Abstract
Now known almost exclusively for his “blood and thunder melodramas,” more and more of which fail to attract, Hamblin fights to keep the Bowery open. As a slew of creditors closes in and legal problems multiply, unhappy shareholders of the theatre pile on with lawsuits. When the Bowery Theatre burns yet again, Hamblin leases the rights to rebuild it to manager A. W. Jackson. After Jackson rebuilds it, Hamblin takes back its management, further infuriating its shareholders. Shaw, still the pre-eminent actress of the Bowery, bears him two more children.
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Notes
- 1.
Records, Court of Common Pleas, Sept. 22, 1843, and Chancery Court, Dec. 30, 1846, MACNY; New York Express, Aug. 28, 1843; NYCA, Aug. 28, 1844.
- 2.
Flynn to J. S. Jones , Dec. 1, 1842, HTC.
- 3.
New York Sporting Whip, Feb. 11 and 25, 1843.
- 4.
Ibid.
- 5.
Both Tom and Matilda Flynn met unpleasant ends. They acted intermittently, but barely drew notices. Alcoholism kept Tom from managing any more theatres. He died of cholera (a resurgence in New York) at forty-four on June 23, 1849. Matilda played supporting roles until losing her youthful bloom. She died at thirty-seven on June 14, 1851, in St. Louis from injuries suffered in a jealousy-fueled brawl with another woman, although she showed, post-mortem, symptoms of cholera as well.
- 6.
The Albion, Feb. 4, 1843; Anglo American, May 1, 1847.
- 7.
Records, Court of Common Pleas, MACNY, Sept. 22, 1843.
- 8.
Express quoted in Alexandria (VA) Gazette, Oct. 11, 1843.
- 9.
Ireland II: 145.
- 10.
Albion, Aug. 10, 1844.
- 11.
Meade Minnigerode. The Fabulous Forties. Garden City, NY: Garden City Publishing Co., Inc., 1928, 175–77; Meserve, Heralds, 193–96; The Galaxy, May 1876, 582.
- 12.
Records, Circuit Court, MACNY, Nov. 1–2 and 12, 1844.
- 13.
TSH to Wemyss, Nov. 19, 1844, Columbia University Phoenix Papers, MS#0997.
- 14.
TSH to Wemyss, Jan. 22, Feb. 1 and 2, 1845, HTC; Wemyss, Twenty-Six Years, 400.
- 15.
TSH to Wemyss, Extra-Illustrated Ireland, Vol. I, Pt. IX, p. 149, HTC; Wemyss, Twenty-Six Years, 402.
- 16.
Meserve, Heralds of Promise, 196; SotT, Apr. 5, 1845.
- 17.
George Templeton Strong . The Diary of George Templeton Strong, ed. Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1952, 259–60.
- 18.
NYH, Apr. 26, 1845.
- 19.
NYH, Apr. 29, 1845.
- 20.
Office of Register, City of New York, liber 463, p. 142, and liber 466, p. 514.
- 21.
NYH, Apr. 30 and May 7, 1845; Broadway Journal, May 10, 1845, 1:301.
- 22.
NYH, May 9, 1845; Wemyss. Twenty-Six Years, 400; Office of Register, City of New York, liber 489, p. 178.
- 23.
Office of Register, City of New York, liber 464, p. 73.
- 24.
Broadway Journal, Aug. 16, 1845, 2:93.
- 25.
Troy (NY) Daily Times, June 8, 1872; Isaac C. Pray. Memoirs of James Gordon Bennett and his Times. New York: Arno, 1970, 227–28.
- 26.
Klee 100; Odell V:191–94 and 267–76.
- 27.
This response and all papers relating to this convoluted suit, John S. Giles vs. Thomas S. Hamblin and Abram W. Jackson , from which the quotes below are taken, form case BM-487-G, Records of Chancery before the Vice Chancellor of the First Circuit, New York, MACNY.
- 28.
The Subterranean, Feb. 20, 1847, edited by Hamblin’s former rent courier, Mike Walsh , who knew him well. Odell V:269–76; NYH, Aug. 19–28, 1847.
- 29.
George Joseph Arnold in “Theatric [sic] Reminiscences, by ‘John Carboy’ [John A. Harrington], unidentified clipping, HTC.
- 30.
(Syracuse NY) Onandaga Standard, May 17, 1848.
- 31.
Ibid.
- 32.
Office of Register, New York City, liber 502, p. 320, and liber 508, p. 573. See also liber 516, p. 561.
- 33.
American Dramatic Fund Association, New York. Report of the Secretary. New York: T.S. Murphy, 1851, passim.
- 34.
United States Magazine and Democratic Review, June 1848.
- 35.
“The Old Bowery,” undated clipping from NYDM, HTC.
- 36.
The Galaxy, May 1876, 584; Scott to “Friend [Nehemiah?] Lewis,” Nov. 27, 1853, in Extra-Illustrated “J H Payne ” volume of Brander Matthews, Actors and Actresses, vol. 3, p. 45, HTC.
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Bogar, T.A. (2018). “We Are Not Dead Yet, Boys!”. In: Thomas Hamblin and the Bowery Theatre. Palgrave Studies in Theatre and Performance History. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68406-2_11
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