[citation needed] Over three days in late July 1829, Dixon performed "Coal Black Rose" in blackface at the Bowery, Chatham Garden, and Park theatres in New York City.

On September 24 at the Bowery, Dixon performed Love in a Cloud, a dramatic interpretation of the events described in "Coal Black Rose" and possibly the first blackface farce.

Dixon mostly played to a working-class audience, including in his repertoire such songs as "The New York Fireman", which compared firefighters to the American Founding Fathers.

Oratory made up another facet of his act; on December 4, 1832, the Baltimore Patriot reported that Dixon would read an address from the President at the Front Street Theatre.

Reviews said that "his voice seems formed of the music itself— 'it thrills, it animates' ..."[11] The Telegraph wrote, Few Melodists have gained more celebrity or been so universally admired, ...

The many effusions from the pen of this gentleman independent of his vocal powers, is sufficient proof of his being a man of considerable talent and originality—you should hear him sing his national air "on a wing that beamed in glory" [and it would be] unnecessary for us to enlarge on his merits as a vocalist—for his Melodies display a feeling of Patriotism which attracts the attention of every beholder.

[citation needed] Dixon's Daily Review also explored morality and women's place in the rapidly changing society of the urban North.

[citation needed] Dixon's criticism of his colleagues did not win him any friends, and in June, the Boston Post reported that he had "flogged one of the editors of the Lowell Castigator, and was hunting after the other.

His recent forays into publishing had soured his image in the popular press, however, and The New York Times satirized his lower-class audience: Tremont Teatre.

For example, he played alongside a classically trained pianist, and he billed the performance as a "concert", a word typically reserved for high-class, non-blackface entertainment.

The press took the opportunity to castigate him again: "George Washington Dixon, now cormorant of Boston jail, and ex-publisher, ex-editor, ex-broker, ex-melodist, &c., is quite out of tune.

[25] Dixon was still guilty in the eyes of the press, however, and his letters to clear his name only made things worse: Mister Zip Coon is at his old tricks again.

[28] Not ten days after the end of the Harrington case, Dixon was charged with forging a signature on a bail bond pertaining to his previous debt from July 1835.

The Boston Post wrote: "I begin to think that the Melodist bears a charmed life—and as was often said to be done in olden time, has made a bargain with the Being of Darkness for a certain term of years, during which he may defy the majesty of the law, and the wrath of his enemies.

[34] An early Polyanthos alleged that Thomas Hamblin, manager of the Bowery Theatre, was engaging in an affair with Miss Missouri, a teen-aged performer there.

Another article alleged that Francis L. Hawks, an Episcopalian rector and reverend at the St. Thomas Church of New York, had been engaging in illicit sexual behavior.

However, before he could even leave the jailhouse, he was arrested for a charge leveled by Rowland Minturn's brothers that Dixon's article had resulted in the man's death.

The prosecution argued that "The accused is a criminal of the blackest dye, and by his infamous publication is morally guilty of no less than three murders, and I hope the court will not diminish the amount of bail one iota!

The press renewed their attacks on him: To those who know the true character, and something of the personal history of this imbecile vagrant, the exuberance of indignation with which he is pursued, appears truly ridiculous.

The truth of him is, that he is a most unmitigated fool; and as to his pursuing any person with malice, he is not capable of any sentiment requiring the appreciation of real or fancied injury.

[43] He then targeted men who seduced young, working-class women, boarders who cheated their landlords, dysfunctional banks, and so-called British agents who were supposedly stirring up anti-American sentiment among American Indians and black slaves.

The protecting Providence that watches over the safety of the just, and defeats the machinations of the wicked, will make it bloom ... We prophesy that the latest descendant of the youngest newsboy will animate his hearers with the desire to emulate the enviable fame of DIXON!

He vowed to reprint an anti-Restell editorial every week until the authorities took notice or Restell stopped running newspaper ads for her abortion services.

Snelling wrote anonymously in the Flash: We know him for a greedy, sordid, unscrupulous knave, of old; ... We are aware that men are judged by the company they keep and that we shall be blamed for having had anything to do with Dixon.

Be it so.—We deserve rebuke, we have suffered for our folly and, if that is not enough, we are content to sit down in sackcloth and ashes; the meet attire of fools who trust to a person so vile that the English language cannot express his unmitigated baseness.

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.

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.

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.

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.

A city directory gives his address as "Literary Tent",[61] 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 ...