Before ‘Bert and I’ there was Richard Golden and his tales from Bucksport
How a local man created ‘Old Jed Prouty’ and introduced Maine humor to the rest of the world 150 years ago
Dec. 22, 2025
By Lori-Suzanne Dell, Stories From Maine
Richard Golden, creator of a character that brought Maine humor to the New York stage. Courtesy of Stories from Maine.
His career knew the ups and downs of stardom. He began his theatrical career as a teenager and had risen to sudden prominence in the theatrical touring productions of the late 19th century.
It was there, on the stage, that he became known as the father of the Downeast style of Maine humor.
Richard Golden was born on July 6th of 1854 in Bangor, Maine to Irish immigrants Patrick and Matilda Golden. He was locally educated and he showed an early ability in theatrical performance.
By the age of 13, Golden had joined-up with a travelling circus known as “Allies Allied Shows” and there he premiered in the 1867 comedy play “Fashion”, while on the travelling circuit.
By 1876, Golden left the circus performers and joined up with the Edward Rice acting troupe. He was now an experienced and bankable comedic actor and he began working as a company player in the vaudevillian cast.
While in Rice’s group he met Dora Wiley, who was also from Bangor. Wiley was an actress and a singer whose fame had also grown dramatically in the years since she left Maine.
When Richard and Dora fell in love, both wanted to return to Maine to be married. In 1884, the couple returned to Bangor to be married in front of friends and family, before resuming their travelling career.
By the spring of 1889, the couple was working in New York and Golden, already well known and popular for his comedic abilities and dramatic acting, introduced a new skit, a play of comedic storytelling, which he himself had co-written with fellow actor William Gill.
On May 14th of 1889, Richard stepped onto the stage at the Union Square Theater in New York and introduced the world to Downeast Maine humor.
The play was titled, “Old Jed Prouty of Bucksport, Maine: A Four-Act Narrative of New England Village Life.”
Golden coupled relatable humorous stories from Maine’s coastal life told with a down-eastern drawl, delivered by a Maine character known as Old Jed Prouty. Golden left his audience in stitches.
Golden’s success with Old Jed Prouty received wildly positive reviews. He continued to work on the play and made numerous improvements.
Golden also wrote a part for his wife Dora, where she sang era-popular tunes. Dora was called “The Sweet Singer From Maine.”
The character of Old Jed Prouty was a Maine tavern-keeper in the town of Bucksport and the setting was placed in the Robinson House Hotel, a real-life hotel where Golden had once worked for a brief time as a child.
The hotel itself would later earn the name “Old Jed Prouty Tavern” in honor of Golden’s play and the character, which he made famous. The play, his character, and Golden himself were riding high in both fame and fortune. Yet, disaster waited.
The Robinson House Hotel in Bucksport was later renamed the Jed Prouty Tavern and Inn, honoring the character Richard Golden created for the stage. Courtesy of Stories from Maine.
By 1892, Golden’s life had crashed. Dora had fallen in love with their much younger business manager, Charles O. Tennis, and Dora and Richard soon divorced. The couple had one child, a daughter named Bernice.
Golden was completely wrecked by Dora’s infidelity and by the divorce. He immediately fell in with alcoholism and his career soon after tanked.
Within two years he would be hospitalized in a New York hospital drunk ward and declared bankrupt, proclaiming that he had “not a cent in the world.”
Then in 1896, Golden pulled himself together and recovered his senses and his career. He returned to the stage and began a revival of his famous Jed Prouty play.
By 1898, he met and married an actress, Kathleen Kittleman at Cohoes, in New York. The two soon settled at Long Island’s Port Washington.
A poster advertising a Jed Prouty performance. Courtesy of Stories from Maine.
By the dawn of the early 20th century Richard Golden had fully regained his fame and his fortune. Together with Kathleen, the couple enjoyed a good life of luxury and popularity.
And, though Richard had once again achieved stardom he had never forgotten his Maine roots and he often made annual visits back to his home state of Maine.
In late summer of 1909, Richard and Kathleen were visiting with their friend John N. Porter on Porter’s yacht at Brooklyn, in New York. They were about to cast off for a trip up the New England coast for a visit in Maine when tragedy struck.
On August 10th of 1909, Richard was suddenly taken ill with a form of nephritis, or kidney disease. Within hours of the onset of his illness, while still on the yacht, Richard Golden died. He was just 55 years old.
Kathleen returned Richard’s remains to his beloved home state of Maine and back to his much-loved childhood hometown at Bangor where Richard was interred in the Mount Hope Cemetery.
He had lived a life of adventure in a career spanning more than 40 years. He had known the ups and downs of stardom and the joys and pains of a rags-to-riches and back again career.
In the end, he had been a major star in the theatrical days of operatic theater and vaudevillian entertainment.
His original creation of downeast Maine humor has become a traditional Pine Tree staple of entertainment, which is still carried on and celebrated by numerous Maine artists.
His creation of Old Jed Prouty makes Richard Golden the father of Maine’s original Downeast Humor and one of our original Stories From Maine.
–Lori-Suzanne Dell is a Maine author and historian who has written five books and runs the popular Stories From Maine page on Facebook. This story is reprinted in The Rising Tide with Dell’s permission.
