THE STRYCHNINE BANJO-FEB 2017 Copy

The Strychnine Banjo Jake Wallace, Charley Rhoades and “The Days of ‘49”

© 2014 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.

Cover photo: Jake Wallace, used by permission of The Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin

About 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 the best situations. Also, for a slide show on this book.

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! PHOTO OF A LEGEND ...... 4

SEEING THE ELEPHANT ...... 5

MINSTRELS ...... 9

SONGS ...... 13

JAKE WALLACE ...... 21

CHARLEY RHOADES ...... 29

CALIFORNIA BANJOISTS...... 35

CLEMENS AND THE STRYCHNINE BANJO ...... 41

BALDY GREEN ...... 47

THE MUSIC HALL FIRE ...... 55

ALF DOTEN ...... 60

THE “GRASSHOPPER FEAST” ...... 66

THE DAYS OF ’49—ITS COMPOSITION ...... 73

WOODWARD CONVEYS THE SONG ...... 80

WALLACE CAMPAIGNS THE SONG ...... 86

RHOADES’ LAST PERFORMANCES ...... 89

THE PACIFIC COAST PIONEER ASSOCIATION ...... 90

A DYING MAN AND HIS RACIST WORDS ...... 97

TOO MUCH BENZINE ...... 100

WALLACE GOES ON AND ON ...... 101

THE ANTHEM ...... 107

THE 49ER MINING CAMP ...... 109

THE FOLK MUSIC FOG ...... 117

FAME AT LAST ...... 121

ABOUT THE MELODY ...... 126

THE ROGUES’ REVEAL ...... 129

ENDNOTES ...... 135

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! PHOTO OF A LEGEND Like the wind rolling across the Sierra Nevada and up into the Sierra Wave above the eastern slope, like the stage coach, this is a ride, an adventure with prospectors long gone but whose ghosts still sing one song. That song comes in the wake of seeing the elephant. A song by two banjo players. On the cover, his photo long buried in an archive, one gazes into the distance, cradling his 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 sang the lyrics of a dead man everywhere he went, campaigning long after the song had become universal among miners. A self-avowed “bohemian”, he was famous up and down the west coast and then forgotten, except in opera. This is Jake Wallace’s story. And this is the story 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 forever. Separately, they created and promoted the song that became the anthem of western migration, its convoluted origins obscured until now. Around 1913, Jake Wallace posed with his ﬁve-string minstrel banjo and a fellow performer, Hank Mudge. Today, Mudge has disappeared from the shot—a blurred image stored in a vault. Wallace wears a heavy overcoat with his hat 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. In the East, banjoists gained renown for their complex instrumentals. In the West, a great banjoist was a grand entertainer. Campaigning a song by Charley Rhoades, “The Days of ‘49”, Jake Wallace became the archetypal pioneer voice, long welcomed by old-timers living wild and free in the mining towns. Today we remember Lotta and Twain. However, Wallace and Rhoades are the performing heroes at whose feet others sat. In the photo, 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.” Forgotten in this cerebral age of angst and complexity, the ghost of the strychnine banjo sings of gold, silver, whiskey and theatrical energies. This book looks at two men and at the hugely popular anthem of the gold rush that they created—“The Days of ’49".

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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”. After about 1820, romanticism split between a high-brow English focus on castles and knights versus an Irish, Scottish and American focus on talismans or artifacts of nature—the rose, hawthorne, bucket in the well, old churchyard, etc.. The South embraced "chivalry." The North took the latter course and, derived from that, the culture of the rural West added in a sense of the absurd. The “elephant” came out of an America whose romantic frontier dreams of risk and fun seemed to be stagnant. In this, the song, “The Days of ’49” became both the climactic point and the denouement to the story of “seeing the elephant”. While that phrase, common during the early gold rush, is often described as a vague metaphor and gold rush song is often seen as a sort of folk music with bucolic origins, this book looks at both as self-aware expressions of a partial generation that embraced risk and improvisation at the height of the Victorian era. Today, folk and diversity oriented teaching of history—the energies of the people—inform 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. The phrase’s popularity among those young men stemmed from a song written for a show staged by P.T. Barnum during late 1849. In New York City, Pete Morris performed “California As It Is” at Barnum’s American Museum and then before thousands at the ! Hippodrome. 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.

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

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! 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.1

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 marvellous 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 6 Visit: nevadamusic.com

! 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. 2

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.”

I will show your quid nuncs the biggest Elephant (stone mastodon of Illinois, we suppose) they ever saw.3

The 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;

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. The elephant represented the hardship and thrill of life without employment or cash, humbugged by nature just as Barnum had humbugged his visitors. And yet, thrilled at the fun. On the one hand, this gold rush emigrant use of “see the elephant” reﬂected the rebelliousness of young men—if you tell me not to go, I will go. On the other hand, it reﬂected a recognition that nature itself would cheat and even defeat the young adventurers and yet the experience itself would make that worthwhile. On the one hand, this embrace of adventure stemmed from Victorian romanticism at its height. On the other hand, the experience itself changed those greenhorns and created the rugged, rough westerner. Ordinary people were coming into their own. Melodrama was emerging on the stage and the novel was becoming a widespread literary form—both portraying the range of emotions as expressed by common folk. The range of emotions and the

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! range of identities challenged a polite society for whom drama had long been confined to the gods and the elite. In this mix, with the gold rush to California, Americans breathed new life into their long-standing identification with the frontier. With the "West", the American frontier and the rugged individual would become firmly fixed as essential to the American character. This being said, that identity contained contradictions that, today, may be lost but that came up for thought and writing by artists in the West. With six others, John Nichols took passage on the bark Eliza and departed Salem, Massachusetts on Dec. 23, 1849, 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”.4

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 it didn’t matter. Numerous other speciﬁc stories of individual songs, particularly the works of John Stone, emerged. These illustrated further the comic theater inﬂuences, particularly the parallel impacts

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! of American minstrel performance coming from New England and English saloon theater coming from London.

MINSTRELS Minstrel troupes arrived 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.5

With the minstrel show, at last America has a national music—albeit in a style 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

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! 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.’6

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 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 10 Visit: nevadamusic.com

! 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....7

Beginning around 1853, San Francisco’s minstrel performers could be found in theaters that had focused on that form. This focus on minstrel show theaters continued until about 1870 when the early minstrel show form declined. Twenty five year old George Coes played banjo in the San Francisco Theater during December of 1853 and became first banjo star of the far West.8 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. 9

During 1853, at 57 J. St. in Sacramento, T. H. Borden’s Bookstore listed banjos for sale.10 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.11 By 1854, in the diggings, the banjo had become part of an eclectic musical scene, with wild times by young miners on a spree. 11 Visit: nevadamusic.com

! 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’.... 12

This amateur cavorting occurred in a California culture where, in contrast the Puritan New England, theater and dance deﬁned society 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.13 12 Visit: nevadamusic.com

! SONGS During 1851, at his Dramatic Museum in San Francisco, Dr. David Robinson wrote parodies, most making fun of local government. Modeling himself after P. T. Barnum, Robinson aimed his comedic parodies mostly at local government.14 His inﬂuences were very English. The 1849 Astor Place theater riots in New York may have abetted the arrival of numerous English performers in San Francisco during the early 1850s. During 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 unrivalled actor’s characters.15

Robinson seems to have adapted Barnum’s play “Gold Mania” during 1850. By 1852, out of his Dramatic Museum one parody began to ﬁlter into the Sierra Nevada. The songster included “Life In California”—a parody of the 1845 English song, “Used Up Man”. In the English play, Sir Coldstream assumes the garb of a plough- boy. This portrayal of a dandy who has fallen and is foolish was becoming a deﬁning element of both minstrel song and London saloon theater song. “Life in California” spread into the Sierra Nevada, capturing and laughing at the failure and frustration of so many 49ers. During 1853, Alonso Delano drew the “Used Up Man” as a California miner. 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, beginning in 1852 with Pierpont’s “The Returned Californian.” With both minstrel tunes and

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! 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 providing rudimentary accompaniment. 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 impudence; excused your ignorance; borne with your ill-temper, and furnished you with the best whisky and grub in camp for months?16

The image of Pike played out the emphasis in both theater and daily American life on “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

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! 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. The 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 their effect 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. “Pike” became the universal gold rush name for the overland emigrant—the “type”, in contrast to Yankee who came by ship. Initially, Yankee looked down on Pike a farm clod. However, as described at the time, Pike knew woodcraft and gun-craft. Pike seemed well suited to the rigors of the wilderness. Pike emerged as the first archetypal or mythic western hero. John Stone published his songsters under the name “Old Put.” He was an attorney. He “put” the case for Pike and, as an attorney, represented Pike in court cases.17 As an attorney, Stone possessed a keen mind and wrote in a very concrete or graphic style —ensuring the quality and fame of his lyrics. That being said, by the standards of mid-Victorian America, many were beyond the pale of acceptability in polite circles. 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. At its publication, with this kind of material and having already encountered objections, Stone explained:

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! 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.”

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

Reaction proved immediate. An Italian immigrant, poet and musician, and like many Mart Taylor regarded Stone’s lyrics as vulgar. During 1856, he published a competing book with less graphic, more reﬁned mining lyrics. His family band toured that year. Probably to reinforce his wholesome image—his effort to counter Stone’s “vulgar” music-- Taylor brought along young Charlotte Crabtree—age 9, born in 1847 and known throughout her career as “Lotta”. Her mother’s ongoing inﬂuence is evident. Consistently through the 19th century, the western press fawned over Lotta. 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

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! 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.

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. 18

She had learned the Irish jig from the Countess Lola Montez who had been driven to the Sierra Nevada town of Grass Valley when miners disliked her exotic dancing. In contrast, Lotta epitomized the sanitized response to John Stone’s “vulgar” verses. She became known as the charming child star from Rabbit Creek. That same location yielded another child performer-- Buela Baines, an African American girl. Baines studied Spanish dance under Lola Montez while Lotta studied Irish dance. Taylor seems to have sought this variety of child performers in order to 17 Visit: nevadamusic.com

! augment the family qualities of his show. Both Baines and Lotta studied the plantation jig, probably under William Davis, an African American. One account suggests the latter lesson occurred 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.19

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.20

This event spelled a turning point. Intended to counter Stone’s rough words, Taylor’s vapid verses saw little audience and, increasingly, he shifted to writing effete poetry. Though some might criticize Stone’s lyric as vulgar, their graphic language and humor have ensured that they remain amusing to the modern day. He may qualify as one of the great American song-writers, despite the fact that his songs never enjoyed a professional presentation—such as that done for Robinson’s songs or by Wallace and Rhoades. Lotta’s mother apparently saw that she needed to move beyond Irish dance and, in some manner, embrace the minstrel show, learning the plantation jig and, generally, black-face humor. The meeting with Coes and others was probably intended by Ms. Crabtree to give Lotta a lesson from the most celebrated professional minstrels to reach the Sierra Nevada. During this 1857 encounter with Lotta in Placerville or later in New York, George Coes probably composed his “Lotta’s Jig.” The tune deserves comment as it seems to be an effort to create a unique show tune for Lotta who, at her age, may have been shown the plantation jig in the context of seven other dancers in a set. The tune is structured in three parts as a quadrille walk-around,21 and was published in 1875. 22 Minstrels often completed a show with a walk- around—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.23 It’s journey to the “cakewalk” of the 1890s was circuitous—through the minstrel stage and California. The social version of the dance—the quadrille walk-around—derived from this minstrel show walk-around. In California, the quadrille walk-around not only concluded the set of dances but may well be associated with the “promenade to the bar” that became popular in California— leading to ongoing popularity for the walk around quadrille in the fandango houses where men could drink and dance the quadrille through the 1880s.

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! California created the ideal environment for the quadrille walk-around. 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 Reuban”— probably a reference to the plantation jig done solo. 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.

Ryan’s 1882 Mammoth Collection gives the call for the three part walk-around quadrille. It concludes with a promenade to the seats. In California, this would have been to the bar.

In his 1875 book, Coes placed “Lotta’s Jig” in a violin key though the structure suggests a banjo piece. The second part is syncopated—suggesting that it was designed to highlight that portion of the dance during which the dancer walked solo around the set.

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 as a quadrille walk-around to theatrical pieces in New York. During 1877 a comedy song called “Walking For Dat Cake” that described a contest quadrille 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.24 By 1900, as the term “cakewalk” faded, a syncopated tune came be called “ragtime”.

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! In other words, while the “cakewalk” contest dance came from contests on the plantation, the initial syncopated tune—a banjo jig—originated Placerville, California as professional performers taught a talented 10 year old with a background in Irish dance how to dance the plantation jig.

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! JAKE WALLACE25

During 1858, Lotta worked further on her stage persona in the 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.26

“Loan of A Lover” seems to have occurred as Ms. Crabtree pulled away from Mart Taylor and sought to move Lotta onto a higher, more profitable plane of performance. However, by nature and due to her youth, Lotta did not excel in anything sentimental. During 1859, her mother shifted Lotta’s focus to the minstrel show and to a banjoist they met in San Francisco, Jake Wallace. Mart Taylor continued to travel the mountains. Unable to author the kind of raw mining verse that he saw becoming popular, he abandoned mining songs for the most part and turned to writing flowery poetry for the effete set. This did not work well. He set up a canvas saloon, performing in Monoville during late 1859 and early 1860.27 Wallace proved a good choice to mentor Lotta. Born Jacob Lynn Jr., Nov. 9, 1836, in New York City, 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

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! this time, he and his father, the brewer Jacob Lynn Sr., an Irish immigrant, were both working at the Lion Brewery in San Francisco.28 In 1855 he moved far into the Sierra, 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.29 Beckwourth was trying to promote an immigrant pass 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.30 Wallace was probably the first professional musician to arrive in what would become Nevada and presumably played at the Mormon Station, later called Genoa. During 1859, Wallace met Lotta Crabtree, age 12, while both performed at the Bella Union in San Francisco. She was still a child-novelty act. During early 1860, they toured the mining towns—staying away from the towns in the valley. 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. 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. 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

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! 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.’ 31

In 1859, Jacob Lynn Sr. went into a partnership to form the Jackson Brewery in San Francisco.32 He became the President of the Brewer’s Association.33 It appears that his son, Jacob Lynn Jr. (Wallace), was more interested in banjoing than brewing. However, Wallace seems to have brought his friends home—banjo maker Charles Morrell was living at the brewery at this time, having married Wallace’s sister.34 Both Lotta and her African American compatriot, Baines, studied banjo under Jake Wallace.35 36 37 However, it would be Lotta who went on the fame. 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.38

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 an 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 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

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! 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.

Lotta began to emerge as the show’s star. From Wallace, she learned to interact with her audience. Both she and her mother were ambitious. 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.39

During 1862 and early 1863, 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 Mart Taylor’s lyric, “Bound for the Land of Washoe”. 40

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,

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! 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, 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.

It 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.41 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.42

Lotta’s breast pin was also stolen. She recovered it two months later when she returned for a dance competition.43 During the interim, Wallace appears to have been present for a gunﬁght between Dick Paddock and Farmer Peel.44 The entire episode probably convinced Ms. Crabtree that experience as a minstrel in the Sierra Nevada with Wallace was useful but must quickly come to an end. The mining camps were dangerous places. During May of 1864, Wallace and Lotta sailed to New York and he was performing there by October.45 Lotta and her mother told the press that she intended to observe the New York scene and return to California. But only Wallace returned the following year. In New York, Lotta 25 Visit: nevadamusic.com

! starred in “Seven Sisters.” The show 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, hornpipes, 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...”46

Eastern critics sometimes found the zany scene shifts, banjo numbers and dancing of Lotta’s eastern shows to be chaotic and contrived. In fact, as evidenced by descriptions of the banjo in the diggings and later in Virginia City, those qualities bore the essence of the banjo among western minstrels as they catered to their audience’s diverse and ever-changing interests. What seemed artiﬁcial to the critics 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.47 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 bone structure in her face. Here, however, she is somewhat chubby and the camera has caught the Lotta some described—impish, resentful, narrow, determined. These experiences shaped Lotta. Off- stage, Lotta was never so pleasant or enduring —always keeping her distance from a world where men could steal and worse. On stage, Lotta mastered the child-like persona on-stage, Topsey—learned with Wallace during 1860. That character, her banjo and her experience in adapting these to the audience as learned from Wallace became the essence of her success as well as, initially, a source of concern for eastern criticis. 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

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! 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.48

The East was not for Wallace. After a stint with Bryant’s Minstrels and Sanford’s Minstrels as well as a performance in Panama while in transit,49 Jake Wallace returned to San Francisco, performing there again during September of 1865.50 By November, he was in Virginia City, performing at the 700 seat Virginia Music Hall—built at 68 North C St. by Henry Sutliff during 1863.51 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. 52

During the early sixties, before the Opera House, the Music Hall in Virginia City seems to have been the minstrel favorite. The house’s employees during Wallace’s performances there early in 1866 remained much the same as during Rhoades’ performances there during late 1866. 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.53

As the season wound down, December 27, the Music Hall stint included an evening in which the performers created a skit about the mining city itself, called “Glimpse At Virginia”.54 During February of 1866, Wallace was still in Nevada and performing at Virginia City’s Music Hall when Charley Moore shot and killed McGuire’s Opera House promoter Tom Peasley and Mart Barnhart at the Ormsby House in Carson City.55 During March, Wallace was “bucking the tiger”—playing faro—at the Capital Saloon on C Street in Virginia City when fellow Virginia City Music Hall banjoist Billy Sheppard shot and killed Ben Ballou.56 57 58 As described in the paper, at Pat Mulcahy's saloon on March 2, Ben Ballou59 and Billy Sheppard spoke, shook hands and went outside. An argument ensued, its source uncertain. Ballou slapped Sheppard. Sheppard pulled a derringer and backed Ballou into the saloon. Ballou begged for his life. Sheppard shot

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! him in the forehead, killing him. Though Sheppard was arrested, a vigilante committee quickly formed, heard the case and ruled the killing justiﬁable. Wallace wrote about the event and his luck in being there: “I've come back to stay--he remains--I was always an early bird.”

Perhaps he was referring to his return from New York—his return to the far West and attractions that the East could not rival. Ballou remained, forever. The “early bird” would be Wallace, arriving in time to catch the fun. He quoted Ballou: “Take my boots off.” Ballou’s photo shows the garb of the quintessential Virginia City rake. Upon his return to performance on the San Francisco stage, Dick Sheppard found that audiences did not receive him well.60

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! CHARLEY RHOADES61 Look into his eyes. Around 1865, gaunt, dangerous, creative and troubled, the intense author of “The Days of ’49", 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 and, at its end, there is the glint of the metal banjo thimble that he uses to hit the strings in early minstrel style. The hand hangs at his right side like a weapon. He wears a fur lined long-coat—the practical garb of a man who spends time in the Pioneer Stage as it crosses the Sierra Nevada. At age 30, he may already know that he is slowly dying of pulmonary disease— consumption or, in modern terms, tuberculosis. In the 19th century popular culture, the disease was celebrated by poets. In the photo, he has begun the 4 years period that defines the height of his career, performing in Virginia City late in each year. During those years, with consumption common, he must have foreseen his early death. He had virtually retired by 1871, During 1877, Rhoades died of lobar pneumonia,62 associated with tuberculosis.63 It isn’t known if Rhoades smoked—a risk factor for tuberculosis.64 He was said to have had “consumption”—a term for tuberculosis and other pulmonary problems during the 19th century. Most likely, Rhoades suffered a weak immune system in the wake of hard travel, malnutrition, substance abuse and exhaustion—the essence of his colorful stories during the 1850s.

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! 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.65 Waxy and pallid, one was consumed like a candle by its flame, giving off light. As the central hero to the bohemian crowd that gathered during the 1860s in Nevada’s high desert mining mecca, Virginia City, Rhoades held a mythic charm among the prospector, thanks in part to the adulation of Alf Doten. And, as with so much else in the transitory West, he was almost completely forgotten. 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. Rhoades arrived in California during 1852. Born Charles William Bensel, 1835, in Brooklyn, his sea voyage west on a steamer foreshadowed his adventures and his struggles.66 Where Wallace always seemed to be a amazed witness to violence, Rhoades always seems to have been at the center of any event. 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.67

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! Like photo’s of others in this book, the picture of Rhoades’ banjo says a lot about his technique. Like others, he wore a “thimble”—a metal pick worn over the fingernail—on his right index finger. Rhoades appears to have his right index finger wrapped or bandaged or taped with a thimble glinting at the end. Perhaps he did this because he hit the strings so hard or he needed the extra strength. For a man who makes people laugh, he seems very serious. Like others, he hit the strings near the bridge. In the photo, the stains around the banjo’s bridge show where his index hit the head or his right little finger rested on or touched the calfskin head with the index striking near the bridge. His banjo appears to have 12 hooks. The neck appears mounted with a lip above the head. His 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. Played with a thimble near the bridge, these instruments shot out crisply from from sheep gut strings—a deep guttural “tum” unlike the bright metallic ring of the modern banjo. Similarly, during the 1890s, Alf Doten posed his son with his 1860’s banjo. Stains again lie near along the first string near the bridge. It used 14 hooks and has frets or, more likely, inlaid fret markers. Like Wallace, Rhoades brought with him the minstrel repertoire of the early 1850s, songs like, “Carry Me Back To Old Virginny”, from 1847. Most of the 1840s “Ethiopian” songs were comic. During the 1850s, after his one comic song—“Oh Susanna”—Stephen Foster created a more sentimental style—“pathetic” in the terminology of the day. Often yearning for the South— a South where, ironically, real African Americans remained in slavery—black faced white minstrels sang these pathetic pieces and memories of home among the boys in the mines. In fact, one could argue that with boys leaving the East buy the thousands for the gold rush rush and a Civil War looming, during the 1850s, the nation was consumed with sentimental ideas of home. 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.68 In the Placer County camp of Iowa Hill, Rhoades spent his spare time beating on his banjo with his roommates, including Joe Murphy. Today, near Colfax, in Iowa Hill, there is a

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! 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.‑69

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 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

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! 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.”70

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

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! 34 Visit: nevadamusic.com

! 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….71

Around the spring of 1862, Rhoades married Alice Marqua—born in Mexico but, apparently, more recently from New Orleans. She may have been Creole—white, Spanish and African American and have come West with her mother. Six months after Wallace and Lotta played in Virginia City, during February of 1864, Rhoades played there, billed as a “famous banjo player”72 . 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— creation and spread of the song that would enshrine the gold rush in memory, “The Days of ’49.” This foreshadowed four years 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.73

CALIFORNIA BANJOISTS In thinking about Wallace and Rhoades, it is vital to recognize that, while the far West saw the early arrival of the minstrel show, the diggings and theaters of the far West created a culture that shaped a different kind of banjo hero from in the East. In the East and, initially in the far West, the banjoist was known as an instrumentalist. If this has played out in the far West, George Coes would have been the leading banjo ﬁgure. For a time during the 1850s, this almost occurred. Coes had been directly inspired in the East by Tom Briggs—one of the minstrel banjo’s early white proponents.74 Coes was among the ﬁrst professional banjo players on stage in San Francisco during 1852. He published several California tunes, some of which may have been banjo pieces, including what appears to be a banjo version of the tune known today as “Off To California.”75

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! However, ultimately, the banjo instrumental did not deﬁne California’s premier minstrel banjoists—Rhoades and Wallace. They gained their fame not due to their instrumental skill but due to their ability as entertainers and, in particular, their ability to adapt to and to interact with the audience. This is what Lotta learned from Wallace. This is what Clemens and Doten admired in Rhoades. The culture of the diggings was one of improvisation. Improvisation became a cause in itself. It equaled survival and adventure. Improvisation represented the almost universal response to seeing the elephant. 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. 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.76

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 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: 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

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! 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’....

Improvisation in the California diggings ultimately inﬂuenced the nation in many ways. Across America, from 1845 onward, couples performed this dance as the “walk-around quadrille”, an imitation of the minstrel walk-around on stage. The banjo “jig”—in 2/4 time—was designed for either kind of walk-around—in the social dance or on stage. By extension, the extent instruments from California often are “jigs”—not the “Irish Jig” but the 2/4 time banjo jig, related somewhat to the hornpipe. The most famous 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”—probably echoing its association with Fremont and the emigrant trail.

By the mid-1860s—as minstrels like Charley Rhoades and Jake Wallace adjusted the minstrel show to working class sentiments in the diggings, the very sound of the banjo came to represent the irreverence of youth and class rebellion. The sound of the gut-strung banjo—its deep “tum”—gave songs a percussive bounce and absurdity possible with no other instrument of the day. The sound was perfect for the group walk-around or solo jig in which young men cavorted about the minstrel stage—a cavorting they were soon imitating in the diggings at dances. As described in Jig, Clog, and Breakdown Dancing Made Easy, 1873, the simplicity and clear intonation of the 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

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! 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.77

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.

