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On Wednesday afternoon, December 30, 1903 a
stage fire at Chicago's newest luxury
playhouse, the Iroquois Theater on
Randolph St., spread to the auditorium where
sat roughly seventeen hundred audience
members, predominantly women and
children. nearly six hundred people
died before they could escape, becoming
America's worst theater disaster.
Only three performers and
stage workers lost their lives.
Among the survivors was Harry Meehan,
eighteen-year-old chorus member and
dressing assistant for the two major
stars of Mr. Bluebeard,
Eddie Foy and
Harry Gilfoil. He was
straightening things in the dressing
room when word of the fire reached him,
probably when Gilfoil ran in to grab his
overcoat. Meehan grabbed Foy's watch
from his trunk and flew out of the theater.
Henry James Meehan
(1885–1967), who usually went by Harry
Meehan, was a comedic tenor vocalist and
dancer. Over sixty years he modified
his offerings to fit the market's preferences and
remain employed, usually mixing melodies
with a bit of dance and comedic characters.
In 1946 it was reported that Meehan got his
start on the stage in 1895 when as a
ten-year-old boy he performed as an uncredited soprano in that season's
version▼1 of the
romantic Irish comedy, Myles Aroon, with
Andrew Mack. See photo below of Harry at age fifteen when he performed as "Master Harry
J. Meehan — Boy Soprano" in the Childwold Vaudeville Company in the casino at Childwood
Park▼2
His boyish look in the photo below was probably promotional but it is likely he was small statured,
as were the regular performers for Foy's elephant.
In the 1920s Harry specialized in blackface monologues and
was sometimes billed as
"Tramp Caruso;" in terms of media
notice and gigs, his best years were
in 1921 and 1922. In the 1940s he sang Irish
ballads and was billed as the "Irish Thrush."
When his voice began to show signs of age,
he raised the volume and roused audience to
join in and sing with him. Harry performed in
minstrels, burlesque, vaudeville and
traditional theater.
In the Mr. Bluebeard road company he
sang tenor, served as
Eddie Foy's valet
and on the afternoon of the Iroquois Theater fire was soon
due on stage with Eddie Foy as the back half of Sister
Anne's elephant. The primary elephant performers were
a pair of Londoners,
Harry Seymour and Patrick Dawe.
"Harry Meehan, known on the stage as "A Gentleman
of Leisure," comes next. His tramp impersonations have made him well known
throughout the whole United States and he is bringing a brand new variety of jokes and
songs on this appearance; it will be a
pleasure to see him perform." The
Atlanta Journal newspaper July 30, 1922 pg 18, prior
to a week of vaudeville performances at Loew's Grand Theater in Atlanta.
Harry Meehan, upon whom as Anthony Corlear,
the town crier, devolves the duty of opening the action of "Knickerbocker Holiday," was
once known to old time vaudeville fans as
"The Blackfaced Caruso." Now no longer a
blackface comedian, he takes obvious and
keen delight in his ability to shatter the very rafters
with his amazingly strident, cutting voice.
More recently this ripe comedian has played in revivals of old
time melodramas at the American Music Hall
in New York. In this particular incarnation he
was termed "The Irish Thrush."
The Chicago Tribune Apr 30, 1939, pg 96.
Thanks to Harry's granddaughter,
Candy Herman, and her friend Walter Stormont, I'm happy to be able to share Harry's obituary,
establishing the year of his death.
Harry was the son of Michael Meehan and Jane
Spellman Meehan Steinbeck, husband of actress Meryl
F. Newkirk, and father of three.
Discrepancies and addendum
1. Myles Aroon had been written
by George Jesson and Horace Townsend for
William J. Scanlan (1856–1898)
and supervised by his agent, Augustus Pitou. It debuted
in December 1888 at the Walnut Theater in Philadelphia.
Three years later, at age thirty-five and at the height of
his career, Peak-A-Boo Scanlan had to be institutionalized
when
syphilitic dementia caused him to forget his lines and
become violent. In 1893 producer Pitou tagged
Chauncey Olcott / Alcott to assume Scanlan's spot as his
go-to Irish tenor. I don't know why Pitou didn't put
Alcott in Aroon. Maybe he or Olcott had doubts
about the prospects for Aroon II, or superstitious wariness
that it could not be separated from Scanlan's
much-publicized mental health problem. Pitou may have
decided to gamble on a newer face rather than risk tarnishing Olcott
with a failure. Andrew Jack had been on
the stage for nineteen years but without the Olcott's
success. Olcott was indisputably the more bankable player, enjoying
the support of star Lillian Russell. He would go on to
compose two of history's most enduring Irish ballads, "When
Irish Eyes Are Smiling" and "My Wild Irish Rose." A
large portion of Harry Meehan's lifetime income would come
from performing these tunes.
2. The Childwold Vaudeville Company and Childwold casino
were affiliated with Childwold Park. Founded by wealthy Boston businessmen, Addison Child
(1821–1898) and Henry G. Dorr, Childwold Park was a five-thousand-acre summer resort on the east shore of Massawepie Lake in
the New York Adirondacks, consisting of a giant hotel, cabins, forests, six small lakes and ponds,
views of the Matumbia and Moosehead Mountains, and recreation amenities
including a golf course, billiard room, hunting and fishing (speckled trout and bass) preserves, tennis courts and a
Presbyterian Church.
Positioned on a rise and
surrounded by forests and crossed by the Raquette River, the three-story hotel featured four
hundred-foot promenade, giant stone fireplaces, a turret type belvedere and sandy beaches. In
addition to the hotel there
were eighteen cabins, bringing total lodging accommodations to one hundred and six rooms for up to four
hundred guests. There was no electricity and illumination at night came from hundreds of kerosene
lamps. There was a bowling alley, a maple-floor dance hall in the casino (which was also where
theatrical productions were staged), and a nine-hole golf course. It closed in 1909, burned in
1910 and was razed in 1946. Since 1951 the area has been used by the
Massawepie scout camp, who provide a
nice description of Childwold Park, as well as a treasure trove of
other information about the Massawepie Lake area in the Childwold Park years,
even a floor plan of the hotel
(Luv ya, Peter Collinge :)
Further reading. Purchasing
using these links will help finance this
research. My time is 100% free but
subscriptions to resources and software
are not.
The men inside the horse
and the head at Mr Bluebeard
History of 4 University
of Chicago Iroquois Theater suvivors
Other discussions you might find interesting
irqperformers
Story 2992
A note about sourcing. When this
project began, I failed to anticipate the day might come when a
more scholarly approach would be called for. When my
mistake was recognized I faced a decision: go back and spend years creating source lists for every page, or go
forward and try to cover more of the people and circumstances
involved in the disaster. Were I twenty years younger, I'd
have gone back, but in recognition that this project will end when I do, I chose to go forward.
These pages will provide enough information, it is hoped, to
provide subsequent researchers with additional information.
I would like to
hear from you if you have additional info about an Iroquois victim, or find an error,
and you're invited to visit the
comments page to share stories and observations about the Iroquois Theater fire.
