Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1893-06-16
AN OLD-TIME THEATER.
a BALTIMORE PLAYHOUSE
AND ITS HISTORY.
The Elder Booth, Macready, Forrest and
Jenny Lind-LineolD Was Nomi-
mated From Its stage in
1S64-Mrs. Drew.

Under the shadow of the gaunt,
smoking factory ilues, and hedged
about by ramshackle houses, once the
home of the wealthy, that surround
it, given over to rust. dust, and
brooding silence, the old Front street
theater in this city stands striking
example of the wonderful changes
that have occurred within the half
century past, writes q Baltimore cor
respondent in the New York Recorder
Changes have come since Macready,
Booth, Forrest and host of other
famous players trod its stage:
changes that have left this old play
house that once marked the heart OF
the fashionable neighborhood of Bal
timore the center of quarter noted
now as the home of poverty, squalor
and vice.
The buds of society in "Old Oriole'
that thronged here that night in De-
ccmber, 1850, when Barnum intro
duced Jenny Lind, the famoas 'Swed-
ish nigh tingale," after her successes
at Castle Garden, New York, and the
Academy of Music in Philadelphia,
are grandams now Booth, Forrest
and Macready are gone and in the
rooms in which they dressed the dust
is so thickly strewn that the human
football produces no greater sound
than the fall of dry leaf upon the
breast of the earth where they are
sleeping.
Ghostly curtains of cobweb fringe
hn
from the great hand wrought oaken
beams high above The long, dizzy
flights of open stairway leading into
the hies and paint loft creak in a
doleful way, and sweeping draughts
of air from many time-cut chirk
swing the cobwebs back and forth in
ghost-like fashion.
Far above the old proscenium arch,
where no light has reached them in
many years, lying amid drifting dust
and notification canvas. are proper
ties used in the days of the great
players who strobe the boards far be-
low. Shield and sword of the soldier;
rapier and plumes of the courtier;
hammer and anvil of the smlthy; the
throne chair of the king and clank-
ing chain Of the captive, all, all for
gotten, useless, buried in winding
sheets OF dust
Here, where once rolled the thun-
derous applause of thousands when
Mrs. John Drew made her debut with
the elder Booth, brooding silence
reigns supreme and tie winds hoarse
whisper in the lantern roof is all
that breaks her dream.
The massive curtain. once the
finest of its kind, hangs shredded
with age, devoid of great patches OF
paint that originally marked the place
Of palace upon its wheczy drum
The pebblo-iilled "rain-box," the
thunder shoot, the paint frame"
and hundred ouher parts of old-time
stage paraphernalia are still in their
place. and down in the black pit be-
low the stage still linger signs Of the
old stage ring or circus and the
stalls in which 2)0 handsome horses
belonging in Blanchard's circus per-
ished by fire one night during the
winter of '3S.
1t was with this equestrian exhi-
bition that the house was opened
shortly after being finished. That
was in the fall of 1880. aud just eight
years later to q month il was de-
stroyed by fire. When rebuilt it
was again occupied by Blanchard,
who produced a combination exhibit
tion of dramatic art upon the stage
and fancy riding in the pit below
In the winter of 1912 Mrs. John
Drew made her first stage appearance
here. In 1850 Jenny Lind, under the
management of Phineas /. Barnum,
sang six concerts that Melted her the
wonderful sum of $4,000
June, 1860, the national Democratic
convention met here in this house,
and from its stage on June day, 1864,
Abraham Lincoln was nominated for
the presidency and Andrew johnson
for the second highest Office in the
affairs of the nation.
In all the records OF the stage
there are few il any great names to
be found that have not figured on its
walls
Within the last ten years it has
been the home of the border drama
and crank" shows generally. 1t has
been closed for long time, and to
be removed for improvements" is
its fate.