The life of Augustin Daly

Front matter

CORNELL

UNIVERSITY

LIBRARY

Preface

No apology is needed for giving an account of the man who lifted the American stage from a very low estate to a position of great dignity, and gave the dramatic art of his own country a first place in two continents ; and who did all his life work with such courage in the face of obstacles and such steadfastness in pursuit of a single purpose, that the history of his career must give heart to every selfreliant, intelligent striver in every business of life.

Foreword

When Joseph Francis Daly died In August, 1916, he left complete the manuscript of this book, on which he had been working for years. The fact that he did not live to revise the proofs may have resulted in errors, although great pains have been taken to avoid them, and it Is believed that they will be few and unimportant. The photographs used as illustrations were in almost every case set aside by the author for the purpose ; his own portrait is, of course, an exception, having been Inserted as part of a record that Includes many phases of his own as well as of his brother's life.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Augustin Daly Frontispiece

FACING PAGE

Augustin Daly, from a Daguerreotype (about 1854) 19

Fanny Davenport 90

Agnes Ethel 99

Clara Morris no

The Fifth Avenue Theatre (the Day after the Fire) . . . . 116

Augustin Daly in 1875 207

Reading the Play (1882) 3S7

James Lewis 59^

Augustin Daly in 1898 618

Joseph Francis Daly 637

FIRST PERIOD: 1838-1869

Chapter I

Family Romance. A young Kerry girl and her lover. Separation. Elopement. Married into the army. A widow with one child captured by the French. The child saved from the sea. Kindness of the French. Arrival at Jamaica. The buried city of Port Royal. Montego Bay. The lovers reunited. Their daughter Elizabeth. Life in the West Indies. An adventurous young Quaker. Travelling theatricals. John Bernard and William Rufus Blake. Negro insurrection. Punishment of slaves. Elizabeth's intercession. Social traits. Emigration to the United States. Efforts to embark. Twice retarded. Arrival of Captain Daly. To New York in his vessel. Marriage of Elizabeth. Denis Daly's family and character. Settles in Plymouth, North Carolina. Augustin Daly born. The last voyage. Hurried journey. The sailor's grave. His estate in North Carolina "administered" to death. Removal to Norfolk, Virginia. The boys see their first play. Murdock and Miss Russell, afterwards Mrs. Hoey. Dick Turpin surpasses Macbeth. Removal to New York.

Whether Augustin Daly's gift for the dramatic art was inherited can never be known. There was a Richard Daly, a Dublin manager noted for his skill in discovering and training talent for the stage ; and there was a John Daly, a dramatist of Dubhn, one or two of whose works survive ; but no connection with these individuals can be traced. Augustin Daly's father was a sailor, one grandfather a soldier, and the other a farmer.

A young Kerry girl, Margaret Morlarty, born in 178 1 of a well-known family of Tralee, fell in love at the age of sixteen with John Duffey of Carlow, older than herself by several years and destined, it is said, by his family for the Church. They were separated ; and in girlish desperation Margaret ran away, married into the army, and was left a young widow with one child, in Gibraltar. Sailing for home, they were captured by the French in the Bay of Biscay. In transferring the prisoners from their vessel to one of the French fleet the little daughter Catherine fell into the sea, but was rescued by a sailor and taken to another vessel. The French (who, my grandmother was particular to say, were uniformly kind in the treatment of their prisoners) exerted themselves to trace the lost child and restore it to its mother. An exchange of prisoners that afterwards took place brought the young widow and the family of General Darby together, and she was taken to Jamaica, the principal island of the British West Indies.

They landed at Port Royal or Kingston and crossed over the mountains to Falmouth and Montego Bay on the north coast, a part singularly free from the visitations of earthquake which have caused such destruction in and about Kingston. At the time Margaret entered that harbor, over a hundred years ago, she could discern beneath its waters the houses of old Port Royal which had been overwhelmed by a former convulsion.

