Author Rachel Beanland at Monumental Church (Photo by Jay Paul)
Rachel Beanland’s interest in the 1811 Richmond Theatre fire began with a real estate agent’s tap on her car window. She and her husband had come to Richmond in 2007 for job interviews and to scout houses. On their way to Church Hill, as they passed the domed Monumental Church, their agent remarked, “There used to be a theater here.”
The chance observation gave Beanland a kernel of information about the disaster that consumed the playhouse and killed at least 72 people. The victims formed a cross-section of Richmond’s society: white, Black, enslaved, free, men, children — and 54 women. Their remains were buried in a vault within the theater’s ruins, upon which the Robert Mills-designed Monumental Church arose. In 1811, Richmond’s entire population would have filled the Diamond like a sold-out Squirrels game, so everybody would’ve known somebody among the more than 600 people in the theater’s audience.
Image courtesy Simon & Schuster
Beanland didn’t know then that this brief introduction would mature into her second novel, “The House Is on Fire.” “I wouldn’t then have called myself a novelist or much of anything in terms of writing,” she says. Nevertheless, “I recognized there was a story there.”
The disaster marinated in her imagination for more than a decade. She released her first novel, the critically praised family drama “Florence Adler Swims Forever,” in 2020. Set in 1930s Atlantic City, the story involves grief, trauma, deceptions, misunderstandings and the complicated filigrees of love.
Although the new book presents similar themes, Beanland hadn’t planned for a theater fire to become the subject of her next novel. Then came the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I was working on another project, but it required travel,” Beanland explains, “and I thought, well, maybe this is the right time to write about Richmond. I can write from my own backyard.” The timing for research seemed right, too. In May 2020, she graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University with a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing.
One of Beanland’s first resources was Meredith Henne Baker, who wrote “The Richmond Theater Fire: Early America’s First Great Disaster,” a thorough historical account of the event, in 2012. “Her help was next level,” Beanland says, especially because the pandemic rendered most of the city’s archives inaccessible. “For our first meeting, she showed up with one of those reusable grocery bags filled with files of her research. It was so incredibly generous.”
Deciding to use historical figures as her characters, Beanland sought different perspectives from survivors of the fire and its aftermath. Among those were the widowed Sally Henry Campbell, a daughter of Patrick Henry, who escaped the theater only to be caught up in the often gruesome efforts to assist the afflicted. Campbell also tried to learn how many of the men rushed to save themselves at the expense of women’s lives.
I could’ve written 10 novels based on the tangents and rabbit trails I found myself on doing this research.
—Rachel Beanland
Gilbert Hunt, an enslaved blacksmith, was drawn into the fray when he ran to the scene looking for the young woman who gave him reading lessons. He and physician James McCaw combined their strength to save a dozen women who jumped from an upper-story window.
Beanland explains, “For Sally, I wanted someone who had access to power, but due to the times, couldn’t exert much of her own. And Gilbert’s enslaved. Neither of them can do whatever they want; they’re boxed in by early 19th-century society in Richmond. Their struggles give them what I wanted to make as meaningful characters.”
Sometimes the history is cloudy, so Beanland used artistic license. She based Jack Gibson, a 14-year-old stagehand who finds himself at the center of the ordeal, on an actual, yet unidentified person. “His name never comes up in the papers,” Beanland says, “and that was to protect the management.” She used her experience as the mother of teenagers to render a convincing portrait of Jack.
Nancy Patterson, an enslaved woman, was noted among the fatalities as “supposed to have perished,” a description that tantalized Beanland. She transformed the near-forgotten woman into Cecily Patterson, who on the fateful night sits in the uppermost gallery reserved for Blacks, the poor and prostitutes and quickly decides to use the fire as a cover to escape brutality.
Richmond history nerds will recognize other characters, including the physician and city’s first mayor, William Foushee, who comforts the injured within the limits of his medicine. Foushee’s friend and son-in-law, Richmond Enquirer newspaper founder Thomas Ritchie, also makes an appearance.
“I had the most fun with William Wirt,” Beanland says. A prominent lawyer and a writer, although not an especially good one, Wirt worked for years on a biography of Patrick Henry. Fortunately for Wirt, he drank too much at a dinner party and didn’t attend the theater the night of the fire. “He’s a real busybody,” Beanland says. “You get the impression that he was disappointed for not being there.”
Today’s 24-hour cascade of death and mayhem in the news can make the Richmond Theatre fire seem almost inconsequential in comparison, but it was a big deal at the time — and not just locally. “This was an interesting aspect to explain to my publisher,” Beanland says. “This isn’t only a Richmond story.”
Newspapers across the country and abroad carried accounts of the fire. Members of the U.S. Congress wore black armbands. Memorial services were held for those who succumbed to injuries. Preachers fulminated against the evils of theater — but didn’t criticize the dangerously shoddy construction of the building. Here in Richmond, public performances were banned, and violators risked a fine of $6.66.
“I could’ve written 10 novels based on the tangents and rabbit trails I found myself on doing this research,” Beanland recalls. “Sometimes, you need to know when to stop. If anything, I hope people will be inspired to read more.”
One resource could be Meredith Henne Baker’s book. When her publisher, the Louisiana State University Press, learned of Beanland’s novel, it reissued the historian’s book in paperback. Beanland says, “I’m sure we’ll do some events together.”
Fountain Books and the Historic Richmond Foundation will host the launch of “The House Is on Fire” (Simon & Schuster, $27.99, 384 pages) at a free public event at Monumental Church at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 4. BBGB Books will host Beanland at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 11, at a free public event. Beanland will speak about interpreting history through fiction at another event on Thursday, May 11, at the Virginia Museum of History & Culture. Tickets are $10.
