Louis, and New Orleans,
and first created a taste for theatricals in the great West.
Possessing fine natural abilities, and wonderful enterprise, he pushed
his fortunes, as a theatrical manager, successfully for a number of
years. He built the Camp Street Theatre, and made it exceedingly
profitable. Away back, forty-five years ago, I remember my first
meeting with him at Vicksburg, then a little hamlet, with but few
houses and many hills, abrupt, and ugly. He and his company were
descending to Natchez, and thence, after a short season, to New
Orleans. Edwin Forrest, then a youth, was one of his company, which
also included Russell and wife, Sol. Smith and brother, with their
wives, Mrs. Rose Crampton, and, as a star, Junius Brutus Booth. How
wild was the scene around us! The river was low and sluggish; the boat
small and dirty; the captain ignorant and surly; the company full of
life, wit, and humor. Slowly we labored on. The dense forest came
frowning to the river's brink, with only here and there, at long
intervals, an opening, where some adventurous pioneer had cut and
burned the cane, and built his shanty.
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