Portrait of George Washington Dixon, c. 1836.

George Washington Dixon (1801^[1]—1861) was an American singer, stage actor, and newspaper editor. He rose to prominence as a blackface performer (possibly the first American to do so^[2]) after performing "Coal Black Rose", "Zip Coon", and similar songs. Dixon also pursued journalism, using his many papers to expose what he considered the misdeeds of the upper class. These stories earned him many enemies, and Dixon was taken to court on several occasions. ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (978x1250, 1121 KB) File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (978x1250, 1121 KB) File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... LeAnn Rimes singing in concert For other senses of this word, see singer (disambiguation). ... Actors in period costume sharing a joke whilst waiting between takes during location filming. ... An Editor is a person who prepares text—typically language, but also images and sounds—for publication by correcting, condensing, or otherwise modifying it. ... This reproduction of a 1900 minstrel show poster, originally published by the Strobridge Litho Co. ... Coal Black Rose is a folk song, one of the earliest songs to be sung by a man in blackface. ... Turkey in the Straw is a well known United States folk song dating from the early 19th century. ...

In contrast to his contemporary Thomas D. Rice, Dixon was primarily a singer rather than a dancer. He was by all accounts a gifted vocalist, and much of his material was quite challenging.^[3] Reviews said that "his voice seems formed of the music itself— 'it thrills, it animates' . . . ."^[4] and that he had "a voice which all unite in pronouncing to be of remarkable richness and compass."^[5] Thomas Dartmouth (T.D.) Daddy Rice (May, 1808 - September 16, 1860), was a comedian and the creator of the blackface form of comedy of the 19th century and early 20th century. ...

Early life and career

Details about Dixon's childhood are scarce. The record suggests that he was born in Richmond, Virginia, probably in 1801. His parents were working-class folk; perhaps a barber and a washerwoman. He may have been educated at a charity school. Richmond is the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the United States of America. ... State nickname: Old Dominion Other U.S. States Capital Richmond Largest city Virginia Beach Governor Mark R. Warner (D) Senators John Warner (R) George Allen (R) Official language(s) English Area 110,862 km² (35th)  - Land 102,642 km²  - Water 8,220 km² (7. ...

Although fairly detailed descriptions and portraits of Dixon survive (he had a swarthy complexion and a "splendid head of hair"^[6]), the question of whether he was white or black is an open one. His enemies sometimes called him a "mulatto", a "Negro", or referred to him as "Zip Coon", the name of the black character in his song. However, the weight of evidence suggests that if Dixon did have black ancestry, it must have been fairly remote.^[7] Representation of Mulattos during the Latin American colonial period Mulatto (also Mulato) is a term of Spanish and/or Portuguese origin describing the offspring of African and European ancestry. ... Negro means black in both Spanish and Portuguese languages, being derived from the Latin word niger of the same meaning. ...

A newspaper story from 1841 claimed that, at age 15, Dixon's singing caught the attention of a circus proprietor named West. The man convinced Dixon to join his traveling circus as a stablehand and errand boy. Dixon traveled with this and other circuses for a time, and he appears as a singer and reciter of poems on bills dated from as early as February 1824. By early 1829, he had taken on the epithet "The American Buffo Singer". Opera buffa (comic opera), also known as Commedia per musica (musical comedy), or Dramma giocoso per musica (musical dramatic comedy), is a form of opera. ...

