Kate Claxton

Who was Kate Claxton?

Kate Claxton was an American actress, born Kate Elizabeth Cone at Somerville, New Jersey to Spencer Wallace Cone and Josephine Martinez. She made her first appearance on the stage in Chicago with Lotta Crabtree in 1870, and in the same year joined Augustin Daly's Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York. In 1872 she became a member of A. M. Palmer's Union Square Theatre, playing largely comedy roles. She created the part of Louise in The Two Orphans and then became known as one of the best emotional actresses of her time. Her first starring tour was in 1876. In 1878 she was married to Charles A. Stevenson.

She was performing the play The Two Orphans at the Brooklyn Theatre, on the night of December 5, 1876 when fire broke out eventually killing 278 persons. It was, and still remains, one of the greatest fires in New York City history.

Claxton married twice, first in 1865 to Isadore Lyon; they later divorced. On March 3, 1878 she married Charles A. Stevenson, and in 1911 they divorced. Her son Harold Stevenson committed suicide in 1904.

Claxton died due to a cerebral hemorrhage in her apartment in New York City, and was buried in Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery.