User:MinorProphet/Draft subpages/Maurice Grau

Rough notes at Maurice Grau draft



Maurice Hermann Grau (1849–14 March 1907), was an international theatre and opera impresario. Born in Brno, Moravia (then part of Austria-Hungary, now Czech Republic), his family soon emigrated to the USA where he grew up in New York, and managed operetta companies there for over 20 years. He joined the partnership of Henry E. Abbey and John B. Schoeffel in around 1882 to form Abbey, Schoeffel and Grau. They leased the 'old' New York Metropolitan Opera House for a financially disastrous inaugural season in 1883-4, but by touring with Sarah Bernhardt, Henry Irving, Ellen Terry and Adelina Patti they had recovered enough to lease the Met again for grand opera from 1891. Grau was the manager of the 'Met' from 1891 to 1903, and of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London, 1897–1900.

After the operetta stars Marie Aimée and Madame Béjane, he brought many stars of the 'Golden Age of singing' to the USA, including the brothers Jean de Reszke and Édouard de Reszke, Victor Capoul, Emma Calvé, Ernestine Schumann-Heink, Marcella Sembrich, Emma Eames, Nellie Melba, Milka Ternina, Johanna Gadski, and Lilian Nordica; the musicians Josef Hofmann, Anton Rubinstein, Henryk Wieniawski, Pablo Sarasate; and some of the great dramatic artists, among them Tommaso Salvini, Sarah Bernhardt, Ernest Coquelin, and Henry Irving.

Early life
He was born in 1849 in Brno, Moravia, now Czech Republic, the son of Emmanuel and Rosalie Grau. When he was 5 years old his parents emigrated to the USA, where they seem to have kept a boarding house in New York. Emmanuel's brothers, Jacob and Hermann Grau were established impresarios in the musical theatre world.

Maurice Grau attended a public school and then attended the Free Academy (now New York City College) graduating in 1867 aged around 18. He entered Columbia Law School where, as a freshman, he became friends with Edward Lauterbach who was in the senior class. He spent some time in the law office of Morrison, Lauterbach & Spitgarn.

Grau's father may have, since after Emmanuel's death in c1868 Maurice swiftly gravitated towards the theatre. His uncle Jacob Grau (1817-1877) was the manager of the Theatre Francais, and opened Crosby's Opera House, Chicago, in April 1865 with his Grand Italian Opera Company from the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Maurice started selling libretti in the foyer and taking tickets in Chicago in 1866 aged around 16, and joined his uncle in business in 1868.

Opera bouffe
Maurice Grau's successful début as manager was on 22 October 1868 at the Theatre Francais, New York City with Geneviève de Brabant by Jacques Offenbach for 11 weeks and La Grande-Duchesse de Gerolstein, followed by Hervé's L'oeil crevé on 11 January 1869. Offenbach's La Vie parisienne opened on 29 March 1869, with tickets at $3.00, double the usual price. Aimée also starred in Barbe-bleue at Niblo's Garden in 1869. By 1870 Maurice Grau was the biggest importer of opéra-bouffe: both Aimée and Lucille Tostée featured in his 7½-month season that year at the Grand Opera House (previously Pike's Opera House). Aimée was at the "fading Olympic Theatre" in October 1872 and from November to 11 January 1873; and in Charles Lecocq's La fille de Madame Angot on 25 August 1873 on Broadway.

Under the management of Maurice Grau with his uncle Jacob and Charles A. Chizzola, Tommaso Salvini, with an Italian theatre company, made his American début at the fashionable Academy of Music on September 16 1873, in Shakespeare's Othello in Italian supported by his brother Alessandro Salvini as Iago.

The Clara Kellogg English Opera company, under C. D. Hess and Maurice Grau's direction, opened at the New York Academy of Music on 21 January 1874, in Lucia di Lammermoor which they followed with Martha by Flotow, Maritana by W. Vincent Wallace, Michael Balfe's The Bohemian Girl, The Marriage of Figaro, Verdi's Rigoletto and Gounod's Faust.

