History of Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana, Part 48

Author: Sulgrove, Berry R. (Berry Robinson), 1828-1890
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts & Co.
Number of Pages: 942

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for the " log-cabin" Presidential campaign, rings, and like articles.

The first performance was of Robert Dale Owen's historical drama called " Pocahontas," accurate his- torically, dreary histrionically. It was written in Mr. Owen's youth, and forgotten by himself and every- body else in his riper years and wider fame. But the novelty of a play performed by our own boya in their own theatre, with their own scenery and music, made it "keep the stage," as the phrase goes, at irregular intervals for a year, sometimes for the benefit of charity, sometimes for diversion. James G. Jordan played Capt. John Smith ; James Mc- Cready, Powhattan ; William Wallace, Pocahontas ; Davis Miller, John T. Morrison, and James McVey the minor parts. A year or two after the first season of the " corps," Mr. E. S. Tyler became a member and "first comedy man." Then the per- formances took on a little variety. The " Golden Farmer" was produced, with Jordan as the Farmer, McCready as Old Mob, and Tyler as Jimmy Twitch- er. Mr. Tyler made a "hit" that in these days would have made his fortune. The "Brigands" was also produced occasionally, Jordan as Massa- roni, with the song of " Love's Ritornella." To- wards the end of this season Mr. Nat. C. Cook, son of John Cook, the first State librarian, who had been playing subordinate parts at "Shire's Garden" Theatre, Cincinnati, came here on a visit to his parents, and, of course, was invited to appear with the " corps." The piece was Home's "Douglas." He played Young Norval; Jordan, Glenalvon ; Miller, Lady Douglas ; John Morrison, Lord Doug- las. Cook did fairly, but Jordan was far better, and was a "born actor, if there ever was one." The farce of the "Two Gregories" ended the perform- ance and the " corps." It went out in a blaze. Both of Mr. Cook's younger brothers appeared in it a few times. Aquilla, the elder of the two, went to Cincinnati in 1844 or 1845, married a dancer in "Shire's Garden," killed the treasurer, Mr. Reeves, on her complaint that he had insulted her, and was never heard of afterwards, except in a letter to a Cincinnati paper boasting of the way he fooled the police and escaped arrest for his crime.

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Following the final disappearance of the " Thespian Corps," about the year 1844, there is nothing to notice in dramatic affairs till after the completion of Masonic Hall. Then an occasional dramatic per- formance was given there and in other minor halls, but they formed no feature of the city's life or amusements. During the first State Fair, in the fall of 1852, F. W. Robinson, better known as " Yankee Rohinson," set up a theatrical tent on the corner where the "Park" (old " Metropolitan") Theatre is now, and did so well with a very fair traveling company that he came back the next fall and opened in " Washington Hall," with Henry W. Waugh, a young artist of rare promise as well as a good actor,-he was clown in Robinson's circus as " Dilly Fay," and, as a painter, assisted Mr. Cox with his "Temperance Panorama" in 1855, --- for leading man, Sidney Wilkins and wife for the " heavy business," and Charles Wilson and James F. Lytton for Irish characters and songs. Mr. Lytton made very popular here such songs as " Billy O'Rourke," "Low-Backed Car," "Flaming O'- Flannigans," "Finnegan's Wake," and others. Robinson was followed, in the spring of 1854, by Wilkins and H. W. Brown and Mrs. Mehen, who produced " Uncle Tom's Cabin" the first time in the city. Mr. Calvin Elliott, in the summer and fall of 1854, finished his building on the northwest corner of Maryland and Meridian Streets, and made a fine large room of the third story, wbich Robin- son fitted up as a theatre and called the " Athe- næum," where, as Saxe says, those who dreaded the name of " theatre" but still

-" Loved plays, Could religiously see 'em."

