Daniel Decatur Emmett
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Composer of the song "Dixie".
1859-?
Daniel Decatur Emmett is remembered today chiefly for a song he wrote
in 1859 . . . Dixie. He is also known for his role in the Virginia
Minstrels.
Born in Mount Vernon, Ohio, on October 29, 1815, Emmett grew up in
the rough frontier community, hearing church hymns, the fife and
drums of the militia, and the jolly tunes of the fiddler. He taught
himself to play the fiddle and began composing his own tunes at an
early age. Dan first performed his song Old Dan Tucker at the age of
fifteen during a Fourth of July celebration on the village green in
Mount Vernon. At seventeen, he joined the United States Army,
becoming the leading fifer at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri. He was
discharged on July 8, 1835, after the Army learned he had falsified
his age in order to enlist. Afterwards he traveled with various
circus bands, where he learned the technique of Negro impersonation.
In the winter of 1842-43, four stars of the minstrel profession
formed a novel ensemble, consisting of the fiddle, bones, banjo, and
tambourine. Calling themselves the "Original Virginia Minstrels," the
four men, Dan Emmett on the fiddle, Frank Brower on the bones, Billy
Whitlock on the banjo, and Dick Pelham on the tambourine, first
performed in public at the Bowery Amphitheater on February 6, 1843,
in New York. This unique ensemble, along with their song Old Dan
Tucker, swept the entire minstrel world. Wearing ill-assorted
garments, oddly shaped hats, and gaudy pants and shirts, the four
Virginia Minstrels were an often rowdy, fun-loving group. Within a
few short months scores of similar minstrel bands were performing
throughout the country. The Original Virginia Minstrels had a short
life. After a financially disastrous tour of the British Isles in
1844, the group disbanded. All of the minstrels eventually returned
to the United States except Dick Pelham, who remained in England.
Emmett composed Dixie in the spring of 1859, while with Bryant's
Minstrels in New York. The tune, written as a walkaround, became
popular almost immediately and at the outbreak of the Civil War was
popular in both the North and South. In the beginning of the war the
troops of both armies marched to war to the tune of Dixie but by the
end of 1861 Dixie had become identified as a Southern tune, much to
the chagrin of Emmett who was anything but a Southern sympathizer.
In 1881 and 1882, now a man in his sixties, Emmett hit the road with
Leavitt's Gigantean Minstrels, playing Dixie to standing ovations,
for which he was paid $35.00 a week, board, and railroad fare. He was
in Chicago in 1888. At the age of eighty, in 1895, he took his last
tour with Al Field's troupe, principally in the South. Emmett retired
to Mount Vernon until his death, June 28, 1904, where he is buried in
Mound View Cemetery. There, his monument is surrounded by an iron
fence. A stone and plaque is located on South Mulbury Street, where
his birth place once stood, and a memorial tribute presented to the
city of Mount Vernon by the Ohio Division of the Daughters of the
Confederacy in 1931 is located at the Knox County Historical Society
on Harcourt Road. The Dan Emmett birthplace is an historic landmark
and is now located off South Main Street near the Senior Citizens
Center area next to the Kokosing River where it is open for tours
during special events or by appointments with the Historical Society.
Dan Emmett was married to Catherine Rives in 1853 in New York. They
had no children. She died in 1875. In 1879, he married Mary Louise
Bird, a widow with two daughters.
Songs other than Dixie and Old Dan Tucker credited to Dan Emmett are:
Turkey in the Straw, Old Zip Coon, The Blue Tail Fly, The Road To
Richmond, and High Daddy.
another ballad writer named William Shakespeare Hays (1837-1907) (pen
name, "Will S. Hays"), claimed to be its true author.