Chizzola and 49 members of the French Comic Opera Company left for Havana, Cuba on the SS City of New York on 3 March 1874. Grau and Chizzola presented Marie Aimée at the Lyceum (previously the Théatre Francais) in Léon Vasseur's La timbale d'argent from 24 August to 17 October 1874., along with two more Offenbach operettas, fr:La Princesse de Trébizonde and La Périchole. Grau & Chizzola followed Aimée with Emily Soldene's Soldene Opera Bouffe Company, which arrived in New York in October 1874 on the SS Celtic (White Star Line). During the season they produced (in English) Hervé's Chilpéric, La fille de Madame Angot, Offenbach's La Grande Duchesse de Gerolstein; and the same composer's latest operetta, Madame l'archiduc, which had only just appeared in Paris (on 31 October 1874). A friend of M. Chizzola's brought over a vocal score, and in one week it was translated into English, scored, studied, learnt, rehearsed, and produced.

On 11 January 1875, Grau & Chizzola presented their own company with fr:Coralie Geoffroy in François Bazin's Le Voyage en Chine and Lecocq's popular Giroflé-Girofla which played from 20 February until 20 March. Marie Aimée starred at the Lyceum in Offenbach's La jolie parfumeuse on 31 March 1875,, and from 6 September 1875 Grau & Chizzola's troupe with Geoffroy presented Émile Jonas's Le canard à trois becs and Herve's Le petit Faust among other previous favourites.

On 12 June 1876 Offenbach himself conducted Aimée at the US first night of La Vie parisienne at Booth's Theatre.

Aimée appeared in September 1876 in Lecocq's La petite mariée and Offenbach's La boulangère a des écus. Emily Soldene, her opera-troupe and C. A. Chizzola arrived from England on 11 November 1876 aboard the SS City of Berlin. The Brooklyn Theatre fire on 5 December 1876 led to generally reduced audiences for the season, and times were already hard for theatre managers.

Aimée appeared in Lecocq's Marjolaine and La reine Indigo by Johann Strauss in October 1877. Jacob Grau died intestate on 14th December 1877, leaving personal property worth $10,050.

Maurice Grau Opera Company
In 1879 Maurice Grau moved away from managing other people's operatic troupes and organised his own company with Marie Aimée as the star. The company was billed either as the Maurice Grau French Opera Company, or as Maurice Grau's Opera-Bouffe Company. The latter played Lecocq's Le petit duc for a week at at Booth's Theatre (lessee and manager Henry E. Abbey) from 19 April 1879.

Abbey and Schoeffel took over the recently built Park Theatre at 932 Broadway (21st St), renaming it as Abbey's Park Theatre.

1879: Park Theatre (Boston), west side of Washington Street, north of Boylston Street. Reconstructed from Beethoven Hall, and opened April 14, 1879, Henry E. Abbey, of the New York Park Theatre, manager. John B. Schoeffel, who was associated with Mr. Abbey in conducting the Park Theatre in New York, and various other theatrical enterprises, including Sarah Bernhardt's professional visit to America, became connected with the Boston Park as associate manager, the company's title, Abbey & Schoeffel, first appearing March 8, 1880. The Park Theatre burned down in 1882.


 * 1880 - Sarah Bernhardt arrived NY 27 October 1880 for her first tour under Abbey & Schoeffel - $1,500 per performance, managers wanted $4,500 per perf. [NB I think she is wrong with 'Abbey and Grau', Schoeffel's obit says Grau didn't join until 1882. - see below.]


 * 1881 - Grau put on a 5-week season at Teatro Solis, Montevideo with Andre Gravenstein conductor - Paola Marié (sister of Célestine Galli-Marié (see Abbey, Schoeffel and Grau)

Helena Modjeska, who starred at the last ever performance at Booth's in December 1881, was later managed by Robert Grau, Maurice's younger brother.

Abbey, Schoeffel and Grau

 * In 1882 Henry E Abbey who had engaged Sarah Bernhardt and wanted the foreign field as well as England for his exploits sent for Maurice Grau and proposed that he become his partner. That partnership of Abbey, Schoeffel and Grau continued until the death of Mr Abbey whose methods eventually cost him all his fortune and deprived Mr Grau as well of his savings.

Inaugural season at the 'old' Met.
Abbey, Schoeffel and Grau leased the brand-new New York Metropolitan Opera House for its 1883-84 inaugural season: it was a critical success but financially disastrous.

The opening night, conducted by Auguste Vianesi, was Gounod's Faust with Christine Nilsson as Margherita, Italo Campanini as Faust, Franco Novara (real name W. Francis Naish, born in Wiltshire, England) as Méphistophélès, Giuseppe Del Puente as Valentin, Sofia Scalchi as Siebel, Louise Lablache as Martha (at short notice, possibly replacing her sister Emily Lablache), and Ludovico Contini as Wagner.

