![]() As recounted in the Boston Globe of January 12, 1874: By 1874, his father had brought him to Boston, where he was appearing at the Boston Theatre in a show called The Naiad Queen. He was five years old! ( The Black Crook is considered the first American musical the site of Niblo’s Garden–once of the center of entertainment in the 19th century–is located near the Spring Street stop in Manhattan on the 6 train - read the Library's 1873 edition, digitized by Google.) At some point during the entertainment, he would get on the podium and lead the orchestra in a number. He must have possessed unusual talent because he was performing in the 1872 edition of The Black Crook at Niblo’s Garden in New York City ( according to the Internet Broadway Database, this edition ran from Decemthrough February 24, 1872). Only near the end of his very brief life did he start learning to read music, feeding his appetite to know more. According to the account in Curiosities of the American Stage by Laurence Hutton (published in 1890, which can be read or downloaded from Google books), he first learned violin by ear, since his father was an orchestral violin player. Thanks to the England & Wales FreeBMD Birth Index database (available on, marketed to libraries as AncestryLibrary), we discovered that, in spite of his nickname, he was born sometime between July and September 1866 in Mile End Old Town in London, Great Britain. ![]() Speaight, child prodigy on the violin, who is probably known most for his sudden death. A colleague was looking at the Music Division’s vast clipping file, and pulled out a folder with a strange name: “Americus, Young.” The picture inside, of a highly decorated young boy and published in 1874, made it clear that “Young Americus” was just a nickname - but what was his real name?Ī little bit of research in Google revealed the answer: he was James G.
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