Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1889-06-20
ETHIOPIAN M,NsTRELSY.

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ETHIOPIAN MiNSTRELsY.
Something About the Founder of This
Form of Entertainments.
Thomas ID. Rice is generally con-
coded to have been the founder of
Ethiopian minstrelsy. Although it
die not originate with him. he made it
popular on both sides of the Atlantic;
and his image deserves an honored
niche in its cathedral The history of
Jim Crow Rice" as he was affection
ately called for many years, has been
written by many scribes and in many
different ways, the most complete and
most truthful account. perhaps, being
that of MIR. Edmon s. Conner, who de-
scribed in the colT;nns of the New
York Times, June 5. 1881, what he saw
and remembered of its conception.
Mr.. Conner was a member of the COM
pany at the Columbia Street ] heater.
Cincinnati, in 1929, when he first met
Rice. ''dOing little negro bits between
the acts at that house, notably one
sketch he had studied from life in
Louisville the preceding summer.
Back of the Louisville Theater
was a livery stable kept by
q man named Crow. The actors could
look into the stable-yard from the win
dows of their dressing-rooms, and were
very fond of watching the movements
of AN old and decrepit slave who was
employed by the proprietor to do all
sorts of odd jobs. AS was the custom
among the negroes, he had assumed
his masters name, and called himself
Jim Crow. He was very much de-
formed-the right shoulder was drawn
up high, and the left leg was stiff and
crooked at the knee, which gave him a
painful, but at the same time ludicrous,
limp. He was in the habit of Groom
ing a queer old tune, to which he had
applied words of his own. At the end
of each verse he gave peculiar step,
rocking de heel in the manner since
so general among the long generation
of his delineators; and these were the
words of his refrain:
Wheel about, turn about
Do jis SO,
An cherry time wheel about
jump Jim Crow.
Rice closely watched this unconscious
performer, and recognized in him a
character new to the stage. He wrote
number of verses, quickened and
slightly changed the air, made up ex-
aetly like the original, and appeared
before a Louisville audience, which, as
Mr.. Connor says, went mad with de-
light. recalling him on the first night
at least twenty times. And SO Jim
Crow jumped into fame. and something
that looks almost like Immortality.
-'Sol" Smith says that the character
was first seen in a piece by Scion Rob-
inson, called The Rifle" and that he
(Smith) '.helped Rice little in fixing
the tune"
Other cities besides Louisville claim
Jim Crow, Francis Courtney Wemyss,
in his autobiography, says he was a
native of Pittsburgh, whose name
was Jim Cuff; while Mr.. Robert P.
Nevin, in the Atlantic Monthly for
November, 1867. declares that
the original was negro stage
driver of Cincinnati, and that Pitts
burgh was the scene of Rice's first APP
pearance in the part, local negro
there, whose professional career was
confined to holding his mouth open for
pennies thrown to him on the docks
and the streets. furnished the ward
robe for the initial performance.
Rice was born in the Seventh ward
of New York in 1908. He was super
numerary at the Park Theater, where
Sam Cowen remembers him in
Bombastes Furioso, attracting so much
attention by his eccentricities that Hill
son and Barnes, the leading charac-
ters in the cast, made formal COM
plant and had him dismissed from the
company, Cowell adding that this man,
whose name did not even appear on
the bills. was the only actor on the
stage whom the audience seemed to
notice. Cowell also describes him in
Cincinnati m 1929 as very unassum-
ing. modest young man, who wore
"a very queer hat very much
pointed down before and be-
hind, aud very much cooked
on one side" He went to England in
1886, where he met with great success,
laid the foundation of very comfort
nUlO lOi u6tO pOISOudiIy duu PrO-
fessionally he was the Buffalo Bill of
the London of half century ago. Mr.
Ireland, speaking of his popularity in
this country, says that he drew more
money to the Bowery Theater than
any other performer in the same
period of time.
Rice was the author of many of his
own farces. notably Bone Squash"
and The Virginia Mummy" and he
was the veritable originator of the
genus known to the stage as the dan
dy darby" represented particularly in
his creations of :.Dandy Jim of Caro-
line" and Spruce Pink" He died in
1860, never having forfeited the re-
spect of the public or the good will of
his fellow-men. Hutton, in
Harper's Magazine.
GRAY-HEADEO GAMES.