ETHIOPIAN SERENADERS; 1847.
Their full names were, respectively, Gilbert W. Pell, Geo. A. Harrington (not Geo. Christy), Wm. White, Moody Stanwood, Francis Germon.
They continued until 1880, when the company was known as Birch and Backus’ Minstrels, and remained as such until late in 1882, when it became Birch, Hamilton, and Backus’ Minstrels; this alliance was short lived, and the season of 1882-83 finished as Birch and Backus’ Minstrels.
August 27, 1883, Birch’s San Francisco Minstrels opened; December 3, “Jack” Haverly became a partner, but on December 29, 1883, the last performance of the famous San Francisco Minstrels was given in New York.
In the fall of 1884 with Harry Kennedy he again launched Birch’s San Francisco Minstrels, but lasted only a few weeks; in November, 1886, he returned to his “old home” as a member of Lew Dockstader’s Minstrels, for a short sojourn. In 1889 with Frank Moran he organized Birch and Moran’s Minstrels, and on July 17, 1890, he began his last minstrel engagement with Wm. Henry Rice’s World’s Fair Minstrels.
Birch was a typical comedian of the old school of minstrelsy.
Billy Birch was born in Utica, N. Y., February 26, 1831; he died in New York City, April 20, 1897.
Charles Backus, of the famous San Francisco Minstrels “quartette,” and one of the principal comedians of the organization, achieved wide fame for his impersonations of prominent actors, in which he was an adept.
He went to California in 1852, and two years later organized Backus’ Minstrels there; in 1855 he took the company to Australia, and a few years later organized Horn and Backus’ Minstrels; in 1859 he again went to Australia, and appeared as a negro clown in Burton’s Circus.