The Strychnine Banjo -Jake Wallace, Charley Rhoades and “The Days of ’49”
The story of the most famous song to come out of the gold rush and far West mining during the 19th century. Zany. Colorful. And central to the culture of the West.
© 2017 CW BAYER
™ The term Bohemian has come to be very commonly accepted in our day as the description of a certain kind of literary gypsy, no matter in what language he speaks, or what city he inhabits .... A Bohemian is simply an artist or "littérateur" who, consciously or unconsciously, secedes from conventionality in life and in art. (Westminster Review, 1862 ) Harper, Douglas (November 2001). "Bohemian etymology". Online Etymology Dictionary.
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Cover photo: Jake Wallace, used by permission of The Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin
The author: CW Bayer regularly holds forth on C. Street in Virginia City and the better saloons of northern Nevada. His songs can be heard at Nevadamusic.com He is available for wakes, bankruptcies, foreclosures and other situations. Also, for a slide show on this book.
nevadamusic ™
See www.nevadamusic.com See CW’s CD—THE GOLD RUSH SONG SAMPLER, containing many of the songs described in this book and THE GOLD RUSH SONG PRIMER, a downloadable free short book to accompany the CD.
See www.nevadamusic.com for RHYMES FROM THE SILVER STATE, containing the entire text of De Groot’s poem, mentioned below, and for DREAMING UP NEVADA TERRITORY—the story of William Ormsby.
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! INTRODUCTION ...... 5
PHOTO OF A FORGOTTEN LEGEND ...... 8
SEEING THE ELEPHANT ...... 9
CALIFORNIA MINSTRELS ...... 13
A CALIFORNIA SONG OF COMPLAINT ...... 17
LOTTA ...... 22
JOE BOWERS ...... 26
JAKE WALLACE ...... 32
CHARLEY RHOADES ...... 40
THE REBELLIOUS ROOTS OF BANJO MINSTRELSY ...... 45
TOM BRIGGS & THE SECRET OF THE OLD CREMONA ...... 48
PLAYING THE AUDIENCE ...... 53
THE PROMENADE TO THE BAR ...... 56
CLEMENS AND STRYCHNINE WHISKEY ...... 60
1865–BALDY GREEN ...... 65
1866–THE MUSIC HALL FIRE ...... 73
ALF DOTEN ...... 77
1867–KITTY FROM CORK O’NEIL ...... 81
1868–THE GRASSHOPPER FEAST ...... 84
THE DAYS OF ’49—ROOTS ...... 91
THE BUMMER ...... 97
WALLACE CAMPAIGNS THE SONG ...... 100
RHOADES’ LAST PERFORMANCES ...... 104
THE PACIFIC COAST PIONEER ASSOCIATION ...... 106
A DYING MAN AND HIS RACIST VERSE ...... 112
TOO MUCH BENZINE ...... 115
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! WALLACE GOES ON AND ON ...... 116
THE ANTHEM ...... 121
1894–THE 49ER MINING CAMP ...... 123
THE LAST OF MINING CULTURE ...... 131
THE FOLK MUSIC FOG...... 134
FAME AT LAST ...... 136
THE SONG’S MELODY ...... 140
THE ROGUES’ REVEAL ...... 143
A NEW WESTERN HERO ...... 146
BOOKS BY CW BAYER ...... 148
ENDNOTES ...... 149
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! INTRODUCTION
On the one hand, this book is a narrow story of two men and one song. On the other hand, this book documents how one lyric became the anthem of the ‘49ers—the song adopted by the gold rush pioneers after 1869 as they aged, singing it through the remainder of the 19th century. Though merely a song, “The Days of ’49” came to define how the gold rush pioneers saw their grand adventure, heading to California to pick up gold off the ground. Also, the song defines the ultimate mythology of the “western” hero as embraced by those pioneers—a mythology or hero the succeeded early efforts at a gold rush hero, also in song, during the mid-1850s. The read may only only be familiar with the later “western” hero his his mythology —the “cowboy” who only fully came to ascendance in the far West during the 1930s. See my book, “Reno’s Jazz Hysteria”, for discussion of that. Finally, this story describes the most significant chapter in the far West’s mid 19th century contribution to America’s national music. For a long time, it has been assumed that the central part of that contribution lay in the songs published by John Stone during the 1850s. However, in the book I challenge that assumption. The evidence is that the writing of “Joe Bowers” about 1859 thrust mining song onto the minstrel stage and, subsequently, in “The Days of ’49”, Charley Rhoades created the song that would fill theaters and saloons in small mining camps across the far West for decades. Like the wind rolling across the Sierra Nevada and up into the Sierra Wave above the eastern slope, or like the stage coach seemingly lost on an endless dirt track, this is a ride, an adventure of long lost musicians entertaining prospectors also long gone This is the story of a song that arose in the wake of seeing the elephant and that created the epitaph for seeing the elephant. This is a wild, zany tale of banjos, show business and endurance.
CW Bayer,
Carson City, Nevada
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! INTRODUCTION ...... 5
PHOTO OF A FORGOTTEN LEGEND ...... 8
SEEING THE ELEPHANT ...... 9
CALIFORNIA MINSTRELS ...... 13
A CALIFORNIA SONG OF COMPLAINT ...... 17
LOTTA ...... 22
JOE BOWERS ...... 26
JAKE WALLACE ...... 32
CHARLEY RHOADES ...... 40
THE REBELLIOUS ROOTS OF BANJO MINSTRELSY ...... 45
TOM BRIGGS & THE SECRET OF THE OLD CREMONA ...... 48
PLAYING THE AUDIENCE ...... 53
THE PROMENADE TO THE BAR ...... 56
CLEMENS AND STRYCHNINE WHISKEY ...... 60
1865–BALDY GREEN ...... 65
1866–THE MUSIC HALL FIRE ...... 73
ALF DOTEN ...... 77
1867–KITTY FROM CORK O’NEIL ...... 81
1868–THE GRASSHOPPER FEAST ...... 84
THE DAYS OF ’49—ROOTS ...... 91
THE BUMMER ...... 97
WALLACE CAMPAIGNS THE SONG ...... 100
RHOADES’ LAST PERFORMANCES ...... 104
THE PACIFIC COAST PIONEER ASSOCIATION ...... 106
A DYING MAN AND HIS RACIST VERSE ...... 112
TOO MUCH BENZINE ...... 115
WALLACE GOES ON AND ON ...... 116
THE ANTHEM ...... 121
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! 1894–THE 49ER MINING CAMP ...... 123
THE LAST OF MINING CULTURE ...... 131
THE FOLK MUSIC FOG...... 134
FAME AT LAST ...... 136
THE SONG’S MELODY ...... 140
THE ROGUES’ REVEAL ...... 143
A NEW WESTERN HERO ...... 146
BOOKS BY CW BAYER ...... 148
ENDNOTES ...... 149
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! PHOTO OF A FORGOTTEN LEGEND With only a few more years left in which to reflect on his fun and the stories few stop to hear, Jake Wallace gazes into the distance, cradling the banjo he carried for decades across California and Nevada, into the mining camps, into the melodeon halls, teaching little Lotta, having fun. He inspired a play and an opera. He changed and for decades campaigned a song written by a long-gone and tragic friend. A self-avowed “bohemian”, among miners Jake became famous up and down the west coast. And then he was forgotten, except in opera. This is Jake Wallace’s story. And the story of another banjoist, Charley Rhoades. They larked from saloon to melodeon hall in the glory days of strychnine whiskey and minstrel mirth. They gambled. They drank. One killed a woman. The dangerous one died young. The like-able one went on, almost forever, laughing and spinning yarns. Separately, they created and promoted the song that became the anthem of the boys who began mass western migration, a song whose importance would, at the dawn of the 20th century, be largely forgotten. Around 1913, Jake Wallace posed with his five-string minstrel banjo and a fellow early minstrel performer, Hank Mudge. Today, Mudge has disappeared from the photo. In that photo, Wallace wears a heavy overcoat and his hat is pulled down tightly over his head—the traveling gear of a man who rode in a wagon up and down California and sometimes over the mountains to that mecca of mining culture, Virginia City. Wallace’s eyes look out across time. About the time of this picture, he emerged from his western minstrel persona to reflect on himself as a wonder—a renowned survivor of a raucous mid-19th century western bohemian theater scene. He remarked, “I’ve been too fond of fun.” Today we remember Lotta and Twain. Yet, Wallace and Rhoades were the performing heroes at whose feet those others sat, early on. Forgotten in this cerebral age of angst and complexity and contrived meaning, the ghost of the strychnine banjo sings of gold, silver, whiskey and theatrical energies. This book looks at two men and at the anthem of the gold rush that they created—“The Days of ’49". It begins with a look at gold rush song in general and at the seminal metaphor for emigration used by young men during the early years--seeing the elephant.
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! SEEING THE ELEPHANT By land or sea, during the early gold rush, young men coming to California exchanged the phrase, “see the elephant”. The phrase is now axiomatic among writers about the gold rush, though its ironic origins have often been seen as wholly general. The phrase may have been used a little in America prior to 1849, however its popularization— widespread use after spring of 1849—came due to one song. That connection illustrates that, from the onset, gold rush song played a significant role in defining the primary messages defining the experience of the 49ers. In this, the song, “The Days of ’49” became both the climactic point and the denouement to the story of “seeing the elephant”. Today, a folk-life and diversity oriented teaching of history—the energies of the people—informs many officially funded arts and humanities programs and publications. This book offers a different view—that there were specific individuals and specific cultural and political agendas informing a great quantity of the 49ers who went West, that they sought "fun" and adventure for its own sake and that, in the end, civilization imposed on us a bucolic ranch culture view of the West as it relegated mining lore and relegated the zeitgeist of the gold rush to the shadows. The romanticism of the minstrel show initially differed from the romanticism of the gold rush—of “seeing the elephant”—yet both bore out a European and then American yearning for nature. During the 1860s, Charley Rhoades would bring those two visions together in his song, “The Days of ’49.” The specific spread of popularity for the phrase, ”seeing the elephant”, among young men going West between mid 1849 and 1851 stemmed from a song written for a show staged by P.T. Barnum during late 1848 and early 1849. In New York City, Pete Morris performed “California As It Is”, playing the role of Dandy Jim Cox, at Barnum’s American Museum and then before thousands at the Hippodrome.1 Mo (Morris’ 1857 book, “Pete Morris' American Comic Melodist”, describes it as sung to “millions” at Barnum’s American Museum.) Morris had appeared in other black-face performances in the Lecture Hall at the Museum.2 Barnum was seeking to ally himself with the local temperance movement as it counseled young men against going to California. He titled his show “Gold Mania”, echoing the movements criticisms of the impending emigration as a mad and irresponsible endeavor.
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! The effect of this gold mania, upon a multitude of minds, must be to create a distaste for patient, laborious industry, and for that prudent carefulness and economy which are in themselves better than wealth. A great many persons will become dissatisfied with their present situations and prospects in life, and will repine because they cannot share in the general scramble….The moral habits which will probably spring up amidst the excitement and cupidity of the gold crusade, will be likely to be bad, and we shall be agreeably disappointed if we do not soon hear of painful developments among the gold hunters….
…many who now keen to go to California, will see the day when they will wish they had remained at home, and many who now think the nation has obtained a priceless treasure, will yet conclude that it would have been quite as well had the golden region never been discovered.3
Only honest work in father’s store would be acceptable. Resistance to the immorality of the gold rush could be found not only in New York but across the nation, as in this recollection from Missouri:
The gold mania first broke out in the fall of 1848, when stories began to be spread abroad of the wonderful richness of the placer mines in California. The excitement grew daily, feeding on the marvelous reports that came from the Pacific slope, and nothing was talked of but the achievements of gold diggers. The papers were replete with the most extravagant stories, and yet the excitement was so great that the gravest and most incredulous men were smitten with the contagion, and hurriedly left their homes and all that was dear to them on earth, to try the dangers, difficulties and uncertainties of hunting gold. Day after day, and month after month, were the papers filled with glowing accounts of California. Instead of dying out, the fever mounted higher and higher. It was too late in the fall to cross the plains, but thousands of people in Missouri began their preparations for starting in the following spring, and among the number were many from Howard county. The one great subject of discussion about the firesides that winter (1848), was the gold of California. It is said at one time the majority of the able-bodied men of the county were unsettled in mind, and were contemplating going to California. Even the most thoughtful and sober- minded, found it difficult to resist the infection. Wonderful sights were seen when this emigration passed through- sights that may never be seen again in Howard county. Some of the emigrant wagons were drawn by cows; other gold hunters went on foot and hauled their worldly goods in hand-carts. The gold hunters generally left the moralities of life behind them, and were infested with a spirit of disorder and demoralization. The settlers breathed easier when they passed. Early in the spring of 1849, the rush began. It must have been a scene to beggar all description. There was one continuous line of wagons from east to west as far as the eye could reach, moving steadily westward, and, like a cyclone, drawing in its course on the right and left, many of those along its pathway. The gold hunters of Howard crowded eagerly into the gaps in the wagon- trains, bidding farewell to their nearest and dearest friends, many of them never to be seen again on earth. Sadder farewells were never spoken. Many of the emigrants left their quiet and peaceful homes, only to find in the "Far West" utter disappointment and death. At the time of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the population of California did not exceed thirty thousand. while at the time of which we write there were more than three hundred and fifty thousand people, who had found their way thither, fully one hundred thousand of these being gold hunters from the states. The evil effects of this gold mania upon the moral status of the United States are still seen and felt, and in all classes of society. It has popularized the worship of Mammon to an alarming extent, and to this worship, in a great measure, is attributed the moral declension of to-day. 4
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! Morality and practicality dictated staying at home. Those who went threw practicality and morality aside. And tens of the thousands did so. For the song’s lyric, the phrase “to see the elephant” was taken by Thaddeus Meighan from Barnum’s description of a mastodon bone that he had installed in his museum during the 1840s, charging visitors to see it and calling it and “elephant.” It joined his thousands of collected artifacts. In a book he wrote, Meighan poked fun at Barnum and quoted him as boasting to customers that, in the mastodon bone, they would see the biggest elephant ever:
I will show your quid nuncs the biggest Elephant (stone mastodon of Illinois, we suppose) they ever saw.5
Meighan’s song equated the journey to California to the humbug of “seeing the elephant” in Barnum’s museum. If you go, why you will see, the elephant, yes sirree,
And some little grains of gold that are no bigger than a flea;
As a summary of risk and fun, with implied rebellion, the phrase seems to have spread rapidly. By ship and land, during 1849 and 1850, young men going to California talked of “seeing the elephant.” Their drawings depicted encounters with the elephant along the trail and in the diggings. Young men gloried in seeing the elephant—in the hardship and adventure despite the warning. This attitude became the central emotion and experience of the 49er—one that would carry into the form that most continued the details of this sentiment: gold rush song. In this sense, the gold rush proved the seminal event in an American culture that, at least in the North and now the West, was shifting from one based on an aristocracy of land owners to one based on industry and the industriousness of the ordinary man. In art, the emotions of ordinary people were coming to the fore in a new form of theater—the melodrama. “Seeing the elephant” and then the songs of the gold rush came out in the shadow of comic theater where the elite and the interplay between wealth and romance were often reduced to the ridiculous. In both melodrama and the comic theater, the range of new range of ordinary or common identities challenged a polite society for whom drama had long been confined to the gods and the upper crust.
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! By the 1890s, in the wake of the gold rush, the frontier and the rugged individual would become firmly fixed as definitive of the American character. Yet, before this could happen, tens of thousands of young innocent boy from the East would face the reality of the sandy bar—of sand heavy with melted snow under the hot sun in a distant and lonely forest. Their youthful exuberance and adolescence rebelliousness would face a hard reality—turning “seeing the elephant” and most gold rush song into a rueful reflection on their expectations and the ensuring adventure. With six others, John Nichols took passage on the bark Eliza and departed Salem, Massachusetts on Dec. 23, 1848, arriving on San Francisco on June 1, 1849, the first ship to depart Salem for California. As the ship set sail, hundreds waved good-bye from the wharf and heard John and two other passengers sing a parody of Stephen Foster’s recent minstrel hit, “Oh Susanna”.6
I come from Salem City with my washbowl on my knee, I'm going to California, the gold dust for to see. It rained all day the day I left, the weather it was dry, The sun so hot I froze to death Oh brothers, don't you cry.
Oh, California, that's the land for me I'm bound for San Francisco with my washbowl on my knee.
I jumped aboard the Liza ship and traveled on the sea, And every time I thought of home I wished it wasn't me; The vessel reared like any horse, that had of oats and wealth I found it wouldn't throw me so I thought I'd throw myself.
I thought of all all pleasant times we've had together here, I thought I ought to cry a bit but couldn't find a tear; The pilot's bread was in my mouth, the gold dust in my eye, And though I'm going far away dear brothers don't you cry.
I soon shall be in Frisco, and there I'll look around, And when I see the gold lumps I'll pick them off the ground- I'll scrape the mountains clean, my boys, I'll drain the rivers dry A pocket full of rocks bring home so brothers, don't you cry.
The song caught on for a while in California. Despite its boundless optimism, the experience of the crew proved different. In California, the crew heard the phrase “to see the elephant” and they met the elephant. Stationary printed about 1850 in San Francisco shows the Eliza and the subsequent realities of mining that the men experienced. “A few” returned home. Bottom right, a miner meets his fate in an early grave. The warnings about California were true. But they didn’t matter. The boys went anyway. The lure of the frontier, of heroic conquest and of the rugged individual assailing the wilderness were built into the American psyche.
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! CALIFORNIA MINSTRELS Minstrel troupes arrived by ship in San Francisco from New York during 1849. This evening a band of music belonging to the Mary Anna had a concert on shore in a small boarding house; I was invited and went. The band consisted of four or five violins, a lyre, a banjo, a base viol and five or six other pieces which were not present. It is a first rate cotillion band; part of it constitutes a band of dark minstrels. There were considerable many of the young Chilian senoritas present, some of whom waltzed beautifully. We got them to dance cotillions with us, and they made out very well considering that they never knew what a cotillion was before and could speak but little English. When we got tired of dancing the darkey band played and sung several popular ethiopian songs, among which were “Oh! Susanna,” “Dearest May,” “O Carry me back to old Virginny,” “Johnny Booker,” and several other familiar songs. One in particular is heard everywhere and is the most popular song of any yet; it is Oh! Susanna. The greater part of the girls here can sing it. And then the California song which is adapted to it, “Oh! California, that’s the land for me,” just suits our case, and we can hardly pass a house but we heard some one singing it.7 With the minstrel show, at last America had a national music, a form different from the English, Scottish, Irish or Spanish—albeit in a style generally called “Ethiopian”. “Ethiopian” minstrel troupes spread down the wharf along the Sacramento river in the state’s capital. Some of the establishments have small companies of Ethiopian melodists, who nightly call upon “Susanna!” and entreat to be carried back to Old Virginny. These songs are universally popular, and the crowd of listeners is often so great as to embarrass the player at the monte tables and injure the business of the gamblers. I confess to a strong liking for the Ethiopian airs, and used to spend half an hour every night listening to them and watching the curious expressions of satisfactions and delight in the faces of the overland emigrants, who always attended in a body. The spirit of the music was always encouraging; even its most doleful passages had a grotesque touch of cheerfulness—a mingling of sincere pathos and whimsical consolation, which somehow took hold of all moods in which it might be heard, raising them to the same notch of careless good-humor. The Ethiopian melodies well deserve to be called, as they are in fact, the national airs of America. Their quaint, mock-sentimental cadences, so well suited to the broad absurdity of the words—their reckless gaiety and irreverent familiarity of serious subjects—and their spirit of antagonism and perseverance—are true expression of the more popular sides of the national character. They follow the American race in all its emigrations, colonizations and conquests, as certainly at the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving Day. The penniless and half despairing emigrant is stimulated to try again by the sound of ‘It’ll never do to give it up so!’ and feels a pang of home-sickness at the burthen of the ‘Old Virginny Shore.’8
Throughout the world there is an abundance of musicians of various merit, but in the number—not quality— of musicians, I think California can take the lead. From San Francisco to Nevada you cannot find half a dozen men together but some one or more of their number can play an instrument of some kind, if nothing but a pair of ‘bones.’...
All who were here in ‘49 and ‘50 can well recollect the bands of music that used to play in the numerous gambling and drinking saloons, both day and night.... On all public occasions, a bull fight or a horse race, music was indispensable, and even the funeral processions were preceded by a band.... From Italy’s sunny clime, came the dark eyed street organist, with ever grinning and dancing images and active regimental monkey. The daughters of Germany came, with extensive straw hats and blue ribbons, to charm the street audiences with tambourines and accordion, and pleasant little ballad ditties sung with their sweet German accent.... There also
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! came the man who perambulated the street with big bass drum, bells, Pan pipes, triangle, &c, and who astounded the gaping crowd by performing on all these instruments of noise at one and the same time.... The hurdy-gurdy man, with the bird call in his mouth also pervaded the streets with his dulcet strains of grinding harmony. Throw a “bit” down to him, and how he trills with ecstasy as benevolence throws him half a dollar.... One purple nosed individual with ambitious eyes and velveteen pants, lugs round a cumbrous article of the reed organ variety, and ‘Phoenix’ says it only plays one tune—’The Low back car’—but in this he is mistaken, for every moonlight evening he causes it to perform ‘Oft in the stilly night.’ He commences by turning the crank slowly and gently, ‘con expressione,’ but if any money at all is thrown to him he becomes excited.... An improved feature in street music, however, is a company of enterprising young Germans—some half dozen of them—with white bands round their caps and they are really good performers. Each one of them carries a light music stand with three movable legs, and all play brass instruments. In front of the principle hotels and public places they halt.... There are excellent military bands, theatre bands, bands &c, and the majority of the good musicians are German....9
It Will Never Do to Give it Up So. Dan Emmett Tune: From Briggs’s 1855 Banjo Instructor
I'm old Mister Brown from the South, I left Lynchburg in the time of the drouth; The times they got so bad in the place, That we poor folks dared not show our face.
Chorus: It will never do to give it up so, It will never do to give it up so; It will never do to give it up so, Mr. Brown, It will never do to give it up so.
The old Jim River I floated down, I ran my boat upon the ground; The drift log come with a rushing din, And stove both ends of my old boat in.
The old log rake me aft and fore, It left my cookhouse on the shore; I thought it wouldn't do to give it up so, So I scull myself ashore with the old banjo.
I gets on shore and feels very glad, I looks at the banjo and feels very mad; I walks up the bank that's slick as glass, Up, went my heels and I light upon the grass.
By golly, but it surely made me laugh, With my boat I made a raft; I had a pine tree for a sail, And steered her down with my coattail.
That same night as the sun did set, I arrived in town with my clothes all wet; Then I built up a great big fire, If that's not true then I am a liar.
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! Beginning around 1853, minstrel performers held forth in San Francisco theaters that focused singularly on that form. These catered to the miner’s working class culture. Though today, San Francisco may seem isolated from the Sierra Nevada, after 1849 and for decades miners frequented the city. The popularity of dedicated minstrel show theaters seems to have continued in San Francisco until about 1870. About then, the early minstrel show form declined in the city—relegated to outlying areas, a shift to rural locations that occurred across the nation. Two literary influences shaped gold rush song lyric, first in San Francisco and then the Sierra Nevada—the minstrel show and English saloon theater. Though the song, “The Days of ’49” would originate on the minstrel stage, its lyric as well as the lyric of most gold rush songs reflected an English saloon theater influence more than the influence of minstrel “Ethiopian” song. After 1900, that English saloon theater lyric influence in the West would help to define “cowboy” song. This being said, the influence of American minstrel theater on gold rush song and culture proved central to shaping the attitude of youthful rebellion in which young gold rush immigrants to California reveled. San Francisco was for many years the home town of negro minstrelsy, the profession that has long since been on the wane and is now practically in the “lost chord,” gone but not forgotten class. The ghost of the old-time burnt cork artist now and then flits through a vaudeville programme even as the Black Friar haunted the house of Amundeville and would not be driven away. When the argonauts came here in the golden days the star of negro minstrelsy was just rising over the horizon of popular entertainment. It had not yet reached the era of glory when Stephen Foster, Bobby Newcomb and others poured forth those weird and winning melodies which set the world to singing and jigging. But all the elements which were later developed along the line of melody and motion were abroad and became distinctive features in the amusement market dating from the time when that rollicking band called the Philadelphia minstrels gave a performance in Bella Union Hall, October 22, 1849. The minstrelsy of that time was of the slap-dash, hoe-it-down and tear-it-up sort, and it usually besprinkled the olio of vaudeville as pepper does a pan roast. It was supposed to depict life of the slave section of a plantation in the Sunny South or on the Mississippi levees. There was much rolling and tumbling about, plunkety plunketing of banjoes and shuffling of feet in hoedowns and whooping of voices in plantation glees and choruses, with perhaps a touch of sentiment centering around old Black Joe with his wig of white wool, his feeble footsteps supported by a cane and his cracked voice dilating in trembling accents upon the ruinous condition of some little old log cabin in a lane which he shared with a dog as decrepit as himself. It was a species of entertainment that appealed to the ever-growing, unsettled population of the town which in the excitement of carving out new careers, sought to dispel the clouds of haunting longings—for home faces and abandoned ideals by basking in the sunshine of merry moments which radiated from negro minstrelsy. And it grew and flourished. Soon it broadened into a field of its own, and while the many variety halls included it with other acts, it took a higher plane and occupied the stage on a self-supporting basis of its own with no extraneous accompaniment. 10
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! During 1853, at 57 J. St. in Sacramento, T. H. Borden’s Bookstore listed banjos for sale.11 Whether these were on-hand or by mail-order isn’t clear. The Oakland Museum Of California houses the Marion Clark banjo, purchased in San Francisco during 1854 and taken into the diggings.12 By 1854, in the diggings, the banjo had become part of an eclectic musical scene-- wild times by young miners on a spree. The generous juice of the grape flowed freely, warming up our hearts and inducing us to mirth and jollity, and causing merry feet to dance to the dulcet strains of the flute and violin— The banjo and clarionet, accordion &c were also put in requisition—Rathbone came down and we had some fine singing—innumerable guns were fired—a devil of a racket generally was kicked up—Then a ‘fillibustering expedition’ was got up under the command of ‘Corporal Young’ and we turned out with guns in battle array, and to the music of the drum and fife we marched up and stormed a garrison of ‘old soldiers’ who were encamped up behind the big bush back of the house—We gave them three rounds, when they surrendered without firing a shot or saying a word—We had massacred the whole crowd—we would have taken their scalps but as they were stinking fellows, we thought best to leave them alone in their glory—We then beat retreat, which was conducted in gallant style without the loss of a single man—and no one wounded except the corporal, who peeled his shins tumbling over the bean-kettle as he entered the house—Our new floor was a splendid one for dancing and we made it perfectly thunder beneath the tripping of the heavy ‘fantastic toe’—The glorious cognac flowed freely and all fully entered in the spirit of the scene—The ‘Highland fling’ was performed to a miracle, and the ‘double-cowtird-smasher’ was introduced with ‘tird-run variations’.... 13 This amateur cavorting abounded in what became a uniquely California culture. Beginning in 1849, in contrast to Puritan New England, in California theater and dance defined society and home for many miners. In the theater and at dances, one could meet or see women. During 1854, Franklin Buck wrote home of California theater—his words deftly omitting any reference to the wild nature of western entertainment. Now some people at home think the theatre a very wicked institution but here it seems different. We have no good place to spend our evenings and the theatre is certainly the most moral and cheapest place to spend an evening here, at present. On the stage we see, to some extent, the world we used to live in, acted out. We have singing and dancing, jealous wives and tender lovers, aristocratic ladies and servant girls--all pass before our eyes and for the time we yield ourselves up to the delusion and live over again the scenes of the past, and then the next day we have lots to talk about. We criticize the performance and everybody is whistling a new song and getting a bouquet for the chorus and wild flowers to throw at Miss Williamson, the pretty Chanteuse. If they can only get one smile they are happy for a week. It is a perfect oasis in the desert, I assure you, this theatre.14
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! A CALIFORNIA SONG OF COMPLAINT During 1850 and ‘51, at his Dramatic Museum in San Francisco, Dr. David “Yankee” Robinson wrote parodies, most of these making fun of local government.15 A disciple of P. T. Barnum, Robinson’s more immediate influences became English— came with the arrival in San Francisco of many London actors.16 While high-art English actors appeared at some San Francisco theaters, those coming to Robinson reflected London saloon or tavern theater. By the 1840s, this form of entertainment was transitioning from amateur performance to a performance by semi-professionals and the London saloon theater was becoming the “music hall”—somewhat more refined in its clientele.17 Robinson’s audience seems to have been squarely working class. His songs ridiculing local government echoed such fair in London saloon theater. The English actors appearing in San Francisco represented a unique influence. The The 1849 Astor Place theater riots in New York had made the English performers there less than welcome. In 1851, an Englishman, Frank Marryat, spent a month performing with David Robinson’s company at the original Dramatic Museum. Marryat did not consider the American performers very talented. In 1854, he wrote an account. There were clubs, reading rooms, and a small theatre, called the Dramatic Museum. This last was sadly in want of actors, and as my time hung very heavily on my hands (I was awaiting the arrival of a vessel from England) I gave way to a vicious propensity that had long been my habit, and, joined the company as a volunteer. For about a month, under an assumed name, I nightly “Used Up” and “Jeremy Diddlered” my California audiences, who never having fortunately seen Charles Matthews, did not, therefore, stone me to death for my presumptuous attempts to personate that unrivaled actor’s characters.18 During 1850, to his Dramatic Museum, Robinson seems to have imported and adapted Barnum’s play “Gold Mania” presenting it as “Seeing the Elephant” for his opening in June of that year. His 1853 “Hits At San Francisco” songster included “Life In California”—or “The Used Up Miner”—a parody of the 1845 English song, “Used Up Man”. It is said to have been composed as the concluding song to Robinson’s play, “Seeing the Elephant” during 1850.19 In the English play that presented “Used Up Man”, Sir Coldstream assumes the garb of a plough-boy. This portrayal of a fallen and foolish dandy or of a poor man putting on dandy airs, was a defining element of both American minstrel song and London saloon theater song. The image of the articulate elite who has fallen on hard times occurs repeatedly in gold rush song as it does in early minstrel shows in general. During 1853, Alonso Delano drew the “Used Up Man” as a California miner—illustrating the image and context for the song that lay within every miner who heard the song. This illustration of the Used Up Man by Delano foreshadows the later, 1860s image of The Bummer and is central to understanding how the song, “The Days of ’49”, bore out the theatrical image of the 49er as engaged in risk, fun and joyous failure.