The second night featured Marcella Sembrich in the title role of Lucia di Lammermoor.

The Met stockholders had subsidized a $60,000 dollar guarantee for Abbey, who was required to personally indemnify all other costs not covered by the box office. Unfortunately the uppertens of the Academy of Music stayed away, and the losses amounted to $250,000. Mapleson's opera seasons at the Academy failed soon thereafter. The London-based banker Henry F. Gillig lost $200,000 in the Abbey-Grau Met debut. And thereby hangs a tale... see below.

The Metropolitan concentrated on German opera for a number of years,

Recovery: Irving & Terry, theatres
Grau went back producing to comic opera with his various Grau opera companies. He


 * G. R. Sims's melodrama The Lights o' London at the Grand Opera House (formerly Pike's).


 * "Maurice Grau's Opera Bouffe Company presented Victorien Sardou's farcial comedy, "Divorçons" with Aimée in October 1883 at the Fifth Avenue Theatre.


 * First Irving-Terry tour in 1884
 * Henry Irving-Ellen Terry tour correspondence 1884-1896. NY Public Library archives. The Irving-Terry tour correspondence consists of letters, schedules, telegrams and clippings related to events and arrangements for their American tours. A large portion of the materials are legal papers concerning the controversy with Abbey, Schoeffel & Grau. In 1896, Abbey, Schoeffel & Grau, proprietors and managers of Abbey's Theatre in New York City, found themselves unable to honor their committments. The company was reorganized with the approval of its creditors, one of whom was the Lyceum Theatre Company. [lol - this seems to have been Daniel Frohman’s Lyceum Theatre Company at the Lyceum Theatre (Park Avenue South). ] Most of the correspondence is addressed to Irving's agent and business manager, Bram Stoker.


 * 1887 - Abbey, Schoeffel and Grau took over Wallack's Theatre and the Star Theatre. [NB Wallack's moved from 844 Broadway to the corner of 30th Street and Broadway in 1881: 844 was taken over by Adolf Neuendorff with Heinrich Conried as stage manager and renamed Germania Theatre: it failed, Wallack took it over again and renamed it the Star Theatre in 1883.] Conried took over the management of the Met when Grau retired after the 1902-3 season.
 * 1888 - Abbey, Schoeffel and Grau built the Tremont Theatre, Boston, with Schoeffel as full-time manager.
 * 1888 - Full season of grand opera at the Teatro Solis, Montevideo, Uruguay, from February 25 to March 27, 1888 with Adelina Patti, conducted by Arnaldo Conti. This tour was managed by Henry E Abbey and Maurice Grau, their first grand operatic venture since their financially disastrous NY Met opening season of 1883-4. It may be interesting that Conti rarely (if ever) conducted again with Grau as manager. He didn't conduct at the Met, or Covent Garden, although he seems to have been certainly capable.
 * 1889 - Abbey and Grau opened the Auditorium Theatre in Chicago on Monday 9 (speeches and two songs by Patti) and Tuesday 10 December (Romeo and Juliette) (Forty Years of Opera in Chicago, p. 6). William Tell and Il Trovatore with Francesco Tamagno; Faust with Emma Albani; and Lucia di Lammermoor with Patti. What a feast!
 * Lol - They succeeded wresting Patti away from Colonel Mapleson and did a tour in 1890 with Nordica, Albani and Patti in Chicago, Mexico City, SF, Denver, Omaha, Chicago, Boston, and finally New York at the old Met. Nordica wasn't invited back to the Met in 1891. Plus Nordica at ROH CG? in 1891 with Richter in the spring
 * 1890 - special season of 21 performances at the Met.
 * Lohengrin. "Grand Opera Under the Management of Mr. Henry E. Abbey and Mr. Maurice Grau: Libretto and Parlor Pianist : the Original Italian Or French Libretto, with a Correct English Translation, and the Principal Airs and Gems of the Opera".
 * The Pearl Fishers, An Opera In Three Acts (Grand Opera Under The Management Of Mr. Henry E. Abbey And Mr. Maurice Grau)

Return to the 'old' Met.

