Washington Evening Star March 26, 1859

Comment by Leonidas (Lee) Jones on September 8, 2014 at 10:43pm

Sweeney was all of 50 when he died a little over a year later, but I guess "old" is a relative term. Life expectancies were much shorter then, but I don't think 50 would have been truly old even then.

Comment by D. Wooldridge on September 10, 2014 at 1:04pm

Here's what the famous literary Virginian George Bagby had to say about seeing Joel Sweeney perform in Farmville, Virginia in the Summer of 1859:

“We find that the old fellow has let down; but he is welcome to our small change for the sake of what he used to be when he was young and in his prime.”  from "Bagby, Dr. George W. “Selections from the Miscellaneous Writings of Dr. George W. Bagby, Vol. 1.” Whittet and Shepperson. 1884 p. 259.

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