Dutchess County Historical Society Yearbook Vol 059 1974

JULIA DEAN

By Clifford M. Buck In the book "The Twenty Seventh Wife" by Irving Wallace, published by Simon and Schuster 1961, on page 134 there is the following statement: "Brigham Young was madly in love with actress Julia Dean Hayne. Julia Dean was born in Pleasant Valley, New York, July 22, 1830."

Because Julia Dean was born in Pleasant Valley and because the Deans were a promient family in Dutchess County, I became interested in finding more about her.

The book continues with the following information: that she was a child prodigy and was on the stage by age 16, that in 1855 she married Dr. Arthur Hayne in Charleston, S.C. and later divorced him.

She went to Salt Lake City July 26, 1865 with a company and played for one week starting August 11, 1865. At the end of the week Brigham Young offered her $300 a week and she stayed eleven months. He built a sleigh and named it the Julia Dean and took her in it to several parties and that he tried to convert her to become a Mormon and also proposed marriage, but she would have neither.

In 1866 she married James G. Cooper, Secretary of Utah Territory and on July 4, 1866 she bid farewell to the theatre in Salt Lake City and returned to New York City. While pregnant, she was in her last performance there in October 1967.

On March 6, 1868 she died giving birth to a stillborn girl and she was buried in Port Jervis, N. Y. So much for the account from "The Twenty Seventh Wife."

I searched Dean wills, deeds, mortgages and church records and could find no trace of a Dean with daughter Julia.

Next I found the following item in the Poughkeepsie Telegraph for October 19, 1831. "At Pleasant Valley on 16th Mrs. Julia wife of Edwin Dean, formerly Miss Drake of Kentucky Theaters." Obviously because of the date this was not our Julia but because of the name and connection with the theatre she might well be the mother.

In the Friends Cemetery at Pleasant Valley, located back of the present Grange Hall there is a gravestone which reads: "Julia Dean wife of Edwin a. 28 y."

In Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography, New York D. Appleton 1888, v. 2 p 115 we have the following account: DEAN, JULIA actress b. in Pleasant Valley, N.Y. July 22, 1830; d. in New York City, 6 March 1868. She was the daughter of Julia Drake, an actress who married Thomas Fosdick for her first husband, and later Edmund Dean, a well known manager of Buffalo and Rochester Theatres. Her education for the stage was accomplished under his direction. She appeared first as Lady Ellen in "The Lady of the Lake," during 1845, in Louisville, Ky. Later in the same year she filled an engagement at the Bowery Theatre, N. Y. and appeared as Julia in "The Hunchback." Her success was flattering and in November 1846, she played the same part in the Arch Street Theatre, Philadelphia. In 1855 she married Dr. Arthur Hayne of Charleston, S.C. In May 1856 she sailed for San Francisco and after an absence of nearly two years returned to the east with the proceeds of a very successful tour. She was divorced from her husband on the ground of his failure to support her, and in 1866 married James Cooper of New York. Her last appearance in New York was in October 1867. She excelled in juvenile tragedy and high comedy parts.

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