 * 1891 - Abbey, Grau and Schoeffel took over the Met again just as the popularity of bouffe was coming to an end.
 * Chicago, Illinois, November 9, 1891: Lohengrin In Italian, conducted by Auguste Vianesi:
 * Lohengrin   Jean de Reszke [Debut]
 * Elsa   Emma Eames [Debut]
 * Ortrud   Giulia Ravogli [Debut]
 * Telramund   Antonio Magini-Coletti [Debut]
 * King Heinrich   Edouard de Reszke [Debut]
 * Herald   Enrico Serbolini [Debut]


 * 1892 - Abbey's Theatre (now Knickerbocker Theatre (Broadway) - foreign attractions
 * 1893 - Shakespeare's Henry VIII in November-December 1893 with Henry Irving and Ellen Terry at Abbey's Theatre (managers A,S&G).
 * 1893 - Metropolitan Opera House, Grand Opera under the direction of Henry E. Abbey and Maurice Grau. Wednesday evening, Dec. 6, Ambroise Thomas' opera, Hamlet (opera). Friday evening. December 8th, Gounod's Opera Roméo et Juliette. Saturday Matinee, December [?] at 2, Gounod's Opera, Philemon et Baucis and Cavalleria Rusticana.
 * 1894 - managed Lilian Russell without success
 * 1895 - The firm of Abbey, Schoeffel and Grau was in severe financial difficulties, asked for extension of time to meet their obligations. The indebtedness was completely paid off.
 * 1896 - May 22 - company failed with unsecured liabilities of $369,419.36 and actual assets of $162,54.85. Abbey had been ill.
 * June 30 - directors of the Met. Opera and Real Estate Company renewed their lease and continued with their contract to produce grand opera. The creditors received 40% preferred stock and 60% in notes of the firm of Abbey, Schoeffel and Grau, newly incorporated on July 1896 with $500,000 capital, of which $200,000 was preferred stock. The new organisation started free from debt.


 * Abbey died October 17, 1896

Covent Garden 1897-1900

 * Grau & Schoeffel continued, Royal Opera House. Covent Garden 1897-1900.


 * New National Theatre [Washington, D.C.]. Opera season, January 21 to 26 1901. Thursday evening, January 24 [1901]. Il Trovatore. Cast: Barron Berthald, Winfred Goff, Louise Meisslinger [sang in Die Walkure in 1903 under Richter], E.N. Knight, A. Horty, A. Barbara, Grace Golden, Della Niven.
 * Il Trovatore, 1901 at the New National Theatre, Washington, on tour. W.H. Rapley, manager, T. Arthur Smith, treasurer. Metropolitan English Grand Opera Company, Maurice Grau, Henry W. Savage, managing directors, from the Metropolitan Opera House, New York. "Il Trovatore," Verdi's grand opera in four acts. Conductor Richard Eckhold, stage director Edward P. Temple. Lol, Temple was stage manager for the actors in The Miracle in New York in March-April 1913.

Retirement and death

 * Grau became ill, and left the Met in the middle of the 1902-1903 season and retired to Paris a rich man, died 1907.

Maurice Grau had offered Ethel Smyth a contract for American performances of Der Wald in 1903, but he fell ill, resigned and, as Smyth claimed erroneously in her memoirs, “shortly after he died!”.

He was succeeded by Heinrich Conried (1903-1908), who took over in mid-February 1903. Conried broke the ban on Parsifal outside Bayreuth in November 1904 after a court battle with Cosima. Lots more Wagner.

There was a farewell gala performance for Grau given on 27 April 1903, at which several people also gave their last performance at the Met, including Edouard de Reszke.



A dinner was given in Grau's honour by the Lotos Club, New York, on 1 March 1902.

Character
"Personally he was the least pretentious of men. He was courteous and urbane in his relations to others, but very quiet and reserved. As far as the expression of feelings is concerned, he was literally a sealed book, for, if he was elated or depressed, if he was making money or losing money, he gave no sign. He was always studiously polite in his greeting, but made no more talk than was necessary. He was lenient in management, especially with his prima donnas, even when they violated their contracts by declining to sing, nor did he interfere with them more than was absolutely necessary...He was worth at the time of his retirement about half a million dollars. More of this was made in Wall Street, however, than In the Metropolitan Opera House.

He had little sentimental interest in grand opera, and very little enthusiasm. He simply tried to give the public what it wanted, so far as he was able to find the public want. "I have never discovered a voice in my life," he is said to have remarked, " I have merely shown them the difference between singing at home for $2000 a year, and here for $25,000. I don't go around discovering operas, I am not musician enough for that. Opera is nothing but cold business to me."

