Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1899-12-15
OUR NEW YORK LETTER.
Old Days Suggested by the Disappear.
ance Of J, L. Webster.


Popular Tnstes-YOuth and Age.
New York. Dec. 14-[Special Ito
the old time amusement lover there
have been few recent pieces of sadder
news than the dispatches which told of
the financial troubles of John L. Web
ster and his wife, Nellie McHenry, and
the later dispatches detailing Webster's
disappearance.
There was n time, and to the old
timer it seems hardly longer ago than
yesterday, when John L. Webster and
Nellie McHenry were very much on
the crest of fortunes wave. Then they
were tremendously successful in their
chosen profession of making people
merry and correspondingly well to do
from a financial viewpoint. Any one
who had predicted the present state of
their affairs would have been cOnsid-
cred probably lunatic.
When They Were Prosperous.
When Nellie McHenry and John L.
Webster were at their best, they were
members of Salsbury's Troubadours.
Nate Salisbury has not yet broken up
and probably never will, but before he
reached the success in which Webster
and McHenry shared he had under
gone his full proportion of ups and
downs. Salisbury must now be well
along toward SO. He is no longer a
youngster, though by no means an old
man as yet. He was born in Free
port, Ills, of Vermont ancestry, and
went to the front as a volunteer al
most at the first call for troops when
the civil war broke out. 1t has often
been said that he was the youngest en-
listed soldier in the army of the north,
though that has been disputed. At all
events, he went in full Of grit He
kept it with him all through the con-
test, and he came out with three bull
let holes in his skin. He entered into
the acting business right after the
war was over. beginning at Boston,
where he was a member of the Mu-
scum stock at a ridiculously small
weekly pittance. After leaving the
Museum he tried his hand at various
parts in various climes-it is said, in
deed. that in his time he has acted be-
fore every English speaking public in
the world. He formed the Salisbury
TroubadOurs nearly or quite 20 years
ago, Webster and McHenry being with
him, and the performances of that or
ganization brought wealth and fame to
him.
Stumbled Upon Success.
hA n
together little success was attained.
The returns carried the party through
the season, but that was about all. The
following summer they all put in the
time at Lake Chautauqua, and it was
agreed that before the warm weather
was over they must have a piece ready
that would go.
For a long time it looked as If they
weren't going to strike anything. They
racked their brains daily for ideas, but
no ideas would come. One day they
went picnicking on the banks of lit
tie stream. Naturally they had a good
time. They sang songs, played bolster
Gus games. did turns. On the way home
in a hired omnibus, the men sitting on
the roof and the women inside, some
one asked why an entertainment could
not be built up on the events of the
day. The idea seemed good to every
body. and before they slept they had
begun whipping things into shape. The
result was The Brook" hodgepOdge
of songs, dances, recitations and non
sense, which drew tremendous audi
ences the next winter and from time
to time during many winters thereaft-
er. ''The Brook" was followed by sew
eral other entertainments, each one
phenomenally funny in the view of the
times and phenomenally successful.
McHenry and Webster were in them
all, and the day of adversely seemed
far away to them. They built beau
tiful summer home at the Highlands of
Navesink one of several actors colo
MES in the vicinity of New York, and
enjoyed life the year round.
The Unlocked For Comes.
But after awhile Salisbury, who had
a big interest with Cody in the Buffalo
Bill" Wild West show, concluded to
give most of his attention to that en-
terprise leaving Webster and McHen-
~ to shift for themselves. Nobody,
themselves least of any, imagined for
one moment that they'd have any
| trouble. They had been popular favor
ties so long that failure to please the
public seemed positively unthinkable,
and they went out on the road in per-
formances very like those that had put
them to the front when Salisbury was
with them. "A Night at the Circus"
was one of these, "Green Room Fun"
another. Green Room Fun" was the
performance they gave early in the
present season.
Just why they didn't get along better
wouldn't be easy for an outsider to
say, but undoubtedly the change in
popular taste had something to do with
| It. Besides, neither Webster nor his
wife is as young as formerly, and it is
a fact, which even Madge Kendall has
been obliged to recognize this year,
that middle aged folk don't always
succeed in the stimulation of youth.
Although Webster and McHenry
were never such great favorites in
New York as Ned Harrigan was at his
best, they were most popular when he
was enjoying his greatest success. 1t
was then that Henry z. Dixey, now
also pretty well out of it, was best
supported, besides a lot Of others the
old timers remember with regret.
Kate Claxton, Maggie Mitchell and