Percy Williams Home for Retired Actors and Actresses
| Percy G. Williams | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
4 May 1857 Baltimore, Maryland, US |
| Died | 21 July 1923 (aged 66) East Islip, New York, US |
| Occupation | Vaudeville theater manager |
| Known for | Greater New York Circuit |
Percy Garnett Williams (4 May 1857 – 21 July 1923) was an American actor who became a travelling medicine salesman, real estate investor, amusement park operator and vaudeville theater owner and manager. He ran the Greater New York Circuit of first-class venues. Williams was known for giving generous pay and good working conditions to performers. At his death, he endowed his Long Island house as a retirement home for aged and destitute actors.
Percy Garnett Williams was born on 4 May 1857 in Baltimore, Maryland. He was the son of John B. Williams, a doctor and editor of the Baltimore Family Journal. Percy Williams was expected to also become a doctor, and after graduating from Baltimore College he studied medicine for a while. However, he was fascinated with theater. He organized and became the manager of the Courtland Dramatic Club. He played at the Front Street Theatre and Colonel Sinn's Theatre in Baltimore, then moved to Brooklyn in 1875, where he performed with Colonel Sinn's Park Theatre. He spent two seasons in Brooklyn, then returned to Baltimore and was the leading comedian in the Holliday Street Theater stock company. He performed in a traveling production of Uncle Tom's Cabin that received good reviews.
In 1880 Williams launched a travelling medicine show, hawking "liver bags". These contained various herbs plus a charged battery attached to a belt. Williams would enlist a local citizen in each town he visited to try wearing a liver bag, and to then tell the public how much better he felt. At first the show was just a blackface song and dance routine by Williams accompanied by a banjo player. Williams sold the liver belts in the intermissions. Later the show expanded and was staged in a tent. Williams began organizing other acts to sell the liver belts. He would book halls and put on variety shows. Eventually he had sixty acts working for him, often as part of another travelling show.
Williams began investing in real estate around the end of the 1880s. He partnered with Thomas Adams, the chewing gum magnate, to buy what is now Bergen Beach, Brooklyn. This was 300 acres (120 ha) of marshland in Brooklyn west of Rockaway and south of Flatbush on Jamaica Bay. At the time the land was called Bergen Island (it was connected to the mainland by landfill in 1918). Williams and Adams had meant to build housing, but decided to emulate the successful Coney Island. They converted Bergen Island into a resort, accessible via the Flatbush Avenue streetcar. The resort opened in 1893 with a dance hall, concessions, rides and a pier. The Percy Williams Amusement park opened in June 1896, later just called Bergen Beach. In August 1896 the New York Herald described the park:
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