The first Sunday after her arrival in Montego Bay Margaret went to church followed by a negro lad, bearing, as was customary, her kneeUng cushion. She had to slip off her shoe, which was naturally a size smaller than it ought to be. This shoe she carefully concealed by a fold of her dress ; but when she was about to rise from her knees, it had disappeared. A glance behind showed the solitary but conspicuous figure of an officer in uniform who was also devoutly kneeling, but guarding the Httle shoe, which he had managed to abstract with his cane. Filled with indignation, the lady's flashing eyes looked the audacious culprit full in the face and recognized the lover of her girlhood ! They walked homeward together and exchanged the stories of their long separation. He was a widower and had with him two little girls younger than her daughter Catherine. His wife had been a Quakeress and had borne him a large family, of whom Sarah, born in Guernsey, and Mary Ann, born in Cavan, survived.

The marriage of the long-separated lovers took place in Montego Bay in June, 181 1. Their happiness was to be short-lived, however, and Margaret was soon to be widowed once more, and this time with added responsibilities. Lieutenant DuflFey died on September 30, 181 1, of a fever common to the tropics. Six months after his death was born the child of this union, EHzabeth, the mother of Augustin Daly.

The principal relic of John DuflFey preserved by his descendants is his first commission, signed by George HI and dated November 19, 1800, making him ensign in a regiment of Fencibles.

Margaret Duffey, now thirty-one years old, a woman of indomitable spirit, set herself to the task of rearing this young brood so strangely brought to her nest. She was small and slender, with beauty of the Irish type, — fair skin, black hair, and dark gray eyes. Elizabeth, her youngest child, passed a happy girlhood in one of the most beautiful isles of the tropics. Two of her half-sisters were soon married — Catherine to William Finchette and Mary Ann to John H. Woodgate, both of good families from England. Woodgate, of Quaker stock, was an adventurous youth who had left England to seek his fortune in America, and after every variety of adventure finally reached New Orleans in time to hire as a deck-hand on a sloop bound for Montego Bay, where his older brother had settled some years before. John was reduced on landing to the simple outfit of trousers and shirt, and when his brother Edward, advised of his arrival, cantered down to the dock on his chestnut horse, he beheld a prodigal in appearance if not in repentance. He took the youth home and set him up in business, and in an incredibly brief space John was the owner of the handsomest residence in the town.

West Indian society was then enjoying its best days. The theatre was a favorite recreation, not to be indulged in, however, except when travelling companies from England crossed the mountains. They were hospitably entertained by the residents. Among those actors who visited the Duffeys were John Bernard (author of a book of memoirs) and William Rufus Blake, afterwards a favorite in New York. As we remember him he was immensely corpulent — but in the Jamaica days he was "the slimmest and gracefuUest" of light-comedy juveniles.

The fatal negro insurrection occurred in Elizabeth's girlhood. It was due to the fact that the anti-slavery agitation in the mother country, which led to the abolition of the merciless slave trade, was not followed by emancipation in the colonies. The traffic in slaves had brought to Jamaica in less than a century over six hundred thousand blacks. Their condition varied with circumstances. The coal-black African cultivated the fields, br worked at trades or as a day laborer. His descendants of various colors were usually domestic servants. Slaves were hired, and had to be returned in good condition by the lessees at the end of the term. For negligence or obstinacy men and women were sent by their employers to the jail to be whipped, private punishment not being permitted. Many of the poor creatures.

who knew the kind heart of EHzabeth, stopped on the way to punishment to implore her intercession, and the young girl was always ready to put on her hat and go to the offended master or mistress upon those errands of mercy. She was never unsuccessful. It was not always an easy task. Some of the slaves were chronic insubordinates, for whom it required much tact to plead.

Another phase of racial life in the island was presented by the free women of color, the children of planters, manumitted by their fathers and left in many instances with considerable means. They were often sent abroad for accomplishments which they could use if need were for their support. Many of them were hardly to be distinguished from white. Some formed voluntary connections with wealthy bachelors ; but many were distinguished for high principles and strict morality, and those with means often developed fine traits of benevolence in emulation of the white ladies of the colony. The latter formed a community of high-minded and strict-living people.

