Soaked in Story
Hamblin’s House of Blood and Thunder
Our lives are soaked in stories. But while some fade from our memory almost as soon as we encounter them, others stay with us for years. I’ve always wondered what makes certain stories special. What chord do they strike? What small demon do they set free? Why do they make us itch?
I stumbled on one that’s been with me for a few years when I was writing a biography. It was loosely connected to my main research, but it dragged me away from the task at hand and has been loose in my mind wanderings ever since.
Louisa Medina
In the mid-1800’s, a young 18 year old European girl by the name of Louisa Medina left home to follow her dream to become a playwright. She’d been writing from a young age and had been published in London annuals at the age of 15.
Louisa landed in Manhattan in the 1830s and became nanny and subsequently lover to the manager of the Bowery Theatre, an infamously licentious brawler named Thomas Hamblin (Hamblin’s House of Blood and Thunder). Hamblin already had a wife and children and a mistress or five, but he soon recognised Louisa’s genius and managed to cast his spell on her too.
Louisa moved in with him and wrote over 30 melodramas adapted from novels, with female characters who were considered to break the normal passive mold. She has been recognised retrospectively as being in the first wave of American feminism and the first woman in American theatre to earn her living as a dramatist.
Her theatre work was incredibly successful and she was lauded for saving the Bowery from bankruptcy. Critics universally loved her.
Life appeared to be working out professionally and personally for Louisa, despite troubles with Hamblin’s wife. But in 1838, she and Hamblin took in Missouri Miller, an up-and-coming young actress, and the decision proved to be the precursor to tragedy. Missouri’s step-sister, an actress called Josephine Clifton, had previously had an affair with Hamblin. Josie tried to warn Missouri away from Hamblin, the unapologetic womaniser, and Hamblin and Josie fell into a public war of words in the newspapers.
Josephine and her camp (Missouri’s mother Mrs Adeline Miller — Fermor/Furman, a “notorious” brothel owner ) accused Hamblin of seducing 16 year old Missouri, which he denied. The battle raged on between Hamblin and Missouri’s family, but within in a short period of time Missouri contracted brain fever and died. Rumours flared, suggesting Louisa was a jealous mistress and had poisoned the girl. Other sources, however, recounted how Louisa nursed and cared for Missouri until the girl died in her arms.
A few months later, Louisa herself became ill and died at the age of 25. The coroner recorded the cause of death as apoplexy, but other accounts say she accidentally overdosed on Laudanum and brandy.
Rumours circulated again suggesting that Hamblin had poisoned Louisa in retribution for her murdering Missouri, and because he had a new mistress. The papers were filled with scandal and accusations and a lynch mob turned up at Hamblin’s home. They were talked down by one of Hamblin’s more reputable friends in the theatre.
So why this story? What lingers for me?
SO MANY THINGS.
Let me try and list some of them:
The echoes of Harvey Weinstein in Hamblin’s abuse of power.
The pathos of a brilliant young writer alone in the world, sacrificing everything to be able to practice her art. (Imagine turning up alone as a young woman in New York in the 1830’s and trying to earn a living writing plays for the most nototrious lecher in the theatre. The irony of being posthumously labelled a first wave feminist, after living in such a situation.)
The hidden truths? I mean this was no garden variety slanging match. A lynch mob turned up at Hamblin’s door. People called him out as the devil. There was violence, beatings handed out on both sides, money crimes and murder.
Then there was Missouri’s upbringing. Was she really a victim of family violence at the hand of her mother, as some claimed? Had she needed to escape home?
The influence of the press — did they censor the vitriol and the accusations, or did they feed it? Were they culpable in the damage to people’s lives?
How did this emotional bloodbath affect the art they produced, and vice versa? Afterall, melodrama was their stock and trade. Also, the Bowery Theatre suffered no less than six fires — almost as if it was cursed. Most of Medina’s original work was lost, and only a couple of her plays survived.
Yet somehow, this deeply emotionally charged real life story with its ruinous outcomes, still allowed space for creativity and brilliance to flourish.
What was it Joyce Carole Oates said? “I consider tragedy the highest form of art.”
There are a few books and articles written about Louisa Medina’s story. See if it touches your soul too.
Check them out:
Women’s Contribution to Nineteenth-century American Theatre
Plays by Early American Women, 1775–1850
Dangerous to Know — Women, Crime, and Notoriety in the Early Republic
This story is also mentioned in my biographical research about Colonel Herman Thorn
