Jefferson, Joseph

Jefferson, Joseph (1774–1832), British-born American actor, whose father Thomas Jefferson (1732–1807) was an actor at Drury Lane under Garrick, and for some years manager of a theatre in Plymouth. Four of his five children were on the stage, Joseph, the second son, trained by his father, going in 1795 to America. He joined the company at the John Street Theatre in New York and later went to the Park Theatre, where he was popular with the company and the public, though somewhat held back by the pre-eminence of Hodgkinson. In 1803 he moved to the Chestnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia, where he remained until about 1830. He married an actress whose sister was married to William Warren, thus uniting two families of great importance in American stage history. His seven children all went on the stage, including a second Thomas, John, and four daughters; the best remembered is the second Joseph (1804–42), who inherited his father's happy temperament but not his theatrical talent, being a better scene-painter than actor. By his marriage to the actress Cornelia Thomás (1796–1849), mother by a former marriage of the actor Charles Burke (1822–54), he became the father of the third Joseph (below).