The changed conditions that resulted from the emancipation of the slaves (which followed the insurrection) drove many business men to the United States, — among them Mr. Woodgate. He brought with him Thomas, a boy of pure African descent, born of slaves. Mrs. Woodgate was no sooner settled in New York than she wrote to her stepmother, pressing her to come with Elizabeth and a granddaughter Margaret, child of the Finchettes, who were dead. Death had severed nearly every other tie on the island. These bereavements inclined Mrs. Duffey to join the Woodgates in New York. Twice was passage engaged in vessels touching at Montego Bay, and each time an accident prevented their sailing. It was then late in the season, and the hope of passage by another vessel was given up. The brig Victor, however, commanded by Captain Denis Daly, unexpectedly arrived at Falmouth. Elizabeth was visiting friends there when Captain Daly called and met her. He wrote immediately to Mrs. Duffey that he would stop with his vessel for her at Montego Bay. No accident now prevented the embarking, and the family was brought to New York. There the marriage of Elizabeth and Captain Daly took place at the Woodgates' house in Grand Street, near Essex, on July 31, 1834.

Captain Daly was born near Limerick, Ireland, in 1797. His father Michael Daly, who was what was called a gentleman farmer, gave his children a good education and procured for Denis at an early age the place of purser's clerk in the British navy. This determined the young man's career, and when he shortly after resigned from that post and received his portion from his father, he came to America, invested his means in building the Victor, and commenced trade on the American coast and in the West Indies. He is described as tall and of powerful physique. His adventurous disposition and fearlessness were inherited to the full by my brother, who was one of the most physically courageous men I ever knew.

Immediately after the wedding the bride sailed with her husband for the West Indies. On their way back her illness compelled them to put in to Norfolk. Not long afterwards the Victor was lost in shipwreck, uninsured, and was replaced by the brig William. In 1838 Captain Daly established himself in the lumber business at Plymouth, North Carolina, acquiring the Armistead property, consisting of residence, warehouse, and wharf. There his elder son Augustin was born on July 20, 1838, a sister (who died young) having been born in Norfolk in 1836. Captain Daly now intrusted the vessels he chartered to other sailing masters; but in September, 1841, when the Union was ready for sea with a cargo, her commander fell ill, and Captain Daly, not to delay her sailing, took up his old station on the quarter-deck. Our mother never forgot his leaving home. He had the sailor's superstition about formal leave-takings, and she watched him walk up and down with his younger son in his arms, lay him in his cradle, and softly leave the house. Three weeks later a letter arrived teUing of his death. It came from Captain Pike, of Ocracoke, a small settlement at the inlet of the same name, south of Cape Hatteras and situated upon the long sandy breastwork which forms the Atlantic coast of North Carolina, and separates the waste of ocean from the inner waters known as Pamlico and Albemarle sounds. When detained by adverse winds or calms, quite a fleet of outward-bound vessels collects at the inlet. The coast had an evil reputation for wreckers, and many stories were told of vessels lured on the breakers by false lights fastened to horses which were led up and down the sands.

Upon receipt of the distressing communication our mother hastily left for Ocracoke, taking with her a captain and two seamen for the Union, as she was advised would be necessary. She set out with her infant son and a nurse, by coach, at four in the morning, for Little Washington on Pamlico Sound, found a sloop ready to sail to Ocracoke, and reached it the same day. Captain Pike and his wife showed her every attention and gave her full particulars of all that had taken place. It was owing to Hght winds and calms that Captain Daly was three weeks in reaching Ocracoke from Plymouth. When his vessel arrived at the inlet he was found prostrated with fever, and was taken ashore. Doctor Dudley of Portsmouth, twelve miles distant, was sent for, but could not lo THE LIFE OF AUGUSTIN DALY

save him. He was interred in a plot set apart for burials in Captain Pike's garden. The ravages of wind and wave have devoured the shore line and buried the little cemetery beneath the waters of the Sound.

