![]() ![]() For several years Charity Wiggins also lived with her son in Bethune’s New York home.īlind Tom’s final years were spent holed up in Eliza Bethune’s house in Hoboken, New Jersey, which had been purchased with Wiggins’s earnings. ![]() In an effort to take control of Wiggins’s income, Eliza Bethune persuaded his mother to officially sign over all of his rights to her, and Wiggins moved with Bethune when she relocated to New York. #Blind man whistle phone seriesA series of messy court cases transferred the care of Blind Tom to Bethune’s estranged wife, Eliza, in 1887. Bethune hired a manager to tour with Wiggins during the seasons he was unavailable, but Bethune continued to tour on and off with Wiggins until Bethune’s death in 1884. This continued guardianship of Blind Tom by the Bethune family following emancipation caused some to refer to Wiggins as “the last slave.” For a number of years John Bethune and Blind Tom toured the United States together. After the Civil War (1861-65) Bethune’s son, John, took over the management of Blind Tom, and he used Wiggins’s considerable income to support his own extravagant lifestyle. Wiggins’s lack of emotional development coupled with extraordinary musical ability made him prime for exploitation. One biographer wrote that Blind Tom’s “perfect pitch, hypersensitive clarity, elastic vocal chords, lack of inhibition and total immersion in the world of sound enabled him to re-create a 'harum-scarum’ battlefield like no other.” Many of the proceeds from his concerts during this period went to help sick and wounded Confederate soldiers. Inspired by what he heard of the war, the fifteen-year-old Wiggins composed his most famous piece, “The Battle of Manassas,” a song evoking the sounds of battle interspersed with train sounds and whistles, which Wiggins made himself. He and his manager returned south, and his manager scheduled a number of events that would raise money for the Confederate cause. In 1861 Blind Tom was on tour in New York when Georgia seceded from the Union. He could also play different pieces of music with each hand while singing a third, all in different keys. He then retook the piano and played the piece back exactly as he had heard it, flaws and all. Blind Tom would stand by, wringing his hands and making improbable one-footed leaps in the air, anticipating the challenge, and naming each note as it was played. Twain was so enthralled with Wiggins’s remarkable abilities that he attended three performances in a row in 1869.īlind Tom’s performances invariably contained a challenge, in which an audience member was brought onstage to play the most difficult piece of music he or she could. On one tour, he crossed paths with the writer Mark Twain, who was himself on a speaking tour. president James Buchanan invited him to Washington, D.C., and he became the first African American musician to perform at the White House. In time he would incorporate such effects into his musical works, imitating wind and rain, for example, and claiming that the sounds of nature had taught him the melodies. ![]() Wiggins’s demanding tour schedule often included four performances a day, and as he grew into a large man, his graceful precision stunned audiences.įrom his earliest years “Blind Tom,” as he became known, could mimic many kinds of sounds, from birdcalls to trains, with unbridled and uninhibited enthusiasm. Bethune recognized his talent as a potential source of income, and Wiggins was hired out at the age of nine or ten to a traveling showman named Perry Oliver. Piano lessons were provided for him, and Wiggins’s ability quickly surpassed that of his teachers. Soon, he began reproducing the music he heard on the keyboard, and Bethune realized that this young enslaved boy was a musical prodigy. The Bethune family had seven musically gifted children who played piano or sang, and Wiggins stood by, rapt, as the children practiced. Wiggins’s mother interceded to save his life, and several months later Wiggins, his two older siblings, and his parents were sold at auction to General James Bethune, a Columbus lawyer. After discovering that the infant was blind, Jones refused to feed or clothe him. Thomas Greene Wiggins was born near Columbus on May 25, 1849, to Charity and Domingo Wiggins, a couple who were enslaved by Wiley Jones. Blind Tom Wiggins Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division ![]()
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