The first season of the " Athenæum" was very successful. The stock company was good, consisting of R. J. Miller (afterwards known as “Yankee Miller") and his wife, Mr. Bierce (known as “ Yan- kee Bierce"), F. A. Tannehill, George McWilliams (Democratic candidate for Congress in the Covington district in 1876, recently deceased), his sister Mary, James F. Lytton, and H. W. Waugh. Somewhere along in October Miss Susan Denin, a " star" of bet-

ter ability than social repute, appeared at the " Athe- næum" and made as much of a sensation as Sara Bernhardt did twenty-six years later. She played in Rev. Mr. Milman's " Fazio," Richard Lalor Shiel's " Evadne," Knowles' " Hunchback," and several farces. The following year she and her sister Kate came, and she played Romeo to Kate's Juliet. In that same fall Maggie Mitchell appeared here first, and it was her second engagement as a "star," or her agent said so. She was not more than seventeen, thirty years ago. Robinson's season closed April 14, 1855, and then Mr. Austin H. Brown and John M. Com- mons took the " Athenæum" and brought here Harry Chapman and Mrs. Drake,-they appeared later at the " Metropolitan,"-and in the very furnace-heat of July brought out James E. Murdoch. He played the Stranger to ahout twenty persons, who bore the heat to see one of the first actors of the country. The next night was worse, and he threw up the en- gagement and never came back, except as a reader and elocutionary performer during the war. Mr. Commons, after Mr. Brown had retired in disgust, kept up the place from the middle of September to December, showing here for the first time Miss Eliza Logan, Mr. Joseph Proctor and wife, Peter and Caro- line Richings (the latter sang the "Star-Spangled Banner" in 1861, when the flag was hoisted on the State-House by order of the Legislature), W. J. Florence and wife. In 1856, William L. Woods opened the place again, and produced the celebrated low comedian, W. Davidge; and later Mr. Lytton, as manager, brought out Miss Logan and Mrs. Coleman Pope (who afterwards made her home here and died here). During the winter of 1856-57 the same management produced John Drew, Charlotte Cramp- ton, Dora Shaw, and others. In the summer of 1858 a German company played at the " Athenæum," and during the winter the Germans kept up two theatres, one at Washington Hall and one at Union Hall. In April, 1858, Kate Denin and Sam Ryan, her husband, opened Washington Hall, to no purpose, and during the State Fair Harry Chapman and his wife and mother-in-law, Mrs. Drake, with John K. Mortimer, opened the " Athenæum" for the last time. A gymnastic association, formed in 1854 and exer-

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cised in " Blake's Block," was removed in 1859, with Simon Yandes as president and the late Thomas H. Bowles as secretary, and the Athenaeum was occupied by it for " calisthenie" operations as long as it was used for any publie purpose. It was at last turned into an eating-house. This is the whole history worth noting of the early period of the drama in the city when there were only temporary theatres, casual seasons scattered all about the year, and companies collected by luck, as often ill as good. It may be added, to complete the sketch, that C. J. Smith failed in a week in the " Athenaeum" in March,' 1857, and Maddocks and Wilson did the same in the summer of 1856, but took longer, and Wilson and Pratt and Yankee Bierce followed in the same way in the fall and winter of the same year.

The theatre was now to change its character from the casual resource of a broken actor to a permanent feature of city life and entertainment. In 1857, Mr. Valentine Butsch, the owner of the lot on the north- east corner of Washington and Tennessce Streets, determined to build a theatre there. It had in early years been a frequent location of circuses and men- ageries, and was entitled by its history to this selec- tion. In August, 1857, the corner-stone was laid, and in the following year, in September, the building was completed. It cost, with the lot, sixty thousand dollars. The lower story, except a stairway of twenty feet width, is occupied by business houses. The two upper ones-built purposely-are high, commodious, and well ventilated, aud make, with the gallery, an auditorium seating about fifteen hundred persons. It was opened under the management of E. T. Sherlock, Sept. 27, 1858, with "tableaux vivants" by the "Keller" troop. During the sea- son closing the last of February there appeared in the new theatre, called the " Metropolitan," Mr. Hackett, the eminent Shakespearian actor and per- sonator of Falstaff, the Florenecs, J. B. Roberts, Mrs. J. W. Wallack, Mrs. Sinclair (the divorced wife of Forrest,-an indifferent actress), Adah Isaacs Menken, Eliza Logan, Mr. and Mrs. Waller, Matilda Heron,-fresh in her celebrity as a "realistic" actress, -and the Cooper English Opera Troupe, and other " stars" of less magnitude. It was not a paying

