SOME EARLY BLACK-FACE PERFORMERS.
The following were all popular performers preceding minstrelsy proper; unfortunately the dates of their deaths are practically shrouded in oblivion:
George Nichols; Bob. Farrell, the original “Zip Coon”; Sam Tatnall, Barney Burns, Bill Keller, Horatio Eversell, George Rice (brother of T. D. Rice), William M. Hall, Thomas Blakely, Leicester, etc. Andrew Jackson Allen, already mentioned, was born in New York City in 1776, and according to Laurence Hutton was the costumer, dresser and personal slave of Edwin Forrest for many years; he was quite deaf, and was commonly known as “Dummy” Allen. He died in New York City, October 29, 1853. James Roberts, by the same authority, sang a song in negro character as early as October 7, 1824; he died in 1833.
George Washington Dixon sang “Coal Black Rose,” the air of which was appropriated from an old ballad, as early as 1827. His first New York appearance was of the Lafayette Theatre, July 19, 1828. He later became notorious as a filibuster during the Yucatan disturbances, and died in New Orleans in 1861. Some prominent early minstrel performers whose records and deaths were likewise lost in oblivion are: Charley Jenkins, Master Chestnut, Harry Mestayer, Neil Jamison and many more. There are others, too, of nearly every decade of whom the author has made every research to gather some knowledge, but without success.