The Grave of Henry Ridgely Evans

Born in Baltimore Maryland on November 7th, 1861, Henry Ridgely Evans can trace his family heritage all the way back to the early colonial days of America. In 1878, he became interested in magic while attending a performance of Robert Heller in Washington D.C.

H. Ridgely Evans never became a performing magician, but instead focused on magic history. He wrote a number of wonderful books on magic including 'The Old and the New Magic', 'Magic and It's Professors', and 'The History of Conjuring and Magic' just to name a few. He also wrote for Stanyon's MAGIC.

He died at the age of 87 in Baltimore Maryland. (died March 29th, 1949)Mr. Evans is buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in the Georgetown area of Washington D.C. His grave is in the Stewart Section, Plot #610 East. It is very difficult to find. It's near the back of the cemetery and the hills are treacherous, especially on a rainy day like it was when I was there.  The tombstone to the right is also from his family.

If you'd like to read more about Henry Ridgely Evans check out my other articles here
http://www.themagicdetective.com/2017/04/the-great-henry-ridgely-evans.html

The Grave of Cesareo Pelaez

Photo used with permission of Eric D. Cade

 Cesareo Pelaez was the founder, creator, producer and choreographer of the longest running resident magic show in the U.S.. The show was called Marco The Magi present Le Grand David and His Own Spectacular Magic Company. Cesareo played the part of Marco the Magi and the show ran for 36 years.

Born Oct 16, 1932 in Santa Clara Cuba. As a boy, is father took him to see many of the traveling theatrical shows that would visit the island. These included shows by FuManchu, Richiardi Sr. & Jr., Change and Dante. These grand productions had a profound effect on Cesareo and they would later become the inspiration for his ultimate theatrical dream, a resident magic company.

In the 1960s, as Castro was taking over Cuba, Cesareo decided to flee his homeland in sake of a better and safer life. In time, he would become a professor of Psychology at Salem State College and he would remain in this position his entire life until retirement.

But while he was busy teaching young minds about psychology during the day, in the late 1970s, he was putting together a group of people who would buy a theatre, refurbish it and eventually put together their own unique magic show based on the types of shows Cesareo saw as a boy.

In 2005, Cesareo suffered a stroke. He did eventually recover and return to the stage for a short time, but his health was in decline. On March 24th, 2012, Cesareo finally passed away. The company of performers who had stood by his side for so long finished the season without him. Then a few months later they decided to put the Cabot St. Cinema Theatre up for sale. In February 2014, the props, costumes, posters, curtains and everything from the incredible show went up for auction, thus ending any hope of a return of this once grand show.

Cesareo is buried in St. Mary's Cemetery in Beverly MA. His stone is located in the back at the top of the hill, just along the center trail.

The Grave of Chung Ling Soo

(photo used with permission of Tom Atkinson)

Chung Ling Soo was the stage name of magician William Ellsworth Robinson. He was an American born in NY on April 2, 1861. His life story has been covered in a number of books, but the most extensive book is GLORIOUS DECEPTION by Jim Steinmeyer (a must read). Robinson was probably the most knowledgeable man in magic in his lifetime but he struggled to be successful. Instead he worked for the big names of the time like Alexander Herrmann, then Harry Kellar and then Herrmann again.

One day he witnessed a performance by an authentic Chinese Conjurer Ching Ling Foo and was so inspired by the performance that he decided to create his own oriental character Chung Ling Soo. Before long, a feud would break out between the two culminating in a showdown at a London Newspaper Office. However, Soo won the title as the best magician because FOO didn't show up.

On March 23rd 1918, Soo was fatally wounded on stage during a performance of the dangerous Bullet Catching Feat. He died the following day. Speculation continues to this day of whether or not it was an accident or perhaps some sort of planned suicide by Robinson. I tend to lean towards accident.

Soo/Robinson is buried in East Sheen Cemetery, Section B, grave number 219/220/221 London. Here is a photo of the cemetery entrance. The photo at the top of the page was kindly furnished by Tom Atkinson of Maidstone, Kent, England.

Samri S. Baldwin - The White Mahatma

While doing research for Civil War era magicians, I came across a document which led me to the location of Samri Baldwin's grave.

He was born Samuel Spencer Baldwin on January 23, 1848 in Cincinnati Ohio. His interest in magic began when he witnessed a performance of the Davenport Brothers. He worked on duplicating their feats but the Civil War got in his way. He became the drummer for the 83rd Ohio Infantry Regiment. His regiment fought at the Siege at Vicksburg.

