Third streets. The Lyceum theater which was situated in the upper part of the building on the northwest corner of Montgomery and Washington streets was destroyed by fire in December, 1860. The Apollo Variety hall was opened on the south side of Market, near Third on November 14, 1860. In 1868 the second American theater, which had been used chiefly for French and Ger- man performances during the three or four years preceding was destroyed by fire. In 1857 the first Metropolitan theater on Montgomery between Washington and Jackson streets was destroyed by fire. It was rebuilt and reopened on the same site April 11, 1861. For many years it was the best theater building in San Fran- cisco, and on its boards appeared many distinguished actors and noted singers. It was the fashionable opera house during several years, and its prestige survived until the construction of the California theater on Bush street between Kearny and Dupont, which opened on the night of January 18, 1869. The Academy of Music, on the north side of Pine, east of Montgomery, was opened by Maguire May 19, 1864, but only survived as a play house until August, 1866, when the building was sold and converted into stores. The Eureka theater was opened on December 18, 1862, on the east side of Montgomery between California and Pine; three years later it was converted into an anatomical museum. The Musical hall on the south side of Bush between Montgomery and Sansome which was much used for concerts was destroyed by fire January 23, 1860, and Platt's hall on Montgom- ery street on the site of the present Mills' building took its place.
The first dramatic performance in San Francisco was given in Washington hall, on December 24, 1849, when "The Wife" was performed by a company driven out of Sacramento by the flood of that winter. The cast contains names which even old timers hesitate to say were those of actors deserving of having their names handed down to posterity, but the faithful diarist we have so freely drawn upon thought differently and has preserved them for us. They were J. B. Atwater as "St. Pierre," H. F. Daly as "Ferrado," J. H. McCabe as "Father Antonio," and Mrs. Frank Ray as "Mariana." The writer of the "annals" ignores this perform- ance probably because he did not regard the actors as professionals. Between that eventful Christmas eve and the opening of the Seventies, San Francisco's hospitable boards welcomed all sorts of entertainments, but there was little variation in their character during the entire period. The records show that the City enjoyed all that was going, but the Fifties and the Sixties from beginning to end were given up to the same sort of operas, tragedies and melodramas. There was not much craving for novelty. The patrons of amusements found their greatest satisfaction in comparison. They did not care half so much to see a new play as they did to measure the perform-
Amusement Center in the Sixties
First Dramatic Performance
442
SAN FRANCISCO
ance of a new star against the achievement of some earlier favorite. They were exact- ing critics and singers and actors alike were apt to respect their judgment. And they were not slow to admit that their audiences generally were as sympathetic as their ex- pressions were candid.
Society in a Forma- tive Stage
It has been remarked of San Francisco that in the Sixties society was in the formative stage, and that the social diversions of the people were so few that they turned to the professional amusement caterer more readily than the people of other sections of the Union. The comment had some foundation in fact. "Society" is a slow growth; it does not admit of being imported in blocks. In new communities its progress beyond the church sociable function is not rapid. It retains the demo- cratic impress until a new generation comes on the scene. Until the youngsters of the pioneers grew up, and compelled their parents to exercise circumspection in the matter of association people were not very particular as to whom they mingled with. The Sixties showed some diminution in the laxity of social view point, but San Franciscans were still far removed from that punctiliousness which exacts as a passport to familiar acquaintance some knowledge of antecedents, and there was as yet no approach to that form of exclusiveness which the owners of money create for themselves.
The Fire Fighting Organizations
The volunteer fire organizations, composed as they were in the Fifties, of the best as well as some of the worst men in the community, were nicely graduated in the popular mind. There were some companies which by common consent were classed as "high toned," while others were merely respectable. The same was true of the militia companies. Firemen and citizen soldiery were animated by the same motives. They were all zealous cooperators in fighting fire, and quite ready to work shoulder to shoulder for the common defense if called upon to do so, but there was a disposition to draw the line at other times, and in the language of a con- temporary writer, care was taken in some of the more exclusive organizations "to not admit every Tom, Dick and Harry." But once admitted to a "high toned" company, Tom, Dick, or whatever his name may have been, belonged to the aristocracy and took part in its diversions.
Paid Fire Department Created
In 1865 the volunteer fire organizations of San Francisco were superseded by a paid fire department. The change was to some extent made necessary by the weakening of the volunteer spirit and the increasing demand for discipline and watchfulness imposed by the growth of the City. Buildings were being erected over a constantly extending area, and as they were largely constructed of frame the number of alarms became too numerous to permit an economic response under the old system. There was also a tendency on the part of the members of some companies to make their houses a lounging place, and a growing apprehension that skilful manipulation might convert them into parts of a political machine. These and other causes combined to make the most zealous volunteers of the early days welcome the abandonment of the old system and the substitution for it of the com- pensation plan.