season, and to improve it the manager proposed to give a benefit to the " Widows' and Orphans' Society," as elsewhere related. The proffer was re- jected solely on account of the immoral character of the theatre, which made it improper for a moral asso- eiation to take its money even for righteous uses. Opinion changed in ten years, and cordially sustained the same society in giving a series of dramatic per- formances in the occasional theatre of Morrison's Opera Hall. The performers were amateurs, but the performances were no better morally, and very little worse histrionically, than the plays usually seen in the theatre.

Following Mr. Sherlock came Mr. George Wood for a few nights, and Mr. John A. Ellsler for two months, reopening in the fall and winter. On the 25th of April, 1861, when volunteers were gathering here in thousands for the war, Mr. Butsch took the management himself, with Felix A. Vincent as stage manager, and Miss Marion McCarthy-who subse- quently became insane and died here-as " leading lady." Mr. Vincent was succeeded in 1863 by Wil- liam H. Riley, who remained till 1867, when he went to New Orleans as manager of the "Saint Charles," and died there within a month after his arrival. The season of 1867-68 was managed by Matt. V. Lingham, and that of 1868 by Charles R. Pope. Joseph Jefferson, John E. Owens, and Edwin Forrest appeared at the " Metropolitan" at one time or another in this long interval, with nearly all the distinguished actors of the country. On the 25th of March, 1867, Madame Ristori appeared there under the management of Mr. Grau. Mr. Forrest played Virginius, Spartacus, Othello (Mr. Pope as Iago), Metamora. Subsequently he played Lear and Jack Cade at the " Academy of Music." The " Metropolitan" was a profitable enterprise, and impelled Mr. Butsch, in 1868, to buy the un- finished " Miller Block," southcast corner of Illi- nois and Ohio Streets, for fifty thousand dollars, and to finish it as one of the largest and finest thea- tres in the West. Like the " Metropolitan," the lower story was occupied by business houses. The two upper stories made a large and convenient stage and an auditorium for twenty-five hundred spectators.

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Mr. William H. Leake was manager. Here appeared during this management Mr. Owens, Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Leffingwell, Mrs. Lander, Mrs. Janauschek, Mr. Toole, the celebrated English comedian, and others less noted. In the fall of 1870, Mr. Leake was joined by Mr. James Dickson,-now of the extensive the- atrical management combination of " Brooks & Dick- son,"-and they leased the Academy for some years.

The " Metropolitan," at this time, was " running" as a sort of " variety" theatre, with Mr. Sargent, later with Fred Thompson, and later and much longer with Simon MeCarty, till the late Mr. Dillard Ricketts bought and repaired and improved it a few years ago, when the Diekson Brothers leased it and hold it yet under the name of the " Park Theatre." The only conspicuous appearance at it in late years was that of Mrs. Langtry's two nights early in 1883, first as Rosalind, in " As You Like It," and as Juliana, in Tobin's " Honeymoon," with no considerable success, though not worse than older actresses have done on the same stage. The " Academy of Music" changed hands about 1875 or 1876, and Gen. Daniel Macauley became manager. Messrs. Leake and Dickson then began building the present " Grand Opera-House." in the rear of the " Martindale Block," on the east side of North Pennsylvania Street, with a wide pas- sage through the " Block" to the auditorium. There are two galleries here. Shortly after the opening of the " Grand" the " Academy" was wholly destroyed by fire, and when rebuilt was converted into business rooms. Along about this time there were several " variety" theatres maintained in halls and beer gar- dens which do not need mention here. The " Zoo" -contraction of " Zoological"-began as a sort of stationary menagerie a half-dozen years ago with a " variety" addition, but gradually dropped all of the " zoological" features except the first two syllables of the name combined into one, and became a very fair show-place of that kind. Within two or three years it has been greatly enlarged and improved both in building and performances.

