This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 4/25/2021
Significant and rare autograph book originating from the area of Elmira, New York filled with an abundant number of historical signatures (MORE THAN 85 AUTOGRAPHS!) obtained between the 1860s and 1910, including many historical figures such as important clergy, preachers, teachers, authors, poets, politicians, lawyers, businessmen, actors, stage performers, vaudevillians, comedians, singers, songwriters and musicians – many of the signatures obtained at the original Elmira Theatre. See list below. Most signatures occupy their own page in the 7.5 X 5 autograph album/book while few pages are filled with up to four signatures and only a few are cuts mounted on the page. A few pages are loose, fair to very good condition overall. A virtual Who’s-Who of renowned figures of the period! While several signatures remain unidentified, following somewhat in order of appearance throughout this most historical autograph book are the following signatures: Joseph Jefferson III (1829-1905) was an American actor and was the third actor of this name in a family of actors and managers, and one of the most famous of all 19th century American comedians. Mary Frances Scott-Siddons (1844-1896) was a British actor and dramatic reader. Henry Gaither Worthington (1828-1909) was an American lawyer, politician and diplomat. He was notable for serving as the first United States Representative from Nevada. Robert Collyer (1823-1912) was an English-born American Unitarian clergyman. John Bartholomew Gough (1817-1886) was a United States temperance orator. J. C. Barlett (1850-1929) was an American musician and songwriter.
L. G. Gottschalk (1845-1912) was an opera singer and teacher. He was the brother of Louis Moreau Gottschalk, the famous pianist. Goldwin Smith (1823-1910) was a British historian and journalist, active in the United Kingdom and Canada. In the 1860s he also taught at Cornell University. William Faversham (1868-1940) was an English stage and film actor, manager and producer. Bayard Taylor (1825-1878) was an American poet, literary critic, translator, travel author, and diplomat. Therese Carolina Johanne Alexandra Tietjens (1831-1877) was a leading opera and oratorio soprano. She made her career chiefly in London during the 1860s and 1870s, but her sequence of musical triumphs in the British capital was terminated by cancer James Henry Mapleson (1830-1901) was an English opera impresario, a leading figure in the development of opera production, and of the careers of singers, in London and New York in the mid-19th Century. L. G. Holland – Head of the National Portrait Gallery. May Irwin (1862-1938) was an actress, singer and star of vaudeville. Theodore Tilton (1935-1907) was an American newspaper editor, poet and abolitionist. Helen Potter was a performer, platform reader, and impersonator closely associated with the Lyceum circuit and the New York Chautauqua in particular. Her performance career with the two institutions spanned the 1870s and 1880s, before she retired in 1890. Lawrence Barrett (1838-1891) was an American stage actor Edward Loomis Davenport (1816-1877) was an American actor. Milnes Levick (1825-1897) was an actor and performer. Philip Sidney Post (1833-1895) was an American diplomat, politician, and decorated Army officer. Thomas Kinnicut Beecher (1824-1900) was a Congregationalist preacher and the principal of several schools. Alexander Williams Randall (1819-1872) was a lawyer, judge and politician from Wisconsin volunteer troops for the Union Army during the American Civil War.
Timothy Shay Arthur (1809-1885) known as T. S. Arthur – was a popular 19thCentury American author. He is famously known for his temperance novel “Ten Nights in a Bar-Room and What I Saw There” (1854), which helped demonize alcohol in the eyes of the American public. James O’Neill (1863-1938) was an American actor. Before his silent film career he was a vaudeville stage actor. Thomas DeWitt Talmage (1832-1902) was a preacher, clergyman, and divine in the United States who held pastorates in the Reformed Church in America and Presbyterian Church. He was one of the most prominent religious leaders in the United States during the mid- to late- 19th century, equaled as a pulpit orator perhaps only by Henry Ward Beecher.
