Travel by Water and Road

When popular child actress Clara Fisher and her family sailed for the United States in 1827, her fans in England wrote songs and poems of farewell. A sensation at the box offices in New York, Fisher sparked a "Clara Fisher craze." New-York Mirror critic William Cox captures the appeal of the young star in his 1829 description: "In form and feature, Clara Fisher is neither dignified nor beautiful, but she is irresistably [sic] fascinating… She is one of nature's actresses. Perhaps no one ever so completely possessed the faculty of mobility or entered with more keen enjoyment into the spirit of the part represented. Her whole soul appears to be in everything she does, and we believe it is not only so in seeming, but in reality." Poems were written about her and hotels, babies, and stagecoaches were named after her. Two years later, upon leaving New York for a tour to New Orleans, then considered a dangerous trip, she made an emotional farewell address in rhyme.

"To part! What sorrows mingle in that word?
The saddest lip hath voiced or ear hath heard;
Full deeply now I prove its chilling spell.
And breathe, in broken speech, Farewell, Farewell."

— Farewell Address spoken by Clara Fisher at the Park Theatre, New York, November 30, 1829