Isabella Martin: Part 3

It wasn't unusual in the late 1800s for big events to quickly become subjects of stage plays, an idea that carried over into movies a few years later. (For example, a movie version of Harry Thaw's 1906 fatal shooting of Stanford White was produced and shown before Thaw even went on trial.)

So it seemed only natural for cash-poor Isabella Martin to profit from her loss in the will case by turning it into a stage play. Even better, she'd play herself. After toying with a few titles, she decided upon "Blood Relations."

In January, 1895, just months after the trial, she told a reporter the first three acts were finished. The fourth and final act was expected in two weeks.

"It will be in the main the story of my life, of my husband, of his brother," she said, admitting that her sister-in-law would be very much a part of the story, as one of the villains, along with her lawyers and the executor of Henry Martin's real will, Edward B . Pond, a former mayor of San Francisco.

Daniel O'Connell, a San Francisco poet, actor and journalist, supposedly was writing the play, said Mrs. Martin. He was best known as the grand-nephew of Daniel O'Connell, a famous Irish politician.

Mrs. Martin also was in the news for other reasons:

Syracuse Herald, January 28, 1895
News from San Francisco is to the effect that if Mrs. John Martin, formerly Mrs. Jacob B. Hoffman of this city, who made herself famous by her unsuccessful attack upon the will of her millionaire brother-in-law, Henry Martin, had slept a little more soundly a week ago last night, she and her two sons would probably have been burned alive in San Francisco.

Fire broke out in Mrs. Martin’s home at 2215 Van Ness Avenue at 6 o’clock a week ago this morning, while the family were asleep. The presence of smoke in her room awakened Mrs. Martin, who opened the door leading to the parlor and saw smoke coming up through the carpet. She went to door of her son Henry’s room and awakened him, but he had locked the door and mislaid the key and was compelled to break the door down.

“Baby John,” who figured so conspicuously in the will case, was next taken to a neighbor’s house, and then the firemen were summoned.

The fire was caused by a defective grate. The firemen say the fire smoldered for hours between the floors and the ceiling below before it was discovered. Mrs. Martin detected the presence of smoke in the room on Sunday evening, and thought the floor seemed unduly warm, but failing to find any further evidence of fire, paid no attention to it. At 3 o’clock in the morning, she again became aware of smoke in the room, but could not detect its source.

This clearly was not a case of arson, but the fire may have given Isabella Martin ideas she would put to use in the future. But first she had to try acting, though she had other distractions, such as this court case:

Los Angeles Times, February 23, 1895
Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 22 — It is just barely possible that Mrs. John Martin, who has thrown books at lawyers in court and otherwise shown her contempt for the law, will have to locate in the county prison. Justice Kerrigan has fined her $100 for contempt of court with the alternative of imprisonment.

In December last, Mrs. Martin bought $103 worth of merchandise from Nathan, Dohrman & Company, and disregarded frequent requests to liquidate her indebtedness. The claim was assigned to J. R. Rauer and suit begun in the justices’ court. Judgment was rendered by Justice Cook, but still Mrs. Martin neglected to pay up. Two or three times she was ordered to appear before Justice Kerrigan on an order of examination, but she neglected to obey.

When she was ordered to appear, she sent a little perfumed note, written on pale blue paper, expressing her regret that she was unable to accept the judge’s kind invitation, on account of the fact her presence was needed at home, where she was acting as general superintendent of a gang of carpenters.

This was more than the judge could bear, and an order was made fining Mrs. Martin $100, with the alternative of twenty-four hours imprisonment.

Mrs. Martin at once packed her things preparatory to moving to jail, when Judge Coffey threatened to commit her for contempt, so she may take the same course this time.

A month later, Mrs. Martin sued Sheriff Richard Whelan of San Francisco to recover goods seized at her house, 2215 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco in connection with her refusal to pay what she owed Nathan, Dohrman & Company. On the day sheriff and a collector for Jacob Rauer arrived to collect the goods, Mrs. Martin confronted them with a loaded revolver, but backed down minutes later.

Syracuse Herald, June 22, 1895
Mrs. Isabella J. Martin began a suit for civil damages against E. B. Pond, former mayor of San Francisco, May E. Martin, widow of Henry Martin, and Arthur Rodgers, an attorney. Isabella Martin is acting as her own attorney, as she has at least once before.

