Voices of Arrow Rock, Consummate Showman

May 4th – 10:00 am – Old Schoolhouse

When Kansas City artist Millard C. Haywood painted the portrait of William Henry Joseph Cutter “Doc” Brown in 1896 and Charles L. Johnson composed the Doc Brown ragtime in 1899, they captured the image and the essence of a consummate showman whose celebrity in the Victorian era was rooted in Saline County. As Haywood paints and Johnson composes, we learn that Doc Brown was born in 1835 enslaved to Meredith Miles Marmaduke, the 8th governor of Missouri, grew up on the Marmaduke plantation near Arrow Rock where he learned the art of cakewalking, a dance in which enslaved people mimicked their owner’s promenading at balls, and after emancipation moved to Kansas City, where he rose to prominence as an entertainer.