In the East, proper people went to the theater to see minstrel “darkies” dance to the banjo and have fun. Then they returned to proper lives. In that world, banjo instrumental composition flourished, growing in significance and complexity as the minstrel show matured. In contrast, in the far West, particularly between San Francisco and Virginia City, with all propriety thrown to the wind, young men looked to the complexity of lyric— its ability to contain sentimentality as well as humor and dry wit— to make their lives as joyous as the minstrel show. The wanted a chance to dance, sophistication counting for little. From the moment of their arrival, they would be dragging women onto the dance floor whenever they could be found. 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.78

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! 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.....

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.79

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 39 Visit: nevadamusic.com

! 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.”80

Early on, American boys found that they could attend Mexican dances—fandangos—where the women smoked and one could drink. 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.81

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; And ladies say when they return, "Oh, what a splendid Ball!"

The “promenade to the bar” was adopted by American miners who soon erected “fandango houses” in the gold country for the purpose—a drinking establishment where one could pay to dance the quadrille with a woman. 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.

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! 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.82

CLEMENS AND THE STRYCHNINE BANJO By touring the mines and, probably more-so, through his notoriety in Virginia City, Charley Rhoades became the professional banjo hero of men in the mines and his worshippers included Sam Clemens. By 1865, Rhoades embodied everything the young and 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, 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 theater world and his rebellious attitudes about music and culture came together for Clemens in a memorable quote, published June 23 1865 in The San Francisco Dramatic Chronicle. His words 41 Visit: nevadamusic.com

! tied the banjo to strychnine whiskey, to his favorite banjoists and to his youthful disdain for the bib shirt crowd. He 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 undercurrents in society bubbled with the assertion of an American, working-class music and 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!83

New Orleans pianist Louis Gottschalk had recently toured Virginia City, before arriving in San Francisco. Clemens’ comments which reﬂected opinion among the working class and their bohemian friends.84 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 population”— noticing that residents of the silver state felt profound boredom at his music. 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.85

Virginia City hated Gottschalk. And he hated Virginia City. Gottschalk wrote: 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..86

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. In San Francisco, Gottschalk received four

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! months of adulation by the bib shirt crowd. Then, he seduced an underage girl and was run out of town.87 In Virginia City, Clemens had heard Sam Pride88 , an African American banjoist and, most likely, Tom Bree and Charley Rhoades. He again heard some of these performers at the Olympic Theater in San Francisco. Clemens tied his exaltation of 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. 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 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.89

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. The stimulation of strychnine whiskey probably helped. He died young, of liver trouble. Eagle Valley trader and ﬁddler, Dutch Nick seems to have branded the beverage, “Tarentula Juice”.90 This label probably derived from the feeling tiny legs on the skin—known today in association with use of amphetamines and called “formication.” Meth addicts frequently have sores on their face and hands from scratching at the feeling of these invisible creatures. During the 1860s, in Nevada, Tarentula Juice was probably the favorite beverage for Clemens and his fellows. It was, “warranted to kill at forty paces.”91 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

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! “surveying” Carson City. He also describes 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. 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....92

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 the exclamation, “glory-beaming banjo”, came a statement of rebellion and an assertion of the topsy-turvy in which true culture is found not at the top, but at the bottom. Clemens had immersed himself in the theater, drink and the bohemian life. The comparison of the banjo to strychnine whiskey was not Clemens’ first effort to confront high culture with an alternate. He had committed himself to the idea of alternative music and culture two years earlier in 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”. His first use of “Mark Twain” references his dream state—“yours dreamily.”

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! 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 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. 93

As later in his strychnine banjo quote, Clemens expressed 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. He finished the evening in his other persona, The Unreliable, plunking on a piano. He ended his letter, his first writing as “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.

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! 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 ﬁrst or last new 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, lower, less rule-bound persona. Part of the inspiration for resolving his personas with “Mark Twain” may have come from his drinking habits. A Reno paper stated that the pen name, Mark Twain, 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.94 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 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.95

A host of argument has occurred about the bar-tab stories of Clemens taking the “Twain” name. These stories do not preclude the simultaneous influence upon Clemens of others 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. 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.96 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. Clemens’ strychnine banjo quote came in the wake of Lincoln’s assassination and at a time when the San Francisco stage had hurrahed Civil War songs for months. Clemens and others

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! looked to the minstrel stage for a restoration of absurdity and humor. His words signaled a volatile moment on the western minstrel stage, one that would last till the end of 1868. He would soon distance himself from that world.

BALDY GREEN During October of 1864, not long after the August death of his daughter, Caroline, Charley bought cemetery plots in Sacramento under the name C.B.Rhoades. She had 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 his own: "Sheridan's Cleaned Out of the Valley"‑97 and “How Do You Feel Now Mr. Davis”.98 He was known for his performance of “The Bounty Jumper”, written by Joe Murphy.99 On April 22nd, 1865, he played the new Civil War song, “Marching Through Georgia”, composed by Henry Wouk. It was listed in the program as a “banjo solo.” Rhoades' San Francisco appearances now included Irish and Chinese themes.100 Actual Irish or Americans of Irish ancestry sometimes starred in the Irish skits— 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. Rhoades was also known for singing, “The Peanut Stand”.101 He may or may not have written it. The song’s lyric embodies the contradictions that this new, Irish focus embodied. It is framed as sung by a black slave while the topic is Irish. And the melody is in an Irish style— taken from the song, “Joe Bowers.” Later, Rhoades’ Irish material would increasingly leave behind reference to the typical black face minstrel persona and he may have dispensed with black face. That isn’t clear.

THE PEANUT STAND Tune- "Joe Bowers"102

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,

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! 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, While right behind them comes marching along, the ghost of the peanut stand.

During 1865, Charley Rhoades wrote the song for which he would be most remembered in Virginia City, “The Pioneer Stage Driver” or “Baldy Green”. Its composition came for performance of a parody or burlesque. Later, “The Days of ’49” would also be composed for a burlesque—a comic play parodying serious works and coming at the end of the minstrel show evening. Both had an Irish, Fenian context and played to a rebellious crowd of Irish immigrants turned miners. As the Civil War ended and war fervor subsided, songs and skits with an Irish theme helped restored the San Francisco minstrel stage to its zany self. The Irish had launched a rebellion against the English occupation of Ireland, much of the initial agitation centered in the United States. Just down from Virginia City, Gold Hill enjoyed a large number of Irish miners. They 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. The latter were 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 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. In 1863, in Chicago,, the Fenian Brotherhood formally declared. 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 an attack on Canada. The Fenians saw English control as economic. And, they sought an "American" language to replace the "English" language.

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! During 1864, in Virginia City, the Irish and Cornish allied and forced the 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. 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. Baldy Green drove a Pioneer Stage, that ran from Virginia City to Placerville and, later, to Folsom. Wells Fargo purchased the line during later 1864. During 1865, with its competition suffering difficulties, Wells Fargo enjoyed a near monopoly on the express business in California and western Nevada. More importantly, Wells Fargo was also a bank and this helps explain how Rhoades could work a stage coach robbery song into a parody of a Fenian plan. The song appears to have come during a take-off of the Fenian play, “Arrah-na-pogue”. 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.103 It featured the song, “The Wearin’ O’ The Green.”104 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 burlesque—“Arrah-no-Poke or Arrah of the Cold Pomme de Terre.”105 During October, Rhoades and company performed the piece at the Olympic in San Francisco.106 During November, melodeon promoter Tom Peasley brought the Fenian play to the Opera House in Virginia City.107 During December, Charley Rhoades appeared at McGuire’s Opera House in Virginia City with the burlesque and performed its hit song, “The Eating of the Green.” 108. The Gold Hill News published the parody’s words, probably written by Rhoades, in March of 1866.109

THE EATIN’ OF THE GREEN

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,

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! 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.

On the Comstock, the Fenian topic ﬁlled the local press. The Gold Hill News resonated with stories about the Fenian plan to attack Canada. The Fenians hated the English and were planning an attack upon the English. It seems that a song about a robbery aimed at the banking and express monopoly, Wells Fargo, played into this Irish working class sentiment. The previous spring, Clemens' criticism of the bib shirts and their music while celebrating banjoists at the Olympic tapped into these cultural and political trends. When he ridiculed Gottschalk and celebrated the banjo he addressed an western audience that was working class, literate, often Irish and caught up in anti-English, anti-Southern, anti-bib shirt and anti-bank sentiment. . In Virginia City,“Arrah-no-poke” featured or was itself a men’s version, described as, “extravagantly ‘broad’ in its language and allusions, having been widened out to suit male audiences only.” 110 Curiously, The Gold Hill News made no mention of Rhoades in the burlesque version. Perhaps the Irish in Gold Hill took their Fenian plan very seriously and the paper could not risk promoting the burlesque. It appears to have been around this time and probably during this burlesque that, in Virginia City, Rhoades wrote what became, at least in the hindsight of some, the most popular local song: “The Pioneer Stage Driver” also known as “Baldy Green”. In San Francisco, Boyd published it as a broadside, probably as an afterthought to publication of Rhoades’ Civil War songs.

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! 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. Boyd seems to have been capitalizing on Rhoades’ reputation in San Francisco. The broadside’s drawing of Rhoades appears to be based on an actual portrait. 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 dark, heavy coat seems a concession to winter travel. Of British Isles derivation, “Baldy Green’s” melody is in the Dorian mode, requiring that the banjo’s second string be raised a half step to what is today called, “mountain minor” or “sawmill” tuning. The song is in 6/8 time and is set here in the key of E-- as it would be written for minstrel banjo after

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! 1860.111 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 STAGE - DRIVER ON THE KNICKERBOCKER LINE.112 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; 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. 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. 52 Visit: nevadamusic.com

! 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.

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.

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! One of the exciting events in Baldy's much-interrupted career is immortalized in the song:113

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—114 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. But more specifically, Baldy Green appears to have the worn light colored clothing—hat, coat and pants. These are not seen on all stage drivers. However, 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.115 By comparing this to the fancy dress of African Americans in positions of social importance, Rhoades made fun of the stage driver. The song would be Rhoades first “hit” at a local and its success in this probably

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! pointed him toward the next three years when he would repeatedly create parodies—but plays and songs—that hit at locals and that, increasingly, spoke to an Irish setting. A 1865 lithograph of the Pioneer Stage116 and an 1865 photos of the stage in front of the Virginia City Wells Fargo Express Ofﬁce appear to show the same driver—probably Baldy Green—recognizable by his low crown white hat, round shape and face, light colored clothes, size and posture

THE MUSIC HALL FIRE With his partner, Otto Burbank—a noted jig dancer— Rhoades returned to the Virginia City Music Hall during the fall of 1866. 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.117

During late September, the cast 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. The playbill emphasized that “The Corrigan Brothers” will be a parody, not a burlesque. 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. And, because the newspaper and everyone else simply referred to Rhoades’ take-offs as “burlesques”, it suggests that Rhoades took some pride in creating that book—a script—and wanted to raise it above the level of a mere burlesque. This emphasis on a play in the playbill contrasts the running advertisement in the local paper which, for the season as a whole, described, “Comedies, Farces, Burlesques, Songs Dances and Eccentricities”—no particular play mentioned.118 On September 23, during the parody, ”The Corrigan Brothers”, at the Music Hall, a camphene footlight exploded. Camphene mixed turpentine and alcohol and was well known for

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! its dangers. The mixture’s flash point lay at around 104 degrees.119 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.” 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, stunning audiences. In some manner, vibration and/ or heat at that moment must have set off the lamp.120 The Territorial Enterprise account uses much the same language as Alf Doten’s journal account. 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—121

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

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! 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 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 wear we blankets and direct the water from time to time upon each other in order to keep from being roasted alive. Their efforts were directly 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.122

Though the writer, probably Gold Hill News editor Patrick Lynch, was not present for the ﬁre, 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

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! wig and one of his favorite cork and iron-clad dancing shoes; and the lady performers lost various articles of value.123

In the wake of the ﬁre, the troupe re-opened the show at McGuire’s Opera House on Sept. 25, and presented a ladies version of “Ten Nights In A Barroom”—probably a comedic take on the 1854 temperance novel and 1858 melodrama of that name.124 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 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. 125

The troupe also reprised—and finally finished —“The Corrigan Brothers.” About the time of the fire, Rhoades’ wife gave birth. His two-month old son, James, died during November. 1867 began with Charley Rhoades and Jake Wallace performing together. From February through April, as 58 Visit: nevadamusic.com

! The San Francisco Variety Troupe and with Rhoades as stage manager, they toured Sacramento, Marysville126 , Mariposa, 127 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.128

Quite possibly they would have continue together through the season. 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.129 Wallace was forced to look for other work. He did a banjo solo as comic relief in a legitimate theater production during September130 and then, in November, joined Bryant’s Minstrels.131 As a result, Wallace did not join in the troupe’s antics when they ﬁnally arrived in Virginia City that November. During November of 1867, Wallace toured California’s southern counties. He traveled East during December.132 In January of 1868, he was being booked by an agent in Maryland and may have spent much of that year in the East.133

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! ALF DOTEN From rom about August to November of 1867, Rhoades suffered a severe cough—respiratory illness that foreshadowed his early death. The burning of the Music Hall in Virginia City came as McGuire was struggling with his Opera House, just below C Street, over a block on D street. These events set the stage for John Piper—who had operated a saloon near to the theater—to purchase the Opera House and shift Rhoades and company’s fall performances to that location. “New Faces, New Business and Old Favorites.” That spring of 1867, John Piper had purchased the Opera House from Thomas McGuire, perhaps seeing an opportunity after the burning of the Music Hall.134 In bringing Rhoades and minstrels from San Francisco’s Olympic to the Opera House, McGuire set the stage for two more seasons of zaniness, capturing the audience that Rhoades had already built at the Music Hall. Alf Doten became associate editor of The Gold Hill News. As the summer of 1867 went by, the paper’s editor, Patrick Lynch, probably realized that only an inveterate theater-buff like Doten had the stamina for the late night hobnobbing required for colorful articles like the one Doten had written 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. Doten sometimes obsessed over the turn of the phrase, missing the bigger picture that he documented. Other times, he provided some of the most insightful commentary on the culture of the gold rush. 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. And his contribution to understanding Charley Rhoades makes Doten a major ﬁgure in the story of the gold rush’s anthem. Leaving the diggings of the Sierra Nevada, during 1864, Doten began writing for the Como newspaper, edited

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! 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. He became editor of that paper during fall of 1872.135 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. For all his common interests, like Clemens, Doten always aspired to occupy a higher station than the one where he had fun. Unlike Clemens, Doten stayed in the West.

STRIKE THE BANJO—Alf Doten, 1856136

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. 61 Visit: nevadamusic.com

! 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.

Doten chronicled the use of the minstrel banjo in the diggings—the first place beyond the theater where the banjo entered white American social life. 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 o’clock all went to supper—oyster soup, cakes, pies, wine etc—pretty good—ball broke up at 3 o’clock.137

In November of 1867, on almost the same day that Rhoades opened at the Opera House Melodeon, Alf Doten became associate editor of The Gold Hill News. His hiring probably reflected the glorious eloquence of 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.138

Doten was not only intensely interested in Rhoades’ performances, at least for two years, but also partial to his Gold Hill audience who he lauded as much better behaved at Piper’s Opera

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! House than the Virginia men—whom he characterized as “Horntowners”, associating them with their “horns” or drinks at the Opera House. Piper’s Opera House.—This popular theatrical institution, being situated on D street, it comes perfectly nature 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, in from Gold Hill gentlemen. Gold Hillers never attempt to spar their way in past the faithful cabers 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 state 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. Gold Hill News Jan 17, 1868.

Doten saw Rhodes 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. 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.

Rhoades quickly began to work the press. One of his 1867 Virginia City stage improvisations merited two columns of coverage by The Gold Hill News. The New York press picked up the story and it proved a public relations coup for Rhoades and his company. The affair seems to have been begun on an argument 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.139 Dick seems to have told the paper that he was her brother—attempting to explain his jealousy as protectiveness. The San Francisco paper reported

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! her denial that Dick was her brother. On the San Francisco stage, she then declared that the paper had lied when it claimed he was her brother.140 Their animosity played out in Virginia City during November of 1867 when Kitty items to a member of the minstrel troupe. During late December, The New York Clipper summarized the longer Gold Hill News article: 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.141

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! 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. Their stage argument gained national publicity, becoming another hugely successful effort by Rhoades in the course of direct engagement with 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.142 A San Francisco paper took Rhoades’ side in the feigned squarrel, “…the balance of opinion in Virginia is not with the O’Neil family.”143 The following season, Kitty was back in Virginia City, performing with Rhoades—no sign of Dick at that time. Rhoades managed the 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 hands.”144 There is no Sacramento burial record for this child. In January of 1868, Rhoades appeared on stage in San Francisco.145 However, there is little of him through the spring. Upon his return to San Francisco during January of 1868, 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.146

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! THE “GRASSHOPPER FEAST” 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. The company again seems to have made a mountain tour, going East from the Bay Area during summer through Auburn and other locations, before arriving in Virginia City. The venues included far-flung town of Winnemucca, Nevada, during October.147 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

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! 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….148

A Gold Hill News 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 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.‑149

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 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….150

The cost of 200 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

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! 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. 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. In his diary, he jotted that Rhoades played a Dobson’s 1867 patent banjo, termed by Doten a “new style.”151 The first resonator banjo, this model featured a top-tensioned head design and was advanced for its day. Like other top San Francisco minstrels, Rhoades was very much in touch with developments in New York. Nonetheless, the West offered special opportunities. 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. Doten followed the economics of the theater and, infatuated with Ella, was hardly missing a show. During 1868, between Nov. 16 and Jan. 3, he went to Pipers Opera House Melodeon about 33 times. Admission ran $1.00 for an average ticket.152 Theater costs for a show ran about $175 per night.153 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. 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.154

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! 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, 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, tonight. Go early and secure good seats. 155

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”, was probably inspired by an infestation in Utah during summer of 1868 where one writer remarked: The Locusts were very numerous. They eat our clothing as we sat in the Bowery.156

Not only did the show parody a risqué Faustian melodrama about death—“Black Crook”— it played into a local, Virginia City culture consumed with the imagery of death. The previous spring, about 4000 had assembled to witness the hanging of John Millian for the murder of the well-known madam, Julia Bulette. When he appeared at Piper’s Opera House to give his talk on the Sandwich Islands during spring of 1868, now a sober man, Mark Twain at ﬁrst sat behind the curtain plunking a piano, reminiscing, before emerging to the small crowd who came to hear him. That trip, 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. 157 Now the man convicted of her murder found himself performing for thousands. 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.

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! 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 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

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! 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!158

By spring of 1868, Twain was tired of mines and the West. But, that fall, the hero of his wild days, Charley Rhoades, had one more great parody to perform in Virginia City, with the song for which he would ultimately be remembers. In the December 9 show, most likely, the souls of the dead were gathered for the grasshopper. The title also references the 1802 poem, “The Butterﬂy Ball and the Grasshopper Feast” in which animals dine. To parody “Black Crook” was to add insult to injury—a wild endeavor that could only have been attempted in Virginia City. “Black Crook” itself was beyond the pale. 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. 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. 159

In “Black Crook”, a famous and very serious 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

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! 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.160 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 evening. The season concluded with Ella appearing as “The White Shape.” It was the end of the minstrel troupe’s run. On January 9, “legitimate” theater opened at Pipers.

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! During early January, after Ella took the Pioneer stage back to San Francisco, she sent Rhoades her hand colored picture, to give to Doten. 161 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, mysterious organic mass, soon identiﬁed in the laboratory as jute. This was probably Ella’s rope.162

THE DAYS OF ’49—its composition 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” remained popular across the nation among old time gold rush miners, 49ers. It 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 equal of patriotic hymns at ceremonies. It was also an anthem to personal struggle and altered identity. Few songs have ever achieved such special status in any group. This being said, none of that ultimate importance lay behind the song’s composition. Its fame came largely because it was sung by Jake Wallace, as described below. Rhoades brought convoluted meaning and allusions to its composition—a complexity probably lost on everyone, and no one more than Alf Doten—the one person who might have glimpsed that complexity. The song seems to begin with Rhoades thinking about death, both because “Black Crook” was about death and because he, himself, was dying. “The Days of ’49” Rhoades parodied “The Old Sexton”, keying on the phrase “relic of bygone days.” Both are about gathering the dead—a theme eminently 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, 73 Visit: nevadamusic.com

! 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, 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.”

The song lists types--individuals who represent a category of 49er. The narrator in “The Days of ’49", Old Tom Moore, a bummer, ties the song together. He 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. A bummer 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.

This lament for the past—the lost glory of ’49—and the use of types each of whom has died appears to been directly inspired by am 1867 or ‘68 poem by Henry De Groot, “The Colloquy of the Old Timers”. De Groot 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 County163 . 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 came to be first published during 1876 by the Golden Era however it probably dates from 1867 or 1868. Looking at the poem and dating it—

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! 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 after the beginning—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 and no copies survived. In 1881, Dan DeQuille published a shortened version under the borrowed title, “The Days of ’49.” De Groot framed the 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.164 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. An excerpt from the second section lists old timers and their fates—the section 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.”

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! “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, 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—

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! 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— Van Sickle settled him”165

During 1884, De Groot wrote a short, studious work called “Recollection of California Mining Life.”166 This explanation of the characters he had described in the poem provides a cogent epitaph for the gold rush. It is central to an understanding of the sentiments that lay behind the poem and that would soon appear in Rhoades’ song. His rejection of wealth as motive for the gold rush ties both to the theme of “seeing the elephant.” 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.

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,"

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! 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."167

Dying of consumption and seeking comedy, charged with comedy in a show about death, Rhoades took the idea of 49er types to its greatest extreme. His characters not only fail—they are all dead, having perished from their own habits just as he was being consumed by disease and drink. 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. The song’s narrator, Old Tom Moore” and his language reflects Virginia City and minstrel show terminology. The narrator calls himself a “bummer” and he boasts as a fallen dandy, reflecting the influence of songs like “Billy Barlow” and “The Used Up Man” as performed by English actors in San Francisco during the early 1850s. In Virginia City and in that general region of the eastern slope, “bummer” was local slang designating someone who bums from or sponges off of someone else, particularly as applied to alcoholic drinks. During the 1860s, “bummer” was used in Virginia City for a “gentleman of leisure” who doffs his top hat to dabble in prospecting.168 An illustration of a Virginia City bummer appeared in 1861. Then, through ill fortune, he was reduced to the status of town-drunk, propositioning others for a drink. Implicitly, if this is a man who has imbibed strychnine whiskey for a time, he is not simply a fallen dandy and dissolute drunk but also a wasted drug addict, no longer able to function in society with much success. As described for Virginia City in 1861: 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.169

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! An 1859 poem from Placerville describes the “bummer” not only as a man hard up for booze but also as one who sells strychnine whiskey to the Native American.

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. 170

Equally signiﬁcant, Doten describes the Virginia City audience at Pipers as bums, mooching. Given the probably inﬂuence of his views on Rhoades, Tom Moore is a Virginia City bummer but the characters he describes are more noble, as in Doten’s depiction of the Gold Hillers. To set the stage for his list of gold rush characters who have met their fate, the song’s narrator 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.

During the mid-19th century a “brick” meant a regular, a good fellow, someone reliable.171 On the Comstock, “bricks” was a term mostly used by minstrels for other minstrels. This usage appears a couple times in The Gold Hill News: Tuers is a brick—he ought to be killed.172

Charley Collins is a brick—that is the way slang has it. 173

Again, there is a sense that the bummer is describing men better than himself. It isn’t clear whether the parody and the song with its Irish narrator were performed in black face. The last, racist verse makes that unlikely as its sentiment would break character. 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: 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.174

In his diary Doten wrote: 79 Visit: nevadamusic.com

! Went to Opera House and saw last pieces--burlesque--"Black Crook"-Capital! Otto Burbanks' beneﬁt--crowded house and ﬁrst rate entertainment.

However, Doten made no mention of the song. It would not be until after 1872 that Doten would notice the song. And, in Doten’s vast papers and collection of photos, there is no photo of Charley Rhoades. Doten tended to collect photos of important people and women. As he visited Ella LaRue and found himself tutored on the banjo by Charley, Doten may never have seen Rhoades as more than a clever drunk. Rhoades seems to have been a very private person and not one to boast, even for a newspaperman who saw himself as climbing the social ladder. In retrospect, the song’s performance marked a climactic moment for the 49ers. Thought the phrase, “seeing the elephant”, had declined in use after the early 1850s, the song spoke to the old-timers as a group, a culture. This was not immediately noticed.

WOODWARD CONVEYS THE SONG 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. I suspect that Davis misunderstood and that what Wallace referred to was Woodward as 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 appears to have written the other great minstrel show song to come out of the gold rush—“Joe Bowers”.175 That song preceded “The Days of ’49”. Its lyric provided the ﬁrst gold rush song to gain national prominence. That Woodward was connected with both songs—the two most important songs of the gold-rush—is remarkable. Later, as some noticed Woodward’s role, they knew nothing about him.