In December, Mrs. Martin, acting as her own attorney, went to court in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent the distribution of property according to the will of Henry Martin. Isabella Martin claimed she had filed suit against Henry Martin's estate and still hoped for a new trial regarding the will she had submitted. The judge ruled against her.

As far as I've been able to determine, "Blood Relations" was never staged. Had it been, the audience would have been treated to a performance by four-year-old "Baby John" Martin.

"He is in the play, dear little fellow," she told a reporter. "I have taught him a little prayer where he says, 'God bless all our friends, forgive all our enemies and bless all the poor. He says it so sweetly."

Interesting how she planned to turn "Baby John" into the American Tiny Tim. Anyway, one thing is sure: Mrs. Martin never lived by that prayer, especially the part about forgiving her enemies.

Start spreading the news ...
What she did with "Baby John" isn't mentioned anywhere — she probably hired someone in San Francisco or Weaverville to take care of him — but in late March of 1896, Isabella Martin went East by herself to pursue her acting dream in someone else's play.

Before reaching New York City, she made a brief stop in Elmira, where, according to a story in the Elmira Telegram (March 29, 1896), she said the following:

“I must and will succeed and Elmira will in future years refer to me as a successful star of the stage ... I must have money; lots of money. I have always had it and it is necessary to my happiness. No mediocrity will do for me in anything — I am going to be great.

"Not the least of the obstacles I have had to subdue was my superfluity of avoirdupois. Likes Hamlet, I was fain to sigh: ‘Oh, that this too too solid flesh would melt away.’ And it has. Not, however, without urging. I have dieted, exercised, labored and even prayed ... I have been practicing upon a trapeze ... My form has improved beyond anticipation. I never before felt so slick and trim. Why, I have reduced my waist measure six inches and now I am trim, in stage form.”

She was now 44 years of age and said she was many pounds lighter than she was during the will case when more than one newspaper described her as "fat."

In its article about her visit, the Elmira Telegram described her this way:

"As a girl and young woman, she was pretty. She wears her good looks today, just as cleverly and jauntily as in the years gone. Her form is trim, her carriage superb and her poses fetching in the extreme."

She told the Telegram she'd possibly perform on stage in Elmira later in the year.

On March 26, 1896, another Elmira newspaper, the Daily Gazette and Free Press, reported she was traveling alone and that while in Elmira, she appropriated a file of an article in the Elmira Advertiser from several years ago because she was considering suing the Advertiser for libel. She never returned the file, nor did she ever sue.

Fueled by an incredible ego, she exposed herself to a great deal of humiliation in New York City, and convinced a lot of people she was crazy, which she might well have been. But that she succeeded in starring in one performance on a New York City stage was probably her most stunning achievement. There is no way she should have gotten that far, unless the many enemies she made along the way figured the most appropriate punishment for her bullying behavior was to make sure she exhibited herself onstage.

Damsel in distress
No doubt, she had a lively time in Manhattan, attracting more than her share of attention, partly because she was seeking publicity, but mostly because she often didn't pay her bills, which is why she spent a few nights in a Manhattan jail cell. Mrs. Hoffman Martin, as New York City newspapers usually called her, pulled her most outrageous stunt when she prevented the opening of a well-known actress's much-anticipated play by having the leading man arrested as he arrived at the theater.

However, that was months after she had arrived in New York and made headlines for her confrontation with the proprietor of an apartment building. As usual, she provided the press with comic relief, though there were some in New York who did not find her amusing.

New York Sun, May 20, 1896
At half past eight o’clock last night, when the theatre crowds were swarming into the lobbies of the Casino at Broadway and Thirty-ninth Street, a woman leaned out of a window of the Mystic apartment house opposite the Casino (Theater) entrance on Thirty-ninth street and screamed for help.

The people entering the Casino turned back to the sidewalk and stared up at the big six-story building.

A minute later, a china toilet bottle came tumbling from the window and smashed in pieces on the pavement.

A dozen persons went into the street and stooped to see what had fallen. They picked up the pieces of the bottle and again glanced up at the window. One man in the crowd found a piece of paper stuck to one of the broken portions of the bottle.

“It’s a note,” he said, “and the woman who called for help threw it down. Let us see it in the light.”

Followed by the crowd, the man with the note went under the gas lamp and read it aloud, as follows:

“I am a prisoner. I’m locked in a room on the fourth floor and being starved to death. Please send for an officer.”

The man with the note called to the policeman on duty at the Casino, shouting:

“Officer, they have a woman locked in a room up there in the Mystic!”

