Beatrice Colony and the Keene Summer Theater

Izola Forrester's sister, Beatrice (Henderson) Clutts, married Alfred Taylor Colony sometime before 1920. At the time the 1920 census was enumerated, Alfred was a college student and five years younger than his wife. Beatrice had been married previously and had two children. By 1930, the Colony family was living in Keene, New Hampshire, where Alfred was an inn keeper at the Bradford Inn. While in Keene, Beatrice founded the Keene Summer Theater.

Keene Summer Theater, photo courtesy of the Billy Rose Theater Collection, New York Public Library Digital Gallery

The Keene Public Library briefly documented the history of the theater.

"Summer theater in Keene was launched in 1935 when the Repertory Playhouse Associates of New York changed the location of its summer activities from Putnam, Vermont, to Keene. Professionals began annual summer productions under the direction of Herbert V Gellendre in the large barn adjoining the Bradford Inn, Beatrice and Alfred Colony's home. The elegant residence, dating from the early 19th century was originally the home of Captain Daniel Bradford.

Drawing of the Bradford Inn courtesy of Keene and Cheshire County Historical Photos

Royal Beal, a Keene resident, who became well known to theatrical and television audiences, brought his professional skill to the first year's ventures. Beatrice and Alfred Colony, who were associated with the enterprise, became "regulars" over the years as performers, directors, teachers, guides, and champions of Keene dramatic performances. Mrs Colony, a descendant of John Wilkes Booth and one of the nation's most celebrated theatrical families, came naturally by her interest and talent. 

John Wilkes Booth circa 1865, photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

World War II brought a cessation of activities after the 1941 season until 1946, when for more than a decade longer the summer theater brought Broadway productions to Keene."

Beatrice and her sister, Izola, long held their mother's belief that she was the daughter of John Wilkes Booth. In fact, Izola wrote a book about the subject in 1937 entitled, This One Mad Act: The Unknown Story of John Wilkes Booth and His Family by His Granddaughter.

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I have written about Beatrice (Henderson) Clutts Colony's grandmother and sister several times:

• Did John Wilkes Booth Escape?
• The Secret Wife of John Wilkes Booth?
• She Seemed Rather Fantastic and Extravagant
• Izola Forrester: American Author

Did John Wilkes Booth Escape?

Today is the 149th anniversary of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Izola Forrester, a famous American author and film screenwriter, grew up thinking John Wilkes Booth, the assassin, was her grandfather. She never believed Booth was shot by a Union soldier in a barn in rural Virginia when he refused to give himself up.  She documented what she thought happened to him in her book This One Mad Act, which was published in 1937. Contrary to the official assassination story, Forrester attempted to prove:

• John Wilkes Booth was secretly married to her grandmother
• Booth and Forrester's grandmother had a daughter, Ogarita Rosalie, in 1859; her middle name was for Booth's favorite sister.
• Lincoln's assassination was instigated by men high in the order of the Knights of the Golden Circle (KGC), said to have been a branch of Freemasonry
• James William Boyd, a confederate solider was killed in the Garrett barn, not Booth
• Booth escaped from the barn and lived in exile in California, England and India until his death in 1879
• Booth and Forrester's grandmother had a son in 1870, who grew up as Harry Stevenson, nearly five years after the assassination

There is a fascinating article on the Barnes Review website entitled Wanted: The Hidden History of Lincoln's Assassin John Wilkes Booth, His Great Escape and the Truth about the Plot. I hope you'll read it and let me know what you think of this alternative history of the assassination of one of our most famous presidents.

Capture of John Wilkes Booth. Courtesy of The Smithsonian Instituate, The Harry T Peters Collectionn

Izola (Hills/Henderson/Forrester) Merrifield/Page (1878-1944) was the wife of my sister-in-law's 8th cousin once removed.

Are their any conspiracy theories in your family history?

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 I've written about Izola Forrester before: Izola Forrester: American Author, and her grandmother, Martha Lizola (Mills) Bellows Stevenson: She Seemed Rather Fantastic and Extravagant and  Secret Wife of John Wilkes Booth?