Patriotic Firemen
When the volunteer fire organizations passed out of existence one of the most picturesque features of San Francisco life disappeared. For many years the handsome apparatus of the numerous companies had been the chief attraction of the parades organized to celebrate national holidays and signalize other occasions. The members took a great pride in making their displays effective and were always ready to turn out, and thus they contributed to keep the fires of patriotic feeling
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SAN FRANCISCO
glowing brightly. The Fourth of July celebrations prior to 1865 were not per- functory affairs. The community generally took an earnest interest in them, and the spirit engendered by the association of citizens in their engine houses had much to do with the existence of the strong disposition to give outward expression to pa- triotic feeling. After 1865 there was a distinct lessening of interest, and in the course of a few years Independence Day ceased to have anything more than a formal recognition.
The fires of patriotism were kept alive for a few years after the exit of the volunteer firemen by the militia companies which came into existence during the Civil war and retained popularity until the National Guard usurped their place. The soldiery produced by the old system was a very miscellaneous affair and was scarcely calculated to inspire confidence in it as an arm of the national defense. At first the militia was distinctively American. During the Fifties most of the militia organizations had the national impress, but during the Sixties a foreigner viewing a parade in San Francisco might easily mistake the participants for repre- sentatives of the various nations of the world. It is true that all the militia marched under the Stars and Stripes, but very often the company banners would so far surpass in gorgeousness of display the red, white and blue of the United States as to irresistibly suggest that the latter was a secondary consideration.
There was nothing that more conspicuously displayed the cosmopolitanism of San Francisco during the Sixties than these military organizations. Census figures conveyed but a faint idea of the truth; the marching foreign hosts, bearing arms, and insistently proclaiming their nationality hammered it home with a force which later exerted itself with such effect that the anomaly practically disappeared. A simple enumeration of the titles of the militia companies is all that is required to make clear the extent of a practice which bordered on the absurd, but which might easily have become vicious. The list of companies embraced the New York Volun- teers, Michigan Volunteers, California Volunteers, First Infantry Battalion, Wal- lace Guards, Union Guard, Ellsworth Rifles, Irish Battalion, Independent National Guard, National Guard, San Francisco Schuetzen Verein, California Fusileers, California Rangers, Second Irish Regiment, McClellan Guard, Zouaves, Washington Light Infantry, Shield's Guard, Columbia Guard, Sixth German Regiment, San Francisco Cadets, State Guards, Ellsworth Zouave Cadets, Dragoons, Hibernia Greens, Liberty Guard, San Francisco Hussars, Governor's Guard, Sherman Guard, Veteran Corps, California Tigers, San Francisco Light Guard, Independent California Grenadiers, Mackenzie Zouaves, Excelsior Guards, Sumner Light Guard, Sarsfield Guard, I. R. A. Twenty-first Regiment, City Guard, Lafayette Guard, Laredo Guard, Guardia de Jaurez, Franklin Light Infantry, Germania Rifles and the Montgomery Guard.
These companies when they turned out made a brave display. Their uniforms were as varied as their names. Brilliant colors were highly favored, the wide, flowing red breeches of the French Zouaves being particularly affected. The dis- position to copy the garb of foreign soldiers was general, even the American com- panies disdaining to wear the sober national blue. The company flags almost in- variably were more costly and beautiful than the national colors, being adorned with bullion and fringe while in many instances the American ensign had to depend on the simple effectiveness of its design. As a spectacle the militia soldiery of the
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Citizen Soldiery in the Sixties
Foreigners and Their Military Companies
Showy Uniforms of Citizen Soldiery
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Sixties in San Francisco was decidedly more interesting than the plainly uniformed National Guard of the present day, but its appearance was far less inspiring.
In the Fifties a spectacle in which school children figured could be relied upon to excite as much interest and afford as much satisfaction as a display of soldiery. This partiality endured throughout the Sixties. The May day celebration at Woodward's Garden always drew a large concourse to that pleasure ground. On May 1, 1870, there was such a gathering to which all the school children were in- vited by the proprietor to attend free of charge, with their teachers, and asked to bring with them their singing book, "The Golden Wreath," and join in the grand concert at 11 A. M. The following selections were sung: "Spring Delights are Now Returning," "Full and Harmonious," "Far, Far Upon the Sea," "Listen to the Mocking Bird," "Happy Land," "Come Let Us Ramble" and "Home, Sweet Home." It is interesting to note that "the young ladies, misses and teachers" were carried free by the City Railroad Company, and that they all had an opportunity to see "Mammoth Dick, the biggest ox in the world, height seven feet, weight 4,400 pounds," as he happened to be the leading attraction aside from the May day celebrants.
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