A hundred persons heard this message as it was shouted to the policeman. The crowd immediately decided upon rescuing the Mystic's prisoner without waiting for police interference.

Led by five big, broad-shouldered men, a mob of sixty persons started to run across the street, and throwing open the doors of the Mystic, they swarmed the apartment house lobby.

The policeman at the Casino could not stop the mob. He sounded his whistle and brought Policeman Sheridan from Sixth avenue.

Sheridan forced his way through the crowd and got into the Mystic just as the mob had taken possession of the elevator. The colored hall boy fled into the cellar.

T. L. Parker, proprietor of the apartment house, was not in, but arrived in time to see half a dozen policemen forcing the crowd back into the street.

Mr. Parker explained that the writer of the note was a woman on the fourth floor who had threatened to create a sensation earlier in the day. He said she was Mrs. John Martin, who had figured in the Martin will case in San Francisco. He sent a hall boy up to tell Mrs. John Martin a policeman wished to see her in the reception room.

When Mrs. Martin came down, she told a tale of woe, saying Mr. Parker had removed her beds and bedding and had locked her in her apartment.

She said she hadn't had anything to eat for two days, and that Mr. Parker was trying to get rid of her by starving her out of the hotel.

Mr. Parker denied this story. He said Mrs. Martin had paid one week’s board since May 4, and that he had ordered her out of the Mystic, but she refused to go. He did not lock the doors, he said; only one door was locked, still she might have gotten out of her apartment through the bathroom.

Parker told the policeman Mrs. Martin was stage-struck; that she kept other guests awake until all hours in the morning, walking the floor, acting and reciting the part of Lady Macbeth. He admitted removing the bedclothes from her room, hoping to freeze her out.

"Why don't you have me arrested?" said Mrs. Martin. "There are the police and here am I. You are starving me, and you locked me in that room."

Mrs. Martin proceeded to relate her troubles to the reporters and police gathered about her, and Mr. Parker went into his office. The woman then went up to her room, accompanied by a young woman who had dropped in with the crowd.

In the meantime, a big crowd gathered in front of the house and remained there awaiting further developments until they were driven away by the police.

To a Sun reporter, Mr. Parker said: “There is nothing in this at all excepting a crazy woman. My lawyers advise me the only way I can get rid of her is to have her committed by a magistrate to some institution until her sanity is inquired into. On May 4 she came to board at the Mystic. She paid one week’s board. She kept telling about going on the stage, and wanted me to be her manager.

“She told me she was Mrs. John Martin who figured in the contest over the estate left by her brother-in-law, Henry Martin. She tried to get $3,000,000 left by her brother-in-law, she said. However, she wanted to go on the stage to play the part of Lady Macbeth. I referred her to George W. Lederer, manager of the Casino. She went to Mr. Lederer and offered to pay the expense of a matinée if Lederer would put her on the Casino stage.

“Lederer sent her to Marcus Mayer, and he sailed for Europe without making any arrangement with her. Today Mrs. Martin came into my office and said, ‘If you don’t put me on the stage, I’ll raise such a racket at your house that you’ll be sorry.’ So I told her I would not act as her manager, and she’s raising the racket tonight. I admit I took the bedclothes away from her and refused to let her have food from our table, but that’s all.

At midnight Mrs. Martin held the fort in her room and proprietor Parker was on guard on the Mystic stairs.

A day later, the Sun reported that the next morning Mrs. Martin left the apartment house (sometimes referred to a hotel). According to the newspaper: "She at first refused to accede to the request, but when Mr. Parker told her he would have her put out if she did not go of her own accord, she concluded to save Parker the trouble of putting her out."

However, her considerable luggage remained at the Mystic, held by Parker as security for her unpaid board bill. What happened next upped the stakes in the battle between Mrs. Martin and Mr. Parker.

New York Times, May 21, 1896
Mrs. Isabella Martin, who Tuesday night excited interest at the Mystic Apartment House, in West Thirty-ninth Street, by declaring she was held a prisoner by her landlord, T. L. Parker, may complain of him today at the Jefferson Market Police Court. She left the Mystic yesterday afternoon, and her property was detained by Mr. Parker because of an unsettled amount.

Mrs. Martin returned to the Mystic last night and disputed the bill that had been presented to her, claiming it was more than she owed. There was a scuffle, and Mrs. Martin was either thrown down the entrance steps by Parker or fell while being ejected. Her hands were slightly cut.

