Allen and Pettengill’s Minstrels

“…There were thirteen performers in the first part, including the novel feature of four end men, Johnny Allen and Fayette Welsh being on the tambourine end and Walter Bray and George Edwards in the bone department, with Frank Girard as a go-between or middle man. Gustave Bideaux and R. T. Tyrrell are the ballad singers. There were six instrumentalists, including cornet, flute, clarionet, two violins and double bass, who discoursed very fair music for a small party. The four end men have each a peculiar style of acting and gagging, the two principals—Allen and Bray—telling their gags and singing their songs as one act and retiring before the fall of the curtain to give the place to Welsh and Edwards…Fayette Welsh made quite a hit of his imitations of the quaint manner of singing of the plantation wenches of the ‘sunny south’…he also brought down the house in his ‘Last Sensation’ act in the olio, in which, after being repeatedly encored for his songs and dances, he danced a jig, to music performed by himself on a fife, a very difficult thing to do…Mr. Tyrrell is a very good singer, and we do not remember to have heard anyone to surpass him of the many ballad singers brought forward by Bryant last season; his voice is clear and musical, and he sings with good taste and judgment; there are few better singers in the minstrel business. Gustave Bideaux sang much better than usual, and his delicate handling of the ballad, ‘Put Me in My Little Bed,’ called forth an encore; we should also add that the accompanying chorus was in harmony with the beauty of the solo. The flute solo by Mr. Cox was a neat piece of execution, and met with hearty applause…Eph Horn had been announced to appear with this troupe, but Ephraim must have been ‘off color’ a trifle, as he failed to show…”