Hoyt

providing for their prompt payment made him a
popular paymaster.

After the war Hoyt made his home in Boston
except for five years, 1877-82, when he was pro-
fessor of history and English literature in the
Bartholomew English and Classical School, Cin-
cinnati, Ohio. In 1887 he joined the clerical
force of the United States subtreasury at Boston
and remained connected with it for the rest of his
life. The work which has made his name memo-
rable, however, was done as a member of the
New-England Historic Genealogical Society. He
was elected to resident membership in August
1866, and from 1868 to 1875 he was editor of the
society's quarterly Register. The following prod-
ucts of his pen were printed in that periodical :
"A Sketch of the Life of Hon. Joshua Hen-
shaw" (April 1868) ; "William Plumer, Senior"
(January 1871) ; "The Rev. Thomas Bradbury
Chandler, D.D., 1726-1790" (July 1873) ; "Daniel
Peirce of Newbury, Mass., 1638-1677, and his
Descendants" (July 1875) >" "Donations to the
People of Boston Suffering under the Port Bill"
(July 1876) ; and "The Name 'Columbia' " (July
1886). Hoyt was also a member of the Amer-
ican Antiquarian Society; to its Proceedings
(April 1876) he contributed "Historical and
Bibliographical Notes on the Laws of New
Hampshire." He edited Captain Francis Cham-
pernowne and Other Historical Papers (1889)
by Charles Wesley Tuttle. On June 28, 1860, he
married Sarah Frances Green of Elizabeth, N.
J. Their only child died in infancy.

[Memoir by C. S. Ensign, in New Eng. Hist, and
GeneaL Reg.> Jan. 1916; Proc. Am. Antiquarian Soc.f
n.s., vol. XXV (1915); Boston Transcript, June n,

L.S.M— o.

HOYT, CHARLES HALE (July *6, 1860-
Nov. 20, 1900), playwright, was born in Con-
cord, N. H., the son of George W. Hoyt. At the
age of eighteen he began newspaper work at St.
Albans, Vt., and shortly afterward joined the
staff of the Boston Post. Here he acted as dra-
matic and music critic, as well as sports editor,
and became one of the first "columnists** in the
country. Through his association with the thea-
tre he was led to write plays, and he carefully
studied the productions in Boston, especially the
Negro minstrels of Rich and Harris at the How-
ard Athenaeum. His first plays were conven-
tional romantic comedies, like Cesalia, put on at
the Globe Theatre in Boston in 1882, but without
success. He then turned to the writing of farces,
with strongly marked caricatures, and, begin-
ning with A Bunch of Keys (1882), he scored a
series of successes which netted him a substantial
fortune. The best of the earlier plays were A

Hoyt

Parlor Match (1884), a satire on Spiritualism;
A Tin Soldier (1886), dealing with the plumb-
ing industry; and A Hole in the Ground (1887),
a picture of a railroad station where various
types are waiting for a delayed train. With A
Midnight Bell (1889), Hoyt made more attempt
at plot, and reached his highest point of popular
approval in A Texas Steer (1890), a satire on
politics, and A Trip to Chinatown, laid in San
Francisco, which, beginning at Hoyt's Madison
Square Theatre Nov. 9, 1891, ran 650 times un-
til Aug. 17, 1893, tne longest consecutive run at
that time of any American play. It held this
record until 1918. Then followed A Temperance
Town (1893), an attack on prohibition; and A
Milk White Flag (1893), one of his most amus-
ing satires, this time on military organizations.
In 1893 Hoyt was elected to the New Hampshire
legislature and seems to have been a useful mem-
ber, being reelected in 1895. Of his later plays,
the most important were A Contented Woiwn
(1897), in which husband and wife run against
each other for the mayoralty of Denver; A
Stranger in New York (1897), picturing life in
hotels and at a French ball ; and A Day and a
Night in New Ynrk (1898), in which an actress
pretends she is not one, in order to protect her
mother, who has concealed her daughter's pro-
fession. During the progress of this play at the
Garrick Theatre, his second wife, Caroline
Miskel, who had played the leading female part
in several of his plays, died. Hoyt's mind seems
to have been affected by his grief. He was com-
mitted to a sanitarium in July 1900 but was re-
leased on petition of his friends and placed under
medical care until his death, which occurred in
Charlestown, N. H. His first wife, Flora Walsh,
whom he had married in 1887, died in 1892. Ac-
cording to Julian Mitchell, long associated with
him, Hoyt did not usually direct his plays but
was constantly watching his audiences and ad-
vising his directors. He also constantly revised
his plays, The Texas Steer, for example, being
the rewriting of an earlier failure, A Case of
Wine.

[The Texas Steer has been published in Representa-
tive Am. Dramas (1925), ed. by M. J. Moses. The re-
mainder of Hoyt's plays are in manuscript, a complete
set being deposited in the N. Y. Pub. Lib., with a brief
biographical sketch. No life of Hoyt has as yet been

.

printed. Some biographical details are to be found in
T. A. Brown, Hist, of the N. Y. Stage (3 vols., 1903) ;
Arthur Hornblow, A Hist, of the Theatre in America

from Its Beginnings to the Present Time O vols.,
1919) ; Hist, of Concord (2 vols., 1903), ed. by J. 0.
Lyford; Who's Who in America, 1899-1900; and the
N. Y. Times, Nov. 21, 1900. The present writer is in-
debted to Mr. Julian Mitchell for confirmation and cor-
rection of certain items. For analysis of the plays and
a list with dates of production, see A. H. Quinn, A Hist.
of the Am. Drama from the Civil War to the Present
Day (z vols., 1927).] A.H.Q.

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