{"id":4912,"date":"2025-01-24T20:38:19","date_gmt":"2025-01-24T20:38:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/sousa\/?p=4912"},"modified":"2025-01-24T20:59:54","modified_gmt":"2025-01-24T20:59:54","slug":"remembering-the-black-hercules-of-the-american-banjo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/sousa\/2025\/01\/24\/remembering-the-black-hercules-of-the-american-banjo\/","title":{"rendered":"Remembering the Black Hercules of the American Banjo"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Cabinet card image of Horace Weston, ca. 1880s.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Horace Weston (1825-1890) was America\u2019s most accomplished African American banjo artist of the nineteenth century.\u00a0 Along with Afred A. Farland (1864-1954), the other Paganini of the banjo, the two musicians were the most prominent performers to promote Samuel S. Stewart\u2019s banjos during the 1880s and 90s. \u00a0At this time, Stewart was considered the greatest Philadelphia builder of artist-grade banjos.\u00a0 The Center’s Old Town School of Folk Music Banjo Exhibition Records and Samuel Swaim Stewart<\/span> Banjos documents much of these legacies.<\/p>\n

Weston was born in Derby, Connecticut, the son of Jube Weston, a free-black Connecticut music and dancing teacher.\u00a0 Horace had an unusual inclination for music and spent his childhood mastering the accordion, violin, cello, double bass, trombone and guitar while also becoming an accomplished dancer.\u00a0 Despite learning the banjo later on in 1855, by the time he became a professional musician in 1863, he was most recognized for his extraordinary technique and performance on the banjo, according to his June 7, 1890, New York Clipper<\/em> obituary.<\/p>\n

As a performer Weston was described as a sociable and powerful musician who stood over six feet. \u00a0 An August 1878 Buffalo Post<\/em> article about Weston\u2019s \u201cUncle Tom\u2019s Cabin\u201d performances wrote, \u201cHorace was dressed to kill at forty rods.\u00a0 He is about as black as the far end of a coal cart, and his tall silk hat was equally black\u2026he looked as if he might be an undertaker.\u00a0 He wore a brass watch chain, strong enough to hold a bulldog, and he was, altogether, very set up in both dress and deportment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Throughout the 1880s Stewart continually trumpeted Weston\u2019s musicianship and skill in his bi-monthly S.S. Stewart\u2019s Banjo and Guitar Journal <\/em>and these articles served as Weston\u2019s endorsement of his complete banjo line.\u00a0 A full-page lithographic print of Weston first appears in the August-September 1884 issue of the journal, and both Weston and his wife, Alice, appeared in a second full-page lithographic image in the journal\u2019s October 1886 issue, which highlighted the duo\u2019s performances.<\/p>\n

Stewart\u2019s colorful dime novel, The Black Hercules OR the Adventures of a Banjo Player<\/em> was published serially in the 1884 issues of his Banjo Journal<\/em> and released as a book for 10 cents in October of that year.\u00a0 The story is about a poor fledgling banjo student, Jacob Coombs, who meets Weston during his travels to find a well-paying job playing the banjo that will enable him to marry his sweetheart.\u00a0 The serial novel was created to market Stewart\u2019s banjos through Weston\u2019s strategically placed endorsements of them during his fictional encounters with Coombs.<\/p>\n

For more information about the Sousa Archives\u2019 Stewart banjos and the Old Town School of Folk Music Banjo Exhibition Records contact Scott Schwartz at either <\/strong>schwrtzs@illinois.edu<\/a> or 217-333-4577.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Horace Weston (1825-1890) was America\u2019s most accomplished African American banjo artist of the nineteenth century.\u00a0 Along with Afred A. Farland (1864-1954), the other Paganini of the banjo, the two musicians were the most prominent performers to promote Samuel S. Stewart\u2019s banjos during the 1880s and 90s. \u00a0At this time, Stewart was considered the greatest Philadelphia […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":511,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-the-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/sousa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/sousa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/sousa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/sousa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/511"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/sousa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4912"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/sousa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4912\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4924,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/sousa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4912\/revisions\/4924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/sousa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/sousa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/sousa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}