52 Ancestors #15: Secret Wife of John Wilkes Booth?

Ancestor Name: Martha Lizola (Mills) Bellows Stevenson

April 15th is the 149th anniversary of the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth. So it seems appropriate to write about Martha Lizola Mills again. I believe I could write about her for years to come. She, her daughter Ogarita Elizabeth Bellows, and her granddaughter, Izola Louise Hills, all believed Martha Lizola was the secret wife of John Wilkes Booth. They also believed Booth escaped and lived several more years and that he fathered a son with Martha Lizola after Lincoln's assassination.

Documentation and the recollections of Martha Lizola's granddaughter, which she included in a book, This One Mad Act, agree. Her parents were Abraham Standish and Izola Maria (Mendosa) Mills. Abraham was the owner and captain of a trading schooner in the China Trade. He met his wife in Spain. According to Martha's granddaughter, Izola Maria died giving birth to her only daughter on board ship off the coast of Martha's Vineyard, during a storm. Martha Lizola was primarily raised by her aunt, Abraham's sister, Fanny (Mills) D'Arcy.

Martha Lizola (Mills) Bellows Stevenson
Photograph from This One Mad Act

Charles Bellows is never mentioned in This One Mad Act but Massachusetts marriage records indicated he and Martha Lizola were married 30 Jul 1855 in Boston. Rhode Island birth records listed Charles and Martha as the parents of Ogarita Elizabeth, who believed she was actually John Wilkes Booth's daughter. Navy muster rolls seem to prove that Charles could not have been the father as he was stationed on a ship off Montevideo, Uruguay, during the critical period.

The 1860 census indicated Martha Lizola was living in Boston with Ogarita and a son, Harry, aged  five. Little Harry disappeared from the records after that; so I assume he died as a child. Martha's story was that she was a young actress and met John Wilkes Booth in Richmond in 1858 or 1859. It was love at first sight. She said she and Booth lived on a small farm in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley and that Booth would return to their home between acting engagements.

After the Civil War, Martha Lizola married John Stevenson on 23 Mar 1871 in Boston. This is supported by Massachusetts marriage records. She claimed it was a marriage of convenience and that the son born to them a month earlier, Harry Jerome Dresback Stevenson, was actually the son of John Wilkes Booth. She claimed she married Stevenson, a friend of Booth's so she could travel to California and meet Booth while he was in hiding before leaving the country. It was during that meeting that Harry Jerome was conceived.

Harry Stevenson; photograph from This One Mad Act

Martha Lizola died in 1887 and is buried in Plains Cemetery at Canterbury, Connecticut.

Her daughter, Ogarita, was also a stage actress, and began using Booth as her stage name in 1884, six years before her death at the age of 32. Ogarita's daughter, Lizola Louise (Hills) was adopted by George Forrester, a Chicago newspaper man, after her mother's death. Her second husband, Mann Page, was my sister-in-law's 8th cousin once removed.

Ogarita Elizabeth (Bellows) Wilson Henderson
Photograph from This One Mad Act

So do you believe Martha Lizola (Mills) Bellows Stevenson married John Wilkes Booth and that he fathered two of her children?

This is my entry for Amy Johnson Crow's 52 ancestors in 52 weeks challenge.

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Related posts: Izola Forrester: American Author and She Seemed Rather Fantastic and Extravagant.

Martha Lizola Mills was born at Stamford, Fairfield, Connecticut, in 1837 to Abraham Standish and Izola Maria (Mendosa) Mills. Her father was a sea captain. She married first Charles Still Bellows on 30 Jul 1855 at Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts; second John H Stevenon on 23 Mar 1871; and third, according to her granddaughter, but no documentation has yet been found, Edwin S Bates two or three years before her death. She died in Nov 1887 in Canterbury, Windham, Connecticut and is buried in Plains Cemetery at Windham. She went to her death believing she had been married to John Wilkes Booth, that both her children were his, and he escaped capture at the Garrett farm and died in 1879.

According to Wikipedia, muster rolls indicate Charles Still Bellows was aboard a ship near Montevideo, Uruguay, for the critical time period, making it impossible for him to be the father of Ogarita (Bellows) Henderson, Izola Forrester's mother.

