Such in brief is the history of Potter's Academy of Music. The merchants and lumbermen who had given Potter such liberal credit were now sadder but wiser men.
Potter got away as soon as possible, for matters were very pressing and unpleasant for him. His company drifted off in various directions, except Belle Douglass, who got married to Captain Clipperton and settled down in Salt Lake, and after a while got into the Salt Lake Theatre. Hardie also got back after a time, long enough for him to become repentant and express his regrets for what he had done.
The season, by the time the Academy's brief career had ended, was well advanced into the spring. Julia Dean Hayne had not only not played out, but had steadily grown in the affection of the people. Mr. Waldron continued to to be a favorite also; but Julia Dean was the bright particular star whose effulgence can never be effaced from the memories of those who attended her performances during that memorable engagement. She received many marks of personal favor from President Brigham Young; indeed, it was current gossip that the President was very much enamored of the fair Julia and had offered to make her Mrs. Young number twenty-one. How much, if any, truth there was in this gossip will perhaps never be known; the fact that Brigham did pay her unusual attention and gave several parties in her honor and had a fine sleigh built which he named the Julia Dean was quite enough to set the people talking. The probability is that the President was very much charmed with her, and sought to win her to the Mormon faith; had he succeeded in this, he might then have felt encouraged to go a step further and win her to himself, for in spite of his already numerous matrimonial alliances, he did not consider himself ineligible. The fair Julia was not ineligible, either, for she was divorced from her husband, Dr. Hayne, the son of a "favorite son" of South Carolina. Speculation was rife, and much surprise and wonder was excited in certain quarters that President Young should go out of his way to show more marked attention to an actress than he had ever shown to any of his wives; but he was bent on getting Julia into the fold; once there, he could have played the good shepherd, and have secured her an exaltation. She had another man in her eye. One she had set her heart upon, too. "As hers on him, so his was set on her, but how they met and wooed and made exchange of vows I'll tell thee as we pass."
James G. Cooper was at this particular time secretary of the territory of Utah—an appointee of the United States government. He was a cavalierly man of southern birth and breeding—tall and handsome, and of courtly bearing, a great lover of the theatre. He was never known to miss a performance during Julia Dean's engagement. He was one of the most enthusiastic admirers she had; night after night, all the season through, he sat in front, early always in the same seat, and with eyes aglow and ears alert, he seemed to absorb every tone of her voice and catch, every gleam of her eyes—her every move was to him a thrill of rapture. Out of her thousands of admirers he was the most devoted worshipper at her shrine. Up to a certain time he worshipped in silence as if she were a deity. Chance had made them neighbors: the secretary's office and Mrs. Hayne's apartments were in adjoining houses, and it was not long before an acquaintanceship was formed which rapidly grew into a friendship and friendship soon ripened into love.
These lovers were discreet, however. Many happy hours they passed in each other's company, but they did not parade their love, nor "wear their hearts upon their sleeves for daws to peck at." Little did her audience suspect that often when she cast her most bewitching glances, and brightened their faces with her radiant smiles, that those smiles were mounted especially for him; but he knew—how could he help but know. Cupid had drawn his bow and sped his dart.
"Where on a sudden one hath wounded me, that's by me wounded
Both our remedies within thy help and holy physic lie."
So after the close of the season, much to the surprise of her numerous admirers, "these 'twain were made one flesh." They bade a rather hasty farewell to the land of the Saints, and wended their way to the far East by stagecoach, the terminus of the Pacific road being yet some hundreds of miles from Salt Lake.
Mrs. Hayne's last appearance at the Salt Lake Theatre was an event marked with quite as much if not more of interest than her first appearance. She had become endeared to the Salt Lake public, and they regarded her approaching departure with genuine regret. At her last performance, June 30th, 1866, she appeared as "Camille," the same character in which she opened her engagement, and was the recipient on this occasion of many tokens of kindness and appreciation. Being called enthusiastically to the front of the curtain after the performance, she bade a loving farewell to Salt Lake and its people in one of the most delicately and tastefully worded speeches ever made in front of a theatre drop. During her long engagement, lasting from August 11th, '65, to June 30th, '66, she played all the great classic female roles that were then popular, a number of comedies, and even took a dip into extravaganza or burlesque, appearing during the holiday season in the character of Alladin in "The Wonderful Lamp," which ran for eleven consecutive performances. Her best remembered characters are "Camille," "Lady Macbeth," "Leah," "Parthenia," "Julia" (in the "Hunchback"), "Lucretia Borgia," "Medea," "Marco," "Lady Teazle," "Peg Woffington," and "Pauline" in the "Lady of Lyons." In her ten months' engagement, she played a great many plays besides those mentioned, each play being presented twice or three times, according to its popularity.
