JOE SWEENEY (Joel Walker Sweeney)
was the “father of the banjo” and one of the earliest black-face performers.
Mr. Sweeney and two brothers traveled in a wagon through the South in the early 30’s, and certainly as early as 1838 when he was with a circus that played in Lynchburg, Va.
He played many subsequent engagements with circuses, notably with the John Robinson Show.
About 1843 he went to England, where he traveled with Cook’s Circus.
April 19, 1844, with Brower, Pelham and Emmett, he formed again the Virginia Minstrels; they played in Dublin two weeks, and several other cities, after which the quartette broke up; Pelham and Sweeney then performed in the principal cities of the United Kingdom, Sweeney returning to the United States about 1845.
He subsequently organized Joe Sweeney’s Opera Troupe and traveled chiefly through the South at intermittent periods up to within about a year or two of his death.
In April, 1852, he played an engagement with Charley White’s Minstrels in New York. Up to the time of Joe Sweeney, the banjo, so-called, was made from a gourd and had four strings only; he took an old cheese box, cut it in half, covered it with a skin and added another string; the fine instruments we see to-day are the evolution of the crude affair just described; this was about 1830.
Joe Sweeney was born at Appomattox, Va., 1813; where he died October 27, 1860.
Geo. Holland, father of the late Geo. Holland, and of E. M. and Jos. Holland, and who was known as one of the great comedians of the old stock days, made his appearance with Wood and Christy’s Minstrels in New York City, December 21, 1857, playing female parts in black-face, and remained with the company six months.