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

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! 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.176

The foundation for “Joe Bowers” lay in the very English approach of J.E. Johnson with his focus on performance of “Billy Barlow”—in the saloon theater version popularized by Sam Cowell. Johnson sang “Joe Bowers” in the Sierra mining camps and Woodward probably provided “Joe Bowers” for Johnson to perform in the style of his “Billy Barlow” character— boastful and energetic. The song gained great popularity. Johnson performed as “Joe Bowers” during late 1859 and early 1860, however, soon after, John Stone was performing the song so often that he was performing under “Joe Bowers” as his stage name. The key to “Joe Bowers” and to “The Days of ’49” lies in the boastful first first lines in which the character declares himself proudly as down on his luck—a pose derived from London saloon theater as a whole and with which gold rush miners could readily find sympathy. Billy Barlow is that of the top-hatted gentleman in rags who, in each verse, declares his absurd adventures accompanied by comedic posturing.

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.

In the 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.177 John Woodward did not drop out of sight. He was not a top star. However, both Woodward and Rattler performed with Charley Rhoades during 1870.178 Woodward performed in California through the early 1870s. During 1872, he became Stage Manager of the Metropolitan.179 Belasco seems to describe him in that role during the early 1890s.180 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 1877.181 During the early 1880s, he went East with the “hair raising” piece, as far as Philadelphia182 and Chicago.183 Woodward appears to have written “Joe Bowers” while performing with J.E. Johnson. This may have come during 1857 at Johnson’s Melodeon—a short-lived theater on Montgomery Street during 1857 but, more likely, he wrote it during 1858 at the nearby Lyceum where Johnson became Director of Amusements, performing with his Pennsylvanians. The earliest printed mention of the song came during April 1860, a half year before its publication.184 Johnson seems to have left the Lyceum during late 1859 and joined Mart Taylor so that he could perform as “Joe Bowers” in Monoville.185 This apparently began the song’s popularity among the mining crowd and lay the basis for its publication during late 1860.186

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! In “Joe Bowers”, the narrator’s pose derived from “Billy Barlow”—the boastful declaration in the ﬁrst verse. However, its focus on lost love was probably a commentary or rebuttal to John Stone’s “Sweet Betsey From Pike”, published in his 1858 songster. 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 that featured “High Betty Martin”, a Pike County heroine in California modeled on the old song of the same name. She was nicknamed “Betsey.” Based on this, John Stone’s 1858 song, “Sweet Betsey From Pike’s”, portrays an amazonian farm girl. Though the melody was taken from “Villikins And His Dinah”—a London saloon theater song—lyric o “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.

With inﬂuence both from “Billy Barlow” and “Sweet Betsey From Pike” and with J.E. Johnson managing a small San Francisco theater where he could play to the small but intense mining crowd, Woodward appears to have penned “Joe Bowers”. Nativist or Americanist sentiment among miners mirror the their anti-boss class consciousness. In “Joe Bowers” red is the color of money—of the red cent. The song tells the story of a Pike emigrant whose girlfriend back home marries the butcher who has red hair. She then has a baby with red hair—hair the color of money. Twain explained the view of miners. 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

Joe Bowers Johnson’s Original Comic Songs, second edition, late 1860 John Woodward

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! 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 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,

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! 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!

Returning from the Sierra Nevada, Johnson seems to have had no opportunity to perform the song again in San Francisco. The Lyceum burned down during November of 1860. Still, he had established demand for the lyrics in the Sierra Nevada. During December of 1860, Johnson republished his 1858 “Comic Songs” songster. The prominent advertising of “Joe Bowers” in The Golden Era illustrates the demand that had been created for the lyrics. These events ten years earlier created 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

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! 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.187

Woodward probably suggested that Wallace do with Rhoades’ “The Days of ’49" what Johnson had done with “Joe Bowers”—work it, campaign it.188 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.189 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.

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! WALLACE CAMPAIGNS THE SONG 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 1869.190 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, 191 192 was taken over by Billy Worrell and was closed during late ’69 or early ’70.193 194 Woodward took over as manager during August of ’68.195 By spring of ’69, the Olympic seems to have been in trouble. It is uncertain how far into the year Wallace performed there.196 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. 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 86 Visit: nevadamusic.com

! 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 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.197

Wallace later commented that, initially, he was reluctant to sing “The Days of ‘49”, worried that it might not be liked.198 In his diary, the name that he repeatedly ties to “The Days of ‘49” is John Brougham, the famous eastern actor and play-write. Apparently, Wallace’s 1869 efforts with the song had their high point during two night 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.199

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! 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."200

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”.201 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 still retaining an edge. These performances would have placed the song before a class of people who were more socially elite than those who attended the Olympic. 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 1867202 though he kept the smaller Eagle Brewery.203 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 Sacramento204 as well as owning his own bar. With Burbank, during July of 1869, Rhoades tried to open his own melodeon—The White Pine. It appears to have failed.205 In the wake of this, Rhoades and Burbank arted company with Burbank going on to a further career.206 During 1870, Rhoades returned to Virginia City with John Woodward part of a troupe.207 Doten showed little interest and described them as “not of the best.”208 Doten was moving into society. Tuberculosis was 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.” Charley Rhodes moaned the lament of Tom Moore for “The Days of ‘49”, to an accompaniment on the banjo.209

During February of 1872, at the Metropolitan in San Francisco, Sam Bausman presented his play “Early California”.210 The advertising used the phrase “The Days of Forty-Nine”. The play’s story was set in 1855.211 The song, “The Days of ‘49”, is not in the show’s script. He probably got the phrase from Wallace’s campaigning of the song. At the nearby Alhambra, Billy Emerson was playing. During, March of 1872, from San Francisco, Sam Bausman brought his play, “Early California”, to Sacramento’s Metropolitan Theater, at 91 J Street, along the river in today’s Old Town. At this point, on March 7, Bausman invited Rhoades to appear with his song.212 The Sacramento paper took note.

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! 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.

This performance proved so popular that the Metropolitan invited Rhoades back on March 12 to sing the song.213 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.214

THE PACIFIC COAST PIONEER ASSOCIATION 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.215 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.216 My best guess is that, at this time, Emerson felt compelled to bring in some song that played to that theme. That December, Wallace was performing in Marysville. Rhoades has ceased performing it. The source for the Emerson words must have come from somewhere else. In 1875, Alf Doten would print a version of the song for the Virginia Glee Club identical to the Emerson version. It may be that the 1872 publication of the song by Emerson followed the Glee Club’s October performance in Carson City for admission day. While Wallace had gotten the song out there, it may have been the Glee Club and the Pacific Coast Pioneer Association that solidified it as the old-timer’s anthem and whose version Emerson obtained. The song’s focus on a “bummer” fit the origins of the Association perfectly and both were tied to the old-timers in Virginia City. 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.”217 During 1872, Doten’s campaign song was reprieved across the nation for Grant’s second campaign.218 The Virginia Glee Club seems to have played a role from the onset of the Pacific Pioneer Association and, together, they propelled the song into further fame. The

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! 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, 1872.219 They had been in town all week, apparently, having sung for a campaign event by John P. Jones the previous week.220 It isn’t clear that they sang “The Days of ’49” on that date, but they may well have.221 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.222 They may also indicate a shift from crass nativism to a more sophisticated class consciousness that mirrored the changes underway in the song’s words.

Tangibly, the Association originated in Virginia City during 1872 from the practice by pioneers who had fallen on hard times of going to the jailer, Sam Baker, for handouts. Two old timers ask Baker to “stand” them a cigar. Apparently, the “bumming” described by Rhoades in “The Days of ’49” had become common among old 49ers in Virginia City and, according to the story, this prompted Baker to suggest an Association.

As an old 49'er and a member of the Pacific Coast Pioneer Association, I may state that during the time I was holding the position of Jailer at Virginia City, the Pacific Coast Pioneer Association was organized in the following manner: All old timers upon whom misfortune had played ill pranks made it their business, through references, to call upon me, and I had to draw from my pockets sufficient to satisfy their requests, and upon one occasion was deprived of coin wherewith to provide the necessaries for home through extending the hand of friendship to so many old timers. When going from the station house one day I was met by Dan Davis and Tom Carson, who wished me to stand the cigars. I objected, but stated that I was willing to stand in with the junior of the three. Knowing I was an old hand, it was accepted; and during the conversation they wished me to describe and state all I knew about my arrival on this coast. I said, "One of you begin." Tom Carson spoke, saying he came in 1848. Dan refused to speak until I had spoken. I said March, 1849, with Gen. B.F. Riley. Dan then said that he came in September 1, 1849, "so let's take a cigar," which we did on C street at John Rosenbock's saloon. While we were there we met two other 49'ers named Jack Weare and George Saunders, now Constable of Gold Hill, Storey County, Nevada. I proposed organizing a Pioneer Mutual Aid Association, as the applications I received for relief became to severe a strain on my pocket. After talking the matter over, we met Dan DeQuille of the "Enterprise" and asked his assistance by giving notice in his paper that a meeting would be held of 49'ers, and we procured the back room of Bill 91 Visit: nevadamusic.com

! Shepherd’s saloon (the Palace); but the room being too small we agreed to adjourn to the District Courtroom. The association was organized on the 22d. day of June, 1872, and at the present time numbers 350 members. We have a large hall of our own, after a severe drawback, occasioned by the great fire in Virginia City. The following is a list of the first officers of the society: President, Dr. S.A. McMeans; vice Presidents, T.B. Storer, W.D.C. Gibson, Charles Cummings, Thomas Eagar, George Ferrend; Secretary, J.H. Marple; Treasurer, A.L. Edwards; Directors, Dr. S.A. McMeans, John S. Peck, William Meserve, Samuel S. Atchinson, E. Jackson, T.B. Storer, Charles Cummings, George Ferrend, J.W. Weare,223

The Association held its ﬁrst Admission Day Ball on the Comstock that year, 1872.224 With indigent 49ers as one of its causes, the Association seems to have been immediately picked up “The Days of ’49”.

THE DAYS OF '49 -Emerson songster version, identical to the Virginia Glee Club version of 1875.225

Oh, here you see old Tom Moore, A relic of former days, And a bummer, too, they call me now— But what care I for praise? For my heart is ﬁlled with the days of yore, And oft do I repine, For the days of old, the days of gold, And the days of Forty-nine.

I’d comrades then who loved me well, A jovial, saucy crew; There were some hard cases, I must confess, But still they were brace and true; Who’d never ﬂinch, whate’er the pinch, Would never fret or whine, But like good old bricks, they stood the kicks, In the days of Forty-nine.

There was Kentuck’ Bill, I knew him well, A fellow so full of tricks, At a poker game he was always thar, And as heavy too, as bricks. He’d play you draw, he’d ante a slug, And go a hatful blind, But in a game with Death, Bill lost his breath, In the days of Forty-nine.

There was Monte Pete, I’ll ne’er forget, For the luck that he always had, He’d deal for you both night and day,

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! Or as long as you had a scad. One night a pistol laid him out, ‘Twas his last lay-out in ﬁne, It caught Pete sure, right in the door, In the days of Forty-nine.

There was New York Jake, a butcher boy, So fond of getting tight; And whenever Jake got on a spree, He was sp’iling for a ﬁght. One night he ran agin’ a knife, In the hands of old Bob Cline, So over Jake we held a wake, In the days of Forty-nine.

There was Rackensack Jim who could out roar, A buffalo bull, you bet; He roared all day, he roared all night, And I believe he’s roaring yet. One night he fell in a prospect hole. ‘Twas a roaring bad design, For in that hole Jim roared out his soul, In the days of Forty-nine.

There was poor lame Jess, a hard old case, Who never would repent; Jess never missed a single meal, Nor ever paid a cent. But poor old Jess like all the rest. Did to death at last resign. For in his bloom, he went up the ﬂume, In the days of Forty-nine.

Of all the comrades I had then, Not one remains to toast; They have left me here in my misery, Like some poor wandering ghost. And as I go from place to place, Folks call me a traveling sign: Saying, “Here’s Tom Moore, a bummer sure, Of the days of Forty-nine.”

Nevada Day of 1873, the Association marched from Virginia City to Gold Hill and held its second Ball.226 The Association met regularly to collect mineral “specimens” for its cabinet in its hall and to assist with care of “old timers”. During June of 1874, the group launched their ﬁrst annual excursion on the Virginia and Truckee railroad from Virginia City, going to Bowers Mansion in Washoe Valley, north of Carson City.227 It was a huge event—26 railroad cars and thousands of people. Dan DeQuille’s Territorial Enterprise article on the event contains the ﬁrst

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! ever use of “the days of ’49” as a phrase in a pioneer event. This suggests that the song was sung that year by the Glee Club at the excursion.

JUNE 21, 1874 - Daily Territorial Enterprise

A Monster Picnic Excursion.

Grand Exodus of the "Old Boys" to Washoe Valley - About 3,500 Persons on the Grounds - A Jolly Time, Unmarred by Accident or Unpleasantness of any Kind.

Yesterday took place the long talked of picnic excursion of the Paciﬁc Coast Pioneers to the Bowers Mansion, Washoe valley. The "Old Boys," as our people affectionately designate the Pioneers, were early astir. They turned out before the rising sun, as in the days of "49." Soon after the sun was up notes of martial music began to be heard. Here and there military men in undress uniform were seen, for the National Guard had volunteered as escort to the "Old Boys." These sights and sounds excited the "49-ers," and they pranced about wildly with their lunch baskets. These lunch baskets was what they did not like. They looked upon them as rather effeminate and not just the right thing. Could they have had a frying-pan, coffee-pot, prospecting pan and a small sack of ﬂour and bacon they would have been perfectly home. As it was they made the best of it, looked at one another and grinned, as much as to say - "Well, this is not just as it was the morning we broke camp for Gold Lake, in the days of "49!"

The pioneers were not the only persons cantering about. Hundreds of their friends - men, women and children - were to be seen in all the agonies of preparation. When the tide began to set toward the depot the fear of being too late took possession of all. That the devil would take the hindmost, and that the train would not, they felt sure.

At last, greatly to their satisfaction and somewhat to their astonishment, all found themselves, safely ensconced aboard the cars. In all, there were sixteen cars, into which were crowded about 1,500 persons, great and small.

At the appointment hour the train slid out from the depot, with bands palying and ﬂags ﬂying. A vast concourse of people had collected to see the excursionists off, and as the train started there was a great hurrahing and waving of hats and handkerchiefs.

At Gold Hill ten additional cars and about 1,000 persons joined the excursionists. As the two trains moved away from the Gold Hill platform, with ﬂags ﬂying and music playing, those left behind swung their hats and cheered lustily.

Boys and Piutes climbed up on the banks along the road and beamed kindly on the passing train; women peered from windows and half-open shanty doors, smiling, "A happy day to you all!" while John Chinaman rested at the roadside, upon the handle of his shovel, and gazed in stupid wonder.

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! When the train came to the Rock Island works they found ex-Governor Blasdel with his men drawn up in line on the bank. As the train passed they took off their hats and saluted the excursionists, sending them on their way with a cheer.

At the Silver City switch two more cars and about 150 persons joined the excursion and away all thundered down into Carson valley.

On reaching Carson City there was a grand commotion and about 500 persons of all ages and sexes were added to the grand army of pleasure-seekers. There was a perfect Babel of greetings and a roar of chatter of all kinds mingling with the music of the bands, the shrieking of the locomotives and the ringing of bells, and the trains were rolling away toward the Bower Mansion.

At the Mansion the trains gave forth their burdens of humanity and the multitude rushed pell-mell toward the picnic grounds. A great number of vehicles of all kinds were on the grounds and many continued to arrive during the day. In all probability not less than three or four hundred persons reached the picnic grounds in buggies and carriages.

The whole Mansion was thrown open to the excursionists, and they roamed at will through its many rooms, swarmed its balconies and crowded its observatory - we believe none of the "Old Boys" were allowed to climb the ﬂagstaff.

Dancing was soon in order for all whose feet were sufﬁcient educated to permit of their joining in the pedal exercises of the day. Here many of the "Old Boys" came out strong. In the days of "49" they had done great execution on puncheon ﬂoors in the "stag dances" of these old times and some reminiscences of their then brilliant performances seemed to animate and galvanize their now rheumatic legs. They were observed to be great when it came to "all hands round" and, "balance all" and bobbed up and down amazingly.

A band was stationed on a balcony, and discoursed music prominently for the ediﬁcation of strolling lovers, lunching urchins and yearning Pioneers, going once again into the rich crevice in the "Tin-cup Diggings" at Downieville, or down on Murderer's Bar.

The National Guard had business on hand. Some prizes were to be shot for, and a great crowd went out to see the shooting. It was good. Many did well, but there being but two prizes there could be but two winners. These were, ﬁrst, Joseph Demling, who made eleven points and won the silver-mounted, muzzle-loading American rifﬂe, and, second, Joel Niswender, who made ten points and won a handsome silver tobacco box.

We might continue to write about what was done upon the grounds, and about the Mansion, but from what we have said about the manner in which the excursionists employed themselves, all can ﬁll in the picture as well as we could do were we to write for hours. Sufﬁce to say that the best feeling prevailed, and during the whole day no disorderly conduct was seen, either on the grounds or trains. 95 Visit: nevadamusic.com

! We must not forget to mention, however, the camp-meeting exercises of Deacon Bill Gibson and R. H. Lindsay, who gave a number of camp-meeting songs in handsome style and with the greatest imaginable unction. This greatly ediﬁed the "Old Boys," those who came to California in the days of "'49" with the early Christians.

At 4:30 the trains started on the return and all the pleasure-seekers were landed at their homes in due season thereafter. Our people arrived home between the hours of 8 and 9 o'clock at night. They came into town with ﬂying colors and were welcomed at the depot by a great throng of citizens, many of whom had waited nearly an hour for the arrival of the train.

The only occurrences worthy of the name of accidents were the following: A carriage containing several ladies broke down at the foot of the Ophir grade, and the ladies were obliged to walk thence to the Bowers Mansion - a long and tedious walk. On this end of the Ophir grade, a short distance above Gold Hill, a carriage containing three or four ladies was overturned. Luckily, however, nobody was at all injured.

In conclusion, we may say that this excursion of the Paciﬁc Coast Pioneers, was the greatest success in this line ever achieved in the State, and the "Old Boys" may well feel proud of it and the very liberal manner in which it was patronized by all classes in this town and in all towns along the line of the railroad. Long will they talk of it; and long will all talk of it who participated with them in the great holiday affair. 228

During the second excursion, June of 1875, as editor of the The Gold Hill News, Alf Doten attended. He assisted with printing handouts of the lyrics as sung by the Virginia Glee Club.229 This version of the lyrics was identical to the Emerson version. The printing would have allowed the audience to sing along—sing-alongs already being common when the Glee Club performed. Conceivably, at Bowers Mansion, hundreds sang the song or its refrain. “The Days of ’49” was now squarely lodged in the mind of pioneers as their hymn. It began its spread across the nation. The Paciﬁc Coast Pioneer Association became the antecedent to the Nevada Historical Society and historical efforts in Nevada.230 The Society’s cabinet and hall burned to the ground during the great Virginia ﬁre of October 1875. Donating their reconstructed cabinet to the state, the Society disbanded during 1887 as the old timers aged and their numbers dwindled.ad across the West and the nation.

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! A DYING MAN AND HIS RACIST WORDS Meanwhile, Charley Rhoades’ health continued to decline. By 1876, ill and physically separated from his wife and child who remained in Sacramento, Charley Rhoades was living in Santa Clara with his brother, James.231 During January of 1876, a large San Francisco piano store, Sherman & Hyde, published “The Days Of ‘49” with music. With the song already gaining fame, someone perhaps went to the ﬁrm and suggested they put out the original words with a melody for piano. The store advertised that it published the song for the “pioneer residents”. Implicit in this may be an extension of “pioneer” to the higher class of people who might play it on a piano. SAN FRANCISCO, CAL., JAN., 1876. "THE DAYS OF '49." Arranged by E. Zimmer. We have just published this song, which has been sung from manuscript, in this city, and in the mining regions, with great success, and has met with universal appreciation from the pioneer residents of our State. No "Forty- niner" should be without it. Send us your orders. Price, 35 cents.232

They listed the arranger as E. Zimmer—Ernst Zimmer who had conducted the band at the Virginia City Music Hall during the mid-1860s. These are probably Rhoades’ original words without the cleansing undertake by Woodward and/or Wallace. That his Americanist focus would be the one aimed at an elite, piano playing portion of the public suggests that Sherman & Hyde accepted what Zimmer presented them without much editorial thought. As discussed below, the melody given seems a contrived piano piece rather than something for the banjo.

THE DAYS OF '49 —Sherman & Hyde version

There was Monte Pete, I'll ne'er forget the luck that he always had, He'd deal for you both night and day, or as long as you had a scad.

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! One night a pistol laid him out, 'twas his last lay out in ﬁne, It caught Pete sure, right bang in the door, in the days of '49.

There was another chap from New Orleans, Big Reuben was his name, On the plaza there with a sardine box he opened a faro game, He dealt so fair that a millionaire he became in course of time, Till death stepped in and called the turn in the days of '49.

There was Kentuck Bill, one of the boys, who was always in for a game; No matter whether he lost or won to him 'twas all the same. He'd ante a slug; he'd pass the buck; he'd go a hat full blind In the game of death, Bill lost his breath in the days of '49.

There was New York Jake, the butcher boy so fond of getting tight. Whenever Jake got full of gin he was looking for a ﬁght. One night he ran against a knife in the hands of old Bob Kline And over Jake we had a wake in the days of '49.

There was North Carolina Jess, a hard old case, who never would repent. Jess never was known to miss a meal or ever pay a cent. But poor old Jess like all the rest to death did at last resign, And in his bloom he went up the ﬂume in the days of '49.

There was Hackensack Jim who could out roar a buffalo bull you bet. He roared all night; he roared all day, he may be roaring yet. One night he fell in a prospect hole, 'twas a roaring bad design, And in that hole roared out his soul in the days of '49.

Of all the comrades I had then there's none left now but me, And the only thing I'm ﬁtting for is a Senator to be; The people cry as I pass by, "There goes a traveling sign; That's old Tom Moore, a bummer sure, of the days of '49."

Since that time how things have changed in this land of liberty; Darkies didn't vote nor plead in court nor rule this country, But the Chinese question, the worst of all in those days did not shine, For the country was right and the boys all white in the days of '49.

During 1879, the Pioche, Nevada newspaper published the song “by request”.233 The popularity of the song had now spread to far ﬂung mining camps. Probably dating from the mid to late 1880s, the Abraham Moses version of the lyrics from Montana uses the phrase, “relic of bygone days”—like the Sherman & Hyde version. It was performed by a minstrel troupe and contains a variety of new verses with “hits at locals”. 234 Overall, the Sherman & Hyde lyrics had far less impact than the version printed by Emerson and Doten. However, there are good reasons to believe that they represent Charley Rhoades’ original words. The arranger was listed as Ernst Zimmer, the Virginia City band leader. The racist last verse of the Sherman & Hyde version sounds very much like the anti-Chinese feeling held by the Irish during 1868. Rhoades’ was the sort of performer who would cater to

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! such sentiment—reﬂecting the animosity of the Irish during 1868 toward the Chinese as well as Rhoades' continued focus on Fenian sentiment. This same racism can be found in De Groot’s poem—suggesting that anti-Chinese sentiment had become chestnut among many American miners in Nevada. De Groot’s verse: ‘Hits swarming with them Chinese rats, Wots tuk the country, sure, A race that lives on dogs and cats, Will make all mean or poor.

Last verse to, “The Days of ’49”: Since that time how things have changed in this land of liberty; Darkies didn't vote nor plead in court nor rule this country, But the Chinese question, the worst of all in those days did not shine, For the country was right and the boys all white in the days of '49.

During 1868, when Rhoades wrote the song, anti-Chinese feeling was at a height among the Irish in the far-West. That year, the term “hoodlum” was coined to describe Irish beating up Chinese along the Barbary Coast in San Francisco. The song’s narrator , Tom Moore, has an Irish name. As part of their Fenian agenda, the Irish wanted to identify as “white” and position themselves above the Chinese or other people of color. On the Comstock, this was exacerbated by economic competition between the Irish and Chinese. During 1867, the Chinese went on strike while building the transcontinental railroad. And, during 1867 and 1868, the Chinese created intense competition for the wood cutting business around Lake Tahoe that supplied the Comstock mines. They soon displaced many of the French- Canadian lumbermen.235 This being said, Rhoades’ lyrics created a pioneer anthem that, when understood as parody, is full of irony. His original lyrics pivot on or key into a phrase from “The Old Sexton”- “relic of bygone days”. The Emerson version has changed this to “relic of former days”—presumably a corruption. Like the “Black Crook”, “The Old Sexton” sentimentalizes the sexton’s role in gathering the dead and burying them. It concludes by turning the sexton into a metaphor for God gathering souls to heaven. Parodying this and in contrast, “The Day’s of ‘49” portrays the dead as rogues—done in by their own

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! perﬁdy. Just as “Sweet Betsey” is a send-up of “Ben Bolt”, “The Days of ‘49” is a send up of “The Old Sexton.” Woodward and/or Wallace seem to have removed the Americanist element—allowing the song to become a pioneer anthem in a general sense. One wonders if Woodward and/or Wallace did not change “relic of by-gone day” to “relic of former days” to remove the allusion that created parody, thus reducing the songs satire while retaining its story of the old-timers.