Some three years ago William H. English built the " English Opera-House," in the rear of the fine " quadrant" of buildings he is putting up in uniform style on the northwest quarter of Circle Street, and

has made it equal to any in the West in extent, excellence of accommodations, safety in case of fire. and amplitude of stage room. The management is in the hands of William E. English, son of the propri- etor. He has shown a striking aptitude for the busi- ness, and has brought here Sarah Bernhardt in 1881, Madame Gerster and Campanini in 1882, Adelina Patti in 1882-83, with most of the leading actors of the day, female and male, at one time or another. Oscar Wilde lectured here. The management has been very liberal in allowing its use for public purposes. State conventions have been held in it, the High School grad- uating exercises have been conducted in it, and the " Art Loan Exhibition" very recently was given the use of it.

There have been two or three little museums here, one on east Washington Street by a Mrs. English, and one on the corner of Georgia and Illinois Streets, in a shed. Neither amounted to anything. Before " gar- dens" as places of public resort had degenerated into beer-swilling conveniences, there were two in the city that deserve mention as places of public and decent diversion. John Hodgkins opened the first in 1841, in the orchard of George Smith's (first newspaper man) place, northeast corner of Georgia and Tennes- see Streets. He made arbors under and around the fruit-trees, with graveled walks and flower-beds, and the first iee-house ever built for public use in the town. In 1856-57 the " Apollo Garden" was opened on Kentucky Avenue, on the point now occupied by the " Cleaveland Block," onee the garden of Mr. and Mrs. Bolton's residence. This soon degenerated into a low resort, and public " gardens" have ever since been places of rather equivocal character when they were not opeuly vieious.

Lectures .- Until the fall and winter of 1855-56 there were no regular courses of lectures in the city. In 1846-47 the " Union Literary Society," as related in the general history, had a few lectures delivered in churches by Rev. S. T. Gillett, Rev. Dr. Johnson, of Christ Church, Godlove S. Orth, Henry Ward Beecher, and one or two others, to considerable free andienees, the expense being paid by contributions from old cit- izens like Mr. McCarty, Mr. Fletcher, Mr. Sharpe, Mr. Blake, Mr. Ray, Mr. Austin W. Morris, . Mr.

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James Sulgrove, and others; and in 1850-51, during the Constitutional Convention, they obtained leetures from a few of the members, Robert Dale Owen, John B. Niles, of Laporte, Professor Daniel Read, of the State University, among them. The last effort of the old society was in the fall of 1853, when they obtained a lecture from Horace Greeley on " Henry Clay," in Masonic Hall, on his return from the second annual State Fair at Lafayette, where he had delivered the address. In May, 1851, John B. Gough had been here and delivered a series of three or four lectures on temperance in Masonic Hall. On the 28th and 29th of October, 1853, the ex-priest Gavazzi lectured on the "Inquisition and Catholicism." In November following Lucy Stone lectured three times in Masonie Hall on Women's Rights, the right of suffrage being less prominent in her consideration than the right of employment and self-support. She wore the Bloomer costume, plain and simple to the verge of ugliness, while she was rather an attractive looking young lady. The audience became a little impatient and began " stamping" for her appearance before the advertised time. She came out, looked at her watch, and rebuked the audience for calling her out before the time. " They had no right to do it," she said. Page Chap- man, in the next Saturday's Chanticleer, called her an "impertinent minx" for it. In October of 1855 a Women's Rights Convention was held in the Masonic Hall, and addresses were made by Lucretia Mott, Ernestine L. Rose, Frances D. Gage, Adaline Swift, Harriet Cutler, and other distinguished advocates of women's rights. At a later convention of the same kind Miss Susan B. Anthony was present. Abby Kelly and Joseph Barker, of Pittsburgh, were present at the first one. Mrs. Livermore has lectured here several times, as has Anna Dickinson. As early as any of these lectures was one in Masonic Hall by Mr. Whitney, on his hobby of building a railroad to the Pacifie by donations or sales of publie lands. Though little practical good followed his efforts direetly, it is probable that his well-informed demonstrations con- tributed to the impulse that pushed the great trans- continental enterprises more rapidly than they would otherwise have been. These were all casual and scat- tered efforts. In 1855-56 there came in a system, a

little weakened in recent years but by no means worn out.