"Suave, multilingual, apparently conciliatory - and tough as nails - who could talk on the phone with his stockbroker while laying out [theatre] casts."

"Mr Grau enjoyed great popularity among all who knew him in the opera house and his principal attribute in his business dealings apart from his honesty was his frankness. He was known to be a markedly truthful man and he believed in telling the facts however disagreeable they might be. He used this method with his artists as well as with the stockholders of the Metropolitan Opera and Real Estate Company and never suffered any loss of their good will on account of it. His associates were also devoted to him and every anniversary that came in his career was celebrated in some way."

Operas performed at the old Met 1898-1903
NB Jules Massenet's Manon had two performances with Saville and Van Dyck in the season 1898-'99; but both were outside the subscription.

Family tree
Rough notes at User:MinorProphet/Draft subpages/Die grauen Stunden

Maurice had a brother, Robert, two uncles (Jacob and Hermann) and two cousins (Jules and Matt), all of who were involved in theatrical management. There has always been a certain amount of confusion between them in newspaper reports, even when they were alive.


 * Jacob Grau (Brno, 1817 - 14 December 1877), impresario who put on opera at the Brooklyn Academy of Music c1861, then the Theatre Francais in New York, and opened Crosby's Opera House in Chicago with his Italian Opera Company.
 * Emmanuel Grau (d. c1871), apparently not involved in theatre
 * Maurice Grau (Brno, 1849 - Paris, 1907) was perhaps the most famous, started his career selling libretti in Chicago for his uncle Jacob, later simultaneously manager of the NY Met and Covent Garden;
 * Robert Grau (Brno, c1854 - Mount Vernon, NY, 9 August 1916), a dodgy vaudeville manager/impresario, later a writer on theatre and entertainment business. Detested by Maurice.
 * Hermann Grau (Brno, c1829 - fl. 1912 in aged 83) who ran the NY German Theatre, the Stadt theater in the Bowery, and put on the first US performances of Lohengrin there in 1871 with de:Theodor Habelmann in the title role, Louise Lichtmay as Elsa, and Karl Formes as the Herald.
 * Jules Grau (Brno, c1853 - NY, 11 Sept 1905) who ran the the Theatre Francais after his uncle Jacob.
 * Matt Grau (Brno, c1862 - NY, 5 October 1952) another artiste manager/impresario

Appendix A: Henry F. Gillig
Blimey...

Gillig, who covered the losses made by Abbey, Schoeffel & Grau after the disastrous opening 1883-4 'Old Met' season was born near Buffalo, NY, in around 1850, and began life as a clerk in the London banking firm of Bowles Bros. & Co., 16 Strand, London.

Best background source of biographical info:

Bowles Bros. & Co., London
(not Cowles Bros as reported in the Mark Twain article)

Americans in London, November 22 1870 - Registered at the offices of Bowles Bros., 16 Strand. https://www.nytimes.com/1870/12/14/archives/americans-in-london.html - Includes General Ambrose Burnside, who was in Paris in order to negotiate between the French and Germans during the Siege of Paris.

Bowles Bros went bankrupt in December 5, 1872, after securities deposited there had depreciated The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/1872/12/05/archives/the-failure-of-bowles-bros-co.html

BOWLES BROTHERS.; Close of the Preliminary Examination Before the Lord Mayor of London January 16, 1873, Page 4 https://www.nytimes.com/1873/01/16/archives/bowles-brothers-close-of-the-preliminary-examination-before-the.html From The Times, 1 January 1873.

Three or even four brothers: Charles S. P. Bowles, a partner; Messrs Keith and Sullivan, managers of the London branch, and Robert C. M. Bowles, who attended to the reading rooms attached to the bank; to the deposit of luggage; and to the indication of routes for customers of the bank from America and travelling in Britain or on the Continent. Gordon Bowles, and William Bowles, who managed the Paris branch

Nathan Appleton, who managed the New York branch.

This is apparently Nathan Appleton Jr., (1843–1906), youngest son of Nathan Appleton. Henry Gillig was an usher at his wedding in Newport, Rhode Island in 1887. Appleton was the half-brother of the writer and artist Thomas Gold Appleton, a bachelor, who left his fortune to Nathan when he died in 1884. Nathan Appleton was an unpaid assistant to Ferdinand de Lesseps, who made an early attempt to build the Panama Canal.

The bank received monies on deposit and issued letters of credit to travellers all over Europe.

