Patrick Henry Chappelle (January 7, 1869 – October 21, 1911),Lynn Abbott, Doug Seroff, Ragged But Right: Black Traveling Shows, Coon Songs, and the Dark Pathway to Blues and Jazz, University Press of Mississippi, 2009, pp. 248-268.The New York Age, November 16, 1911, p. 2. Retrieved July 5, 2014. was an American theatre owner and entrepreneur, who established and ran The Rabbit's Foot Company, a leading traveling vaudeville show in the first part of the twentieth century. He became known as one of the biggest employers of African Americans in the entertainment industry, with multiple tent traveling shows and partnerships in strings of theaters and saloons. Chappelle was described at that time as the "Pioneer of Negro Vaudeville" and "the black P. T. Barnum," and was the only African American to fully operate a traveling show solely composed of African-American entertainers."Pioneer of Negro Vaudeville. The Meteoric Career of Mr. Pat Chappelle, the Magnate of Afro American Stage--From Strolling Player to Manager--Colored Performers Should Organize for Protection." News/Opinion, The Colored American, p. 1. August 3, 1901. Washington (DC), District of Columbia.
Early life Chappelle was born in Jacksonville, Florida, the son of Lewis Chappelle and his wife Anna, who had been slaves in Newberry County, South Carolina. After slavery was abolished, they left South Carolina with their relatives and other freed slaves to help construct the suburban neighborhood of LaVilla in Jacksonville, which became a center of African-American culture in Florida.Death Notice "Mr. Lewis Chappelle Dead," The Freeman, p. 5. February 18, 1905. Indianapolis, Indiana. Lewis Chappelle and his brother Mitchell Chappelle worked on house construction and also held several political positions in LaVilla.Florida Black Public Officials (Black Officials La Villa), 1867-1924, University of Alabama Press (1998). Their other brother Julius Caesar Chappelle, Pat's uncle, also worked in construction in LaVilla and then moved to Boston, Massachusetts, where he became a legislator between 1883 and 1886, one of the early black Republicans in Boston (the Republican Party was founded by abolitionists)."Julius C. Chappelle." The New York Freeman, front page. November 13, 1886. Indianapolis, Indiana.
Pat Chappelle was musically gifted. He and his brothers and cousin learned musical skills from some of their relatives – Pat learned how to play the guitar and piano, but was best known for his proficiency in banjo. He left school after the fourth grade and played guitar in traveling string bands. He started playing in hotels on the East Coast and was discovered by a prestigious vaudeville circuit owner, Benjamin Franklin Keith, who offered him bookings with the museum circuit in Boston and New York City. Later, he performed in Florida restaurants and saloons.Peter Dunbaugh Smith, Ashley Street Blues: Racial Uplift and the Commodification of Vernacular Performance in LaVilla Florida, 1896-1916 , Florida State University, The College of Arts and Science, Dissertation, 2006.
Vaudeville traveling shows, theaters, and saloon businesses In 1898, Chappelle returned to Jacksonville and organised his first traveling show, the Imperial Colored Minstrels (or Famous Imperial Minstrels),Henry T. Sampson, Blacks in Blackface: A Sourcebook on Early Black Musical Shows, Scarecrow Press, 1980 (2013 edn), pp. 48-49. which featured comedian Arthur "Happy" Howe and toured successfully around the South.Bernard L. Peterson, The African American Theatre Directory, 1816-1960: A Comprehensive Guide to Early Black Theatre Organizations, Companies, Theatres, and Performing Groups, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1997, p. 104. Early shows also featured ragtime pianist Prof. Fred Sulis, and white country music fiddler Blind Joe Mangrum (who went on to record for Victor Records as late as 1928). Chappelle also opened a pool hall in the commercial district of Jacksonville. Remodeled as the Excelsior Hall, it became the first black-owned theater in the South, reportedly seated 500 people, and also sold whiskey. In an August 20, 1898 article in The New York Times, it was stated that Chappelle, who was standing outside the saloon in Jacksonville, was "almost beaten to death""Knockout Drops for Troops: Over 18 Men Picked Up Insensible in Jacksonville—A Saloon Keeper Roughly Handled". New York Times, p. 1. August 20, 1898. by an angry mob who blamed him as the proprietor for a dosing of soldiers inside the saloon with "knockout drops" by unknowns that caused some of the men to appear "completely insensible, seemingly lifeless" and left other "almost screaming with pain and writhing in convulsions." Pat Chappelle's life was saved by "Major Harrison, Provost Marshall, in ordering out a reserve guard." The article also reported that Chappelle "was terribly beaten and kicked."
