Professor E. C. Taylor

E.C.TAYLOR'S CONGRESS OF CABALISTIC WONDERS

BY E. COOPER TAYLOR III PHOTOGRAPHY BY JERRY JACKA

Tuesday, April 26, 1881. The stagecoach arrives in Tombstone and discharges its passengers. Among them is William Pelletreau from Tucson, the advance agent for Professor E. C. Taylor, illusionist and prestidigitator, touring throughout the Western frontier with his troupe. Pelletreau is in town to make final arrangements for E. C. Taylor's "Congress of Cabalistic Wonders" to appear at the Turnverein Hall, April 30th through May 6th.

Taylor, the consumate showman, who kept audiences spellbound during a career life of 9000 performances, toured throughout the United States, its frontier territories, Canada, and abroad for 30 years. His love for magic was sparked as a boy when he read the autobiography of Robert Houdin, a French magician of the early 19th century. He soon became a skilled amateur, and, at the age of 15, joined the touring magic company of Professor John Henry Anderson, Jr., as an assistant.

For two years the magician's apprentice learned his trade on the road, traveling throughout the Eastern states. In 1869, thoroughly skilled in the art of legerdemain, Taylor left Anderson's magic show to go on his own.

Now, in just two days he was scheduled to arrive in one of the wildest of the West's wildest towns: Tombstone, Arizona. The Turnverein, an association of gymnasts, on Fremont Street, had the newest hall in Tombstone. The larger Bird Cage Theater, a Tombstone landmark, would not be completed for another eight months. The still larger Schieffelin Hall was under construction.

Life on the Western frontier was hard, with little to break the tedium. When good show troupes like Professor Taylor's visited the territories - he had a reputation for drawing large audiences they were enthusiastically received.

The owners of the Turnverein Hall, aware their auditorium wouldn't accommodate the number of paying customers expected to attend the Taylor shows, increased the capacity of their hall. The Tombstone Epitaph reported April 30th: "Turn Verein Hall. This popular hall is improved by the addition of a stage, which is being erected outside the hall proper. This improvement is being made expressly for Prof. E. C. Taylor, the celebrated illusionist, who opens in the hall tonight. Otherwise the crowds who witness the Professor's unrivalled performances could not be accommodated."

On Thursday, April 28, Professor Taylor, his wife, small daughter, and the show troupe, arrived in Tombstone after a five night engagement at Levin's Hall in Tucson. Reported the Epitaph: "The Professor justclosed a most successful series of startling entertainments in that city, where the combined press unite in pronouncing his performances perfectly enchanting and bewildering. Every night he appears in a new programme, much to the astonishment of all who behold him.."

TAYLOR'S CONGRESS OF Taylor's Great Turkish Box, Sack. Shackle & Hand-Cuff Test CABALISTIC * WONDERS. E.C.TAYLORS CONGRESS OF CABALISTIC WONDERS TAYLOR THE GREAT RIFLE ACT. ILLUSIONIST PRESTIDIGITATEUR E.C.TAYLOR

In Tombstone, Taylor and troupe stayed at the Grand Hotel. The Epitaph called it the most elegant in Arizona, with beautiful chandeliers, broad staircase, Brussels carpet, walnut furniture, and fine china. The sleeping accommodations had innerspring mattresses and "toilet stands and fixtures of the most approved pattern."

As show time neared on Saturday evening, April 30, the hall was softly gas lighted, the stage setting completed, and the troupe backstage. Professor Taylor, a tall, commanding figure with goatee and mustache, was formally attired in tails, wearing the gold and silver medals presented him during his career. His wife, assisting him as Mademoiselle Irena, was dressed in the first of several beautiful gowns she would wear that night on stage. And the other members of the company were costumed for the various illusions to be presented. Professor Taylor opened the show with his Egyptian Flower Trick, the Mechanical Man, and the Shower of Silver, among others. On this opening night he also performed his aerial suspension illusion "Electavia," with Mademoiselle Irena. Electavia was the forerunner of the broomstick suspension that, with variations, is still being performed today.

The most sensational and dangerous illusion the Professor performed was his bullet catching mystery, which he billed as Taylor's Great Rifle Act. Famous magicians and magician's helpers had been killed or seriously injured while performing this trick. Taylor did it with a standard unmodified muzzle-loading musket. Three bullets were given to members of the audience to mark and load into the gun. The gun was then fired at the Professor's head by another member of the audience. Immediately after the shot, the bullets dropped out of Taylor's mouth into a dish. They were then returned to the audience to verify that they were the same marked bullets. He also performed a variation of this mystery in Tombstone, using a rifle squad of six soldiers.

Later in the show, Taylor challenged, "Watch me closely, lest your eyes deceive you," as he went into the audience to perform sleight-of-hand tricks, which he did at each of his professional performances. The closing act of the two-hour (Left) Professor Taylor's ghostrapping routine, which featured this "spirit bell," spooked many an audience. Late in the show, Taylor often walked into the audience to perform sleight-of-hand tricks using simple props like these silks and eggs. (Right) Taylor's Vanishing Birdcage confounded numberless patrons. The Sacramento Bee described the trick in 1881: "He causes a birdcage, in which is a live canary, to vanish...and then ... he restores it to view again."

F.C.TAYLOR E.C.TAYLOR

The show was a performance of the Professor's Royal Marionettes.