Dixon in blackface

Over three days in late July 1829, Dixon performed "Coal Black Rose" in blackface at the Bowery Theatre, the Chatham Garden Theatre, and the Park Theatre in New York City. The Flash characterized his audience as "crowded galleries and scantily filled boxes";^[8] that is, mostly working-class. On 24 September at the Bowery, Dixon performed Love in a Cloud, a dramatic interpretation of the events described in "Coal Black Rose", and possibly the first blackface farce.^[9] These performances proved a hit, and Dixon rose to celebrity. On 14 December, the gross of Dixon's benefit at the Albany Theatre was $155.87, the largest take there since the opening night earlier that year.^[10] Coal Black Rose is a folk song, one of the earliest songs to be sung by a man in blackface. ... This reproduction of a 1900 minstrel show poster, originally published by the Strobridge Litho Co. ... New York City, officially named the City of New York, is the most populous city in the United States, the most densely populated major city in North America, and is at the center of international finance, politics, entertainment, and culture. ... September 24 is the 267th day of the year (268th in leap years). ... // Definition A farce is a comedy written for the stage, or a film, which aims to entertain the audience by means of unlikely and extravagant - yet often possible - situations, disguise and mistaken identity, verbal humour of varying degrees of sophistication, which may include puns and sexual innuendo, and a fast... Celebrity is an abstract word stemming from the Latin celebritas, itself from the adjective celeber famous, celebrated. A celebrity is a person who is widely recognized in a society. ... December 14 is the 348th day of the year (349th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ...

Sheet music cover for "Zip Coon", 1830s.

Dixon performed through 1834, most frequently at New York's three major theatres. In addition to blackface song-and-dance numbers, he did whiteface songs and scenes from popular plays. On 25 November 1830, he sang before of crowd of 120,000 in Washington, D.C., in support of the July Revolution in France.^[11] He sold merchandise, which included a collection of songs and skits he had popularized called Dixon's Oddities. This was first published in 1830 and remained in print long after. Dixon mostly played to a working-class audience, including in his repertoire such songs as "The New York Fireman", which compared firefighters to the American Founding Fathers. Oratory made up another facet of his act; on 4 December 1832, the Baltimore Patriot reported that Dixon would read an address from the President at the Front Street Theatre. ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (923x1250, 1093 KB) Sheet music cover for Zip Coon, 1830s. ... ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (923x1250, 1093 KB) Sheet music cover for Zip Coon, 1830s. ... Liberty Leading the People by Eugène Delacroix commemorates the July Revolution The French Revolution of 1830, also known as the July Revolution, was a revolt by the middle class against Bourbon King Charles X which forced him out of office and replaced him with the Orleanist King Louis-Philippe... Oratory is the art of eloquent speech. ...

Little record remains of Dixon's activities in 1833; he may have started a small newspaper called the Stonington Cannon. However, by January 1834, he was performing again (now a ventriloquist as well), untarnished by his yearlong hiatus. The Telegraph wrote: The Town of Stonington, Connecticut, in the southeastern corner of the state, includes the communities of the Borough of Stonington, Mystic, Old Mystic, Pawcatuck and Wequetequock, the site of the first European settlement in 1649, in lands that had belonged to the Pequots. ... Ventriloquism is an act of deception in which a person (ventriloquist) manipulates his or her voice so that it appears that the voice is coming from elsewhere. ...

Few Melodists have gained more celebrity or been so universally admired, . . . The many effusions from the pen of this gentleman independent of his vocal powers, is sufficient proof of his being a man of considerable talent and originality—you should hear him sing his national air "on a wing that beamed in glory" [and it would be] unnecessary for us to enlarge on his merits as a vocalist—for his Melodies display a feeling of Patriotism which attracts the attention of every beholder.^[12]

In March, Dixon performed "Zip Coon" for the first time. This song, a racist tale about a black "dandy" trying to fit into Northern white society, quickly became an audience favorite and Dixon's trademark tune. He later claimed to have written the song, though others performed it before him, so this seems unlikely. Turkey in the Straw is a well known United States folk song dating from the early 19th century. ... Sporty Parisian dandies of the 1830s: a girdle was required to achieve this silhouette. ...