TOO MUCH BENZINE As happened to so many 49ers, the lifestyle caught up with Charley Rhoades. During 1873, he appeared in Marysville. During 1871 and again during 1872 and 1873, he appeared in Sacramento, at the Metropolitan on the wharf.236 237 He retired in 1874. There is notice of Charley Rhoades and his wife taking the steamer from Los Angeles to San Pedro that year.238 He died, June 5, 1877, in Santa Clara at age 45 from “hepatization of right lung”.239 240 His wife remarried. Today, Charley Rhoades lies in the old Sacramento cemetery under a tall stone marked “Norton.” At his death, The Feather River Bulletin commented, “too much benzine”.241 This refers to the ingestion of hydrophenal, like strychnine, a chemical sometimes added to gin or whiskey. Medical doctors documented it as a treatment for coughing during 1867. 242 Rhoades' use of it may stem from that time. Or, more likely, medical recognition of some benefit probably followed from a long-standing tendency in rural and frontier America to market whiskey with additives. These were all stimulants and, until they caused your death, could be effective in opening airways and reducing the congestion or coughing associated with various illnesses.243 At one point, that paper called it, “benzine whiskey.”244 The range of additives to whiskey was described during 1882: It is in the manufacture of whiskey, however, that the adulterators do their finest work. You can purchase oils and essence from which ‘whiskey of any age” can be produced. This style of whiskey when tested will show sulphuric acid, caustic potassa, benzine and nut vomica (strychnine) and other poisons. The is the sort of stuff that bores into the stomach and creates ulcers. Pure whiskey, in my opinion, will hurt no one when taken in reasonable quantifies; but this adulterated stuff is murderous.245

The formula for Tarantula Juice as used in Virginia and, probably, along the Carson River included turpentine which contains benzine. In 1864, for his “A Peep At Washoe”, H. Ross Browne wrote: ...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 100 Visit: nevadamusic.com

! turpentine and whisky, with a sprinkling of prussic acid to give it ﬂavor.246

Recently, in Virginia City, the local tourism office has begun selling “Cemetary Gin”—flavored with pine nuts. During his career, Rhoades also wrote, “Our Engine That’s Housed on the Hill”247 and, purportedly, “The Auburn Jail”, presumably after being locked up.248 None of his parody scripts survive. Perhaps the most influential and well-documented minstrel banjo player of the early-minstrel era, little to nothing of Rhoades was known after about 1900 and until this book.

WALLACE GOES ON AND ON After debuting “The Days of ‘49” at the Olympic during 1869, Wallace attempted to settle down. He seems to have tried to open his own establishment. In November of 1870, Wallace was indicted along with John Woodward for “keeping melodeons contrary to law”.249 Apparently seeing that the market for his style and his song had shifted to the far-flung mining towns, Wallace hit the road. Through the 1870s, each spring, he organized a company to tour, mostly in rural parts of California. Today, some notices of those appearances probably still remain undiscovered in local newspapers. (Find any, send them to me.) Though, later, in his diary he would most proudly recall his appearances during the early minstrel era and in the big venues, it would be his ten years on the road in a wagon with a small “combination” of performers that would ultimately secure immortality for Wallace. On June 12, 1880, The Clipper described Wallace as launching his tenth annual tour—the sites given by the paper lie in Mendocino County. December of 1872, Wallace was performing his “immensely popular Delineations and inimitable banjo solo” in Marysville.250 The newspaper notice contains what is perhaps the first reference to “old time” banjo. Today, “old time” with reference to music denotes an antique style in a general sense. It is often associated with the stroke or, in modern terms, “clawhammer” style of playing the banjo. However, as used for Wallace, “old time” may reflect the already prevalent use in California of the term “old timers” to denote gold rush pioneers. As it spread across the nation, “The Days of ’49” seems to have

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! carried the idea of an “old time” culture associated with the rough dead men it celebrates— heroes larger than life from a by-gone time and whose grandiose identities contrasted the dullness of the modern age. During 1873, Wallace toured up to Seattle.251 During 1874, Wallace toured to Los Angeles with a production of “Help”.252 During early 1875 Wallace performed “The Days Of ‘49” at McGuire’s theater where, once, it was listed as a “banjo solo.”253 He then toured to Portland.254 Late in ’75 and again in 1876255 , he performed a “banjo solo” at Thorne’s Palace Theater. He traveled East, performing again in Nevada during January of ’76 with Joe Murphy.256 “Jake Wallace’s Combination” performed at the Miner’s Union Hall in Bodie during August of 1879.257 In his sparse diary, Wallace made one comment about this era. He was near Duncan’s Mills when stopped by the notorious highwayman, Black Bart—Charles Bowles. Bart robbed the stage on this route twice—in 1877 and 1880. The dapper robber walked to his robberies, wore a hood and a white duster, carried a non-working shotgun, liked to engage passengers in serious conversation and never robbed them. He only robbed Wells Fargo, based on a personal grudge against the company. On tour, Wallace and company were using their own wagon. Wallace said of Bart, “He thought it was the stage.” At the attempted hold-up, Wallace told Bart that he was a showman. The two parted good friends. These mostly rural tours represented Wallace at the height of what he did best-- travel the mining region, singing “The Days of ‘49”. He barely mention the little towns in his diary, probably because, by the standards of the minstrel greats, these were merely rural performances by a banjoist whose style was going out of fashion. However, just as with the song “The Days of ‘49”—a song for the miners that only later gained urban acceptance—Wallace’s travels during the 1870s became legendary in the mining towns and, ultimately, became the stuff of national legend. Wallace tapped into a special time in these rural towns, touching a culture from the 1860s that had migrated out to distant parts and that would gradually become a deﬁnition of rural western ranch culture into the ﬁrst few decades of the 20th century. Through much of the 1870s, that culture remained marginal—removed from circles of social respectability, even in mining towns. On July 10, 1868, Alf Doten reviewed a new book of poems from California and reassured his respectable readers that he shared their taste for Victorian delicacy. Knowing something of Doten, one can read his careful description as faint

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! praise. He takes a prudish tone—illustrating the lack of acceptance that vernacular slang suffered among the West’s educated by the late 1860s. We ﬁnd none of the poems in this little book that we would care to leave out. They are all good, and many of them are true gems of poesy. Considerable originality of idea and expression is seen in many of them, the vulgar eccentricities and slang provincialism we have noticed in other California rhymings taint not these poems in the least.

Over the next ten years, Doten seldom allowed the Gold Hill newspaper to use vernacular language or working class themes. Still, by the end of the 1870s, with pioneer societies raising a chorus to “The Days of ’49” at their events, with decline of the Comstock and with the literary recognition gained by Mark Twain and Bret Harte, politics and time prompted Alf Doten and others to look back more fondly on the frank language of the gold rush. During January of 1879, Doten reversed his earlier condemnation of slang and wrote in a review of Bret Harte’s new book, The Lost Galleon and Other Tales: It is refreshing to an old Californian to note the sweet simplicity of style cropping out of some pieces, and recognize the familiar everyday expression of “bet your life,” “nifty,” “bully”, etc.

In his terse diary, Wallace would focus on his performances prior to 1870. However, it would be his traveling show during the 1870s through small venues up and down California and sometimes to Seattle and the impact of his arrival camp among the miners who saw him bringing to them a joyful acknowledgement of their culture, that would ultimately transform Wallace into a legend. During the 1870s, the small towns that Wallace visited remained resistant to the arrival of civilization, as captured by Habberton in his 1877 sketch, “The School Teacher At Bottle Flat.” She had never been outside of Middle Bethany, until she started for California. Everything on the trip had been strange, and her stopping-place and its people were stranger than all. The male population of Middle Bethany, as is usual with small New England villages, consisted almost entirely of very young boys and very old men. But here at Bottle Flat were hosts of middle-aged men, and such funny ones! She was wild to see more of them, and hear them talk; yet, her wildness was no match for her prudence. She sighed to think how slightly Toledo had spoken of the minister on the local committee, and she piously admitted to herself that Toledo and his friends were undoubtedly on the brink of the bottomless pit, and yet—they certainly were very kind. If she could only exert a good inﬂuence upon these men—but how?

Suddenly she bethought herself, of the grand social centre of Middle Bethany—the singing-school. Of course, she couldn't start a singing-school at Bottle Flat, but if she were to say the children needed to be led in singing, would it be very hypocritical? She might invite such of the miners as were musically inclined to lead the school in singing

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! in the morning, and thus she might, perhaps, remove some of the prejudice which, she had been informed, existed against the school.

She broached the subject to Toledo, and that faithful ofﬁcial had nearly every miner in camp at the schoolhouse that same evening. The judge brought a ﬁddle, Uncle Hans came with a cornet, and Yellow Pete came grinning in with his darling banjo.

There was a little disappointment all around when the boys declared their ignorance of "Greenville" and "Bonny Doon," which airs Miss Brown decided were most easy for the children to begin with; but when it was ascertained that the former was the air to "Saw My Leg Off," and the latter was identical with the "Three Black Crows," all friction was removed, and the melodious howling attracted the few remaining boys at the saloon, and brought them up in a body, led by the barkeeper himself.

The exact connection between melody and adoration is yet an unsolved religio- psychological problem. But we all know that everywhere in the habitable globe the two intermingle, and stimulate each other, whether the adoration be offered to heavenly or earthly objects. And so it came to pass that, at the Bottle Flat singing-school, the boys looked straight at the teacher while they raised their tuneful voices; that they came ridiculously early, so as to get front seats; and that they purposely sung out of tune, once in a while, so as to be personally addressed by the teacher.258

That culture also lingered in San Francisco. Along the Barbary Coast, rough saloons hung on to the songs of the 1860s into the 1870s . From the ‘deadfalls,’ as the low beer and dance cellars are designated, which line both sides of the street, and abound on all the streets in this vicinity, come echoes of drunken laughter, curses, ribaldry, and music from every conceivable instrument. Hand-organs, ﬂutes, pianos, bagpipes, banjos, guitars, violins, brass instrument and accordeons mingle their notes and help to swell the discord. ‘Dixie” is being drummed out of a piano in one cellar; in the next they are singing ‘John Brown;’ and in the next, ‘Clare’s Dragoons,” or “Wearing of the Green.’ Women dressed in ﬂaunting colors stand at the doors of many of these ‘dead-falls,’ and you frequently notice some of them saluting an acquaintance, perhaps of an hour’s standing, and urging him to ‘come back and take just one more drink…

Guided by the music of violins, guitars and a piano, and the tramping of many feet, we descend a narrow stairway, and find ourselves in one of the most notorious dance-cellars of San Francisco. There is a low bar at one side of the room, near the entrance, and at the farther end a raised platform for the musicians. About forty young women and girls, ranging down to ten or twelve years of age, dressed in gaudy, flaunting costumes, and with eyes lighted up with the baleful glare of dissipation, are on the floor, dancing with as many men, of all ages: rowdies, loafers, pimps, thieves, and their greenhorn victims; while perhaps fifty men of the same stamp stand looking

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! on and applauding the performers. The room is blue with tobacco-smoke, and reeking with the fumes of the vilest of whisky.

Half a dozen men, or overgrown boys, are sitting or lying on the floor in various stages of inebriety, but they are unnoticed by the other occupants of the place. Every time a man takes a partner for the dance he pays fifty cents, half of which goes to the establishment and half to the girl, and at the close of each dance he generally takes her to the bar and treats her. We notice with thankfulness that the females appear to be almost all of foreign birth, the exceptions being Spanish-Americans, with occasionally an Indian girl, who has been raised as a servant in some family in San Francisco, but, Indian-like, prefers a life of idleness, vice and degradation to one of comfort and honest labor. This place has been the scene of many a savage affray and brutal murder; and often have we seen the sawdust on its floor red with the blood of some victim of the knife or bullet. It is long past midnight, but the drunken orgies go on unchecked, and will do so for hours yet, if no bloody row occur to end them prematurely.259

By the late 1880s, minstrel, stroke style banjo had been fully replaced in most places by guitar-style banjo—plucking the strings. Banjo manufacturers in the East sought to create a broad middle class market for the banjo. As generally practiced, the “guitar” style of plucking the strings was easier and more sedate. At the same time, the new banjo virtuosos found the guitar style smoother and better suited to the more complex and chordal melodies increasingly popular after 1870. Places like Carson City, Nevada, harbored both trends. While, at this Old Corner, Lyman Frisbie would have played banjo at his saloon and conserved the old style, local band leader J. P. Meder composed dance pieces—marches, schottisches, waltzes—in the newer, German, arranged style. His “Hank Monk Schottische” contrasted greatly with Rhoades’ stage coach robbery song. It reﬂected the dawn of a more elegant and romanticized West as well as a more composed music style, no longer dependent on or imitative of catchy theater songs. During the 1890s, the young women of the University of Nevada Glee Club performed guitar style on the banjo, lead by a professor on the mandolin. Meanwhile, some early minstrel stars afﬁliated with large conglomerate shows like Haverly’s Mastodon Minstrels. In 1879, the Mastodon Minstrels performed at Piper’s Opera House, now on B Street in Virginia City, creating a much different kind of show than what Charley Rhoades and Otto Burbank had created. Many early style minstrels faced obsolescence. Traveling the roads and trails with his banjo, playing in an outdated style to a rural audience, Jake Wallace did not enjoy riches. During 1877, his wife, Addie, divorced him for "failure to provide."260

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! The shift in banjo technique parallel a shift in American popular melody away from simple tunes with a modal feel to tunes based around chord structure and harmonic accompaniment. Those early tunes favored a textured treatment, each performer adding sound while preserving the basic melody. The newer tune style favored more complex arrangement for multiple instruments and saw the emergence of more and more banjo and violin tunes composed strictly for dancing, without words. By 1880, Wallace faced these changes and his own advancing age—he was 45 years old. In ways, he had compounded his problem. He had latched on to one seminal song and it had carried him forward. This helped him manage the 1870s. But, after 1880, the song had a life of its own. Having increasingly become associated with that one song—“The Days of ‘49”—on the more commercial stages Wallace had boxed himself into a corner. When Sherman & Hyde published the song in 1876, Wallace was no longer its sole ambassador—everyone knew the song and sang it. And it spread on it own. He attempted retirement but it didn’t last. In February 1882, the New York Clipper reported: Jake Wallace, banjoist, has again emerged from his voluntary retirement, and nightly appears at the Opera, a free concert-hall adjoining the Bush-street Theatre, ‘Frisco. Cal.261

It isn’t clear how much Wallace performed during the 1880s and 90s, or how he survived. Not much appears about him in the papers during that decade. In April of 1883 the “veteran wanderer” was again “organizing his company for the interior.”262 During March and April of 1886, the “veteran banjoist” performed as “the old ‘49er” at the Standard Theater in San Jose.263 In 1891, he was in San Francisco to do a beneﬁt for his old friend Lew Rattle.264 During 1901, Wallace travelled with a troupe to Hawaii where he entered the King.265

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! THE ANTHEM “The Days of ‘49” was take up by gold rush pioneers, pioneer societies and nostalgic gold rush get-togethers across the nation. During 1884, pioneers sang the song in Reno.266 In 1888, Virginia City’s William Wright—Dan De Quille—wrote a poem of the same title.267 In 1889, Munroe published a novel called, “The Golden Days of ’49”. That same year, a Daily Alta California reviewed a talk: The Lick Lecture Course

The ﬁrst of the Lick course of lectures, under the auspices of the Society of California Pioneers, took place at Pioneer Hall last evening. A large and fashionable audience was in attendance and listened with much interest to Rev. M.C. Briggs, the lecturer of the evening, who chose for his subject “Things that Happened in Early Times and Out-of-the-Way Places.” The lecture was full of quaint reminiscences and frequent allusions were made to the days of ’49, so dear to the heart of the pioneer.268

Some remembered that the pioneers had not always been so glorious. In 1888, Prentice Mumford attributed these pioneer transgressions to curing indigestion with bad whiskey. To a certain extent, the ferocity and combativeness of human nature peculiar to the days of “49” were owing to obstacles thrown in the way of easy digestion by bull beef fried to leather in lard. Bad bread and bull beaf did it. The powers of the human system were taxed to the utter-most to assimilate these articles. The assimilation of the raw material into bone, blood, nerve, muscle, sinew and brain was necessarily imperfect. Bad whiskey was then called upon for relief. This completed the ruin. Of course men would murder each other with such warring elements inside of them.269

In 1889, Lizzie Evans sang the song in Cincinnati during a production of “The Buckeye”, and knew Charley Rhoades as the song’s author.270 During 1890, gold rush pioneers from Boston visited California and sang the Sherman & Hyde version in San Bernadino and San Francisco with band accompaniment.271 Nostalgia now dominated the lives of many aging pioneers. Pioneer pride was replacing the racism, frustration, class struggles and general violence of the early years. The rough personas were softening into quaint quirkiness. During 1889, on her last tour, Lotta Crabtree detoured to Virginia City where she was greeted by 50 aged miners who took her to a bar. They relived the kind of zany interactive performance she had given as a child, a style of entertainment by then completely different from what she and others performed in the East or for younger audiences. There seem to have been no newspaper notices of this event and no publicity other than word of mouth to locals.

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! The real fun began after the audience mellowed from frequent libations, then glass in hand, they stamped and applauded to the echo and called for old favorites and when Lotta responded, they began throwing coins of gold or silver and sizable nuggets which fell like a shower of hail and kept the star scrambling to gather them with impromptu antics.

When trying to describe this unusual scene, words are tame. It was all so garish and different from what we were accustomed, but the star entered it all with smirk, smile, becoming in turn, imp, romp and tantalizing elusive, dashing about the stage like quicksilver in prankish activity. It was apparent she had not forgotten what pleased the miners and those who had but heard of her marvelous ability.

The company was having as good a time as the audience for things were being said or done we never had seen the star do, but so far at the part of the company played in the minds of the miners, we might as well have been at the Equator for there were eyes for but one person and I need not tell you her name.

It was Lotta, their baby, their beloved child of camp trail or mine that they were welcoming back to their hearts. To watch her skip, scrambled slide on her tummy when she went after the coins and nuggets was a liberal education in activity and humorous gesture. She gathered in the shower and thrust down her neck, into little pockets, her stocking and no end of odd places she seem to ﬁnd useful for the purpose. Grimacing and making faces which always brought great guffaws, she was less a part of a real play than a genuine vaudevillian.

To describe the men is to say they were hard-boiled men of visage but as soft as mush under their red ﬂannels shirts. All were seasoned and none were young.

When the last curtain fell it was very late but the audiences had plans and repaired to the bar after posting one of their number to watch for Lotta when she appeared from her dressing room. Probably she knew what to expect, but as soon as she was seen, a mighty shout went up and miners raised her aloft on their shoulders and placed her on top of a table where she was handed a glass of champagne and told, “Give us a toast.”

She smiled and rimmed her glass delicately with her lips. Over her face came a restrained and distinguished expression as she signiﬁed that was plenty.

But the miners were not going to have such a tame ending and while they reached for her, she was hoisted on their shoulder and carried to the hotel nearby.272

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! THE 49er MINING CAMP The last great hurrah for the old timers and their song came at a tourist event—the California Midwinter Exposition of 1894 in Golden Gate Park. The Exposition contained a variety of themed ethnic villages and included a “49er” area called “Gold Gulch”. This was suggested by newspaperman Sam Davis from Carson City.

ORIGIN OF THE MINING CAMP

As many of the coast papers have given the editor of the Appeal the credit of originating the ’49 Mining Camp, it is but fair to say that the credit of the undertaking and the various suggestions leading to its establishment deserve to be divided among quite a number of people.

Some months ago Billy Armstrong, a prize fighter, came to the office of the Appeal in Carson City to get some job work done and advertise a mill he was arranging in Reno. The office of the Appeal is a very dilapidated brick building, one of the oldest in the State. It looks, indeed, like an old ’49 ruin. Mr. Armstrong, after completing his business, left the building, and, returning to the middle of the street, gazed at the structure for several minutes and said:

“Why in hell don’t you take that old ruin down to the Midwinter Fair and exhibit it as an old ’49 newspaper ofﬁce?:

The remarks set the writer to thinking a little, and that day he wrote to Alex Bedlam of the executive committee asking what he thought of the idea….” 273

That season, at the event, Sam Davis published both serious and comic stories in “The Mid-winter Appeal and Journal of Forty-Nine”.274 275 276 In many ways, he captured the irreverence of the early days in full force. The overall event, the Midwinter Exposition, resembled Disneyland with its theme villages. In their midst, Gold Gulch attracted genuine pioneers who easily fell back into their gambling, drinking, dancing and yarns. 109 Visit: nevadamusic.com

! Like other writers of the “sagebrush” school, Davis could write in a purely sentimental, Victorian style—one acceptable to proper people. He could then ridicule propriety and shift to a mining camp drawl and humor. Davis could pen a sentimental homily to lost glory, his own “The Days of ’49” poem. However, for the most part, in The Midwinter Appeal, Davis allowed himself and others to revel in the dry exaggeration that was a hallmark of the gold rush mining sensibility. Davis saw Wallace as ideal when he proposed a fund raising event for the Midwinter Appeal.

…Our idea is to have a day set apart at the park and allow the children of the public schools to go out and distributed Appeals to real estate owners, billionaires, stock brokers, insurance men and lawyers who have to stand round on street corners waiting to nail a copy from the publisher gratis in order to avoid the ﬁnancial responsibility accruing from a visit to a news stand.

If the executive committee will set apart a day for this good work we will secure at our own expense the services of some eminent old banjo soloist of ’49 to sit at the foot of the Keyes statue and play the familiar refrain of “Hard Times, You Know.” Jake Wallace will about ﬁll the bill. If the committee will name the day we will print 10,000 extra copies to appease the hunger for the literary pabulum of ’49 now so rampant among our leading citizens.277

Davis wrote a list of tunes Wallace played in 49er Mining Camp. It appears to be a banjo/ ﬁddle repertoire from decades earlier.

KONCK DOWN AND HAUL OUT

Operatic Selections at the Keno House ’49 Camp. Violinist Frank Englander. Banjo Thumper, Jake Wallace. Professor Bill Kennedy Musical Director.

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! Arkansas Traveler, (New.) Beaux of Alabama. Wagner. The Wind that Shook the Barley. Days of ’49 (Original, Jake Wallace.) The Gal on the Log. Tater Jack Welch. Daisy Bell. Hell on the Wabash. Jack’s the Lad. Two Little Shrimps in Blue. Hi Cum Go. Old Bob Ridley. Sugar Cane Green. Off ter California. Zip Coon. Virginia Reel, and Jordon am a Hard Road to trabble. Call for anything and you will get it, except money.278

Davis described Wallace performing “The Days of ’49”. The audience responded much as it had during the 1870s—audience participation having become part of the song’s lore and everyone’s expectation. Among the initiated, Wallace’s performance of the song was always an event.

MODJESKA IN CAMP.

The Great Actress Spends a day with the ‘49ers.

Last Sunday Madam Modjeska dropped in on the ’49 Camp with her company. As soon as the party passed the gates they began expressing their admiration of the realistic scenic effects they encountered everywhere. The strains of music from the gambling hall attracted the attention of the visitors, and they were soon inside styling the mastering of the Bookmakers wheel. Modjeska was soon at the table laying odds of 5 to 1 on her favorite color, and inside of five minutes the entire company were tackling the proposition. The Madam lost at first but she was game and kept going down in her pocket for a shy at the long shots until she landed a ten to one and a five to one position and began to pull out ahead. She didn’t bother with the even cards or 2 to 1 but plunged in on the 20 10 and 5 bets until she was about $10 ahead when she remarked: “What shall I do with the money”? “Keep it of course,” sand Manager Perley. “But it seems to bad to take i away from thesis people, we are the Camp’s guests and ought not rob them of their money.” A general laugh went up around the room and Jake Wallace the banjo man nearly had a fit. “Shed it at the bar,” suggested a thirsty member of the company, and acting on this suggestion the Madam treated all hands and insisted that every member of the company who had won money should do the same. As she was the only one who had beaten the game the duties of treating were confined to her and she soon go ride of part of her surplus.

WALLACE ON DECK

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! Here old jake Wallace was asked to give the guests “The Days of ’49” and as he did so a round of applause greeted each verse. Then he gave the party some jigs, while the ﬁddler on his right was doing his best, and in a moment the entire company was doing a double shufﬂe. “I feel as if I could lay aside my wraps and dance,” said the Madam, but the Queen of tragedy remembers that it was Sunday and refrained, and the crowd piled over to the dance house.

THE FANDANGO

was in full blast and the hall crowded. The guests stayed over an hour laughing and applauding the dancers and agreed that in all their wandering over the world they had never seem such really enjoyable dancing.

