JOHNSON, WILLIAM FRANCIS

JOHNSON, WILLIAM FRANCIS (BILLY). See also COLE, ROBERT. Vaudeville entertainer (c1858 in Charleston, South Carolina; 12 September 1916 in Chicago, Illinois). He began his career in 1881 with J. W. Hyatt's Colored Minstrels . He wrote a song, The trumpet in the cornfield, for this show that attracted much attention. Thereafter he toured with various companies, including Lew Johnson's Black Baby Boy Minstrels (1884), Hicks-Sawyer Minstrels (1887), W. S. Cleveland's Minstrels...