Charles Bowles, and Mesrs. Keith and Sullivan, the managers at the London Branch, defrauded a number of clients by selling their securities (debentures, bonds, etc.) which were deposited at the Union Bank in London. The bank didn't have enough reserves (or cash, or credit) to pay some creditors, and the bank (with branches in Boston? New York, and Paris) was unable to meet their demands and went under. The aforementioned three men skipped the country when the bankk failed, leaving Robert Bowles to face trial - but he was acquitted.

Robert Bowles was acquitted at the Central Criminal Court on February 5 1873. FOREIGN NEWS;The case of the Murillo [...] Acquittal of Mr. Robert Bowles in London [...] February 6, 1873, Page 1 The New York Times Archives https://www.nytimes.com/1873/02/06/archives/foreign-news-the-case-of-the-murillo-she-is-supposed-not-to-have.html

1873 Bank of England forgeries
Robert Bowles gave evidence at the trial of the 1873 Bank of England forgeries: Austin Bidwell, one of ther forgers, claimed that he had withdrawn £7,500 from the Bowles Bros. bank just before it was suspended.

JOHN THOMAS STANTON. I am manager of the Continental Bank, 79, Lombard Street, City; it is also known as Messrs. Hartland's & Co.— I first knew Austin Bidwell on 2nd December, last year; he called at our bank and opened an account; he merely asked if he could open an account with us—he said that he had had an account with Messrs. Bowles Brothers; that he had been fortunate enough to have withdrawn from them a sum of 7,500l. just previous to their suspension.[...] Mr. Horton [ie Bidwell] came with no introduction to us, but he mentioned Bowles Brothers, and their failure—I do not know that it was so much of a failure as being in a dislocated condition.

ROBERT BOWLES. In April last year I was carrying on business as a banker, as Bowles Brothers—I never saw Austin Biron Bidwell.

Cross-examined by MR. MCINTYRE. I do not personally know all my customers, I cannot call to mind all their names, they are so numerous—my books would show the customers we have—I had not anything to do directly with the financial part—there were two managers, Mr. Keith and Mr. Seldon; I did the agency.

Re-examined. I never heard of Austin Biron Bidwell, either as Bidwell or Warren, banking with us.

Bowles Stethoscope
Bowles Stethoscope https://www.woodlibrarymuseum.org/museum/item/15/bowles-stethoscope Dr. Harvey Cushing (1869-1939) used a stethoscope devised by Robert C. M. Bowles as the very first intraoperative heart and lung monitor.

Bowles’ stethoscope improved upon its predecessors by providing better sound and a non-compressible stem (the part that connects to the tubing). Stems made of compressible material, like flexible rubber, could be bent. This interrupted sound to the earpieces. In his patent, Bowles noted that the incompressible stem allowed physicians to listen for heart and lung sounds without requiring patients to remove their clothing (A useful feature during the modest Victorian era). It would have also been useful when trying to monitor an anesthetized patient without disrupting the surgical team. Bowles applied to patent the original version of his stethoscope in 1894. The patent was granted in 1901.

RCM Bowles' Patent: http://www.freepatentsonline.com/0693487.html, with pdf of the patent.

Gillig's American Exchange
Gillig was originally a clerk in either the New York or the London branch of Bowles Bros. After the collapse of Bowles' Bros. bank, he seems to have taken over the non-banking part of their business, opening Gillig's American Exchange in London as a travel agency, with reading rooms, luggage deposit facilities and forwarding, and generally advising customers on routes, shipping and getting around Ireland, Britain and the Continent. He incorporated his firm as a banking house in London as the American Exchange in Europe, Ltd, in 1880. The president was General Joseph R. Hawley, with a number of prominent American investors on the board, including Cyrus McCormick of harvester fame; C. P. Chouteau, and Morris Franklin of the New York Life Insurance Company. Hawley was chosen as president after Marshall Jewell, another ex-Governor of Connecticut, had refused the position by physically showing Gillig the door. One of the investors was the novelist Mark Twain, who had bought $10,000 (£50,000) worth of stock.

The American Exchange swiftly became the one-stop shop for Americans travelling abroad, with over 1,000 branches in Europe and in the Orient, (or perhaps their traveler's checks were accepted in over 1100 banks in US and Europe...) and evidently became very rich. At the height of his career he loaned money to theatrical types, including Tommaso Salvini, Lawrence Barrett and Henry E. Abbey.