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! “Life in California” spread into the Sierra Nevada, capturing and laughing at the failure and frustration of so many 49ers. It’s very dry English humor became a model for gold rush literature and song. With it, Robinson helped set the stage for gold rush song describing the miserable reality of the gold rush to come out of the Sierra itself. The earliest example appears to be Pierpont’s 1852 song, “The Returned Californian”, another parody of Jeannette and Jennot.
I’m going far away, from my creditors just now, I’ve not the tin to pay ‘em, and they’re kicking up a row. There’s the Sheriff running after me with his pocket full of writs, And my tailor’s vowing vengeance—he swears he’ll give me fits. There’s no room for speculation, and the mines ain’t worth a d—n, And I ain’t one of the lucky coves that works fer Uncle Sam. And whichever way I turn, I’m sure to meet a dunn, So I think the best thing I can do, is just to cut and run, So I think the best thing I can do, is just to cut and run. Etc..
With both minstrel tunes and London saloon theater songs as models, in the Sierra Nevada around 1854, John Stone, a guitarist and lawyer, wrote a small book full of song parodies and began to sing them with his Sierra Rangers as they toured the mountain diggings. This was probably a quartet, singing group with Stone’s guitar presumable providing simple but quiet accompaniment. Ultimately, Stone performed under the name “Joe Bowers”, a song he did not write. His own songs seemed to have been eclipsed by the popularity of “Joe Bowers,” a song that more tapped into class and Irish mining tensions more than anything Stone had written. He is said to have been despondent and drinking before cutting his own throat Jan. 23, 1864.20 Based in Sonora, Stone published two songsters of mining lyrics—“Put’s Original California Songster” during 1855 and “Put’s Golden Songster” during 1858. His songs played a pivotal role in the emergence of the first western hero, Pike. Stone’s first, 1855 songster—“Put’s Original California Songster”—contained lyrics that tended to laugh at Pike rather than celebrate him. Stone’s second “Golden Songster,” 1858, fully put forth Pike as a gold rush hero. Stone’s nom-de- plume—Old Put—reflected his effort as an attorney to “put” the case of Pike. In an 1873 story, Old Put and Pike appeared in a story’s illustration of a court battle where the attorney represents Pike, the farmer being cheated. Faced with an effort to take his land, Pike draws his gun on the Judge and says, And so you derned old skeesicks, you have gone back on me, have you? Cuss you, haven’t I winked at your iniquities; put up with your
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! impudence; excused your ignorance; borne with your ill-temper, and furnished you with the best whisky and grub in camp for months?21
In California, the literary image of Pike reflected the idea of the "type". He became the first “western” hero—today largely forgotten as the “cowboy” image has taken over but, then, an image of the gold rush hero known to every miner. Today, we tend to disdain the "stereotype"--categorizing individuals into a group. However, this was quite common during the 19th century, when a great many American were immigrants speaking with an accent or came from widely different parts of the nation. In the California view of American "types, Yankee came by sea. Pike was the overland emigrant. The emergence in literature of “Pike” as the first western hero began with a small event—an election. In northern California’s election campaign during the summer of 1852, a candidate for Congress from Sacramento named G.W. Tingley came to be called “old Pegs”—a name derived from his former occupation as shoemaker. “Old” was a pet name often applied in gold rush California. It stemmed from “old fellow”, an appellation or form of address applied by men to each other when they had experience some ordeal together. If one had served in the military, one was an “old fellow.” If one had “seen the elephant” one was “old.” Though perhaps applied to him first by his opponents, the label “old Pegs” was soon taken up by Tingley himself and used with considerable effect as a hurrah by his supporters when he delivered rousing speeches. Tingley was a Whig, traditionally the political party of the upper crust. However, in their Benecia convention that year, the Democratic Party had suffered a great split between the Tammany Hall style control of David Broderick in San Francisco and the Chivalry—Southern—wing popular in the Sierra Nevada. From the convention, farmers and miners went back to the mountains unhappy because the Tammany Hall style politicians had taken over the party. California Whigs saw an opportunity and now claimed themselves as friends of the little guy. They lay the blame for low farm prices in the east. They blamed a foolish westward emigration on the Democratic party’s free-trade policies and the effect on of those policies on farm prices in the East. The Whigs pointed out that they favored tariff protections in contrast to the Democratic party’s free trade stand. Tingley stated that the Whigs disliked foreign workers competing for American jobs—an issue that resonated with American miners who faced real competition from Mexican, Chilean and French miners. Apparently, that September, seeing Tingley’s success, the other Whig candidate for congress, Col. Phil Edwards, took up his own nom de guerre, “old Pike”. That November, “Old Pegs” and “Old Pike” won their election. Ironically, as Whigs, these men represented the party of the elite—not of the common man. Still, the name “Old Pike” had been launched in the minds of miners in the Sierra Nevada and solidified the Sierra Nevada with the Chivalry and the South—at least until 1856 when Buchanan ignored California miners’ appeals to fund the central overland road and funded a route from Santa Fe to Los Angeles instead.
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! The name, “Old Pike” or, more commonly, “Pike”, quickly moved into California descriptions of the mining culture. “Pike” soon became the universal gold rush name for the overland emigrant—the southern and overland “type”, in contrast to “Yankee” who came by ship. Initially, it appears, Yankee looked down on Pike a farm clod. However, as described by Doten, Pike knew woodcraft and gun-craft and, through the 1850s increasingly became less the butt of jokes and more the hero of western culture.
As a rifle shot, Pike can hardly be beat; and were an expedition organized to go out into the Indian country, to fight the savage foe in his own stronghold, I would infinitely prefer Pike with his rude manners, and trusty rifle, to a legion of city bucks, and those who think themselves the very flowers of society.
Pike is universally ridiculed, and looked down upon by many, who, were they ‘weighed in the balance,’ might be themselves found wanting; yet he possesses qualities which do honor to manhood; although cute Yankees see plenty to ridicule, and make fun of in Pike, yet rude in speech, and rough in manners as he may be, and profoundly ignorant in regard to book learning, and things that to us are familiar, in the mysteries of woodcraft, and things which fall under the observation of the pioneer, there be many points in which ‘Pike’ can teach ‘Yankee.’22
John Stone published his songsters under the name “Old Put.” He was an attorney—he “put” the case for Pike. And, as an attorney, he had represented Pike in court cases.23 Stone wrote in a graphic style —ensuring the quality and fame of his lyrics. That being said, by the standards of mid-Victorian America, many of his lyrics were beyond the pale of acceptability. The title song to Stone’s first songster, “The Arrival of The Greenhorn”, talked about diarrhea induced by drinking alkali water while traveling west across the desert. It's focus on the overland emigration echoes the general idea of Pike—a hero with the grit to survive the overland trail and see the elephant. Just as Pike defined the new, western hero, the emigrant trail defined seeing the elephant in the purest sense—at least as reflected upon in California's gold country. At its publication, with this kind of vulgar material and having already encountered objections as he and his semi-professional group sang in the diggings, Stone explained his audience and his approach in the songster’s introduction: PREFACE.
In dedicating this little Book of Songs to the Miners of California, those hardy builders of California‘s prosperity and greatness, the author deems it his duty to offer a prefatory remark in regard to the origin of the work and the motive of its publication.
Having been a miner himself for a number of years, he has had ample opportunities of observing, as he has equally shared, the many trials and hardships to which his brethren of the pick and shovel have been exposed, and to which in general they have so patiently, so cheerfully, and even heroically submitted. Hence, ever since the time of his crossing the Plains, in the memorable year of ’50, he has been in the habit of noting down a few of the leading items of his experience, and clothing them in the garb of humorous, though not irreverent verse.
Many of his songs may show some hard edges, and he is free to confess, that they may fail to please the more aristocratic portion of the community, who have but little sympathy with the details, hopes, trials or joys of the toiling miner’s life; but he is confident that the class he addresses will not find them exaggerated, nothing extenuated, nor aught set down ‘in malice.”
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! In conclusion, he would state, that after having sung them himself at various times and places, and latterly with the assistance of a few gentlemen, known by the name of Sierra Nevada Rangers, the songs have been published at the request of a number of friends; and if the author should thereby succeed in contributing to the amusement of those he is anxious to please, enlivening the long tedious hours of a miner's winter fireside, his pains will not be unrewarded.
San Francisco, Sept., 1855 A historical perspective on Stone’s songs should suggest that, while they survive in a tangible form —his songsters—and these undoubtably saw wide publication, they rarely if ever graduated to the professional stage. Though written in the shadow of the professional stage, in the style of comedic parody, Stone’s songs did not rise to any official prominence or notoriety. They seem to have circulated among miners but received almost no press. It is questionable how much they were actually sung. They motivated Mart Taylor’s reaction—a reaction that ultimately played out most significantly in his possible influence in the composition of “Joe Bowers”—and they helped articulate the general lore of “Pike” as the western hero.“ Stone’s songs alluded to work-class complaint and the risk-taking inherent to “seeing the elephant.” Joe Bowers” and, later, “The Days of ’49” built on this, much more directly building on those themes and, as a result, becoming the two signature songs taken up by the miners. Stone eventually performed under the name "Joe Bowers”—the title of a very popular late 1850s song written by someone else. There are few accounts of Stone’s songs being sung. In a sense, he was both a gifted amateur and ahead of his time. It was not until the late 1850s and then the 1860s that mining oriented song went onto the professional stage in California and Nevada. The performers from gold rush California who were ultimately recognized in the press and who were long remembered by the 49ers were Lotta Crabtree, Jake Wallace and Charley Rhoades.
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! Lotta The arrival of mining song on the professional minstrel stage in Virginia City, Nevada, occurred with a minstrel performer who could only have arisen in the West—a a sixteen year old girl, Lotta Crabtree (November 7, 1847 – September 25, 1924). She and her mother arrived at Rabbit Creek in the Sierra Nevada during 1854. By fall of 1855 she was performing in an amateur group headed by a local tavern keeper, Mart Taylor. Reaction to Stone’s lyric proved immediate. In the forefront came Mart Taylor, an Italian immigrant, poet and musician. He regarded Stone’s lyrics as vulgar and he felt there should be an audience for more respectable mining songs. He enlisted two young girls for his more acceptable music: Lotta Crabtree to do Irish dance and Beulah Baines to do Spanish dance.24 Both studied under the Countess Lola Montez in nearby Grass Valley. Little Lotta,— The following sketch of this danseuse and singer is from the Cincinnati Chronicle. If the whole account is as correct as that touching her California history it will admit of some discount. Lola Montez, it will be recollected, resided at Grass Valley
Lotta Crabtree (a crabtree with a most sweet blossom) was born In New York about nineteen year; ago, When about five years old she accompanied her mother to join the father in the mines of California, where he had already been three years prospecting, not without success.
Mr. and Mrs. Crabtree are both of Lancashire, England, which accounts for the solid apple-bloom of Lotta's cheek," and saucy merriment.
It was in Rabbit valley, Sierra county, California, little Lotta, on her way to school, one morning, under the sweet dolce of that delightful clime, skipped into the hospitable garden of that erratic and erotic genius, Madame Lola Montez, who, quick as a flash, as genius ever is to detect its kindred, called to this little skipping fairy, and, having asked her name and where her parents lived, told her to tell them to expect a visitor in the evening.
Lola straightway engrafted herself upon the Crabtrees, all for the sake of the little cheerful charmer, whose elfin ways, no doubt, touched the exhausted and disappointed worldling strangely. She would hive Lotta with her when she drove out, and all the time the child was out of school Lola claimed her company. She would dance for her little friend and sing for her; and she plead with her parents to let her take the child to Australia and train it for a bright career. But, of course, the parents could not part with their prize.
It was on the occasion of a rivalry between an Italian, who had built and stocked a little theater, and a family named Robinson, who, refusing to rent his theater at his price, engaged a theater across the street, and thought thus to avoid the exacted Italian tribute, when Signer Bona, violin soloist and experienced amusement-caterer, sent over to the Crabtrees for the special loan of their little blossom, Lotta, which was granted.
Thirty dollars in silver rang upon the stage from the gruff and grateful throng of miners, who, utterly ignoring the performance over the way, crowded to the debut of the Italian's protege.
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! The next morning the Rabbit Valley Messenger went singing out over the valleys of the Golden State an echo destined to grow into a national note. The child was soon sent for by enterprising managers; and to and fro, up and down the great mountain ways, as far away as Virginia City, the little child and her mother traveled, on muleback, at the peremptory bidding of the miners, who would have the best thing for their money— a fresh taste of nature in the charming little new sensation, lithe and laughing Lotta. Mrs. Crabtree and her little charge one day rode fifty miles. 25 During 1856, Taylor published a song book of lyrics he’d composed, probably reflecting several months of performance with Lotta and Buela. Lotta’s move away from Taylor seems to have begun during late 1857. Quite likely, Mrs. Crabtree wanted to position her daughter with the skills suited for city stages —minstrel show skills. Both Baines and Lotta are said to have studied the plantation jig under William Davis, an African American. The lesson seems to have come during December of 1857 when some of the San Francisco Minstrels traveled to Placerville and did a benefit for the Confidence Engine Co.. On the way up from Sacramento the company had stopped at Placerville, where Mart Taylor had found a negro breakdown dancer of considerable skill who was willing to teach Lotta a vigorous and complicated soft-shoe dancing. Along the trail the Taylor troupe had combined for a night or two with Backus's minstrels, long since entrenched in San Francisco and a highly favored company in the mountains.26
At a regular meeting of Confidence Engine Co. No. 1, of Placerville, held at their hall on Friday evening, Dec. 4th 1857, the following resolutions were unanimously adopted. Resolved, That the thanks of this company hereby tendered to Messrs Wells, Campbell, Coes, Henry, Mitchell, Backus and Loltuan(?) of the San Francisco Minstrels, for their kind and liberal services rendered at the benefit given by them to this company, on Monday evening Nov. 30th.27 It was probably during this 1857 encounter with Lotta in Placerville that George Coes composed his banjo tune, “Lotta’s Jig.”
With its three parts, Lotta’s jig is structured as a walk around quadrille—a dance in which the walk- around from the minstrel show was imitated in in social dance.28 The minstrel show walk-around was a show off dance probably developed on the plantation by slaves with both Native American and African influences. A cake could be given by white masters as a prize.29 Lotta’s Jig was was published by Coes in 1875. 30 Ryan’s 1882 Mammoth Collection gives the call for the three part walk-around quadrille. It concludes with a promenade to the seats.
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! This suggests that ten year old Lotta was taught the steps of the plantation jig in the context of seven other dancers in a set—the walk-around quadrille. The tune contains a syncopated second part. Coming in a walk-around, while not the first syncopation in banjo music this appears the first syncopation written into the form—the walk-around—that, over the years, would become the cake-walk-around, the cake-walk and then ragtime. The reason Coes syncopated the second part may lie in the need to broadly cue the dancers— to engage in their show-off movements or in the need to exaggerate the show-offy second part in order to exaggerate the humor of the dance for the audience—given that this was a social dance placed on stage. It makes significant the Walk Around Dances that George Coes published during 1875—perhaps a reflection of the popularity to the walk around quadrille in 1850s California.
The walk around quadrille may be the dance associated with the California “promenade to the bar”—the concluding dance of the quadrille set. During the early gold rush, show-off step dancing in the middle of a social dance could be done by just the men. As described by William Dennison Bickham for California during 1851 when the eight ladies rested from dancing, the men proceeded to amuse themselves with the “Buck Reuben”. The “hoe-down trial dances” may refer to the quadrille walk-around. The bar was far better patronized than the dance, for there was heard a constant jingling of glasses, and rattling of bottles. Whilst the ladies were resting, the gentlemen go up ‘Buck Reuben’ or ‘Stag Cotillions’ and had quite a merry time, and, by way of changing the performance, we had one or two hoe-down trial dances and several hornpipes.
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! In California, this would have been a promenade to the bar. A walk around quadrille on stage would be have understood by California miners as designed very much for them. California miners regularly concluded their dance set with a promenade to the bar. Lotta’s Jig may be the earliest appearance of a syncopated American dance tune—the syncopation occurring in the second part. During the late 1860s, Lotta introduced the banjo and plantation jig to theatrical pieces in New York, notable with “Seven Sisters”, presumably named for the others in the dance set on stage. During 1877 a comedy song called “Walking For Dat Cake” described a contest quadrille and seems to have popularized the idea that the syncopated form originated with cake contests. During 1883, Albert Baur published a banjo piece called the “Takes The Cake Walk Around”. In high society, the “Cakewalk” was popularized during the 1890s—brought to the Broadway stage from California by Walker and Williams.31 By 1900, as the term “cakewalk” faded, a syncopated tune came be called “ragtime”. During 1858, Lotta had left Taylor’s troupe but had still not graduated to minstrel fair. She was eleven years old. That season, no doubt guided by her mother, she worked further on her stage persona when she appeared in the 1858 play, “Loan of a Lover”. …written especially for her, sensational, sentimental melodrama centering around a heroine, who, though a ragged waif among drunk-crazed miners, regenerates them—with the ever pleasing coincidence that they find gold and become fabulously wealthy.32 By nature, Lotta did not excel at anything sentimental on the San Francisco stage. She was a novelty, precocious child star for whom stage charm came easily. In 1858, she stilled lack some basic skills needed for comic performance. Her mother seemed to realize, probably while in San Francisco during 1858, that these skills were associated with and best learned in the context of the over-the-top showmanship of black-face minstrelsy. During 1859, Ms. Crabtree tied her to a true minstrel performer, the man who became her mentor, a banjoist they had met in San Francisco—Jake Wallace. That year, Lotta performed in San Francisco at the Louisiana Varieties theater on Dupont Street, managed by Charles Morrell,33 brother in law to Wallace. A fun loving soul, Wallace proved a good choice for a mentor. He did not bridle at Mrs. Crabtree’s grasping self-interest in her daughter. And, he may have already established a rural or mountain circuit where he performed in diggings and small mining towns. Lotta’s full embrace of the dancing and banjo associated with minstrelsy at this time mirrors the broader emergence of professional minstrels as stars in the mining towns at this time. California miners were increasingly exposed to professional minstrel performers and their focus for “local” comedy did continue with great interest in self-published songsters of mining verse such as those of Stone and Taylor. Nonetheless, Taylor still tried. Meanwhile, during 1858 and ’59, Mart Taylor performed with J.E. Johnson at the Melodeon and the Lyceum in San Francisco. There, in 1858, he published a second book of songs: “Local lyrics, and miscellaneous poems.” In his introduction he commented on the popularity of “local lyrics” among his audience—presumably meaning the popularity of mining songs and local political commentary among miners. He set up a canvas saloon, performing in Monoville, 12 miles south of Bridgeport in the Sierra Nevada, during late 1859 and early 1860.34 Monoville reached a population of only about 1000 and soon faded away. During 1862, they toured north to Victoria, Canada.35
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! Joe Bowers Mrs. Crabtree’s 1859 decision to ally her daughter with minstrel show skills came just as a new gold rush song virtually swept aside all others and put edgy mining lyric squarely on the minstrel stage. Published in 1860 and probably written during 1859, “Joe Bowers” was the first gold rush song to be written for the professional minstrel stage and and the first gold rush song to spread across the nation. It seems to have eclipsed John Stone’s songs as he then began to perform under the name, “Joe Bowers.” One account of the song’s composition mentions Woodward, but appears to get the date of composition wrong. It seems unlikely that the song languished for ten years. It’s reference to a “Pike” as a hero places it after 1856. The lyric’s emphasis on a love story seems to place it after Stone’s 1858 song, “Sweet Betsey From Pike”.
I have the sworn testimony of an old actor connected with 'The Melodian,' one of the oldest theaters in San Francisco, showing that the song, 'Joe Bowers,' was written by John Woodward, who was connected with Johnson's Minstrels in 1849 and the early fifties. He says the song was written by John Woodward, a member of that company, and first brought out by that company at the old Melodian Theater in San Francisco in 1850. I got exactly the same statement from another man in San Francisco in 1895, who was at one time connected with the same company. This latter was a seedy specimen who called himself 'Joe Ratler'—his real name I could not find out. Who John Woodward was I was also unable to find out. He went to California from Kentucky in 1849, and just simply dropped out of sight when the minstrel company dissolved. 'Joe Bowers' was simply a model Piker.36
In the newspaper account naming Woodward as the author of “Joe Bowers”, the source of the story was probably not “Joe Ratler” but the well-known minstrel, “Lew Rattler.” Rattler and Woodward had performed together during the Civil War.37 John Woodward did not drop out of sight but he was not a top star. Both Woodward and Rattler performed with Charley Rhoades during 1870.38 Woodward performed in California through the early 1870s. During 1872, he became Stage Manager of the Metropolitan.39 Belasco seems to describe him in that role during the early 1890s.40 He then seems to have done little acting until 1879 when he starred as Bill Williams, the scout in “California Through Death Valley,” written by Sam Smith during 1877.41 During the early 1880s, he went East with the “hair raising” piece, going as far as Philadelphia42 and Chicago.43 Woodward appears to have written “Joe Bowers” while performing with the English performer, J. E. Johnson, perhaps during 1857 at Johnson’s Melodeon—a short-lived theater on Montgomery Street during 1857 but, more likely, during 1858 at the nearby Lyceum where Johnson opened during June. There, he became Director of Amusements, performing with his Pennsylvanians.44 Mart Taylor performed at the Lyceum during 185845 and may have brought the idea of mining verse to Johnson’s troupe. It was probably Johnson who initially performed “Joe Bowers” on stage. Sam Wells has been credited with writing the song but more likely also sang it. The inspiration for the song may have come from a short, humorous article about a marriage of “Joe Bowers” in the Sonoma County Journal, Nov. 26, 1858.46 The first publication of the song came Nov. 18, 1859 in the Sonoma County Journal.Johnson seems to have left the Lyceum during late 1859 with Mart Taylor and then performed as “Joe Bowers” in Monoville.47 During November of 1860, the Lyceum burned down. The Monoville performances came at the same time as the rush to the Comstock, north of Monoville along the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada and !26 Visit: nevadamusic.com for more books and CDs.
! presaged what would soon become the general export of gold rush culture to Virginia City, Nevada, and then the Great Basin and western states as a whole. And Johnson’s use of the “Joe Bowers” name seems to parallel John Stone’s adoption of the name for his performances in Sonora—both indicating the great popularity the song enjoyed just as the rush to the Comstock was reinvigorating western mining. Apparently, not only John Stone but also Johnson found the attraction of “Joe Bowers” name powerful. Johnson’s stint as “Joe Bowers" apparently began the song’s popularity among the mining crowd. A printed mention of the song came during April 1860, a half year before its songster publication by Johnson.48 All of this suggests the rise of the song among miners— laying the basis for publication of it during late 1860 in a reprint by Johnson of his 1858 songster.49 On the cover of his songster, an illustration of Johnson as Barlow underscores the look he cultivated on stage—one derived directly from London saloon theater.
Now ladies and gentlemen how do you do, I come out before you with one boot and one shoe. I don't how 'tis, but some how 'tis so, Now isn't it hard upon Billy Barlow. O dear, raggedy o, Now isn't it hard upon Billy Barlow.
The song’s point of view, its class consciousness, may be related to an important English saloon theater song of the 1850s—“Sam Hall.” In English, W.G. Ross sang this song as his primary piece, placing progressively more provocative curses as the end of each verse.
My name it is Sam Hall, I rob both great and small, But they makes me pay for all, Damn their eyes.50
Though, initially, “Sam Hall”—or, earlier, “Jack Hall”—had been a song about a repentant man, its 1850’s version was anything but remorseful, creating a strident complaint by a marginalized criminal. Echoing its first line would make clear to miners what “Joe Bowers” was all about. Twain explained the miner’s view of the upper-classes. If a man wanted a fight on his hands without any annoying delay, all he had to do was to appear in public in a white shirt or a stove-pipe hat, and he would be accommodated. For those people hated aristocrats. They had a particular and malignant animosity toward what they called a “biled shirt.”—Mark Twain, Roughing It, describing gold rush miners. The first line would have keyed listeners into that stance from the onset. That commentary helps explain the overnight success of the song among miners, an illustration of the climate in which Rhoades performed in Virginia City a few years later.
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! “Joe Bowers” begins “My name it is Joe Bowers….” Given the great and scandalous popularity of “Sam Hall” during the 1850s this line may have informed the audience that “Joe Bowers" was also a provocative, rebellious song. Like “Sam Hall”, “Joe Bowers” is a commentary on class and economic exploitation. There is a vast family of “Sam Hall” variants, many of them profane.51 “Joe Bowers” takes a more narrative tact—revolving around a love story tied to a working class complaint about those with money—personified by the butcher back home. All these songs had a meaning that, today, has been somewhat lost. The point of “Sweet Betsey” lay in celebrating a new kind of woman—an amazonian who came West and who directly contrasted the archetypal Victorian heroine—pale and frail. When the drought of ’54-’55 ended, emigration picked up again and, for the first time, Pike County emigrants began to bring a number of Pike county women. 1857 saw performance of “A Live Woman In The Mines”—a play by Alonso Delano that featured “High Betty Martin”, a Pike County heroine in California modeled on the old song of the same name. Like Stone, Delano was long a central figure in the literary recognition of Pike. In the play, the heroine was nicknamed “Betsey.” Based on this, John Stone’s 1858 song, “Sweet Betsey From Pike’s”, portrays an amazonian farm girl. Though the melody parodied “Villikins And His Dinah”, an 1853 English parody of the traditional song, “Williams And His Dinah.”52 The lyric of “Sweet Betsey” parodies “Ben Bolt”. Written in the wake of the early gold-rush as thousands of young men left New England, “Ben Bolt” is the salt sea sailor returned after 40 years away. His friend tells him of all the civilized things he has missed, including the pale, frail Victorian heroine, Alice, dead and buried in a graveyard.
