Born in Charleston, South Carolina, about 1836, Jane McElhenney was of a prosperous and well connected family. From about eleven she grew up under the care of her maternal grandfather, who took her on visits to Northern resorts, where she became interested in the world of actors and writers. About 1854 she struck out on her own. In New York City she began contributing love poems and sketches to periodicals╤the first appeared in the Atlas in January 1855╤using the pseudonyms ╥Clare╙ and later ╥Ada Clare,╙ and at the same time she sought a career on the stage. An amateur appearance in The Hunchback in August 1855 was not encouraging, but in performances in such works as Love and Revenge, The Wife, Hamlet, The Marble Heart, Jane Eyre, and Dion Boucicault╒s The Phantom over the next year she gradually developed her theatrical skills. A broken affair with the pianist and composer Louis M. Gottschalk led to her sailing to Paris, where she bore a son (never acknowledged by Gottschalk) in 1857. From Paris she sent comments on the theater to the Atlas.
By March 1859 Clare was back on the New York stage in Antony and Cleopatra. From 1859 to 1864 she contributed a column of sprightly commentary on subjects from theater to politics to the Saturday Press and later to the Leader. During that period she became a member of the celebrated journalistic and literary group, including Walt Whitman, Bayard Taylor, Fitz-James O╒Brien, William Winter, George Arnold, Adah Menken, and others, that collected at Pfaff╒s Cellar on Broadway. Her charm and wit quickly earned her the nickname ╥Queen of Bohemia╙ among the group. Early in 1864 she sailed to San Francisco, where she wrote for the Golden Era and later for the San Francisco Bulletin. To the latter she sent a notable series of letters from a visit to Hawaii. After an unsuccessful appearance in a production of Camille in December 1864 she returned to New York. In 1866 she published a novel, Only a Woman╒s Heart. Later she toured the South under the name ╥Agnes Stanfield╙ in The Merry Wives of Windsor and, after her marriage to fellow actor J. Franklin Noyes in September 1868, in various other plays. She had been appearing in East Lynne in Rochester, New York, when she died in New York City on March 4, 1874.
