Medford Historical Society Papers, Volume 16.

Amelia, the third in point of age, spent her early days in this town. Then the family moved to Boston, where she was educated. She soon acquired a taste for the stage.

She played for many years in New York and Philadelphia, but never in Boston, on account of her relatives' dislike for her having adopted the stage as a profession. She experienced, in the place of her birth, the Puritan aversion to the stage and the people connected with it, so much stronger in her day than now, and in the homes of some cousins she was never welcomed.

She made her debut in Pittsburg, Penn., in 1817 as Mrs. Blanford in ‘Speed the Plough.’ Her first appearance in New York was in 1822-3 as Adelgitha in the play of that name. She was long known at the Bowery and other New York theatres. She took such parts as Letitia Hardy in the ‘Belle's Stratagem,’ Leonora in the ‘Lovers' Quarrels’ and Mrs. Malfort in the ‘Soldier's Daughter.’ She made her first appearance as the latter, when she was engaged for the so-called heavy business.

On July 2, 1822, a company of amateurs opened an establishment under the name of the City Theater. Only three had any stage experience, Mrs. Legge being one.

The latter was young, talented and interesting in appearance, a careful and understanding reader, and in a good school of acting would have probably attained distinction, but it has been her misfortune to be generally attached to theaters where her abilities have been wasted on the worst of melodramas, and her true beauties undiscovered or unappreciated.

During the long run of Uncle Tom's Cabin at the National Theater, in 1853, Mrs. Bannister was the representative of the revengeful yet sympathizing Cassy.

She died in New Jersey about 1879. The dates of her marriage can be approximately determined by facts. In 1817 she was known as Mrs. Legge, as Mrs. Stone in 1855.