Ben Bolt—first verse Oh don’t you remember sweet Alice, Ben Bolt Sweet Alice whose hair was so brown. Who wept with delight when you gave her a smile, And trembled with fear at your frown.
Sweet Betsey—first verse Oh don't you remember Sweet Betsey from Pike Who cross'd the wide mountains with her lover Ike. With two yoke of cattle and a large yellow dog, a tall Shanghai rooster and a one spotted hog.
In a sense, the song, “Joe Bowers”, seems to also be a bitter take-off on John Stone’s “Sweet Betsey From Pike”. That song saw the western miner flush with wealth with the immigrant Pike girl, Betsy, preferring him over her bedraggled lover, Ike. In “Joe Bowers”, the Pike miner has no such luck. He loses his gal not to another Pike miner in the California but to a butcher back home. The butcher seems representative of Eastern wealth. The point of the song revolves around it reference to the color “red.” Joe arrives in the West with “nary red”—meaning not a red cent or penny. At the end, his girlfriend back home marries the butcher who has red hair. She then has a baby with red hair—hair the color of money. She has sold out to wealth while Joe is left in the West—unloved with his dreams.
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! Joe Bowers Johnson’s Original Comic Songs, second edition, late 1860 Lyric: probably John Woodward The tune shown here is from O'Neill (Irish Minstrels and Musicians), 1913, p. 114. Singers seem to often avoid the high note at the end of the third line—dropping it downward. The tune has been said to be related to “The Enniskillen Dragoon”, from Ireland.
My name it is Joe Bowers, I've got a brother Ike, I come from old Missouri, yes, all the way from Pike, I'll tell you why I left thar, and how I came to roam, And leave my poor old mammy, so fer away from home.
I used to love a gal thar, they call'd her Sally Black; I axed her for to marry me, she said it was a whack; But, says she to me, " Joe Bowers, before we hitch for life. You'd orter have a little home to keep your little wife."
Says I, "My dearest Sally, oh! Sally, for your sake, I'll go to Californy, and try to raise a stake." Says she to me, "Joe Bowers, oh, you're the chap to win, Giv me a buss to seal the bargain," and she threw a dozen in!
I shall ne'er forgit my feelins when I bid adieu to all; Sally cotched me round the neck, then I began to bawl; When I sot in, they all commenced —you ne'er did hear the like, How they all took on and cried, the day I left old Pike.
When I got to this 'ere country, I hadn't nary red, I had sich wolfish feelins
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! I wish'd myself most dead; But the thoughts of my dear Sally soon made these feelins git, And whispered hopes to Bowers —Lord, I wish I had 'em yit.
At length I went to minin, put in my biggest licks, Come down upon the boulders jist like a thousand bricks; I worked both late and airly, in rain, and sun, and snow, But I was working for my Sally, so 'twas all the same to Joe.
I made a very lucky strike, as the gold itself did tell, And saved it for my Sally, the gal I loved so well; I saved it for my Sally, that I might pour it at her feet, That she might kiss and hug me, and call me something sweet.
But one day I got a letter from my dear, kind brother, Ike- It come from old Missouri, sent all the way from Pike; It brought me the gol-darn'dest news as ever you did hear- My heart is almost bustin, so, pray, excuse this tear.
It said my Sal was fickle, that her love for me had fled; That she'd married with a butcher, whose har was orful red! It told me more than that —oh! it's enough to make one swar. It said Sally had a baby, and the baby had red har.
Now I've told you all I could tell about this sad affar, Bout Sally marrying the butcher and the butcher had red har. Whether twas a boy or gal child, the letter never said, It only said its cussed har was inclined to be a red!
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! JAKE WALLACE53 Born Jacob Lynn Jr., Nov. 9, 1836, in New York City, Jake Wallace performed briefly in the East and came west during 1852. Through 1853 to early ’55, the easy going and fun loving Wallace played a variety of San Francisco theaters. At this time, he and his father, the brewer Jacob Lynn Sr., an Irish immigrant, both worked at the Lion Brewery in San Francisco.54 In 1855 Wallace moved far into the Sierra Nevada, living with Jim Beckwourth at his cabin and playing at his gambling hall. During this time, he traveled to both Columbia and Texas Flat where he met John Stone.55 Beckwourth was trying to promote an immigrant pass across the Sierra Nevada to California. The economics of the effort probably required whiskey, gambling and music. As early as 1853, Wallace he traveled over the Sierra Nevada into western Utah Territory.56 Wallace later stated that he was the first professional musician to arrive in what would become Nevada. He may have performed at the Mormon Station, later called Genoa, Honey Lake, or perhaps Gold Canyon. With his station on the Carson River in Eagle Valley, today the site of “Empire”, local musician Nick Ambrose played fiddle in Gold Canyon for dances and perhaps he hosted Wallace. During 1859, Wallace met Lotta Crabtree, then age 12, while both performed at the Bella Union in San Francisco. During early 1860, Wallace and Lotta toured the mining towns. Lotta sang and danced. Wallace sang his own songs and accompanied Lotta on the banjo while her mother played the triangle. That summer, Wallace performed in Valparaiso, Chile. During the 1861 tour, they reorganized as “male and female” minstrels with Lotta doing Topsy, a blackface routine based on the book, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” She had played this role under Taylor in 1856 and later continued this role in the East—both literally and, in essence, in every role she played. With its mixture of wickedness and innocence, the Topsey character informed Lotta through much of her career. The name, “Topsy”, seems to have alluded to topsy-turvy—a character who, due to abuse, harbored light and dark extremes. It was a perfect persona for spunky little Lotta. Wallace later told how, while touring, he rescued Lotta from a flooded river.
We left Sacramento on the 24th of February and worked our way through the mining camps, playing the southern towns. It had been raining several days steadily and the roads were dangerous and in many places almost impassable. At Auburn the mud was so deep that we could hardly get off the road, and we decided after playing there one night to a small house to return to Sacrament and wait for the weather to settle. Reaching the American river, we found it running bank high, with the approach to the bridge washed away for some thirty feet. It looked like a last desperate chance. The driver, New Whittmore, was all in, so I grabbed the lines from his hands and lashed the horses into the stream. They went in up to their shoulders and it looked as if we were gone, but they got on to the bridge somehow and went over like a house afire.
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! Right in the midst of this I saw a big sign tacked up on the bridge: “Twenty-five dollar fine for driving over the bridge faster than a walk.” Well, we made railroad time going over, and the approaches being washed away at the other end, the horses plunged in again, with the women in hysterics—all except little Lotta, who kept her head through it all, shouting encouragement to the horses and yelling every now and then, “Stay with ‘em Jake! Stay with ‘em.’ 57 In 1859, Wallace’s father, Jacob Lynn Sr. went into a partnership to form the Jackson Brewery in San Francisco.58 He became the President of the Brewer’s Association.59 However, it appears that his son, Jacob Lynn Jr. (Wallace), was more in interested playing banjo than in brewing. Wallace seems to have brought his friends home —having arrived in California during 1858, banjo maker Charles Morrell was living at the brewery at this time. He married Wallace’s sister.60 Both Lotta and her African American compatriot, Baines, studied banjo under Jake Wallace.61 62 63 Wallace recollected: Yes, I taught Lotta the banjo and she was a very apt pupil. She took right hold of the instrument and threw her soul into the work of learning it. Most people think that the banjo is not a specially classy instrument, but when it is properly played there is a great deal of individuality in it and it really deserves a better place in musical society than it is generally found, believe me.64 A picture of Lotta holding the banjo about the time she was learning shows the 4th string loose—as if she could not yet tune it. As the Civil War broke out, Wallace and Lotta performed both Union and Confederate songs—in Iowa Hill and then Roseburg. Wallace seems to have bridled at pleasing any audience of Southern sympathizers. …we noticed the town full of miners, and they all seemed excited over something. It was the usual thing to find thee miners in the gulches during the day, but here they were at 3 in the afternoon talking excitedly in groups. I asked the landlord if there was a lynching bee on foot, and he told me that the South had seceded and fired on Fort Sumter and taken it. They next thing he asked me was how the company stood. I told him we are all for the Union. He replied, “Good, you will have a packed house tonight.” Soon afterwards a man came up to me and calling me by name said he knew me in 1855. He told me that the miners were strong Union- men and simply aching to get a chance to hang a Southern sympathizer….That was a good tip and I put in an hour arranging a patriotic song and dance. The place was packed to the doors
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! that night, and many could not get in. When the curtain rose the company was on the state with the Union colors on and I was in the center waving the American flag. There went up a yell that shook the building. Men and women stood on the benches waving hats and handkerchiefs. I never witnessed such a sign in the theater in my life. It was several minutes before order could be restored and then I began to sing, “the Anthem of the Free.” And the audience took up the chorus. It was half an hour before things calmed down, and next Lotta came on and sang and danced Topsy and they showered her with money. It came on the stage like a rain and every time the noise of the falling coin was especially loud the audience drowned it with applause. In 1924, an “old lady” wrote about Wallace in a letter to the editor: A story that he told with a merry twinkle in his eye was how, when the audience tossed coins and tokens on the stage, mother Crabtree would dash from the wings and gather it all for Lotta, but not one cent for him.65 Despite their adventures in the mining camps and the increasing role of professional minstrel shows in the mining camps, through 1863, for many in the West, the repertoire of the banjo still remained bound to the songs contained in the standard minstrel repertoire. While mining in the Nevada camp of Como, amateur banjoist Alf Doten wrote during 1863 of learning the Stephen Foster tune, “Glendy Burk”, from Buckley’s 1860 banjo tutor. 66 During 1862 and early 1863, Jake Wallace played with some of the major San Francisco minstrels stars at McGuire’s Opera House and the Eureka Music Hall. During the summer of 1863, in Virginia City, at the Virginia Melodeon on C St. he accompanied Lotta as she sang a Mart Taylor lyric, “Bound for the Land of Washoe”. 67
Bound For The Land Of Washoe Words: probably Mart Taylor, 1863
Exciting times all around the town, Glory, Glory to Washoe. Stocks are up and stocks are down. Glory to old Washoe.
Washoe! Washoe! Bound for the land of Washoe, And I owned three feet in the “Old Dead Beat,” And I’m bound for the land of Washoe.
There is the big Gould and Curry, and the Great Wide West, Glory, Glory to Washoe. O! I think they are the largest and the best. Glory to old Washoe.
There is the Yellow Jacket tunnel, and my Mary Ann, !34 Visit: nevadamusic.com for more books and CDs.
! Glory, Glory to Washoe. Oh, Johnny, how is your dog, or any other man, Glory to old Washoe.
Oh, see the crowd on Montgomery Street, Glory, Glory to Washoe. Everybody is talking feet, Glory to old Washoe.
Founded in 1859 and the site of a huge gold and silver lode, Virginia City teemed with young men and was a wild place. One night a local fireman, Louis La Page, shot out the footlights as the performers ran out the back of the stage.68 Then, one of the stagehands stole all their instruments. Thief Arrested—The Standard of this morning says that through the vigilance and exertions of officer George Downey, one of the numerous marauders who infest the city has been brought to justice. A night or two ago there was stolen from the minstrel troupe at the Melodeon, a valuable banjo, a violin and a pair of bones. Suspicion was fastened upon a man named Hart who has been about the theater for some time doing various kinds of work. The affair was placed in the hands of officer Downey. He began yesterday by searching the person of the culprit, and found upon him the thimble of a banjo. “On this hint,” he not only spoke, but acted, and put the man in the Station House on suspicion of being the thief. After remaining in “durance vile” for a couple of hours, Hart confessed that he had stolen all the articles—told where they were hidden, and accompanied Mr. Downey to the spot. The banjo was found concealed in the mouth of the Hazel Green tunnel, near the Ophir mine, and the violin and bones were discovered in an old shed, near the Central workers, under a pile of charcoal. The young man is now incarcerated in the Station House, awaiting his trial. We are informed he is respectable connected in California. Officer Downey deserves great credit for his sagacity in managing the whole affair.69 Apparently, the thief also stole Lotta’s breast pin. She recovered it two months later when she returned for a dance competition.70 Apparently, remaining in the area after their gig, Wallace appears to have been present for a gunfight between Dick Paddock and Farmer Peel.71 The rough reality of Virginia City probably convinced Ms. Crabtree that experience as a minstrel in the Sierra Nevada had been useful for her teenage daughter but must now come to an end. Mining towns were dangerous places. During May of 1864, Wallace and Lotta sailed to New York, performing there by
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! October.72 Lotta and her mother told the press that she intended to observe the New York scene and return to California. Only Wallace returned the following year—Wallace and Lotta apparently drifting apart in the East. In New York, Lotta starred in “Seven Sisters.” The show probably emphasized the quadrille walk- around, allowing the young Lotta to do her plantation jig, albeit set as a walk-around quadrille, presumably as she had learned it years earlier. “…she took the role of Tartarine in The Seven Sisters...full-flowered antics of Tartarine in blackface with minstrel songs, banjo numbers, breakdowns, jigs, horn-pipes, reels, her lesser sisters joining in the chorus and final step-dances as in a walk-around. As Lotta played it, The Seven Sisters was nothing less than a female minstrel show verging upon melodrama by sudden shifts of startling scenery and action...”73 As happened in the West, in the East the innovation and audience involvement coming from performers who faced mining audiences struck highbrow critics as contrived. Eastern critics sometimes found the zany scene shifts, banjo numbers and dancing of Lotta’s eastern shows to be chaotic. Still, what seemed artificial to the critics or the upper crust was the essence of entertainment learned by a young lady who had grown up performing in the mining camps of the Sierra Nevada. Here is Lotta, c.1870, with her banjo at the time she performed “Seven Sisters” in the East.74 In earlier pictures, she is often the cute child star. In later pictures, the photographer always seems to pose her so as to highlight the elegant bone structure in her face. In this photo, however, she is somewhat chubby and, significantly, the camera has caught the Lotta some described—impish, resentful, narrow, determined. By the late 1860s, she had fully incorporated into her act the banjo techniques taught her by Jake Wallace. More importantly, Wallace had taught her how to actively play to and involve an audience—an essential part of performance for miners. LOTTA is lithe; (which is alliterative) pretty, piquant, and addicted to the banjo. The latter characteristic is inseparable from her. In whatever situation the dramatist may place her, whether in a London drawing-room or a Cockney kitchen, whether on an Algerian battle-field or in a California mining-camp, she is certain to produce the inevitable banjo, and to sing the irrepressible comic song. In fact, her plays are written not for LOTTA, but for LOTTA'S banjo. The dramatist takes the presence of the banjo as the central fact of his drama, and weaves his plot around it. His play is made on the model of that celebrated drama written to introduce Mr. CRUMMLES'S pump and tubs. Thus does he preserve the sacred unity of LOTTA and the banjo. Heart's Ease--in which she is now playing at NIBLO'S Garden, is plainly born of the banjo, and lives for that melodious instrument alone. The author said to himself, "A California mining-camp would be a nice place for a banjo solo." Wherefore he conceived the camp, with a chorus of red-shirted miners.75
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! Lotta thrived in the East. However, the East was not for Jake Wallace. After a stint with Bryant’s Minstrels and Sanford’s Minstrels as well as a performance in Panama while in transit,76 he returned to San Francisco, performing there again during September of 1865.77 By November, he was back in Virginia City, performing at the 700 seat Virginia Music Hall—built at 68 North C Street by Henry Sutliff during 1863.78 Years later, Wallace described one of his journeys to Virginia City: Gentlemen, said Mr. Wallace after taking a pull at the elixir bottle. A few years ago important business called me to Virginia City, and having the best horse in the country I drove over. Well this horse of mine was tough bitted, and he was so fast that I had to guide him by electricity, had to have wire lines and keep a battery in the buggy all the time in order to stop him. I left Meadow Creek for Virginia City in the face of one of the worse rain storms we ever had on the Pacific Coast. The wind blew ninety miles an hour, rain fell in sheets and hail stones as large as ostrich eggs fell. I drove in front of that hurricane for over an hour, I could lean forward and let the sun shine on me, and on leaning backward the rain and hail would nearly bury me. When the storm would let up the horse would do the same and when it gained an inch on me I would touch the button and away we went. Since my childhood I have been known as truthful, and was never known to tell a lie. I don’t ask you to believe me, but I tell you truthfully that when I arrived in Virginia City my linen duster was as dry as a codfish, not a drop of rain on the seat, while the wagon box back of the seat was level full of hail-stones. 79 Between 1863 and 1866, Sutcliffe’s Music Hall seems to have been where Virginia City miners mostly found minstrel performers. Music Hall.- Last evening another crowd assembled at Music Hall to witness the high- pressure walk-around and dancing of the huge crowd of performers at that fun giving four-bit ranch, so well loved and patronized.80 As the season wound down, December 27, the Music Hall stint ended with an evening in which the performers created a skit about the mining city itself, called a “Glimpse At Virginia”.81 As was now common, playing to the “locals” ensured success with
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! a mining audience. 1866 proved particularly violent—killings Wallace later noted in his diary. During February of 1866, Wallace performed at Virginia City’s Music Hall. His diary suggest he may have been present or at least aware, as were many people, when Charley Moore shot and killed McGuire’s Opera House promoter Tom Peasley and Mart Barnhart at the Ormsby House in Carson City.82 On March 2, Wallace was “bucking the tiger”—playing faro—at Pat Mulcahy's Capital Saloon on C Street in Virginia City when fellow Music Hall banjoist Billy Sheppard shot and killed Ben Ballou.83 84 85 Ben Ballou and Billy Sheppard spoke in the saloon.86 They shook hands and went outside. Ballou slapped Sheppard—perhaps the reason why Sheppard was later ruled innocent. Sheppard pulled a derringer and backed Ballou into the saloon. Ballou begged for his life. Sheppard shot him in the forehead just over the left eye. Ballou was laid on the counter for surgery but later died. A vigilante committee quickly formed, heard the case and ruled the killing justifiable. However, he did some time in jail awaiting a more formal inquest. A picture survives of Ballou. Wallace wrote cryptically about the event: “I've come back to stay--he remains--I was always an early bird.” Perhaps, in this entry, Wallace was referring to his return from New York—his return to the far West and to attractions that the East could not rival, congratulating himself on being around the action. He returned and Ballou remained, forever. Wallace quoted Ballou saying, “Take my boots off.” Doten wrote that, “His boots were pulled off at once like Tom Peasley’s, that he ‘might not die in them’…. Upon his return to performance on the San Francisco stage, Sheppard found that audiences did not receive him well.87 That City did not revel in the wild lifestyle. While many remembered Wallace due to his association with “The Days of ‘49”, others remembered him due to his fondness for and performance of the 1869 song, “I Wish I Was A Fish”.88 A mock sentimental ballad—it parodies songs of unrequited love.
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!
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! CHARLEY RHOADES89 Look into his eyes—the most haunted eyes of any 19th century musician. Around 1865, gaunt, dangerous, proud, creative and troubled, Charlie Rhoades stands beside his banjo. It lies on the floor as if he had just performed and then put on his coat, preparing for the coach. His right index finger appears to be bandaged or wrapped. At the end of that finger a, metal banjo thimble glints—the thimble, a sort of reversed finger-pick, that he and other professional/stage banjoist used to hit the strings during the 1850s and 60s. His right hand hangs at his side like a weapon. With that thimble and the volume it created, Rhoades could entertain hundreds of rough miners from the stage with no amplification and only a gut strung banjo. His banjo appears to have 12 hooks. The neck appears mounted with a lip above the head. His roughly 1865 instrument appears to have had 14 hooks and wide, inlaid fret markers. Wallace’s banjo was probably made by his brother in law, the banjo maker Charles Morrell, and was in the “New York” style. Rhoades’ banjo is also in that style. The stain on his banjo head lies near the bridge. Like others in this book, he hit the strings near the bridge—loud, clear, percussive. The instrument shot out crisply and deeply—“tum tum”— from sheep gut strings unlike the bright metallic ring of the modern banjo. first string near the bridge. When hit nearly the bridge with a metal “thimble” on the index finger—similar to a modern metal fingerpick inverted—the instrument sounded clear and loud. In the fashion of he era, accompaniment consisted of playing melody behind the vocal rather than chording. In fact, the lack of frets and quick decay may chording ineffective. As described in Jig, Clog, and Breakdown Dancing Made Easy, 1873, the simplicity, drive and clear intonation of the minstrel banjo made it perfect to lift the dance. As an accompaniment for the steps, to get the proper time, the banjo is, perhaps, the best of all, for simplicity and intonation; where this is not handy, or none of your friends play it, whistling the bars, thus: la, ci, la, fa, la, ci, la, fa, counting eight to yourself, or the old fashioned patting on the thighs, will answer to keep time by.90 Rhoades wears a fur lined long-coat—the practical garb of a man who spends time on the Pioneer Stage as it crosses the Sierra Nevada. He is about 30 years old. He may already known that he was slowly
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! dying of pulmonary disease—consumption or, in modern terms, tuberculosis. In the photo, Rhoades has probably begun the four year period—1865 thru 1868— that would define the height of his career, performing in Virginia City, late during each year. The stint represented the high point of early minstrelsy in the far West. He would be virtually retired by 1871. During 1877, Rhoades died of lobar pneumonia,91 a condition associated with tuberculosis.92 There is no report that Rhoades smoked—a risk factor for tuberculosis.93 His illness and death probably resulted from a weak immune system in the wake of hard travel, malnutrition, substance abuse and exhaustion, all abetted by his hard-driving personality. Malnutrition and violence are consistent themes in the stories about Charley Rhoades during the 1850s, while a young man in California. During the 19th century, poets celebrated consumption. Death by consumption was seen as the burning of a flame whose heat came through their works, like a flower that blooms as the plant dies.94 Waxy and pallid, one was consumed like a candle by its flame, giving off light. As with so much else in the transitory West, ultimately Charley Rhoades was almost completely forgotten. However, during those four years in Virginia City, Rhoades held a mythic charm among the prospectors, thanks in part to promotion by a local newspaperman, Alf Doten. Mysterious and ill-fated, Rhoades looms over the music and culture of the far West like a storm cloud—the origins and influence of his song, “The Days of ’49” remaining convoluted like the gold rush itself. Born Charles William Bensel, 1835, in Brooklyn, Charley Rhodes arrived in California during 1852. His sea voyage west on a steamer foreshadowed his adventures and his struggles.95 Where Wallace always seemed to be a amazed witness to violence, Rhoades always seems to have been at the center of any event. The account claims he died on a sea voyage, which may be true. The death recently of “Billy” West, the negro minstrel, recalls the luck that a banjo player brought to a New-York boy who went to California in 1852 to “get rich” in the gold mines. He was “Charlie” Bensel, of a well known family in this city, and had learned the machinist’s trade as well as to play the banjo, and he obtained a position as assistant engineer on a small steamer that went around to the Pacific by way of the Straits of Magellan. While lying in the harbor of Caliao, Peru, the vessel took fire and was destroyed, and those on board saved only what they could carry in their hands. Bensel and the others subsequently reached San Francisco by working their passages on other vessels.
When young Bensel reached San Francisco all he had in the world were the clothes he had on and his banjo, and after wandering about two or three days in an unsuccessful search for employment he became so hungry that he concluded to get one good meal at a restaurant and then give a “promise to pay.” After eating a couple of dollars’ worth in one of the tent restaurants he went to the proprietor and told his story. The proprietor was so impressed with Bensel’s truthfulness that he told him he would trust him until he got enough to pay his bill, but, observing that he had a banjo, asked him to play a tune, which resulted in his being hired to play and to sing negro melodies at the door of the tent to attract custom. Soon afterward he went into the mines at Virginia City, where he succeeded beyond his anticipations, but in a couple of years he organized a minstrel company which became popular not only on the Pacific Coast, but also in China, where it went on a tour and where Bensel died. He had been associated with Backus, Birch, Wambold, Cotton, Coe and other minstrels, including West, and before he died he owned a large property in Sacramento. His start in life he attributed to the banjo, which he had learned to play when an apprentice boy in New-York.96 Like Wallace, Rhoades brought with him the minstrel repertoire of the early 1850s, songs like, “Carry Me Back To Old Virginny”. Most of the 1840s “Ethiopian” songs were comic. During the 1850s, !41 Visit: nevadamusic.com for more books and CDs.
! after his one comic song—“Oh Susanna”—Stephen Foster added the sentimental song—“pathetic” in the terminology of the day—to the minstrel repertoire. Often yearning for the South—a South where, ironically, real African Americans remained in slavery—black faced white minstrels sang these “pathetic” or sentimental pieces with memories of home for young miners who missed their homes in the East. So great was the impact of the California gold rush that, perhaps, the entire genre of sentimental minstrel songs about missing home derived from the separation of young men and their families during the 1850s. By the mid-1850s, turning 20, like thousands of other young gold rush immigrants, Rhoades found himself living in a gold country cabin. During 1854, he was nearly stabbed to death in Grass Valley. He was sufficiently famous by this time that the event made the national press.97 In the Placer County camp of Iowa Hill, Rhoades spent his spare time beating on his banjo with his roommates, including Joe Murphy. They appear to have been more interested in becoming performing stars than in digging for gold. Today, near Colfax, in Iowa Hill, there is a place called “Banjo Hill”. A church and cemetery were installed a couple of years after the town of Iowa Hill burned in 1857. Rhoades and Murphy had left but when they held forth in their cabin, the spot was known as Banjolorum. In the ‘flush times’ of Iowa Hill, when that camp and its vicinity embraced a full third of the population of our county, on the ‘back-bone’ just above Iowa Hill proper, and midway between that and Independence Hill, a small, solitary cabin was perched. In this cabin Charley Rhodes, Joe Murphy, Charley Stuart and Burt Glasscock made their home, from whence, at all hours of the day and night, a jangling cat-gut concord filled the elsewise vacant air. From this fact the ‘settlement’ acquired the name of Banjolorum. Once on a time it chanced that a chunk of salt pork was the only food in the Banjolorum larder. This the burghers, on solemn consultation in the grand hall, determined to boil, but not without a mutual sign that there was no onion and potato accompaniments. In answer to the sigh, Charley Rhodes, whose forte is accompaniment, undertook to make the prospectively poor dinner un grand repaste. To do this, he arranged to perform the part of a fleeing fugitive through Iowa Hill, the others pursuing and he keeping them at bay by grabbing onions and potatoes as he passed the store doors, and with these esculents pelting his pursuers. Never did Charley and his troupe perform programme more faithfully. He pelted and they caught the missiles until their pockets were loaded, following him fleetly through and back of the town to the sacred precincts of Banjolorum, whence a more than usually joyful twanging rent the
stilly air that night.‑ 98
Murphy returned East and embraced the “legitimate” theater, as it was called. His portrait possesses the refinement lacking in Rhoades’ sinister photograph. Like Wallace, Rhoades flourished in the western
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! bohemian community. At the same time, he was a tough character. He and a friend were playing faro one night when his friend suspected they were being cheated and spoke out. The deal went on and the same card won again, but the “lookout” deliberately reached out his hand, gathered in the checks and placed them in the tray alongside the box. Some one asked him if he had “caught as sleeper,” but his only answer was a side-long glance at me, as he know I was watching him. I attempted to remonstrate, but was immediately overruled by a majority of the players, who informed me that it was a rule of the game that a man must guard his own interests.
