Herald, James Gordon Bennett Sr., in his offices. This latter fight led to a two-day trial and Hamblin's conviction in February 1837. In 1838, newspaper editor and blackface performer George Washington Dixon wrote in his Polyanthos that Hamblin was having an affair with a teen-aged starlet at the Bowery named Miss Louisa Missouri Miller. The girl was found dead within ten days of publication from "inflammation of the brain caused by the violent misconduct of Miss Missouri's mother and the publication of an abusive article in The Polyanthos." The allegation was not out of character, and many people believed it. Hamblin reacted in his usual fashion: George Washington Buffalo Dixon has this day [28 July 1838] . . . received a most tremendous quilting, at the hands of Thos. S. Hamblin. I have heard no particulars, except that Buff, as editor of The Polyanthos, was severely beaten by Arbaces. It is the only way in which his feelings can be reached. Hamblin's ex-wife died in 1849, and he married actress Elizabeth Mary Ann Trewar Shaw. She bore him four more children: Alla, Constance, Edith, and William Snowden Hamblin. Thomas Hamblin died of a "brain fever" (probably cerebral meningitis or cerebral syphilis) in his Broome Street home on 8 January 1853. He left eight heirs, each of whom received $10,000 from his estate. He was buried at Ocean Hill, Brooklyn. His family maintained ownership of the Bowery Theatre until 1867. References Notes Further reading Bank, Rosemary K. (1997). Theatre Culture in America, 1825–1860. New York: Cambridge University Press. Bogar, Thomas A. (2017). Thomas Hamblin and the Bowery Theatre: The New York Reign of 'Blood and Thunder' Melodramas. New York and London: Palgrave Macmillan. Brown, T. Allston (1903). A History of the New York Stage: From the First Performance in 1732 to 1901. Dodd, Mead and Company. Cockrell, Dale (1997). Demons of Disorder: Early Blackface Minstrels and Their World. Cambridge University Press. Nichols, Glen (1999). "Hamblin, Thomas Sowerby". American National Biography, Vol. 9. New York: Oxford University Press. Wilmeth, Don B., and Miller, Tice L., eds. (1996). Cambridge Guide to American Theatre. New York: Cambridge University Press. Wilmeth, Don B., and Bigsby, C. W. E. (1998) The Cambridge History of American Theatre: Beginnings to 1870. New York: Cambridge University Press. Wilmeth, Don B., and Bigsby, C. W. E. (1999) The Cambridge History of American Theatre: Volume II, 1870–1945.'' New York: Cambridge University