AT THE ORO FINO

The theater was next visited and the crowd had a great time reading the quaint sayings on the walls and guying the performers. The Madam was given a ticket to Box A. and when she saw that it was a dry goods box she jotted down something in her diary, and when her “Reminiscence of the American State” is published one need not be surprised to see allusion made to the the ’49 theater in it.

BAKED BEANS

After an hour monkeying around the place they visited “Peakes Beanery” and took supper. The Company agreed that no day at the Fair had been spent so pleasantly as the trip to the ’49 Mining Camp.279

The “jigs” that Wallace played were, of course, banjo jigs in 2/4 time, not Irish jigs. The banjo jig arose in the context of the walk-around. By the 1890s, it was giving way to the cakewalk and ragtime—more overtly syncopated forms. When an Irishman attempted to persuade Wallace to play an Irish, 6/8 jig it went badly. While other camps report failures in their business houses this camp continues to (go) forward with new strikes. The richest strike made lately was discovered by Jake Wallace the banjo man. He struck an Irishman in the mouth for trying to show how to play an Irish jig. The Mick didn’t do anything to him—Jake looks like had had bumped

up against a street car and had been painted all the colors of the electric fountain. ‑ 280

In contrast to Davis and presentation of rough hilarity at Gold Gulch, the authors of the Exposition’s “Ofﬁcial Guide” found it necessary to reject the “dramatic”, “assemblage of men”, “with vices” approach inherent to the song, “The Days of ‘49”. They asserted a sanitized “honest, earnest men” view, creating for the event a cleansed and white, tourist world for visitors who would pay to safely visit. Meanwhile, to capitalize on the Exposition, Meyerﬁeld, Mitchell & Co. created a “Days of ‘49” whiskey with posters, bottles and shot glasses. These remain highly collectable today. The

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! graphics epitomized the ongoing conversion of the “pioneer” from miners in diggings to images of an overland cowboy adventure— repackaging the western hero as a rural, ranch hand. The depreciation of miners evident by the 1880s now dictated a less rowdy, more orderly and settled western hero who road a horse rather than a mule.

At the Exposition’s opening, in the Dance Hall, Tom Bree sang, “The Days of ‘49”.281 At the fair, they lynched Wallace in jest. Other times he played in the “49er Hall” and passed the hat.282 283 The mainstream press described it and one imagines that Wallace and other old-timers felt right at home.

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! Bob Jones, your host, says, "Put up or shut up. Let go of your dust and make Gold Gulch howl... HURRAH FOR BOOZE.”284

The dance hall and the early day saloon, where, according to a sign on the door, faro was played all night, were the chief points of interest. Inside the latter room a violin and banjo made merry music. In one corner, and in an adjoining space was the "bar," while at the other end was a faro "layout" and a wheel of fortune. 285

There was an adventurer with a banjo on the coach top, and whenever the procession halted he struck up a ditty on ‘the days of old and the days of gold, the days of ’49,286

A wildly exciting feature of the day was the burlesque lynching of Jake Wallace, the pioneer minstrel of the camp. He was detected in the act of stealing gold from the sluices of the gulch, and after an exciting chase was captured and taken before the alcalde. While the trial was in progress a number of masked citizens outraged justice by carrying off the prisoner and hanging him to the nearest tree.

The rose show….287

In his Midwinter Appeal, Sam Davis published “The Days of ’49” as sung by Wallace in at the 49er Mining Camp during 1894. Over the years, Wallace seems to have reﬁned his version, the phrasing becoming less formal and more idiomatic. The last verse of the 1894 version may have been adapted by Wallace as he strolled the 49er Mining Camp. As published by Davis:

THE OLD TIME “THE DAYS OF ’49” Written for Jake Wallace by John Woodward, The Pioneer Stage Manager. Music by Jake Wallace, the old Original Banjo Soloist.

Oh! here you see Old Tom Moore, A relic of former days; A bummer too they call me now, But what care I for praise. My heart is ﬁlled with the days of yore, And oft do I repine For the days of old, the days of gold. In the days of ’49.

I’d comrades then that loved me well A brave and jovial crew. And all the boys that now remain 114 Visit: nevadamusic.com

! I know there is but few. They were good souls, they never ﬂinched Or never yell or whine, But like good old bricks They stood the kicks, In the days of ’49.

There was Monte Pete, I’ll ne’re forget The pluck he always had. He’d deal for you both night and day As long as you had a scad. One night a pistol laid him out; Twa’s his last lay-out in ﬁne, It caught Pete sure, right in the door In the days of ’49.

There was Poker Bill, one of our boys And always in for a game. And whether he lost or whether he won To him ’twas all the same. He’d pass the “buck” and ante a slug, And go a hatful blind, But in the game of death Bill lost his breath In the days of ’49.

There was New York Jack A butcher boy, so fond of getting tight, Whenever Jack got on a spree He was spoiling for a ﬁght. One day he ran against knife, In the hands of old Bob Cline, And over Jake we held a wake In the days of ’49.

There was Rattlesnake Jim, Who could outran a bull you bet. He roared all day and he roared all night, I believe he is roaring yet. One night he fell into a prospect hole, Twa’s a roaring bad design. In that hole he roared out his soul In the days of ’49.

There was old lame Jess a hard old cuss Who never did repent. He never missed a single meal, And never paid a cent. But poor old Jake like all the rest, Did at length to death resign. For in his boom he went up the ﬂume In the days of ’49.

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! Of all the comrads I had then, There’s none left to boast. And here I walk around the Camp Like some poor wandering ghost. As as I go from place to place, Folks call me a wandering sign, And say there’ old Tom Moore A bummer sure, of the days of ’49.

The

Exposition’s “Gold Gulch” proved a big hit both at the Exposition and, despite Davis’ sagebrush humor, in romantically framing the glories of pioneer conquest. The following summer, 1895, Chicago recreated Gold Gulch, importing Wallace and others to its gold rush theme park. …the Fandango house was the center of attraction, both afternoon and night. There is no stage. The performers occupy the center of the floor and the spectators sit on splintery pine boards around the walls and enjoy one of the most novel entertainments ever seen in Chicago. It is typical of the days of long ago. The lack of an orchestra is atoned for by Noisy Frank, whose lungs are without a peer in this settlement. There’s a piano—a trifle new, perhaps, for a mining camp, but they promise to shoot a few holes through it before the camp opens for business—and to its tinkle twenty-five dancers, male and female, give the spectators a chance to glance backward and see how the hardy miners amused themselves of night. The dancing is original and fetching. The men are almost as graceful as the women, and when a regular Mexican breakdown was in progress the spectators could hardly be restrained from joining in. Apache George does some clever work with the lariat ad whip. Slim Jim, a spirit of long ago, manages the dance hall, and is upheld in all his gunplays to preserve order by Jake Wallace, a minstrel who actually invaded California with a banjo in 1853 and still has the banjo. 288

No doubt, if he had lived long enough, Wallace would have been hired to sing the song at the California Pacific Exposition’s “Gold Gulch” exhibit in San Diego during 1935. The January 23, 1898 edition of The San Francisco Call published “The Days of ‘49” above a long article extolling the past. In 1900, Carson City’s Sam Davis wrote a sentimental “The Days of ‘49” poem. In 1901, the Daughters of California Pioneers Society led those attending in singing the song at the close of their celebration for the fifty-first anniversary of

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! California’s admission as a state.289 The 1911 Chicago reunion of the Western Association of California Pioneers, sang the song.290

THE FOLK MUSIC FOG By the 1880s, ranchers had begun to disdain miners. Dan DeQuille republished a portion of DeGroot’s poems in the Territorial Enterprise during 1888. At the end he appended this verse, reﬂecting the shift and ranchers scorning miners. DeQuille wrote several times about the “honest miner.”

The ranchers now have got the upper hand, Honest miners rank as thieves, Debris spies sneak through land, And mining claims now pasture beeves.

To this day, in Nevada, the culture of miners and ranchers differs greatly. Early ranchers, Hollywood and folklore may have adopted many of the old mining songs, however the wild and roaming life of the miner differs greatly from the homebound and pastoral life of the rancher. As visible in the artwork and writing associating the the Midwinter Exposition, by 1894 the image of the westerner had been shifted to the image of the rancher and cowboy. Where the miner seemed tied to nothing by rocks, the cowboy was tied to the land and animals. By the early 1900s, a fog began to settle over the song’s origins, with academia creating theories of its folk origins. These theories paralleled the shift in the image of the westerner. In 1903, as editor of Out West magazine, Charles Lummis291 published a version of the lyrics submitted by a lady in Bakersﬁeld.292 His comments echoed the increasingly romantic or primitivist view of pioneer days—the lyrics represented the wandering thoughts of Tenderfoot. During 1905, several California papers published a version derived from the Emerson line. It came from an authoritative source, Winﬁeld Davis, who state that he had been searching for the original words.293 The Original “Days of Gold” Song.

It took Winiﬁeld J. Davis, Historian of the Sacramento Society of Pioneers, eight years to collect the words of the famous old song, “The Days of Old, The Days of Gold, The Days of ’49,” a title which probably more frequently than any other is used even in the East when reminiscences of the old California mining days are brought up. It was sung by “Charley Rhodes,” the pioneer and popular minstrel, whose true name was Charles Bensel. He sleeps in the City cemetery at Sacramento. The song was sung by every old pioneer…294

During 1908, an Arizona paper, The Coconino Sun, published a remembered “relic of bygone days” version known to Fox Fisher, “an old trailer”, “now a lumberjack.” It included a chorus: 117 Visit: nevadamusic.com

! Now oft do I sigh For the days of gone by And oft do I remind For the days of old When they dug out gold, In the days of forty-nine.295

The inﬂuence of the Emerson version is evident in a transcript of a wire recording in the Fife Collection at Utah State University.296 In 1909 The Grizzly Bear republished the Winﬁeld version with commentary.297

In the Days of Old, The Days of Gold, The Days of 49

The old timers of California who yet remain will recall “Charley Rhodes,” the pioneer and popular minstrel, and his famous song, “The Days of Old, the Days of Gold, and the Days of ’49.” Charles Bensel was his real name, and he was a native of New York, but drifted to California with the Argonauts of 1849. Like many another taking production, the catchy lines and air of that then popular song have survived in tradition, while the minstrel is forgotten save but by a few, and he lies in an unnoticed grave in the Sacramento City cemetery. He was indeed the pioneer minstrel of California, and was as erratic as were the times and surroundings in which he lived! But he deserves more than passing recognition of his peculiar abilities. Some of the old timers speak of his song of the Auburn jail, and it comes down to us that he composed it while an inmate of that foothill bastile—not, however, for any serious infraction of the laws or one that would tend to his disgrace. His beginning as a minstrel was in the old theater in Sacramento and his fame rested mainly on the song, “The Days of ’49.” Its melody infected the cities and the mining camps; its sentiment compassed the continent and in the East, even in this late day, the air is associated with a something that was, in the mining era, the State song of California. Bensel died at Santa Clara, June 5, 1877, at the age of 44, and the Sacramento Union of the 9th contained this brief mention of him: “‘Charley Rhodes’ (Charley Bensel), the pioneer minstrel well known throughout this section of 118 Visit: nevadamusic.com

! the State and in Nevada, died at Santa Clara last Tuesday (June 5th), after a lingering illness, leaving to mourn him a wife and child. His remains were brought to this city yesterday for interment and the funeral took place from the depot, but, as no notice had been given, no one was aware that he was to be brought here, and the old-time public favorite was followed to the grave by his little family only.” We have for some time endeavored to accurately reproduce the words of “The Days of ’49”. So far as we know they were not originally published. From the memories of a number of the old timers whom we have interviewed and a careful comparison of their version, we ﬁnd the following to be conceded as the correct lines, and we are satisﬁed that they are, as nearly as they can be reproduced at this late day.

During 1910, John Lomax published a version of the words in his book, “Cowboy Songs”. In the introduction for Lomax’s book, “Cowboy Songs”, Harvard English Professor Barrett Wendell waxed eloquent on the ideas that created the underpinning to Lomax’s life-work. These

stemmed from mid-18th century English writings about the Druids, bards and the music of the north-country. It is the wonderful, robust vividness of their surgent, unsophisticated human rhythm. It is the sense, derived one can hardly explain how, that here is the expression straight from the heart of humanity; that here is something like the 119 Visit: nevadamusic.com

! sturdy root from which the ﬁner, though not always more lovely ﬂowers of polite literature have sprung.

Educated at Harvard and having studied the Child ballads, Lomax brought to the discussion an academic view of romantic primitivism to the song, seeing it as “folk music”—crude, a product of primitive isolation and communal composition.298 Through the 20th century, John Lomax and, later, his son Alan Lomax would become seminal ﬁgures in the broad spread of “folk” music as emblematic of populism—the song of the people. Lomax’s view was described on page 113 of “The Antiaircraft Journal”, Volume 34. During 1914, the East Oregonian Round-Up published a version of the song calling it “An Old Poem the West Knew Long Ago”. 299

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! FAME AT LAST Meanwhile, Jake Wallace struggled. In 1895, Wallace’s wife died in San Francisco.300 During 1899, Wallace was performing “vaudeville” between movie reels at a San Francisco picture house.301 He seems to have moved to Los Angeles and then to San Diego. There, with expansion of the Rudwin Theater during 1906 at Fourth and F, he performed in local shows, off and on, for a couple years. The twists of fate continued for Jake Wallace. During 1873, an aspiring actor, young David Belasco had performed with Charley Rhoades in Marysville.302 However, what impressed Belasco and many others during the 1870s remained Jake Wallace and his buoyant arrival at a mining town. Belasco made Jake Wallace’s arrival at the Polka Saloon the touchstone for the ﬁrst scene in his play, “The Girl of the Golden West”. The show opened in New York during 1907. By that time, Belasco had lost track of Wallace. During spring of 1908, bringing the play to the West, a friend of Belasco ran into the old minstrel. As a result, Jake Wallace played himself during the play’s run in San Diego and Los Angeles303 . The banjoist gave an interview to the newspaper.

ORIGINAL OF PART IN PLAY FOUND

Minstrel Man Known by Belasco, One of Characters in “Girl of the Golden West” Big Eastern Success to be Produced By Talented Company at Isis Tomorrow Night

Jake Wallace, peripatetic melody-maker and all-round entertainer, the original for the part of Jake Wallace in “The Girl of The Golden West” will play that part at the Isis tomorrow and Wednesday night.

His makeup is simply the clothes he habitually wears in the street. His lines with perhaps variation here and there, are the chance words he’s spoken score of times in the mining camps of the southwest. The song he sings, “The Days of Forty-nine,” brings real pictures to his memory, and the banjo he plays is the friend of his wandering of 40 years or more.

Say He’s Wonder

Jake, self-styled “the wonder,” prince of Bohemians, king of the banjo, New Yorker by birth, mining camp favorite and wanderer by preference, and not, 121 Visit: nevadamusic.com

! infrequently a guest at functions where brains as well as bullion are considered a unique feature of the show.

“I’m a wonder,” he says.

“I’m 71 years old and as spry and lively as the youngest of ‘em. I’ve been traveling around, entertaining the public and making friends—well, so far back a good many folks can’t remember. I’ve played with all the old big ‘uns and worked all over the United States, South American, Honolulu and the West Indies.”

Entertained King

“Yes”—he took off his hat and smoothed his hair carefully—“did you ever hear about it? Why, I was the man who entertained King What’s-His-Name—the last king of Honolulu, and beat him at cards. This is a good ‘un. I had four kings and he held four aces. I said, “I win.” He said, “How? I’ve got four aces and you have four kings.”

“No,”I says, “I’ve got ﬁve kings and there’s the ﬁfth,” pointing to him. All he says was, “Bring in the beer.”

“Ain’t that a good ‘un?”

Mr. Wallace began his theatrical career in 1854, opening in Burton’s theater, Chambers street, New York, with James M. Warde in “civilization.” Since then he has played everywhere with everybody. He numbers among his old-time personal friends Jim Clemens, Nat Goodwin, Dandy Quill, Mckee Rankin, Joe Murphy, John Brougham of “Pocahontas” fame, Tom Keene, Lawrence Barrett, John McCullough and a host of others.

Played With Lotta

Forty years ago he played with Lotta Crabtree. He has vivid recollections of the old California theater in San Francisco as early as ’69.

For the last 20 years, off and on, he has been a devotee of the simple life by the mining camp route and has a fund of far western frontier experiences that are never failing ﬁrst aids to popularity.

“If anybody cares to know,” he continued, “Its’ me for the Bohemian when it comes to the real thing. That’s what I call Christianity. All this talk about religion comes down to about this—do to others the way you would have them do to you.

“I’ve had lots of chances in my time and money, too. But the trouble’s always been the same. I’ve been too fond of fun.” The long, slow shake of his head was pathetic.

The wandering music-maker whose home is anywhere he hangs his hat and whose friends are all men in all classes, has known David Belasco ever since the latter was “just a kid.” It was the pictures Jake drew of life in Sonora that led Dave to the material which furnished him ideas for the characters and scenes of “The Girl,” and

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! when Belasco wrote the play he put Jake Wallace in just as he had know him.

Discovered in San Diego

It was just a happen-stance that the original was discovered in San Diego. Belasco had no idea that the old man was living, but a traveling agent, visiting San Diego several weeks ago, saw Wallace and promptly informed Manager Blackwood of the fact. Upon inquiry being made Wallace was found here and given a mattering offer to play the part with the Belasco company. He will be with the company when it comes here tomorrow and there is doubt but that many of his friends will be on hand to extend him a hand of warm welcome.304

The reception accorded Wallace by miners had impressed Belasco and, through his play, it now impressed Puccini, the opera composer. Based on the play, Puccini’s opera, “La faniculla del West”, opened during 1910 at the New Work Metropolitan Theater. Like the play, the opera contained the character of Jake Wallace. Belasco wrote: Wallace was held dear in every Western mining camp. He was a banjoist, and when the miners heard him coming down the road, singing the old ’49 songs, there used to be a general cry of ‘Here comes Wallace!’ and work would stop for the day. In ‘The Girl of the Golden West’ (1905) I introduced a character in memory of the ‘Jake’ Wallace of long ago; I gave him the same name, made him sing the same songs, and enter the poker-saloon to be greeted in the same old hearty manner. When negotiations were under way between the great composer Puccini and myself for “The Girl Of The Golden West” to be set to music, I took him to see a performance of the play. As we sat there, I could feel no perceptible enthusiasm from him until Jake Wallace came in, singing his ’49 songs. ‘Ah!’ exclaimed Puccini, ‘there is my theme at last!’305

During 1911, Belasco turned his play into a novel and described the event that inspired him —Jake Wallace arriving at the Sonora camp’s Polka Saloon in minstrel attire. That Jake Wallace was a typical camp minstrel from the top of his dusty stove-pipe hat to the sole of his ﬂapping negro shoes, one could see with half an eye as he made his way to a small platform—a musician’s stand—at one end of the bar; nor could there be any question about his being a prudent one, for the musician did not seat himself until he had carefully examined the sheet-iron shield inside the railing, which was attached in such a way that it could be sprung up by working a spring in the ﬂoor and render him fairly safe from a chance shot during a fracas.

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! Meanwhile, Wallace was destitute. In 1909, he wrote Lotta Crabtree a letter begging for financial help.306 About 1911, the last of the gold rush banjoists returned to his real name, Jacob Lynn Jr., moved back to San Francisco and returned to the home where his parents had resided since coming West during 1855. February of 1911, Wallace played in New York City for a show created by Edw. Le Roy Rice, author of “Monarchs Of Minstrelsy”--“The Methuselah Minstrels,” “all over seventy”. The show included Joe Murphy, the banjoist turned comedian who had performed with both Rhoades and Wallace during the early years. Rice described them as, “Veterans of the burnt cork profession, who will repeat their triumphs of the ’40s, ‘50s, ’60s and ‘70s for tonight only.”307 Ever the optimist, Wallace seems to have felt reborn. In August of 1911, he arrived by burro to perform in Eureka, northern California, a coastal town where he had appeared many years before. As described in the local paper, he called the animal his “boooro.” He declared that he was “still in the game”.308 However, his day was gone. His life was coming to an end. And overall, the last of the pioneers were passing away. Around 1919, the mountain and desert culture that lived “out there” for months or years on end dramatically ended. Men had previously packed camped out there for a season or more— coming to town to cash in, spree and resupply. They loved that free life. They had developed their ways and their lingo based on this far-flung adventure. Now, the new generation of prospectors could simply drive a Model T out for a weekend and then drive back to town. In Nevada, the 1920s and early 30s saw local poetry nostalgic for the mountains, the desert and the “desert rats”—inheritors of the pioneer spirit. The old timer’s jargon and ways persisted through the Depression in the slang of the hobos. World War II brought an final end to widespread prospecting. During his final years, probably inspired by his fame in the play and opera, Wallace jotted in a small pocket notebook. In pencil, he noted where, when and with whom he’d performed during the glory days of the early minstrel show as well as sparse outlines to his favorite stories.309 On the last page of his notebook he wrote down a verse to the 1913 song, “On The Trail Of The Lonesome Pine”, presumably so that he could learn it. He gave an interview to the San Francisco Examiner during 1913 and another to the San Francisco Republic in early 1917. He died during November of 1917.310 His sister dropped his notebook off at the California State Library. His banjo disappeared.

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! During 1915 and again in 1938, moviemakers turned Belasco’s play into cinema. However, by 1940, Hollywood had redeﬁned western music as singing cowboys who rescue maidens and towns from bad men. The sanitization of the West, the banjo and of American conquest was complete.

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! ABOUT THE MELODY In 1876, it was probably Ernest Zimmer who provided Charley Rhoades’ original words to the San Francisco piano store of Sherman & Hyde. However, the melody given appears to have been corrupted. There are few references to anyone performing that version with a band. The surviving melody seems remembered and then distorted by bad editing. Ernst Zimmer had conducted the Music Hall band in Virginia City during the mid 1860s. A music hall was a theatrical venue that allowed drinking within the hall—less formal than a “theater.” His wife, Julia Zimmer (Krone), was a Virginia City “hurdy girl”—a music hall chanteuse.311 Ernst sometimes performed in the troupe. He appeared with Wallace during 1865 at the Music Hall and attended programs at Pipers during December of 1867312 After the Music Hall burned during 1866, it isn’t clear whether Piper took him on as he purchased McGuire’s Opera House during spring of 1867. Zimmer was in San Francisco by spring of 1869, composing and arranging.313 "THE DAYS OF '49."

Arranged by E. Zimmer. We have just published this song, which has been sung from manuscript, in this city, and in the mining regions, with great success, and has met with universal appreciation from the pioneer residents of our State. No "Forty- niner" should be without it. Send us your orders. Price, 35 cents.314

For the basis to the Rhoades melody, return to the song that “The Days of ‘49” parodied--“The Old Sexton”—an 1830s English poem by Benjamin Park and set to a melody by Henry Russell in 1841.315 Shifted to the key of G for comparison with the Zimmer arrangement, the modal melody of “The Old Sexton” can be seen as needing few if any chords and well suited to the minstrel banjo. As shown here, the Sherman & Hyde or Zimmer tune is as found in The Songs of The Gold Rush, 1964. I have 126 Visit: nevadamusic.com

! yet to find the original source. Zimmer’s version probably resembled the George Edwards version from the Catskills.316 That version uses “relic of bygone days”—the Sherman & Hyde lyric form. Presumably it arrived as sheet music into New York City and remained little influenced by other versions. Like the melody in that version, the C is sharp. This may be a presumption by the transcriber that the song is in E—hence both versions end on E. Note that “The Old Sexton” begins with an implied Em chord but resolves on G—is in the G mixolydian mode. The Sherman & Hyde version as well, possibly, as the Edwards version may reflect the influence of music teaching that did not recognize the modes so prevalent in pre-Civil War English and American tunes. A final modification is shown here. This show the modal scale preserved and with the song contoured somewhat like the Sherman & Hyde version, supposing that that version was corrupted in its scale but reflected actual changes in the contour of the melody. As in “The Old Sexton” the accidental A# is used as it was a typical additional note in such modal tunes when used at the ends of lines. The song was probably sung at medium tempo with boisterous expression and with slowing at the end of lines. Though even the historical tune to the “The Old Sexton” does not show it, the song would have had a dotted feel, like a hornpipe or single jig.