“That is exactly what I am doing,” I replied. “Charles is my partner and I am interested in his play. If it is a rule of the game to swindle an inexperienced player, I have no more to say.”
The man sprang to his feet, leaped across a corner of the table, and the next instant would have stabbed me to the heart had not Charles intercepted him with a blow which sent him spinning across the room. Regaining his feet he made a rush toward Charles, but was received with a terrific right-hander which effectually laid him hors du combat. Of course everybody in the room was more or less excited, and at least a dozen revolvers were being flourished around promiscuously. “Gentlemen,” exclaimed Charles, in a calm, clear voice, “if it’s a rule of the game for a man to stand by like a lily-livered cur and see is partner butchered, I’m wrong in this affair and owe the gentleman an apology. But if it’s a rule of the game to knock a mean skunk down for playing a dirty trick, I’m right and am ready to stand the consequences. I’m a fair-play man myself.”
“Bully for fair-play,” exclaimed at least a dozen voices, “you’re right old boy. Fair-play’s the word in these diggings.” While, on the surface, the story of Banjolorum tells a joyful tale, it disguises hunger, theft and danger—themes that run through Rhoades’ adventures. Friends saw Charley Rhoades as a traumatized soul and attributed his moodiness to events during an 1856 tour to Oregon’s Colville mines. There, one night upon hearing a sound outside the cabin, Rhoades shot dead a creature that turned out to be a captured white woman cloaked in a white bear robe and sent forward by Native Americans. When day-light at last appeared Charles was the first to leave the cave, being anxious to ascertain the results of his shot. He made a short reconnoissance, in the first place, to assure himself that there were no red-skins lurking in the vicinity, and then approached the white-robed creature lying in front of the cave. Lifting one of the skins, which proved be that of a white bear, he beheld an “execrable shape, if shape that might be called which shape had none,” and immediately announced his discovery by exclaiming, “Boys, I’ve killed the Devil.”
“No you haven’t,” returned the stranger “but you have killed a woman, and a white one at that.”99 This episode was recorded after his death. The write sought to explain essential elements to Rhoades’ demeanor, the piece concluding: Did you ever notice, when he had been playing for the amusement of his friends that he would sometimes grow dull and morose, refusing to answer questions or even to take a drink at his own bar! Well, upon all such occasions he was thinking of the White Phantom of the Coeur D’Alene. It haunted him like a spectre.
He was a true friend, though, was Charley Rhoades; but, although sometimes dangerous, was by no means an implacable enemy. He was as brave as a lion, but as generous as he was brave….100
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! Around the spring of 1862, Rhoades married Alice Marqua—born in Mexico but, apparently, more recently from New Orleans. Perhaps she was Creole—white, Spanish and African American. It appears she came West with her mother. Six months after Wallace and Lotta played in Virginia City, during February of 1864, Rhoades played the town, billed as a “famous banjo player”101. Lotta’s performance in Virginia City signaled the end of the early era in gold rush song. Beginning with “California As It Is” in New York during 1849, those years had been characterized mostly by the rivalry between John Stone and Mart Taylor—between “vulgar” comedy and bland sentimentality. In that context, Stone’s format proved victorious. He is said to have committed suicide during 1864. Rhoades’ arrival in Virginia City foreshadowed the climactic moment in gold rush song—the full embrace of a mining lyric by a professional minstrel banjoist and creation of the song that would enshrine the gold rush in memory, “The Days of ’49.” His 1864 performance foreshadowed four years— 65-68—during which Rhoades, often with his partner Otto Burbank, would present the zaniest and most creative western minstrel shows, creating a convoluted mixture of black-face minstrel performance, Irish-Fenian humor, western slang and gold rush attitudes typical of the 49er. Rhoades wrote songs and played banjo. Burbank sang well and was known for his skill with farces.102 Virginia City lay in the Pine-nut range, beyond the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada, in a corner of Nevada adjacent to the California gold country. To appreciate the vision that propelled these young men far from New York to San Francisco and then to, Virginia City, a remote high desert mining town on the edge or perhaps well beyond civilization, requires understanding the romanticism inherent both to festival roots of minstrelsy and to “seeing the elephant.”
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! THE REBELLIOUS ROOTS OF BANJO MINSTRELSY Rhoade’s songs from 1852 to 1864 seem to have been in line with the typical minstrel show, black face banjo songs of that era. This seems to have transitioned in about 1864 to Civil War songs. And, then in 1865, he seems to have moved largely to Irish themed stage songs. This transition from Civil War to Irish material was somewhat gradual—“The Peanut Stand” is both Irish and Civil War. The focus on Irish seems to reflect the emergence from Union Civil War sentiment of a militant Irish or “Fenian” audience. They seem to have enjoyed seeing themselves joked at—“hits at locals”. Emphasis on working class rebellion can be said to underly the entire emergence of the minstrel show and minstrel banjo. Its roots go back to African American pageantry in New York during the 18th century. Socially rebellious minstrel roots go back to a holiday sometimes attributed to the Dutch and sometimes asserted as African—Pinkster Day—when for a century or so African American slaves and freemen across New England were allowed to celebrated publicly with the banjo. At Pinkster Day, the Dutch in New York long allowed public celebration by African American—at least once a year—with public performance of the banjo and drum. Virginia plantation owners never allowed the banjo in public. While today, the South is eager to claim the banjo, the history suggests banjos in the South during the 18th century would have been suppressed while banjos in New York were given public view until early in the 19th century. At Pinkster Day, many of the African American slaves and freemen were native born, descendants of slaves imported earlier.103 For them, almost certainly, such celebration was about the preservation of African traditions and about asserting identity through song, dance and frivolity. As the North moved to outlaw slavery in the early 19th century, the South began to make slavery even more repressive than before—promoting a racist fear of African American that sometime carried up into New England. However, by 1800 if not earlier, for many whites—as least the whites who were not threatened by African Americans dance, singing and music— the Day was seen through the blossoming lens created by new, romantic ideas of chivalry, the bard, the woodland and the minstrel. James Beattie’s 1775 poem, “The Minstrel", significantly forwarded the outline to this, celebrating the musician alone and wild in nature. As celebration of England’s ancient past replaced Greco-Roman images with English one —the rose, the tree, the lark—other English speaking regions sought their images and regional music. Everywhere in the English speaking world, medieval or ancient past with it chivalric honor came to be held up as allied to natural law and to images of common nature.
This sapient age disclaims all classic lore; Else I should here in cunning phrase display, How forth THE MINSTREL fared in days of yore, Right glad of heart, though homely in array; His waving locks and beard all hoary grey: And, from his bending shoulder, decent hung His harp, the sole companion of his way, Which to the whistling wind responsive rung: And ever as he went some merry lay he sung.
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! In New Amsterdam, later called New York, the Dutch participated in Pinkster day. Again as a result, the banjo was publicly present far more in New England than in the South for most if not all of its pre- minstrel show history—through the 18th century.
Every voice in its highest key, in all the various languages of Africa, mixed with broken and ludicrous English, filled the air, accompanied with the music of fiddle, tambourine, banjo and drum….104 Not all whites were comfortable with African Americans singings, dancing and playing music at Pinkster Day. Writing as “The Spy” a letter for the New York Weekly Journal during 1736 describes how whites and African Americans gathered. It was no small Amusement to me, to see the Plain partly covered with Booths, and well crowded with Whites, the Negroes divided into Companies according to their different Nations, some dancing to hollow sound of a Drum, made of the trunk of a hollow Tree, others to the grating rattling Noise of Pebbles or Shells in a small Basket, others plied the Banger, and some know how to join the Voice to it.105 Conditions for slaves worsened steadily after the English took over New York from the Dutch during 1664. Five years after “The Spy” article, slaves would revolt in New York. Seventy were captured. Twenty were burned to death in punishment. 106 Form African American slaves and freemen, Pinkster Day with its the crowning of a King probably reflected African traditions, conserved by second generation slaves. However, for some whites, by the early 19th century, the celebration was seen through the lens of current romantic ideas about the woodland, chivalry and the ancient past. The image of the bard with his harp pervaded the latest poetry of the English speaking world, helping to define a national music for the Scots, English and Irish. In 1802, Walter Scott (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832) published the first volume of, “The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border”—a collection of border ballads. In it, he built on the efforts of Robert Burns—ascribing song and poetry in an old style to a class of minstrels and bards. For Burns and Scott, though this class of artists/shamans had once existed and faded, it was also reborn in modern imitation. Scott commented on Burns: The Third Class of Ballads are announced to the public, as MODERN IMITATIONS of the Ancient Style of composition, in that department of poetry; and they are founded upon such traditions as we may suppose in the elder times would have employed the harps of the minstrels. This kind of poetry has been supposed capable of uniting the vigorous numbers and wild fiction, which occasionally charm us in the ancient ballad, with a greater equality of versification, and elegance of sentiment, than we can expect to find in the works of a rude age. But, upon my ideas of the nature and difficulty of such imitations, I ought in prudence to be silent; lest I resemble the dwarf, who brought with him a standard to measure his own stature. I may, however, hint at the difference, not always attended to, betwixt legendary poems and real imitations of the old ballad; the reader will find specimens of both in the modern part of this collection. The legendary poem, called Glenfinlas, and the ballad, entitled the Eve of St. John, were designed as examples of the difference betwixt these two kinds of composition.107
The 1803 “Pinkster Ode” uses romantic language such as “flow’ry green”, “princely air” and “graceful mien”. The image of the banjo and drum welcoming the King echoes the era’s blossoming ideas and rebirth of minstrel at Court.
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! Now hark! the Banjo, rub a dub, Like a washer-woman's tub; And hear the drum, 'tis rolling now, Row de dow, row de dow,. The pipe and tabor, flute and fife, Shall wake the dullest soul to life.
All beneath the shady tree There they hold the jubilee. Charles, the king, will then advance, Leading on the Guinea dance, Moving o'er the flow'ry green, You'll know him by his graceful mien; You'll know him on the dancing ground, For where he is folks gather round; You'll know him by his royal nose, You'll know him by his Pinkster clothes, You'll know him by his pleasant face, And by his hat of yellow lace; You'll know him by his princely air, And his politeness to the fair; And when you know him, then you'll see A slave whose soul was always free. Look till the visual nerves do pain, You'll "never see his like again."108
As the 18th century progressed, some whites shunned Pinkster Day, coming to regard it as “savage”.109 Albany outlawed Pinkster Day during 1811 due to the perceived threat created by music, dancing and celebration. African Americans were forbidden “to collect in numbers for the purpose of gambling or dancing, or any other amusements, in any part of the city, or to march or parade, with or without any music under a penalty of ten dollars or confinement in jail”.110 By the 1820s, as high society in New England saw slavery abolished there and yet sought to keep black people in their place, the banjo was poised to transition from an exclusively African American instrument to one played by young rebellious white men doing comedy laced with social comment and absurdity. In other words, ironically, it may have been the banning of Pinkster Day celebration by African Americans in New York around 1812111 that, in the wake of decades when they played the banjo in front of whites, prompted young white men to take the banjo onto the stage in black-face in New York during the 1830s.112 English actor Charles Mathews sang in black-face while touring American in 1822-23— probably a major inspiration to the few whites who then took up the banjo.113 After about 1830, with the Pinkster Day festival gone, the rise of the minstrel show in the New York City Bowery, on the working class stage in the Bowery and later in San Francisco, seems to reflect this long-standing association in New York and New England between the banjo and a “minstrel” presence— as filtered through 18th and early 19th century ideas of the minstrel.
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! TOM BRIGGS & THE SECRET OF THE OLD CREMONA The rebellious sentiments of some young men, as captured in early minstrel shows, fit perfectly with the spirit of young men coming West during the early gold rush to California. Romanticism, rebellion, risk and adventure underly “seeing the elephant”—tens of thousands of young men left home while promising to return rich. Romanticism also underlies the rise of black-face minstrelsy. While Rhoades and other professional minstrels focused mostly on Civil War songs during the early 1860s, one gold rush or California mining song emerged onto the minstrel stage in 1860 that embodied or summed up all the mining/working class complaint inherent to the various, mostly amateur written gold rush songs of the 1850s—“Joe Bowers.” From about 1865 through 1868, particularly in Virginia City as he accompanied Kitty “From Cork” O’Neil, Rhoades played many Irish and English melodies on the minstrel banjo. The influence of these kinds of tunes in California had begun over a decade before as English saloon theater informed the gold rush songs of John Stone and Mart Taylor—songs that do not seem to have had great popularity on the professional minstrel show stage. To these songs, Rhoades brought a technique pioneered by banjoist Tom Briggs who seems to have mentored him as well as Jake Wallace in New York around 1851—using a thimble on the right index finger to strike the strings, creating a loud percussive sound that proved helpful to professional stage banjo players. Briggs seems to have brought the new method to his friends in California during 1854. Briggs’ death shortly after his arrival in California during 1854, also helped created a highly romantic image of the minstrel banjo player—one in line with the most poignant images of romanticism. Briggs had learned from Billy Whitlock, the first banjoist to come into New York who had, in turn, learned from Joel Sweeney (1810 – October 29, 1860).114 Billy Whitlock, (1813–1878) Dick Pelham (February 13, 1815 – October 1876), Frank Brower (November 20, 1823 – June 4, 1874) and Dan Emmet (October 29, 1815 – June 28, 1904) created the first minstrel show in New York during 1843 —“The Old Virginia Minstrels”. Whitlock then taught Thomas F. Briggs (1824-25—Oct.1854). If he had not died, Tom Briggs might have arrived in California and become the far West’s premier banjoist. However, he contracted “panama fever” while crossing the Isthmus and died during 1854, a week after arriving in San Francisco.115 To California, Briggs carried two banjos—one that he called his “light banjo” and another that he called his “heavy banjo”. The heavy one was his favorite and he called it the “old cremona”. Coming up the coast of the Pacific in 1854, Briggs had recently invented the banjo thimble with which to play the heavy banjo—creating the volume as needed for the stage. The thimble style was soon adopted by other stage banjoists in California and the East. Photos of banjos associated with Rhoades, Wallace and Doten show stains around the bridge—the thimble apparently striking the strings hard near the bridge. The light banjo he presumably played as did others, striking near or over the neck. The latter method seems to have persisted among civilian players, being more common, and to have survived to the modern era in old time banjo method—a light, ringy sound. Geo. Wilkes wrote his article, “The Dying Minstrel”, shortly after Briggs’ death. In it, he described Briggs’ modifying the banjo, apparently to fit his thimble playing. Briggs describes himself as soon to reveal a louder sound in California, as if during 1854 the thimble technique had not yet arrived in California—had been invented by him around 1852 perhaps, when banjoists like Wallace and Rhoades who had learned from Briggs in
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! New York were already in California. Briggs seems to have been following some of his students to California.
He was different from most other players. They seldom take any pride in their business, and are generally satisfied with any cheap instrument they can get; but Tom was very particular; he never stood upon the price of a banjo when he got a good one, he was always studying some way to ornament and improve it. He had a light one and heavy one for different kinds of work, and he played so strong that he got a piece of steel made for the end of his finger, as a sort of shield-like, rot prevent tearing off his nail. He was very fond of playing the heavy one, and when he was coming up the coast, he would sometimes strike his strongest note, and then turn round to me so proud and say, “Ah Eph,” what’ll they think when the hear the old Cremona speak like that?116
Mourned by minstrel musicians and regarded, then and today, as the man who had defined the stage soloist technique in early minstrel banjo playing, Tom Briggs left behind use of the thimble to play loud solos, a focus on fresh instrumental composition and an air of sophistication. Briggs went out on stage with the provocative greeting, “Good eve’nin’, white folks!” He was called the “Darkey Apollo” for his good looks. The description of his death bed good-bye to his banjo creates a tragically romantic portrait.117 An hour before he went, he asked me to hand him his banjo. He took a hold of it, and looked at it for a minute as if he was looking at a person whom we was going to part with forever then he tried to hit it. But he could merely drop the weight of his thin fingers on the cords. There was no stroke to his touch at all. He could just barely make a sound, and that was so fine that it appeared to vanish away like the buzz of a fly. It was so dim that i don’t believe that he heard it himself, and he dropped his hand as if he gavBanjo with circlee in up. Then he looked at me as if he understood everyone in the world, and said, ‘It’s no use—hang it up, Eph —I cannot hit is any more”. Those were the last words that poor Tom Briggs ever spoke.118 The passage illustrates the way in which mainstream ideas of ancient minstrelsy had, by the mid-1850s, worked their way into America’s black-face minstrel theater. Briggs’ last moments were interpreted—by the writer if not by Briggs himself—in mold of a passage from Scott’s “Lay of the Last Minstrel”, 1805:
The humble boon was son obtained; The aged Minstrel audience gained. But, when he reached the room of state, Where she, with all her ladies, sate, Perchance he wished his boon denied; For, when to tune his harp he tied, His trembling hand had lost the ease, Which marks security to please; And scenes, long past, of joy and pain, Came wondering o’er his aged brain— He tried to tune his harp in vain.119
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! Briggs friends compiled his tunes into the 1855 method book, “Briggs’ Banjo Instructor”—the first true banjo method. The collection may not be typical of what non-thimble players performed or even of what Brigg’s students performed. It may simply illustrate Briggs’ genius. What seems to have been more enduring was the use of the thimble and, probably, heavier strings by Brigg’s students in the small world of professional banjo soloists who played in the early, stroke style. Also enduring may have been Brigg’s pose—his romantic attitude of mastery when arriving on stage. This may have been key for Rhoades and Wallace as, after 1860, they shifted from a purely Ethiopian repertoire to include more Irish, English melodies and to cater to a mining crowd in the far West. By 1857 Brigg’s students began to compete both in the East and the West, as described in the San Francisco Chronicle during 1884. The thimble remained a professional soloists’ tool. The banjo contests of 1857 and 1859 may have been a response to the influence of the thimble as it helped to create a class of professional banjoists. Banjo maker and player Charles Morrell created the New York contest and moved to California, perhaps then creating the San Francisco context of 1859. It seems to have been the followers of Tom Briggs, stage players who used the thimble, who participated in these two contests.
Are banjos thimbles used to any great extent?
No; they are chiefly used by stage soloists, who generally play heavy instruments. Tom Briggs, the minstrel, who died in 1854 in this city, was the inventor of the thimble. He used to play a great big banjo which he called his ‘cremona.’ He got louder notes out of that instrument than any I have ever heard since. he used to play so hard that he tore the end of his finger nail, so he had a piece of steel made as a shield and it was not long before the thimble was adopted by nearly all the burnt-cork banjoists of his day. The thimble has since been much improved and is generally made of silver....Other old-time banjoists were Ben Cotton, Charley Rhoads, Joe Murphy, Billy Sheppard and Bob Ridley. In ‘57 the minstrel men held a grand banjo tournament in New York, the first ever witnessed in America. Picayune Butler, Charley Plummer, Andy Romeo and Phil Rice were among the players. Charley Plummer walked away with the prize....The first banjo tournament held in this city (San Francisco) was in February, 1859, in the old Music Hall, on Bush street, where the Occidental Hotel now stands. Charley Reed—the old Charley Reed—Jake Wallace, Ned Hamilton and Sam Raymon were among the contestants, Wallace winning the prize.120
Brigg’s innovation extended beyond the use of a thimble. Briggs’ reference to his heavy banjo as the “old cremona” probably alludes to German writer E.T.A. Hoffman’s 1819 story, “The Cremona Violin”. In it, a musician discovers a technical advantage to an Amati violin made in Cremona—a modification of the instrument.
One evening Krespel was in an uncommonly good humor; he had been taking an old Cremona violin to pieces, and had discovered that the sound-post was fixed half a line more obliquely than usual--an important discovery!--one of incalculable advantage in the practical work of making violins! It succeeded in setting him off at full speed on his hobby of the true art of violin-playing. Based on this reference, modification of the banjo seems to be what prompted Briggs to call his heavy banjo the “old cremona.” The question then become, what did he mean? The Hoffman story !50 Visit: nevadamusic.com for more books and CDs.
! suggests that Briggs altered his banjo with a technical adjustment that made it “heavy”. The cover to the Briggs instructor shows a fretless banjo tuned in open D—possibly his “heavy banjo.” Measuring it, if the banjo pot is 11” then the scale length is about 24”.121 The illustration shows the bridge centered on the head—a position known mostly for banjos from the 1860s. The string spacing is quite wide. Phil Rice’s 1858 “Method For The Banjo” also shows a bridge at the center of the head yet with the banjo tuned to E—a key then becoming common in banjo sheet music and among players.122 Moving the bridge to center or even further toward the neck can be seen in a number of banjo photos from the 1850s— banjos beyond the then small group of professional stage soloists influenced by Briggs. So, there must be an additional modification involved in making it “heavy”. A centering of the bridge on a fretless banjo —sliding it further from the tailpiece—could simply be to raise the key. However, there is another effect of moving the bridge forward to the center of the head. If the key remains D or E, then sliding the bridge forward reduces the string tension. This can allow the use of heavier strings—retaining the tension while increasing the sound IF one has the ability to play—to hit— heavier strings. My suggestion is that Briggs used heavy strings and his slight modification involved centering the bridge on the head to allow those heavier strings while retaining a key of D or E. At the same time, stains on pictures of banjo associated with Rhoades and Wallace suggest that they hit the gut strings near the bridge—where the strings have greatest tension against the hand. When the banjo rim in the c1865 photo of Charley Rhoades’ is completed, that banjo appears to have a bridge centered on the head. And the stains on the head show that he struck with his thimble near the bridge. If the parque floor squares are 1’x1’ then his banjo appears to have a 12” rim. The sound of a gut strung banjo with heavy gut strings played with a thimble near the bridge is loud, clear and almost abrasive in a confined space. There is little ring. The percussive sound projects over some distance. When we hear of Charley Rhoades playing for 700 people at the Virginia City Music Hall in 1865, it is the thimble and playing near the bridge that makes this possible. In contrast, many minstrel banjo players during that time, probably played a bare finger near or over the neck—obtaining a softer and more ringing sound suitable to the parlor or porch. That tends to be how modern “old time” banjoists play. A heavy rim and 24” scale is found in a very original flush fret banjo shown here dating probably from the late 1860s in Carson City, Nevada. It may be English in manufacture.123 As with the banjos on the cover of Briggs’ book, a wide spacing of the strings at the bridge places the fifth string off the edge of
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! the neck for much of its travel. The rim is heavy, re-enforced with wood at top and bottom of the rim plus a heavy nickel over-spun outer layer.
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! PLAYING THE AUDIENCE If he had lived, Tom Briggs might have had great influence in California not only on banjo playing technique but on banjo tunes written in California. A student of Briggs, during 1852 G. Swain Buckley was the first banjoist to perform in San Francisco124. However, in 1850s California, it was George Coes (1828 – March 16, 1897) also inspired by Tom Briggs, who seems to have cared most about original instrumentals on banjo and violin.125 He was among the first professional banjo players on stage in San Francisco during 1852. He played banjo at the San Francisco Theater during December of 1853.126 He returned East in 1857127 and seems to have played in California against during the mid 1860s and early 1870s. If the working class and mining audience had valued instrumental technique over stage showmanship, Coes might have achieved instrumental status. However, the mining audience proved far too rowdy and too concerned with lyric commentary to focus on or value novel banjo compositions. During 1875, in Boston, Coes published several California tunes, some of which may have been banjo pieces.128
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! The most famous instrumental tune to come out of California during the 1850s was “Fremont’s Path”—published by Coes as “The Indian Cotten Jig” and, by the end of the 19th century, known as “Off To California”.
Despite Coes’ focus, it was not the banjo instrumental that would ultimately define California’s premier minstrel banjoists—Rhoades and Wallace. They ultimately gained lasting fame not due to their instrumental skill but due to their ability improvise, adapt to and interact with their mining audience. This is what Lotta learned from Wallace. This is what Clemens and Doten admired in Rhoades. While the 1850s western minstrel show mirrored the Ethiopian fare in the East, the 1860s brought first an adaptation to Civil War song and then an adaptation to Irish-Fenian themes. With his performances in Virginia City, Rhoades lay at the heart of this shift and it ultimately resorted in the layered hodgepodge that is the cultural roots to the most important gold rush song: “The Days of ’49.” The African-American influenced melodies of early minstrel show “Ethiopian” banjo playing did not survive the mid-1860s as the sole definition of minstrel show performance. As noted in this book, “The Days of ’49” came with an English tune—wholly lacking in syncopation or an African-American feel. What does survive from the 1850s into the 1860s for Rhoades and Wallace is the romantic emphasis on the minstrel as bard living on the bohemian edge—an edge embracing death as the ultimate heroic act. The nature of the music in the diggings even at the onset of the 1850s lay in improvisation. When opportunity for a dance arose, the boys often found themselves without women and hence enjoyed the “stag cotillion” in which they cavorted about the set doing all kinds of wild gyrations—capers that resembled both outdated social dance practices from the early 19th century as well as minstrel show dance. At the ball everything appeared to be conducted with great propriety; but the company was composed of honest mechanics, who, with the best intentions, danced quadrilles on a peculiar principle, inasmuch as they cut capers to such an extent as obliged the spectator, however disinclined, to smile.129 From California, in an article for the East, on Aug. 27 1854, Alf Doten wrote: We had no ladies to grace the occasion, so ours was a ‘stag dance’; all sorts of steps were taken, from polkas and waltzes, down to the ‘fore and after,’ and ‘Juba’, and ‘merry feet were dancing’ until supper was announced, when we all sat down to the enjoyment of a most glorious
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! repast, to which we did ample justice; after which, cigars, music and songs were introduced into the programme; each one sung his ‘favorite song,’ and occasionally some one would step out and give a specimen of his abilities in the heel and toe line; one especially, a Scotchman, danced the ‘Highland Fling’ to perfection. Thus, happily passed the evening, and about twelve o’clock we ceased our ‘jollification,’ and wandered our way, each one to his own camp. The above account appears to have been based on a Christmas 1853 dance. His diary account of the same event provides more exuberant color and more revelation of drinking: The generous juice of the grape flowed freely, warming up our hearts and inducing us to mirth and jollity, and causing merry feet to dance to the dulcet strains of the flute and violin— The banjo and clarionet, accordion &c were also put in requisition—Rathbone came down and we had some fine singing—innumerable guns were fired—a devil of a racket generally was kicked up—Then a ‘fillibustering expedition’ was got up under the command of ‘Corporal Young’ and we turned out with guns in battle array, and to the music of the drum and fife we marched up and stormed a garrison of ‘old soldiers’ who were encamped up behind the big bush back of the house—We gave them three rounds, when they surrendered without firing a shot or saying a word—We had massacred the whole crowd—we would have taken their scalps but as they were stinking fellows, we thought best to leave them alone in their glory—We then beat retreat, which was conducted in gallant style without the loss of a single man—and no one wounded except the corporal, who peeled his shins tumbling over the bean-kettle as he entered the house—Our new floor was a splendid one for dancing and we made it perfectly thunder beneath the tripping of the heavy ‘fantastic toe’—The glorious cognac flowed freely and all fully entered in the spirit of the scene— The ‘Highland fling’ was performed to a miracle, and the ‘double-cowtird-smasher’ was introduced with ‘tird-run variations’....
As evident in William Cary’s 1871 drawing, "The Train Encamped”, the banjo and jig dance became part of life at the margins of civilization, even on the trail.
