The Centennial Year of 1876 found Thomas G. Moses busy with work. By the spring he was known as a decorator of fine homes. In July he had even received the contract to do the decoration on Pearl Street’s big arch. While completing this project, Moses met a Frenchman named Wardus who was decorating St. James Catholic Church and desperately needed and artist. Moses went to work for him, taking charge of the whole job. They painted the Stations of the Cross, the Christian Martyrs and the Apostles, all painted on canvas and then mounted on the walls.
Moses realized that he really needed a good figure painter for the scenes. They advertised in both the Grand Rapids papers and New York Herald. After receiving numerous responses, they first selected Tom Brown, an Englishman from New York. He was hired as they liked the samples of his work. Brown needed an assistant, so they secured some local talent, a young man by the name of John H. Young. Moses wrote, “We three, the same age, roomed and chummed together and we had a fine time. And, as I remember, we did some pretty good work. At any rate, this job secured another big church at Jackson, Michigan. Around Christmas found us in that railroad town, busy as bees.” Wardus began marketing the three painters as the “Three young Roman Artists.” Moses noted, “We didn’t look it – we were all quartered at a cheap hotel and we met a great many young people.”
It was nearly a year later before they completed the church project. Unfortunately, Wardus decided to skip town two days before they realized it. Moses recalled his “leaving us three without a dollar, owing us several weeks salary.” I was always intrigued with Moses’ initial meeting with John H. Young as they sporadically worked together over the years. Young’s destiny, however, was designing and painting for Broadway.
John Hendricks Young was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1858 and began his artistic career in fresco painting. His experience with scenic art and design began in 1880 and continued until his passing in 1944. In 1880, he married Kate Bacon of Flint, Michigan, daughter of the Washington A. Bacon. At first they lived on West Montcalm Street in Detroit. Only a year later in 1881, Young filed for bankruptcy in the courts of Detroit, Michigan.
Moses and Young worked together again at Sosman and Landis beginning in 1882. During this time, they took many sketching trips that often included two other artists Hardesty Maratta (mentioned yesterday) and Ed Morange (of Gates & Morange Studio). All travelled across the country from West Virginia to the Rocky Mountains, including Pike’s Peak, Denver, and Breckenridge.
Young and his wife moved to No. 464 Fourth Avenue during 1883 (Detroit Free Press, Dec. 16 1883, page 15). For the next two years, he would work between Detroit and New York. It was at this point that his career really began to soar. By 1894, Young was noted as “the ingenious and artistic scene painter” for “On the Bowery” by R. N. Stephens that premiered in Detroit at the Whitney Opera House. Young painted a beautiful rendition of the Brooklyn Bridge.
In 1895 Young designed and painted “Pawn Ticket 210” by David Belasco of the Broadway Theatre in New York where the artistic talents of Young were celebrated. The review was posted in the Detroit Free Press on April 9, page 5.
In 1896, Young designed and painted the “picturesque scenery” for Davis & Keogh’s production of Scott Marble’s new comedy “The Sidewalks of New York,” playing at the Lyceum Theatre in Detroit. It depicted “familiar localities, reproduced from photographs of the actual buildings and views by the hand of artist” (Detroit Free Press December 6, 1896, page 19). The article goes onto describe his contribution, “In the second act the New York Herald building is shown in accurate detail when enormous presses are at work, and the editorial staff is in active operation. The third act is laid in Brooklyn. This scene represents an old distillery and a shot tower by the East river.” Later newspaper reviews commented on Young’s “originality of conception and boldness, vigor, and expression of action in execution.”
Young eventually moved to New York where he became quite successful and always busy. There, he designed over 70 shows for Broadway, including some impressive original productions such as “Babes in Toyland” (1903), “Forty-five minutes from Broadway” (1906), “Little Nemo” (1908), “Higgledy-Piggledy” (1905), “Ziegfield Follies” (1907,1908, and 1913) “Broadway to Paris” (1912), “Robinson Crusoe, Jr.” (1907, 1908, 1916), and “Sinbad” (1919). His information can be found in the Internet Broadway database https://www.ibdb.com/
Early on in his New York career during 1897, Young, Harley Merry, Walter Burridge, Richard Marston, and Homer Emens produced the scenery for Margaret Mather’s production of “Cymbeline.”
An article in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle (Sept. 28, page 7) commented that the group was recognized as the foremost scene painters of their time. The artists are not mere grabbers after striking effects by cheap and easy means, and that in this instance they have presented a picture of the first century which is well worth seeing.” Meeting up again in 1900 Moses and Young designed and painted scenes for “Quo Vadis.” While working together in New York, Moses and Young continued their sketching trips, now adding Harry A. Vincent to their group.
It was in 1905 that Moses and Young worked on their last project together. They worked on old mill scenery (the tunnel of love ride) at Luna Park for Ed Thompson; Young did all the properties and papier-mâché work. Young isn’t mentioned again in Moses’ diaries until 1922 when he is reminiscing.
There is very little insight into what Young was like or his personality. The only small tidbit gleaned of Young’s life outside of the theater was his flower garden. Moses fondly commented on Young’s flower garden as “a hodgepodge mixture of growing things.” He remembers that as a joke, Young had bought a lot of seeds that had been accidentally mixed.
To be continued…
