Actor Charles Manley acting at Ford's?

[Tom Bogar]

(02-01-2014 07:24 PM)L Verge Wrote:  When I read your book, Tom, I was surprised to see that Ford owned five theaters -- especially the ones in Cumberland and Alexandria. Having gone to college just north of Cumberland at a time when that region was suffering economically, it took me awhile to realize that the city was on the old National Road and was fairly prosperous until much of its industry died. How big was that theater compared to Baltimore's?

Even though I refer to them as "John Ford's five theatres," he actually only owned three of them: the Holliday Street Theatre in Baltimore; Washington's Ford's Theatre, of which he was only the majority-shareholder (others included Maggie Mitchell, newspaper publisher John F. Coyle, and printer Henry Polkinhorn); and the Alexandria Theatre, which he built in Fall 1863 on King Street, conveniently across from the Alexandria Gazette, but which by 1865 he had sold to others and then leased back from them, losing even that shortly after the assassination when he couldn't keep up the rent. The one in Philadelphia was a short-term lease (he tended to overextend himself), and the one in Cumberland was the old Belvidere Hall, variously reported as being at 123 or 125 Baltimore Street, and which was used in October 1862 as a military hospital. I don't know how big it was, though, as it was difficult getting detailed information from various folks in Cumberland, and that was such a small piece of the book that I didn't pursue it further. Sorry I can't be more specific/helpful.