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! THE PROMENADE TO THE BAR In the East, both before and after the Civil War, the rascist element of the minstrel show remained strong. Proper people went to the theater to see minstrel “darkies” dance to the banjo and have fun. Then they returned to proper lives. The minstrels may have seen their shows in a romantic light. However, the audience often simply wanted comedy. A banjo instrumental competition fit both needs. In the West, the 49ers and the miners who emulated them remained more caught up in the other aspect of the minstrel show—its working-class criticism. They did not return from the theater to proper lives. They were living out their own romantic lives. Arriving in California, their view of culture quickly became that it should echo their wild existence—that they had left behind culture that controlled them and, instead, were in control of their own culture. Professional minstrel theater did not initially key into the romantic imagery held by the miners—seeing the elephant. The most evident or first adjustment of culture by miners lay not in professional minstrel theater but in their dances. Gold rush miners attended dances often hoping to meet girls. Yet, quickly the dances modified to their ways. I ought to say a word about the dances which we used to have in the bar room, a place so low that a very tall man could not have stood upright in it. One side was fitted up as a store, and another side with bunks for lodgers. These bunks were elegantly draperied with calico, through which we caught dim glimpses of blue blankets. If they could only have had sheets, they would have fairly been enveloped in the American colors. By the way, I wonder if there is anything national in this eternal passion for blue blankets and red calico? On ball nights the bar was closed, and everything was very quiet and respectable. To be sure, there was some danger of being swept away in a flood of tobacco juice; but luckily the floor was uneven, and it lay around in puddles, which with care one could avoid, merely running the minor risk of falling prostrate upon the wet boards, in the midst of a galopade.
Of course the company was made up principally of the immigrants. Such dancing, such dressing, and such conversation surely was never heard or seen before. The gentlemen, generally, were compelled have a regular fight with their fair partners, before they could drag them on to the floor. I am happy to say, that almost always the stronger vessel won the day, or rather night, except in the case of certain timid youths, who after one or two attacks, gave up the battle in despair.130 The dancing started almost immediately as Yankee came ashore in San Francisco and met the Chilean and Australian girls. During 1853, Alonzo Delano drew and wrote about an establishment. Above Dupont there is one honest sign, ‘The Green Devil’, and any man who goes in there does so with his eyes wide open. The gates of Pandemonium are generally hid from view; but ‘give the devil his due,’ for even in his existence he stands over the door flat-footed. The proprietor of that house must be an honest man, for he ‘takes his customers in’ with their full knowledge that the image of Satan is staring them in the face before they enter..... !56 Visit: nevadamusic.com for more books and CDs.
! Let’s take a peek. Jack on shore, with his blue shirt and broad trowsers, is having a spree. Music murdered, or run mad, is squeaking out from an old fiddle, the scientific operator with his head twisted around, as if in agony, at his own performance, in doubling his elbow in all shapes; or on one side is seated the moustachied Spaniard, half enveloped in his black cloak, thruming a sprightly waltz on his ‘light guitar’, or a harper, leaning on his harp, ekeing out a mazurka; while the floor is crowded with rollicking boys and flaunting senoras, Irish belles, or Sydney ladies, cutting it down shuffle or waltz, as if Nero was fiddling and San Francisco burning. Go it boys while you’re old; if you are not hung you’ll die in the gutter. And lounging around the door, or sauntering through the street, the deep-dyed villain from the sinks of Sydney, the scum of England, the vicious and dissolute from all nations, are watching you with wary steps, ready to pounce upon and take your life for a dollar. Have your pistol loaded, keep the middle of the street by night.131 In the diggings, from the onset, nearly any assemblage of instruments sufficed for social dance in the diggings. California teemed with fiddlers—both Yankees who played in the northern style and Southern fiddlers. The violin, the ”fiddle,” is more performed upon and abused in the performance in California than anywhere in the world. It claims all sorts of performers here, from creditable imitators of the great masters down to the common “Pike county” fiddler. In the mines is the violin most especially abused....
Western fiddlers, and especially those from Missouri, tune their strings in a way that gives the music a peculiar sort of a wild yet not unpleasing sound, and all of them are sure to be able to play “The Arkansas Traveler,” and “The Gal on the Log.”132 Early on, American boys found that they could attend Mexican dances called fandangoes. “Dance houses”—dives with drinking and dancing to the fiddle had long been part of the American landscape. In California these were now often call fandango houses, probably due to the promenade to the bar derived from local Spanish and Mexican dance customs. Well, I heard of the fandango and I went. It was held in a good-sized room with a bar on one side, of course, and crowded with men and women, all smoking. The orchestra consisted of two fiddles and guitars and made pretty good music. The men were dressed in sky-blue velvet pants, open at the sides and rows of buttons, with white drawers, red sash and a fancy shirt. The Senioritas, with white muslin dresses, stretched so stiffly that you could not get very near, and silk stockings, looked very pretty. We had cotillions and waltzes and one Seniorita danced a fancy dance and made more noise with her little feet and slippers than I could with thick boots. She told me it was the "Valse Alleman," never has been published I guess. Their cotillions are the same as ours except that the last figure is "all promenade to the Bar," where you and your fair partner imbibe.133 John Stone’s “Wait for the Dance”—a parody of “Wait for the Wagon”—concludes with a reference to the “promenade to the bar”. “Old Alky” may be a reference to alkaloid tinctured whiskey—containing strychnine—and its laxative effects.
They rush it like a rail-road car; And often is the call. Of, "Promenade up to the bar," For whisky at the ball! "Old Alky" makes their bowels yearn, They stagger round and fall;
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! And ladies say when they return, "Oh, what a splendid Ball!"
The dance set concluded with footwork and then booze. Spreading wide their portals for the motley train, the Fandango house flourished, the arbiter of pleasure and of play. There the tinkling guitar, with soft, lascivious strain, kept time to the song from Italy, the step from France. The midnight orgy, the mazy dance, the smile of beauty and the flush of strong drinks, for fools, gamesters and all, combined to energize the subject they pursued, giving both the devil and his dance their due, where fools’ paradise might seem dull to what there passed through the fleeting hours of night.
Various were the different style of Fandangoes; improving upon the unfastidiousness of their Mexican cousins. Sonora boasted among her five houses devoted to this species of entertainment, of a palatial center, wherein all that art and elegance might do was brought to their aid. In stylish and brilliantly lighted room, girt around and ornamented with priceless pictures, costly furniture, and witnessed, and provided with a bar, from whence the costliest liquors, the rarest wines, were dealt out with unsparing hand, grew the American edition of the Fandango in all its glory.....
But this Fandango is not the Fandango in its unsullied purity; for that, one must search further up Washington street, for the genuine article exists on the lot behind the ‘Long Tom,’ uncontaminated by the elevating influences of the modern French or American civilization. Long before one sees the flickering light that warns the wayfarer of its presence—as warns the mariner the lighthouses that denotes the sunken rock—break upon the organs of smell the startling evidences of its existence. In the simon-pure Fandango the air is stifling; oxygen, like virtue and all decency, has long before taken its flight. Upon the scene the tallow candles cast a feeble glare, and the smoke of cigaritos and cheap and bad cigars fills the room with a dim haziness. Through the murky gloom the dancers are moving with a perfect looseness, a crowd of men, spectators of the scene, line the sides of the apartment, while the perspiring guitarist and the cat-gut torturing fiend of the violin lustily horrify the drowsy ear of night with uncouth sounds from their dyspeptic instruments. ‘Hands across!’ ‘Back again!’ ‘Aleman left!’ break through the foggy, murky atmosphere from the corner where stands the director, rendering into discordant English the call of the cotillion; and the heavy thud of the miner’s nail-clad boots emphasizes the turns of each figure with double-shuffle, heel-and-toe and pigeon-wing. With a twang of the strings and a parting rattle of boot heels the dance ceases abruptly, and each male participant, gringo or caballero, leads his fair partner to the bar, to refresh her delicate nerves with a glass of brandy and water—a custom religiously adhered to at the conclusion of each dance, that ‘steam’ may be kept up to the proper pitch.134
The first use of the banjo for social dance among whites probably occurred in California during the early or mid-1850s. Alf Doten wrote two accounts of an 1854 dance in the diggings, during 1854—one as a newspaper article to the eastern press and the second in his journal account. The second illustrates the eclectic, improvised orchestra that included the banjo, probably played by Doten himself. The “soldiering” probably refers to drinking. We had no ladies to grace the occasion, so ours was a ‘stag dance’; all sorts of steps were taken, from polkas and waltzes, down to the ‘fore and after,’ and ‘Juba’, and ‘merry feet were dancing’ until supper was announced, when we all sat down to the enjoyment of a most glorious repast, to which we did ample justice; after which, cigars, music and songs were introduced into the programme; each one sung his ‘favorite song,’ and occasionally some one would step out !58 Visit: nevadamusic.com for more books and CDs.
! and give a specimen of his abilities in the heel and toe line; one especially, a Scotchman, danced the ‘Highland Fling’ to perfection. Thus, happily passed the evening, and about twelve o’clock we ceased our ‘jollification,’ and wandered our way, each one to his own camp.
The generous juice of the grape flowed freely, warming up our hearts and inducing us to mirth and jollity, and causing merry feet to dance to the dulcet strains of the flute and violin— The banjo and clarionet, accordion &c were also put in requisition—Rathbone came down and we had some fine singing—innumerable guns were fired—a devil of a racket generally was kicked up—Then a ‘fillibustering expedition’ was got up under the command of ‘Corporal Young’ and we turned out with guns in battle array, and to the music of the drum and fife we marched up and stormed a garrison of ‘old soldiers’ who were encamped up behind the big bush back of the house—We gave them three rounds, when they surrendered without firing a shot or saying a word—We had massacred the whole crowd—we would have taken their scalps but as they were stinking fellows, we thought best to leave them alone in their glory—We then beat retreat, which was conducted in gallant style without the loss of a single man—and no one wounded except the corporal, who peeled his shins tumbling over the bean-kettle as he entered the house—Our new floor was a splendid one for dancing and we made it perfectly thunder beneath the tripping of the heavy ‘fantastic toe’—The glorious cognac flowed freely and all fully entered in the spirit of the scene—The ‘Highland fling’ was performed to a miracle, and the ‘double-cowtird-smasher’ was introduced with ‘tird-run variations’....
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! CLEMENS AND STRYCHNINE WHISKEY Drinking not only defined the dance. It seems to have defined the bohemian community and its members. For four years— performing at the height of his fame from 1865 through 1868 in Virginia City, Charley Rhoades became the banjo hero of men in the far West’s largest and wealthiest mining center. Just as Wallace had an impact on Lotta, Rhoades has a fan in a young, struggling author of columns and sketches—Sam Clemens. By 1865, Rhoades embodied everything the impoverished Clemens admired in the bohemian West as he absorbed the rough and irreverent humor of men who came to “see the elephant”. Clemens had deserted the Confederate Army and joined his brother, Orion, Secretary of State to Governor Nye, in Carson City, Nevada. Run out of Nevada at gun point after he insulted the wife of a prominent Carson City resident, his life drinking and theater going in Virginia City continued when he relocated to San Francisco during 1865. His immersion in the bohemian theater world and his rebellious attitude about music and culture came together for Clemens in a memorable quote, published June 23, 1865 in The San Francisco Dramatic Chronicle. His comments tied the banjo to strychnine whiskey, to his favorite banjoists and to his subscription to the miner’s disdain for the bib shirt crowd. Clemens wrote the short piece near the close of Civil War song-fervor on the San Francisco minstrel stage. Rhoades had recently played “Aura Lee” at the Olympic. The diggings bubbled with a fresh assertion of an American, working-class culture. I have modified my musical creed a little since I have enjoyed the opportunity of comparing Tommy Bree, the banjoist of the Olympic, with Gottschalk. I like Gottschalk well enough. He probably gets as much out of the piano as there is in it. But the frozen fact is, that all that he does get out of it is "tum, tum." He gets "tum, tum," out of the instrument thicker and faster than my landlady's daughter, Mary Ann; but, after all, it simply amounts to "tum, tum." As between Gottschalk and Mary Ann, it is only a question of quantity; and so far as quantity is concerned, he beats her three to one. The piano may do for love-sick girls who lace themselves to skeletons, and lunch on chalk, pickles and slate pencils. But give me the banjo. Gottschalk compared to Sam Pride or Charley Rhoades, is as a Dashaway cocktail to a hot whisky punch. When you want genuine music -- music that will come right home to you like a bad quarter, suffuse your system like strychnine whisky, go right through you like Brandreth's pills, ramify your whole constitution like the measles, and break out on your hide like the pin-feather pimples on a picked goose, -- when you want all this, just smash your piano, and invoke the glory-beaming banjo!135 New Orleans pianist Louis Gottschalk had recently toured Virginia City, before arriving in San Francisco. Clemens’ comments reflected opinion common among the working class and their bohemian friends.136 That view proved most evident in Virginia City. Gottschalk hated his Nevada audience as much as it hated him. He wrote, “I have rarely seen a more peaceful
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! population”—noticing that residents of the silver state felt profound boredom at his music. Gottschalk wrote: They have never heard the piano, and of all instruments it is the most difficult to render comprehensive to an audience who have almost or never heard music.137 Virginia City hated Gottschalk. And Gottschalk hated Virginia City. He commented on his aggravation upon performing there: It is meager, sad, mean and monotonous. I have never really known spleen save in Virginia City. It is the most inhospitable and the saddest town that I have ever visited…etc. etc..138 Perhaps, Gottschalk was hired in Nevada because, during 1853, he had composed, “The Banjo”, renowned for its African-American rhythms, imitating the banjo as it made its way into and came to define American pop-music culture. Or perhaps his performance resulted because wealthy patrons of the arts felt the need to bring him in. In San Francisco, Gottschalk received four months of adulation by the bib shirt crowd. Then, he seduced an underage girl and was run out of town.139 In Virginia City, Clemens had heard Sam Pride140, an African American banjoist and, most likely, Tom Bree and Charley Rhoades. He could again hear these performers at the Olympic Theater in San Francisco. In his famous comment, Clemens tied the minstrel banjo and its players to a popular Nevada beverage, one that he probably consumed in excess--strychnine whiskey. An alkaloid, like cocaine or amphetamines, strychnine (in small doses) spurred one to great, temporary energy and could help clear the lungs. Early in the 19th century, French physicians knew the ingredient as a remedy for the symptoms of consumption and tuberculosis—prevalent in European cities due to the pervasive burning of coal for heat. During 1864, in his “A Peep At Washoe”, H. Ross Browne wrote down Nevada’s strychnine whiskey formula at the height of its popularity along the eastern slope. ...it was their practice to mix a spoonful of water in half a tumbler of whisky, and then drink it. The whisky was supposed to neutralize the bad effects of the water. Sometimes it was considered good to mix it with gin. I was unable to see how any advantage could be obtained in this way. The whisky contained strychnine, oil of tobacco, tarentula juice, and various effective poisons of the same general nature, including a dash of corrosive sublimate; and the gin was manufactured out of turpentine and whisky, with a sprinkling of prussic acid to give it flavor.141 The addition of strychnine to alcohol seems to have been imported from England to Carson Valley, Nevada, during the mid 1850s by Simpson, a hotel operator. His son-in-law, Snowshoe Thompson, danced all night on rocks to keep warm midst huge snow drifts high in the Sierra Nevada while skiing across to deliver the mail—probably aided by the stimulation of strychnine whiskey. He died young, of liver trouble. Eagle Valley trader and fiddler, Dutch Nick seems to have branded the beverage, “Tarentula Juice”.142 This label probably derived from the feeling of tiny legs on the skin— known today in association with use of amphetamines as “formication.” Meth addicts frequently have sores on their face and hands from scratching at these invisible creatures. !61 Visit: nevadamusic.com for more books and CDs.
! During the 1860s, in Nevada, Tarentula Juice was probably a favorite beverage for Clemens and his fellows. It was, “warranted to kill at forty paces.”143 Into the 20th century, pharmacists would supply the needs of nut vomica so that strychnine could be added to “whiskey compounds” or, as Twain seems to have referred to it, “whiskey punch.” In his writing from the mines, Alf Doten used “soldiering” as a metaphor for drinking. The allusion stems from the use of “dead man” for an empty bottle of booze, dating back to the 1600s. Similarly, in “Roughing It”, Clemens described his friends returning to their lodging after “surveying” Carson City. He wrote of his encounter with tarantulas. This should probably be understood as a troop of young men strung out on Tarentula Juice—strychnine whiskey—who carried some back to their rooms at the Ormsby House after soldiering the town. He (Governor Nye) converted them into surveyors, chain-bearers, and so on, and turned them loose in the desert. It was ‘recreation’ with a vengeance!...They surveyed very slowly, very deliberately, very carefully. They returned every night during the first week, dusty, footsore, tired, and hungry, but very jolly. They brought in great store of prodigious hairy spiders— tarantulas—and imprisoned them in covered tumblers up stairs in the ‘ranch.’.... and so we had quite a menagerie arranged along the shelves of the room. Some of these spiders could straddle over a common saucer.... If their glass prison-houses were touched ever so lightly they were up and spoiling for a fight in a minute.... There was as usual a furious ‘zephyr’ blowing the first night of the Brigade’s return.... In the midst of the turmoil, Bob H____ sprung up out of a sound sleep, and knocked down a shelf with his head. Instantly, he shouted:
‘Turn out, boys—the tarantulas is loose!’
...I know I am not capable of suffering more than I did during those few minutes of suspense in the dark, surrounded by those creeping, bloody-minded tarantulas. I had skipped from bed to bed and from box to box in a cold agony, and every time I touched anything that was fuzzy I fancied I felt the fangs....144 For the hard living Clemens of 1865, long before plumbing his drinking sprees into a quaint story for “Roughing It”, the music of the bib shirt crowd held no candle to the banjo or to strychnine whiskey. In lauding the, “glory-beaming banjo”, he wrote a statement of rebellion and an assertion of the topsy- turvy in which true culture would now be found not at the top, but at the bottom. Clemens had immersed himself in the theater, drink and the bohemian life. The gold rush and the diggings had produced, out of seeing the elephant, a distinct movement toward rugged individualism. During 1864, in Gold Hill, the first western mining union emerged based on successful demand for a daily wage in the mine based not on the skill or nature of work but on the risk— everyone who went into the miner, whether mucker or miner, would be paid the same. The idea elevated risk and the individual worker to a new height as mining unions then spread across the West. The comparison of the banjo to strychnine whiskey was not Clemens’ first effort to confront high culture with an alternative. He had committed himself to the idea of alternative music and culture two years earlier in his first letter as “Mark Twain”, written after a dance in Carson City. Clemens described whiskey, divisions in class and music and a second, dark identity that he referred to as, “The Unreliable”. The music struck up just then, and saved me. The next moment I was far, far at sea in a plain quadrille. We carried it through with distinguished success; that is, we got as far as "balance around," and "half-a-man-left," when I smelled hot whisky punch, or some thing of that nature. I tracked the scent through several rooms, and finally discovered the large bowl from whence it emanated. I found the omnipresent Unreliable there, also. He set down an empty !62 Visit: nevadamusic.com for more books and CDs.
! goblet, and remarked that he was diligently seeking the gentle men's dressing room. I would have shown him where it was, but it occurred to him that the supper table and the punch-bowl ought not to be left unprotected; wherefore, we staid there and watched them until the punch entirely evaporated. 145 As later in his strychnine banjo quote, Clemens alluded to the split within himself as well as between American classes as mirrored by styles of music. He contrasted his own song, a gem from the “horse opera”, with an insipid love song. At that Carson City dance, the young women seem to have ignored Clemens as he resorted to “whiskey punch”. He finished the evening in his other persona, The Unreliable, plunking on a piano. He ended his letter alluding to his duality, synthesizing himself into one —“Mark Twain”: Wm. M. Gillespie sang, "Thou hast wounded the spirit that loved thee," gracefully and beautifully, and wept at the recollection of the circumstance which he was singing about. Up to this time I had carefully kept the Unreliable in the background, fearful that, under the circumstances, his insanity would take a musical turn; and my prophetic soul was right; he eluded me and planted himself at the piano; when he opened his cavernous mouth and displayed his slanting and scattered teeth, the effect upon that convivial audience was as if the gates of a graveyard, with its crumbling tombstones, had been thrown open in their midst; then he shouted something about he "would not live always" - and if I ever heard anything absurd in my life, that was it. He must have made up that song as he went along. Why, there was no more sense in it, and no more music, than there is in his ordinary conversation. The only thing in the whole wretched performance that redeemed it for a moment, was something about "the few lucid moments that dawn on us here." That was all right; because the "lucid moments" that dawn on that Unreliable are almighty few, I can tell you. I wish one of them would strike him while I am here, and prompt him to return my valuables to me. I doubt if he ever gets lucid enough for that, though. After the Unreliable had finished squawking, I sat down to the piano and sang - however, what I sang is of no consequence to anybody. It was only a graceful little gem from the horse opera.
At about two o'clock in the morning the pleasant party broke up and the crowd of guests distributed themselves around town to their respective homes; and after thinking the fun all over again, I went to bed at four o'clock. So, having been awake forty-eight hours, I slept forty-eight, in order to get even again, which explains the proposition I began this letter with.
Yours, dreamily, MARK TWAIN
Clemens’ “Mark Twain” nom de plume was not the only famous persona developed with assistance from an alkaloid. During 1886, in “Dr Jekyl and Mr. Hyde” Robert Louis Stevenson wrote about the ingestion of alkaloids or “salts” and how they fostered a second, darker, rougher, less rule-bound persona. The name, “Mark Twain”, had as well another local inspiration in drink. A Reno paper later stated that the pen name, Mark Twain, had derived from drinking with a friend at Piper’s saloon. It may also have been that he regularly ordered two drinks. Piper ran a “bit joint”—two drinks for two bits.146 John Piper’s saloon, on B street, used to be the grand rendezvous for all of the Virginia City Bohemians. Piper conducted a cash business, and refused to keep any books. As a special favor, however, he would occasionally chalk down drinks to the boys on the wall, back of the bar. Sam Clemens, when localizing for the Enterprise, always had an account, with the balance against him, on Piper’s wall. Clemens was by no means a Coal Oil Tommy, he drank for the pure and unadulterated love of the ardent. Most of his drinking was conducted in single-handed
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! contests, but occasionally he would invite Dan De Quille, Charley Parker, Bob Lowery or Alf. Doten, never more than one of them, however, at a time, and whenever he did his invariable parting injunction to Piper was to “mark twain,” meaning two chalk marks, of course. It was in this way that he acquired the title which has since become famous wherever the English language is read or spoken.147 A host of argument has accrued about the bar-tab stories that wholly or somewhat explain Clemens adopting the “Twain” name. My sense is that there is an element of truth in all stories and that, given what we know of Clemens during the early 1860s, stories around alcohol have great merit. These stories do not preclude the simultaneous influence upon Clemens of others, perhaps on the river, having used the “Mark Twain” name. Several influences probably occurred—some at a literal level where he heard the name, others at a deeper level where he was attempting resolve a struggle with identity endemic to the far West and gold rush emigration. One came from the East, where towns enjoyed neat fences, and one now survived somehow in the empty West, kept alive by dreams, any work possible and whiskey. During 1864, chased out of Nevada by the armed and angry husband of a Carson City lady whom he had insulted, Clemens fled to San Francisco. There, he again saw his banjo-playing heroes—Rhoades, Bree and Pride—at the Olympic Theater. By the fall of 1865, due to debt and drinking, Clemens felt close to suicide.148 In 1866, he took a job touring the Sandwich Islands— leaving the temptations of strychnine whiskey and the minstrel show in order to sober up and earn money.
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! 1865–BALDY GREEN During October of 1864, not long after the August death of his daughter, Caroline, Charley Rhoades bought cemetery plots in Sacramento under the name C.B. Rhoades. She died from diphtheria. Two more of his children would die young. During April and June of 1865, Rhoades played at the Olympic in San Francisco and sang Civil War songs, including two war songs of
his own: "Sheridan's Cleaned Out of the Valley"149‑ and “How Do You Feel Now Mr. Davis”.150 He was known for his performance of “The Bounty Jumper”, written by Joe Murphy.151 On April 22nd, 1865, he played the new Civil War song, “Marching Through Georgia”, composed by Henry Wouk—listed in the program as a “banjo solo.” With the war ending and people tired of its songs, Rhoades’ San Francisco appearances seem to have now increasingly included Irish and Chinese themes.152 This shifted what had been the dual emphasis in the black-face minstrel show—racist humor and working class complaint—toward more racism when portraying the Chinese and more working class complaint when portraying the Irish. Actual Irish or Americans of Irish ancestry sometimes starred in the Irish skits—notably Joe Murphy and Kitty “from Cork” O’Neil. For all its ridicule of minorities, the Irish seem to have embraced this humorous depiction, perhaps because it represented recognition of the Irish in the shadow of English oppression. The minstrel skits treated the Irish much better than they treated African American or the greatly disdained local minority—the Chinese. The song lyric that seems to have propelled Rhoades to wider notice for his song-writing appears to have been "Our Engine On The Hill", composed in the wake of the Aug. 21, 1865 fire that broke out between 4 and 5 o'clock in the old Niantic Hotel, corner of Clay and Sansom, doing considerable damage to that and adjoining buildings.153 and, While running to the fire, James H. Washington and Walter J. Bohen, members of the Monumental engine company, were run over by Steam Fire Engine Number 6, and fatally injured.
There's Bowen and Washington, too-- Brave boys as ever drew breath-- Who, when the 'Hall' rung, nobly jumped for the tongue And went forth to battle with death! How bravely they met their sad fate! To save them was past human skill; They sank with a groan while onward alone Sped our Engine that's housed on the hill. Etc.
The San Francisco fire company sang the song as they sped to their next fire. It remained popular with local firefighters through the 19th century.154
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! The song’s lyric is a bit trite, not up the quality of other Rhoades songs. This suggests that while it was successful and put Rhoades on the map at as a song-writer, it was an early effort—one upon which he would attempt to improve. Its success probably drove home to Rhoades the show-business potential for celebrating local people in lyric. While his firemen lyric proved serious and maudlin, Rhoades now shifted to is strong suit, comedic sarcasm--invoking laughter at western characters, an becoming increasingly clever. He increasingly focused on Fenian sentiment. The Irish audience was growing. Some studies suggest that the period 1860 to 1864 proved a high point in Irish emigration to Virginia City, Nevada.155 A Fenian circle was active in Virginia City by April of 1865.156 The odd transition of black-face slang to Irish themes can be seen in “The Peanut Stand”, a song with which Rhoades came to be associated.157 He may or may not have written it. The song’s lyric is framed as sung by a black slave while the topic is Irish. The melody is taken from the song, “Joe Bowers,” a melody that sounds Irish or, at the least, like an English saloon theater version of an Irish melody. The irony of Irish song at this time is that it emerged on the stage to the great delight of the Irish, particularly those in America, yet often with a tongue-in-cheek stereotype and hence implied ridicule of the Irish. Determined to be accepted into “white” culture, the Irish didn’t seem to mind and often used the theatrical portrayals to put their cause.
THE PEANUT STAND Tune- "Joe Bowers"158
Come, listen to me, white folks, while I rehearse a ditty, It's all about a nice young gal, she lived in Jersey City; She fell in love with a gay young man, he was wealthy once in his time, He was chief engineer of a shoemaker's shop, and his name was Conny O'Ryan.
Now Biddy Magee was a handsome gal, and known both near and far, She kept a peanut stand in Jersey City and supplied the railroad cars; But when her mother she heard of Conny, she swore vengeance against his clan, She said if her daughter kept company with him, she'd bust up her peanut stand.
Now Conny O'Ryan was a man of fame, and noted far and near, He'd beat Saint Patrick at "forty-fives, " a playing for lager bier; He got in with a parcel of Jersey roughs, they led him around like a toy, So he joined the New York Fire Zoo-Zoos, and went for a soger boy.
When Biddy Magee she heard of this, she took light to her bed, The peanut stand went up the spout, and the gal she died right dead; The news took effect on Conny himself, so he could never march to time, So out of the camp in very short time, they drummed poor Conny O'Ryan.
