He began his career playing bit parts and doing impressions of star actors such as Edwin Forrest and of ethnic groups.

[citation needed] Chanfrau was born to French parents in New York City; he grew up near Essex Market.

One, related by T. Allston Brown, claims that in his youth Chanfrau frequented a small restaurant called the Broadway House on the corner of Grand Street, where he would order a daily plate of corned beef for six pence.

says that Chanfrau witnessed Mose Humphreys in a street brawl: At the crisis of their little difficulty, when victory appeared somewhat uncertain on whose gladiatorial arm to perch, a handsome bright-eyed lad of twelve ran quickly out of Alvord's hat store, in which he had acted as clerk, and nimbly mounting an awning-post, shouted down to one of the combatants, who had just then pressed his antagonist backward over the tongue of 40's engine, and was pounding him very industriously, "Give it to him, Hen; Julia is looking at you from the window!

The play is a collection of jokes, short skits, songs, and other scenes centered on a country bumpkin from Connecticut who is guided through New York by Chanfrau's fireboy character.

Brown relates that "Mitchell used to tell how he went on the stage that night just before the curtain was rung up, and seeing Chanfrau at the back, dressed for his part, was on the point of ordering him off, supposing he was one of the 'Centre Market loafers.

He stood there in his red shirt, with his fire coat thrown over his arm, the stovepipe hat — better known as a "plug" — drawn down over one eye, his trousers tucked into his boots, a stump of a cigar pointing up from his lips to his eye, the soap locks plastered flat on his temples, and his jaw protruded into a half-beastly, half-human expression of contemptuous ferocity.

[2]The play was an immense hit, and Baker, Chanfrau, and Mitchell changed the name to New York as It Is and rewrote it to focus on Mose.

[5] The New York Herald reported that a performance on 26 April 1848 was so packed that the crowd rushed the stage, howling and laughing.

The police and theatre staff had to remove the excess theatregoers, some of whom had to literally walk over members of the pit to get back to their seats.

In 1850 the illustrator, Thomas Butler Gunn, drew and designed a graphic novel call Mose Among the Britishers or The B'hoy in London featuring the popular character.

Chanfrau eventually had a minor hit as the title character of Kit, the Arkansas Traveller, which he played 360 times.

Careful of money, yet generous, exacting yet just, hating all sham, yet sympathizing with misfortune, and imbued with great pride in his profession, he was the best friend of the rank and file on the stage.