Among others, an Indian play, entitled "Osceola," written by E. L. Sloan, then editor of the Salt Lake Herald, in which Mr. George Waldron played the title role and Mrs. Hayne the chief's daughter. The piece had a fair success, but has never been heard of since. Mr. Sloan wrote another play a year or two later, about the time of the completion of the overland railroad, which he called "Stage and Steam." This was a melodrama with a stage coach and railway train in it, intended to illustrate the march of civilization. It had two presentations, and was never acted again that we are aware of. It was during Mrs. Hayne's engagement also that Mr. Edward W. Tullidge made his first essay as a dramatic author—Mrs. Hayne and Mr. Waldron had exhausted the list of available plays and new plays were in demand. Tullidge's play was entitled "Eleanor de Vere," or "The Queen's Secret," an episode of the Elizabethan Court—in which Queen Elizabeth was a secondary character. Tullidge had written his play with various members of the company in his eye, and succeeded in fitting them very well. This play made a very favorable impression and was repeated several times to large and appreciative audiences. Mrs. Hayne's character, "Eleanor de Vere," was one of the Queen's waiting women, in love with "Rochester," and afforded the actress very good scope for her great talent, but the character of Queen Elizabeth, although a secondary part in the play, made such a favorable impression on Mrs. Hayne that she asked Mr. Tullidge if he could write her a play of Elizabeth, making the Queen a star character for her. She believed from what Mr. Tullidge had done in "Eleanor de Vere" that he could write a great play of Elizabeth. Tullidge felt that he had a great subject; it was a favorite theme, however, and one on which he was thoroughly posted, and encouraged by Mrs Hayne's faith in his ability, he at once commenced the task. "The labor we delight in physics pain," and Elizabeth became a labor of love with Edward Tullidge, for he was very enthusiastic in his love of Julia Dean, both as a woman and as an artist; and so familiar with all the heroes of Elizabeth's court, that his task, though Herculean, was a pleasant one, and before Julia Dean was ready to leave Salt Lake, Tullidge had completed a great historical play, "Elizabeth of England." It was with a view of presenting it in New York that Mrs. Hayne (now Cooper) went there soon after her departure. Before she had concluded any arrangement for its production, however, Ristori, the great Italian actress, loomed up on the dramatic horizon in Elizabeth. She had crowned all her former achievements in a great triumph in this same Elizabeth of England. Although the play was written by an Italian author (Giogimetta) and was not as true to history as the Tullidge play, it filled the particular historical niche so far as the stage is concerned. Ristori had a great success with this play, both in Europe and this country. It must have broken Julia Dean's heart professionally. She might have been the first in the field, at least in this country, if she had not dilly-dallied. She was having a delightful honeymoon and was too indifferent in this important affair, and when the advent of the great Italian in Elizabeth awoke her from her reverie, her opportunity had gone and Tullidge's Elizabeth never saw the light. Very keen indeed was the disappointment of the author. Julia Dean was his ideal for Elizabeth, and when he found to his amazement that the Italians (author and actress) had gained the field ahead of them, poor Tullidge went crazy with grief, and for a time had to be confined in the city prison, there being no asylum in Utah at that time. Mr. Lyne, who read the play to a large audience in Salt Lake, pronounced it one of the greatest historical plays he had ever read.
Whether the great disappointment had any effect in hastening Mrs. Cooper's death or not can not be known, but "it is pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful," that she did not live longer to enjoy her new-found happiness, and add a crowning glory to her brilliant career, for she was without doubt the greatest favorite of her day in America, and Americans everywhere would have hailed her with delight in any new achievement. She only lived about a year after her marriage to Mr. Cooper. She died in New York, and was buried in Greenwood Cemetery. The news of her demise was received with profound sorrow by her numerous Salt Lake admirers, and many a silent tear paid tribute to her memory.