On 7 July 1834, the Farren Riots erupted. Young men in New York City targeted the homes, businesses, churches, and institutions of black New Yorkers and abolitionists. On the night of 9 July, the mob stormed the Bowery Theatre. Manager Thomas Hamblin failed to quell them, and actor Edwin Forrest did not meet their expectations when they ordered him to perform. According to the New York Sun: July 7 is the 188th day of the year (189th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 177 days remaining. ... 1834 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... Abolition is the act of formally destroying something through legal means, either by making it illegal, or simply no longer allowing it to exist in any form. ... July 9 is the 190th day of the year (191st in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 175 days remaining. ... This photograph of Edwin Forrest was taken by Matthew Brady. ... The original New York Sun began publication September 3, 1833, as a morning newspaper, and an evening edition began in 1887. ...

Mr. Dixon, the singer (an American,) now made his appearence. "Let us have Zip Coon," exclaimed a thousand voices. The singer gave them their favorite song, amidst peals of laughter,—and his Honor the Mayor, who as the old woman said of her husband, is a "good-natured, easy fellow," made his appearance, delivered a short speech, made a low bow, and went out. Dixon, who had produced such amazing good nature with "Zip Coon," next addressed them—and they soon quietly dispersed.^[13]

Dixon's Daily Review

In early 1835, Dixon moved to Lowell, Massachusetts, a small town growing out of the Industrial Revolution. By April, he had taken the epithet "The National Melodist" and was editing Dixon's Daily Review. The paper took as motto "Knowledge—Liberty—Utility—Representation—Responsibility"^[14] and championed the Whig Party, Radical Republicanism, and the working class. Dixon's Daily Review also explored morality and women's place in the newly emerging society of the urban North. Seal of Lowell, Massachusetts Lowell is a city located in Middlesex County, Massachusetts. ... Whig Party banner from 1848 with candidates Zachary Taylor and Millard Fillmore. ... Radical Republicans were a group of American politicians during the Reconstruction era that believed freed slaves should have political equality with other citizens. ... The term working class is used to denote a social class. ... Morality, in the strictest sense of the word, deals with that which is innately regarded as right or wrong. ...

Dixon's criticism of his colleagues did not win him any friends, and in June, the Boston Post reported that he had "flogged one of the editors of the Lowell Castigator, and was hunting after the other."^[15] By the next month, Dixon had sold his paper, and the new publishers were eager to point out that Dixon no longer had anything to do with the production. By August, rumors were circulating that Dixon had started up another paper called the News Letter and was selling it in Lowell and Boston. If he did, no copies are known to have survived. The Boston Post was the most popular daily newspaper in New England for over a hundred years before it folded in 1956. ... Alternative meanings: Boston (disambiguation) The 18th-century Old State House in Boston is surrounded by tall buildings of the 19th and 20th centuries. ...

First forgery trial

By February 1836, Dixon was touring again. He played many well-attended shows in Boston that month and did a play at the Tremont Theatre. His recent forays into publishing had soured his image in the popular press, however, and The New York Times satirized his lower-class audience: The New York Times is a newspaper published in New York City by Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr. ...

Tremont Teatre. At this classical establishment, Mr Dixon, "the American Buffo singer," is at present the star. His third night is announced! Will some of the enlightened citizens of the emporium favor us with their opinion of his performance? Is his Zip Coon as thrilling as Mr Wood's 'Still so gently o'er me stealing?^[16]

On 16 and 30 April, Dixon played the Masonic Temple in Boston. There he included material to appeal to his lower-class fan base, such as a popular tune that he had adapted with lyrics about the Boston Fire Department. Nevertheless, he also reached out to a richer, middle-class patronage. For example, he played alongside a classically trained pianist, and he billed the performance as a "concert", a word typically reserved for high-class, non-blackface entertainment. A concert is a live performance, usually of music, before an audience. ...

