Background
Danforth Marble was born on April 27, 1810 in East Windsor, Connecticut, and was the son of William and Mary Marble.
Danforth Marble was born on April 27, 1810 in East Windsor, Connecticut, and was the son of William and Mary Marble.
At an early age and with only a very slight education he went to Hartford, where he remained for a number of years, first as errand boy in a dry-goods store and later as apprentice to a silversmith.
His interest in the stage, which had been aroused by a company of actors visiting Hartford, prompted him to go to New York City. Thanks to the help of a friend, who was a silversmith, Marble was enabled to secure employment in his trade, and in the evenings gain admission behind stage at the Chatham Theatre. Before long under an assumed name he was playing minor roles at the Chatham, and in addition became a member of a local Thespian Society of amateurs. Finally he abandoned his trade of silversmith, and on April 11, 1831, made his first appearance under his own name for which privilege he paid the sum of twenty dollars. In the following year while temporarily stranded in Newark, N. J. , he first displayed his skill in Yankee dialect. In the hotel of the landlord for whom Marble was working there was a woman from Maine with an extreme Yankee accent, which the young actor took delight in mimicking. His skill attracted such attention that he was compared by his friends to George Handel Hill. During the course of the next four years, while he was on barnstorming tours in Virginia and in the smaller towns of upper New York state, he became increasingly proficient in his Yankee stories. But his reputation was not firmly established until in 1836 Dean and McKinney, enterprising Buffalo managers, presented him in Sam Patch, a Yankee play written especially for him by E. H. Thompson. The tremendous popularity of the role caused the managers to repeat it in Cleveland and in their newly opened theatre in Columbus, Ohio. In return for his performances in the Mississippi Valley theatrical centers alone Marble, over a period of ten years, received from the managers forty thousand dollars. Marble died on May 13, 1849 in Louisville, Kentucky, from an attack of cholera.
In general his types of characters were akin to those of the other Yankee comedians, but according to the testimony of his biographer he possessed complete individuality of dialect and accent.
Quotes from others about the person
"He was hailed with delight and enthusiasm whenever he appeared on the Mississippi, " writes his biographer. "He was known to nearly every captain, clerk, and engineer, senator, and landlord from Pittsburg to New Orleans".
His wife was Anne Warren, daughter of the distinguished Philadelphia actor and manager, William Warren.