Mrs. Martin demanded of a policeman the arrest of her landlord for assault, but he declined to act on the plea, that what she complained of did not occur in his presence. She then said she would apply for a warrant for Parker’s arrest today.

Parker says that instead of keeping the woman a prisoner, he was trying to force her to leave, as her presence in the house was distasteful to other patrons.

Mrs. Martin was Isabelle Bidwell when she married a son of George Hoffman of Elmira. After his death, she married John Martin, brother of Henry Martin, whose will was contested. The contest was full of sensational testimony. Mrs. Martin desires to become a great actress. She is forty and handsome.

New York Times, May 22, 1896
Landlord T. L. Parker of the Mystic Flats, 123 West Thirty-Ninth Street, was obliged to furnish $1,000 bail yesterday afternoon by Magistrate Mott in the Jefferson Market Police Court. for examination May 28 on a charge of felonious assault preferred against him by Mrs. John Martin. Mrs. Martin, through her lawyers, Howe & Hummel, will sue Mr. Parker for $25,000 damages for the assault and $50,000 for locking her in her apartments.

Mrs. Martin obtained a warrant for Mr. Parker’s arrest yesterday morning, and Magistrate Mott sent a court officer with her and lawyer Kaffenberg of Howe & Hummel’s office to serve it, but Mr. Parker was not at the Mystic when they arrived. The superintendent of the house at first refused to admit Mrs. Martin and her lawyer, but did so when threatened with arrest.

They searched the building, but could not find Mr. Parker, and they then went to the office of his lawyers, Cardozo & Nathan, 120 Broadway, where they found him, and he was arrested. Lawyer Kaffenberg then returned to the Mystic Flats and demanded Mrs. Martin’s trunks and other baggage. The superintendent refused to give them up until Mr. Kaffenberg warned him that he would be held personally responsible for his action, and then he delivered them, and they were taken to the Sturtevant House, where Mrs. Martin was stopping.

Mr. Parker was arraigned in the police court later in the day and was angry when informed that Mrs. Martin had regained possession of her trunks. Lawyer Nathan appeared in his behalf and asked that the case be adjourned for one week. He said he could prove that Mrs. Martin was creating a disturbance merely to gain notoriety, and he wanted time to get witnesses. He said Mr. Parker merely acted on his rights and under his advice.

Magistrate Mott agreed to adjourn the case as requested, but fixed the bail at $1,000. Lawyer Nathan objected to such bail on the ground his client was a reputable business man and should be more leniently dealt with. Magistrate Mott said the charge was felonious assault, and there was no reason why and exception should be made in favor of Mr. Parker any more than another man, and he refused to reduce the bail. He then paroled Mr. Parker for one hour to enable him to obtain the required amount, and Mr. Parker returned and deposited $1,000 cash with the court.

Mrs. Martin left the Sturtevant House last evening and went to the Hotel Bartholdi*, where she has engaged a suite of rooms. She says she hopes to be admitted to the bar next fall, and also expects to go on the stage.

I found this about the Bartholdi Hotel on the Flatiron Normad website:

World champ British boxer Bob Fitzsimmons declared it a haven for his pet lion cub to roam. And the roar of local politics could also be heard in the several campaign rooms occupied by New York City Mayor George McClellan’s re-election team in 1905. But for many guests at the Hotel Bartholdi, which was located at the southeast corner of 23rd Street and Broadway, a stay there reflected one of their frequent print ads: “A cozy, home-like little hotel that will appeal to the hearts of those who are looking for solid comfort. Good, plain American cooking and affable and courteous treatment.”

The seven-story hotel’s road to hospitality began in 1885 with its name to honor and promote an anticipated visit by the French artist Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi, sculptor of the Statue of Liberty. The arm with Lady Liberty’s torch was on display in nearby Madison Square Park to raise funds for her completion. But reasons unknown headed to Hoffman House, a palatial upscale neighboring hotel.

The Bartholdi Hotel closed in 1912.

Mrs. Martin tried to score points with newspapers by writing them a note to express her gratitude and appreciation "to the representatives of the daily press of this city who so mercifully assisted me the night that Mr. Parker, proprietor of the Mystic apartment house, assaulted me." At least one newspaper, the New York Herald, published the letter, on June 1.

The next day, the New York Times reported Mrs. Martin did not appear in Jefferson Market Police Court to press her charge of assault against Samuel Parker. She sent a letter to the court saying she was too ill to attend. Magistrate Simms dismissed the case saying the evidence did not show Parker had committed an assault.