Dixon earned a third of the gross from this engagement: $23.50.^[17] He still owed money to the printer of Dixon's Daily Review, so these earnings were put in trust for the conductor of the orchestra to pick up at a later date. Dixon and the printer grew impatient, and they presented a forged note to the trustee to collect early. Within a few days, Dixon was arrested and jailed in Boston. The press took the opportunity to castigate him again: "George Washington Dixon, now cormorant of Boston jail, and ex-publisher, ex-editor, ex-broker, ex-melodist, &c., is quite out of tune."^[18] Forgery is the process of making or adapting objects or documents (see false document), with the intention to deceive. ...

At the trial, held in mid-June, character witnesses testified that Dixon was "a harmless, inoffensive man, but destitute of business capacity" and "in reply to the question whether Dixon was non compos mentis, I consider him as being on the frontier line—sometimes on one side, and sometimes on the other, just as the breeze of fortune happens to blow."^[19] In the end, he was found not guilty when the prosecution failed to satisfy that he had known the document to be a forgery. Dixon took the opportunity to give a speech to the public outside. He then returned to the stage, earning a considerable $527.50 in late July.^[20] The term non compos mentis comes from Latin, non meaning not, compos meaning in control, and mentis, genitive singular of mens, and means It is most typically used in its negative form, non compos mentis, that is, not having control of ones faculties, as in a phrase such as...

Dixon was still guilty in the eyes of the press, however, and his letters to clear his name only made things worse:

Mister Zip Coon is at his old tricks again. So far from possessing the ability to write a letter Miss Nancy-Coal-Black-Rose Dixon cannot begin to write ten consecutive words of the English language, and he must have encountered "the Schoolmaster abroad" in the Athenian city that teaches "penmanship in six lessons," and that lately too if he can sign his name.^[21]

Dixon's Saturday Night Express

By the end of 1836, Dixon had moved to Boston and started a new paper, the Bostonian or Dixon's Saturday Night Express. The paper focused on working-class issues, religious values, and opposition to abortion. It also followed the lead of the Daily Review in exposing allegedly immoral affairs of well known Bostonians. One story told of two personalities eloping. Other Boston papers called the story false, and the Boston Herald called Dixon a "knave". Dixon fired back, depicting the paper's editor, Henry F. Harrington, as a monkey. The Boston Herald is a tabloid newspaper, the smaller of the two big dailies in Boston, Massachusetts, with a daily circulation of 242,957 in September 2002. ...

In early 1837, Dixon was again in legal trouble. Harrington accused Dixon of stealing half a ream of paper from the Morning Post, the principal competition to Harrington's Herald. The judge eventually dismissed the case, agreeing that the paper had been taken, but ruling that no proof pointed to Dixon as the one who had taken it. Dixon gave another post-trial speech, followed by a stage show on 4 February 1837. The Morning Post was a conservative daily newspaper published in London from 1772 to 1937, when it was acquired by The Daily Telegraph. ...

Not ten days after the end of the Harrington case, Dixon was charged with forging a signature on a bail bond pertaining to his previous debt from July 1835. He was sent to Lowell and jailed. The press responded with its usual glee: "George has been a great eulogist, the defender of the Constitution! But he cannot defend himself."^[22] At his hearing on 15 February, bail was set at $1000, an unheard of amount for the time.^[23] Unable to pay, he was transferred to a jail in Concord, Massachusetts. Seal of Concord, MA Concord is a town located in Middlesex County, Massachusetts. ...

Dixon's 16 March trial ended in conviction. His appeal to the Massachusetts Supreme Court on 17 April resulted in a hung jury, and his prosecutors dropped the charges against him. He gave another of his by now trademark post-trial addresses. The Boston Post wrote: "I begin to think that the Melodist bears a charmed life—and as was often said to be done in olden time, has made a bargain with the Being of Darkness for a certain term of years, during which he may defy the majesty of the law, and the wrath of his enemies."^[24] The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court is the highest court in the United States commonwealth of Massachusetts. ...