The old woman's house is haunted now at night about twelve o'clock. She sees the most horrible sort of a sight, which gives her a terrible shock; The ghosts of Conny and Biddy Magee come walking in hand and hand, !66 Visit: nevadamusic.com for more books and CDs.
! While right behind them comes marching along, the ghost of the peanut stand.
During late 1865, Charley Rhoades wrote the song for which he would be most remembered by Virginia City’s bohemians—“The Pioneer Stage Driver” or “Baldy Green”. The song’s composition seems to have come as part of a comic parody or burlesque with Fenian focus. Fenian sentiment would remain at a height for the Virginia City and Gold Hill audiences to which Rhoades performed for the next four years. The Irish had launched a rebellion against the English occupation of Ireland, much of the initial agitation centered in the United States. The Fenian Brotherhood organized in 1868 and held a grand congress in Chicago during 1863.159 Just down from Virginia City, Gold Hill enjoyed a large number of Irish miners. The 1858 strike in Gold Hill preceded the 1859 announcement of the Ophir or Comstock Lode that created Virginia City. Irish often took the unskilled task of mucker--shoveling the ore after it had been blasted by skilled miners with a steam drill, often the Cornish, actively recruited from Cornwall for their skills. The Irish had flocked to the U.S. to escape famine. For several years early in the 1860s, the Irish had been looked down upon by the skilled Cornish miners who often resided up the road in Virginia City. However, during the Civil War, the nation saw intense political dialogue, including heartfelt concern for the meaning of freedom. Seeking an Ireland free of English control, during the Civil War the Fenians sided with the Union while the English allied with southern cotton growers. In the army, the Irish learned to shoot guns and the Fenians began to plan their attack on the English—in Canada. The Fenians saw English control as economic. And, they sought an "American" language to replace the "English" language —an idea during the 1860s that allied the Fenians with a range of working class efforts in art, theater and culture. During 1863, in Virginia City, the Irish and Cornish began to organized to force mine owners to pay the same wage to both the miners and the muckers--the unskilled who shoveled the blasted ore into iron carts and those who wielded the steam drills.160 Their concept of shared risk represented a great advance in labor rights. It reflected the culture of the digging and the ethos of “seeing the elephant”, in which hardship created authenticity. Gold Hill saw creation of the first western miners Union--beginning a movement that soon swept through western mining towns. By the fall of 1865, the fervor of Union sentiment during the war was bursting forth in ardent Fenian sentiment. In 1866 they formed the first western mining union in Gold Hill. All of this forms the backdrop to Rhoades’ stage improvisations. Rhoades’ primary minstrel burlesque in Virginia City during 1865 appears to have been C.H. Webb’s “Arrah-no-Poke". In San Francisco, during summer and fall of 1865, Boucicault’s Fenian play “Arrah-na-Pogue” played over and over at Wheatleigh’s Academy of Music, bringing in many Irish who might not have been familiar with American theater.161 It featured the song, “The Wearin’ O’ The Green.”162 Fenian sentiment was at it height. McGuire had wanted this Fenian play in his theater but had been outbid. He countered with C. H. Webb’s popular burlesque—“Arrah-no-Poke or Arrah of the Cold Pomme de Terre”.163 During October, Rhoades and company performed the parody version at the Olympic in San Francisco.164 During November, melodeon promoter Tom Peasley brought the Fenian play to the Opera House in Virginia City.165 During December, Charley Rhoades appeared at McGuire’s Opera House in Virginia City with the parody, Arrah-no-Poke, and probably accompanied that show’s best song, “The Eating of the Green.” 166. In March of 1866, The Gold Hill News published the parody’s words.167
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! THE EATIN’ OF THE GREEN Words: C.H. Webb
Oh Paddy, dear, and did you hear, the news is goin round? The dandelion’s forbid, bedad, to grow upon the ground. For with the boys, you see, forbye, it isn’t all serene— They’ve had a wholesome warnin’ ‘gin Eatin of the Green. I met with Doctor Murphy, and he tuk me by the fist. And he said, How’s your ould stomach? And I said, Hould your whist! She’s the most distressful stomach that ever was foreseen. And they’re doctorin people everywhere for Eatin’ of The Green.
Then since the victual we must eat is England’s bloody beef, They can’t do less than give us quills to pick our blarsted teeth; We’d much prefer for diet, tail duck and broiled sea bass, Boned turkey—faith, we’d bone it—and a patty fois de grass; Then we’d take the praties from the pot and feed ‘em to the pig, And he would root among ‘em, and think he’d something big, But still in our new diet; objection would be seen; In that same grass they’d say we were still Eatin’ of the Green.
But if at last the doctors will not feed us as we please, We’ll pack out duds and dudiheens, and go beyond the seas, I’ve heard of California, where people never die, And earthquakes are not dangerous—unless the papers lie! Where the pigs are fed on chestnuts, and the sheep are fed on hay, And the beans to go along wid em is just as cheap as they; Where the bloody beef of England gives place to pork and beans, And where folks live until they die still Eatin’ of the Greens.
That same season in Virginia City, Rhoades appears to have written and performed the song that became the most famous among the bohemian crowd in Virginia City—“Baldy Green”. Whether it was
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! part of a burlesque or parody isn’t clear. Few Virginia City newspapers from 1865 survive. Still, the background to the song seems to lie in the rising power of Wells Fargo coupled to growing, anti- establishment sentiment among the Irish or Fenians in Virginia City and Gold Hill. Baldy Green drove the Pioneer Stage between Virginia City and Placerville, later, to Folsom. Wells Fargo purchased the line during 1864. During 1865, with its competition suffering difficulties, Wells Fargo enjoyed a near monopoly on the express business in California and western Nevada. Wells Fargo was also a bank. A song about a robbery of Wells Fargo would play into local Irish, Fenian working class sentiment. In San Francisco, Boyd published Rhoades’ song as a broadside, probably in the wake of publication of Rhoades’ Civil War songs. Boyd seems to have been capitalizing on Rhoades’ reputation in San Francisco. Boyd’s broadside states key facts about the robbery wrongly, suggesting that Rhoades had no role in any of the Boyd publications. It gives the stage driver’s name wrong, making it “Bally Green” instead of “Baldy Green.” It cites the wrong number of robbers—four instead of the actual three. The correct words and details are found in Drury Wells’ later publication of the lyric. The broadside’s drawing of Rhoades appears based on photo. It shows the banjoist wearing his fur- lined frock coat with some embroidery, waistcoat, string tie, square tipped shoes. The hat could be described as a wide/flat brimmed, low crown “John Bull” or a flat-topped “gambler” hat. The coat isn’t so much a frock coat as a traveling coat—a fancy overcoat designed for warmth on long stage rides including those over the Sierra Nevada during December. In the broadside, Rhoades is shown with light colored pants. The immediate inspiration for “The Pioneer Stage Driver” was probably, “The High Salary Driver of the Denver City Line” published April 8, 1865 in The Montana Post. Both stagecoach songs parodied an 1859 minstrel song, “The Stage Driver On The Knickerbocker Line”, by Unsworth, published by De Witt in “Burnt Cork Lyrics”, 1859, republished in Billy Birch’s “Ethiopian Melodist”, 1862. The song saw variations popular in England during the early 1860s. The melody is in the Dorian mode. This would require that the banjo’s second string be raised a half step to what is today among old time banjo players is called, “mountain minor” or “sawmill” tuning.168
THE STAGE - DRIVER ON THE KNICKERBOCKER LINE.169 Composed and sung by Unsworth.
Now, white folks, pay attention, I'se gwane to sing a song; I hope it's going to please you, though it isn't very long; It's about one of the old boys so callous and so fine- For he drove an omnibus on the Knickerbocker line.
He was such a favorite wherever he went, And he never was known to knock down a cent;
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! He slung a graceful whip; for he was bound to shine Like a high-salaried driver on the Knickerbocker line.
He was driving down Broadway the other afternoon. When, just as he was passing a lager-beer saloon, 'Twas there he spied a young gal, the prettiest e'er was seen: She'd just arrived that morning from the Jersey quarentine.
Oh! whar' are you going, young woman? he said. She guv' him a look dat like to kill him dead- She handed up her band-box and den got up herself- She so exprised George Henry dat he nearly lost his breff.
He thought he'd caught an heiress, a Southern Lucy Neal, Like the galliant French capting and the maid of Mobile. Says she: the sun am very hot, gib me half of your umbrella; My name is Miss Piehimmeson, and I peddles sasaparilla.
When George heard this news, which couldn't have been was, His mug it did turn yellow, and he rolled off the bus. Dey bathed his head in vinegar, to take away the scars, And now he's driving mules on the Second Avenue cars.
Drury Wells wrote of “Baldy Green” as the most popular song to come out of Virginia City. His description of audience reaction illustrates well the mining audiences for whom Charley Rhoades and Jake Wallace performed. Unlike writers from the bib-shirt crowd who routinely scorned the melodeon hall or fandango house, Wells writes as one of that working class, mining audience. Or, at least, as a bohemian who identified with that group. Speaking of holdups, I call to mind a catchy bit of frontier balladry called Baldy Green, which used to be the most popular song on the Comstock. Charley Reed's Chicken Tamale and Daniel's Razzle Dazzle couldn't compare.
K.B. Brown used to laugh and stamp his feet when he heard Charley Rhoades play the banjo and sing it. 'Everybody stamped their feet in those days,' explained 'K.B.' in reminiscent strain. 'That was before the dudes had introduced the custom of clapping. You can bet your life that anybody would have been tarred and feathered or ridden out of town on a rail just as quickly for clapping his hands as he would for wearing a swallow-tail coat. Old Judge Mesick and Jonas Seely and Colonel Bob Taylor and Jase Baldwin and Rollin Daggett, all used to sit together in John Piper's old Opera House, and whenever Rhoades would come out and sing Baldy Green they'd hit on the benches in front of them with their six-shooters and call "Bully!" until Piper would try to give them back their money to get them to stop.
I'll always believe that Rhoades wrote Baldy Green himself, though I understand Hank Donnelly, Superintendent of the Eureka Con. mine tried to prove that Alf Doten did. The way the song came to be written was that Wells-Fargo's stages were being robbed nearly every day, just as if Milton Sharp or Black Bart had been there, and their high-toned driver, Baldy Green, seemed to be the favorite with the road agents. Anyway, they stopped him oftener than any of the others.
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! Some suspicious people used to say that Baldy was in with the play and gave the boys the right tip, but that was all josh. Everybody who knew Baldy protested that it wasn't so, but it made him madder to tell it on him that it really was true.
One of the exciting events in Baldy's much-interrupted career is immortalized in the song:170
BALDY GREEN —from “Editor on the Comstock” by Drury Wells
I’ll tell you all a story, and I’ll tell it in a song And I hope that it will please you, for it won’t detain you long; ‘Tis about one of the old boys, so gallus and so fine, Who used to carry mails, on the Pioneer Line.
He was the greatest favor-ite, that ever yet was seen, He was known about Virginny by the name of Baldy Green. Oh, he swung a whip so gracefully, for he was bound to shine— For he was a high-toned driver, on the Pioneer Line.
Now, as he was driving out one night, as lively as a coon, He saw three men jump in the road, by the pale light of the moon; Two sprang for the leaders, while one his shotgun cocks, Saying, ‘Baldy, we hate to trouble you, but just pass us out the box.”
When Baldy heard them say these words, he opened wide his eyes, He didn’t know what in the world to do for it took him by surprise. Then he reached into the boot, saying, “Take it, sirs, with pleasure.” So out into the middle of the road went Wells and Fargo’s treasure.
Now, when they got the treasure box they seemed quite satisfied, For the man who held the leaders then politely stepped aside. Saying “Baldy, we’ve got what we want, so drive along your team,” And he made the quickest time to Silver City ever seen.
Don’t say greenbacks to Baldy now, it makes him feel so sore, He’d traveled the road many a time, but was never stopped before. Oh, the chances they were three to one and shotguns were the game, And if you’d ‘a been in Baldy’s place you’d a shelled her out the same.
Baldy was robbed three times, 1865, 1867 and in June of 1868—171 ensuring that the song in his enjoyed frequent reprise. The lyric uses “coon”, “gallus”, “high tone” and “fine”— terms applied to a black face dandy in the minstrel show—depicting a house slave. This tapped into the song’s minstrel show roots. The basis for the comparison appears to be that Baldy Green wore light colored clothing—hat, coat and pants. Light colored pants, duster, shirt and hat can be found on others driving the Pioneer Line stage around this time —as if the trip at high altitude over the Sierra caused a group of drivers to adopt this style.172 The song would be a “hit” at a Virginia City local. A 1865 lithograph of the Pioneer Stage173 and an 1865 photos of the stage in front of the Virginia City Wells Fargo Express Office may show the same driver—probably !71 Visit: nevadamusic.com for more books and CDs.
! Baldy Green—recognizable by his low crown white hat, round shape and face, light colored clothes, size and posture
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! 1866–THE MUSIC HALL FIRE With his partner, Otto Burbank—a noted jig dancer— Rhoades returned to the Virginia City Music Hall, managed by Max Walter, during 1866. The troupe included Ella La Rue. They departed San Francisco for Virginia City during June174 and arrived during September175—the interim presumably filled with appearances along the way. Rhoades took the role of stage manager. The orchestra included E. Zimmer. The troupe’s repertoire included some Civil War related pieces. Chas. Rhodes was the lucky recipient of a benefit on Sept. 7th; the house was crowded to suffocation, and an excellent performance was given. Tuers and Burbank run the end, with Charley Rhodes as chief interrogator. A huge old walk around was given, in which Burbank, Vincent, Tuers, Jimmy Moore and Miss Josephine figured conspicuously. In the interlude, Rhodes did up one of his rich banjo solos, and was encored several times; Charley is a favorite with the Virginians.176 Commenting on their presentation of “Ten Nights In A Bar Room,” The Territorial Enterprise wrote: Otto Burbank performed the character of Joe Morgan, the drunkard, to perfection as did also Charley Rhodes that of Williams Button, the politician. In fact, Charley’s personification of that character was natural to the…numerous specimens of old broken down whiskey-drinking party hacks we see among us every day. He played it so well that, did we not know better, we should consider it to be his normal condition.177 The Gold Hill News described an exchange between Rhoades and another member of the cast when he noticed an interruption by a prominent local in the audience. The account illustrates the humorous repartee between Rhoades and Burbank as well as the calling out and spontaneous interaction with the audience that had become Rhoades' forte, leading to his renown.
A Logical Deduction.—On Tuesday evening, while Charley Rhodes was acting an intoxicated character, in the play called “Ten Nights in a Bar-room,” he was interrupted by a remark which came from a well known citizen of this County, who sat in one of the boxes. “Do you (hic) know who that is?” (Hic.) “Do you know who that is, (hic) Baxter?” “I don’t know, but I guess—“ started Baxter. “Shut up, (hup) you fool!” said Charley; I’ll tell you (hic) who that is; that’s—-; he’s been running for office lately, and now he’s de-(hic) funct—he is (hic)— you bet.” “He’s a dead beat;” suggested Baxter. “Shut up (hup) you cussed fool, (hic;) of course he drew out.” “Why” inquired Baxter. “That man, said Charley, “that man (hic) he (hic) he drew out (hic) ‘cause he couldn’t get in!” This “gag” brought down the house; obtaining !73 Visit: nevadamusic.com for more books and CDs.
! most vehement applause from the object of the “point,” who now claims he has a perfectly satisfactory excuse of his defeat. Charley can retort silver wit on short notice. 178
The cast then presented a minstrel show parody of “The Corsican Brothers”, another Dion Boucicault play—“The Corrigan Brothers.” Alf Doten sat in one of the front rows and kept a copy of the September 23 playbill.. At the top, it lists the usual Music Hall crew— owner, Max Walter, the band leader, E. Zimmer, the stage manager, Otto Burbank, and the Musical Director, F.H.H. Oldfield. It then highlights the parody which, in typical minstrel show manner, the play would be the third piece of the evening. The first piece contained the typical series of songs concluding with a walk-around. For example, Burbank sang “Lager Beer” to the tune of “The Bold Privateer.” Then the band played an overture. The second part or olio would be certain featured performers, notably Charley Rhoades. This included Civil War material. The band then played an overture. The parody came last. Artemus Ward, C.H. Webb and other humorists were creating parodies. Rhoades had performed Webb’s parody during 1865. The 1866 parody of “The Corsican Brothers”—an 1852 melodrama based on a French dramatization of the novel by Alexandre Dumas179—may have been Rhoades' first effort to create a full length production. The playbill emphasized that “The Corrigan Brothers” would be “a parody, not a burlesque”. This emphasis contrasts the running advertisement in the local paper which, for the season as a whole, described, “Comedies, Farces, Burlesques, Songs Dances and Eccentricities”— with no particular play or parody mentioned.180 This suggests that Burbank and Rhoades created a full script or book while a “burlesque” would have simply been a comedic allusion to the original. It suggests that Rhoades was moving more and more toward status as a writer—that Rhoades took some pride in creating that book—a script—and wanted to raise it above the level of a mere burlesque. During performance of “The Corrigan Brothers” parody at the Music Hall, a camphene footlight exploded. Camphene contained a mixture of turpentine and alcohol. Its dangers on stage were well known. The mixture’s flash point lay at around 104 degrees.181 That night, the explosion occurred immediately following operation of the trap door in the stage, an innovation associated with the original play and known as “The Corsican Trap” or “Ghost Glide.” In their parody, Otto Burbank played the part of both brothers and was ascending while moving across the stage when, just as the trap completed its operation, the footlight burst into flame. The popularity of the original play lay partly in the appearance of a ghost rising up through a hole that would move sideways across the stage as it rose up, stunning audiences. In fact, the trap was sometimes considered a bigger draw to an audience than the rest of the play.182 In some manner, perhaps, vibration and/or heat at that moment when the trap reached the stage level set off the lamp.183 The
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! Territorial Enterprise account uses much the same language as Alf Doten’s journal account and was probably written by Doten. Dozen’s journal: Sunday, Sept 23—Clear & warm—as usual— Evening at Music Hall—Performance concluded with the “The Corrigan Brothers,” a parody on the “Corsican Brothers”—The second act had just commenced, when suddenly one of the foot lights bursted, and the kerosene ran on the stage, on fire—Charley Rhoades tried to thresh it out with his hat, but it ran down beneath the stage through the cracks, & all was at once on fire— some of the other lamps bursted or were broken in the fuss—I was in one of the front seats—Crowd got out pell mell—crowded house—between 6 & 700 people inside— I got out through the green room—All the actors & actresses escaped & all wardrobe was saved—Engines all promptly on hand & at work, but in less that half an hour, Music Hall was but cinders—Fire burst out at rear of building, as the scenery etc of course, make it mighty hot that end—One or two buildings adjoining were also destroyed—Loss perhaps $20,000 in all—Good bye old Music Hall—Bed at 2—184
The Territorial Enterprise:
Music Hall, the well known and popular theater in this city, situated on C street, a short distance north of Sutton Avenue, was totally destroyed by fire on Sunday even, together with some of the adjoining buildings. There were between six and seven hundred persons inside the theater, as on Saturday and Sunday evening there have been invariably full houses at that place of amusement, and the performance had progressed admirably amid much applause. The after piece was now being played. It was “The Corrigan Brothers,” a parody on “The Corsican Brothers.” The last act had commenced: the ghost of the slain brother had risen up through the stage and passed down again with startling effect, and the tableaux had just closed, when suddenly one of the footlights, for no apparent reason whatever, bursted, and the oil taking fire bursted about the stage in the mediate vicinity of the lamp. Charley Rhodes and Otto Burbank were on the stage at the time and immediately tried to beat the flames with their hats; in fact they were successful, but the liquid fire had run through the cracks and stage was on fire beneath. One or two more of the lamps were also broken and almost instantly the whole range of the footlights was on fire. Beneath the stage was an unoccupied space, where were shavings, old lumber, boxes, etc., furnishing excellent food for the greedy flames. At the first bursting of the lamp, the audience sprang up and many began to run out, but when the flames on the stage were beaten out a loud cheer was given at the success, and the danger was thought to be past. This idea, however, lasted but a moment, for the flames coming from beneath through the holes of the footlights showed the real danger. Then commenced a scene of the wildest confusion, people rushing frantically pell mell towards the first entrance, which, luckily, was !75 Visit: nevadamusic.com for more books and CDs.
! wide, with doors opening outward. The crowd struggled wildly to get past or over each other, and strange to say, no one was hurt. Many sprang out of the side windows, while others, more sensible and better posted, passed quietly out through the green room. There were several buckets of water near at hand, but so very rapid was the spread of the flames that nothing short of a deluge or something like one of our Washoe “cloudbursts” could have done any good. In less than ten minutes from the time the lamp bursted, the entire stage was in flames, and up the scenery, painted in oil colors, the devouring element eagerly leaped to the flies above, and the whole of the interior was all in flames. Music Hall was doomed. The alarm bells were ringing and steam whistles loudly sounded, calling out the entire Fire Department. The boys with their machines came dashing gallantly to the rescue, and they never got to work quicker. And now the red flames burst suddenly through the rear end of the broad roof, leaping in a fiery column high in the air, shedding a wild, lurid light on everything, far and near. It was just half-past ten o’clock when the lamp burst, and in less than thirty minutes the entire building had fallen into a pile of volcanic ruin. The actors and actresses, with the assistance of their friends, were fortunate in saving their entire wardrobe, very little being lost. The firemen worked like devils, and were perfect salamanders, standing unflinchingly almost in the very embrace of the leaping flames, having to wear wet blankets and direct the water from time to time upon each other in order to keep from being roasted alive. Their efforts were directed almost altogether to preventing the spread of the conflagration and saving the neighboring building. No fire was ever better of more successfully managed than was this one.185 The Gold Hill News article included a few personal details: …Johnny Tuers ever since the fire, is said to be inconsolable at the loss of his favorite minstrel “bones”; Charley Rhodes lost all his wardrobe, consisting of a check shirt—the banjo incontinently hung on to him in his retreat; Otto Burbank lost his tambourine, over which he has shed many tears since; little Jimmy Moore lost his curly wig and one of his favorite cork and iron-clad dancing shoes; and the lady performers lost various articles of value.186 Doten saved a copy of the evening’s program and added “The Last Of…” to the title. The fire and the article signaled a watershed in Virginia City theater and the career of Charley Rhoades. Doten’s article described a wild event and foreshadowed his coverage of Rhoades during the next two seasons. While, during 1865, performances at the Music Hall and the Territorial Enterprise articles on them had been sedate, with Doten’s help Charley Rhoades and his troupe had now stepped into the arena of zany circus-like outrageousness—an image they would cultivate during 1867 and 1868 with help from Doten. In essence, the taste of miners on the street rather than of conventional, polite society would, during those years, emerge in full public view each fall at the Opera House. In the wake of the fire, the minstrel troupe re-opened at McGuire’s Opera House, finished the unfinished show and presented a ladies version of “Ten Nights In A Barroom”— a comedic take on the 1854 temperance novel and 1858 melodrama of that name.187 The “free and easy style of the Music Hall” now shifted to the Opera house.188 About the time of the fire, Rhoades’ wife gave birth. His two-month old son, James, died during November.
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! ALF DOTEN In the wake of the fire, Rhoades and company shifted their remaining fall performances to McGuire’s Opera House on D Street, with the advertisement—“New Faces, New Business and Old Favorites.”189 The 1866 burning of the Virginia City Music Hall and the opportunity for the Opera House now become the Virginia City venue for San Francisco's minstrel stars seems to have prompted local saloon owner John Piper to approach Tom McGuire and, during spring of 1867, buy him out—creating Piper’s Opera House on D Street. As the summer of 1867 went by, the paper’s editor, Patrick Lynch, probably realized that only an inveterate theater-buff like Alf Doten had the desire or stamina for the late night hobnobbing required for colorful articles like the one Doten had written for The Territorial Enterprise about the Music Hall fire. Writer, rake, drunk, theater goer and amateur musician, Alf Doten (1829-1903) became the chronicler of Rhoades' last two years in Virginia City, alternately out of self-interest and with bemused observation. Spanning the period 1849 to 1902, his daily journal, photos and clippings from California and then Nevada constitute a over-whelming collection of fundamental cultural information. An 1890s picture of Doten with his son and daughter show his early minstrel style banjo. Leaving the diggings of the Sierra Nevada, during 1864, Doten began writing for the Como newspaper, edited the Virginia Daily Union in 1864, wrote for The Territorial Enterprise during 1866 before becoming associate editor of The Gold Hill News during fall of 1867.190 He became editor of that paper during fall of 1872.191 Like Clemens, for a time he idolized Charley Rhoades. And then, like Clemens, he seems to have turned his back on all that fun for more serious pursuits—or, at least, tried. As an amateur, Doten played banjo, violin, flute and harmonica. In California during 1856, in the “pathetic” lyric style recently introduced to the minstrel show by Stephen Foster, Doten wrote a poem sentimentally lauding the banjo. In it, Doten portrayed the banjo as similar to other tokens of home popular in romantic American song—the bucket in the well, the old church yard, etc.. Interestingly, in the piece he did not use African American dialect—it is not framed as a minstrel piece but as a sincere Victorian homily to the banjo at death—perhaps influenced by the death of Tom Briggs.
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! STRIKE THE BANJO—Alf Doten, 1856192
I love to hear good music sound, Wherever it may be, But yet above all other notes, The Banjo’s sound for me. I heard it when a little child, My heart was filled with glee; A cheering and a joyous friend, Is the Banjo still to me.
Strike the Banjo, hear the sound, The Banjo loud is ringing; Music floating all around, O listen to the music and the singing.
And when my daily task is done, I sit in the old arm chair, And with the Banjo in my hand, Forget all toil and care. I’ll pass full many a happy hour, Picking the Banjo’s string; Making the merry notes to sound, As happily I sing.
When hours of sickness and of pain, My saddened spirit tired, I had a joyous, tuneful friend, My Banjo, by my side. It cheered my saddened spirits up, It soothed my aches and pain, To pick upon the Banjo’s string, And strike its notes again.
When I am dead, O let me rest Beneath some old oak tree; That the sighing winds, may through the leaves My requiem sing for me. And when laid in my silent grave In sweet repose to bide, O lay my old companions too, My Banjo, by my side.
During the 1860s, on the side of a sagebrush hill south of Gold Canyon, he wrote in his diary of playing banjo for a dance upon arriving in the small mining town of Como, Nevada. Dud Fuller came over here from beyond the Whitman, where he is working—he played fiddle—Buckner also played fiddle—Henry the horn & I the banjo—’Como Quadrille Band’— pretty good band—good music—jolly time—Ladies got up the supper free—music free—At 12 !78 Visit: nevadamusic.com for more books and CDs.
