The Butte inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1901-1912, 1901-08-23
SAD END or STRANGE GENIUS
Robert Henry Newell Attracted At
tention for Brilliancy and
Eccentricity.


of the lonely death of Robert Henry
Newell in his sister-in- laws house, in
East Brooklyn, We're aware that for
from me he was grieving over the
sad ending of the one romance OF
his life. Few of those who knew him
in the old days recalled that for two
years he had been the husband of Adah
Isaacs Menken. whose beauty, daring
wit, poetical fancy and erratic ways
had brought her name into prominence
throughout two continents.
The was a strange side to the char
acter Of the gifted man. whose humor
under the pen name of Orpheus G. Kerr.
has made thousands laugh. 1t was the
side he did his best to hide. about which
he talked little. 1t evinced itself when
he took to wife the dashing beauty, with
whose many vagaries he was conversant,
hoping that she would live to honor the
name he gave her.
He was the third man whom she had
called husband, and her ties to him. as
in the cases Of the others. were severed
by the courts. For the glare of the foot
lights. the applause which greeted her
when, as Mazeppa. she was bound to the
steed which was to bear her away, were
more to her than any mans love. than
any life as an honored wife.
Born in Spain in 1885, her father a
Spaniard, her mother French woman,
the girl whose fate it was in after years
to pose as a reigning beauty was Do
lores Adios Fuertes when, at the age of
7, she appeared in theater in Spain
as dancer. her sister Josephine with
her. The next year she was taken by
her parents to Havana, and such was
her matured beauty of physique and
mind that she had only entered her teens
when she was known as the Queen of
the Plaza.
AS dancer she travelled through Tex
as and Mexico. breaking hearts and
purses wherever she went. She was
little more than Is years old when, in
New Orleans, she published a book of
poems which attracted wide notice. She
called them Memories" and took for
herself. as authors name, "Indigena.'
Her first husband was Alexander
Isaacs Menken, to whom she was mar
ried in Texas in 1856. But marriage was
a failure to her. and two years later the
divorce court of Nashville, Tenn, set her
free, and she returned to the stage. AS
If to give an illustration of the power
~ HA"eSSA ONC1 sue heat DeSlOWcu
her favor on John c. Heenan, one OF
the lights of the prize ring. She be-
came his wife, only to be divorced aft
er three years.
1t was the next year, in 1863. that
she linked her lot to that of Newell,
whose charming writings and magnet
ic personality had a rare fascination for
her. To him her wonderful beauty. her
alert mentality. her superabundance of
vigorous spirits, had marked her as one
apart from other women. He thought
her talents and her life were being vast
ed; it was his fond desire to direct the
one into better channel, make the 9TH
err happy and useful.
1t was merely the poets dream; the
awakening was not long deferred, and
then the woman went to England where.
as Mazeppa, she became the rage Her
Bohemian tendencies We're not to be UNI
der restraint. The stories of her con-
duct reached Newell. and in 1865 a di-
Vorce severed the strange union.
Never did he refer to it, even to his
closest friends, and there was every in
dication that he had changed the trend
OF his life. His penwork, as bright,
as whimsical as ever, the man was an
other being, and SO he remained until
the day of his death, alone in a big
house.
The year after their divorce the wo-
man came to this city, and Mazeppa
was her favorite part. Newell never
saw her: his friends ceased their gos-
sip about her and their play on his APP
proach. In August of that year she was
married to James Barclay: two years
thereafter she died in Paris
Newell's body is in the morgue his
sister-in-law, Mrs. c. S. Newell, is ex-
pected home in few days from Orris
island. off Portland, Me-. where she went
to pass the summer.
Mr.. Newell long before his death came
had ceased from writing in consequence
Of failure of vision which left him just
enough sight to distinguish light from
darkness, and the outlines of persons,
trees. furniture and the like.-Baltimore
American.