Bridges Smith & the Macon Amateur Minstrels

This is part nine of the 1919 interview of then 71-year-old Bridges Smith (1848-1930) entitled "BRIDGES SMITH, AFTER FIFTY YEARS OF NEWSPAPER WORK, INTERVIEWED FOR FIRST TIME BY GIRL REPORTER." Upon his death, Mr. Smith was laid to rest in Rose Hill Cemetery...

Author of Opera and Songs
Besides being a reporter, fifty years of his life and mayor a good part of it, Bridges Smith has been a manager of a theatrical company, secretary of a baseball club, a promoter of a tournament, a composer of a number of songs and one opera, and an actor and singer in odd moments.

The theatrical company of which he was manager was the "Macon Amateur Minstrels," organized in 1877. He not only acted as manager of the company, but wrote the speeches of the actors and songs of the singers.

While talking about this old company the Judge went over to one of the shelves stacked high with books and picked out a little green scrapbook, all musty with age.

The front and back of the little old book had severed relations with each other.

As he opened it caressingly he said, "I think a lot of this little scrapbook."

Among the clippings pasted in it were several programs given by the minstrels in the days of the seventies. Judge Smith appeared on the programs as "Bones." On one occasion, according to the program, yellow and faded now, "Bones" sang a ditty entitled, "Run Home, Levy."

At the reporter's exclamation, "I didn't know you could sing," Judge Smith smilingly said, "I never knew it either. You wouldn't suspect me of it, just to look at me, would you?"

Banks Winter, author of "White Wings," sang at the same performances at which the Judge rendered "Run Home, Levy." The title of Mr. Banks' hit was "When the Birds Have Gone to Sleep." Mr. Winter is now living in Detroit.

...Next up - the finale.