The Company Player

Found Photo Project #8

By Eilene Lyon

This portrait of actor David R. Young was taken in Boston in 1896. He inscribed it to his mother, who lived in Connecticut (as did he). How it wound up in an antique store in southwestern Colorado—in the unincorporated, wide-spot-in-the-road known as Gem Village—shall remain a mystery.

David R. Young was born in New York City on March 13, 1850. He died of pneumonia (preceded by influenza) on his 68^th birthday in 1918.¹

David was born into acting. His first on-stage appearance was as a babe in his mother’s arms. Florence M. (Herring) Young went by the stage name of Fanny Herring. She was the English-born daughter of a British comedian, and she specialized in “breeches” parts, in Western “blood and thunder” dramas. David’s father was John J. Young, a ship carpenter from Pennsylvania.² Not much else is known about him, and he does not appear with Fanny and their two sons in the 1860 census or later.³

Learning stagecraft in the 19^th century took ten years of training in all aspects of theater, including song and dance. David put in his time and could fill any role, on or off stage. In the 1870s, he played youth roles in Shakespeare productions and other plays with various stock companies–Colonel Sinn, Edwin Booth (brother of John Wilkes), J.K. Emmett–and later, Robert Mantell, and Julia Marlowe.

An article about his career remarked, “He has run the gamut of stage character work, filling roles that run all the way down life, a social scale from king to beggar and from heavy tragedian to mimicking clown. He has made audiences laugh and others weep…”⁴ He also worked as stage manager and theater manager at various points in his career.

His company work took him across the country as far as Texas and California, and even into Canada, though he mostly worked in New England. In Brooklyn, an 1876 tragedy never left David’s mind. Sinn’s company, including David, was playing “The Octoroon” at the Park Theater, followed by a performance of “The Two Orphans.” He recalled:

The fire occurred on Tuesday, Dec. 5. Our performance had finished and I was on my way home when I saw the people rushing from the Brooklyn theatre, where Kat Claxton was playing The Two Orphans. No one realized there had been such a loss of life until the next day.

Yes, 285 lives were lost. I saw over 150 of the dead in an old market on Washington street which afterwards became Hyde & Behman’s theatre… ⁵

The most notable play David R. Young performed in was “Lincoln,” about Abraham Lincoln in the 1865 White House, starring Benjamin Chapin as the late president (Chapin also wrote the play). It debuted in 1906.

A Wikipedia article states that David played a soldier. However, the company players rotated roles. He also went on as Secretary of War Edwin Stanton and as Major General Joseph Hooker. While playing the latter role, he had a memorable encounter. In 1910, after learning of Mark Twain’s death, he wrote:

I was acting the character of Fighting Joe Hooker in a play called Abraham Lincoln, at the Liberty theatre in New York…Mr. Clemens was in a private box and came around on the stage to meet Mr. Chapin, the Lincoln of the play; I stood a short distance away, admiring him as I did his works, when he, looking about, said: “Where is the general?” I stepped forward and replied, touching my hat in military sallute [sic], “Here, sir, at your service.”

He stepped forward, held out his hand and said, “Joe, old friend, you are looking fine; just as you did in ’66 when you visited me in California and took me out on a fishing trip in the mountains, and by jingo, if I remember rightly, you did not catch one fish, and I did.” With a smile, he placed his hand on my shoulder and again looked into my eyes said, “Can it be possible for one person to make up, to so closely resemble another? It is wonderful; you are an artist sir. This is a perfect reincarnation.” ⁶

A couple months after his Gen. Hooker performance, David’s beloved mother, Fanny, died at age 75.⁷ Two years earlier, she had suffered a stroke while visiting Hartford to see one of David’s performances.⁸ In 1918, he was laid to rest near her in their family lot in Connecticut.⁹

David’s personal life was complex and interesting. He had an artistic and inventive mind. He built a boat at one point, and he also designed and constructed a model airplane with the intention of having a real one built. He enjoyed traveling and spending time with his family when he was not on tour.

He had three wives, but the first two marriages were short-lived. He did have a son by the second wife, an actress named Marie Antoinette Parkhurst, whom he married in New Hampshire in 1882.¹⁰ He married Lillian Wallace Perry in 1890 and they had two sons together.¹¹ They made their home in Niantic, Connecticut, for many years, but moved to New London in 1908.

Though David was never a leading man, he was well-known, popular, and made a good living as a company actor. He contributed to his community through involvement with the B.P.O.E. (Elks club). He was indeed his mother’s “big boy.”

All the world’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players;

They have their exits and their entrances,

And one man in his time plays many parts.

~William Shakespeare

Coming up: On Saturday, I will blog about how I researched David R. Young and other of my Found Photo projects.

Feature image: The Park Theater in New York shown in its original configuration (1797) and reconstructed after a fire (1820). This theater, where David R. Young was playing at the time, was destroyed by fire in 1876. (Wikimedia Commons)