Cal Stewart

Cal Stewart (1856–1919) was born in Charlotte County, Virginia, and worked on the railroad in his early years before an accident cost him a finger and two toes and pushed him toward show business full time, working his way up through medicine shows, minstrel troupes, and vaudeville. He began recording for Berliner around 1897 and went on to record for nearly every phonograph company of the era — Edison, Columbia, Victor, and others — becoming, by some accounts, the best-selling comic recording artist of the pre-1920 era. Nearly all of his output was built around a single recurring character, Uncle Josh Weathersby, a garrulous rural New Englander from the fictional town of Punkin Centre, whose rambling monologues Stewart delivered in dialect with a distinctive laugh as his trademark opener. He died in 1919, having recorded Uncle Josh's adventures continuously for more than two decades.