Being at length exchanged, he returned to his home and began the study of law. A few months of office work and attendance at school, as well, impressed him with the idea that the legal profession would still have a fairly large membership, even though his name was not added to the list. Abandoning his intention of becoming a lawyer, and while attending school he was selected for a part in an amateur theatrical performance. From the time that he made his first bow to an audience before the footlights as an amateur, he was seized with the irresistible desire to become an actor. With Nate Salsbury to decide was to act, and going to Grand Rapids, Mich., with only a few dollars in his pocket, he received a position which, though humble, gave him a start in professional life. After a short season there he went East and secured a position in the Boston Museum Company, where his histrionic talent was quickly recognized by the management. His success at this theater soon attracted to him the attention of managers of other cities, and he accepted the position of leading man at Hooley’s Theater in Chicago. His progress was thenceforth rapid. His popularity grew apace and his salary was added to with every engagement. There was too much originality in Nate Salsbury to allow of his remaining a member of a stock company, so he conceived and constructed a comedy entertainment to which he gave the title of “The Troubadours.”
From the first production of “The Troubadours” the fame and fortune of Nate Salsbury were assured. His play of “Patchwork” followed, then his most successful comedy, “The Brook,” which added largely to his riches and his name as an actor.
Mr. Salsbury went with his Troubadours in a trip around the world, everywhere receiving deserved praise, and he was the first dramatic manager who made this hazardous tour with his own company.
The tour took the Troubadours—after going all over the United States, playing from Maine to Texas, the Carolinas to California—through Australia, India, Scotland, England, Ireland, and Wales, wherever the English tongue was spoken.
Meeting Buffalo Bill and learning from him his intention of giving wild Western exhibitions, Mr. Salsbury became a partner in the Wild West, and took the active management of that gigantic aggregation, withdrawing from the stage to do so.
During the tour of Buffalo Bill abroad, at many dinners and assemblages Mr. Nate Salsbury’s oratorical powers, mimic skill, ready wit, recitative talent, and facility of expressing sentiment delighted all who heard him, and invariably made an impression that will long keep his memory green, while the reputation of Americans for oratory was well sustained by the prairie-born boy soldier.
As a proof of Mr. Salsbury’s nerve under trying circumstances, he was about to go upon the stage at Denver when he received a dispatch from his partner, Buffalo Bill, which told him that the Wild West steamer on the Mississippi had collided with another boat and sunk. Buffalo Bill telegraphed, “The whole outfit at the bottom of the Mississippi River. What do you advise?” Without an instant’s hesitation Nate Salsbury wrote on a telegraph blank this answer, “Go to New Orleans, reorganize, and open on your date,” and this Buffalo Bill did.
Some years ago Mr. Salsbury invested heavily in the cattle business in Montana, and to-day owns one of the most valuable ranches in the Northwest. It was during his visit to his ranch that he saw the practicability of an exhibition such as the Wild West, and readily joined Buffalo Bill in the enterprise. A man of brains, a strict disciplinarian, a genial gentleman, with genius to originate and ability to accomplish, generous and courageous, Nate Salsbury stands to-day unrivaled as an executive of great amusement enterprises, and he thoroughly deserves the fortune and fame that he has won.
INDIAN NAMES OF STATES.
Massachusetts, from the Indian language, signifying the “country about the great hills.”