Leonard Grover

Leonard Byron Grover (December 9, 1833 – March 7, 1926) was a nineteenth-century American comedic playwright, theatre manager, opera impresario, and sports promoter, best known for his association with President Abraham Lincoln.{{cite news |title=Leonard Grover, Playwright, Dies; Saved Lincoln's Life |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/686563240/?terms=Leonard%20Grover%20playwright&match=1 |access-date=March 9, 2024 |work=The Brooklyn Daily Eagle |date=March 8, 1926 |page=13|url-access=subscription}}

His best known plays are Davy Crockett and Our Boarding House,{{Cite book | url=https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/8418058 | title=Our boarding house [in, Davy Crockett & other plays by Leonard Grover : Frank Murdock : Lester Wallack : G. H. Jessop : J. J. Mccloskey. Edited by Isaac Goldberg and Hubert Heffner]| publisher=Proquest LLC| date=2019-09-08}}{{Cite web | url=https://www.loc.gov/item/2012658439/ | title=Theatre programmes| website=Library of Congress}}{{Cite web | url=http://www.leabooks.com/Professional%20Books/English-American%20Studies/Lit-Series/America's%20Lost%20Plays.htm | title=America's Lost Plays}} believed to be the origin of the phase "make no mistake".{{Cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YcWHAgAAQBAJ&dq=make+no+mistake+leonard+grover&pg=PA302 |title = A Dictionary of Catch Phrases|isbn = 9781134929993|last1 = Partridge|first1 = Eric|date = 2003-09-02}} Our Boarding House premiered to great success January 31, 1877, at the Park Theatre in Brooklyn, and was the launch of the comedy duo Stuart Robson and William H. Crane. His play Cad, the Tomboy was a big success for the actress Carrie Swain for whom he wrote that work.{{cite news|title=Footlight Flashes|work=Boston Sunday Globe|date=August 27, 1882|page= 4}}{{cite news|title=Carrie Swain as "Cad, the Tomboy"|work=Boston Daily Globe|date= October 13, 1882|page=2}}

Grover established his own touring company, the Grover German Opera Company, which presented Faust and Tannhäuser in New York and Philadelphia.

He also established Grover's Theatre in Washington, D.C., where President Abraham Lincoln frequently attended performances with his wife and Secretary of State William H. Seward. Grover was reported to have "saved Lincoln's life" outside the theatre; on one occasion after a performance, the president's carriage was surrounded by an angry mob and his driver was unable to move, and Grover jumped up, took the reins, and drove the president and his party to safety. He was told afterwards that the president felt he owed his life to Grover's quick thinking.

The president's son, Tad Lincoln, was attending a performance of Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp at Grover's Theater on April 14, 1865, when his father was assassinated a few blocks away at Ford's Theatre.{{Cite book |last=Hutchinson |first=Robert J. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=39DVDwAAQBAJ |title=What Really Happened: The Lincoln Assassination |date=2020-04-07 |publisher=Simon and Schuster |isbn=978-1-62157-886-4 |language=en}}

In 1909, he wrote a lengthy piece for The Century Magazine titled "Lincoln's interest in the theater."{{cite book |last1=Grover |first1=Leonard |title=Lincoln's interest in the theater |date=1909 |publisher=The Century Company |url=https://archive.org/details/lincolnsinterest00grov |access-date=10 March 2024}}

As a sports promoter, he organized the 1860 fight between English boxing champion Jem Mace and American John C. Heenan at 44 Union Square, as well as wrestling matches between Scotsman Donald Dinnie and New Yorker William Muldoon.

Grover was born in 1833 in Springwater, New York. He died in Brooklyn, aged 92.