! o’clock all went to supper—oyster soup, cakes, pies, wine etc—pretty good—ball broke up at 3 o’clock.193 Alf Doten became associate editor of The Gold Hill News during November, on the same day that Rhoades and company arrived at Piper’s Opera House for their 1867 season there. His hiring probably reflected the glorious detail to his 1866 piece on the fire at the Music Hall as well as the reluctance of Patrick Lynch, the Gold Hill editor, to embrace the night-life necessary to coverage of popular theater. Previously, The Gold Hill News had only tersely covered theater. Now, with Doten in residence, theater coverage blossomed. Doten saw the theater, the banjo and Charley Rhoades as a definition of prospector entertainment and culture. In The Gold Hill News Doten painted a lively picture of an exuberant impresario who constantly innovated with over-the-top productions, using talented actors and actresses imported from San Francisco. Manager Rhoades exerts his giant energies, and successfully, too, in always getting up something new, sensational and pleasing for the special delectation of the many patrons of Piper’s theatrical establishment.194 Doten followed the economics of the theater. Admission ran $1.00 for an average ticket.195 Theater costs for a show ran about $175 per night.196 An audience of 80 was considered a slim house. $50 revenue during an evening would lead to closing the show, the cost for using the theater being $52 to Piper. At this time, Doten was not only interested in Rhoades’ performances but also seeking favor with his Gold Hill audience whom he lauded as much better behaved at Piper’s Opera House than the Virginia men. A few months into his job as associate editor and shortly after covering Rhoades first season at Pipers, Doten described the Gold Hill audience as the true or loyal audience of the Opera House. He characterized the Virginia City audience as “Horntowners”, associating them with a singular interest in “horns” or drinks and general annoyance at the Opera House as compared to the more polite and theater- interested Gold Hillers. Piper’s Opera House.—This popular theatrical institution, being situated on D street, it comes perfectly natural for the Horntowners to go slipping and sliding along down the cross streets to it. The Opera House is where they can sit, that their regular horns, and keep warm and comfortable, at the least possible expense. The true patronage of the house, and whence come the profits and the salaries of the actors, is from Gold Hill gentlemen. Gold Hillers never attempt to spar their way in past the faithful cerberos who stands in the gangway leading to both upper and lower levels. Gold Hillers always come out with their regular coin. The numerous half dollars which are thrown upon the stage every evening, all come from Gold Hillers. Who constitute the best behaved portion of the audience? Who are the chaps that bum about the greenroom and would be eternally crowding the winds and getting in the way of the actors if John Woodard didn’t drive them out? Horntowners. Who linger about the outside doors begging for “checks” to get in on? Horntowners. Who never refuse to drink whenever Gold Hillers or any other man asks them? Gold Hillers. Who are the best appreciators of true talent? Gold Hillers. Who always applaud Fanny Hanks when she recites Sheridan’s Ride? Gold Hillers. 197 Doten saw Rhoades as perfect for the prospector and Gold Hillers, many of whom were Irish, as the epitome of that noble audience. When Rhoades could not come down the road from Virginia City to Gold Hill in person, he seems to have simply sent Doten alcohol and a written description of his current offering. Doten cited Rhoades’ “cold”—his lingering sickness.
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! Compliments. That immense buffer, Charley Rhoades, has sent us down a kind of bill head note, written in a very loud hand, with expletives in it big enough for a man with one eye to see. He also, by the same token, throws a bottle of demented cider, (manufactured in Champagne—A No. 1) at our heads, and calls upon us to bathe our heads in its contents. We imbibe on compulsion, hoping that Charley may get over that cussed cold of his next year, and that he, as Stage manager, and all of the Company, down to the mentioned scene shifter, may be happy yet; and that there may be less noise in the green room when Charles next plays Pat, and Kitty sings, “The wearing of the Green,” etc.,etc. The fact is there ain’t a cuter or civiler or more dangerous chap on the coast that Charley Rhoades, and when he has a benefit we intend to speak our mind so freely about him that everybody who has any curiosity will go and hear him shoot back.
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! 1867–KITTY FROM CORK O’NEIL The minstrel troupe’s arrival at Piper’s Opera House had been delayed due to sickness. 1867 began with Charley Rhoades and Jake Wallace performing together, Rhoades taking the role of stage manager. From February through April, as The San Francisco Variety Troupe and with Rhoades as stage manager, they toured Sacramento, Marysville198, Mariposa,199 Auburn200, Red Bluff and Weaverville. They were described as “riotously funny.” The shows seem to have been “variety” presentations rather than being structured as typical three part minstrels shows, concluding with a play or burlesque. Rhoades was injecting social commentary into his songs and Wallace was there to see it. Rhodes banjo solos have stamped him a political philosopher and an individual of extremely hard sense.201 Quite possibly Wallace and Rhoades would have continued to perform together through the season, eventually arriving together in Virginia City. However, as they headed for Virginia City, expecting to arrive August 1st, Rhoades became extremely ill. The tour was halted and Rhoades returned to Stockton, as near to home as he could manage, in order to recover.202 Wallace looked for other work. He did a banjo solo as comic relief in a legitimate theater production during September203 and then, in November, joined Bryant’s Minstrels204 and toured California’s southern counties. As a result, Wallace did not join in the troupe’s antics when they finally arrived in Virginia City that November. Wallace traveled East during December.205 In January of 1868, he was being booked by an agent in Maryland and may have spent much of that year in the East.206 From about August to November of 1867, Rhoades suffered a severe cough—respiratory illness that foreshadowed his early death. Once arrived in Virginia City, Rhoades again proved a master of improvisation and, with help from Doten, publicity. One of his 1867 Virginia City stage improvisations merited two columns of coverage by The Gold Hill News and the New York press picked up the story. The affair seems to have been begun with an argument in San Francisco between Kitty O’Neil and her husband, Dick. During April of 1867, in San Francisco, Dick O’Neil had been arrested for threatening to kill Kitty O’Neil in jealousy over another man.207 Dick seems to have told the paper that he was her brother —attempting to explain his jealousy as protectiveness. The San Francisco paper reported her denial that Dick was her brother. On the San Francisco stage, she declared that the paper had lied when it claimed he was her brother.208
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! Their animosity played out in Virginia City during November of 1867 when Kitty loaned several items to a member of the minstrel troupe. During late December, The New York Clipper summarized the longer Gold Hill News article on the affair. Amazingly enough, the stage drama surpassed the burning of the Music Hall with its impact. Kittie O’Neil In Trouble—Since this Irish vocalist and dancer left this city for the golden shores of California, her pathway has not been one of roses, as she has had trouble with different parties on several occasions. The latest happened at Virginia City, N.T.. It appears that during Kitty’s engagement at the Music Hall in that city, she loaned one of the company a veil and a pair of ear-rings, and the ever-smiling Richard was dispatched to the domicile of the lady to receive them, when both parties got in a quarrelsome mood, which resulted in the aforesaid lady being arrested for bestowing upon Richard naughty names. When the case came before the courts, Kitty was called as witness, and is said to have been guilty of some very forceable language, which interrupted the proceedings. The transaction was immediately dramatized by Charley Rhoades, for representation the following evening, the part of Kitty O’Neil being played by Maggie Brewer, that of Jennie Morton by Nellie Viming, and that of Dick O’Neil by Charley Rhoades. The piece was called, ‘The Borrowed Ear-rings; or, The Mystic Veil,’ which put Kitty in high dudgeon, and, before it was performed, a very spicy debate took place, as follows: Miss O’Neil, with much emotion, informed the audience that she could not again appear at the house, because the stage manager had seen fit to prepare and rehearse, without her knowledge, a piece in which she was represented as using the vilest and most abusive language—such as she was not in the habit of using. Charley Rhoades then came forward, stated that Miss O’Neil’s name was not mentioned in the play, and that the expressions in it did not come up to a portion of the original, but were just Irish back handed blarney. Miss O’Neil then read to the audience extracts from the language attributed to her, and appealed to them to know whether it was not indecent. Charley Rhoades also commenced to address the audience, but was hustled off in a friendly way by Tuers and Sprung, with stuffed clubs. Miss O’Neil then said:--‘Gentlemen, I leave my apology with you. I cannot consent to appear again on a stage where I am held up to the public as a woman that uses the vilest language, and that by a brother professional. I cannot appear upon a stage where I am brought before the public in a manner in which this piece represents me. The piece is an outrage upon me.’ Miss O’Neil then retired, and Charley Rhoades came forward again and disclaimed, in gentlemanly language, any intention to insult Miss O’Neil, or to violate the customs of the stage. The audience decided, by an almost unanimous vote, that the play should be performed. There appears to be nothing in it which could justify so much exhibition of temper by Miss O’Neil, who, in fact, returned to business, and completed her engagement. Two days after Dick O’Neil was drugged with croton oil in a social glass with some friends, and was not only delirious for some hours, but was considered dangerously ill.209 The rift between Kitty and Dick seems to have been real—hence someone’s effort to poison him, perhaps hired by Kitty. However, Kitty seems to have simply played along with Rhoades’ improvised skit —feigning annoyance and playing up the whole thing for the audience. Into November, Kitty O’Neil performed at the Opera House, and, at least for the press, sought to repair her reputation by insisting that the language of stage jokes be toned down.210 A San Francisco paper took Rhoades’ side in the feigned quarrel, “…the balance of opinion in Virginia is not with the O’Neil family.”211 The following season, Kitty was back in Virginia City, performing with Rhoades—no sign of Dick at that time. Rhoades managed the Virginia Melodeon until Christmas. Apparently on tour with him, Charley’s wife gave birth to a boy in Virginia City during December—“smart and fat, and born with a banjo in his
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! hands.”212 There is no Sacramento burial record for this child and he seems to be the one Rhoades child who survived. In January of 1868, Rhoades appeared on stage in San Francisco.213 However, there is little mention of him through the spring. Upon his return to San Francisco that January, Rhoades may have still been recuperating from the sickness he suffered the previous summer and fall. Kitty began to perform as “Kitty From Cork” and “Lady Godiva” at the Olympic with John Woodward.214
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! 1868–THE GRASSHOPPER FEAST Presumably, Rhoades spent much of early 1868 recovering. During late 1868, Rhoades again returned to Virginia City with his partner, Otto Burbank. This time, Burbank took on the task of stage manager. The season saw his composition and first performance of a song that would become the anthem of the gold rush, “The Days of ’49”. That event lies buried in the antics of the season and occurred midst convoluted layers of improvisation and theatricality, all designed to enlist the mining audience and sell tickets. On the way to Virginia City, during the summer, the company again seems to have made a mountain tour, going East from the Bay Area through Auburn and other gold country towns. The venues included the far-flung town of Winnemucca, Nevada, during October.215 The troupe opened at Piper’s Opera House Melodeon on November 16. A late November review illustrates a typical evening —a riot of stage-craft that proved perfect for Doten’s pen. Burbank and Parker—unbosomed themselves of much perilous and explosive stuff in the shape of conundrum and pun, greatly endangering the integrity of waistbands and shoulder braces. The one-legged Professor was on hand, with his astonishing aerial flights upon the tight-rope, and his bewildering gyrations in the giddy waltz, and the Dutch Bell Ringers struck forth silvery peal of bovine melody from the sonorous lips of the glad cow-bell, arousing in the soul of the appreciative hearer most elevating and heavenly thoughts—thought of Taurus and the milkey whey. These Bell Ringers are quite the cheese—the Dutch cheese. Kitty O’Neil sang 17 or 18 of her best songs during the evening, and then, in order to accommodate her admirers, walked through some half-dozen Irish ballads after she became unable to utter a single note. Burbank and Miss Josephine made it very warm for “McGowan’s Reel,” devastating the whole machine and appropriating the last inch of yarn upon it for toe and heeling purposes. Bamford sang some of his operatic songs in is best upperattic key; Katie Lecount wrested with “The Boy with the Curly Hair,” getting rather the best of him—and thereby winning much applause— while Parker, Burbank and Rhodes floored the whole house with, “Tom and Jerry.” The audience did exceedingly well as “Smart Alecs.” In their great “Donkey Act,” consisting in throwing paper darts upon the stage during the performance, to the endangering of the eyes of both male and female artists. They succeeded in making several good hits and were rewarded with the hearty applause of all the really appreciative. It is great fun to see a young lady trying to sing a ballad and at the same time warily dodge one of the paper missels called a dart….216 A Gold Hill News article from November 27th piece weaves the mine and the Opera House into one story, again illustrating how the Doten depicted Burbank, Rhoades and their company as perfect for the miners. OPERA HOUSE MELODEON.—An excellent and extensive
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! pay streak of general fun was evidently struck at the melodeon last evening, judging from the huge crowd of eager prospectors present. The upper and lower levels and all the side drifts were jammed full, and whenever a fresh body of the rich sulphurets of talent was developed on the stage by Otto Burbank, Rhoades, Parker, Bamford, Farron, Kitty O’Neil, Clara, Josephine, Nellie Hosmer, Mollie Lowe, or any others of the great star troupe, the sensation created was fully evinced by loud bursts of applause. Superintendent Piper, Hayton the trusty station-keeper, whose post is at the head of the main incline or winze leading from the upper to the lower level, and Burbank, the underground boss, who has charge of all the lead chambers, stopes and general interior workings, all had their hands full; but as usual the work was carried on smoothly, and everything passed off to the general satisfaction of all the stock-holders. As will be seen by distributed programmes, the croppings of another rich chimney have just been struck, which will doubtless open rich to-night, judging from the way it assays. An assessment of four bits a share is levied for the purpose of developing it, which is payable at the door; but a dividend of at least five dollars per share will be declared received in rich golden entertainment by the audience before they leave the
house.‑217 For Doten and hundreds of others the high point of the troupes’ season came on the evening of Nov. 30. That night, they saw the minstrel show’s female star, Ella LaRue, walk a 160 foot rope between the Opera house and another building. Doten wrote in his diary: At 7 o'clock I went down and saw Miss Ella LaRue walk a rope stretched from the brick building corner of D and Union Streets to the balcony of the Opera House--about 160 feet--about 30 to 40 feet above the ground. 1500 or 2000 people witnessed it-- she walked across from Opera House and back--bright moonlight--bonfire in street and red fire burnt at each end of the rope.--Beautiful sight--she was dressed in short frock, tights, and trunks and carried balancing pole, as usual--walked very steady indeed. Immense across the hips—huge thighs--. While the performance was going on, I was behind the scenes for awhile, was introduced to her by Piper, and we had a pleasant chat together….218 The cost of 160 feet of 2 inch rope—the width generally deemed adequate for tight-rope walking-- would have been significant. Apparently, John Piper was determined to make the Opera House a success in the wake of McGuire’s struggles with the same venue and to capture the mining crowd that had once frequented the Music Hall. The event underscores the circus-like nature of Rhoades’ shows in Virginia City. !85 Visit: nevadamusic.com for more books and CDs.
! After the tightrope walk, Doten began to visit Miss LaRue at her room each evening around 6pm, playing banjo and taking banjo lessons from LaRue and Rhoades. The associate editor loaned LaRue his banjo for a while, as hers was broken. Apparently infatuated with Ella, Doten hardly missed a show during this period. During 1868, between Nov. 16 and Jan. 3, he went to Pipers Opera House Melodeon about 33 times. In his diary, Doten suggests that Rhoades now played on a Dobson’s 1867 patent banjo, termed by Doten a “new style.”219 The first resonator banjo, this model featured a top-tensioned head design and was advanced for its day. This shows that, like other top San Francisco minstrels, Rhoades remained in touch with developments in the New York theater scene. On Dec. 7, Rhoades celebrated his 34th birthday and got so drunk that he could barely perform his role as “Count Coldslaw.” He probably imbibed Tarentula Juice. The birthday plus his failing health may well have leant to the rumination upon death that he performed two days later for a hastily written parody. December 9 saw a benefit for the season’s manager, Otto Burbank. That night, December 9, Rhoades seems to have first presented, “The Days of ‘49”—perhaps with Burbank singing it. Rhoades appears to have created the song for a parody written for the benefit—a parody of the “Black Crook”, presented as the third and final section of the overall minstrel show. As with “The Corrigan Brothers”, Rhoades probably saw it as a “parody” rather than a “burlesque”—a distinction that was important to him but perhaps no one else. The show and song featured “hits at locals”. They seem to have adapted “Black Crook” to a story line about grasshoppers devouring people. The Territorial Enterprise stated that the title of the burlesque would be, “The Grasshopper Feast” . The ‘Grasshopper Feast,’ a new local piece, will doubtless contain many good hits on well known characters about town, and there will be besides several new acts, songs, etc., and lots of fun launched forth on the spur of the moment. Doubtless Otto will have both eyes knocked out by a shower of half-dollars thrown upon the stage, after which he will be duly thankful in a comical speech, and the people throughout the house will applaud as heartily as though they had elected the old war-horse Governor of the State.220 The Gold Hill News made clear that this would be a take-off on the “Black Crook.” The paper called it a burlesque. Opera House Melodeon--Otto Burbanks' Benefit--The "Black Crook." This evening the grandest and holiest of all complimentary benefits takes place at Piper's Opera House: Otto Burbank, the great chief short horn Tycoon of the Patagonians; the rampant wooly horse of the American Basin, will hold a grand levee assemblage of his friends, and "show them some things" such as they never saw before. Just read the programmes of entertainment distributed everywhere. Included in the list of novelties never before produced on that stage, is the great black and white local burlesque of the "Black Crook," introducing original music, scenery-stage effects, dissolving scenes and transformations, a corps de ballet of fat-legged girls, streams of real water, beauty, shape, fun, music, tableaux, and all that sort of thing in endless variety and delightful profusion. Lew Parker's new farce of "Love in a Barrel" will also be produced,
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! besides several equally new and amusing acts. Miss Ella LaRue will wheel Otto Burbank across the theater in a wheelbarrow on a rope, and lots of other choice doings and rich deposits of amusement will be developed which have only to be seen to be properly appreciated. Everybody goes to the benefit of the old chief favorite,--Otto Burbank, to-night. Go early and secure good seats. 221
In its original form and probably as a parody, the show’s theme revolved around the devouring of people. The local title, “The Grasshopper Feast”, may have been inspired by an infestation in Utah during summer of 1868 when one writer remarked:
The Locusts were very numerous. They eat our clothing as we sat in the Bowery.222 Not only did the show parody a risqué Faustian melodrama about death—“Black Crook”—it played into a Virginia City culture consumed with the imagery of death. The previous spring, about 4000 people had assembled to witness the hanging of John Millian for the murder of the well-known madam, Julia Bulette. For Mark Twain, the event seems to have sealed his disillusionment with Nevada. During that spring of ’68, Twain watched Millian hang and wrote, aghast and in awe. Bulette had been robbed and killed in her “house” near the Opera House Melodeon, where she had held parties for the bohemian theater crowd. 223 Now the man convicted of her murder found himself performing for thousands. By spring of 1868, Twain had tired of mines and the West.
NOVEL ENTERTAINMENT.
But I am tired talking about mines. I saw a man hanged the other day. John Melanie, of France. He was the first man ever hanged in this city (or country either), where the first twenty six graves in the cemetery were those of men who died by shots and stabs.
I never had witnessed an execution before, and did not believe I could be present at this one without turning away my head at the last moment. But I did not know what fascination there was about the thing, then. I only went because I thought I ought to have a lesson, and because I believed that if ever it would be possible to see a man hanged, and derive satisfaction from the spectacle, this was the time. For John Melanie was no common murderer — else he would have gone free. He was a heartless assassin. A year ago, he secreted himself under the house of a woman of the town who lived alone, and in the dead watches of the night, he entered her room, knocked her senseless with a billet of wood as she slept, and then strangled her with his fingers. He carried off all her money, her watches, and every article of her wearing apparel, and the next day, with quiet effrontery, put some crepe on his arm and walked in her funeral procession.
Afterward he secreted himself under the bed of another woman of the town, and in the middle of the night was crawling out with a slung-shot in one hand and a butcher knife in the other, when the woman discovered him, alarmed the neighborhood with her screams, and he retreated from the house. Melanie sold dresses and jewelry here and there until some of the !87 Visit: nevadamusic.com for more books and CDs.
! articles were identified as belonging to the murdered courtezan. He was arrested and then his later intended victim recognized him. After he was tried and condemned to death, he used to curse and swear at all who approached him; and he once grossly insulted some young Sisters of Charity who came to minister kindly to his wants. The morning of the execution, he joked with the barber, and told him not to cut his throat — he wanted the distinction of being hanged. This is the man I wanted to see hung. I joined the appointed physicians, so that I might be admitted within the charmed circle and be close to Melanie. Now I never more shall be surprised at anything. That assassin got out of the closed carriage, and the first thing his eye fell upon was that awful gallows towering above a great sea of human heads, out yonder on the hill side and his cheek never blanched, and never a muscle quivered! He strode firmly away, and skipped gaily up the steps of the gallows like a happy girl. He looked around upon the people, calmly; he examined the gallows with a critical eye, and with the pleased curiosity of a man who sees for the first time a wonder he has often heard of. He swallowed frequently, but there was no evidence of trepidation about him — and not the slightest air of braggadocio whatever. He prayed with the priest, and then drew out an abusive manuscript and read from it in a clear, strong voice, without a quaver in it. It was a broad, thin sheet of paper, and he held it apart in front of him as he stood. If ever his hand trembled in even the slightest degree, it never quivered that paper. I watched him at that sickening moment when the sheriff was fitting the noose about his neck, and pushing the knot this way and that to get it nicely adjusted to the hollow under his ear — and if they had been measuring Melanie for a shirt, he could not have been more perfectly serene. I never saw anything like that before. My own suspense was almost unbearable — my blood was leaping through my veins, and my thoughts were crowding and trampling upon each other. Twenty moments to live — fifteen to live — ten to live — five — three — heaven and earth, how the time galloped! — and yet that man stood there unmoved though he knew that the sheriff was reaching deliberately for the drop while the black cap descended over his quiet face! — then down through the hole in the scaffold the strap-bound figure shot like a dart! — a dreadful shiver started at the shoulders, violently convulsed the whole body all the way down, and died away with a tense drawing of the toes downward, like a doubled fist — and all was over!224 During this final trip to Nevada, when he appeared at Piper’s Opera House to give his talk on the Sandwich Islands during spring of 1868, now a sober man, Twain at first sat behind the curtain plunking a piano, reminiscing, before emerging to the small crowd who came to hear him. Perhaps he was revisiting the “horse opera” songs that he had plunked the night in Carson City after which he first wrote as “Mark Twain.” That fall, Charley Rhoades, would bring one more great parody to Virginia City, with the song for which he would ultimately be remembered. In the December 9 parody of “Black Crook”, the souls of the dead appear to have been gathered for the grasshopper. The parody’s title “The Grasshopper Feast” may reference the 1802 poem, “The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshopper Feast” in which animals dine. That Rhoades and Burbank would parody “Black Crook” illustrates the extent to which zaniness presented well in Virginia City. “Black Crook” itself was beyond the pale of respectability. It had been the subject of a lawsuit in San Francisco during 1866 when McGuire created a parody called, "The Black Rook". The California court could find in it nothing dramatic worth protecting. !88 Visit: nevadamusic.com for more books and CDs.
! To call such a spectacle a “dramatic composition” is an abuse of language. An exhibition of model artists or a menagerie of wild beasts might as well be called a dramatic composition, and claim to be entitled to copyright. 225 In “Black Crook”, a serious if sexy Victorian extravaganza, the deliverer of souls is Herzog. In the Virginia City parody, based on the apparent performance of “The Days of ‘49”, this part appears to have been assigned to Old Tom Moore, self-described as a “bummer”. An 1872 poster from New York illustrates the scantily clad women that caused “ Black Crook” to be widely regarded as a scandalous girly show. Touting “fat legged girls", the Virginia City burlesque by Burbank and Rhoades parodied this. It may have stemmed from Burbank’s participation in an 1867 burlesque of “Black Crook” featuring the “Biglimb Ballet Troupe” as part of Griffin & Christy’s Minstrels.226 At the serious level, “Black Crook’s” plot was dark and portentous. Or, perhaps, pretentious would be a better world—the melodrama being so terribly dark that Burbank and Rhoades must have had great fun with it. First performed in New York during 1865, based on a Faustian theme, the musical "Black Crook", featured the crook-backed villain, Hertzog. The Black Crook's pieced together plot took elements from Goethe's Faust, Weber's Der Freischutz, and several other well-known works. The evil Count Wolfenstein attempts to win the affection of the lovely villager Amina by placing her boyfriend Rodolphe in the clutches of Hertzog, a nasty crook-backed master of black magic (hence the show's title). The ancient Hertzog stays alive by providing the Devil (Zamiel, "The Arch Fiend") with a fresh soul every New Year's Eve. While an unsuspecting Rodolphe is being led to this terrible fate, he bravely saves the life of a dove, which miraculously turns out to be Stalacta, Fairy Queen of the Golden Realm, who has been masquerading as the bird. The grateful Queen whisks Rudolphe to safety in fairyland before helping to reunite him with his beloved Amina. The Fairy Queen's army then battles the Count and his evil horde. The Count is defeated, Satan's demons drag the magician Hertzog down to hell, and Rodolphe and Amina live happily ever after. Hertzog is tasked to deliver one soul each year to the evil arch-fiend, Zamiel. Hence, in the parody planned for Piper's Opera House by Burbank and Rhoades, a gathering of souls seems to have been the setup for the song, "The Days of '49". Rhoades appears to have composed the song based on local discussion of types and old-timers and with a melody inspired by an earlier song about death. “The Days of '49" appears to parody an 1840s English song about a sexton in a graveyard, "The Old Sexton." The old sexton gathers in souls. Old Tom Moore lists them. “The Days of ’49” keys on a phrase from “The Old Sexton”, “a relic of bygone days”— referencing that song as parodies often do. For Rhoades and Doten, the song’s performance in this December farce appears to have been nothing more than a spur-of-the-moment invention. The season disintegrated in a whirl of further skits. A benefit was held for Bamford in early January. He ran off with the receipts—still owing Piper $52 for the !89 Visit: nevadamusic.com for more books and CDs.
! evening. This may have soured Piper on having the troupe return—this was its last performance in Virginia City. Rhoades’ sickness was probably also a factor in ending their appearances. My impression is that Rhoades’ troupe was a primary reason why Piper bought the Opera House in 1867 and helped establish it as a theatrical venue in the high desert mining city. I also think Rhoades’ exceptional zaniness plus the theft of the receipts may have pushed Piper into relying on theatrical fair of a more typical and, ultimately, non-minstrel sort through the ensuing decades. See my book, “Rhymes From The Silver State”, for my comments on Virginia City and bohemian culture versus respectable civilization. The season concluded with Ella appearing as “The White Shape.” On January 9, “legitimate” theater opened at Pipers. During early January, after Ella took the Pioneer stage back to San Francisco, she sent Rhoades her hand colored picture, to give to Doten. 227 He kept it for the rest of his life, along with a host of other memorabilia. When excavation of the Opera House site occurred during 2008, the archeologists puzzled over a large organic mass, soon identified in the laboratory as jute. This was probably the remnants of Ella’s rope.228
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! THE DAYS OF ’49—ROOTS From about 1872, for thirty some years, without radio, record, television or internet promotion, with sporadic sponsorship and often by word of mouth, “The Days Of “49” spread across the nation among old time gold rush miners, 49ers. The song became the cultural talisman whereby young miners who had seen the elephant and then aged could relate and reflect upon the meaning to their story of emigration. The song became the 49er’s anthem— the equal of patriotic hymns at ceremonies. Few songs have ever achieved such status in any group or so much through their own power. That power began with its composition at Rhoades’ hand and then blossomed with Jake Wallace’s obsessive campaigning. The very different personalities of the two men fit perfectly with this unspoken partnership. Driven, intense, creative, like any song-writer Charley Rhoades possessed a wealth of cultural and musical background from which to draw when he sat down write a song that, he thought, would be a novelty filling one night, garnering the applause of the “locals”, miners. The song seems to have begun with Rhoades thinking about death, both because “Black Crook” was about death and because he, himself, was dying. He reached for an existing song model. “The Days of ’49” Rhoades seems to have parodied “The Old Sexton”, keying on that song’s phrase, “relic of bygone days.” Both songs are about gathering the dead—a theme suited to “The Grasshopper Feast” as a parody of “Black Crook.”
THE OLD SEXTON Benjamin Park, 1830s
Nigh to a grave that was newly made, Leaned a Sexton old, on his earth worn spade, His work was done, and he paused to wait, The fun'ral train through the open gait; A relic of bygone days was he, And his locks were white as the foamy sea; And these words came from his lips so thin, "I gather them in, I gather them in, Gather, gather, gather, I gather them in."
"I gather them in! For man and boy, Year after year of grief and joy; I've builded the houses that lie around, In ev'ry nook of this burial ground, Mother and daughter, father and son, Come to my solitude, one by one, But come they strangers, or come they kin, I gather them in, I gather them in, Gather, gather, gather, I gather them in."