Another tour on the stage followed, with concerts in Lowell, New England, and Maine. That Fall, he may have contemplated a tour with James Salisbury, a black musician and dancer well known in lower-class districts of Boston such as Ann Street. Instead, he appeared on 6 December at the upper-class Opera Saloon, singing selections from popular operas. His fame (or notoriety) served to get him listed as a candidate for the Boston mayoral race in December. Dixon won 9 votes, despite his polite refusal to serve should he be elected.^[25] CHUJ ... The foyer of Charles Garniers Opéra, Paris, opened 1875 Opera refers to a dramatic art form, originating in Europe, in which the emotional content is conveyed to the audience as much through music, both vocal and instrumental as it is through the lyrics. ...

The Polyanthos

Dixon performed in Boston through the end of February 1838. That Spring, he moved to New York City, where he re-entered the publishing business with a newspaper called the Polyanthos and Fire Department Album. Dixon again championed the lower class and aimed to expose the sundry affairs of the rich, especially those who preyed upon lower-class women. New York City, officially named the City of New York, is the most populous city in the United States, the most densely populated major city in North America, and is at the center of international finance, politics, entertainment, and culture. ...

An early Polyanthos alleged that a Thomas Hamblin, manager of the Bowery Theatre, was engaging in an affair with Miss Missouri, a teen-aged performer there. Within ten days of publication, Miss Missouri turned up dead, reportedly killed by "inflammation of the brain caused by the violent misconduct of Miss Missouri's mother and the publication of an abusive article in The Polyanthos."^[26] On 28 July, Hamblin accosted Dixon. Another assault in August prompted Dixon to start carrying a pistol. Undaunted, Dixon continued his attacks on Hamblin and others in the Polyanthos. He exposed another affair, this between a merchant named Rowland R. Minturn and the wife of a shipmaker named James H. Roome. Twelve days after the publication, Roome killed himself.

Another article alleged that Francis L. Hanks, an Episcopalian rector and reverend at the St. Thomas Church of New York, had been engaging in illicit sexual behavior. On 31 December 1838, Dixon was in court, charged with libel. Dixon spent a week in jail, then paid the $2000 bail. However, before he could even leave the jailhouse, he was arrested for a charge leveled by Rowland Minturn's brothers that Dixon's article had resulted in the man's death. In English and American law, and systems based on them, libel and slander are two forms of defamation (or defamation of character), which is the tort or delict of making a false statement of fact that injures someones reputation. ...

Bail was raised to $9000, an enormous amount, which Dixon protested. The prosecution argued that "The accused is a criminal of the blackest dye, and by his infamous publication is morally guilty of no less than three murders, and I hope the court will not diminish the amount of bail one iota!"^[27] It did not. Nevertheless, a notorious New York madam named Adeline Miller paid it, and Dixon walked free. Only a month later, though, she had sent Dixon back to jail for unknown reasons. Facing seven counts (four from Hawks and three from the Minturns), the singer and editor stayed there for two months while he awaited trial.

The Minturn case came first, on 15 April 1839. After three days, the jury came back unable to reach a verdict, and the Minturn brothers dropped the charges. Dixon returned to jail, but Hawks dropped his charges from four to three. The judge lowered bail to $900 on 20 April, and Dixon walked free.

The press renewed their attacks on him:

To those who know the true character, and something of the personal history of this imbecile vagrant, the exuberance of indignation with which he is pursued, appears truly ridiculous. That he is disgusting, a nuisance, and a bore, we know—and so is a spider. Nobody would dream, however, of extinguishing the latter insect with a park of artillery; though all the city seem to have fancied that George Washington Dixon could be conquered with no less. The truth of him is, that he is a most unmitigated fool; and as to his pursuiing any person with malice, he is not capable of any sentiment requiring the appreciation of real or fancied injury. If he were kicked down stairs, he could not decide, until told by some one else, whether the kick was the result of accident or design, and if design, whether it was intended as a compliment or an insult."^[28]

Dixon fought back in the Polyanthos by defending himself and his motives, and to some degree, he seems to have succeeded. The Herald admitted that his trial had exposed an unsavory facet of the upper class:

