Abbott’s
card advertises an appearance at Girard’s Wonderland, which was often referred
to as a curio hall. It was in Buffalo,
New York, and it was known for having some unusual acts in its day. This
appeared in the Buffalo Evening News for April 27, 1898. A troupe of trained
goats heads the bill!
There is
basically nothing on young Master Abbott in the magic magazines that I have
access to. He was written up however in H. J. Burlingame’s Leaves from
Conjurers’ Scrap Books which was published in 1891. Gabe Fajuri included Abbott
in his book on child magicians entitled Child Prestidigitators: Precocious
Magicians: Wonders, Marvels, & Prodigies published in 2001. Both books have
a brief history of Abbott, and mention the fact that Abbott was given much
praise for his ability.
My first
thought was, if Eddie Abbott was so good, why is there not more on him in the
magic journals? Maybe it was because adult performers did not think he
warranted the attention, or maybe it was just that there were not many magic
magazines in the late eighteen hundreds. Looking at the newspapers of the time
seems to confirm what Burlingame had to say about Eddie Abbott. In the
following article, they called him “The Wonder of the Nineteenth Century”.
 |
| From the Santa Cruz Sentinel for September 17, 1890 and the Topeka Capital for June 23, 1892. |
In May of
1889, The Times in Philadelphia said the six year old Eddie will perform at the
Carncross Opera House and will be “performing some of the most difficult feats
of the older illusionists”. In October
of that year in Carlisle Pennsylvania, this ad ran in The Sentinel newspaper.
Master Eddie
was assisted by Prof. H. J. Abbott, who was his father. Also on this bill were
Harry and Mildred Rouclere, very well-known magicians and mind readers of the
era. Not bad company for young Master Abbott. Two months later, Abbott was
performing at B. F. Keith’s Bijou in Philadelphia, and with him on the bill
were Mr. and Mrs. Jerry Cohan. For those readers who enjoy the movie Yankee
Doodle Dandy, you know that the Cohans were the parents of George M. Cohan, one
of the most famous performers and song writers on Broadway in his day. Abbott
was referred to as “the infant rival of Kellar and Herrmann”. Once again, Eddie
was in very good company!
In January
of 1893 Eddie Abbott is playing at Tony Pastor’s Theatre in New York. Tony
Pastor was a legendary Vaudeville impresario. Pastor was known for giving the
great Harry Houdini one of his big breaks in 1895, but Eddie played there
first. Here Eddie is going by “The Only Boy Magician”.
It appears
that once the twentieth century arrived, Eddie Abbott changed the type of performance
that he gave, from that of a magician, to being billed as a “Monologue
Comedian”. That was how he appeared at the Ninth and Arch Dime Museum
on November 24, 1901 in Philadelphia. I can only assume that this was the same Eddie,
as there is no more mention of him as a magician, and the venues seem of the
same type for the Eddie Abbott listed. By May 10, 1908 in Washington D C, he
was calling himself a “Character Monologist” at the Surprise Theatre on
Pennsylvania Avenue. Since it looks as though Eddie was born around 1883, he
would have been 25 and an adult at this time. The references to him start to
disappear after this period, and I have not been able to discover what became
of him.
One thing is
for certain. Master Eddie Abbott really did make a mark as a child magician for
a few years in the later part of the eighteen-hundreds. There was a lot more
written about him in the newspapers than I had expected. Maybe he really was
the rival of Kellar and Herrmann, and deserved the billing of “The Wonder of
the Nineteenth Century”.
