Odd Fellows Hall

Odd Fellows Hall

The corner of High & Main Streets, looking westerly along Main Street during Old Home Week 1903 In this view, above the bunting a sign for a photographer can be seen. This was the William H. Tuttle Studio. On the lower level of the building is a market (see signs) The taller building going up Main Street toward the Post Office is the Oddfellows Hall. At the corner, in front of the market is a sign advertising an event at the Opera House. The sign is advertising a performance by Kate Claxton. An article from the Republican Journal of Aug. 20, 1903 announces as follows: "The Belfast Opera House had three dates last week, with highly satisfying entertainments. Wednesday and Thursday Kate Claxton played 'Bootles' Baby' and 'The Two Orphans,' and fully sustained her high reputation as a star actress. She had good support. Friday evening the famous 'Old Jed Prouty' was given before a good audience. The play abounds in funny situations from the rise to the fall of the curtain and the audience was convulsed with laughter." KATE CLAXTON Kate Claxton (August 24, 1848 - May 5, 1924) was an American actress, born Kate Elizabeth Cone at Somerville, New Jersey. She made her first appearance on the stage in Chicago with Lotta Crabtree in 1870, and in the same year joined Augustin Daly's Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York. In 1872 she became a member of A. M. Palmer's Union Square Theatre, playing largely comedy roles. She created the part of Louise in The Two Orphans and then became known as one of the best emotional actresses of her time. Her first starring tour was in 1876. In 1878 she was married to Charles A. Stevenson. She was performing the play The Two Orphans at the Brooklyn Theatre (Brooklyn, New York), on the night of December 5, 1876 when fire broke out eventually killing 278 persons. It was, and still remains, one of the greatest fires in New York City history. Claxton married twice, first in 1865 to Isadore Lyon; they later divorced. On March 3, 1878, she married Charles A. Stevenson, and in 1911 they divorced. Her son Harold Stevenson committed suicide in 1904. Claxton died due to a cerebral hemorrhage in her apartment in New York City, and was buried in Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery. BOOTLES' BABY SYNOPSIS The child is the daughter of two young people who are married unhappily, the father an officer in an English regiment, the "Scarlet Lancers," in which a young man bearing the euphonious nickname of "Bootles" is a popular member. The young mother of the child, desiring to keep her vow regarding the secrecy of her marriage, but unable to support her baby, decides to leave it in the father's rooms and force him to provide for it. By mistake she enters the wrong door and leaves the child in the room of "Bootles," much to that young gentleman's surprise when he finally appears upon the scene sometime after and finds the baby snugly tucked away in his favorite armchair. "Bootles" is naturally somewhat awed at the new honor thrust upon him and, not knowing just how he should act under the circumstances, summons his boon companion of the regiment to advise him. The father of the child is among the group that gathers about the bedside where the little girl sits enthroned, but he decides to keep silence and leave "Bootles" to care for the child or dispose of it as he chooses. Our hero, after a further conference with the Colonel of the barracks and the latter's good wife, decides upon the former course and assumes the guardianship of the little foundling, who rewards him by providing a most companionable and lovable little lady. Two years later, at a house party where "Bootles" is spending some time, there comes a strange young woman as the secretary or companion of one of the titled guests, and though she keeps her own counsel we realize at once that she is the mother of the little girl. And then fate takes a hand and makes our friend "Bootles" fall desperately in love with the unassuming little secretary. It nearly breaks his heart when she acknowledges her love for him but tells him that she may not marry him. Then the scene shifts to a gentleman's race, in which the father of the child meets with a fatal accident. Before he dies he confesses his relationship to the little girl, but not to her mother; and so, when "Bootles" receives a letter in a strange hand from a woman who tells him she is the child's mother and asks for her return, he prepares to give up the little one about whom his heart strings are closely woven, and takes her to the address given in the letter. Of course he meets with a surprise there, but it is one of those surprises which not only makes him happy but makes the spectator feel quite proud of having known it all along.