The record-union., 1897-04-18

and played here for full year. He
says of that time:
1T must not be supposed, because
the camp was rough, that public taste
was of a low order-on the contrary,
the representations most in demand
were the classics of the stage. During
the entire period we never played trash,
and Shakespearean plays had the most
cordial patronage. The celeprateo
Caroline Chapman was with US then,
and although her name will go down
in history as that of an accomplished
actress of standard roles, few people
will remember that her greatest ORA
matte triumphs were achieved under
the most disadvantageous clrcum-
stances in a new mining camp.
MY health suffered under the con-
slant strain of playing leading heavles
and 1 resig ned from the Sacramento
stock company. Organizing what was
a very competent aggregation for the
times, / guided my players into the
mountains and for four years we fol-
lowed a trail from Mendocino County
to Visalia, with wide detours to east
and west After that / fell in with
John S. Potter-few people remember
him nowadays-an Joined his COM
pany. This carried my career down to
1858. l then returned to Sacramento
and played in the Forrest Theater.
After brief engag cement l went wan
dering with other adventurous players
in the mining camps.
I'm 1861 / was engaged at Maguire's
Opera-house, San Francisco, and soon
afterWard by Manager Burt to join the
stock company of the Metropolitan
Theater, which was on Montgomery
street, near Washington When the
structure was torn down to cut Mont
gomery avenue through / went to New
York where l remained less than a
year.
when 1 returned I found that an old
dentist, whose name I have forgotten,
had been induced to invest some S40,-
600 in a building which is now the
Grand Opera-house on Mission street.
1 joined the company and was soon
busy revising a play written by Sam
Smith, called Snowflake 1t was a
great success, and as Snowflake Annie
Pixley made her first appearance before
a city audience. San Francisco was
not much of a city in those days, but
Annie had been playing in the sage
brush before that and 200 or 300 peo-
pie was a great audience.
"One of the plays In which I appeared
during my career in San Francisco was
Struck OIL by Sam Smith. He had
enough material crowded in it to make
at least dozen lurid melodramas, and
he asked me to do some pruning. 1 did
SO, and with so much success that the
theater was crowded as long as we
gave the performance. Finally Sam
sold the play to Jimmie Williamson for
500. He and his wife, Maggie Moore,
took the play to Australia and made
$500 out of it in a year"
The last appearance of John Wood
ard in San Francisco was in 1880 at the
Bush-street Theater, when he played
Old Bill Williams in a lurid production
known as California Through Death
Valley" Sam Smith was the author of
this vehicle for dramatic art, and as
there was long run there were few
questions asked of the critics.
After an absence of seventeen
years." says Woodland, Il return to
California and seem to live in remem
brance of my earlier struggles and
been possible for people to accomplish
so much in one lifetime. I am not much
given to "reminiscences. In fact, let me
tell you that although, with the eXcep-
ton of G. W. Couldock, / am the Oldest
actor on the stage, I have never had
my photograph taken in my life, nor
have / ever consented to an artist try
ing his skill with my features as a
study The position 1 now occupy on
the stage is of little Importance, and l
do not fail to understand of how little
moment are the has beens. -
There are still living six women who,
| though belonging distinctively to the
stage of the last generation, still retain
no small portion of the ability that once
made them famous, and are even now
| by no means forgotten by the playgoers
| whose prime favorites are of an utterly
different and more modern type. Nine.
Mime Hauk, for instance, has given
way to women of perhaps greater
! breadth of training, yet those who have
superseded her cannot, like her, boast