The show was a hit, and the Epitaph was ecstatic: "Prof. E. C. Taylor's performance of refined illusions, magic and sleight-of-hand last night was witnessed by an audience composed mainly of the best people in Tombstone. The ladies graced the entertainment with their presence, and seemed to enjoy the strictly first class affair.... Every article used by him is exposed to the critical examination of the audience, and astonishment succeeds astonishment as inanimate articles are made to take to themselves wings and fly from place to place at command. There is no attempt at concealment in anything he does. And one is almost forced to believe in the truth of the black art...."

A benefit show for the Tombstone Engine Company No. 1 was Professor Taylor's farewell performance. And, again, the Epitaph was there, ready with high praise. The May 8th review: "There was a large and fashionable audience at Turn Verein hall last evening, in fact, the hall was crowded, to witness the farewell performance of Prof. Taylor for the benefit of the fire company. The performance was most excellent throughout and concluded with the wonderful egg dance by Mrs. Taylor, who, with tightly bandaged eyes, went through all the intricate steps of a mazy waltz with the stage strewn with eggs, never touching one until the conclusion, when she tipped them one by one with the toe of her gaiter, spinning them across the stage...."

The next day, Taylor and his troupe were on the road again heavily armed, as usual. They knew the dangers that existed for their strongbox and for themselves. Like all show troupes touring the frontier, they never knew what might confront them before their next curtain call. For all his powers of illusion, Professor Taylor's Great Rifle Act wanted no part with real-life highwaymen.

Afterword: When Professor Taylor retired from the theatre, he settled in Boston with his wife and seven-year-old son and entered business. But he never lost his love for magic. During the next 28 years he performed at magic clubs, business functions, and social activities. In 1927, on his 75th birthday, the old trouper passed quietly away.

Forty-six years later, in 1973, Taylor was elected to the Society of American Magicians' Hall of Fame in Hollywood."

E. Cooper Taylor III is the grandson of Professor Taylor and a third-generation magician. An avid historian of magic, Mr. Taylor now lives in Arizona.

Additional Reading

The Last Chance, by John Myers Myers, Dutton, New York, 1950. Billy King's Tombstone, by Charles Leland Sonnichsen, The Caxton Printers Ltd, Caldwell, Indiana, 1942.

Mimes and Miners, by Clair Eugene Wilson, University of Arizona Press, Tucson, 1935.

Visit Tombstone's Vintage Playhouses

Sad to report, the Turnverein Hall is no more. It did a smoky disappearance act of its own soon after Professor Taylor's show.

But happy to say, two other vintage playhouses survive for the enjoyment of modern day tourists. One is the naughty Bird Cage Theater at Sixth and Allen streets, and the other, stately Schieffelin Hall at Fourth and Fremont.

The names of many traveling stars of a century ago have slipped into oblivion, but stage buffs know they tended to make a stop at booming, bawdy, battling Tombstone. As cultural, civic, and social center, the Schieffelin drew the better elements of town to minstrels, operas, and plays from as far away as England, New York, and San Francisco. It is difficult to prove that Shakespearean actor Frederick Warde appeared in Tombstone, but it is likewise hard to prove he didn't. For certain, Heavyweight Champion John L. Sullivan and a company of boxers put on a show.

But it was the Bird Cage that billed ceaseless drama and comedy. During its first three years, the playhouse never closed its doors. By legend, the Earp faction occupied the "birdcage" boxes on the left, and the Clanton supporters glared at them from the boxes on the right.

Variety, vaudeville, melodrama, chorus review, and risque humor reigned. While the show went on, the Bird Cage doubled as a saloon where offstage the show girls earned commissions by enticing patrons to order drinks. Probably Lotta Crabtree did not play the Bird Cage, but many an equally famous actress or dancer did. Gunfire sometimes mingled with the hisses and cheers-as when Buckskin Frank Leslie (objecting to a foot dangling from a box) shot off the heel of the offending boot.

"The Bird Cage was headquarters for all the bloods in Tombstone and between the hours of eight and five in the morning, it was one of the liveliest institutions in the western country," the Tombstone Epitaph recalled. "There was an excellent variety troupe always maintained, and the bar generally gave employment to three bartenders every twenty-four hours daily. The Bird Cage was the soul of Tombstone at night. If you wanted to meet a leading lawyer, mine or mill superintendent, the sheriff of the county, the mayor of the city, the editor of any of the daily papers, or any of the bright stars of desperadodom, the chances are that if you penetrated the Bird Cage you would have found them."

Perhaps the Bird Cage's brightest, or darkest, hour occurred during a production of that enduring favorite, Uncle Tom's Cabin. As the Arizona Star reported: "Just as Eliza was crossing the icy river, a drunken cowboy in the audience got excited and shot the bloodhound that was pursuing her. After something of a fight, the cowboy was lodged in jail, and the show continued minus one good hound."

(Inside back cover) Tombstone's hunger for entertainment kept touring companies like Professor E. C. Taylor's magic show treading the boards throughout the later years of the 19th century. (See pages 42-47.) Jerry Jacka Photo (Back cover) Clustered at a remote Mexican wintering site high in the mountains, monarch butterflies warm their fragile bodies in the sun. (See pages 15-23.) George D. Lepp photo

AYLOR'S CONGRESS PALISTIC OF WONDERS E.C.TAYLOR MANAGER&PROPRIETOR TAYLOR, THE ILLUSIONIST

PROF. TAYLOR, THE ORIGINAL AND WELL-KNOWN

MAGICIAN AND PRESTIDIGITATEUR

FEATS OF MODERN MAGI

WORLD OF WONDER

SURPRISINGLY STRANGE, STARTLING AND STUPEND

TURKISH BOX MYSTE

GONGORA SACK, SHACKLE AND HANDCUFF

CINAL PHANTOM BIRD AN

CHANGE OF PROGRAM

M'L R