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! THE ROGUES’ REVEAL As evident in the song and in the lives of the associated with it, a underlying theme to “seeing the elephant”, “The Days of ’49” and the consumption of Tarantula Juice or Benzine Whiskey lie in split identity. As they left for the West to “see the elephant”, young men donned a frontier persona over their respectable boyhood self. In the West, they interacted based on those tough exteriors and yet, by the mid to late 1860s, particularly in song, a lore had come into existence that pointed out the comedy of their hopes and efforts. Coming into California by ships, both minstrel theater and London saloon theater leant to the form. On the inside they remained young—greenhorns. On the outside, they ridiculed the greenhorn. DeQuille generally referred to them as the “old boys”—“old” meaning experienced or toughened and derived from “old fellow.” “Old boys” captures both the outside and the inside. In the West, the inner self retained innocence. When gunned down in a C Street saloon, as he lay dying and as others did, Ben Ballou asked the men to remove his boots. To “die with your boots on” initially meant to be hanged.317 Hence, removing your boots meant a return to innocence, to again be pure. Given the hard shell so often adopted by the “boys” who stayed in the West, the phrase illustrates a widespread awareness of that public persona and of the boy who lay beneath. Like others, Ballou wanted to doff the rough and tough shell and die innocent. Between 1865 to 1868, he shifted the focus of his minstrelsy from blackface to Fenian. In so doing, he reversed how the comic stage portrayed the outside or public identity. In the blackface minstrel show, the dark but happy outer self cavorted about the stage, freed onstage from all social constraints—the social rules that, in everyday life, bound the white man beneath the burnt cork. This allowed the white audience to challenge convention and authority in ways otherwise impossible in Puritan, Victorian America. The racist element—the exaggeration of the black man —allowed this revelation of happiness and discontent. However, Rhoades flipped this—placing the rough character on the outside where, in fact, it lay for his entire Virginia City audience. The rough outside defined the humor. This then implied that the inner, innocent self was the real person—a hidden but sentimental view dear to the hearts of the 49ers as they aged. Between 1869 and 1880, the old-timers embraced “The Days of ’49” as a song about themselves in their old age—bummers. After 1880 and into the 1900s, “The Days of ’49” played a pivotal role in conveying the code and culture of the old-timers to the next generation of miners, even as ranchers and ranching culture began to label the miner as dishonest and unstable. Both strychnine whiskey and the minstrel banjo played a key role in this story. Particularly in the hands of Jake Wallace, what came by 1880 to be called “old-time” banjo kept the culture of the 1850s and 1860s alive for the old-timers—the “old boys”, the 49ers—in their far-flung mining camps and small towns. The lives of the two banjoists who created “The Days of ’49” epitomize the old-timers and it is little wonder that, until they were completely forgotten, they enjoyed huge fame within that

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! gold rush mining culture in the diggings. Both changed their names. Lynn and Bensel became Wallace and Rhoades—the one wide-eyed with wonder, the other intense. Altered identity sometimes played against the usual model—where the innocent one lay within. Sometimes, the exterior persona has come to be seen in modern retrospect as civilized. Clemens transformed to Twain under the influence of the whiskey and the minstrel show, however, in desperate straights, he went East and that rough gold rush exterior flipped. “Twain” now denotes a civilized literary giant. Honed in the mountain circuit midst wandering men, Lotta assumed her singular stage name at an early age and projected a perpetual veneer of whimsical childhood while privately regarded as a terror. Inspired by the minstrel show and by Artemus Ward who insisted he embrace the miner’s slang, Clemens wrote a couple of books that included vernacular. He went bankrupt while trying to fund a type-setting machine. Charming on stage and a brittle in private, Lotta built a career on her charming Topsy character and her California banjo. History now lauds Twain and Lotta and has forgotten the models. Jake Wallace and Charley Rhoades have been completely overlooked. Still, it was at their feet that Lotta Crabtree and Mark Twain mentored—names that loom large. Like the characters in his famous song, Rhoades perished in the midst of personal misery. Wallace eventually went back to his first, legal name, suggesting that for the few old timers who lived into the 20th century, the conceits of adolescence waned with age. In his quote criticizing Gottschalk, Twain held up the standard of life at the edge—where applause of dudes paled besides men stomping their feet. By the direct implication of his description, the dudes and bib shirts were constipated but, like strychnine whiskey, the banjo loosened you up. In hindsight, it might seem that “seeing the elephant” and the songs of the gold rush would naturally have arrived at one climactic piece. The phrase and the songs remain a primary (if not the only) reflection on the absolute impossibility of success inherent to the expectation of getting rich by picking up gold off the ground in California. However, it would have been easy for Henry De Groot’s long poem—“The Colloquy of the Oldtimers"—to have been published and to have then languished in a couple mining journals without further thought on its theme. The boosterism of the national press always lauded the gold rush as a glorious endeavor full of practical gain purple mountains and glowing sunsets. That view prevails today. However, among the old-timers during the late 19th century, “The Days of ’49” allowed a more nuanced and, if one cared to see it, ironic view. “The Days of ’49”, arose as a trifle created by a dying man jacked up on whiskey adulterated with strychnine and benzine. Charley Rhoades thrived not only beyond “legitimate” theater but, during the early 1860s, pushed himself beyond the formulas of the early minstrel show. Rhoades’ four big seasons is Virginia City came at the height of the early minstrel show in the far West. In fact, his shows there defined and brought to their highest realization the strengths of the banjoist in the Far West—enlistment of the rough audience, zany parody written on the spot and beautiful girls. With his days numbered, his children mostly dead, his career at its height

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! and his health failing, adulterated whiskey lubricated Rhoades as he plumbed De Groot’s picture of old-timers into his a reverie on death and identity. Alf Doten remains an anomaly—perhaps the only character in this story whose endless ambition and drinking ﬁt perfectly with the lifestyle of the far West. He never changed his name. He wrote of music and theater as the lifeblood of the 49er, old timer or pioneer. For him and for many miners, theater created a fantasy world in which dreams came true. Doten’s career as a newspaperman seems to have begun with coverage of the Music Hall ﬁre during 1866 and then blossomed with coverage of Rhoades’ minstrel shows. By the early 1870s, we was moving up in the world and getting married. As a result of his drinking, his wife eventually left him. Doten arrived in the West as an amateur writer and musician and moved up as a writer. Unlike many, he never left Nevada to return East or back to California. Perhaps due to his ambition, he chronicled elements of Rhoades’ performances and, yet, left out other, important parts. He lived a long life and comes across as permanently inebriated. With Rhoades feeding Doten and his Gold Hill News tidbits and notices for the publics, the two held one important vision in common—an understanding of “prospector” whom both saw as Rhoades’ audience. They understood the world into which that man wanted to enter. In other, tamer places, one went home from the minstrel show to return to families and peace and justice. In the mining region, one went home from the minstrel show to return to dirt, rock, sweat and possible death. Yet, in the midst of that harsh reality, one could dream freely of the pose one took —humming a tune, dressed for gambling and drink on the boardwalk outside the saloon. For the black-face character on the minstrel show stage, the gallus rig put naive fun on the outside, shown to the world. In contrast, for the character of “The Days of ’49", inside lies the innocent greenhor, now hidden. The “old boys” have been hardened by the frontier—an American mythology dating back to the Revolution. In the boastful tone of the song, happiness still glows strongly from within, guarded by a hardened shell—the persona with a knife or gun who gambles and drinks. Each dies a violent but joyful death and we share their glee through the boasting of Tom Moore—the bummer, the Irish dandy fallen on hard times and looking for someone to stand him a cigar or a drink. Yet, unlike the tramp in most comedy, this one is a roque. The song itself had two forms—one hard and one soft. Rhoades’ original version played to Americanist sentiment. Wallace’s altered version shifted to a singular emphasis on the other theme—split identity and fellowship. Probably with help from Woodward and then encouraged by Brougham, Wallace saw the song’s bigger potential. He turned it into an anthem. The changes made by Wallace foreshadowed a huge shift in the mythology of the West, one that ultimately left behind the roaming miner. During 1894, “The Days of ’49” aided a widespread cultural transition to a new western hero—the cowboy, more bucolic and socially useful form of rugged individualism.

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! Where Rhoades ﬂashed in a straight line, like a shooting star, toward his goal, Wallace wandered endlessly. During the early 1860s, Rhoades seems to have quickly grasped the potential for zany productions that lay in Virginia City. In contrast, having performed there in 1863, Wallace hesitated, went East, came back, attempted to join Rhoades, grew restless and left the show when Rhoades got sick. Finally, probably at Woodward’s urging and with encouragement by Broughham, Wallace found the song that he could alter and began his campaign—endlessly wandering the West. In the wake of Wallace’s changes to the song and as taken up by pioneers who sought respectability for their stories, it became sanitized of it Americanist elements and made more and more purely a celebration of identity and fate. Across the nation, among the pioneers at their meetings and events, it then created a huge impact— becoming the emotional touchstone for their western lives. As inspired by De Groot and summed up by Rhoades, “The Days of ’49” spoke directly to the non-material wanderlust expressed by “seeing the elephant”—a refutation of practical advice in favor of unabashed risk and fun. Little wonder that, as the pioneers aged during the 1880s and ranching culture took over, Dan DeQuille saw the miner accused of dishonesty. Bellasco and Puccini both saw the impact of the song and its singer as, particularly during the 1870s, they arrived

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! in the remote mining camp. They saw the reveal—the arrival of the minstrel into the mining camp. The burnt corked half-blacked man arrives in the mining town, cloaked in a long white linen duster. Beneath that plain wrapper he sports his wild pants and gaudy tie. Only his floppy shoes and torn top hat can be seen. Then he removes his coat, adjusts the stage against gunfire, tunes his banjo and the songs come plunking out—both the absurd and the pathetic. Many are plainly childish—exhibiting an early American simplicity. In the boastful delivery, the miners see themselves—both who they were and who they have become. Finally, with all joining in, he sings a simple song about the rogues who drink at the bar—tough guys, every one perhaps destined for a violent end, every one a child at heart, innocent within. Whether Rhoades or Wallace sang the song, every man in the audience would have known many friends who had come to see the elephant and who perished along the way. In fact, the obscurity or lack of recognition for the song at its initial performance reflects just how commonplace its assumptions and dark comedy would be viewed during 1868 in Virginia City. Every miner in the audience knew that he lived near death and that, as pioneered by the 49ers, the mining lifestyle combined great fun and great risk. 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”.318 A mock sentimental ballad—it parodies songs of unrequited love. Like “The Days of ‘49”, over and over, it deftly repeats the same joke. Today, in the mythology of the West and the nation, the image of the rugged individual has been returned to an innocent exterior—the white hatted cowboy. The West’s alternate banjo history remains unknown. East and West, any discussion of banjo soloists, the monarchs of the 19th century minstrel show and heroes of Virginia City miners on a spree, remains nearly impossible due to the complexity of dealing with the racist element in the early minstrel show. The one legged tight rope walker has been forgotten. The jute from Ella’s rope remains a pile of chemicals in a University drawer, labeled “unknown”. The recipe for Twain’s “whiskey punch” will never make it into courses on literature. Hollywood has continues to ritualize gun play and the authoritarian individualist. Mark Twain has been recast as an avuncular old man making funny, acerbic comments. Politically correct banjo historians agonize over African roots. In media culture, the banjo has been reduced to a hillbilly cartoon, its working class minstrel struggles forgotten. Polite gold rush literature has reshaped “seeing the elephant” into a celebration of peasants trekking with their homespun recipes. And “western” song has become insipidly sentimental. Sprinkled across the desert, the culture of Nevada theaters, desert rats and trading stations remains aligned with its endless roads and an underlying, hidden current of violence, exploitation and desert dreams. The old mining spirit, a rough independence, still finds little use for dudes. Intense, desperate, sad and charming, the sort of man who would engage in racist humor, mock a woman on stage in fun, mourn having shot a Native American and protect a friend, Charley Rhoades lead a hard, tragic life. He died young. A good natured gambler, a fun loving

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! bohemian, Jake Wallace lived his life in the 1860s long after the 1860s had expired. He hung onto that volatile moment in the wake of the Civil War when comic song in the far West reached its highest literary point, shaped an anthem and campaigned through the mountains. With that song he allowed the old-timers who saw the elephant to see themselves at last. He achieved eternal fame in an opera. As a phrase and song, “The Days of ’49” lingers on as a “folk song”— its role in the diggings forgotten.

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! ENDNOTES

1 The New-York Organ Dec. 23, 1848 p. 205 Also see p. 187. Dec. 9, 1848.

2 History of Howard and Chariton Counties, Missouri, National Historical Co., St. Louis. 1883 p. 267-268

3 p. 17. The Jenny Lind mania in Boston, or, A sequel to Barnum's Parnassus by Asmodeus. Boston : [s.n.], 1850. 40 p. : ill. Cushing attributes this to Thaddeus W. Meighan. Microfilm. Woodbridge, Conn. : Research Publications, 1970-1978. 1 microfilm reel ; 35 mm. (Wright American fiction ; v. 1 (1774-1850) suppl., reel 2, no. 193A) In recent times, California As It Is has been published in Songs of The Great American West, ed by Irwin Silber, MacMillan Co. N.Y. 1967. Originally published by William Hall & Son, New York, NY, 1849. The cover states that it was sung for fifty thousand at the American Museum. Morris’ participation in the play is cited in Annals of The New York Stage by George C. D. Odell, Vol. V, Columbia Univ. Press, New York, 1931, p. 486-486. For Barnum and the Bowery influence see E.Pluribus Barnum by Bluford Adams, Univ. of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1997, p91. See Barnum in London by Raymund Fitzsimons, St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1970.

4 Sacramento Daily Union, Volume 36, Number 5596, 4 March 1869

5 Alf Doten’s journal, August 2, 1849.

6 Eldorado or Adventures in the Path of Empire by Bayard Taylor, New York, Putnam and Co. 1854, p. 29.

7 ALF DOTEN, 1857.

8 George Coes,1828-1897—see Wikipedia.Daily Alta California, Volume 4, Number 332, 21 December 1853

9 Among the Merry Men of Minstrelsy. by Walter J. Thompson San Francisco Chronicle. 12 November 1916

10 Sacramento Daily Union, Volume 4, Number 601, 25 February 1853

11 http://collections.museumca.org/?q=collection-item/h26191 Clark said to have played with Wallace in gold country, Oakland Tribune Nov. 15 1964. P151

12 Aug, 27 1854

13 A Yankee Trader In The Gold Rush, the letters of Franklin A. Buck, compiled by Katherine A. White, Houghton Mifflin, N.Y., 1930 Weaverville, June 29, 1854. p. 135

14 MONOGRAPHS; TOM MaGUIRE DR. DAVID G. (Yankee) ROBINSON M. B. LEAVITT Abstract from WPA Project 8386 O.P. 465-03-286 SAN PRAFCISCO, CALIFORNIA 1938 http://www.archive.org/stream/sanfranciscothea193802sanf/sanfranciscothea193802sanf_djvu.txt His "Used-up Miner, " sung in a wailing drawl, so captured the public's fanny that it became a favorite throughout the mining districts.

15 Mountains and Molehills by Frank Marryat, London, 1855. The reference is to Charles James Mathews, (1803-1878) who coauthored the play USED UP with Dion Bouciault. Mathews: Used Up produced in London; published in Webster's Acting National Drama, No. 15. It is, in fact, a collaborative adaptation (with Charles James Mathews) of L'homme blasé by Augustin-Théodore de Lauzanne de Vaux Roussel and Félix Auguste Duvert (Paris, 1843). http://www.victorianweb.org/mt/boucicault/pva233.html For discussion of Dion Boucicault and his satire see ://www.utpjournals.com/product/md/433/bodies5.html Quote on Dickens performance in the show: http://wdigitaldesigns.com/portfolio/dickens/text/chapter8.html USED Up appeared at the Broadway Theater in New York during 1847. http://81.1911encyclopedia.org/W/WA/WALLACK.htm http://www.earlyrepublic.net/octo/octo-22.htm Interestingly, the central street of Columbia California was named Broadway and there was a Broadway Theater in 1854.

16 A La California, sketches of life in the Golden State by Col. Albert S. Evans, Bancroft and Co., San Francisco, 1873.

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! 17 A La California, sketches of life in the Golden State by Col. Albert S. Evans, Bancroft and Co., San Francisco, 1873. A lawyer “puts” a question or case. In the sketch, Old Put has succeeded in having a decision by the imperious Judge Hollowbarn overturned. The judge decides against Old Put’s next client. Old Put then curses at the judge as shown in the illustration: 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 impudence; excused your ignorance; borne with your ill- temper, and furnished you with the best whisky and grub in camp for months?

In the story, the disagreement with Judge Hollowbarn causes Old Put to drop out of a case in which he represents yet another client— Pike. Claim jumpers had settled on Pike’s truck garden. Judge Hollowbarn rules in favor of Pike, still Pike doesn’t trust him. Epitomizing the democratic spirit of the day, Pike takes matters into his own hands. The moral of this story is that Pike doesn’t need a lawyer. He pulls out his Colt revolver and orders Judge Hollowbarn to hand over the deed. “Well, fer fear of anythin’ happenin’ ter make yer disremember it, yer kin jist pass them ar papers rite over heyer this minnit, an’ the thing’ll be settled!”

18 Sacramento Daily Union, Volume 35, Number 5357, 28 May 1868

19 Constance Rourke Troupers of the Gold Coast, or the rise of Lotta Crabtree New York, 1928 p136

20 Mountain Democrat Dec. 12 1857. That larger group was a veritable whos who of famous minstrels: Billy Birch, Sam Wells, George Coes, S.C. Campbell, W. Barker, George Demerest and Richard Hooley. Burnt Cork and Tambourines, A source Book of Negro Minstrelsy by William L. Stout. p. 115 Hooley’s obituary: http://boards.ancestry.com/thread.aspx?mv=flat&m=27&p=surnames.hooley http://www.circushistory.org/ Cork/BurntCork4.htm In July, 1856, the party returned to San Francisco and opened at San Francisco Hall, Sunday evening, July 6, 1856, a portion of the San Francisco Minstrels being added to the party, which then consisted of Billy Birch, E. Deaves, Max Zorer, Charles Henry, Napier Lothian, Sam Wells, M. Lewis, George Coes, S. C. Campbell, Charles Backus, W. D. Corrister, and Jerry Bryant. They continued there for some time very successfully and afterwards went to Maguire’s New Opera House, where in January, 1857, Hiram W. Franklin, the gymnast, joined them. In March, 1858, they made a tour of the mountain towns with Zorer, Mitchell, Wells, Campbell, C. Henry, Coes and Kelly. "Early History of Negro Minstrelsy," by Col. T. Allson Brown. Copyright © 2005 by William L. Slout. All rights reserved. http://www.circushistory.org/ Cork/BurntCork3.htm Which one of these gentlemen taught Lotta the plantation jig isn’t clear. But my bet would be on Irish born Richard Hooley.

21 Ryan’s 1882 Mammoth Collection gives the call for the three part walk-around quadrille.

22 Coes Album of Jigs and Reels, something new, for professional and amateur violinists, leaders of orchestras, quadrille bands, and clog, reel and jig dancers; consisting of a Grand Collection of entirely New and Original Clog-Hornpipes, Reels, jigs, Scotch Reels, Irish Reels and Jigs, Waltzes, Walk-Arounds, etc. His California tunes:

23 http://www.streetswing.com/histmain/z3cake1.htm

24 The Indian Territory Journals of Colonel Richard Irving Dodge By Richard Irving Dodge, Will Rogers See appendix entry on Williams, p.526 More on this in my book The Miner’s Farewell.

25 Portrait of Jacob Lynn Jr. used by permission of California State Library.

26 Quote from Joe Taylor, Barnstormer, New York, 1913, reprinted p. 22 in “Lotta Crabtree” by John McCullough, Vol. 6 WPA theatre project 8386 San Francisco, 1938

27 San Francisco Evening Bulletin, Nov. 15, 1859, noting Mariposa Gazette. Dan DeQuille article, THE PERILS OF THE HIGH SIERRAS, Overland Monthly, IX (March 1887, 311-322. Citied in “Songs of the American West”, 1968, Introduction.

28 Jackson Brewery/Jackson Brewery Company Complex, History p. 2-3. Landmarks Preservation Advisory Board Final Case Report Aug. 1, 1990. Prepared by Mrs. G. Bland Platt, 362 Ewing Terrance, SF CA 94118.

29 Jacob Lynn Jr. Diary, California State Library.he cites “Joe Bowers”-_Stone’s stage name.

30 Jacob Lynn Jr. Diary, California State Library.

31 San Francisco Examiner interview Oct. 26, 1913

32 Jackson Brewery/Jackson Brewery Company Complex, History p. 2-3. Landmarks Preversation Advisory Board Final Case Report Aug. 1, 1990. Prepared by Mrs. G. Bland Platt, 362 Ewing Terrance, SF CA 94118.

33 Daily Alta California, Vol. 19, Number 6226, April 1, 1867.

34 http://www.hschwartz.com/banjopages/SFBanjos/Morrellhist.html Morrell died at age 64 during 1890 in San Francisco. San Francisco Call, Volume 67, Number 158, 27 April 1890. He dropped dead of a heart attack at his place of business, 605 California near Kearny, a property he rented.. http://www.sfgenealogy.com/san_francisco_directory/1890/1890_1076.pdf. Daily Alta California, Volume 82, Number 117, 27 April 1890. He had recently submitted an account called The First Banjo Contest about his organization of the first banjo contest in New York during 1857. The article was published be S.S. Stewart during July of 1890 though Stewart was not thrilled to feature information about the old style. Picture of some Morrell banjos: http://www.hschwartz.com/banjopages/SFBanjos/Morrellbanjos.htmls

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! 35 California Pioneers of African DescentDeveloped by Guy Washington, National Park Service1111 Jackson Street, Suite 700; Oakland, CA 94607; 510 817-1390 December 17, 2010 Baines, BuelaShe was a former slave who performed in California at the age of 12.Wheeler, B.Gordon. Black California p14

36 Mountain Democrat Dec. 12 1857. That larger group was a veritable whos who of famous minstrels: Billy Birch, Sam Wells, George Coes, S.C. Campbell, W. Barker, George Demerest and Richard Hooley. Burnt Cork and Tambourines, A source Book of Negro Minstrelsy by William L. Stout. p. 115 Hooley’s obituary: http://boards.ancestry.com/thread.aspx?mv=flat&m=27&p=surnames.hooley http://www.circushistory.org/ Cork/BurntCork4.htm In July, 1856, the party returned to San Francisco and opened at San Francisco Hall, Sunday evening, July 6, 1856, a portion of the San Francisco Minstrels being added to the party, which then consisted of Billy Birch, E. Deaves, Max Zorer, Charles Henry, Napier Lothian, Sam Wells, M. Lewis, George Coes, S. C. Campbell, Charles Backus, W. D. Corrister, and Jerry Bryant. They continued there for some time very successfully and afterwards went to Maguire’s New Opera House, where in January, 1857, Hiram W. Franklin, the gymnast, joined them. In March, 1858, they made a tour of the mountain towns with Zorer, Mitchell, Wells, Campbell, C. Henry, Coes and Kelly. "Early History of Negro Minstrelsy," by Col. T. Allson Brown. Copyright © 2005 by William L. Slout. All rights reserved. http://www.circushistory.org/ Cork/BurntCork3.htm Which one of these gentlemen taught Lotta the plantation jig isn’t clear. But my bet would be on Irish born Richard Hooley.

37 Constance Rourke, Troupers of the Gold Coast, or the rise of Lotta Crabtree New York, 1928 p136

38 San Francisco Examiner, Oct. 16, 1913.

39 An Old Lady, letter to the editor, San Francisco Chronicle. Nov. 3, 1924. Written Oct. 31, 1924.

40 Show bill: 1863-08-01 Virginia Evening Bulletin. Tune published in the Nevada Historical Soc. Bulletin 1913. Here, the melody has be regularized—the printed version shows 7 measures in the chorus. The phrase “Washoe! Washoe!” was given in one measure instead of two. The piano accompaniment showed Dm, Gm and, in the cadence A7. However, as played on the minstrel banjo the chords would not have been central. As the minstrel banjo was tuned to D, a D minor song would probably require the equivalent of the modern “mountain minor” tuning. In other words D,A,D,F,A.

41 Jacob Lynn Jr. Diary, California State Library. See Page’s name in the 1864: Mercantile Guide and Director For Virginia City, Gold Hill and Silver City. P. 43.)

42 1863-08-26 Virginia Evening Bulletin http://206.194.194.211:2011/cdm/compoundobject/collection/VEB/id/204/rec/1

43 1863-10-08 Virginia Evening Bulletin ..Doten describes seein Lotta at the Virginia Melodeon on C st. Aug 20, 1863.

44 Jacob Lynn Jr. Diary, California State Library. Deadly Dozen: Forgotten Gunfighters of the Old West, Volume 3 By Robert K. DeArment)

45 The Clipper Oct. 15 1864, The Clipper Nov. 21 1874.

46 Troupers of the Gold Coast by Constance Rourke p. 194-195

47 I found this photo on line. It is undoubtably Lotta. Attempting to find its location the best I’ve been able to do is learn that it is in a private collection in Boston.

