William J. Le Moyne was a prominent American actor who is credited with playing Deacon Perry in the first stage adaption of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Harriet Beecher Stowe was an American abolitionist and author. Her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin was a depiction of life for African-Americans under slavery; it reached millions as a novel and play, and became influential in the United States and United Kingdom...

 anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin

Uncle Tom's Cabin

Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in 1852, the novel "helped lay the groundwork for the Civil War", according to Will Kaufman....

.

Early career

William J. Le Moyne (sometimes spelled Lemoyne or LeMoyne) was born on April 29, 1831 in Boston, Massachusetts  where he began performing in amateur theater productions at around the age of fifteen. Le Moyne may have briefly supported himself as a silversmith

Silversmith

A silversmith is a craftsperson who makes objects from silver or gold. The terms 'silversmith' and 'goldsmith' are not synonyms as the techniques, training, history, and guilds are or were largely the same but the end product varies greatly as does the scale of objects created.Silversmithing is the...

 before his professional stage debut on May 10th 1852 at Portland, Maine

Portland, Maine

Portland is the largest city in Maine and is the county seat of Cumberland County. The 2010 city population was 66,194, growing 3 percent since the census of 2000...

 playing an officer in The Lady of Lyons

The Lady of Lyons

The Lady of Lyons; or, Love and Pride, commonly known as The Lady of Lyons, is a five act romantic melodrama written in 1838 by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton...

, a romantic drama by Edward Bulwer‐Lytton

Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton PC , was an English politician, poet, playwright, and novelist. He was immensely popular with the reading public and wrote a stream of bestselling dime-novels which earned him a considerable fortune...

. Later that year Le Moyne joined the repertory company at Peale’s Museum in Troy, New York

Troy, New York

Troy is a city in the US State of New York and the seat of Rensselaer County. Troy is located on the western edge of Rensselaer County and on the eastern bank of the Hudson River. Troy has close ties to the nearby cities of Albany and Schenectady, forming a region popularly called the Capital...

, as a $6 a-week ‘utility man’ (bit player) that was later increased to $8 after he demonstrated an ability to play ‘old man roles’. The company was largely made up of friends and family of its manager, George C. Howard and is remember for staging the first production of Uncle Tom’s Cabin on September 27, 1852 at Peal’s Museum. The play was an immediate hit and had a run of one hundred performances, incredible at the time for a community the size of Troy. Le Moyne’s tour with Uncle Tom’s Cabin the following year paved the way for his one day becoming an actor of national standing.

Military Service

At the outbreak of the American Civil War

American Civil War

The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

 Le Moyne enlisted as a first lieutenant with Company B of the 28th Massachusetts Volunteers under the command of fellow actor Lawrence Barrett

Lawrence Barrett

Lawrence Barrett was an American stage actor.-Biography:He was born Lawrence Brannigan to Irish emigrant parents in Paterson, New Jersey. He made his first stage appearance at Detroit as Murad in The French Spy in 1853...

. At some point Barrett resigned and Le Moyne assumed command only to witness over half his men killed or wounded in a string of Northern defeats in South Carolina and Virginia. In September 1862, Le Moyne himself was severely wounded during the Battle of South Mountain

Battle of South Mountain

The Battle of South Mountain was fought September 14, 1862, as part of the Maryland Campaign of the American Civil War. Three pitched battles were fought for possession of three South Mountain passes: Crampton's, Turner's, and Fox's Gaps. Maj. Gen. George B...

 and was unable to return to military service. He was later granted by congress a retroactive promotion to the rank of captain dating back to the point he assumed command of company B.

Career

In 1863 Le Moyne returned to the stage where he would remain active until the dawn of the twentieth century. He appeared in a number of plays based on the works of Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens

Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...

 playing such characters as Fagin, Captain Cuttle, Uriah Heep, Squeers, Plummer, Dick Swiveller and Caleb. In Shakespeare’s Hamlet

Hamlet

The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...

 Le Moyne is said to have played every major male role except that of the Danish prince himself. Over his career Le Moyne performed with companies headed by legendary actors Edwin Booth

Edwin Booth

Edwin Thomas Booth was a famous 19th century American actor who toured throughout America and the major capitals of Europe, performing Shakespearean plays. In 1869 he founded Booth's Theatre in New York, a spectacular theatre that was quite modern for its time...

