In 1845 Saint John was rocked by a theatre riot when an audience got violent towards a play that was seen as mocking certain prominent Saint Johners. An angry mob attacked the theatre, bent on destroying it, only to be stopped by a rival mob…
The play that sparked the riot was written by Thomas Hill, the editor of the Fredericton newspaper, The Loyalist.
One year earlier, he had been arrested and imprisoned by the government after criticizing a politician in an editorial. He fought and won a legal battle against the government which ensured freedom of the press in New Brunswick.
In the midst of all of this Thomas Hill found the time to write a play called ‘The Provincial Association.’
The play itself, sadly, is lost. Gathering the few surviving comments about its short and dramatic run, it appears to have been about a group of wealthy businessmen who form a group to fight a proposed government bill involving taxes in New Brunswick. Like Ayn Rand, but, we can safely assume, better written.
Despite his victory for freedom of the press, Thomas Hill was actually the hardest of hardline conservatives, and in fact, his securing freedom of the press was more of an accident than a deliberate act. He was almost certainly deeply in favour of wealthy private-sector merchants fighting a government bill raising taxes.
His play was apparently not a work of fiction though, but rather based on actual events which had occurred the previous year.
The problem was that it seems that the play’s antagonists were clearly recognizable as some of the more wealthy and prominent Saint Johners.
It was a three-part tragedy depicting a lone hero — who Thomas Hill based on himself — in a conflict with the powerful men out to get him. It is unclear why. In the end, the hero is arrested, gives a speech comparing being a newspaper editor to being just like that time when Jesus Christ died on a cross, and the antagonists win.
To bring his play to life, Thomas Hill turned to Fredericton actor/theatre manager Henry Preston to produce his play.
Preston had recently arrived in Fredericton after his theatre troupe had been chased out of Charlottetown. Saint John was hardly alone in having a theatre riot: 200 Charlottetowners had attacked Preston’s play by throwing rocks at the venue.
Preston’s theatre company settled in Fredericton, and quickly found respectability, success and economic prosperity.
However, they expanded too quickly and expensively and quickly began going deep into debt.
On February 25th, 1845 ‘The Provincial Association’ opened in Fredericton in the grandly named People’s Olympic Theater. This was a freshly opened and opulent theatre that Preston’s company had paid to have renovated. This had contributed to their precarious financial state.
The play was not controversial at all in Fredericton. In fact, the audience reaction was at best muted, and at worst unresponsive.
Thomas Hill, the playwright and actor, was disappointed.
The only public reaction is from the three other newspaper editors in Fredericton, who viciously mocked the play. That’s to be expected though — Thomas Hill was widely detested by them, largely for personal reasons (these included his drinking, his tendency to get into bar fights, and worse of all, his frequent tendency to get totally drunk in bars and sing his original tunes). Even his earlier victory in securing freedom of the press could not overcome the rival editors’ dislike for his singing career.
However, the three other newspapers mocking Thomas Hill and his play increased public interest and made the play an unlikely hit (much to the rival newspapers’ chagrin).
The success, however, came too late for Preston and his theatre.
Facing enormous debt, the theatre troupe fled Fredericton for Saint John in the night. Their theatre was seized by bailiffs and auctioned off, marking the end of Fredericton’s short-lived People’s Olympic Theater.
One of Hill’s rival editors, for the The New Brunswick Reporter, gloated about the theater’s failure by penning a poem called “The Flight of The Thespians”:
“The cautious Preston with his hardy crew
To Fredericton for ever bade adieu.
No boastful drums were beat upon the way
No spangled banners wooed the winds to play –
With prudent haste, he bravely led the van
Behind the Chieftain came his faithful clan.”
In Saint John, Preston’s theatre company managed to quickly find a home, and within only a couple weeks of their arrival held their opening performance of ‘The Provincial Association.’
While the theatre company may not have understood what they were getting into in Saint John, the same cannot be said of Thomas Hill. This was Hill’s second play.
The first one had been booed in Saint John, which he attributed to his reputation in the city, writing: “It happened that most of the occupants of the Gallery on that evening were our personal or political enemies, and the moment we appeared on the stage we were hissed.”
It is difficult to fully express just how hated Thomas Hill was in the Port City, although this remarkable editorial in The Saint John Morning News from April 1845 does offer a hint, calling him: “one of those ruffianly and libellous scribblers, who, for the sake of notoriety, would descend to anything, if they thought they could cheat the gallows … He perpetrated upon the people of this city some of the most foul specimens of orthography and grammatical inaccuracies that ever disgraced the newspaper press … He is so far beneath mediocrity, that he is not even fit to blacken an Editor’s boots.”