48 Vol. II. No. 28. PUNCHINELLO SATURDAY, OCTOBER 8, 1870. PUBLISHED BY THE PUNCHINELLO PUBLISHING COMPANY, 83 NASSAU STREET, NEW YORK. http://infomotions.com/etexts/gutenberg/dirs/1/0/0/3/10036/10036.htm

49 Jacob Lynn Jr. Diary, California State Library.)

50 Daily Alta California, Volume 17, Number 5659, 3 September 1865. In February Wallace seems to have been in Nevada when Thomas Peasley and Mart Barnhart were shot at Carson City’s Ormsby house by Charley Moore. http://www.newspaperabstracts.com/link.php?id=55785 Stockton Daily Independent abstract. Jacob Lynn Jr. Diary, California State Library. In March Wallace found himself “bucking the tiger”—playing faro-- in

51 See Mark Twain’s letter San Francisco Daily Morning Call, Aug. 13, 1863. Music Hall to soon be built. For location see Pipers Opera House National Register of Historic Places Registration Form p. 4: http://focus.nps.gov/nrhp/GetAsset?assetID=ba1fb6c8-8224-4bd0-9092- e627d931c89b

52 The Midwinter Appeal and Forty Niner Journal, Sam Davis editor and publisher, San Francisco, June 23 1894

53 GOLD HILL NEWS Nov. 10, 1865

54 Dec. 27 65 GOLD HILL NEWS

55 Abstract of Stockton Daily Independent. Feb. 1866. http://www.newspaperabstracts.com/link.php?id=55785 Jacob Lynn Jr. Diary, California State Library. Benefit for Tom Peasley at VC Opera House Gold Hill News, Nov. 5 65

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! 56 The 1864 Mercantile Guide shows McCourty and Flood Capital Saloon, 71 south C. The Lynn diary calls it Pat Murphy’s Saloon. Presumably Murphy sold it to McCourty and Flood. Today the site of the “Jewelry House.”

57 Sheppard on banjo. Gold Hill News Nov. 29 65

58 Gold Hill News, Nov. 9 1865)

59 PHOTO OF BALLOU. UNR SPECIAL COLLECTIONS. Benjamin W. Ballou Image ID UNRS-P0214-1

60 Jacob Lynn Jr. Diary, California State Library, The Dramatic Chronicle Oct. 6, 1866. San Francisco Theater Research Vol 13. P.63. Marysville Daily Appeal, Volume XIII, Number 54, 6 March 1866.

61 Portrait of Charles Bensel, used by permission of the California State Library.

62 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hepatization_of_lungs

63 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobar_pneumonia

64 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuberculosis

65 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2738548/ At the Deathbed of Consumptive Art David M. Morens

66 This is probably the mail-steamer Peru. However, The Pioneer, June 9, 1877 says the ship was “The Pittsburg.” I can find no record of that ship coming to Californa. In 1852, the mail steamer “Peru” was stranded in Peru. The Coming of the Comet: The Rise and Fall of the Paddle Steamer By Nick Robins p,. 67 https://books.google.com/books? id=z3yuCAAAQBAJ&pg=PA67&lpg=PA67&dq=steamer+Peru+1852&source=bl&ots=a6LemoMEvo&sig=OeeZgFJUPr6B41r9O6T85DSVdB M&hl=en&sa=X&ei=8IZCVampLMi2ogSTnoG4Cg&ved=0CEcQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=steamer%20Peru%201852&f=false

67 I found this as a clipping stuck into a copy of The Monarchs of Minstrelsy at the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia. I believe the clipping may have come from a 1913 copy of The Clipper as immediately under it appears an article by Col. T. Allston Brown dated Jan. 11, 1913

68 The Baltimore Sun, June 26, 1854. The paper actually reported that he was killed.

69 GOLD HILL NEWS AUG. 1 1867. In 1860, Iowa Hills’ “Banjo Hill” became the site of St. Dominic's Catholic Church and Cemetery. http:// www.angelfire.com/ct3/catholic/hist.htm http://www.diocese-sacramento.org/parishes/PDFs/ Archives_Vol2No77AShortHistoryoftheCatholicChurchintheColfaxArea.pdf

70 The White Phantom of The Coeur D’Alenes, a chapter from the life of Charley Rhoades, a trip to the Coville mines in 1856 and what came of it. By Gildersleeve—The San Jose Pioneer, 8/4/77: 4/1, 8/11/77: 4/1, 8/18/77: 4/1

71 The White Phantom of The Coeur D’Alenes, a chapter from the life of Charley Rhoades, a trip to the Coville mines in 1856 and what came of it. By Gildersleeve—The San Jose Pioneer, 8/4/77: 4/1, 8/11/77: 4/1, 8/18/77: 4/1

72 1864-02-02 Virginia Evening Bulletin

73 Harrison described his time, later, with Burbank and characterized him as a skilled farce actor. San Francisco Call, Volume 83, Number 138, 17 April 1898

74 Coes wrote about his early years. Cited in The Banjo in the Nineteenth Century - Philip F. Gura, James F. Bollman p. 31-32

75 Coes Album of Jigs and Reels, something new, for professional and amateur violinists, leaders of orchestras, quadrille bands, and clog, reel and jig dancers; consisting of a Grand Collection of entirely New and Original Clog-Hornpipes, Reels, jigs, Scotch Reels, Irish Reels and Jigs, Waltzes, Walk-Arounds, etc. Koon, Helene: Gold Rush Performers: a biographical dictionary of actors, singers, dancers, musicians, circus performers and minstrel players in America’s Far West, 1848-1869, Jefferson, N.C. McFarland, c. 1994. P. 47. Alf Doten mentions seeing The San Francisco Minstrels—Billy Birch, Wells, Coes, Barker, Henry, Gorer, in San Francisco, Dec. 22, 1859. On Feb 26 1870 he describes visiting a Coe family in San Mateo and spending a pleasant evening playing fiddle and piano. “The minstrel boys were among those pioneers, the men of ‘49 and spring of ‘50, who swarmed to the California gold mines. They went around the horn or across the Isthmus of Panama. All the well known names of the popular minstrels of the Eastern States are to be found upon the early programs of the San Francisco halls or hastily built theatres, such as the “Jenny Lind,” managed by Tom Maguire, the pioneer manager of the Pacific Coast, and the “Forest Theatre.” The name of Birch, Backus, Joe Murphy, William White (Bernard), Sam Wells, Charles Henry, Sher Campbell, Edwin Deaves, Charles Shattuck, Neil Bryant, George H. Coes, Frank Moran and a host of others who flocked to the new Eldorado. “"The Younger Generation in Minstrelsy and Reminiscences of the Past,” by Frank Dumont, New York Clipper , March 27, 1915. http://www.circushistory.org/Cork/BurntCork6.htm

76 Mountains and Molehills by Frank Marryat, London, 1855

77 http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/musdi:@field(DOCID+@lit(M1178)):

78 Wheat, Carl. I,: The Shirley Letters From The California Mines, 1851-52, Knopf, 1949 p. 203-204

138 Visit: nevadamusic.com

! 79 Pen Knife Sketches by Alonzo Delano, 1853, p. 59

80 Ben Bolt piece Feb. 18, 1857, Alf Doten Journal. Two separate versions of Gal On The Log has been recorded: GAL ON THE LOG [1]. Old- Time, Breakdown. USA, south-central Kentucky. G Major. Standard. AABB. Source for notated version: Jake Phelps and Street Butler (Pea Ridge, Todd County, Ky., 1965) [Titon]. Titon (Old-Time Kentucky Fiddle Tunes), 2001; No. 47, pg. 79. GAL ON THE LOG [2]. Old-Time, Breakdown. A different tune than “Gal on the Log [1]." “Gal on the Log [2]" was recorded by Ft. Worth, Texas, fiddler Moses J. Bonner, who was born in 1847 in Alabama. http://www.ibiblio.org/fiddlers/GAA_GAL.htm Doten is probably referring the second tune though this version is recorded in long bow Texas style rather than in the shove and push traditional Southern dance style.

81 Franklin Buck, Hermitage Rancho, Feb 24, 1852 A Yankee Trader In The Gold Rush, the letters of Franklin A. Buck, compiled by Katherine A. White, Houghton Mifflin, N.Y., 1930

82 A History of Tuolumne County California, San Francisco, 1882, p.. 203-205

83 Mark Twain: Enthusiastic Eloquence," San Francisco Dramatic Chronicle, 6/23/1865

84 http://www.robertgreenbergmusic.com/2015/02/24/gottschalk-the-bieber-of-1860s/

85 Notes of a pianist, ed. by C. Gottschalk, tr. by R.E. Peterson By Louis Moreau Gottschalk p. 383--386

86 Notes of a pianist, ed. by C. Gottschalk, tr. by R.E. Peterson By Louis Moreau Gottschalk p. 383--386

87 http://www.robertgreenbergmusic.com/2015/02/24/gottschalk-the-bieber-of-1860s/

88 Territorial Enterprise, April 3, 1865. La Plata Hall performance by Pride.

89 H. Ross Browne: A Peep At Washoe, first published as Crusoe's Island, California and Washo, New York: Harper and Brothers, 1864, reprinted by Paisano Press, Balboa Island, 1959, p. 79. Ross also describes the ill effects of drinking the local water. Note his reference to symptoms like rheumatism.

90 Browne commented on Dutch Nick’s whiskey though he has his name wrong. (PEEP AT WASHOE Feb. 1861.p292.

91 PEEP AT WASHOE, Jan. 1861, p. 147

92 Mark Twain, Roughing It. In Roughing It, Clemens stated that the boarders, all “camp followers” of the Governor, were hired to survey for a railroad going east from Carson City. This direction proved the only clue he would give to the truth behind his account.

93 http://www.twainquotes.com/18630203t.html

94 http://pipersoperahouse.net/history/

95 Reno Evening Gazette (Reno, Nevada) May 11, 1877

96 Suicidal Mark Twain glimpsed in rare 150-year-old writing http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/05/05/suicidal-mark- twain-glimpsed-in-rare-150-year-old-stories/

97 Daily Territorial Enterprise Sept. 16, 1864.

98 Broadside in Sacramento State Library.) Sheet music in the Levy Collection. https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/handle/1774.2/22496 Words by J.B. Murphy, music by W. Arlington.

99 (Sung by RHoades San Francisco Chronicle Feb. 16, 1867.) (Broadside, Sacramento State Library, probably composed by Joe Murphy.)

100 San Francisco Chronicle April 15 1865—Chinese playbill,

101 (The Pioneer, June 9, 1877, The Peanut Stand The California State Library has confused this with The Peanut Gal.) See PEANUT GAL by Unsworth in the library of Congress. http://www.loc.gov/resource/amss.sb30416b.0 The peanut gal. By Unsworth. H. De Marsan, Publisher, 54 Chatham Street, N. Y. Unsworth publication dates from about 1860. Banjo music: 230 easy pieces for the banjo : comprising a choice collection of polkas, waltzes, clog hornpipes, reels, jigs, walkarounds, songs, etc., etc., in both the "guitar" and "banjo" styles of execution by Converse, Frank B., arranger, compiler; Hitchcock, Benjamin W., 1836-, publisher Published 1887 "Hitchcock's banjo collection"--At head of title

102 The version of the melody shown here comes from Air Book: O'Neill - Irish Minstrels and Musicians (1913, p. 114)

103 Daily Alta California, Vol 17, Number 5744, ove. 27, 1865.

139 Visit: nevadamusic.com

! 104 The Wearin’ o’ The Green Dion Boucicault, and E.H. House. --New York: Dodworth, 6 Astor Place, 1865. As sung by T. H. Glenney as Shaun The Post in Arrah Na Pogue

"O Paddy dear, and did ye hear the news that's goin' round? The shamrock is by law forbid to grow on Irish ground! No more Saint Patrick's Day we'll keep, his color can't be seen For there's a cruel law ag'in the Wearin' o' the Green." I met with Napper Tandy, and he took me by the hand, And he said, "How's poor ould Ireland, and how does she stand?" "She's the most distressful country that ever yet was seen, For they're hanging men and women there for the Wearin' of' the Green.

Then since the color we must wear is England's cruel red Let it remind us of the blood that Irishmen have shed; You may take the shamrock from your hat, and cast it on the sod But never fear, 'twill take root there, tho underfoot 'tis trod. When the law can stop the blades of grass from growin' as they grow And when the leaves in summer-time their verdure dare not show, Then I will change the color I wear in my caubeen; But till that day, please God, I'll stick to the wearin' of the Green.

But if at last our color should be torn from Ireland’s heart, Her songs with shame and sorrow from the dear ould soil will part, I’ve heard whisper of a country, that lies far beyond the say, Where rich and poor stand equal in the light of freedom’s day, Oh, Erin must we lave you, driven by the tyrant’s hand, Must we ask a mother’s welcome from a strange but happier land. Where the cruel cross of England’s thraldom never shall be seen; And where, thank God, we’ll live and die, still wearin’ of the green.

105 San Francisco Theater Research Vol. 14 p. 64-69.

106 San Francisco Chronicle Oct. 11, 1865

107 Gold Hills News: Peasley of the Opera House leaves San Francisco today. Nov. 13 Peasley arrives with Arrah na Pogue Gold Hill News. NOV. 15 Opens Nov. 17 Discussion of the Irish invading and conquering Canada. AS TO FENIANS-Nov. 20

108 Salt Lake City Telegraph, Volume II, Issue 18, pl. 1 Dec. 7, 1865.

109 Charles Henry Webb, Burlesque of Arrah-na-Poke Gold Hill News, Mar. 21, 1866

110 Salt Lake City Telegraph, Volume II, Issue 18, pl. 1 Dec. 7, 1865.

111 Heres the same tune in modern banjo G tuning.

112 Wehman’s Universal Songster vol. 34. http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/songster/34-the-stage---driver-on-the-knickerbocker-line.htm

113 An Editor On The Comstock Lode by Wells Drury, Pacific Books, Palo Alto, CA, 1936. p.148-149. I have found no mention of the song in Doten’s journal. He does mention writing a parody to Boston Gals, a minstrel tune—Feb 23 1868. A detailed acount of the hold-up can be found in The First Baby In Camp, a full account of the scenes and adventures during the pioneer days of ’49 by Wm. P. Bennett, Rancher Publishing Co. Salt Lake City, Utah, 1893. P.63-66

114 Great Stagecoach Robberies of the Old West By R. Michael Wilson p.23-26.

115 The overland stage to California: Personal reminiscences and authentic ... By Frank A. Root, William Elsey Connelley

116 Lithograph by George H. Baker, “Pioneer Stage passing Lake Tahoe”. Entered in the 5th Mechanics Institute Fair of 1865—Mechanics Institute, 5th Industrial Exhibition, 1865 Report, p. 86.) Photo: http://www.westboundstage.com/museum.html showing stereograph by Lawrence and Houseworth. A third picture may also be Baldy though the man seems slenderer and has a high crown hat. Also, he is driving a two horse team—probably a local run, not over the mountains. http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/cph.3a27944/

117 New York Clipper, 13 October 1866

118 The Gold Hill News Sept 22 1866 advertisement

119 https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1144&dat=19731007&id=CAkcAAAAIBAJ&sjid=AlUEAAAAIBAJ&pg=7280,2197041&hl=en

140 Visit: nevadamusic.com

! 120 https://www.questia.com/read/1G1-351787093/the-corsican-trap-its-mechanism-and-reception http://www.theatrecrafts.com/pages/home/ glossary-of-technical-theatre-terms/trap-doors-stage/

121 p. 897-898 Book 32 Vol. 2 The Journals of Alfred Doten

122 Daily Alta California, Volume 18, Number 6043, 27 September 1866. The Gold Hill News account was much shorter. See Sacramento Daily Union, Volume 32, Number 4835, 26 September 1866

123 The Gold Hill News Sept. 24. 1866

124 (Doten. p. 898. The Gold Hill News Sept. 26 1866

125 The Gold Hill News Sept. 27, 1866

126 Marysville Daily Appeal 14 March 1867

127 Mariposa Gazette, Number 42, 13 April 1867

128 Red Bluff Independent, Number 48, 29 May 1867

129 San Francisco Chronicle Aug 31 1867.

130 Daily Alta California, Volume 19, Number 6380, 3 September 1867

131 Daily Alta California, Volume 19, Number 6465, 27 November 1867

132 Sacramento Daily Union, Volume 34, Number 5216, 16 December 1867

133 New York Clipper, 18 January 1868

134 The Newspapers of Nevada: A History and Bibliography, 1854-1979 By Richard E. Lingenfelter, Karen Rix Gash, p.97 https://books.google.com/books? id=PQqhz7JSQZUC&pg=PA97&lpg=PA97&dq=alf+doten+GOLD+HILL+NEWS&source=bl&ots=McPGgGbFvD&sig=YOJBhBikieYe1b-8C0 QfodxESls&hl=en&sa=X&ei=rDtOVfnJEMfooAT61IDQCg&ved=0CDIQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=alf%20doten%20GOLD%20HILL%20NE WS&f=false See Sonneck Society for American Music Bulletin, Volume XXIII, no. 2 (Summer 1997) Thomas Maguire in Virginia City Cheryl Taranto, University of Nevada, Las Vegas http://american-music.org/publications/bullarchive/taranto.htm

135 Obituary

San Francisco Call, Volume 94, Number 168, 15 November 1903

136 Words: Alf Doten, Mission Dolores, Calif. 1856 (used by permission, Special Collections, University of Nevada-Reno Library) Music: possibly “Ring De Banjo”, Stephen Foster 1851, Or Christy’s “Carry Me Back To Old Virginny.” 1847.

137 Feb 5, March 17, 1864

138 GOLD HILL NEWS NOV. 16 1867

139 San Francisco Chronicle April 27 1867.

140 San Francisco Chronicle April 27 1867,

141 New York Clipper Dec 21 1867 p. 295

142 San FranCisco Chronicle Nov. 16 1867.

143 Nov. 16 1867.Chronicle.

144 San Francisco Chronicle Dec. 14 1867

145 San Francisco Chronicle Dec. 14 1867, Jan. 28 1868.

146 New York Clipper, 11 January 1868

147 San Francisco Chronicle Nov. 1 1868.

148 Territorial Enterprise 11/22/68

141 Visit: nevadamusic.com

! 149 THE GOLD HILL NEWS Nov. 27, 1868

150 Nov. 30, Alf Doten diary, UNR Special Collections.

151 Dec. 14. Alf Doten Journal. UNR Special Collections. Photo courtesy Marc Glickman, instrument repair, Frederick, Maryland who restored a high quality original.,

152 Gold Hills News Nov. 17, 1868.)

153 Jan 7 1868 Gold Hill News.)

154 Territorial Enterprise Dec. 9, 1868

155 GOLD HILLS NEWS DEC. 9 1868

156 Alfred Cordon journal, July 24, 1868, vol. 8, pp. 25-26. http://historytogo.utah.gov/utah_chapters/pioneers_and_cowboys/ pestiferousironclads.html

157 Piper’s Opera House began as Maguire’s Opera House in 1863 when San Francisco theater impresario Thomas Maguire built the establishment, two blocks east of this site on “D” Street between Union and & Taylor Streets. Maguire fell on hard times and sold the opera house to John Piper in 1867. http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WMFMJE_Pipers_Opera_House

158 From the Chicago Republican May 31, 1868. Guy Rocha finds Twains account, 1999. The Daily Courier - Sep 28, 1999 https:// groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.true-crime/eBQtfBrcPbI

159 Decision of Judge, Sacramento Daily Union, Vol. 33, No. 5012, April 22, 1867

160 Advertisement: New York Herald, 03 March 1867. 2) Advertisement: New-York Times, 04 March 1867. 3) Advertisement: New York Herald, 05 March 1867. “Re-engagement of Mr. Otto Burbank, who will positively appear on Thursday, March 7.” 4) Advertisement: New York Clipper, 09 March 1867, 384. “This Is The Family Resort!”

161 Photos of Ella LaRue and Kitty O’Neil by permission of The University of Nevada, Reno, Special Collections.

162 Excavations at Maguire’s Opera House 2010SWAAPO http://www.academia.edu/766329/Excavations_at_Maguire_s_Opera_House_2010SWAAPO

163 The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft, Volume 25 See THE OVERLAND MONTHLY 1893. p. 261 Obituary: San Francisco Call, Volume 73, Number 119, 29 March 1893

164 The whole is in my book RHYMES FROM THE SILVER STATE, as take from the Pacific Bank Handbook of 1888. De Groot’s third verse dates the composition as 18 years from the narrator leaving Dents. The Dents purchased Knight’s ferry in late 1849, so that the dating in the third verses suggests that De Groot’s poem was written in 1868. “But where ya been, Jim, ever since We left the Stanislow, And pulled up stakes down at Dent’s— Now eighteen years ago?” http://www.paulrich.net/students/readings/california_gold_rush/california_gold_07.html

165 https://archive.org/stream/anngrevi00verd/anngrevi00verd_djvu.txt https://ia802603.us.archive.org/0/items/paccoas00sanf/paccoas00sanf.pdf

166 p. 15 Available online. https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=spQ- AQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA15

167 Gold Hills News, 12/5/68

168 (A PEEP AT WASHOE-J.Ross Browne, Dec. 1860, p. 2 Harpers Magazine.)

169 PEEP AT WASHOE, Jan. 1861. P. 157.

170 Placerville Observer quoted in the Dakota Democrat Aug. 25, 1859. South Dakota Historical Collections, Volume 11. p. 442.

171 http://www.victorianlondon.org/words/slang1870s.htm

172 GOLD HILL NEWS DEC. 7 65

173 GOLD HILL NEWS Nov. 12 1865. Re Music Hall.

174 The Gold Hill News Dec.10, 1868

175 A discussion of the song’s origins. http://web.lyon.edu/wolfcollection/joebowers.htm 142 Visit: nevadamusic.com

! 176 Judge Thomas J. C. Fagg, of Louisiana as quoted 1907. Doniphans Expedition AND THE CONQUEST OF NEW MEXICO AND CALIFORNIA. BY William Elsey Connelley.

177 Sacramento Daily Union, Volume 8, Number 156, 9 September 1879-Turner Theater. The Golden Era - Mar 27, 1870—Pacific Theater. Also, New York Clipper, 24 May 1862

178 The Golden Era - Apr 10, 1870. The Pacific Theater. The San Francisco Chronical FEb. 1 1867 lists this as John WOODARD. It lists Rhodes playing “THE BOUNTY JUMPER”—joe Murphy’s civil war song.

179 New York Clipper, 14 December 1872. Appearing there in a show: Sacramento Daily Union, Volume 3, Number 245, 29 November 1877

180 MY LIFE’S STORY. p. 767. Hearst's International Combined with Cosmopolitan, Volume 25, https://books.google.com/books? id=7E0_AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA778&lpg=PA778&dq=%22John+Woodward%22+ %22Virginia+City%22&source=bl&ots=bbUpd602uA&sig=nAEwZ3abJaEx1z8TxQpyUr6mlSs&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj- xO6964rPAhUB_IMKHdG3CWEQ6AEIKTAD#v=onepage&q=%22John%20Woodward%22%20%22Virginia%20City%22&f=false

181 New York Clipper, 23 August 1879. No script of the original exists. The show as retitled and copyrighted by John Crawford at “Fonda; or, The Trapper's Dream”

182 New York Clipper, 12 February 1881

183 New York Clipper, 22 October 1881

184 Los Angeles Star, Number 48, 7 April 1860

185 San Francisco Evening Bulletin, Nov. 15, 1859, noting Mariposa Gazette. Dan DeQuille article, THE PERILS OF THE HIGH SIERRAS, Overland Monthly, IX (March 1887, 311-322. Citied in “Songs of the American West”, 1968, Introduction.

186 San Francisco Evening Bulletin, Nov. 15, 1859, noting Mariposa Gazette. Dan DeQuille article, THE PERILS OF THE HIGH SIERRAS, Overland Monthly, IX (March 1887, 311-322. Citied in “Songs of the American West”, 1968, Introduction.

187 New York Clipper, 16 March 1867

188 The Songs of the Gold Rush edited by Richard A. Dwyer, Richard E. Lingenfelter, David Cohen p.9. Also see Nebraska Folklore By Louise Pound .242. The initial attribution comes in Doniphan's Expedition and the Conquest of New Mexico and California By John Taylor Hughes, William Elsey Connelley, Dewitt Clinton Allen, Charles R. Morehead. p. 9. 1850 seems much too early for composition of joe Bowers. Bellasco described working for Woodward at the Metropolitan. This seems to have been in 1861.Sacramento Daily Union, Volume 15, Number 105, 23 June 1882 At the end of that year, Woodward was performing at the Academy of Music. The Golden Era - Dec 1, 1861. The 1860 publication of Johnsons New Comical Songster, second California edition, came in Dec. of 1860. Possibly this occurred because the Lyceum had burned down the previous month.http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist/chron5.html Los Angeles Star, Number 31, 8 December 1860 It contained publication of Joe Bowers and the ads for the songster featured that it contained that song, presumably already famous. The Golden Era - Jan 20, 1861. It was republication of the 1855 songster, presumably sone to include Joe Bowers. in 1857 Johnson opened “Johnson’s Melodeon” on Montgomery. San Francisco Call, Volume 87, Number 121, 31 March 1901 In 1858 Johnson was performing his comicalities with the Pennsylvanians at the nearby Lyceum where he acted as Director of Amusements. The Lyceum opened that year. https://www.google.com/ fusiontables/DataSource?docid=1_kFkkFpluhekHCduRIaSYXTfbGgT-idgZ_4fcfI It would seem that popularization of Joe Bowers came at that theater.

