Caroline Miskel-Hoyt

Caroline Miskel-Hoyt (1873–1898) was an American stage actress who became the second wife of playwright Charles Hale Hoyt.

Caroline Scales (professionally known as Caroline Miskell) was born in the shadow of Cincinnati along the Kentucky side of the Ohio River at Covington on September 15, 1873. Her parents, Christopher Columbus and Mary Menzies Scales, moved to Toronto, in 1875, where at some point she became a student of the Canadian elocutionist, Jessie Alexander. Over the years, Caroline's father was a merchant, Kentucky state legislator, magazine editor, and inventor.

Caroline Miskel-Hoyt

Library of Congress (ca. 1897)

Caroline moved to New York City at the age of eighteen and soon made her professional stage début touring with Augustin Daly's famed repertory company that by season's end saw her playing Phoebe, the shepherdess in Shakespeare's As You Like It. She later portrayed Marguerite in Charles Osborne's The Face in the Moonlight opposite Robert B. Mantell, and the following season portrayed Ruth Hardman in Charles H. Hoyt's satiric comedy A Temperance Town, that opened on September 17, 1893, at Hoyt's Madison Square Theatre and ran for 125 performances. Though by then Caroline was known as a promising young actress with a flair for comedy, she chose to retire from the stage not long after marrying on March 4, 1894. She returned to the theater in 1897 to star in Hoyt's new play A Contented Woman, the Broadway premier of which was anticipated for the next season after a brief shakedown tour of several northeastern cities.

While in Hartford, Connecticut early the following year, at a ceremony following the last curtain call of the opening night's performance of A Contented Woman, Caroline received an award from the publishers of The Dramatic News. She had been voted by its readers "most popular actress" in a contest the magazine had conducted over the previous few weeks. As her reward, she received a fully nickel-coated Columbia bicycle from the American Bicycle Company, along with an ornate tool storage pouch, a solid silver cyclometer from The Standard Watch Company, and a silver search lamp from the Bridgeport Brass Company.

On October 1, 1898, Caroline Miskel-Hoyt, who had not been well, became gravely ill following the birth of her baby son and died the next day. Her baby perished also, and mother and son were later interred together at the Hoyt family plot in Charlestown, New Hampshire.