Object Status:
Unlocated
Accession Date:
February 19, 1812
Primary Source Reference:
Peale Museum Accessions Book, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, p. 59
Notes:
The Richmond Theatre burned during a performance on 26 December 1811, killing 72 people, including Governor George William Smith and former U.S. Senator Abraham B. Venable.
Harriet Otis, daughter of U.S. Senate Secretary Samuel Allyne Otis, wrote on 30 December 1811, "Every tongue utters some new circumstance of horror respecting the Richmond sufferers — Poor Gibbon! hard as seems his fate well may his mother, rescued by him, exult in such a son — He had saved her and rushed back to save Miss [Sallie] Conyers a lady to whom he had long been attached — his efforts were vain and they both perished" / https://www.masshist.org/beehiveblog/2012/12/the-1811-richmond-theater-…
The donor, William W. Worsley (ca. 1782-1852), edited the Norfolk Commercial Register, 1802–03, the Richmond Examiner, 1804, and (with Thomas Ritchie) the Richmond Enquirer, 1804–05, before relocating to Lexington, Ky. In 1808 he established the Lexington Reporter and managed it, alone or with a partner, for eleven years. Worsley later moved to Louisville, where he operated a bookstore and owned another journal, the Focus of Politics, Commerce, and Literature, 1826–32. He was a longtime correspondent and political supporter of Henry Clay. Jeffeerson Papers, Retirement Series, Founders Online, National Archives / https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-04-02-0234
