AN AMERICAN JUDY

   A  few years ago, at a local antique show, I came upon an unusual marionette.  She was about 14” tall, her stout body was clothed in a blue- checkered cotton dress, and she had very large carved feet with big, bony toes, sticking out from the bottom of her skirt.  But it was her head that had caught my attention.   As any fan of Punch and Judy would spot, she was clearly Judy. Beautifully carved, she had the same sharp nose and chin, and the unmistakable blue and red cap with a white ruffle around her face. In front of her was a sign:

                                  Famous Pennsylvania Carver
                         The lost wife carving of Peter Hauntz,
                                               “Julianne”

   Naturally, I had to take her home and, to my delight, an old newspaper clipping came with her, leading me to the story of Peter Hauntz and how a Punch and Judy character named Julianne came to be found in a country auction in central Pennsylvania.

   It seems that Peter Hauntz was a creation of James H. Sharp, a wood carver, puppeteer, and ventriloquist, who lived in the Mill Hall area of Pennsylvania and traveled around the countryside performing puppet shows with his dummy whom he named Peter Hauntz.  According to the newspaper article, Sharp served in the Seventh Cavalry in the Civil War where he learned how to carve puppets from a buddy, an Alsation named de Rotschkoff, who had learned the art in Paris from a well-known carver, Professor Alexandre.  Through de Rotschkoff, Sharp must have come to know Judy, what she looked like, what she wore, and possibly the story of Punch and Judy, a European tradition little known in America. ( Compare the bonnet of Julianne with that of a Judy made in Germany at left, roughly in the same period.)  Sharp entertained Union troops with his puppet shows, and was sometimes known as Professor Sharp (like European puppeteers.) When he was discharged from the army in 1865, he had ” found his vocation” and went on to travel  “about the country in a black closed wagon, almost like a dead wagon,” giving him “an air of mystery.”
 
    Sharp (shown at right) was most closely identified with his main character, Peter Hauntz.  It is believed that he adopted this name from “Peter Hans,” a stock character popular in Pennsylvania- German districts.  He was fascinated by magic and often included tricks of “magical powers” in his shows.  Perhaps that’s why he liked the name “Hauntz” with its suggestion of the supernatural. The dummy/puppet was very much like Sharp, a tall, dark, Lincolnesque man, and so life-like that Sharp himself was most often referred to as Peter Hauntz.  Included in the shows also were his daughter Helen, “darkly beautiful as a gypsy princess” and a small child called Herodia, who had run off one night from cruel foster parents and hidden in his wagon. Sharp took her along, giving her the part of a marionette and she became such an attraction that later Katherine Milhous wrote a novelette about her called “Herodia, the Lovely Puppet.”  The shows were famous in the area: 

   "Wherever he went there were friends,  people to whom his shows gave delight --- country stores, blacksmith shops, tin shops, inns and hostelries where companionship was easy and pleasant….the school house or hall was filled with gay, unrestrained laughter."

   "The next day he was gone, but in backyards and barns and wood sheds, the children were putting on what they hoped were reasonable facsimiles of what they seen the night before."

   As a veteran, puppeteer, ventriloquist, magician, and even “a wandering minstrel, famed for his ‘lung music,’” many legends have been told about this folk hero.  Unfortunately, most of the material for the puppet shows has been lost. Sharp was killed  in 1908 by a switch engine when his horse and buggy crossed a railroad track.  He was 78.  To quote the newspaper:

        “ J. H. Sharp, the ‘Punch and Judy’ man killed.  Struck by  

         train at fatal crossing in this city Saturday afternoon.”

   All of the puppets and equipment in the buggy were destroyed in the crash.  His story might have been forgotten over time, but, in 1941, a college English class in Lock Haven was assigned the project of researching James H. Sharp.  The students investigated all aspects of Sharp’s life and particularly his career as an entertainer.  The final report was published in June of that year in the Lock Haven Express.