The Young Men's Christian Association organized on the 21st of March, 1854, and speedily made ar- rangements to procure lecturers for regular courses which they proposed to maintain. The first one in the winter of 1855-56 brought here Park Benjamin, Rev. Mr. Butler, of Wabash College, David Paul Brown, the eminent Philadelphia lawyer, Edwin P. Whipple, Henry B. Stanton, Bishop Simpson, Ed- ward P. Thompson, Henry W. Ellsworth, son of the old commissioner of patents, Henry L. Ellsworth, minister to Sweden and Norway in Polk's term, then from 1852 and till his death, or near it, a resident of this city. The next year, 1856-57, the Young Men's Christian Association and the Young Men's Literary Association both held lceture-courses. The chief lecturers were Rev. Theodore Parker, Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, John B. Gough, Elihu Burritt (the "Learned Blacksmith"), Samuel S. Cox, Thornton A. Mills, of the Second Presbyterian Church here, and George Sumner, brother of Charles. He lec- tured once in Washington Hall, and so did Bayard Taylor. In May, 1857, Edward Everett delivered his " Mount Vernon" lecture in Masonic Hall, and the season following Dudley A. Tyng, Horace Gree- ley, Governor Boutwell, Rev. Henry Giles (a cripple and noted leeturer) lectured in the regular course. In the season of 1858 the chief leeturers were Dr. J. G. Holland (the "Timothy Titeomb" of the Springfield (Mass.) Republican ; later, the author of " Miss Gilbert's Career," " Bitter Sweet," and other works, and dying recently as cditor of the Century), Professor Youmans, Professor Maury, Benjamin F. Taylor, Bayard Taylor, Thomas Francis Meagher. On the 18th of May, 1859, the General Assembly of the Old School Presbyterians met in the Third Church, Illinois Street, and held daily sessions till the 2d of June. Sermons and addresses were deliv- ered by several of the distinguished clergymen pres- ent in different churches of the city, while a debate between Dr. McMaster, of New Albany, and Dr. N. L. Riee (the antagonist in 1845 of the celebrated Alexan- der Campbell in a debate at Lexington, Ky., where Henry Clay was moderator) attracted a great deal of

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attention among the citizens. Dr. Palmer, of New Or- leans, Dr. Thornwell, of Charleston, S. C., and Dr. Alex- ander, of Princeton, were conspicuous members, and drew large miscellaneous audiences to their sermons. In February, 1860, Lola Montez lectured in Masonic Hall two or three times to not very large or enthu- siastic audiences. Bayard Taylor and Henry J. Ray- mond, of the New York Times, and Ralph Waldo Emerson (on " Clubs or Conversation") also lectured in the hall the same winter, and with them were Dr. Robert J. Breckinridge, of Kentucky, George W. Win- ship, the "strong man," and some others. During the preceding February, George D. Prentice, of the Louisville Journal, lectured in the hall, and Henry S. Foote, ex-Governor and ex-United States Senator of Mississippi, lectured in the basement of Roberts' Chapel, but both spoke on their own account and in no connection with a lecture association. Mr. Lin- coln spoke in Masonic Hall on the 19th of Septem- ber, 1859. Dr. Boynton delivered a series of lectures on geology in December, 1859, and January, 1860. In the fall of 1855 or 1856, Professor O. M. Mitchell, the eminent astronomer of the Cincinnati Observatory, delivered a series of ten or twelve lectures in Masonic Hall under the auspices of some " literary associa- tion." They were more closely attended than any ever delivered here, and were worth more for in- struction to those who heard them. They were re- ported pretty fully in the Journal. This series is set by itself in the sketch because it is quite apart from the regular lecture-courses. During the war the lecture system languished, and it has never been revived in its original vigor, though a course which proved quite successful was delivered during the past season.