. . . the glimpses which the evidence affords us of the morals of certain classes of society—and the connection and bearing which the administration of the laws has with the moral principles which regulate certain orders of society and begin already to affect the permanency of our republican institutions. . . . These fashionable libertines, by their political connections with the courts, lawyers and juries, can at any moment stifle the voice of truth—and make black white, or white black, whenever it suits their purposes to conceal their wickedness, and to preserve the reputation of their friends from the consequences of their own acts.^[29]

Nevertheless, on 10 May, Dixon changed his plea to guilty regarding one count, and the next day did the same for the other two. He was sentenced to six months of hard labor at the New York State Penitentiary at Blackwell Island. Dixon reportedly responded, "This is a pretty situation for an editor."^[30] He would later claim that Hawks had paid him $1000 to change his plea.

The press reacted with its usual fervor:

Dixon is a mulatto, and was, not many years ago, employed in this city, in an oyster house to open oysters and empty the shells into the carts before they were carried away. He is an impudent scoundrel, aspires to every thing, and was fit to be any body's fool. Somebody used his name (such as he called himself, for negroes have, by right, no surnames) as the publisher of a newspaper, in which every body, almost, was libelled. He is now caged, and, we may hope, will, when he comes out of prison, go to opening oysters, or some other employment appropriate to his habits and color.^[31]

Representation of Mulattos during the Latin American colonial period Mulatto (also Mulato) is a term of Spanish and/or Portuguese origin describing the offspring of African and European ancestry. ...

Back to New York

Dixon served out his sentence then returned to New York. He resumed the Polyanthos, now focusing his efforts on a dancer named Fanny Elssler, whom he accused of sexual misconduct. On 21 August 1840, he went so far as to incite a riot against her and then published the inciting speech in the Polyanthos.^[32] The affair seems to have reinvigorated Dixon, who wrote:

The Polyanthos cannot die. The protecting Providence that watches over the safety of the just, and defeats the machinations of the wicked, will make it bloom. . . . We prophesy that the latest descendant of the youngest newsboy will animate his hearers with the desire to emulate the enviable fame of DIXON! Our name will be handed down to the end of time as one of the most independent men of the nineteenth century! Our very hat will become a relic.^[33]

Elssler defamed, Dixon turned to a crusade against abortion, which he claimed subverted marriage by inhibiting procreation and encouraged female infidelity. He focused on a back-alley surgeon known as "Madame Restell". By the middle of March 1841, she was in jail; Dixon covered the trial and sentencing over several issues of the Polyanthos.

On 12 September, a man attacked Dixon with an ax in the street, which prompted some of the only positive press Dixon ever enjoyed. The Uncle Sam praised his editing and writing: "Go on martyr of virtue, go on and prosper! Go on getting out extras, and defending the sacredness of the marriage institution. Go on through malice, opposition, fiery trials, persecutions and assassinations—posterity will do thee justice. . . !"^[34]

Dixon's troubles with the courts were not over. Around 16 September, he allegedly assaulted Peter D. Formal, who was taking down bills that Dixon had posted. Dixon failed to appear for his October 1841 court date, and he skipped later dates on 1 and 11 November, as well. On 19 November, he again was placed under arrest for obscenity as part of a citywide campaign by the district attorney to fight yellow journalism. On 13 January 1842, Dixon was indicted for the charges in absentia. He stopped editing the Polyanthos around this time. A warrant was issued for his arrest on 13 April, but eventually the charges were dropped. Obscenity has several connotations. ... Yellow journalism is a term given to any widespread tendencies or practices within media organizations that are detrimental to, or substandard from the point of view of, journalistic integrity. ...