   From the microfilm printouts of the article, I’ve learned some of the details about the puppets and the shows.  The  puppets (or poppets, as they were called then) were made of wood, one 24” tall, who sat in Peter’s lap, a dummy for his ventriloquist acts; others were hand or “sleeve” puppets, and others, like Julianne, were marionettes, 12”- 18” tall, with heads the size of a small cocoanut. Among the puppets were Punch, Judy, Peter Hauntz, Julianne, the Devil and an Alligator. They often had to be replaced, ”especially the victims of the quarrelsome Peter Hauntz.” Cobblers and Jacks-of-all trades were found that had made repairs to the puppets as Sharp traveled through their towns. Sharp’s wife made the clothes and  went with him, keeping the costumes mended and renewed. One item, mentioned several times, was Julianne’s white, fluffy apron which must have been lost by the time she (or some version of her) reached me.  Peter and Julianne seemed to have been characters in a performance much the same as Punch and Judy, maybe as a kind of “local” adaptation to appeal more to his audience. They had the same routines, remembered by people who “as children saw justice done to the little wooden evil-doer of far away and long ago.”  Peter “struts onto the stage. . . loud and boisterous and full of action,” singing,

                   When I go out to promenade,

                   I look so fine and gay,

                   I have to take the dogs along,

                   To keep the girls away.

    What follows is a typical Punch and Judy exchange: 

              Julianne:   There’s not a bite of bread in the house.

              Peter Hauntz:  Then bake cakes!

Julianne:  (crying in earnest):  I’m going home to my Mother.

   Peter Hauntz: (hitting and punching Julianne until she leaves the stage):  Go,go,go,go. GO!  If that lady comes here again, I’m going to knock her down.”

   And so on, until, after several more knock-abouts, songs, and insults, the Devil, dressed in red with a  pitchfork, comes to take Peter away. “Oh Please, Mr. Devil, ”Peter cries,” don’t take me.  Take my wife, take Julianne!”  But Peter is “carried down into the lower regions.”

   The article concludes with “There was no topic that we speculated more upon, nor that we dreamed more about than that of finding the actual puppets.”  The students learned from the Sharp’s onetime neighbor that the Sharp’s house had partially burned down years ago with some of the puppets inside. Another neighbor said that puppets had been found in an old carpet bag in the attic when new owners moved into the house and that they had been in such poor condition they were burned with the trash.  Some puppets, however, were said to have been stored in a shed in the small town of Salona, one of the stops on Sharp’s tour, but only one had ever been recovered. Could this one be my Julianne?  Is she indeed “the lost wife carving of Peter Hauntz ”?  I can’t be sure, but she is now safely on view at the Ydessa Hendeles Art Foundation in Toronto, Canada, amid a wonderful collection of other Punch and Judy puppets.

 Ref. :
   The Lock Haven Express, June 21, 1941
   The Lock Haven Express, March 15, 1951

An American Judy Update

   After finishing the above article, I located the book, The Puppet Theatre in America, by Paul McPharlin. In a chapter on German puppetry, he devotes several pages to James Sharp, his background, life, mainly his puppetry, and, finally, we get a first-hand description of the rumored missing Julianne, found "in an attic in Salona, PA, … in the collection of Emma L. Thompson." Though the description doesn’t quite match "my" Julianne-- this one was larger, "costumed in a lavender bonnet," and lacking feet—there are compelling details: she was wearing a" blue and white gingham dress," and had a" cotton-filled body of blue chambray,"(my italics), exactly like mine and the only other cotton-filled body that I’ve ever heard of. In addition, the "upper part of the limbs were of black stocking," as mine was. There was also a drawing made of her head which, except for the bonnet, looks identical to mine. I speculate that since this puppet had a cloth bonnet, mine, with a carved bonnet, was an earlier creation of a younger Sharp when he took the time to carve the head himself. It is common among toy makers to streamline their designs as time goes on. Sharp’s wife made the puppets’ costumes and a cloth bonnet would have been much simpler to produce than a carved one.
   The whereabouts of Mrs. Thompson’s puppet are unknown. My Julianne, now in an art museum, may be the only puppet of this legendary folk figure to have survived. She came to me with an intriguing message and it’s been fun to uncover her history, to re-live the days in small Pennsylvania towns when a dark, mysterious puppeteer came through in a horse-drawn carriage, set up a stage wherever he could and performed his plays with comical, endearing puppets, filling the whole town with wonder and delight.

