Lew Dockstader (born George Alfred Clapp; August 7, 1856 – October 26, 1924) was an American singer, comedian, and

vaudeville Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition ...

star, best known as a blackface minstrel show performer. Dockstader performed as a solo act and in his own popular minstrel troupe.

Biography

He was born George Alfred Clapp on August 7, 1856, in

Hartford, Connecticut Hartford is the capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It was the seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960. It is the core city in the Greater Hartford metropolitan area. Census estimates since t ...

, to Chester Clapp and Sarah Reed. He married Lucin Brown on December 20, 1883, in Hartford and had a daughter, Mildred Havlin Clapp, who married Warren Palmer. He legally changed his name to Lew Dockstader in 1887. Coon Coon Coon sheet music cover 1901

In 1898 he teamed up with George Primrose to form Primrose and Dockstader's Minstrel Men, which toured the vaudeville circuit till 1904. He appeared on film in a number of comedy shorts from 1904 to 1907. On May 20, 1904 Dockstader was detained by the New York City Police Department for attempting to distribute a film "intended to caricature

President Theodore Roosevelt Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or by his initials, T. R., was an American politician, statesman, soldier, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26t ...

and the office you hold." The film was "in the possession of the Edison

Kinetoscope The Kinetoscope is an early motion picture exhibition device, designed for films to be viewed by one person at a time through a peephole viewer window. The Kinetoscope was not a movie projector, but it introduced the basic approach that woul ...

people and, if they had not been taken in hand at once, would undoubtedly have had a wide circulation through the various agencies and mechanism of that large organization." Dockstader agreed to surrender the film to the New York City Police in exchange for the charges against him being dropped. Unfazed by his detention in 1904, in 1906 Dockstader began impersonating Theodore Roosevelt as part of his vaudeville show. He said Roosevelt had personally given him permission to do the impression. Three years later, while Roosevelt was in

British East Africa East Africa Protectorate (also known as British East Africa) was an area in the African Great Lakes occupying roughly the same terrain as present-day Kenya from the Indian Ocean inland to the border with Uganda in the west. Controlled by Bri ...

as part of the

Smithsonian–Roosevelt African Expedition The Smithsonian–Roosevelt African Expedition was an expedition to tropical Africa in 1909-1911 led by former United States president Theodore Roosevelt, funded by Andrew Carnegie and sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution. Its purpose was to ...

he commissioned a writer to prepare a sketch entitled "Dockstader in Africa, or Rescuing Roosevelt". He failed to pay the writer and was sued for non-payment. The sketch was never performed. He played the

title role The title character in a narrative work is one who is named or referred to in the title of the work. In a performed work such as a play or film, the performer who plays the title character is said to have the title role of the piece. The title of ...

in the 1914 feature

silent film A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, w ...

"Dan". His wife died in 1919. In January 1923 he was injured in a fall in

New Brunswick, New Jersey New Brunswick is a city in and the seat of government of Middlesex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.Keith's Star Theater in December 1923. He died on October 26, 1924, in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

of bone cancer on his left leg, at age 68. His funeral was at All Angels' Church and he was buried in

Kensico Cemetery Kensico Cemetery, located in Valhalla, Westchester County, New York was founded in 1889, when many New York City cemeteries were becoming full, and rural cemeteries were being created near the railroads that served the city. Initially , it ...

Performers with Dockstader's Minstrels

Will Oakland Will Oakland (January 15, 1880–May 15, 1956) was an American countertenor famed for his exceptionally high vocal range. He was born Herman Hinrichs in Jersey City, New Jersey, to German-American immigrant parents. Oakland began his musi ...

Al Jolson Al Jolson (born Eizer Yoelson; June 9, 1886 – October 23, 1950) was a Lithuanian-American Jewish singer, comedian, actor, and vaudevillian. He was one of the United States' most famous and highest-paid stars of the 1920s, and was self-billed ...

* Cornelius J. O'Brien

References

External links

Short biography and sample recording from 1905 on Archeophone.com findagrave.com
1856 births 1924 deaths Blackface minstrel managers and producers Blackface minstrel performers Vaudeville performers American male comedians Comedians from Connecticut 19th-century American male singers Musicians from Hartford, Connecticut Burials at Kensico Cemetery {{US-singer-stub