Our mother returned to Plymouth, tried to put her husband's affairs in shape, and then removed to Norfolk. The administration in Plymouth was very disappointing, and the disheartened widow conceived a distaste for the law that well-nigh prevented, in after years, my entering that worthy profession. Augustin and I were placed at school with a pedagogue of English extraction and formidable aspect, one John Primrose Scott, who had married an old friend of my mother.

One of the important structures in Norfolk was the Avon Theatre, visited by all the first-rate traveUing companies. There my brother and I saw our first theatrical performance. Of theatres we had never heard until a friend came over from Portsmouth with tickets for the play. Both boys were then away from home in different parts of the town and were hastily sent for. I was the only one reached in time, and great was the outcry of the elder at his disappointment when he got home just as we were setting out — myself, aged seven, in all the elegance of a white tunic and trousers, with a shiny black belt, and a bouquet in hand. I endeavored to comfort him with the philosophy usually applied on such occasions, but he only howled the louder and secluded himself in a closet. When we returned, grandmother described with much pride how resigned he at last became, and how he went to bed very quietly. He was warmly praised. Within a week it became his turn to go to the play and mine sadly to apply the philosophy. I expected to hear next morning that I had gone to bed quietly and resignedly too. No such statement was forthcoming, and I ven-

THE LIFE OF AUGUSTIN DALY ii

tured to present the fact myself, but without attracting notice.

Augustin and I next day fell to comparing notes on the marvels we had witnessed. I had seen "Macbeth" with James E. Murdoch and Mrs. Russell (afterwards Mrs. John Hoey) in the leading parts. Augustin had seen "Rookwood," with Murdoch as the dashing highwayman Dick TuTpin, and his vivid description of that thrilling adaptation of Ainsworth's novel convinced me that he had had the best of it; for all that I distinctly remembered of my play was Lady Macbeth in a nightgown with a chamber candlestick, beckoning the audience "to bed" — a recommendation too suggestive to be relished by a small boy sitting up for the first time. His experience aroused in Augustin at once the spirit of the theatre. He devised performances in our woodhouse, to the satisfaction of our small neighbors.

It was a year after this that our Aunt Woodgate succeeded in persuading her sister Elizabeth to come to New York with her family. "You must feel, Betsy," she wrote, "that this city is the only place for a widow, with boys who have to make their way in the world 1"

Chapter II

Public school pupil. Enlists for the battle of life. Night school. Amateur dramatic societies. Some well-known members. Location of these little theatres. Maternal solicitude and precaution. Augustin not an actor. A boyish Julius Cjesar. Scene-painting doubled with Mark Antony. Low condition of New York playhouses. Vile upper tiers. The stage and the actors. Talented drunkards. A boy's experience. Fourth of July. The Bowery pit. Junius Brutus Booth in " Richard III " drives Richmond off Bosworth Field. The Astor Place riot. "Ned Buntline" and his sentence. A childish witness of the fray. Forrest on Macready. Respect for the drama in New York. Theatres provincial. All but two keep actors in stock to support stars. The Daly boys are taken to the theatre. The six theatres of the metropolis. Barnum and his lecture room. His ups and downs. A little game of "human wreck." Bills of the play and what they contained. Adah Isaac Menken. The Ravels. The Revolutionary drama. Enchantment of Castle Garden.

Augustin attended for a brief season the public school in Broome Street, New York, presided over by the late James Pewitt — one of the first schools organized under the new department of education, the successor of the old Public School Society. Among his schoolmates was John H. V. Arnold, afterwards Surrogate of New York, and a great collector of works on the drama and early New York history. Our mother, with firm independence, would accept no aid from her relatives in rearing her children, and in order to add to her diminishing resources took special lessons in sewing in order to earn money to keep her sons at school. Augustin was, however, anxious to begin the battle of life. He became clerk in one concern after another, and attended night school as well.

At this period the theatrical inclinations of the youth of New York found encouragement in amateur societies, usually named after celebrated actors, which gave performances in little theatres in the upper stories of commercial buildings. The "Murdoch Association" met in Crosby Street; the "Burton" in a room near the theatre in Chambers Street; and the "John R. Scott Association" usually performed in Humor Hall, a third-story opera-house in Houston Street fitted up by German amateurs.