That concluded the first half of her New York visit. Somehow she managed to arrange a theatrical tour for herself that would take her to a few cities in New York before winding up in Manhattan with one performance at the Casino Theater, across the street from the Mystic.

She gave her first performance as a professional actress in Elmira on September 29, 1896 in a play written by Tom Taylor in 1853. (Taylor is best remember for his "Our American Cousin," that play Abraham Lincoln was watching when he was assassinated.)

Perhaps to disguise the age of the play and to put the focus on the character she was playing, Mrs. Martin advertised the production as "Madame de Fontanges." The play's actual title was "Plot and Passion."

According to Google's AI Overview: Plot and Passion is an 1853 historical melodrama set in Paris during the Napoleonic Empire. The three-act play centers on Fouché’s ruthless secret police, focusing on the spy Desmarets and the femme fatale Madame de Fontanges, who are tasked with uncovering a group of exiled republicans.

However, Mrs. Martin threw in something extra —The show began with a scene from "Macbeth" that spotlighted her as Lady Macbeth. So she hadn't wasted her time disturbing other tenants of the various hotels and boarding houses she'd visited earlier in the year.

THE REVIEWER for the Elmira Gazette wrote much more about Mrs. Martin's costumes than her acting, and indicted the audience was slow to warm to her performance.

A few nights later, Mrs. Martin performed at the Grand Opera House in Port Jervis, New York. The reviewer said, "Mrs. Hoffman-Martin is a beautiful woman of prepossessing stage presence, and may be classed in the front rank as an emotional actress."

However, the critic was more concerned "that fate has decreed that a dramatic representation of any exceptional artistic merit at the Grand Opera House is discouraged by small and losing audiences."

And while the critic described "Madame de Fantanges" as "a decided hit," it most certainly wasn't. The New York Dramatic Mirror (October 24, 1896) reported the tour quickly ended because of bad business. Her performance at the Casino was canceled.

But Mrs. John Hoffman Martin, as she had come to be known during this period, wasn't ready to quit. She went home to San Francisco briefly but by January 1897, was back in New York City, once more creating chaos.

Another time out
Isabella wasn't the only Mrs. Martin from the notorious will case to make news in 1896. In October, Mrs. Henry Martin announced her engagement to an old family friend, John Waterman Phillips. The Oakland Tribune (October 17, 1896) said the announcement "will cause a sensation in local society circles." The newspaper also described the 47-year-old, twice widowed Mrs. Martin "a handsome, distinguished-looking woman."

As for Mr. Phillips, the Tribune said he "is a fine-looking man in the prime of middle life. He has for years been a resident of East Oakland and is a members of the well known wholesale firm of Grayson & Owens, wholesale dealer in beef.” He had been a widower for five years and has two married daughters."

At the time of the announcement, Mrs. Henry Martin was in the fourth month of a European visit, but was expected back in the United States in November with a trousseau purchased in Paris.

The couple was married soon after she arrived in New York City, then after a honeymoon returned to Oakland where the new Mrs. Phillips moved into her home and gave a reception for 400 of their society friends. The event received nice coverage in the Oakland Tribune.

That gets me back to the Will M. Clemens story, "Beauty of Big Meadows," which appeared in newspapers shortly after the marriage of May Martin and John W. Phillips.

In that story, Clemens claimed Edith Blount, or May Blunt, had known John Phillips when she was a child in Maine, and that young John had a crush on Edith and wrote childish love letters after her family moved to California when she was about 10. The story ended with them finding each other again many years later after she had outlived two husbands and he had been a widower for several years.

When I read the Clemens story, I believed it, and thought it would have made a box office hit movie for Jane Wyman maybe 70 years ago — childhood sweethearts reunited almost 40 years later.

Then I looked further into Phillips' background and discovered (1) he was 16 years older than "Edith," and (2) he was born in Middletown, Connecticut, and grew up in Lowville, New York. He met Mrs. Martin in Oakland when they moved in the same social circle. But the Clemens version made for a better story.

While Mr. and Mrs. Phillips were the darlings of Oakland society in 1897, Isabella Hoffman Martin was making enemies in New York City.

She said, he said
When 1897 arrived, Isabella was busy assembling an acting troupe in a Manhattan apartment. She announced that on the afternoon of January 14, she would star in "Adele,"* a tragedy in five acts translated from "Anthony," written many years earlier by Alexandre Dumas pere. It would be presented for the benefit of the sick and wounded of the Cuban revolution.