In late 1841, Dixon had gotten into another spat with a colleague. William Joseph Snelling obtained a warrant against him, and Dixon countersued. Snelling wrote anonymously in the Flash:

We know him for a greedy, sordid, unscrupulous knave, of old; . . . We are aware that men are judged by the company they keep and that we shall be blamed for having had anything to do with Dixon. Be it so.—We deserve rebuke, we have suffered for our folly and, if that is not enough, we are content to sit down in sackcloth and ashes; the meet attire of fools who trust to a person so vile that the English language cannot expressed his unmitigated baseness.^[35]

Snelling also linked Dixon to organized prostitution, alleging that he had connections to a madam named Julia Brown. Eventually, another editor named George B. Wooldridge joined with Dixon for a few issues of the True Flash, but they did not sell well. Rumors circulated at this time that Dixon was to be married, but sources disagreed over whom; one said the fiancée was a Congressman's daughter, another that she was a madam. The Flash published a story that Julia Brown and a woman named Phoebe Doty (probably a prostitute) had been seen fighting over the Melodist. If Dixon did marry, no record survives of it. Prostitution is the sale of sexual services, such as oral sex or sexual intercourse, for money. ...

Later career

Beginning in 1842, Dixon took on a number of new occupations, including animal magnetist, and spiritualist specializing in clairvoyance. A fad for public competitions and feats of endurance served as another vehicle for him to keep his name in the public eye; he became a "pedestrian", a long-distance sport walker. Animal magnetism is both a synonym for mesmerism as well as the 18th-century term for the supposed ethereal medium postulated by Franz Mesmer as a therapeutic agent. ... Spiritualism is a religion in which contact with the spirits of the dead through a medium is central. ... Clairvoyance is defined as a form of extra-sensory perception that it is claimed allows a person to perceive distant objects, persons, or events, including seeing through opaque objects and the detection of types of energy not normally perceptible to humans (i. ...

In February, he competed to win $4000 by walking 48 hours without stopping. When the prize failed to materialize, Dixon charged admission to watch him. Later that month, Dixon tried to break this record by walking 50 hours. His publicity was, as usual, bad. Brother Jonathan gave this advice: "walk in one direction all the time, from this part of the compass, till ocean fetches him up, and then see how far he can swim."^[36] He walked for 60 hours that summer in Richmond, then did 30 miles in 5 hours and 35 minutes in Washington, D.C.^[37]

Dixon tried many other feats of endurance as well. For example, in late August, he stood on a plank for three days and two nights with no sleep. In September, he paced for 76 hours on a 15-foot-long platform.

Dixon did not give up his singing career. In early 1843, Dixon (now called "Pedestrian and Melodist") appeared at least once more at the Bowery Theatre, and he played on bills with Richard Pelham, George Rice, and Billy Whitlock. On 29 January, he performed at a benefit for Dan Emmett. These concerts would be his last. Daniel Decatur Dan Emmett (October 29, 1815 – June 28, 1904), was born at Mount Vernon, Ohio. ...

Dixon's career in journalism was not yet over. He started a new papers called Dixon's Regulator by March, and he renewed his public crusade in New York. In 1846, he printed handbills and rallied a public protest against Madam Restell. Another crusade seems to have drawn him away from New York in 1847; he was probably one of the first Radical Republicans to entrench themselves in the Yucatan in a bid to annex more territory for the United States. The Yucatán Peninsula separates the Caribbean Sea from the Gulf of Mexico. ...

Dixon retired to New Orleans sometime before 1848, where he frequented the Poydras Market. He came down with pulmonary tuberculosis sometime in mid-1860. On 27 February 1861, he checked into the New Orleans Charity Hospital, noting his occupation as "editor". Dixon died on 2 March 1861. New Orleans is the largest city in the state of Louisiana, United States of America. ... Tuberculous lungs show up on an X-ray image Tuberculosis is an infection with the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which most commonly affects the lungs (pulmonary TB) but can also affect the central nervous system (meningitis), lymphatic system, circulatory system (miliary TB), genitourinary system, bones and joints. ...