These associations were nurseries which graduated many celebrities. F. F. Mackay belonged to the "Murdoch." It was the rule of these societies that each member was to have his night, for which he was to choose his own play and his own part in it and be loyally supported by his associates. When young Mackay had his night, he was supported by George C. Boniface, William J. Florence, and Maggie Mitchell, — all stars in later years.

Towards one or more of these amateur societies did Augustin naturally incline, greatly to the distress of our dear mother, who always required me to go with him and supply the companionship needed in boyhood. Hence we were constantly together at night, went everywhere, and saw pretty much everything. His joining the dramatic associations was not, I can testify, due to any wish of appearing on the stage. It was owing, I can see now, to a haunting desire to become familiar with management. He was absolutely without ambition to act. I do not recall his ever playing a part except twice, once to be mentioned in the next chapter, and once in a small literary society when he took the part of Julius Casar. He managed the production, and set me to work to paint the scenery, which I cheerfully undertook without any previous experience. To be sure he also cast me

■for the responsible part of Mark Antony, but I know that in his opinion my success was on that occasion achieved as scenic artist. As for his impersonation of Julius Cessar, I think that with his classic robes and his strikingly handsome features, a more agreeable boyish figure was never seen upon any stage.

The dread of contamination from too close association with things theatrical, which my mother in common with many other good people felt in that day, was excusable for more than one reason. Theatrical management was then precarious, and places of amusement were open to grave objections. The playhouse deserved the hard things that were said about it. In every theatre there was an upper tier with a bar, where strong drinks were supplied and (in some houses) where the profligate of both sexes resorted. To be sure there was no necessity for the patrons of the family circle or the boxes to come in contact with such visitors, as the bad company was confined to the upper and cheaper parts of the house, — the "shilling gallery," admission to which was twelve and a half cents (there was a coin of that value in those days) ; but it was natural to fear that to that part of the house young men bent upon seeing life would be tempted, for access to it was open.

The actor shared the uncertainties of the manager; salaries were small and sometimes irregular. And the player too often was more convivial than ambitious. After the performance he resorted to taverns and coffeehouses (all well known and respectable enough) and entertained the patrons of the theatre (all well known and respected too), and there until the early hours he discussed the glories of the stage and many tobies of strong ale. He was not then the conservative and prosperous capitalist that he is to-day. Several causes combined to lower his self-respect, and it was not increased by the public sentiment which condoned his failings, and tolerated the upper circle of the playhouse with its bar. It was the day of the "talented drunkard," the ban of managers and the cause of annoyance and disappointment to the public. It was owing to the impression made upon my brother's mind by the conditions existing in his youth that he instituted reforms in every direction when he opened his first theatre. Led by his forceful spirit, a succession of laudable followers helped to preserve his standards for the playhouse and the profession.

Judge Charles P. Daly used to relate an experience of his own when Junius Brutus Booth was in his prime, and any announcement of his engagement drew crowds willing to risk the possibility of disappointment from his well-known convivial habits. It was a Fourth of July, and Charles had saved up his pocket money for firecrackers, gunpowder, and a pit ticket for the Bowery to see the great Booth as Richard III. The gunpowder and crackers, alas ! were wasted ; for when he awoke, as he thought, at daybreak, and hurried to the Hoboken Ferry to take the boat for the general holiday resort, the Elysian Fields, he saw to his astonishment crowds returning instead of going, and found that he had waked in the evening instead of the morning twilight ! But the glories of the night were still to be enjoyed, and he hastened back to the theatre, where the doors were to be opened at half past six and the performance was to commence at seven, according to the early habits of those days. To his dismay the pit was already packed with men standing several deep at the back and preventing the least view of the stage by a late comer, especially a small boy. Observing his predicament, however, the good-natured men in front of him lifted him over their heads and passed him along from hand to hand to the patrons of the crowded front rows, who then deposited him on the stage. This expedient was soon followed with the remaining small boys in the pit, and they were all safely huddled in corners of the "float," a space which in those days projected several feet in front of the curtain. Here the youngsters watched the malignant, crook-backed tyrant dispose of the rival Plantagenets, order Buckingham to execution, and ultimately, in defiance of history, chase Richmond off the field — for it happened to be one of those occasions when Booth was more than ordinarily full of inspiration. The luckless Richmond on that night was actually pursued down the back stairs, out of the back door, and into the street, and finally saved himself by taking refuge in a convenient passage.