52 Ancestors #10: She Seemed Rather Fantastic and Extravagant

Ancestor: Martha Lizola (Mills) Bellows Stevenson Bates

In honor of Women's History month, I am writing about one of the most colorful women in my family tree this week.

If an ancestor catches my fancy, I like to try and learn as much about their personality as I am able. This has led to a rather large and eclectic collection of books, including This One Mad Act: The Unknown Story of John Wilkes Booth and His Family, by Izola Forrester, an author and screenwriter, who believed her grandfather was John Wilkes Booth. Wouldn't that catch your fancy?

Izola was the wife of my sister-in-law's 8th cousin once removed. Her grandmother was Martha Lizola (Mills) Bellows/Stevenson/Bates (1837-1887). I was sure the book would be loaded with family history gold and colorful characters. My copy of This Mad Act arrived several weeks ago. It's a battered volume, literally falling apart. I had only read up to page 5 when I found this delightful description of Martha Lizola Mills:

"Today she seems rather fantastic and extravagant, but she started off my days with a dramatic curtain rise that has never failed to thrill me when I look back upon it. I loved her for her vital, magnetic personality, and for the way she always dramatized life. She was amazingly queenly and handsome --  not lovely like mother, with reserve and serenity -- but majestic, conveying to a child a sense of power and security. I know that, while she lived, I had a sense of complete safety, a belief that nothing could happen to us under the shadow of her wings.

Martha Izola Mills photograph, which was included in This One Mad Act

She was only thirty-nine when I was born, and even in her forties she retained a dark, radiant sort of beauty inherited from her Spanish mother, for whom both she and I were named -- Izola Maria Mendosa, of Cordova, Spain. I remember particularly the picture she made standing on the veranda, watching the carriage turn in from the main road and come up the long curving driveway. Dressed in flowing, beruffled white muslin with wide, lacy sleeves, a red rose beside the Spanish comb she always wore in her heavy, dark hair, she appeared a most romantic person. Her complexion was rich and warmly colored; her eyes were startling because of their flashing, sparkling interest in everything. They were such a surprise, too, from the contrast with her striking brunette hair and skin, changeable in color like the sea -- sometimes grayish blue, sometimes when she was angry a stormy purple black. Today, my sister, Beatrice, really my half-sister, but as dear to me in every way as if we had the same father, has eyes exactly like them."

And on page 8:

"She took the place of the aged minister when he was ill, and delivered an extemporaneous Sunday sermon. I remember that day. I had been half asleep beside her in the old wooden pew, waiting for the minister. Suddenly, she rose, swept up the short aisle to the pulpit, and stood there, smiling serenely down at the congregation. I am sure that she enjoyed their surprise, as she told them her intention, dramatizing the occasion with her manner and rich delivery. Perhaps she caught the same thrill of enjoyment, when she held prayer meetings at her home, which she always concluded with refreshments and readings from Shakespeare."

I certainly found my "color" -- descriptions of her appearance and personality! I'm sure there will be future blog posts from this book, including the family's Booth conspiracy theory.

This is my entry for Amy Johnson Crow's 52 ancestors in 52 weeks challenge.

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Martha Lizola Mills was born at Stamford, Fairfield, Connecticut, in 1837 to Abraham Standish and Izola Maria (Mendosa) Mills. Her father was a sea captain. She married first Charles Still Bellows on 30 Jul 1855 at Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts; second John H Stevenon on 23 Mar 1871; and third, according to her granddaughter, but no documentation has yet been found, Edwin S Bates two or three years before her death. She died in Nov 1887 in Canterbury, Windham, Connecticut and is buried in Plains Cemetery at Windham. She went to her death believing she had been married to John Wilkes Booth, that both her children were his, and he escaped capture at the Garrett farm and died in 1879.

According to Wikipedia, muster rolls indicate Charles Still Bellows was aboard a ship near Montevideo, Uruguay, for the critical time period, making it impossible for him to be the father of Ogarita (Bellows) Henderson, Izola Forrester's mother.