Nonetheless, despite its infamous author, the play hosted its first show in Saint John without incident.
Among the audience were writers from the major Saint John newspapers, who savaged the play in their reviews.
Not only did they attack the play, but claimed that it was mocking the city, and several prominent men in it.
The reviews were also remarkably vicious towards its author in startlingly personal ways.
The News published the following in their review of the play:
“The dramatis persone of the piece are said to be certain well-known respectable members of this community, and the whole drift of the piece is intended to bring contempt not only upon the respectability of the gentlemen in question, but upon their moral rectitude, and the virtue of certain ladies in St. John.”
“Now as regard to the worthless fellow who wrote the piece, of course nothing better could be expected of him, for such a mercenary dog could be hired to do anything – for a shilling he would hang his mother.”
Thomas Hill would later blame the riot which happened at the play’s second performance on the Saint John newspapers’ inflammatory language inciting people to violence.
Prophetically, Thomas Hill wrote in response: “This is pretty strong encouragement for a riotous mob!”
Ahead of the play’s second show, the businessmen who felt that they were being attacked by the play allegedly bought up large amounts of the tickets, distributing them to people Thomas Hill called “mischief makers and those weak enough to become their tools.”
As soon as the curtain rose — before the play actually started — these audience members began to shout, yell, boo, hiss and throw things at the stage.
Fights broke out as more objects rained towards the stage.
Meanwhile, outside of the theatre, a mob began attacking from the outside, hurling rocks at the building and smashing windows. The angry rioters both inside and outside the theatre were, in Thomas Hill’s words “endeavouring to demolish the Theater if the performance persisted.”
The Mayor attempted to calm the riot but was attacked as well.
The riot was suddenly halted by the arrival not of law enforcement but of another mob.
The new mob was being led by a man Thomas Hill called “a very respectable mercantile gentleman of Portland,” but who was never actually named in any newspaper articles. (When he said Portland they meant the working-class shipbuilding company on the other side of Saint John, not Portland, Maine, and certainly not Portland, Oregon!)
Thomas Hill claimed the second mob arrived to support the play, while Saint John newspapers claimed the second mob wanted to quell the violence before it spiralled out of control.
The rioters fled the new mob, leaving behind them a heavily damaged theatre.
The show, that night, did not go on.
However, the riot did not stop the play’s run.
Much like how the vicious reviews in Fredericton led to increased ticket sales, the notoriety of the riot made the play get a great deal of attention, and Saint Johners demanded it resume performing.
The theatre reopened a week later after undergoing repairs, and ‘The Provincial Association’ resumed but with some changes…
The play was only allowed to be shown during daylight hours.
Ticket buyers had to sign a declaration that they genuinely wanted to see the play.
And in classic showbiz fashion, sensing that with all the attention he now had a hit on his hands, Henry Preston more than doubled the ticket prices to 5 shillings.
The play reopened to a sold-out show.
The audience, this time, was peaceful.
Although the theatre was closed for a full week while undergoing repairs, when it reopened ‘The Provincial Association’ was to resume its run.
However, there was more unexpected drama.
Actor/manager Henry Preston, who played the main character, had allegedly fled Saint John years earlier after racking up large debts. In a suspiciously remarkable coincidence, just as he was mounting the stage to start the third act in which the character he played is arrested, bailiffs entered the theatre and arrested Preston for unpaid debts.
The audience was in shock as the star actor was dragged away, and Preston’s bewildered actors and actresses scrambled. They quickly managed to assemble the money for bail and rushed off to get their leader back.
The newly freed Preston quickly returned to the stage to a rapturous reception from the still-waiting audience. The show went on.
The play was a success. Thomas Hill even triumphantly claimed that “some of the promoters of the riots being present, and seeing the play, for the first time, performed, are said to be heartily ashamed of the course they have hitherto pursued.”
‘The Provincial Association’ continued its run for some time, and at least one Saint John newspaper who despised Thomas Hill came around and, upon re-reviewing the play, wrote appreciatively of it.
However, even though it was now a successful and profitable play, the bad luck of ‘The Provincial Association’ continued. Within months the theater would burn down. This marked the end of both the theatre company and the play.
In the wake of the fire Henry Preston moved to Halifax to start a new theatre company, which also soon failed, after which he moved back to the United States where he was from.
Thomas Hill stayed in New Brunswick continuing in his role as newspaper editor of The Loyalist where he kept crusading against his many enemies, and would not write another play.