After the war, Samuel Baldwin changed his name to Samri and began his performing career. He chose to borrow ideas from the fake spiritualist mediums of the time and apply them to the stage, thus creating the first Question & Answer Mentalism Act. Many of his techniques are still used today.

He continued working into his 70s. In 1921 he had a short lived spot in the Thurston Show. He had actually brought with him his trunk filled with all the treasures he had collected during his years of performing.  Gifts given to him by General U.S. Grant, King George Bismarck, Emperor Franz Josef and a host of others. These rare treasures were to be a gift to Howard Thurston, but Baldwin and Thurston did not get along and Samri kept these treasures for his own. I assume they came into the possession of his daughter Blanche Baldwin. There whereabouts today are unknown.

He died on March 10, 1924 in San Francisco, CA. He is buried at The Presidio Cemetery also known as San Francisco National Cemetery in San Francisco, Plot A, Section 655.

The Grave of Erik Jan Hanussen

photo courtesy of Hans Noordam

His real name was Hermann Steinschneider and he was born June 2, 1889 and died March 25th 1933. He was the clairvoyant to Hitler and the Nazis. Hanussen was Jewish by birth but clearly hid this fact by changing his name.

The story goes that he was in the German Military and during some expedition or tour when his fellow soldiers had been without water for some time, he pointed to the ground and told them that by digging water would be found in this spot. Water was found and word of his ability traveled throughout the military. He came to the attention of generals and began doing shows and no doubt private readings for the troops and military officers.

In the 30's he purchased a building that he turned into his "Palace of the Occult". He did fortune telling readings and presented stage shows in the theatre.

He obviously was a charismatic figure. Looking at his photos he always seemed to have a very hypnotic look in his eyes. He was a magician, mentalist, and hypnotist who used his abilities to give people the idea he was truly clairvoyant. I believe he is the person credited for creating the technique known as Contact Mind Reading or Muscle Reading.

On March 25th, the SA (German Stormtroopers) took Hanussen to the woods outside of Berlin and shot him. The speculation was that either they discovered he was actually Jewish, or they felt he knew too much and needed to get rid of him, or because he loaned a great deal of money to various SA officers they got rid of him rather than repay him. In any event, he was killed. His body was found in April by a farmworker, the discovered body was buried in a shallow grave and riddled with bullets.

The grave is located at Stahnsdorf, Berlin: Südwestfriedhof, Bahnhofstrasse Block Charlottenburg, Gartenblock III, Gartenstelle 50

Hans Noordman kindly gave me permission to use the image above. To learn more about Hanussen please go to Han's site at http://www.xs4all.nl/~androom/biography/p012492.htm. There are more links at that site as well.

The Hofzinser Grave

photo courtesy of Magic Christian www.honzinser.com

This is the grave of Johann Nepomuk Hofzinser (born June 19,1806, died March 11th 1875)  he was a great Viennese Magician. He has been referred to as the most important card conjurer of all times. He was also one of the early Salon performers and as I suspected after so much of my research on Robert-Houdin, he was probably just as influential in Austria as R-H was in Paris. Both of their contributions to magic are still felt today!

Hofzinser was a cousin of Ludwig Dobler. Dai Vernon held  Hofzinser in high regard. He even gave one of his sons the middle name of Nepamuk. Hofzinser’s card work lives on today in many ways. His effects are still popular as are his sleights and even a number of his gimmicks. In fact, even I use one of his forces and spread cull. The charming ‘Everywhere and Nowhere’ card routine is Hofzinser’s and I’m wondering if it wasn’t first called “To Think and Forget”. One famous piece of magical apparatus that I am familiar with was called ‘The Rose Mirror’. I have seen the Rose Mirror in person as it is in the collection of Ken Klosterman. There are a number of Hofzinser’s apparatus pieces in the collection as a matter of fact. His ‘ink to goldfish’ is there as well.

As I continue down the road researching Victorian magic, I look forward to learning more about Johann Hofzinser. By the way, the photo above and much of the biographical information here is courtesy of Magic Christian who gave me permission to use the above photo. Please visit his website at www.hofzinser.com to learn more about this wonderful Viennese magician. Ottokar Fischer wrote two books on Hofzinser which were translated into english by S.H. Sharpe which is no doubt how much of his card magic survived. Magic Christian has also written a couple books on the card magic of Hofzinser. For those that might not have these books, try ‘Greater Magic’ as there are several references to Hofzinser in the pages of that book.

He died March 11, 1875

The grave is located at the Vienna Central Cemetery, Group 4, Row 2, Tomb 16

J.N.Hofzinser's grave is in the same cemetery that Compars Herrmann is buried in.

(most of this is a reprint from a previous blog post I did at www.artistofmystery.com)