Many are with me, but still I'm alone, I'm king of the dead - and I make my throne, On a monument slab of marble cold, And my sceptre of rule is the spade I hold; Come they from cottage or come they from great hall, Mankind are my subjects - all, all, all! Let them loiter in pleasure, or toilfully spin, !91 Visit: nevadamusic.com for more books and CDs.
! I gather them in, I gather them in, Gather, gather, gather, I gather them in.
"I gather them in - and their final rest Is here, down here, in the earth's dark breast! And the Sexton ceased - for the funeral train Wound mutely o'er that solemn plain; And I said to my heart of heart - when time is told, A mightier voice than that Sexton's old, Will sound o'ver the last tramp's dreadful din, I gather them in, I gather them in, Gather, gather, gather, I gather them in.”
In writing the song, Rhoades then seems to have asked himself, who are the dead—what is that list? The answer would have been obvious-to appeal to the locals, the miners, the dead he would list must be like them. The song lists types--individuals who each represent a category of 49er that would be readily recognizable to the Virginia City audience. The model for such a list was already extent. His list of dead appears inspired by a 1867 or ‘68 poem by Henry De Groot, “The Colloquy of the Old Timers”. De Groot’s history helps put a date to the poem. He arrived in California during 1848 and returned in 1849. During 1860 and 1863, he drew the first good maps of Nevada. He had a particular interest in names and was assigned to name Lake Tahoe. From 1864 to 1867, De Groot helped run a newspaper in Ione, Nye County229. During this period, 49ers who had flocked to “Washoe” saw the Comstock’s first mining bloom fade. Ever restless and always resistant to working in the corporate mine, the pioneers fanned out across the desert where they soon faced the end to their 49er dreams of picking up gold off the ground, living wild and free, prospering far from the bankers and the merchants. It was probably in Ione, Nevada, that De Groot began composing “The Colloquy Of The Old Timers”. The poem was first published during 1876 by The Golden Era however it probably dates from 1867 or 1868. The Dents purchased Knight’s Ferry during late 1849. The first portion of the poem appears to recount the period 1850 to 1854. The third verse describes the encounter between old 49ers as occurring 18 years later. From 1849 or 1850, this places the poem’s initial composition in 1867 or 1868. Much of the poem was probably in circulation in 1868. According to accounts, De Groot never sent the work to be printed but in some manner it reached the editor of The Golden Era. Perhaps he published it in his Nye County News during the 1860s. It would be odd to write such a work as a newspaper editor and not publish it. No copies of that paper survive. The poem appears to have had a tangible relationship to Rhoades’ song. Apparently aware of that connection, in 1881, Dan DeQuille published a shortened version of De Groot’s poem under the title, “The Days of ’49.” !92 Visit: nevadamusic.com for more books and CDs.
! De Groot framed his long poem as a conversation between Dan who lives in Idaho and Jim who has come from the Southwest. The first part lists places on a journey through diggings undertaken in California between roughly 1850 and 1854. The second part lists individuals and their fates—a theme that may have directly inspired Charley Rhoades’ song, “The Days of ’49.” In the midst of this, Dan digresses to the story of Henry Van Sickle shooting Sam Brown in Carson Valley during 1861. Thirdly, Jim digresses to stories of fighting Indians in the Southwest. Finally, the poem describes Dan’s adventures in Idaho and the poem concludes with a lofty theme of eternal mining in heaven—implicitly the only place the 49ers would find riches. Overall, it is the seminal nostalgic homily to the old timer.230 As it later appeared in mining and western publications, “The Colloquy Of The Old Timers” was lauded as giving the most authentic of language from the diggings. The poem contains lists of place names—camps visited by the narrators. It then contains lists of people. Here is an excerpt from the second section, listing old timers and their fates. Each one is associated with a location. This section is comparable to Rhoades’ song:
And what become of Zaccheus Wade, Who run the big mule train?” “Wall, Zach he made his pile, they said, And then went back to Maine.
And so did old Pop Ray and Steve, And Ike and Johnny Yates,— All I made a raise at last, I believe, And went home to the States.”
“And Slater, him that took the trip With us to Yazoo Branch?” “Wal, Slate he kind o’ lost his grip, And settled on a ranch.”
“And Jackass Jones that came about With whiskey on the Bar?” “Wal, Jackass, too, he petered out, And went—I don’t know whar.”
“And tell me, where is Jerry Ring, Who kept the Grizzly Bear, Jes’ down forninst the Lobscouse Spring, And kilt the Greaser there?
That Greaser Jesus, don’t you know, That stabbed Mike at the ball, !93 Visit: nevadamusic.com for more books and CDs.
! The time we had the fandango At Blood and Thunder Hall?”
“Oh, Jerry didn’t no no good, Got crazy ‘bout a woman, And tuck at last to drinkin’ hard, ‘Cause she got sort o’common—
Y-a-s, was by nature low inclined, And went clean to the bad, Which worked so on to Jerry’s mind Hit almost made him mad.
Dick went one day up Pike Divide, And thar lay Jerry dead, A navy pistol by his side,— A bullet through his head,”
“Tight papers them on Jerry Ring, But, Jim, as sure as you live, Them women is a dreadful thing— For a man to have to do with.
But Plug Hat Smith that kept a stand— Sold pens and ink and such?” “Wal, Plug he helt a poorish hand, And never struck it rich.
Got sort o’luny and stage-struck, Cut up a heap o’capers, And final went below and tuck To writin’ for the papers,”
“And Jolly Jake, that drove so long There on the Lightnin’ Line, And afterwards from One-horse Town To Webfoot and Port Wine?”
“Got hurt on Bogus Thunder Hill— Thrower on his horses’ necks— Was carried up to Coyoteville, And thar hant in his checks.
“’T was kind o’ queer; but these they said, War the the last words of Jake, Wal, boys, I’m on the down-hill grade, And cannot reach the break.’”
“And Butcher Brown that used to boast He’d killed so many men?” “Ah, Butch, he met his match at last—
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! Van Sickle settled him”231
During 1884, De Groot wrote a short book titled, “Recollections of California Mining Life.”232 In it, his explanation of 49ers provides an epitaph for the gold rush and a prosaic background to his long poem —views central to its sentiments in the poem. De Groot’s poem and then Rhoades’ song provide key insights into the world and outlook of the 49ers. De Groot’s poem, Rhoades’ song and then De Groot’s few sentences here provide a cogent look at how 49ers—their contemporaries—saw themselves. His rejection of wealth as a motive for the gold rush echoes the 49er sentiments behind their phrase, “seeing the elephant.” For De Groot and his 49ers, the gold rush was all about the adventure—a sentiment later echoed by Wallace.
The causes that brought men to California at that early day were such as little qualified them for rapidly accumulating property. The most of them came here in search of health or adventure, or in the hope of being able to live in an independent and easy-going way. Some were hunters and trappers, who, in pursuit of their vocation, having drifted into the country, remained her. Some were border men, who has sought on this far-off coast a refuge from the rapidly advancing civilization. A few were run-away sailors or mariners, who, attracted by the beauty of the country, the excellence of the climate and the hospitality of the inhabitants, had been enticed into a long sojourn on these pleasant shores. Whatever the causes that brought or kept them here, hardly any of these pioneers had in view the acquisition of wealth; wherefore, none of them can be properly called Argonauts, using that term in its primary sense. They were for the most part a hardly, brave and generous set of men, whose habits being simple and their wants few, neither craved nor had any need for much money. Rhoades may well have heard De Groot’s poem through Alf Doten. Doten may also have been toying with the idea of western types. Four days before Rhoades’ parody of “Black Crook”, The Gold Hill News published a short poem about western types on the road.
Pounding and swearing at his steers, Behold the grim "bull-whacker," While a cloud of dust appears The galloping "horsebacker;" Beyond, his train of loaded mules Betrays to us the "packer," And, lugging his own clothes or tools, The "knapsacker" Asks for a “chawtobacker."233
De Groot saw the 49ers as innocent jovial souls. Rhoades cast the 49er as ill-fated but also as completely fun loving—a picture that would resonate for an audience of pioneers and their mining apostles. Finally, Rhoades made the quintessential Virginia City type the narrator of his song, listing the types and reflecting humorously upon them. Old Tom Moore laments the loss of the past and then lists his 49er characters, all of whom have died violently.
Here you see old Tom Moore, a relic of bygone days.
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! A too they call me now but what care I for praise. For my heart is filled with woe and I often grieve and pine, For the days of old, the days of gold, the days of '49.
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! THE BUMMER The “Days of ’49" is a masterpiece of multiple allusions. These help it ultimate enshrinement as the anthem of the 49ers—all of these allusions lost today yet that would have been vital at the time. The song begins, “Here you see Old Tom Moore….” a first person boast that would have reminded miners of “Joe Bowers” and of its antecedent, the radical class song “Sam Hall.” Old Tom Moore describes himself as a “bummer”—tying into the long history of gold rush songs taking on the English saloon theater idea of the fallen dandy—the basis for “seeing the elephant” both in song and common usage. The song’s verses lists 49ers who died while having fun. In this, the song shifted the heroic emphasis from Pike, the southern overland emigrant, to a cast of hard case failures. The theme appears taken from a recent poem by Dr. Henry DeGroot, then editor of a newspaper in Ione, Nevada. The name, Tom Moore, is quintessentially Irish—keying the strongly Fenian mining audience in front of Rhoades. Here is a drawing of the Virginia City “bummer”—a term unique to Virginia City during the 1860s. During 1861, the Virginia City bummer was defined as a loafer who bums cocktails and deals in strychnine whiskey, particularly to Native Americans. The aging miners knew their lore, if few others did. The minstrel show had long portrayed the fallen dandy as had English saloon theater. The gold rush phrase “seeing the elephant” was built on this idea. During 1850, David Robinson had initiated his Dramatic Museum with a performance of “Seeing The Elephant—probably a reworking of Barnum’s “Gold Mania”. During 1859, Woodward seems to have pulled from Johnson’s portrayal of Billy Barlow and other saloon theater characters for his image of the hapless, lonely miner in “Joe Bowers”. As a minstrel show star and writer who had repeatedly traveled into the gold country, Rhoades was immersed both in the English saloon theater anti-hero—the dandy fallen as a fool—and its repeated use in gold rush lyric. It was key to making the song irresistible to Virginia City 49ers, many of whom were now aging and down on their luck. “Bummer” was local, Virginia City slang word designating someone who bums from or sponges off of someone else, particularly as applied to alcoholic drinks. It’s use in Virginia City probably derived from German immigrants—the German word, Bummler, from bummeln, meaning to stroll or loaf around.234 It may be that the American slang term, “bum”, meaning both to borrow indefinitely and a sort of hobo derives from this 1860s use in Virginia City. The term is central to the appeal of the song, how the old timers had come to see and laugh at themselves and the underlying connection to alcohol—most specifically to strychnine whiskey. The “bummer” in Virginia City was defined in J. Ross Browne’s 1861 article, “A Peep At Washoe” as a “gentleman of leisure” who doffs his top hat to dabble in prospecting.235 See that fellow, with the mutilated face, button-holing every passer-by? That fellow? Oh, he’s only a ‘bummer’ in search of a cocktail.236 !97 Visit: nevadamusic.com for more books and CDs.
! An 1859 Placerville poem describes the “bummer” not only as a man hard up for booze but also as one who sells strychnine whiskey to the Native American—called by the derogatory term, “Digger”. The destitution of 49ers or “old timers” that is repeatedly mentioned for them in Virginia resulted, in party, from a culture that included strychnine whiskey—“bummers” the hapless addicts from and dealers in that beverage.
Perished thus the luckless Digger; Perished too, from drinking whiskey— Strychnine whiskey, sharp as lightning, Ruin blue and Minnie rifle, Knock-em stiff and flaming red eye— Such as kill ‘em at the counter, Forty rods or any distance. By imbibing strychnine whiskey, Sold by some confounded bummer, As a big a glass or cheaper, Strychnine whiskey—whiskey strychnine. 237
All this being said, the song celebrates the bummer and the characters he describes. Old Tom Moore describes his lost comrades as “bricks.”
I had comrades then a saucy set, they were rough I must confess. But staunch and brave, as true as steel, like hunters from the West; But they like many another fish have now run out their line, But like good old bricks they stood the kicks of the days of '49.
In describing the characters listed in the song as “good bricks”, Rhoades used a reference that, at that time, compared them to actors on a stage. He had done much the same in describing the stage driver, Baldy Green, as wearing a “gallus rig.” During the mid-19th century a “brick” meant a regular, a good fellow, someone reliable.238 Locally, in Virginia City, “brick” was used to describe minstrels, and it appears as such a couple times in The Gold Hill News:
Tuers is a brick—he ought to be killed.239
Charley Collins is a brick—that is the way slang has it. 240 For all this, in December of 1866, like all Rhoades’ composition, “The Days of ’49" was a trifle—a composition of the moment for a fleeting parody. The next morning, Dec. 10, The Gold Hill News reported on the show, alluding to its presentation as the third part of a full minstrel show, in the parody or burlesque.The article referred to “local hits.” The "Black Crook" was produced to a somewhat limited but very satisfactory degree as a wind-up to the entertainment, and was about as amusing a little arrangement as we have seen for many a day. The dialogue portion was replete with local hits and witty allusions, and was very much applauded.241 In his diary, Doten wrote:
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! Went to Opera House and saw last pieces--burlesque--"Black Crook"-Capital! Otto Burbanks' benefit--crowded house and first rate entertainment. It would not be until after 1872 that Doten would notice the song. In Doten’s papers and collection of photos, there is no photo of Charley Rhoades and no reference to his death. It is possible that, during December of 1868, Doten saw Rhoades' presence as coming between him and Ella La Rue with whom he was enamored and that this ended whatever good feeling Doten had had for the banjoist.
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! WALLACE CAMPAIGNS THE SONG Woodward’s experiences with “Joe Bowers” during 1859 provides a background for the hand-off during 1869 of “The Days of ’49” from Woodward to Wallace. The banjoist needed something. After leaving Lotta in the East, he seems to have had no anchor. His father’s brewery was about to close— Wallace could no longer work there in the off season. Woodward presumably heard “The Days of ’49” in Virginia City during late 1868 in Virginia City. Woodward was a jovial sort. During 1867, he was jailed for drinking on stage. On Monday last an addition was made to the company by the engagement of Miss Ella La Rue, Charley Rhodes and John Woodward, who have been giving the public the “Naked Truth.” Miss La Rue appearing in her great character of the Merry Wives; but John Woodward, who I believe is the author of this piece, and whom the public of Chicago would not tolerate, got in a hilarious mood, slopped over, and was taken to the calaboose—for using vulgar language— brought the piece to a sudden stop.242 Woodward probably suggested that Wallace do with Rhoades’ “The Days of ’49" what Johnson had done with “Joe Bowers”—work it, campaign it.243 The opportunity to share the song with Wallace came quickly. During late January of 1869, Wallace and Woodward plus Joe Murphy took a ship from San Francisco to San Diego, presumably to perform.244 Woodward’s role raises questions—was it Woodward who changed “relic of bygone days” to “relic of former days” in “The Days of ’49”—as Wallace and virtually everyone else would sing it? Very possibly as this would distance it from “The Old Sexton” and make it more purely about miners. Was it Woodward who eliminated the final, racist, anti-Chinese verse? Probably not. More likely, it was Wallace who made that critical change. Like many, Woodward was a nativist. Years later, Woodward’s performance in “California Through Death Valley” saw him star in that anti-Mormon polemic. However these changes may have occurred, Wallace took up the song. As he later described it, Jake Wallace learned “The Days of ’49" from John Woodward. In 1894, Sam Davis quoted as Wallace describing Woodward as a “stage manager” on the Pioneer Stage Line—the coach that ran from Virginia City to Placerville. Davis probably misunderstood Wallace’s reference—Woodward was probably not a “stage manager” of the coach. Woodward was a “stage manager” in the theater, a role he occupied during the 1890s. Woodward not only played a role in conveying “The Days of ’49” but, as described above, appears to have written the other great minstrel show song to come out of the gold rush—“Joe Bowers”.245 That song eclipsed most of John Stone’s gold rush songs. Woodward’s experience with that song suggest he pushed Wallace to perform “The Days of ’49” with the express intention of establishing a hit. Wallace campaigned Rhoades’ song, "The Days of '49", and in the end gained success for the song and for his legacy beyond what he could ever have imagined—a success that came by the sheer virtue of his lonely perseverance with his banjo up and down the West coast during the 1870s. After learning the song from Woodward, probably on their trip to San Diego, during February of 1869, Wallace again performed in San Francisco during March of 1869.246 He began to doggedly put the “The Days of ’49" on the map—playing the song for that season at the Olympic and than hitting the road. The Olympic had opened in 1864, was bought by Gilbert in ’66, 247 248 was taken over by Billy Worrell and was closed during late ’69 or early ’70.249 250 Woodward took over as manager during August of
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! ’68.251 By spring of ’69, the Olympic seems to have been in trouble. It is uncertain how far into the year Wallace performed there.252 Where Rhoades lived dark and dangerous, Wallace remained open and outgoing. Where Rhoades had filled the song with double meaning, Wallace turned it into a celebration of the gold rush, an anthem. Years later, Q.S. remembered the impact of Wallace’s initial performances at the Olympic. This piece came in the wake of Wallace’s appearance at San Francisco’s 1894 Midwinter Exposition. Written for The Cadenza, 1895, The Days of Forty- Nine. By Q. S.
Of all the banjo players that plunked themselves into the affections of miscellaneous audiences in the years following the war, none of them so thoroughly captured a town and held it for so many years as Jake Wallace. Judged by modern standards, Jake at this time was several removes from being a good banjo player, in fact about the year 1869 when Jakey was in the zenith of his prosperity, several envious rivals insinuated that one tune and one song was his repertoire; of course this was not so, however he could have told those fellows if they had put in an appearance that one tune and one song was all he required. San Francisco was the stamping ground at this time of the redoubtable Jake, and the company of which he was a member was largely a female aggregation. Joe Murphy, Jake Wallace and an interlocutor were all the men members. The minstrel first part had Jake and Joe on the ends, flanking an assortment of bulbous damsels who could neither sing nor act--but Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like them. Joe Murphy has become wealthy since then as an Irish comedian, but what has become of Jake Wallace?
This theater was an upstairs concern fronting the plaza, and the man who arrived after eight o'clock took his seat standing up. Jennie and Irene Worrell were members of the company; the writer, however, never heard Jennie play the banjo there and why should he? Jakey had made a hit with a song, which he had to sing over eight and ten times nightly. When people spoke of going to the Olympic theatre which was the name of this place they always coupled it with Jakey's name. Across the street from the Olympic and a little below it Ed. Harrigan was employed at the Bella Union theater, pretty much the same kind of resort as the other. Neither Ed. Harrigan or Joe Murphy ever dreamed at that time of the future good fortune in store for them, and whether they were a little bit jealous of the howling success of Jake Wallace, no one ever knew. It certainly was a howling success; for Jake's worst enemy never accused him of being able to sing; a number always maintained, however, that if he took out of his jaw the enormous quid of tobacco he always kept stored there it would improve his singing vastly. About the time Jake would appear on the stage lugging his chair after him one would think from the roar that greeted him that it was feeding time in the menagerie. After Jakey had plinkety- plunked a few chords on his banjo he would sail into the song that made him famous, none other than, "The Days of Forty-Nine." He sung this with a pause after each line to give the audience a chance to howl, and the clatter of money as it fell on the stage, thrown there by heavily jagged miners, was very pleasant to Jake. and the concluding lines of each verse; who that heard them will ever forget them? "Oh, the days of old" twankety bang; long pause. "Oh, the days of gold!" more twank and longer pause, grand finale. "Oh, the days of forty-n-i-i-i-i-ne!"
He sung this song in San Francisco for years, the people never appeared to tire of it; the singing was bad but the sentiment pleased them; it recalled the good old days, when everyone !101 Visit: nevadamusic.com for more books and CDs.
! had money galore. Jake and his banjo song will always remind the writer of the ability of this instrument to reach the popular heart in a way that no other musical instrument picked with the fingers will ever be able to do in this country.
The nature of the San Francisco venue and its crowd proved important to the song gaining initial popularity. During 1872, Englishman J.G. Player-Frowd listed two legitimate theaters in San Francisco and described theater of the sort that Wallace played. The other theatres are minor, being of the nigger minstrel and melodeon order, where bad jokes, songs and dances, none of the them over-refined nor chaste, are nightly retailed to crowds of men. The places are redolent of bad cigars, stale pipes, staler coats, and unwashed mankind.253 Wallace later commented that, initially, he was reluctant to sing “The Days of ‘49”, worried that it might not be liked.254 In his diary, the name that he repeatedly tied to “The Days of ‘49” was John Brougham, the famous eastern actor and play-write. Apparently, Wallace’s 1869 efforts and with the song had their high point during two nights as Brougham’s guest performer at the California Theater. That August, Brougham brought his satire, “Much Ado About The Merchant of Venice” to the California Theater. On August 12 and 13, before closing, he brought Wallace and Lotta out on stage for short numbers. She was to soon appear there in Brougham’s “Little Nell”, doing that role as “a sort of white Topsy”, according to a British observer years later.255 It was but four years ago that Lotta came from El Dorado to circulate on an intrinsic merit good for any market of humane and wholesome likings. She made a debut in McDonough's spectacle of the "Seven Sisters," but her brilliance was so surpassing that at last, in this city she left the troupe at the close of an engagement at the National to go it alone at Wool's, and ever since she has starred it with constantly increasing popularity. She has just closed a month's success on Broadway, New York, where no unsubstantial charm could last a week. She opened in Philadelphia with a new play, written for her by Brougham, taking appropriate rivalry of the Dickens fever, and the title of the play is " Little Nell, the Marchioness."256 In his diary, as he jotted notes about the event, Wallace wrote the word, “Gallery” as if he had sat in the gallery to watch the actor’s shows. And he seems to have written, “Persevered”, miss- spelling it, as if Brougham had given him encouragement with “The Days of ’49”—prompting him to continue in his campaign of the song.257 Born in Dublin, Brougham made his reputation writing social satires. That Brougham would see something in the song suggests that he heard the lyrics as having edge, a social relevance. Wallace’s appearance beside Brougham doing the song may well have placed it before a more elite theater-going public. The song was published during 1872 by Billy Emerson in a songster. Rhoades performed briefly with Emerson during 1871.258 The Emerson and Doten words may reflect some adaptation by Jake Wallace. After 1869, Wallace came to pretty much own the song. It may be that, for the Emerson and Doten version of the
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! words, Rhoades modified Wallace’s version back to something like his original version. Hence, Wallace’s words—only written down in 1894—seem to have been much been much loser and less organized. Wallace had at last found his niche. He needed a way to continue to perform even as his style of banjo playing began to wane in popularity. And, he no longer had his father’s brewing business to fall back on. Jacob Lynn Sr. sold the Jackson Brewery in 1867259 though he kept the smaller Eagle Brewery.260 Lynn Sr. continued to work at the Jackson Brewery through 1870, but appears to have been in the process of retiring. Wallace was ready to hit the road.
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! RHOADES’ LAST PERFORMANCES Meanwhile, Charley Rhoades’ career was drawing to an end. After composing it in Virginia City during late 1868, Rhoades probably took “The Days of ‘49” home to Sacramento and, on occasion, sang it for friends. In June of 1869, he lost his five-year old son, Charles. He never again ascended to doing prominent performance. Rhoades was a machinist and is said to have worked on the railroad in Sacramento261 as well as owning his own bar—income that he probably relied upon when not performing. Perhaps told to stay home by his wife or unable to travel any longer, with Otto Burbank, during July of 1869, Rhoades tried to open his own melodeon—The White Pine. It appears to have failed.262 One can only speculate that Rhoades was no longer up to the task. In the wake of this, Rhoades and Burbank parted company with Burbank going on to a further career.263 During 1870, Rhoades returned to Virginia City with John Woodward as part of a troupe.264 Doten showed little interest and described them as “not of the best.”265 Doten was moving into society. Tuberculosis seems to have been catching up with Charley Rhoades. On January 25 of 1871, Charley Rhoades was called upon to sing “The Days of ‘49” at McGuire’s Opera House in San Francisco during a benefit for Kitty Blanchard, “the clever soubrette.” That Rhoades was said to have “moaned” the song stands in contrast to the zesty delivery ascribed to Wallace. Charley Rhodes moaned the lament of Tom Moore for “The Days of ‘49”, to an accompaniment on the banjo.266 During February of 1872, at the Metropolitan in San Francisco, Sam Bausman presented his play “Early California”.267 The play’s story was set in 1855.268 The advertising used the phrase “The Days of Forty-Nine”—the first use of that phrase for descriptive purposes and directly derived from the growing popularity of the song. During March of 1872, Bausman brought the play to Sacramento’s Metropolitan Theater, at 91 J Street, along the river in today’s Old Town. On March 7, Bausman invited Rhoades to appear in cameo performance and sing his song.269 The Sacramento paper took note. In addition to the regular members of the company, who deserve commendation for their efforts, Charley Rhoades, the banjoist, appears and greatly enlivens one of the acts.
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! This appearance proved so popular that the Metropolitan invited Rhoades back on March 12 to sing the song.270 The Sacramento paper gave the song specific notice: “…by particular request, Charley Rhoades will give his original song of THE DAYS OF ’49. To conclude with the farce of THE MYSTERIOUS BABY.” In 1922, The Grizzly Bear wrote that Rhoades’ “Early California” appearance was his last public performance of the song.271 His last public performance of the song came just as “The Days of ’49" was about to sweep the mining community. Rhoades must have been aware of this and, due to illness, powerless to participate. Later in the year, Emerson would publish words to “The Days of ’49” in his songster. As described below, there is no reason to believe Charley had a hand in this and every reason to believe Emerson’s version and the impetus for his publishing the words was based on Wallace’s vigorous performances of the song. Charley Rhoades seems to have been growing weak.
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! THE PACIFIC COAST PIONEER ASSOCIATION The popularization of “The Days of ’49” came not simply because Wallace campaigned the song but also because, from the onset, the song tapped into the struggles of aging 49ers who has seen the elephant. Billy Emerson published a version of the song in his 1872 songster—describing it as, "sung with great success” by Emerson’s troupe at the Alhambra.272 Emerson appeared there in February and returned to the Alhambra in November. He then found his competition at the Metropolitan to be “Old Block’s California”—another gold rush themed show.273 Emerson may have felt compelled to bring in a California song. That December, Wallace was performing in Marysville. Rhoades had ceased performing it. The Emerson words probably came from Wallace, reflecting his version during the early 1870s. In 1875, Alf Doten would print a version of the song for the Virginia Glee Club, one identical to the Emerson version. However, the growing popularity of the song, influencing Emerson to publish it, It may be that the 1872 publication of the song by Emerson followed a growing popularity created in Nevada by the Pacific Pioneer Society as well as the Virginia Glee Club. The Virginia Glee Club quartet had performed in Nevada since at least 1864. The Club appeared at events with patriotic material. During October 1868, probably in four part harmony, they sang “Grant’s What’s The Matter”, a campaign song written that September by Alf Doten as a parody of Stephen Foster’s 1862 song, “That’s What’s The Matter.”274 The Club seems to have played a role from the onset in the Pacific Pioneer Association and, together, they propelled “The Days of ’49" into further fame— particularly among miners. The Association formed during June of 1872, though it may have become more certain that fall. The Virginia Glee Club sang at an admission day ceremony in Carson City, Oct. 29, 1872.275 They had been in town all week, apparently, having sung for a campaign event by John P. Jones the previous week.276 It isn’t clear that they sang “The Days of ’49” on that date, but they may well have.277 As evident in his acceptance speech during January of 1873, Senator Jones was an avowed populist. His words convey the mood around the Glee Club at the inception of the Pacific Pioneer Association.278