1900-02-23-New York Sun-Dan Rice, Clown, is Dead

Latest revision as of 14:47, 16 June 2023

[edit] Dan Rice, Clown, is Dead

New York Sun, 23 February 1900, p. 2, c. 3

His Death at Long Branch due to Bright's Disease.

Career of the Famous Ring Joker Who Began Life as a Stable Boy and Made and Lost Three Fortunes—His Education in Shakespeare—His Name Was McLarin

LONG BRANCH, N. J., Feb 22.—Dan Rice, the veteran clown died tonight at 7 o'clock after a lingering illness. He was 77 years old. Mr. Rice suffered from Bright's disease and and dropsy but he had been able to go out for a drive until n week ago when he took to his bed. At the time of his last illness he was writing a book on his life. He had about com- pleted the closing chapter.

Dan Rice's real name was Daniel McLarin. He was born in New York city. His father, Daniel McLarin nicknamed the boy Dan Rice, after a famous clown in Ireland. After his father's death his mother married a man named Monahan who had a dairy near Free- hold, Monmouth county, N. J., and Dan, when a small boy, delivered milk to his step-father's customers. His sister Elizabeth married Jacob Scholes, a circus rider, who lived long in New Jersey. Dan, weary of the milk route struck out for himself when young and made his way to Pittsburg, where he was succes- sively stable boy, race-rider and hack driver. After a little time, under the name of Dan Rice, he achieved prominence, if not exactly fame, as the owner and exhibitor of a learned pig, with which he and a man named Lindsay travelled through Pennsylvania and neighbor- ing States. Rice and Lindsay sang songs and danced but the pig was the principal attrac- tion.

Old friends of Dan relate that the death of the star performer broke up that show and he drifted out to Nauvoo, Ill. where the Mormons then were under Joseph Smith's leadership, and remained with them for a time. He re- turned to Pittsburg and went to hack driving again. He married there his first wife, and came to New York in 1844, making here his first appearance as a clown and negro song and dance performer with Dr Spalding's company in the old Bowery Amphitheatre, then under the management of John Tryon. In the com- pany with him at that time were Barney Will- iams, Dan Emmett, Dan Gardner, Frank W. Whittaker and others whose names have since attained wide celebrity on the stage and in the ring.

In the season of 1845 Dan travelled with Seth B. Howes's circus. Seth B. Howes was a brother of Nathan Howes, one of the old "flat- foot combination," which started the famous Zoological Institute at 37 Bowery. He billed and advertised Dan Rice more extensively than any clown ever was advertised before in this country. One of the advertising dodges was to supply Dan with a special carriage and horses to take him through the country. In the win- ter of 1845-6 Dan made his first appearance in Philadelphia in Gen. Rufus Weich's National Amphitheatre, which was then at the corner of Ninth and Chestnut streets, on the site now oc- cupied by the Continental Hotel. At that time he was simply a good "rough knock-about clown," in the phraseology of the ring, not quick to catch points on the audience from the ringmaster, and innocent of any knowledge of Shakespeare. He tried successively Nicholas Johnson and Ben Young, both actors, and Horace Nichols and somebody else, in the capacity of ringmaster, yet could not make a hit with either. Finally he got Frank W. Whit- taker who was at the time master of the ring for other clowns in the same show, assigned to him, and on his first night made a hit, on busi- ness suggested by Whittaker, which carried him into instant popularity with Philadelphia audiences.

That hit cost Sandy Jameson, leader of the orchestra, a new violin, for part of the funny business consisted in Dan's tumbling Frank headlong among the orchestra.

During the summer of 1846 Rice was a clown with Weich's travelling show in Canada, and in the succeeding year he went to New Orleans, with his first manager Dr. Spaulding. At this time it is said, Mr. Van Orden, a brother-in- law of Dr Spaulding, took a liking to Dan and urged him to much-needed mental improve- ment, supplying him with Shakespeare, Byron and other dramatic and poetic works, aiding him in making from them the selections on which he subsequently became known as a "Shakespearean clown," and encouraging him in study, not only for his professional purposes but for the acquisition of general knowledge. Mr. Van Orden also wrote a number of Rice's most popular songs. After a season or two Rice obtained an interest with Dr Spaulding and that connection was kept up until about 1850, when they separated. In 1853 in con- sequence of some legal proceedings instituted by Spaulding for recovery of payment for a a show with which he had fitted Rice out a couple of years before. Rice lost a handsome farm which he had acquired in Columbia county, N. Y. Shortly after that Dan bought a homestead in Girard Pa., and a fine farm two or three miles from that town, where he sheltered his show in the winter.

By 1856 he had so far recovered from the disaster which followed the severance of his connection with Spaulding that he was deemed a wealthy man and certainly was a popular one wherever he travelled. For he was a genial, whole-souled fellow, kind and generous, seem- ing to think nothing of riches more than as a means to promote the happiness of all around him. Fortune smiled upon him steadily up to 1860, when there was a separation between him and his wife. Old showmen said: "Dan lost his luck when he parted from her."

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