Lou’s View

By Lou Bernard

There was a lot of fascinating stuff going on in the early days. We tend to think of it in very dry terms—Jeremiah Church founded Lock Haven on November 4, 1833, in a public auction, aided by attorney Thomas McGhee. And I recognize that, phrased that way, it doesn’t particularly engender a lot of interest—It’s just a collection of names and dates. But there’s a lot more to it, fascinating stuff. You’ll never get the full, excellent story by just reciting a bunch of dry facts.

For instance, there’s the story of the Thespian Society.

On that date, our first day, the first man to purchase a property in Lock Haven was Frank Smith.

Smith purchased the property on the southeast corner of Jay and Water Streets, where Lindsey Place stands now. (Lindsey Place wasn’t the original building, which burned down, but that was the location.) He began building a hotel, which opened in 1834. Smith had a couple of fires at his place, and it burned down for good in 1855, and was rebuilt and opened again by Proctor Myers.

Smith was also a founding member of an early local group called the Thespian Society.

The Thespian Society was a regular event in the early days of Lock Haven. Their stated goal was to put on plays for the local citizens, all performed by amateurs, mostly local hotel owners, of which there were quite a few. These plays were often well-attended by the early citizens, what with streaming media being a couple of centuries away from being invented. None of these guys were professional actors, which I have to assume added to the amusement quality of the shows.

Hotel owner Smith joined the Thespian Society. So did Doctor Joseph Hunt and Reverend J.J. Harvey. David Hanna, local farmer who lived across the river, was also in the group. They practiced once a week, usually in the Prendible Building, which was once one of the oldest buildings in Lock Haven. It no longer stands, having been destroyed to make room for Carter Towers, at the corner of South Jones Street and Bellefonte Avenue. The hotel was under the management of Alexander Mahan, and predated both South Jones Street and Bellefonte Avenue, to some extent. In those days, Bellefonte Avenue was mostly a dirt road and referred to as “Clinton Avenue”—You can still see it that way on the old maps.

Another thing you notice on the old maps is Sarah’s Alley, which runs between Water and Main Streets downtown. This was named after Sarah Spear, the only single woman of marriageable age in those early days. So that was your dating scene in the early days—If you wanted to date, you took Sarah Spear to the Thespian Society. There were no other options.

The “actors” would practice weekly, and perform a different play about once a month, in a different hotel each month. People would eat while they watched, which made it a pretty good business decision for the hotel owners. This had several advantages for everyone: The hotel owners made money, the citizens got entertained, and the members of the Thespian Society got to live out their dreams of being onstage.

In an interview with the Clinton Democrat in August, 1862, J.J. Harvey said, ”It was the custom of our Society, after due preparation to have an exhibition, or public night. At those times our friends and the public generally were invited to attend, and after our performance on the stage was over, we had music and dancing, in which those who chose, frequently indulged, closing with a very nice and sumptuous supper, prepared for the occasion by the landlord.”

I’ve always loved this. You talk about the day a city was founded, and that doesn’t exactly catch the attention. But a group of businessmen taking it upon themselves to entertain the community….Yeah, that’s worth hearing.