However, there was a problem: She hadn't made arrangements to use the Murray Hill Theater on that date, and when she finally booked the theater for January 28, that created a complication for her leading man, Edward J. Henley, who was contracted to be in another play, starting January 25.

Why Henley left the cast of "Adele" depended on who you asked. Isabella Martin said the actor hadn't attended rehearsals and didn't know his lines; he cited the date change, but also indicated he didn't think much of the play Mrs. Martin had chosen or the production she was mounting.

The press got wind of the dispute, and on January 12, Henley told a reporter for the New York Herald, "In regard to what she (Isabella Martin) may say about me, I think it is only an act of kindness on my part to remain silent. She is — well, let us say — an odd woman."

Odd ... and dangerous, he would soon learn.

* According to Google's AI overview, Adèle is the fiercely independent, married female lead in “Antony,” an 1831 romantic drama by Alexandre Dumas père. The play culminates in a shocking climax where Antony stabs Adèle to "save her honor" from her husband's accusations.

“Antony” was a landmark in French Romanticism, causing a sensation during its premiere and launching Dumas to theatrical fame. Again, Mrs. Martin chose to change the title of the play to the name of her character.

The matter might have been quickly forgotten except for one thing: Mrs. Martin had agreed to pay Henley $200 for the one performance, and the actor, who hadn't been on the stage for a year, asked for $50 in advance when rehearsals began.

When he left the company, Mrs. Martin demanded he immediately repay the $50 she had given him. She locked him in her apartment — sound familiar? — until he gave her an order on the treasurer of the Margaret Mather Company for the money he owed her. Henley was to play opposite Ms. Mather in a production of Shakespeare's "Cymbeline." However, the treasurer of the Mather company told Mrs. Martin she would have to wait until the play opened and Henley had actually earned $50 before she would receive it. Seems actors didn't get paid while they were rehearsing; they had to wait until the show was presented to a paying audience.

Isabella Martin's response managed to annoy and inconvenience many people and attracted the attention of every newspaper in the city. This is how it was reported in one of them:

New York Press, January 26, 1897
For a lack of a leading man, the ambitious, artistic production of “Cymbeline,” which was to bring Margaret Mather back to the metropolitan stage after an absence of nearly four years, did not take place at Wallack’s Theater last night, and in view of the large audience, the company gathered about the star, who sobbed while Eugene Presrey, the stage manager, dismissed all with the announcement the play was postponed until tonight.

It is quite as essential to have a Iachimo in “Cymbeline” as a Hamlet in “Hamlet.” That is why Miss Mather fainted when she learned that E. J. Henley, who was cast for Iachimo, had been arrested in his dressing room while he was making up for the part.

When the actress revived, she declared that the play should go on, with William Redmund, the understudy, in the vacant part. But there was no one to take Mr. Redmund’s place as Pisanio. So after five overtures had been played, and hearing the audience giving warning of limitations to its patience, the company was arranged in all its first century bravery of costume and the curtain lifted. Then the audience was dismissed.

The arrest of Henley was made on the complaint of Mrs. Hoffman-Martin of 22 West Twenty-seventh street, who has had some notoriety. She got a warrant from Magistrate Deuel in the Jefferson Market Court yesterday for the arrest of Henley on a charge of larceny of $50. The warrant was served at 7:30 o’clock, half an hour before the curtain was scheduled to rise.

Other newspapers reported the arrest was made at the stage door when Henley arrived at the theater. This makes more sense. In any event, Henley was taken to the West 30th Street police station where efforts were made to quickly get him arraigned so that bail could be provided and he could return to the theater in time to perform, albeit several minutes after the scheduled curtain.

Officers were dispatched to various magistrates, only to learn all were in a meeting of the Board of City Magistrates and would not go to the station till the end of the session. At midnight, no obliging Magistrate had been found.

Magistrate Joseph M. Deuel was asked the next day why a warrant was issued instead of a summons. Deuel said he was led to believe Mrs. Martin’s sworn statement that Henley was about to leave the city. Adding insult to injury, the magistrate said he had never heard of Henley. Next he was asked why he did not tell the policeman to serve the warrant at the end of the performance, and Deuel said he didn't know there was going to be be any performance.

It was reported the Margaret Mather company lost $1,200 by having to turn away the audience on opening night, and that Henley was expected to make good on half that amount.

