Meet the Ladies of Alcyone Part One: The Originals- Charlotte Mary Sanford Barnes

Charlotte Mary Sanford Barnes (1818–63), American actress and dramatist, the daughter of John Barnes (1761–1841), who went with his wife Mary from Drury Lane to the Park Theatre, New York, where they remained for many years. Charlotte first appeared on the stage at the age of 4 in ‘Monk’ Lewis's The Castle Spectre, and in 1834 made her adult début in the same play. She was admired as Rowe's Jane Shore, as well as in such roles as Desdemona and Lady Teazle in Sheridan's The School for Scandal. In 1842 she appeared in London, playing Hamlet among other parts, in which she was well received, though she was never accounted as good an actress in male parts as her mother, who was an excellent Romeo to her daughter's Juliet. Four years later Charlotte married an actor-manager, Edmond S. Connor, and became his leading lady, being associated with him in the management of the Arch Street Theatre, Philadelphia. Her first play, Octavia Bragaldi, written at the age of 18, was produced at the National Theatre, New York, with herself in the leading part. Of her other plays the only one to survive was The Forest Princess (1844), based on the story of Pocahontas.