“Hearts of Oak” (“Chums”) is based on a melodrama called “The Mariner’s Compass,” by an English dramatist, Henry Leslie (1829-1881), which was first produced at Astley’s Theatre, London, in 1865, under the management of that wonderfully enterprising person Edward Tyrrell Smith (1804-1877), and was first acted in America, at the New Bowery Theatre, New York, May 22, that year,—with Edward Eddy as Silas Engleheart, the prototype of Terry Dennison, and Mrs. W. G. Jones as Hetty Arnold, the prototype of Chrystal. It was announced in Chicago as “Herne’s and Belasco’s American Play, in Five Acts and Six Tableaux,” and it was first produced there on November 17, 1879, at Hamlin’s Theatre,—I find no authority for calling it the Coliseum, but my records of Chicago theatres in that period are meagre,—with this cast,—Mrs. Herne (Katherine Corcoran) then making her first appearance in that city:

After its production at Hamlin’s Theatre,—designated by Belasco as “a big success,”—“Hearts of Oak” was taken on a tour, but was presently brought back to Chicago, and on March 15, 1880, it was presented at Hooley’s Theatre, where it was again received with public favor. In the meantime the fact that it was in a considerable degree a variant of an English play of earlier date had been perceived and made known, and Hamlin, offended and resentful because Herne and Belasco, returning to Chicago, had chosen to appear at Hooley’s instead of coming back to him, announced a revival of the earlier play,—Leslie’s “The Mariner’s Compass,”—with the title of “Hearts of Oak.” A suit at law followed, the ultimate decision being that “The Mariner’s Compass,” unprotected by American copyright, was free to any person in the United States who might choose to use it, irrespective of its author’s moral rights, but that the title of “Hearts of Oak” was owned by Herne and Belasco, in association with their play, and could not lawfully be associated with another. The inimical purpose of Hamlin was thus, in a measure, defeated, but Belasco’s troubles did not stop there. Herne evinced much displeasure on learning that Belasco’s play, on which he had co-labored, was not strictly original. An alleged ground of Herne’s displeasure was the lawsuit. “Why didn’t you tell me about “The Mariner’s Compass’?” he said, reproaching Belasco: “now I’ve a damned lawsuit on my hands!” “Well,” Belasco rejoined, “I don’t see why I should have told you anything about the old play; and, anyway, I don’t see what you have to complain about. You ought to be mighty glad you’ve got a half-interest in something worth a lawsuit to protect,—and you haven’t got the suit on your hands any more than I have on mine!” The actual ground of Herne’s dissatisfaction, judging by his subsequent treatment of Belasco, probably was his realization that, if he had, in the first place, been made acquainted with “The Mariner’s Compass,” he could himself have adapted that play to his own use without forming a partnership with anybody.