, Edwin Forrest

Edwin Forrest

Edwin Forrest was an American actor.-Early life:Forrest was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, of Scottish and German descent. His father died and he was brought up by his mother, a German woman of humble origins. He was educated at the common schools in Philadelphia, and early evinced a taste...

 and Charles Fletcher, and in producer Daniel Frohman

Daniel Frohman

Daniel Frohman was a Jewish American theatrical producer and manager, and an early film producer.Frohman was born in Sandusky, Ohio...

's Lyceum Theatre

Lyceum Theatre (New York, 1885-1902)

The Lyceum Theatre operated on Manhattan’s Fourth Avenue between 23rd and 24th Streets, from 1885 to 1902, when it was torn down to make way for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower and replaced by the Lyceum Theatre on 45th Street...

 Company. Heart trouble forced Le Moyne to retire from the stage in 1901 after supporting James K. Hackett

James Keteltas Hackett

James Keteltas Hackett was an American actor and manager.-Life:He was the son of James Henry Hackett, a comedian and celebrated Falstaff. His elderly father died age 71 when Hackett was just two years old thus never living to see Hackett grow to an adult...

 in Don Caesar’s Return.

Marriage

His first marriage to actress Sarah Le Moyne ended in divorce in 1886 or 87. He wed his second wife, actress Sarah Emma Cowell, in June 1888 and remained with her until the end of his life. Sarah, who was an accomplished actress and reader at the time of their marriage, would go on to have a successful Broadway career under her married name.

Hobbies

Le Moyne was an eclectic collector whose house was adorned with paintings of Chinese actors, old plaques, a variety of smoking pipes, an idol from a Chinese temple, antique children's shoes, artifacts from several ancient American and Asian cultures and works by contemporary American artists. He had also gathered a large assortment of horseshoes, his favorite being one he found in New York City on Thirteenth Street one Friday with seven nails still attached. Le Moyne’s most valuable collection would come from a life long passion for obtaining old and rare books. Offstage Le Moyne was also known as a fairly respectful painter in the medium of water colors.

Death

William J. Lemoyne died after several years of declining health on November 6, 1905, at a friend’s residence in Inwood-on-the-Hudson (now Inwood), a neighborhood on the northern shore of Manhattan Island.

Plays

1852	Lady of Lyons	First Officer
1852	Ingomar	Friar Lawrence, Sir Oliver Surface, Eugene Delorme and Polydore
1852	Uncle Tom’s Cabin	Deacon Perry
1891	Old Heads and Young Hearts	Jesse Rule
1887	The Wife The Wife "The Wife" is the eighty-first episode of the NBC sitcom Seinfeld. The 17th episode of the 5th season, it was originally broadcast on March 17, 1994...	Major Homer Q. Putnam
1872	The Provoked Husband	John Moody
1889	London Assurance London Assurance London Assurance is a five-act comedy by Dion Boucicault. It was the second play that he wrote, but his first to be produced. Its first production, from March 4, 1841 at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden was Boucicault's first major success...	Sir Harcourt Courtly
1872	Article 47	Old Simon
1872	Road to Ruin	Silky
1872	The Inconstant	Caius
1882	Manhood	Peter Sharpley
1885	Saints and Sinners	Deacon Samuel Hoggard
1883	Sealed Instructions	Mons Cervais
1889	The Charity Ball	Ex-Judge Peter Gurney Knox
1888	Sweet Lavender	Barrister Dick Phenyl
1891	Lady Bountiful	Rederick Heron
1895	The Case of Rebellious Susan	Admiral Darby
1895	The Private Secretary The Private Secretary The Private Secretary is a popular 1883 farce in three acts, by Sir Charles Henry Hawtrey. The play was adapted from the German Der Bibliothekar, a book by Gustav von Moser....	Lord Blayver
1886	Jim, the Penman	Baron Hartfeldt
1896	The Benefit of the Doubt	Fletcher Portwood
1872	Divorce	Detective Burritt
1892	Squire Kate	Gaffer Kingsley
1886	Our Society	Reginald Rae
1898	Catherine	M. Vallon
1900	The Choir Invisible	Rev. James Moore
1900	Naughty Anthony	Adam Budd
1898	The Moth and the Flame	Mr. Dawson
1897	The Coat of many Colors	Florian Walboys
1898	Tess of the D'Urbervilles Tess of the d'Urbervilles Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented, also known as Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman, Tess of the d'Urbervilles or just Tess, is a novel by Thomas Hardy, first published in 1891. It initially appeared in a censored and serialised version, published by the British...	John Durbeyfeld
1897	Roaring Dick and Co.	Mr. Pontifax
1900	Don Caesar’s Return	Marquis of Gonzalo