The Ham Tree

About the show

Setting: Marion, North Carolina (Act 1); the Dover, Delaware region (Act 2); and New York City (Act 3) McIntyre and Heath reprised their well known African-American characters of Alexander Hambletonian (McIntyre) and Henry Jones (Heath) which they had previously portrayed in minstrel shows and in vaudeville. Played as "lovable tramps and scamps", the first act begins with the characters stranded in a small North Carolina town where Hambletonian pretends to be a Raja and Heath his chief minister in order to obtain free room and board at a local establishment. The second act finds the pair having a series of mis-adventures by a railroad track and in a dark wood where they are desperately seeking food; ultimately discovering a tree that grows hams. The final act brings the pair into the palatial New York City mansion of Lawrence Nickelbacker and his autocratic wife, Mrs. Nickelbacker; a house located on Fifth Avenue. The villain of the piece is the English Lord Spotcash, and the work's loose plot also included a man of mystery, Sherlock Baffles.