Julia Hayne / Cooper

http://digital.library.louisville.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/mac...

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=93121938

In Laurel Grove Cemetery Port Jervis, New York rests the mortal remains of one of the most accomplished and beautiful actresses of the 19th Century.(1) Taken from this life at the young age of 37 years, Julia Dean was highly acclaimed from coast to coast in her many roles, most notably as Camille and as Juliet in Romeo and Juliet.

Julia Dean made her first "public appearance" as the New Baby in the household of Edwin Dean and Julia Drake Fosdick Dean in Pleasant Valley, New York, in Dutchess County near Poughkeepsie. Baby Julia's mother died two years later, in 1832, and Edwin, unable to care for a toddler, sent Julia to live with her paternal grandparents in Dutchess County. She spent the first eleven years of her life with them, then moved back with her father, who trained her for the stage. According to contemporary reports, she was a sensation and by age fifteen was starring in Shakespearean and non-Shakespearean productions.(2)

In 1852, her travels brought her to Charleston, South Carolina, where she performed in a role in The Hunchback. In fact, Julia Dean is depicted in a mural at the Footlight Players Workshop in that city.(3) In 1854, Julia was introduced to Arthur Perroneau Haynes, the scion of a prominent family in Charleston. They soon married and had four children together, Arthur, Motte (who died in 1858 aged 18 days), Robby and Julia, but her husband was reported to be an abusive drunk jealous of her success and he would beat her in drunken rages. For ten months in 1858, Arthur served as Senator from South Carolina, but his record was somewhat less than illustrious or exemplary, having missed 52% of role call votes. (4) Julia's health deteriorated and, according to her obituary in the New York Herald-Tribune, she suffered from throat problems as well, which I suspect may have been a result of her injuries at the hands of her abusive husband.

Divorce was uncommon and difficult to obtain in 19th Century America, especially in the more traditional South, but Julia successfully severed her marital bondage in 1866 with a divorce filed in Utah in 1865 before Hon Elias Smith. An interesting fact is that Julia became the favorite actress of Brigham Young and perhaps it was through his influence that the divorce was expedited. Certainly, her husband's intemperance must have been viewed darkly by the Mormon judiciary. She had arrived in Salt Lake City August 5, 1865 and beginning August 11th, she performed to packed houses in her role as "Camille". She was proclaimed the "queen of the Salt Lake City stage". Her divorce became final in 1866 and she was granted full custody of her three children and over all her financial affairs.(5)

In 1867, she married James G. Cooper, but this union cast the die for her demise, as her deteriorating health caused her to perish March 6, 1868 while attempting to deliver a girl infant in the home of her father-in-law in New York City. Both she and her child rest in an unmarked grave in Lot No. 3, Section B, owned by her father-in-law, Mathew H. Cooper, in Laurel Grove Cemetery, Port Jervis, New York.(6)

Her son Arthur died in 1883 in Silver City, New Mexico, where according to the 1880 Federal census he was a miner. I have no information about her other two children. Julia's brother Albert and his wife Susan Jane Morton had a daughter in 1878 and named her Julia after her illustrious aunt. Julia Dean was true to her namesake and became an actress on the stage and in twenty one motion pictures from the silent era into the "talkies". One her roles was in the classic psychological horror film Curse of the Cat People in 1947. She passed in 1952 in Hollywood and is buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park.