Jasper County Democrat, Volume 1, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 October 1898 — The Real Author of “ Dixie.” [ARTICLE]

The Real Author of “ Dixie.”

Neill Bryant and Colonel John F. Kllkenney of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad had been friends ever since their early boyhood, and whenever they meet the reminiscences that are called up arc replete with the flavor of the high-rolling days when Neill was a star member of the celebrated Bryant combination, so many years America’s most popular minstrels. “It makes me tired, very tired,” said Mr. Bryant, “to read all this Btuff In the papers about Will 8. Hayes being the author of ’Dixie,’ when everybody except the most besotted ignoramus In the land knows that my old colleague, Dan Emmett, wrote it, and was the first man to sing It when he was performing with Bryant's minstrels. Dan Emmett is alive yet. out in an Ohio town, though the old boy has long since retired from the stage. It Is a stupid thing to try to put the authorship of the stirring confederate battlesong on Hayes or anybody else, when there are scores of people living who can substantiate the statement 1 have made as to the real author.”—Washington Post.