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THE
BLACK SWAN
A T H O M E A N D A B R O A D;
OR,
A Biographical Sketch
OF
MISS ELIZABETH TAYLOR GREENFIELD,
THE AMERICAN VOCALIST.
———
PHILADELPHIA:
WM. S. YOUNG, PRINTER, REAR OF 50 NORTH SIXTH STREET.
1855.
Biographical Sketch
OF
MISS ELIZABETH TAYLOR GREENFIELD.
Providence, ever benignant and kind,
Gives with a smile what you take with a tear;
All will be right,
Look to the light.
Morning was ever the daughter of night;
All that was black will be all that is bright.
Cheerily, cheerily, then cheer up.”
Miss Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield, or the “Black Swan,” to adopt hermusical agnomen, was born at Natchez, Mississippi. She was born inbondage. Her father was a full African; white and Indian blood flowed inher mother’s veins.
When but one year old her mistress, Mrs. Elizabeth Greenfield, removedto Philadelphia, and joined the Society of Friends, manumitting the fewslaves whom she had not previously accompanied and comfortably settledin Liberia. Several of these would not be separated from their belovedand venerated mistress, and among them her especial favourite, thegifted subject of these pages.
In 1844 her mistress died, at the advanced age of nearly one hundredyears, and in her will Elizabeth was remembered by a substantial legacy,sufficient to make her comfor for life; but the will was contested,and yet remains the subject of judicial investigation.
Previous to the death of her mistress, Elizabeth had becomedistinguished in the limited circle in which she was known for herremarkable power of voice. Its tender and thrilling tones oftenlightened the weight of age in one who was to her beloved as a mother.How deeply she grieved that she could receive no culture from art.Neither the remarkable compass of her voice, nor the wonder of her highand low notes, nor the proffer of thirty dollars per quarter, when thestandard price was ten, could induce a Professor to include her amonghis pupils. The admission of a coloured pupil would have jeopardized hissuccess.
By indomi perseverance she surmounted difficulties almostinvincible. At first she taught herself crude accompaniments to hersongs, and intuitively perceiving the agreement or disagreement of them,improvvisared and repeate