Mrs. Martin succeeded in scheduling her play for January 28. On the day before, the New York Press displayed a typical New York City attitude by making this comment about the actress-come-lately:

"Mrs. Hoffman-Martin made her theatrical debut in some try-it-on-the-dog town; but that which she sighed for was a metropolitan audience."

Isabella was about to learn the truth of the saying, be careful what you wish for.

New York World, January 29, 1897
MRS. MARTIN’S DEBUT
Edward J. Henley, the actor whose arrest on Monday evening at the instance of Mrs. Hoffman Martin postponed the production of “Cymbeline” at Wallack’s Theater, had his revenge yesterday.

Before the curtain rose yesterday afternoon on the performance of “Adele” at the Murray Hill theater, Mrs. Martin, the bright particular star, took the precaution to deposit with a Trust company, sufficient money to cover any bail that might be necessary should Mr. Henley spring a warrant on her at the last moment and attempt to stop the production.

But Mr. Henley, Iachimo-like in his villainy, took a deeper revenge — and permitted the performance to go on.

According to the program, “Adele” is a four-act tragedy from the French of Dumas, and was given yesterday under the auspices of the Red Cross Society and the Cuban Junta of this city, but the program was entirely wrong. In the first place, there were no representatives of either society present among the forty odd people in the audience, and, in the second place, “Adele” is, or was, not a tragedy, but a side-splitting farce.

“Adele,” as Dumas wrote it, is probably a most thrilling play. The heroine is a married woman who, of course, loves not her husband, but somebody else. The “somebody else” of the play yesterday was Laurence Hanley, and, although he took the place left vacant by Mr. Henley at short notice, he went through the part without disaster. As for Mrs. Martin, she proved a disappointment to her friends in the audience.

Mrs. Martin says, “All is lost. I must die,” in exactly the same tone as she would order a cab. She wore some gowns that were worthy of a better purpose and “made up” most execrably.

In this awful artistic frost there was at least one warm spot — Miss Ethel Branton, as the enthusiastic young Countess De Lacy, displayed a certain amount of real human feeling and intelligence and, by contrast with the other women of he play, secured the only applause of the afternoon that was not altogether ironical. Her work was a veritable oasis in the dreary artistic waste.

After the performance, Mrs. Martin confided the fact she had lost $600 on the production, and that the Cuban sufferers would not receive anything from it.

Another such production as “Adele” in the cause of “Cuban Libre” would probably bring about a war between this country and our struggling neighbor.

Mrs. Martin's stage career was finished, but she had to remain in New York City until her legal battle with actor Henley was finished. She also ran into trouble with her latest landlady, a Mrs. Annie Ralph, who claimed Mrs Martin had sneaked away from her boarding house in the dead of the night, owing her $51 in rent. Mrs. Martin would spend some time in jail before she was free to leave the city.

She'd made the mistake of sending Henley letters that were threatening enough for him to obtain a warrant for her arrest. Henley said Mrs. Martin promised to shoot him on sight.

When the matter went to court, Henley was out of town touring with Margaret Mather in "Cymbeline," but through his lawyer dropped the charge against Isabella Martin on condition she stop writing him threatening letters. A judge decided Mrs. Martin had violated her agreement with the actor and dismissed her charge against him. As for Mrs. Ralph's accusation, Mrs. Martin produced a receipt to prove she had paid the $51. The judge dismissed Mrs. Ralph's complaint, though landlady claimed the receipt was a forgery. That wasn't the first time Mrs. Martin had been accused of forging receipts, but this time the magistrate believed her.

This put an end to Isabella Martin's New York adventure. She returned to Oakland on March 30.

POSTSCRIPT: Isabella J. Martin's fantasy was to play opposite Henry Irving in "Macbeth." Irving was an English actor so famous at the time that no first name was needed. He was the Olivier of his time. It was odd that "Cymbeline," which had become one of Shakespeare's least-performed works, was staged in London in 1896 with Irving in the role Henley was playing in the Margaret Mather production.

Tragedy struck Miss Mather on April 7, 1898 when she collapsed on stage while performing"Cymbeline" in Charleston, West Virginia. She died the next afternoon. Death was due to acute Bright's disease. She was only 39.

Henley had to drop out of the production and went to a sanitarium in Lake Placid, New York, to be treated for tuberculosis. He died on October 16, 1898. He was 37 years old.

Part 4: The dynamite queen


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