George C. Howard

George Howard Cunnabell was born on January 6, 1818, at Halifax, Nova Scotia, the son of John Henry and Mary Ann (née Nevon) Cunnabell. Howard’s father was originally a carpenter who later operated a successful tallow and ship chandler business until it was consumed in a devastating fire and his contracts with the British Navy were lost to competitors.^[2][3][4][5]

Howard’s first performances were as a choirboy at Catholic services in Halifax and later in amateur theater. He tried his hand at several trades, the last being tailoring, before leaving for Boston in 1836 to pursue an acting career. He made his professional debut in 1838 as George Cunnabell Howard at the Chestnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and within a few years was playing major roles at the Boston Museum (theatre). He was the first there to play Claude Melnotte in Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s The Lady of Lyons; Sir Thomas Clifford in Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre-Dame; and Romeo and Orlando in William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and As You Like It.^[2][3][4][5]

In the mid-1840s he formed the company, Howard and Foxes, with the Fox troupe, a family of actors from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and toured throughout the Northeast. Caroline "Caddie" Emily Fox, the talented fifteen-year-old daughter of George and Emily Fox, married Howard on October 31, 1844. At various times over the following years, her brothers George L. Fox (1), James Augustus Fox and Charles K. Fox performed with Howard.^[2][3][4][5]

In 1852 Howard hired Caroline's cousin George L. Aiken to adapt for the stage Harriet Beecher Stowe's anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom's Cabin. The play debuted on September 27, 1852, at Peale’s Museum in Troy, New York, with a cast largely made up of family and friends of Howard's that included his four-year-old daughter, Cordelia. The play was a great success and ran for over three months, an achievement for a small town theater.^[2][3][4][5]

Aiken’s original script, which ran over three hours, ended with little Eva's death, Later that year he wrote a sequel that brought the story to a proper end which he soon merged with the original script to create the six-act play known today. The following year the play opened at Alexander H. Purdy’s National Theatre in the Bowery neighborhood of lower Manhattan and was well received. The play was directed by George L. Fox, who had become a local favorite there, and retained many of the original players from the first production. Uncle Tom’s Cabin would remain in continuous production somewhere in the United States well into the 1930s, an incredible accomplishment for any time.^[2][3][4][5]

In 1857 George C. Howard became the manager of the Troy Adelphi Theatre, but returned to the road after box office receipts did not meet expectations. In 1861 Howard filled in as manager of Fox's New Bowery Theatre, while his brother-in-law George L. Fox served in the Civil War. After the war Howard would return to the stage only on occasion.^[5]