In 1899, following a dispute with the white landlord of the Excelsior Hall, J. E. T. Bowden, who was also the Mayor of Jacksonville, Chappelle closed the theatre and stripped out its tiled floor and fixtures. He moved to Tampa, where he – with fellow African-American entrepreneur R. S. Donaldson – opened a new vaudeville house, the Buckingham, in the Fort Brooke neighborhood, using the Excelsior's fittings. The Tampa Morning Tribune reported that "[t]he mayor of Jacksonville is therefore after Chappell [sic], and there may develop an interesting local end to the story." Chappelle claimed that he owned the fittings, but eventually they were returned to Jacksonville and the charges against him were dropped. The Buckingham Theatre's Saloon opened in September 1899, and within a few months was reported to be "crowded to the doors every night with Cubans, Spaniards, Negroes and white people". In December 1899 Chappelle and Donaldson opened a second theatre, the Mascotte, closer to the center of Tampa.
In 1901, the Buckingham Theatre Saloon was advertised as offering fine imported wine, liquors, beer, and cigars, and when the theater was renovated, it had its grand opening on December 23, 1901, that made the next day's front page of the Morning Tribune in Tampa."The Buckingham Theatre: Grand Opening of the Buckingham Last Night." The Morning Tribune, bottom of front page. Tuesday, December 24, 1901. Tampa, Florida. The Theatre Saloon bought its fine Cuban cigars from a factory owned by Vicente Martinez Ybor in Ybor City. In 1903, while Pat was traveling with his Rabbit's Foot Company, he left his brother Louis in charge of the Buckingham Theatre Saloon. Louis was arrested and convicted of selling liquor without a license, and the Buckingham Theatre Saloon was closed."Sunday Seller Held: For Trial in Criminal Court on Serious Charge." 'The Morning Tribune, front page. September 10, 1903. Tampa, Florida. Pat Chappelle left his vaudeville company and rushed to Tampa to hire a lawyer who was able to gain pardon and release for Louis. Chappelle was fined, although the circumstances of the charge against him were deemed suspicious and the publicity did not seem to tarnish their reputations. In 1904, the Buckingham Theatre Saloon changed its name and reopened as the Red Fox Music Hall with a pool hall and fancy café with the additional marketing help of a cousin, Mitchell Chappelle, who also helped secure liquor licenses and license renewals to be in compliance with regulations.
The Rabbit's Foot Company, Funny Folks Company and Chappelle Bros.
The success of their shows at the Buckingham and Mascotte theatres in Tampa led Chappelle and Donaldson to announce their intention, in early 1900, to establish a traveling vaudeville show. Chappelle commissioned Frank Dumont of the Eleventh Street Theater in Philadelphia to write a show for the new company. In May 1900, Chappelle and Donaldson advertised for "60 Colored Performers.... Only those with reputation, male, female and juvenile of every description, Novelty Acts, Headliners, etc., for our new play 'A Rabbit's Foot'.... We will travel in our own train of hotel cars, and will exhibit under canvas...". In summer 1900, Chappelle decided to put the show into theatres rather than under tents, first in Paterson, New Jersey, and then in Brooklyn, New York. However, his bandmaster Frank Clermont left, his partnership with Donaldson dissolved, and business was poor. Chappelle later won a lawsuit against a rival company, Holland's Georgia Minstrels, for taking away Clermont.
In October 1901, the company launched its second season, with a roster of performers again led by Arthur "Happy" Howe, and toured in Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and Florida. The show grew in popularity throughout the early years of the century, and played in both theatres and tents. Trading as Chappelle Bros.,Bernard L. Peterson, Profiles of African American Stage Performers and Theatre People, 1816-1960, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2001, p. 51. Pat Chappelle and his brothers, James E. Chappelle and Lewis W. Chappelle, rapidly organized a small vaudeville circuit, including theatre venues in Savannah, Georgia, as well as Jacksonville and Tampa. According to the later legal case between Pat Chappelle's widow and his brothers, James and Lewis claimed that the three brothers had established a co-partnership in 1900 to run both the traveling and theatre parts of the business; however, this was countered by the claim that the troupes taken out by Pat Chappelle were managed and conducted by him alone, and the court supported the latter view. Nevertheless, by 1902 it was said that the Chappelle Bros. circuit had full control of the African-American vaudeville business in that part of the country, "able to give from 12 to 14 weeks [of employment] to at least 75 performers and musicians" each season.
In Florida, theaters and opera houses that did not previously have segregation started to implement Jim Crow laws, after Booker T. Washington appeared on stage at a Florida theater before a crowd of different races sitting together. In order to increase attendance, and avoid some social problems of segregation by easily designating seating, Chappelle started using tents to perform in instead of local opera houses; this helped him increase his earnings to $1,000 a week that year. He stored his equipment in the winter at the Chappelle family property in LaVilla, Florida. In the periodical Crisis: A record of the darker Races a piece on "Along the Color Line Jim Crow" reported that Chappelle won a discrimination suit against the Louisville and Nashville Railroads. The Interstate Commerce Commission decided that, as the periodical put it, "Negro minstrels traveling in private cars are entitled to the same treatment as white occupants of such cars.""Along the Color Line Jim Crow." News/Opinion, Crisis: A Record of the Darker Races, p. 6. February 1, 1911. New York, New York.