The conditions referred to above were not alone what then affected a large part of the community unfavorably towards the theatre. Just before we came to the city occurred the Astor Place Opera House riot, growing out of the partisanship of admirers of the eminent English actor, Macready, and of the popular Edwin Forrest. Newspaper articles on both sides of the Atlantic, injudicious speeches by Macready from the stage, injurious replies published by Forrest, inflammatory articles in a weekly called Ned Buntline's Own, written by the publisher, Judson, and, on the occasion of a farewell engagement of Macready at the Opera House, a canard that the officers and crew of a British vessel in the harbor were to land for his protection — all this led to a mob marching on the theatre to wreck it, the calling out of the militia, and a fierce encounter in which the soldiers had to fight for their own lives, resulting in the killing of twenty-three persons and the wounding of twenty-two. The ringleader Judson (or "Ned Buntline," as he called himself), with other of the rioters, was Indicted, tried, and found guilty. Judson, the instigator of the fray by appeal in his paper to "patriotism," very properly received the utmost punishment for the offence (rioting) for which he was indicted — namely, a year's imprisonment and a fine. To the claims for consideration made in his behalf on the score of his services to his country (he had been formerly in the navy) and of his alleged breeding as a gentleman and a scholar, the district attorney, John McKeon, retorted that whatever he had once been, he was now one of the proprietors "of a vile newspaper — a beast of prey hanging on the great camp of humanity and living on the carrion of blasted character and vice." It was significantly observed also that whereas all the other prisoners had offered proof of previous good character in mitigation of their offence, Judson did not venture to do so.

F. F. Mackay, then a boy, was on the north side of Astor Place with a young friend who had come with him, as boys will, to see the row. When the firing began, a man standing by them exclaimed, "That's no blank cartridge," and seizing little Mackay, tossed him over the railing and into the area below. When Mackay got out again, he found that his boy companion had been shot. Mackay years afterwards frequently supported Forrest in star engagements. When Forrest last played in Boston, a chair was placed in the wings to save him the fatigue of going to his dressing-room after each scene. He used to make Mackay sit with him, and one night the latter told him of the news from England that Macready was dead. Forrest uttered an exclamation and raised his hands and eyes, then said in a strong voice : "The greatest artist of them all ! In ten years there will be no one to read Shakespeare!" Mackay suggested that there remained Phelps, then a deserved favorite of the London stage.

"Phelps is an old man," answered Forrest, and repeated, "In ten years there will be no one to read Shakespeare !"

Respect for the drama in civilized communities is too deeply seated to be destroyed by adventitious circumstances. The theatre was a favorite recreation with the most intelligent circles of New York. But the city was then served somewhat like an English provincial town. Its theatres, with two exceptions, were maintained for the accommodation of travelling stars who appeared season after season with the regularity of the winter constellations. For their convenience stock companies were maintained like stock scenery. Burton's and Wallack's were the exceptions.

Our good Aunt and Uncle Woodgate were fond of the theatre and took us there often. Besides Burton's ^ and Wallack's,^ there were Niblo's,' the Broadway,* the Bowery,^ and the National.* In these places the ballet was modestly clothed and the only "problem" play was the antiquated "Stranger." There was one place to which small boys and girls were allowed to go as matter of course. This was Barnum's Museum,^ comprising three floors of curiosities, and a "lecture room" fitted up marvellously like a theatre, but to which persons having a prejudice against playhouses might resort without misgivings. It was a profitable concern, but Barnum happened to back a New England Clock Company too heavily and failed. The story of how he recovered is characteristic. His creditors were visited in turn by a sympathetic friend, leading a human wreck. The human wreck was Barnum. The eloquent friend persuaded the creditors to sign off