The citizen-Republican. (Scotland, Bon Homme County, S.D.) 1???-19??, 1908-10-15
HENRY WATTERSON
ON BLIND TOM
AS His oldest Living Friend"
the Great Editor Pays
Touching Tribute.
Henry Watterson, in the Louisville Cour-
a.- In,,r,o W-#H

Henry Watterson, in the Louisville Cour,
ier-Journal.
Tidings of the death of Blind Tom" a
Hoboken, where he had been living ii
retirement" the wires tell us, land sub.
sisting on charity" reach at least, one
heart that loved and pitied him, and sum
mon from the land of shades and dreams
many a ghost Of days and dear ones long
since departed. 1 must be his oldest living
friend. 1t is not true, as / have some
times seen it stated, tina L taught him
what little he knew of music; but I was
In at the outset of his strange career and
am familiar with all it's beginnings.
[ first heard of him through Rober,
Heller-William Henry Palmer - best
known in his day as a popular magician,
but a most accomplished pianist. 1t was
at Washington and in the autumn OF
1850. Palmer had just come up with
Blind Tom" in Louisville. think, and
had been, Of course. and at once per-
picked and amazed by his extraordinary
characteristics. His crude, often gro
tesque, attempts to initiate whatever fell
upon his ear, either vocally, or on the
keyboard, were startling. He had heard
Judge Douglas speak and graphically re-
produce a few sentences. He had heard
a re1gning prima donna sing and repeated
her soprano in a few bars. The Bethune
girls, daughters of General Bethune of
Columbus, Ca, his old master, had taught
him a few jingles, which he ratified off
upon the piano. He knew nothing very
complicated, or very well. But he was
blind and clearly an idiot; in short, he
was a prodigy.
Palmer gave him several lessons
that Is, he played over and over for him
such pieces as Thalberg's Home, Sweet
Home" Mendelssohn's Spring Song and
the salient passages out of some of Liszt's
subscriptions. Excepting a few additional
lessons" of this kind had later along
from Eugene Baylor, who taught him his
famous 'Margrave Danse," Tom made
little further progress and earne nothing
new.
He would spin about the plano. like q
baboon, mumbling to himself whilst Pal
mer or Baylor played, and if they stopped
he would rush h%eadlong to the instrum-
ment and try to follow after them pre-
cisely as they had phrased. Two or three
of such lessons sufficed, and though he
learned nothing accurately. nor played
with any other expression than they had
rendered, what he did was surprising,
even to those who knew the process and
the limitation.
Thu notion that the Bethunes had a gold
mime in his performances was not true.
They made at the height of his popularity
hASA 1911 ~ - Af3B oAio L
suppose that eventually this failed them.
They must be ali of them dead now. How
Tom came to live in want at Hoboken,
just how he was separated from his Ole
friends, and how he dropped out of public
notice / cannot say. His mother was
alive as late as the early sos, but I doubt
is she or any Of the Bethune family sur
.vive.
The last time I saw Blind Tom was in
London, away back in 1866. General Pink
ney Howard and one of the Bethune boys
had brought him over. It had been then
nearly three years since / had been with
him In Atlanta. From the beginning of
our intimacy Tom had been greatly i'm
pressed that, with a manned hand. / could
still strike a few cords and run an octave
on the keyboard. To his poor, half-hit
mind it seemed a miracle. Upon q Sunday
I came into the little hall ON or
near Leicester square, where Tom was to
appear. He was Jack OF the scenes spin
ming as usual hand over heel. and mum
bling to himself. AS we came upon the
stage General Howard said, 'let us see
he knows YOU" 1 called him.
He slowly uncotled himself and listened.
i called him again. He stood irr%esolute,
then ran across the boards, seized my
hand, assured himself of the withered
stump and joyously called my name.
What was it? Memory? Yes, 1t was
memory without doubt; but what else?
Whence the hand power that enabled him
to manipulate the keys, the vocal power
that enabled him to initiate the voice?
When he was a tot of 4 or S years old
ne strayed from the negro cabin into
the parlor of the mansion and hid himself
whilst the children Were having q concert.
When they had gone, leaving the room,
as they supposed, quite empty. they heard
the piano tinkle. They ran back, and
shere, to their Amusement, sat the chubby
little black monkey on the stool, banging
away for dear life, yet not without Sc
Auence and rhythm. trying to repeat what
they had Just been singing and psaying.
From that time enward he was the pet
of the family.
I cannot trust myself to write of him
as I feel 1t is as If some trusty. we'll
loved mastiff-tnute but affeetionate-
closely associated with the dead and gone
had been suddenly recalled to be as
taken away. The wires that flash
his death tighten a picture gallery for
me of the old, familiar faces. What was
he? Whence came he? Was he the prince
Of the fairy tale held by the wicked en-
nor any beauty-not even the
heaven born maid or m~eloGy-to release
him? Blind, deformed, and black-as
black even as Erehus-idiocy. the idiocy
of a mysterious perpetual frenzy, the sole.
of his waking visions and his
ms-wh came he, and was he. and
wherefore? That there was a soul there.
be sure, imprisoned, chained, In that little
black bosom, released at last; gone to the
angels. not to initiate the seraph songs
of heaven, but to join the choir invisible
forever and forever.
a Good Time.
80 I've had a pnod @;o,.