Concerts .- Except a rare concert by the pupils of some music teacher, or a " nigger" minstrel troupe, the public patronage and recognition of music never shone conspicuously among the evidences of culture in Indianapolis during the first thirty years of its existence. How far such patronage as was extended to the art proved it need not be discussed here. We had brass bands pretty nearly continuously from 1840, when the first one was formed, till the establishment of the theatre here compelled the retention of skilled

musicians for orchestral service, and thus made handy material for bands and for a better grade of musical instruction than had been usual, but there had been no public performance of the best music, the "classic" order, till the fall of 1851. Then Madame Anna Bishop and M. Bochsa gave a concert in Masonic Hall that furnished the curious some idea of what music was that was neither hymn nor ballad, jig nor horupipe. To some it was a revelation of pleasure of a higher kind than had been customary, to others it was unmeaning and even ludicrous. They saw no music in it because there was no "tune" in it; they knew of no musical expression of sentiment but a " tune," and what was not that was nothing. The German immigration since that time has done more than any other agency to familiarize intelligent people with better music than " Leather Breeches" or " Hell on the Wabash." Mrs. Bishop gave her audience a notion of what opera was, and a good many had not a clearer idea of it than they have of the cause of the recent red sunsets. She sang the " Chi me Frena," from "Lucretia," in character. It served as an indication to the shrewd auditor. Some additional musical impulse may have been derived from a State convention of brass bands held in the hall, under the management of George B. Downie, leader of the Indianapolis Band, when some thirteen were present and competed for a prize banner awarded to the New Albany Band. At the solicitation of the convention, Mr. B. R. Sulgrove declared the award, and made an address on the occasion. A second convention of nine bands was held in the same place in November, 1853, under the management of Charles W. Cottom, afterwards city editor of the Sentinel. The great musical event of the period, however, was the appearance in Masonic Hall of Ole Bull, Dec. 6, 1853. It was his first Western tour, and put the intelligent part of the town in a musical fever that has not been equaled since, even by the combination of Kellogg, Cary, and Madame Rosa, or Gerster and Campanini, or even by Patti, and she, then a little girl of ten or twelve years, was in the performance with her sister, Madame Strakosch, and sang " Comin' Thro' the Rye" (a river, not a grain-field). On the 22d of January, 1856, the Hutchinsons sang here in

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the hall. Ole Bull returned in February, and in November, Strakosch, Parodi, Tiberini, Morini, and Paul Julien performed in the hall. On the 20th of the same month, George F. Root had a State musical convention assemble here. Music was getting "ac- tive," as market reports say. In 1855 the " Black Swan," Miss Greenfield, or some such name, sang at the hall, May 2d, and came here again in 1868. On December 10th, Parodi and the pair of Stra- kosches gave a concert at the hall. On the 30th of June, 1857, 'Dodworth's great New York band, numbering ninety members, gave an " open-air" concert in the military grounds to an audience but little larger than the band. This was under a con- tract with a Cleveland manager named Stone. At night they gave a concert for their own benefit, but with no better result than in the day performance. A few weeks before this Thalberg, Parodi, and Mol- lenhauer gave a concert at the hall. Musical culture was looking up. June 10 to 13, 1858, the Ger- man singing societies of the State held a conven- tion here, finishing with a procession and a concert, both enthusiastically witnessed by a large attendance of all nationalities of citizens. The first full operatic performance was that of the " Bohemian Girl," by the " Cooper English Opera Troupe," in .the winter of 1858-59, at the " Metropolitan."

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History of Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana, Part 48

Author: Sulgrove, Berry R. (Berry Robinson), 1828-1890 Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts & Co. Number of Pages: 942

Author: Sulgrove, Berry R. (Berry Robinson), 1828-1890
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts & Co.
Number of Pages: 942