Quite a lot of info about the Exchange's wide-ranging business here:

The American Exchange Indicator Map of Paris. 1883 (undated) Copyright Henry Gillig [1883] Map or Plan of Paris, France https://www.geographicus.com/P/AntiqueMap/paris-gillig-1883

"Hints" to the American Traveler Abroad by Henry F. Gillig https://archive.org/stream/hintstoamericant00gill#page/n9/mode/2up

Gillig sailed on the RMS Etruria on 23 October 1886 from Liverpool for New York. Among the other passengers were Bram Stoker, Ernst Freund, Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, and a young Master Charles Samson, later the first man to fly off a moving ship and commander of the Ben-My-Cree in WW1.

"The large picture is a reproduction from Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper of August 6, 1887, representing "The ball given at the Grosvenor Gallery, London, by Mr. Henry F. Gillig in commemoration of our national birthday." The faces of Mr. Gillig, Henry Irving, Ellen Terry, James G. Blaine [US Secretary of State and Presidential candidate] and Col. William F. Cody will easily be recognized. in the circle is a recent photograph (by Marceau) of Mr. Gillig."

In 1887 Gillig brought a suit against the actor Lawrence Barrett for interest on loans made during one of Barrett's tours of Great Britain (perhaps that of 1884).

Whether the $200,000 which Gillig paid out to cover the losses of the Metropolitan 1883-4 season actually belonged to him is not known, but the American Exchange declared no dividend from 1886 and failed completely in April 1888 with liabilities of $4,000,000. Twain commented to a reporter who asked where he put the blame: "On that fellow Gillig, and it is good riddance to bad rubbish if he has quit the country."

Gillig seems to have known Mark Twain personally; Gillig was a close friend of Thomas W. Knox, the secretary of the Lotos Club in NYC of which Twain was an early member, and became a member himself in 1883.

A HEAVY FAILURE. The American Exchange In Europe Goes Under With $4,000,000 Liabilities. New York, April 14. The suspension of the American Exchange in Europe (limited) has been reported, and William C. Boone, treasurer of the company, was appointed receiver by Judge Emile H. Lacombe, of the United States circuit court, on the application of Lawyer W. N. Cromwell, acting for the Exchange. Mr. Cromwell said the liabilities were about $4,000,000. The concern has had no credit rating at Bradstreets for a year. Tbe company was formed in 1880 under the English limited liability law, with an authorised capital of $5,000,000, of which $780,000 was paid in, and succeeded to the business of H. F. Gillig & Company, paying $300,000 in stock for the purchase. Henry F. Gillig remained as vice president and manager, Hon. Joseph R. Hawley being the president. A liquidator has also been appointed by the English high court of chancery. Mr. Gillig says the concern has assets of about $5,000 in the state of New York. He does not state in his application for a receiver what the liabilities are. Among the prominent men who have been directors of the company since it started are: James G. Batterson, president of the Travelers Insurance Company; Hon. W. W. Crape; ex-Congressman and Secretary of the Treasury William Windom; Henry B. Hyde, of Springfield, Mass., [founder of the The Equitable Life Assurance Society ; Charles A. Nichols, of Springfield, and W. Carroll, of Baltimore.

Gillig seems to have under-stated the value of a diamond necklace made in London into the States: this was seen as smuggling in some papers. Gillig may have sailed back to Liverpool on the Etruria again soon afterwards.

London, April 28, 1888. "Proceedings will be taken in court to determine if the lease of the American Exchange building and subsequent improvements can be included in the assets of the bankrupt concern. Henry F. Gillig took out a lease in his own name and not in the name of the Henry F. Gillig Company. The lease was for nineteen years, only one year of which was expired. Four thousand pounds was paid for the lease. Some money was expended in improvements. Gillig claims he can hold this property."

Gillig returned to the US in October 1888 on the SS City of Rome. He leased the huge 200-room hotel at Halcyon Hall|, Millbrook, Dutchess County, New York from Harry Davison, the brother of G. Howard Davison who owned the rest of the Altamont stock farm. Halcyon Hall became Bennett College for women in 1907.

An 1898 NYT article reports he was arrested in 1897, probably for underhand motives.

Long puff piece about Gillig. Apparently he knew the explorer H. M. Stanley in London. Gillig was in California in May 1904, looking out for vineyards for rich German investors to buy. As the previous ref explains, Gillig was hoping to enter European markets with Californian wines, competing with French and German producers.