189 Daily Alta California, Volume 21, Number 6885, 24 January 1869.

190 Daily Alta California, Volume 21, Number 6936, 16 March 1869

191 http://sfblockhistory.wikidot.com/theaters

192 (New York Clipper, 15 September 1866

193 San Francisco Call, Volume 81, Number 57, 26 January 1897

194 Sacramento Daily Union, Volume 91, Number 117, 23 June 1896

195 New York Clipper, 22 August 1868

196 New York Clipper, 10 April 1869

197 Player-Frowd, J.G.: Six Months In California, London, Longmans, Green and Co. 1872. p.31

198 The San Francisco Bulletin, July 28, 1917.)

199 Punch, or the London Charivari, Feb. 2, 18814, p. 57. Letter by Nibbs.

200 Sacramento Daily Union, Volume 35, Number 5357, 28 May 1868

201 ( Daily Alta California, Volume 21, Number 7083, 11 August 1869)

143 Visit: nevadamusic.com

! 202 Jackson Brewery/Jackson Brewery Company Complex, History p. 2-3. Landmarks Preservation Advisory Board Final Case Report Aug. 1, 1990. Prepared by Mrs. G. Bland Platt, 362 Ewing Terrance, SF CA 94118.

203 Daily Alta California, Vol. 19, Number 6226, April 1, 1867.

204 The Sacramento Bee, June 9, 1877: 3/2)

205 New York Clipper, 31 July 1869 New York Clipper, 31 July 1869

206 The White Pine (CLIPPER JULY 31, 1869), InJuly 1866, Woodard, Rhoades and Bree performed together at the Olympic. Clipper July 18 1866. March of 67, Woodward (Woodard), Rhoades and Wallace were all performing at the Olympic. CLIPPER MARCH 16 1867 During July of 1869 Woodard was performing at the Alhambra. Daily Alta California, Volume 21, Number 7057, 16 July 1869). In 1870, Woodard performed in Virginia City with Rhoades. (San Francisco Chronicle aug. 24, 1870).

207 Sacramento Daily Union Aug 19 1870

208 Alf Doten journal, Aug. 20, 1870. Univ. of Nevada, Special Collections.

209 (CLIPPER FEB 18 1871

210 Metropolitan and Alhambra ads, Daily Alta California, Volume 24, Number 7999, 19 February 1872

211 Early California, a drama in five acts. http://books.google.com/books? id=py9IAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=%22The%20Days%20of%22&f=false

212 Sacramento Daily Union March 7, 1872.

213 Sacramento Daily Union, March 12, 1872

214 https://books.google.com/books?id=dDdCAQAAMAAJ&pg=RA3-PA6&lpg=RA3-PA6&dq=Charley+Rhoades+ %22Early+California%22&source=bl&ots=Klp1e2zLAj&sig=UM-hjX- HDaj5uosfrTels1WhKmo&hl=en&sa=X&ei=vog6VeeDC8vGogTjwoHoCg&ved=0CCUQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=Charley%20Rhoades%20% 22Early%20California%22&f=false

215 Emerson described as at the Alhambra 1872-73. http://idnc.library.illinois.edu/cgi-bin/illinois?a=d&d=NYC18810827.2.55

216 Daily Alta California, Number 8275, 22 November 1872

217

Sacramento Daily Union, Volume 35, Number 5357, 28 May 1868 DOTEN PAPERS "Grant's What's the Matter" (poem) signed Alf Doten, September 29,1868 Marysville Daily Appeal, Number 83, 6 October 1868 Daily Alta California, Volume 24, Number 8113, 12 June 1872 The Fremont Weekly Journal i Location: Fremont, OhioIssue Date: Friday, October 11, 1872 The Atchison Daily Champion i Location: Atchison, KansasIssue Date: Sunday, July 14, 1872

218 Daily Alta California, Volume 24, Number 8113, 12 June 1872

The Fremont Weekly Journal i Location: Fremont, Ohio Issue Date: Friday, October 11, 1872

The Atchison Daily Champion i Location: Atchison, Kansas Issue Date: Sunday, July 14, 1872

219 Sacramento Daily Union, Volume 44, Number 6732, 30 October 1872, p2. col.4.

220 Sacramento Daily Union, Volume 44, Number 6725, 22 October 1872

221 Doten describes joining Dec 12 1872, in his journal. He states it then had over 100 members and had been created a few weeks prior.

222 Proceedings of the Joint Convention of the Nevada Legislature, 1873. Speech of Senator John P. Jones. https://books.google.com/books? id=THJNAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA3&lpg=PA3&dq=Senator+J.P. +Jones+nevada+address+1873&source=bl&ots=weuwjqD9XU&sig=cRn_b8E6uzkvEZhqnBjB- XARVac&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiw25Wp49bPAhXK5SYKHTFeAbcQ6AEIJDAB#v=onepage&q&f=false

223 "Territorial Enterprise", 9 March 1877, p. 3:3: "Inception and origin of the Society:

224 Nevada State Journal, Oct. 18, 1874

225 Songs of the Great American West By Irwin Silber p. 97-98

226 Sacramento Daily Union, Volume 46, Number 7045, 1 November 1873

144 Visit: nevadamusic.com

! 227 http://www.virginiaandtruckee.com/InTheNews/1874/1874-06-21-TE.htm

228 http://www.virginiaandtruckee.com/InTheNews/1874/1874-06-21-TE.htm

229 1875-06-24 Virginia Evening Chronicle lists DOTEN as participating in the printing. The broadside is at the Bancroft Library in Berkeley.

230 Nevada State Historical Society Papers, Volume 1 p. 83-84

231 https://books.google.com/books? id=lpMtAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA365&lpg=PA365&dq=Charley+Bensel+machinist&source=bl&ots=37c69kzYJZ&sig=VTaq5cCYvVsDK- nGA_iqrHVkPRY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi4teuw7_HMAhXEXh4KHXMDDRMQ6AEIHjAA#v=onepage&q=Charley%20Bensel%20m achinist&f=false P. 365 Bishop's Directory of the City of San Jose for 1876: James H. Bensel was and actor. Sacramento Daily Union, Volume 90, Number 77, 19 November 1895 Both were perhaps descended of James B. Bensel and Brooklyn Deputy Sheriff. The brother was listed as a paper hanger, decorator and whitener, living in San Francisco 744 Howard St in 1889

232 Sherman & Hyde's musical review (Volume v.3 1876 ...

145 Visit: nevadamusic.com

! 233 The Days of ’49, The Pioche Weekly Record, Oct. 25, 1879 “printed by request” 1. Oh, here you see old Tom Moore, A relic of former days; A bummer, too, they call me now, But what care I for praise, For my heart is filled with the days of yore, And oft do I repine, For the days of old, and the day of gold, And the days of ’49.

Chorus: For the days of old, and the days of gold. and the days of ’49.

2. I’d comrades then who loved me well, A jovial, saucy crew; There were hards cases there, I must confess, But they were brave and true; who’d never flinch, what’er the pinch, Would never fret or whine; But like good old bricks, they stood the kicks, In the days of ’49. Chorus

3. There was Kentucky Bill, I knew him well, A fellow so full of trucks; As a game of poker he was always there, And as heavy, too, as bricks; At a game of draw he’d ante a slug, And go a hatful blind; But in the game with Death, Bill lost his breath, In the days of ’49. Chorus

4. There was Monte Pete, I’ll never forget, The luck he always had; He’d deal for you both night and day, As long as you had scads; One night a pistol laid him out, T’was his last layout in fine; It caught Pete sure, right in the door, In the days of ’49. Chorus

5. There was New York Jake, a butcher boy, So fond of getting tight, And every time he went on a spree, He was spilling for a fight; One day he ran against a knife, In the hands of old Bob Kline; So over Jake, we held a wake, In the days of ’49. Chorus

6. There was Hackensack Jim, who could outran A Buffalo bull, you bet; He’d roar all day, and roared all nigh, And I guess he’s roaring year: One night he fell in prospect hole, T’was a roaring bad design, For in that hole Jim roared out his last, In the days of ’49. Chorus

7. There was old Lame Jeff, a hard old nut, He was never know to repent; He ne’er was known to miss a drink,

234 (By Andrew Finch, May 12 2004, http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=22283.

235 Vol. 33 No. 4 Archaeology and the Chinese Experience in Nevada. 2003 South Dakota State Historical Society, Donald L. Hardesty. p. 367.

236 Sacramento Daily Union, Volume 45, Number 6870, 10 April 1873

146 Visit: nevadamusic.com

! 237 Marysville Daily Appeal, Volume XXVIII, Number 10, 12 July 1873

238 Los Angeles Herald Mar 15, 1874.

239 https://archive.org/stream/sanfranciscothea193913sanf/sanfranciscothea193913sanf_djvu.txt Grizzly Bear of February 1909: ''The minstrel Charley Rhodes v»'as a native of New York and cf^me to California in the days of 1849. He was a popular pioneer minstrel. His ♦The Days of Old, the Days of Gold and the Days of '49' was a favorite song of the time. He also wrote the song of the Atiburn Jail, probably while he v;as a prisoner. iie began his minstrel career at the Sacramento Theatre. He died in Santa Clara, June 5, 1877, when he was forty- five years old.''

240 http://oldcitycemetery.com/images/PDF/CemeteryIndex.pdf 1870 Census family members: Chas W Bensel age 35, Alice Bensel age 27, Joseph H. Bensel age 2, Adrian Nichols age 25. Alice and Adrian both listed as born in Louisiana. Presumably Alice was Charley’s wife and Adrian her sister. Alice Marqua born 1844. Alice Nichols born 1843. So they may be the same person. Alice seems to have remarried Nov. 12, 1890 to Jas R. Norton Santa Clara County Historical & Genealogical Society , http://www.scchgs.org/vitals/marriages/mb.html Alice A Norton is listed as dieing in 1910 in Portland Oregon, born in Louisiana, Aunt to Harry L. Baker age 31 husband to Mable C. Baker who had son Norman Baker. Harry was born in California. Harry L. Baker is listed as 1883-1952, buried Mount Calvary Cemetary in Portland. Bishop’s Directory of the City of San Jose for 1876 ,p365 lists Charles W. Bensel as a machinist, res W s Monroe bet Frankling and Liberty. "History of Santa Clara County California" HISTORY BY

EUGENE T. SAWYER 1922:Charley Rhoades was the pioneer banjo player of the state. Not long after the discovery of gold his banjo was heard on the streets of San Francisco and in the northern and eastern mining camps. In the early '60s he joined a minstrel company and as end man and banjo player was before the public until his removal to San Jose in 1874. He was the reputed author of that popular old song, "TheDaysof '49," and up to his retirement it was the favorite song of his repertory….Rhoades was a consumptive and after a few years' residence in San Jose removed to Santa Clara, where he died about forty years ago.

241 The Feather River Bulletin, June. 30, 1877. For the effects of benzene see https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/pdfs/79-116-c.pdf

242 The Retrospect of Medicine: Being a Half-yearly Journal ..., Volume 55. Article on Dr. Lochner’s efforts 1864, published by him in British and Foreign Medico Chiriugical Review, April 1867, p. 532. https://books.google.com/books? id=8hUDAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA124&lpg=PA124&dq=%22benzine%22+medicine&source=bl&ots=2oPIghyGzS&sig=IcmQTc7IMWKcG9rKZ6l GPtGbw_M&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwib2uqp9O_OAhXJRyYKHfVCAUkQ6AEIOTAE#v=onepage&q=%22benzine%22%20medicine&f =false

243 New York Medical Journal, Volume 58. 1893. p517. “In the treatment of tuberculosis, strychnine is one of the most valuable remedies we possess.” History of medical uses: Bitter Nemesis: The Intimate History of Strychnine By John Buckingham

244 Feather River Bulletin Feb 21 1880.

245 The Los Angeles Daily Herald June 16, 1882, article from New York.

246 H. Ross Browne: A Peep At Washoe, first published as Crusoe's Island, California and Washo, New York: Harper and Brothers, 1864, reprinted by Paisano Press, Balboa Island, 1959, p. 79. Ross also describes the ill effects of drinking the local water. Note his reference to symptoms like rheumatism.

247 Sacramento State Library, photostat from “Pacific Life”)

248 The Grizzly Bear, Feb. 1909, No known copy.)

249 . (San Francisco Bulletin Nov. 26, 1870)

250 Marysville Daily Appeal, Volume XXVI, Number 136, 22 December 1872

251 (Date: Monday, January 29, 1912 Paper: Seattle Daily Times (Seattle, WA) Page: 8 Date: Thursday, March 28, 1912 Paper: Seattle Daily Times (Seattle, WA) Page: 8

252 Los Angelese Daily Star. July 24, 1874. There still in November. Nov. 6 1874. Los Angeles Daily Star.

253 (Figaro, July 3, 1875. The only specific listing of the song in a major theater “banjo solo” that I have found. It appears niched in a set of patriotic and western songs. July Dec. 1875. California State Library)

254 Date: Monday, July 12, 1875 Paper: Oregonian (Portland, OR) Page: 3

255 (Figaro, Palace theater starting Dec. 18 1875 in the 1875 volume.

256 Carson Daily Appeal, Jan. 1 1876.

257 New York Clipper, Aug. 2 1879.

258 JOHN HABBERTON. Romance of California Life, “The School Teacher at Bottle Flat.” NEW YORK, July 1st, 1877. ttp://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/3/8/3/13832/13832-h/13832-h.htm

147 Visit: nevadamusic.com

! 259 A La California, Sketches of Life in the Golden State, by Col. Albert S. Evans, Bancroft and Co. San Francisco, 1873. P. 293

260 San Francisco Bulletin March 23, 1877.

261 The New York Clipper, February 18, 1882

262 Clipper April 7 1883

263 Standard Theater Date: Saturday, March 27, 1886 Paper: Evening News (San Jose, CA) Volume: 6 Issue: 56 Page: 5 Advertisement Date: Monday, March 29, 1886 Paper: Evening News (San Jose, CA) Volume: 6 Issue: 57 Page: 2 Amusement Notes Coming Attractions at the Theater- Personal Paragraph of Performers Date: Saturday, April 3, 1886 Paper: Evening News (San Jose, CA) Volume: 6 Issue: 62 Page: 5

264 Clipper Nov. 7. 1891

265 The Pacific Commercial Advertiser, Honolulu, Aug. 26, 1901.p5

266 The Daily Nevada State Journal July 14, 1883.

267 Alf Doten Collection, Special Collections, University of Nevada, Reno, From Days of '49 (poem) by William Wright (Dan De Quille). Territorial Enterprise. Jan. 20, 1888

268 Daily Alta California, Volume 80, Number 9, 9 January 1889

269 Life by Land and Sea, Prentice Mumford, 1888, p. 183

270 Cincinnati Post Sept 10. 1889 p.2

271 https://archive.org/stream/pioneersof49hist01ball/pioneersof49hist01ball_djvu.txt

272 Lotta’s Last Season, p. 102-103, Helen Marie Bates, 1940.

273 Midwinter Appeal, May 19, 1894

274 Photo copies of the paper at: https://archive.org/details/midwinterappealj00samd See the paper: “The Days of Old, the Days of Gold, the Days of '49”: Identity, History, and Memory at the California Midwinter International Exposition, 1894 Author(s): BARBARA BERGLUND Source: The Public Historian, Vol. 25, No. 4 (Fall 2003), pp. 25-49 Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the National Council on Public History Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/tph.2003.25.4.25 . http://www.history.usf.edu/faculty/data/ berglunddaysofoldarticle.pdf

275 San Francisco Call, Volume 76, Number 14, 14 June 1894

276 Sunset Magazine, Vol. 35, p. 141

277 Midwinter Appeal, Feb. 10, 1894

278 “The Midwinter Appeal And Journal of Forty-Nine”, Saturday, March 24, 1894.

279 Midwinter Appeal, May 12, 1894

280 Midwinter Appeal, June 9, 1894.

281 San Francisco Call, Volume 75, Number 46, 15 January 1894

282https://books.google.com/books?id=L_8lZWokILYC&pg=PA94&lpg=PA94&dq=midwinter+1894+banjo&source=bl&ots=W1v2Dk- DXG&sig=imOO0FKt3X2M2xCbpMNWGo-i-Tw&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Pk-DVduuKILroASm- quQAg&ved=0CDsQ6AEwCDgK#v=onepage&q=midwinter%201894%20banjo&f=false The Midwinter Appeal and Journal of Forty-Nine Published Jan. 7-June 23, 1894 https://archive.org/details/midwinterappealj00samd

283https://books.google.com/books? id=pq2tc_4GRJwC&pg=PA94&lpg=PA94&dq=Jake+Wallace+bodie&source=bl&ots=D0UEHue66U&sig=CsgQP2YKHuHygeoKS2eYQIbrIyA &hl=en&sa=X&ei=m31JVarlB8WpogT5nIDoBw&ved=0CC0Q6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=Jake%20Wallace%20bodie&f=false

284 http://sfpl.org/index.php?pg=2000131901

285 Drawing and quote from San Francisco Call, Volume 75, Number 59, 28 January 1894

286 Examiner, 28 January 1894;

287 San Francisco Call, Volume 75, Number 162, 11 May 1894

288 Chicago Tribune, May 26, 1895 148 Visit: nevadamusic.com

! 289 San Francisco Call, Volume 87, Number 101, 9 September 1901

290 San Francisco Call, Volume 110, Number 107, 15 September 1911. W.E. Hutchinson wrote a poem of the same name in 1915. Pacific Rural Press, Volume 89, Number 10, 13 March 1915

291 http://www.charleslummis.com

292 Out West Magazine, XVIII 1903 p. 202-5.

293 Mariposa Gazette, Volume LI, Number 18, 14 October 1905 DAVIS from http://www.joincalifornia.com/candidate/10672 Born: December 5, 1851 in Utica, New York Married: Maude M. Cameron (in 1875) Children: Winfield Ashley and Duncan Cameron Died: August 3, 1909 in Marysville, CA 1874-188?: Official Reporter of the Sixth District Court • LEGISLATIVE HISTORIAN: Davis was a member of the California Historical Society and Historian of the Sacramento Society of California Pioneers. He wrote a number of highly organized and detailed books that provide much of the biographic data that we have on the early California legislators. These works include; • History of Political Conventions in California, 1849-1892, (1893) • An Illustrated History of Sacramento County, California, (1890) • A section on California history in the 1889 Government Roster of the State of California, which was later used as the foundation of the California Blue Books for the next hundred years. • An article in the San Francisco Call (February 25, 1900; Page 10) about the history of US Senate elections in California that provided a great deal of information.

294 Here you see old Tom Moore, a relic of former days; A bummer, too, they call me now, but what care I for praise, My heart is filled with the days of old, and oft do I repine For the days of old, and the days of gold, and the days of ’49.

I had comrades then, who loved me well, a jovial, saucy crew; They were hard cases I must confess, but still they were tried and true; They would never flinch whate’er the pinch, would ne’er fret nor whine, But like good bricks would stand the kicks, in the days of ’49.

There was Kentuck Bill, I knew him well, a fellow so full of tricks: As a poker game he was always there, and heavy, too, as bricks; He would play you draw, would ante a slug, or go a hatful blind; But in the game of death, Bill lost his breath, in the days of ’49.

There was Rackensack Ike, he could outroar a Buffalo Bill, yer bet; He could roar all day, and roar all night; I believe he’s roaring yet. One night he fell into a prospect hole, it was a roaring made design, For in that hold he roared out his soul, in the days of ‘49/

There was New York Jake, a butcher boy, so fond of getting tight, And whenever Jake was on a spree he was spoiling for a fight. One night he ran agin a knife in the hands of old Bob Kline, And over Jake, we held a wake, in the days of ‘49/

There was Monte Pete I’ll ne’re forget, for the luck he always had; He’d play for you both night and day, as long as you had a skad, One night a pistol shot laid him out, ‘twas his last layout in fine; It caught Pete sure, right in the door, in the days of ’49.

There was old lame Jess, that mean old cuss, who never would repent; He never missed a single meal and never paid a cent; But poor old Jess, like all the rest, to death did at last resign; For in his bloom, he went up the flume, in the days of ‘49/

Of all the comrades I had then, not one remains to toast; They’ve left me here in my misery like some poor wandering ghost; And as I go from place to place, folks call me a traveling sign, Saying, “There’s old Tom Moore, a bummer sure, from the days of ’49.

295 The Conoino Sun, Friday, Dec. 18, 1908.

296 Special Collections & Archives, Merrill-Cazier Library Utah State University. Austin and Alta Fife were a husband and wife team of Utah folklorists who collected material in the 1940s-1960s.FOLK COLL 4 No. 1, Ser. III. Vol. 21, no. 18

297 http://www.mocavo.com/Grizzly-Bear-1908-1909-Volume-4-5/543820/116

149 Visit: nevadamusic.com

! 298 http://www.bookofdaystales.com/john-lomax/

299 East Oregonian Round-Up Souvenir Edition, Pendleton, Oregon, Friday, September 25, 1914.

300 Clipper Jan 26 1895

301 Clipper June 17 1899

302 Marysville Daily Appeal, Volume XXVIII, Number 10, 12 July 1873

303 Los Angeles Herald, Volume 35, Number 249, 7 June 1908

304 San Diego Evening Tribune, June 22, 1908

305 The Life of David Belasco, Vol. 1 p 75, William Jefferson Winter.

306 The Seattle Star Dec. 30, 1909 p.3

307 The New York Clipper, February 18, 1911

308 The Eureka Herald Aug. 27, 1911.)

309 (The diary was donated by Mrs. E.L.Frisbie—probably his sister, See San Francisco Chronicle Nov. 25, 1917. An Edward L. Frisbie Jr. was a San Francisco metal worker.Vice President of the American Brass. Co. The Manual of Statistics: Stock Exchange Hand-book ...., Volume 27. -343 His other sister was Mrs. S. Morrell.) Metal Finishing: Preparation, Electroplating p. 106

310 San Francisco Chronicle Nov. 25, 1917—obituary shown. 3. Jacob Lynn, Certificate of Death, City and County of San Francisco, November 23, 1917; San Francisco Chronicle, November 25, 1917. Jake first traveled to San Francisco in 1852 or 1855. In 1855 he brought with him several popular banjo songs from New York, including "Hot Corn" and "Shucking of de Corn" which he got from Dan Emmet, and "The Days of '49." San Francisco Bulletin, July 28, 1917.

311 Gold Diggers & Silver Miners: Prostitution and Social Life on the Comstock Lode By Marion S. Goldmanhttps://books.google.com/books?id=QrNvJpE0Q3YC&pg=PA96-IA8&lpg=PA96- IA8&dq=ernst+zimmer+music+hall&source=bl&ots=zgop4VkPuv&sig=sL-cARXAZCB3413- nTVBQzQdqcg&hl=en&sa=X&ei=TnpSVfnhNsjEsAXK84D4Bw&ved=0CCEQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=ernst%20zimmer%20music%20hall &f=false Also see Zimmer guardianship case: Reports of Decisions in Probate, Volume 1 By California. Superior Court (San Francisco City and County). Probate Dept, James Vincent Coffey, Jeremiah Vincent Coffey p. 142 https://books.google.com/books?id=3pkEAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA143&lpg=PA143&dq=Ernst+Zimmer+san+francisco&source=bl&ots=JBm- yKSCpl&sig=_DY3GL7IoYpEtI104pVgeX2UBBI&hl=en&sa=X&ei=_qxSVc2IPIaHsAXk- oGYDw&ved=0CCcQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=Ernst%20Zimmer%20san%20francisco&f=false UNR SPECIAL COLLECTIONS PHOTO OF JULIA http://contentdm.library.unr.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/spphotos/id/4848/rec/1 Title Julia Zimmer Image ID UNRS-P1351-1 Image Date 1866 Photographer Sutterley Brothers Subject Portrait photography Photography of women Summary/Description Photograph of Julia Zimmer; Caption on image: Julia. Afterwards wife of Enrst Zimmer, leader of the orchestra at Music Hall; Carte de visite

312 The Gold Hill News Dec. 3, 1867.

313 Ad for New Bella Union Chinese show. Daily Alta California, Volume 21, Number 6926, 6 March 1869

314 Sherman & Hyde's musical review (Volume v.3 1876 ...

315 http://myweb.wvnet.edu/~jelkins/lp-2001/benjamin.html

316 Folks Songs Of The Catskills, Cazden. https://books.google.com/books?id=IEmkHeB35XEC&pg=PA341&lpg=PA341&dq=Catskills+ %22The+days+of+'49%22&source=bl&ots=Hs-tN8TSID&sig=6FUc5Mt69mcli7nJrT_Vr6poC34&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjC-4H- t9nPAhUENT4KHVOsBj8Q6AEIKDAC#v=onepage&q=Catskills%20%22The%20days%20of%20'49%22&f=false

150 Visit: nevadamusic.com

! 317 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_with_your_boots_on

318 Americana: (American Historical Magazine) Vol. 7. p. 947

151 Visit: nevadamusic.com