Hi Judith,

I stumbled across your “American Judy” article while researching Punch & Judy. I got distracted and started doing searches on Professor Sharp, and stumbled across an old newspaper article about him (from 1968 for some reason, I’m not sure why—I don’t have a subscription to the site in question, so it’s hard to tell). Regardless, I thought you might find it interesting if you haven’t already come across it.

 It’s The Express from Lock Haven Pennsylvania, page 5, August 27, 1968. I’ve quoted the OCRed text below.

 http://www.newspapers.com/newspage/5597876/#

A long time might pass between an important incident and its appearance in print. ., "Prof. J. H. Sharp, who is well-known throughout this valley, was run over by a freight train in Lock Haven several weeks ago. Deceased was a fine ventriloquist and played the Peter Hontz act for many years. He was buried near his home near Hublersburg." Let Sinnemahone present the professor's act. "The Sterling Run people escaped the attention of any more shows until the next Ground Hog Day, when a Punch and Judy performance was put on in Earl's Hall. Many parents took their children and a packed house greeted the showman, who called himself Peter Hontz. He closed his show with a sleight-of-hand performance, then said: v . " 'Peter Hontz has the power to search the mind • and heart of every person in the village. There is a weasel-faced, hawk-eyed, pussyfooted deacon in your midst, on whom there is evidence of his playing poker and drinking liquor, unknown to you.' "Deacon Smith, who sat in the front row, assumed an embarrassed stare, with his mouth wide open. The showman continued: " 'Peter Hontz is no snooper, but when he sees these things going on, under cover, he deems it his duty to expose the reprobate.' "Deacon Smith began to appear nervous. Directly ' the showman stepped down off the platform and approached the deacon and took a deck of cards out of his side pocket, following this by .pulling a bottle of whiskey from his inside coat pocket. The deacon crouched in his seat, looking frightened, with his hat clutched in his hand. , "'What have you in your hat?' Peter Hontz demanded.' Let me see!' Then he pulled a snake out of his hat, stepped back on the stage and bowed adieu to the audience, who responded with loud applause." . . The professor had many points of sharpness. "The next night he put on a show of a different character. This entertainment was called a Demonstration in Phrenology. He claimed that he could tell the habits and character of people by the shape of their heads. . "Several old men in the audience were compared with one another, but the main feature was telling people's fortunes by feeling the bumps on their heads. The youngsters had a chance to get in this one. "The girls refused the opportunity because it seemed immodest to them for a man on the stage to feel their heads in front of the whole house. The boys enjoyed it, however, and nearly every boy in the audience had his head felt. "He predicted that some of the boys would become successful doctors, lawyers, preachers and teachers, while others would do better in business, such as merchants, bankers, farmers and mechanics. There was no particular amusement in the show, yet the audience seemed interested and well pleased. No admission was charged but a hat was passed around before entertainment closed." Professor Sharp who was to become internationally known as a master puppet-show man, has descend* dants in this area. He was born in Virginia but his parents came from Pennsylvania. The Bradys had relatives named Sharpe, spelled that way, who may have been a branch of the same clan. "The Brady family in England was represented, until recently, by Sir A. Brady, baronet, London, and by his brother, Capt. Edward Brady, who had intermarried with Mary Ann Sharpe, a descendant of James Sharpe, Archbishop of St. Andrews, Scotland, who was murdered near Edinburgh May 3, 1679. The Sharpe branch in Pennsylvania is represented by Capt. A.. Brady Sharpe, of Carlisle." The cool wave in the valley would be made still more refreshing by an ice cream social at Rauchtown on Saturday, more fun than a puppet show. Ratio's They'll Do It Every Time «

Thanks,

Aaron Bush