Thomas Abthorpe Cooper

Written by contemporary actor Geddeth Smith, this biography tells the story of Thomas Abthorpe Cooper, one of America's most distinguished tragedians. To the three generations of Americans who lived during the first quarter of the nineteenth century, Cooper's name carried with it an aura of shining celebrity. His name on the playbills meant long lines at the box office, and theatrical managers clamored to engage him.

Cooper's career stretched through the terms of America's first eleven presidents, and during those years he toured from one end of the Union to the other, often driving from town to town in his own gig at the reins of a team of galloping horses hitched in tandem.

Like a comet he traveled, as one of his contemporaries described it: north to Boston, south to New Orleans, across the frontier, and on to the burgeoning river towns along the banks of the Mississippi, keeping alive for the audiences to which he played, probably more than any other actor of his generation, the great classical plays of the English repertory.

It was in part for this service to the American public at large that Presidents John Tyler and James K. Polk awarded him, late in his life, with an appointment to the Customs House at the Port of New York, where, venerable and white-haired, Cooper held a position during the final years of his life, still a handsome and striking figure as he went about the routine duties of a customs inspector.