George Washington Dixon - Later Career

Later Career

Beginning in 1842, Dixon took on a number of new occupations, including animal magnetist and spiritualist specializing in clairvoyance. A fad for public competitions and feats of endurance served as another vehicle for him to keep his name in the public eye; he became a "pedestrian", a long-distance sport walker. The participation of Dixon, a blackface singer and dancer, in these contests presaged the challenge dances of performers such as Master Juba and John Diamond in the next few years.

In February, he competed to win $4000 by walking 48 hours without stopping. When the prize failed to materialize, Dixon charged admission to watch him. Later that month, Dixon tried to break this record by walking 50 hours. His publicity was, as usual, bad. Brother Jonathan gave this advice: "walk in one direction all the time, from this part of the compass, till ocean fetches him up, and then see how far he can swim." He walked for 60 hours that summer in Richmond, then did 30 miles (48 km) in five hours and 35 minutes in Washington, D.C. Dixon tried many other feats of endurance. For example, in late August, he stood on a plank for three days and two nights with no sleep. In September, he paced for 76 hours on a 15-foot-long (five-meter) platform.

Meanwhile, he did not give up his singing career. In early 1843, Dixon (now called "Pedestrian and Melodist") appeared at least once more at the Bowery Theatre, and he played on bills with Richard Pelham and Billy Whitlock. On January 29, he performed at a benefit for Dan Emmett. These concerts would be his last.

Despite these excursions into athletics and entertainment, Dixon still considered himself an editor. He started a new paper called Dixon's Regulator by March, and he renewed his public crusade in New York. On February 22, 1846, he posted handbills around the city publicizing a meeting to protest further activities by Madame Restell. At the rally the next day, several hundred people listened to Dixon speak against the abortionist, calling for her neighbors to demand her eviction or else to take matters into their own hands. The crowd then walked to her residence three blocks away to shout threats but eventually dispersed. Restell responded with a letter to the New York Tribune and New York Herald alleging that Dixon was simply trying to extort money from her in return for an end to his agitation:

Again and again have I been applied to by his emissaries for money, and as often have they been refused; and, as a consequence, I have been vilified and abused without stint or measure, which, of course, I expected, and, of the two, would prefer to his praise.

During the Mexican-American War, Dixon added some timely political references to "Zip Coon" and briefly returned to the public eye. Another crusade seems to have drawn Dixon away from New York in 1847. He was probably one of the first Radical Republicans to entrench himself as a filibuster in the Yucatán in a bid to annex more territory for the United States.

Dixon retired to New Orleans, Louisiana, sometime before 1848. A city directory gives his address as "Literary Tent", and his obituary in the Baton Rouge Daily Gazette and Comet states that the Poydras Market "by night and day, was the home of this waif upon society . . . . The 'General' was not without friends who contributed an odd 'five' to him when too frail to move about." He came down with pulmonary tuberculosis sometime in mid-1860. On February 27, 1861, he checked into the New Orleans Charity Hospital, noting his occupation as "editor". Dixon died on March 2.