Edwin Hubbell Chapin (1814-1880) was an American preacher and editor of the “Christian Leader.” He was a poet, responsible for the poem “Burial at Sea,” which was the origin of a famous folk song, “Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie.” Jacques Kruger III – was a character actor and comedian. Henry Miller (1859-1926) was an English-born American actor, director, theatrical producer and manager. Richard Harding Davis (1864-1916) was an American journalist and writer of fiction and drama, known foremost as the first American war correspondent to cover the Spanish-American War, the Second Boer War, and the First World War. Chauncey Olcott (1858-1932) was an America stage actor, songwriter and singer of Irish descent. David Belasco (1853-1931) was an American theatrical producer, impresario, director and playwright. Mabelle Gilman Corey (1874-1960) was an American actress. Edgar Atchison-Ely – was an actor and stage performer. David Warfield (1866-1951) was an American stage actor. Caroline Richings Bernard (1832-1882) was a singer, pianist and theatre director.
Francis Murphy (1836-1907) was an American temperance evangelist. Charles A. Stevenson (1851-1929) Irish-born American stage and movie actor. Kate Claxton (1848-1924) was an American actress. Henry E. Dixey (1859-1943) was an American actor and theatre producer. Stuart Robson (1836-1903) was a famous comedic stage actor. H. A. Weaver – was an American actress. Florence Rea Rockwell (1880-1964) was an American actress.
Walter Hale (d. 1917)– was an actor and writer, known for The Lightning Conductor (1914), The Prisoner of Zenda (1913) and The Lambs’ All-Star Gambol (1914). Mary Jeffreys Lewis (1852-1926?) known professionally as Jeffreys Lewis was a British-born American actress whose career lasted long after her popularity as a leading lady had faded. Andrew Mack (1863-1931) was an American vaudevillian, actor, singer and songwriter of Irish descent Alice Fischer (1869-1947) was an American stage actress born in Indiana. Her one film appearance was the now lost 1917 “National Red Cross Pageant.” She was a great beauty as a young woman at the turn of the 20th Century. William Henry Crane (1945-1928) was an American actor. Francis Wilson (1854-1935) was an American actor, born in Philadelphia. Henry Clay Barnabee (1833-1917) was one of the great comedians of the 19thCentury. William “W. H.” MacDonald – was an actor, stage star and was a member of The Bostonians, a musical comedy troupe. Viola Emily Allen (1867-1948) was an American stage actress who played leading roles in Shakespeare and other plays, including many original plays. She starred in over two dozen Broadway productions from 1885 to 1916. Beginning in 1915, she appeared in three silent films. Henry Denman Thompson (1833-1911) was an American playwright and theatre actor. James Vincent Murphy (1880-1946) was an Irish translator, writer, and journalist, who published one of the first complete English translations of “Mein Kampf” in 1939. Helena Modjeska (1840-1909) was a renowned actress who specializes in Shakespearean and tragic roles. Ezra Kendall (1861-1910) was an American actor-comedian, humorist, playwright and author.
Edward Harrigan – was an American playwright and actor. W. C. Smith – was an American actor and playwright.
Martin W. Hanley – was an American actor, playwright and troupe leader. Wilton Lackaye (1862-1932) was an American stage and film actor, who originated the role of Svengali (from the 1895 novel “Trilby”) in both stage and film. Jerome Sykes (1868-1903) was an American stage actor, singer and comedian.
Ernest Thompson Seton (1860-1946) was an author, wildlife artist, founder of the Woodcraft Indians in 1902 (renamed Woodcraft League of America) and one of the founding pioneers of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) in 1910. Robert Bruce Mantell (1854-1928) was a noted Shakespearean stage actor who made several silent films. Reuben Fax – was an actor and stage performer. J. H. Stoddart – was an American actor and stage star.
Amelia Swilley Bingham (1869-1927) was an American actress from Hicksville, Ohio. Her Broadway career extended from 1896 until 1926. Harold Kyrle Money Bellew (1850-1911) was an English stage and silent film actor Lewis Morrison (1844-1906) was a Jamaican-born American stage actor and theatrical manager. Clara Morris (1849-1925) was an American actress. Mary Mannering (1876-1953) was an English actress. Mary C. Ames (1831-1884) was a 19th century American journalist, author, and poet. John Drew Jr. (1853-1927) was an American stage actor noted for his roles in Shakespearean comedy, society drama, and light comedies.
Richard Carey – actor and stage performer. Comes with a Gotta Have Rock & Roll Certificate of Authenticity.