Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1880-01-08
Her theatrical Career and Divorce In
Nashville Life of Luxury and
A Miserable Death.

"E. j." New York, contributes the
following to the Cincinnati Enquirer:
To commence: Menken was not born
a Jewess, and there was nothing about
her features except, perhaps, her large
lustrous eyes, to lead any one to sup
pose so. Her real name was Adelaide
McCord, and she was born near New
Orleans on June IS, 1885. She had
one sister named Josephine, also a
brother, who worked at the. case as a
cempositor in Cincinnati. Their father
died in 1912, and her mother subse-
quently married DR.. j. G. Campbell,
an army surgeon connected with the
barracks at Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Upon the step-fathe sdeathin 1856, ne
cessity drove thetwo sisters. Adelaide
aud Josephine, to adopt the stage, and
they appeared conformity at the French
Opera house, New Orleans, as dan
GERS. In this capacity they filed
numerous engagements in Texas,
Cuba, Mexico and elsewhere. Menken
becoming more ambitious, however,
studied in her leisure hours for a
tragedienne, and as such made her
first appearance at the Varieties thea
ter in New Orleans as Blanca" in
Fazic, in the spring Of 1859. After
ward making a tour of the South and
Southwest while engaged as leading
lady for Manager Crisp, of Memphis
and Nashville, she became enamored
of Mr.. Menken, a musician and | be-
lieve an Israelite. She was married
to that gentleman under the name of
Adah Bertha Theodore in 1859, and
his full name she informed me was
Alexander Isaacs Menken, which,
with a slight alteration, retaining
the initials, she adopted as her
stage name and retained it till death.
Adah was divorced from Menken in
Nashville. She and John G. Heenan.
the celebrated pugilist, and as hand
some a looking a mar as she was a
woman, were brought together by
chance, and so fond was she of the
Boy" as Heenan was called, being
about her own age, over six feet high
aud built in proportion, as to induce
him to marry her, the ceremony tax
ing place at a New York road house
known as Rock Cottage, kept by a
well known sporting character named
Jim Hughes, by the Rev. j. S. Bald
win, on April 3, 1859, and Jack Her
man, the Ethiopian minstrel, informed
me that he was witness to the papers.
She was as fond of Heenan as was
possible, and bore him a male child.
Shortly afterward they quarreled,
Heenan left her, she was taken sick,
and but for one solitary friend still
living, might have followed her child
to the grave. at about this time the
news reached Adah that her mother,
too, had passed away, and for some
months in her little room on Third
Avenue, she lay almost at deaths
door. Being very courageous, however,
she pulled through.
The subsequently travelled over the
country as Mrs. John G. Heenan, and
during the war frequently got in hot
water by expressing herself a little
too freely rs a Secessionist. She was
very fond o~fdecorating her rooms with
Confederate flags everywhere she went.
While playing in Baltimore, then
under military rule, she was arrested
and placed under guard during the
reign of Provost Marshall Fish. but
was treated with great consideration
on account of her manifold charms of
manner and person.
During Heenan's absence in Eng
land she obtained a divorce from him
in order to marry a distinguished New
York journalist, with whom Cher
third husband) she sailed for Cali.
fornia in 1868. In her union with
Mr.. n. it was stipulated that Adah
should give up the stage forever
Such tempting offers, however, were
made for her to break this resolution
that, womanlike, she changed hel
mind, and signed a contract with Ton
Mcguire to appear sixty nights in SaI
Francisco and Sacramento at $500
performance. Shortly afterward he
husband left for New York, and
believe they never met again.
Z Mazeppa and the French Spy SC
the miners and sporting men wild, an.
it was not to be wondered at that sh
had suitors innumerable. With on
of these - an acquaintance Of he
brother, in Cincinnati, and a printer
too--with an almost unlimited purs
at his command-took her fancy, an
they went to England from San Frar
cisco together.
Menken, during the four years
her European career, made two visi
to this country. The FIRST in compau
with Lady Stuart, in order to obtain
divorce from Mr.. NJ, which WI
granted in Indiana the second wit
Lizette Ellington to, as was suppose,
IL -. IL OIL go