Notes

1. ^  Many biographies list his birth year as 1808, but Cockrell 189 argues that 1801 is the correct date. This is based on Dixon's records at the New Orleans hospital, which list him as 60 years old in 1861, and an 11 December 1841 article in the Flash that says he was born "some forty years ago".
2. ^  Watkins 84.
3. ^  Cockrell 113.
4. ^  The Bedford Enquirer, quoted in 18 January 1834 Harrisburg Pennsylvania Telegraph. Quoted in Cockrell 113.
5. ^  5 August 1837 Portland Eastern Argus. Quoted in Cockrell 113.
6. ^  19 September 1841 Sunday Mercury. Quoted in Cockrell 129.
7. ^  Cockrell 193 note 112.
8. ^  11 December 1841, The Flash. Quoted in Cockrell 96.
9. ^  Cockrell 96.
10. ^  Cockrell 96.
11. ^  Cockrell 97.
12. ^  Bedford Enquirer, quoted in the 18 January 1834 Harrisburg Pennsylvania Telegraph. Quoted in Cockrell 98.
13. ^  11 July 1834 New York Sun. Quoted in Cockrell 100.
14. ^  Cockrell 101.
15. ^  11 June 1835 Boston Post. Quoted in Cockrell 102.
16. ^  11 March 1836. The New York Times. Quoted in Cockrell 103.
17. ^  Cockrell 104.
18. ^  2 June 1836 New York Transcript. Quoted in Cockrell 104.
19. ^  Cockrell 104, 106.
20. ^  Cockrell 106.
21. ^  2 July 1836 Spirit of the Times. Quoted in Cockrell 106.
22. ^  13 February 1837 Lowell Advertiser. Quoted in Cockrell 110.
23. ^  Cockrell 110.
24. ^  18 April 1837 Boston Post. Quoted in Cockrell 111.
25. ^  Cockrell 113-4.
26. ^  20 June 1838 Boston Post. Quoted in Cockrell 115.
27. ^  20 April 1839 New York Herald. Emphasis in original. Quoted in Cockrell 118.
28. ^  New York Dispatch quoted in 23 April 1839 Boston Post. Quoted in Cockrell 120.
29. ^  19 April 1839 New York Herald. Quoted in Cockrell 121.
30. ^  20 May 1839 Boston Post. Quoted in Cockrell 126.
31. ^  Baltimore Chronicle, quoted in 11 November 1843 New York Herald. Quoted in Cockrell 127.
32. ^  Cockrell 128.
33. ^  17 January 1841 Polyanthos. Emphasis in original. Quoted in Cockrell 128.
34. ^  18 September 1841. The Uncle Sam. Quoted in Cockrell 130.
35. ^  11 or 18 December 1841 Flash. Quoted in Cockrell 131.
36. ^  19 July 1842 Brother Jonathan. Quoted in Lowell Courier. Quoted in Cockrell 137. CHECK THIS
37. ^  Cockrell 137.

The original New York Sun began publication September 3, 1833, as a morning newspaper, and an evening edition began in 1887. ... The Boston Post was the most popular daily newspaper in New England for over a hundred years before it folded in 1956. ... The New York Times is a newspaper published in New York City by Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr. ... The New York Herald was a large distribution newspaper based in New York City that existed between May 6, 1835 and 1924. ...

References

• Cockrell, Dale (1997). Demons of Disorder: Early Blackface Minstrels and Their World. Cambridge University Press.
• Toll, Robert C. (1974). Blacking Up: The Minstrel Show in Nineteenth-century America. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Watkins, Mel (1994). On the Real Side: Laughing, Lying, and Signifying—The Underground Tradition of African-American Humor that Transformed American Culture, from Slavery to Richard Pryor. New York: Simon & Schuster.
• Wilmeth, Don B. and Bigsby, C. W. E., eds. (1998). The Cambridge History of American Theatre: Beginnings to 1870. New York: Cambridge University Press.