Jane Peyton (October 26, 1870 – September 8, 1946) was an American lead and supporting actress whose career did not commence until she was nearly 30. During her time on stage, she appeared in several long-running Broadway plays and successful road tours. Peyton is remembered for her performances in The Ninety and Nine, The Earl of Pawtucket, The Heir to the Hoorah, The Three of Us, and The Woman. Once the wife of actor Guy Bates Post, Peyton retired after 14 years on stage, when she married the writer Samuel Hopkins Adams. Early life Jennie Van Norman was born in Spring Green, Wisconsin, the daughter of George Bosworth Van Norman and Elizabeth Atkinson. Her father served as a sergeant and later drill master with Company H, Wisconsin 8th Infantry Regiment during the American Civil War. After the war, he purchased a small meat packing company in Spring Green that eventually expanded to include branches in Milwaukee and Chicago and employ over 200 workers. Peyton's mother, a native of Maine, died on October 24, 1875, in Milwaukee at the age of 37. Peyton's father next married Cornelia Elizabeth Parsons on November 4, 1876. She died on April 8, 1878, leaving Van Norman to marry Minnie A. Booth, in Milwaukee on November 4, 1878. In her youth, Peyton gave recitals and sang at social and church gatherings and at G.A.R. functions hosted by her father. She married a local physician after attending Northwestern University and for some years hence, her activities routinely merited a mention in newspaper society pages. With the encouragement of Otis Skinner, in the summer of 1900, she left her family and comfortable life behind and departed for New York for a career in theatre. Career Peyton's debut was a minor rôle in Prince Otto, a romantic melodrama Skinner adapted from the book by Robert Louis Stevenson. Prince Otto opened at Wallack's Theatre on September 3, 1900, and closed after five weeks with a run of 40 performances. She played Lady Fitz-Herbert in Tom Moore, a fictionalized romantic drama about a young Thomas More (Andrew Mack) by Theodore Burt Sayre. The play opened on August 31, 1901, at the Herald Square Theatre, and closed on October 5 after 40 performances. Peyton was the adventuress Kate Van Dyke in Ramsay Morris' The Ninety and Nine, a melodrama loosely based on the hymn by Ira D. Sankey. The Ninety and Nine