In the years before his death on 13 January 1862, Mike Mitchell had gained a degree of fame and popularity in California and the Pacific Northwest ‘as the best jig dancer ever on this coast.’
On Saturday, 11 January 1862, Mitchell returned to his Portland, Oregon, lodging house, apparently drunk. He got into an argument with some of his fellow lodgers and was thrown out of the house.
The following day, Mitchell, ‘stupefied with liquor,’ returned to the lodging house, but the other residents were fearful of a repeat of the previous day’s scene and denied him access to the house.
Just after dawn on Monday, Mike Mitchell was found lying in the yard of the lodging house, frozen and close to death. The jig dancer was carried inside the house, and a physician was summoned. The doctor gave Mitchell a ‘restorative’, but the elixir was administered to no avail, and Mitchell passed away a short time later.
The Weekly British Colonist, 4 February,1862
An inquest was held later the same day, and the verdict was ‘that the deceased came to his death by freezing, while under the influence of liquor.’ Portland’s Oregonian newspaper noted that: ‘Mitchell was a gentleman when sober, and possessed of many fine qualities, and was well liked by his comrades; but his love for strong drink overcame him, and like it does thousands of others, dragged him to an early grave.’
The Weekly British Colonist acclaimed Mitchell as ‘the best jig dancer in the world.’ Adding that, ‘his nimble feet earned him a large fortune; but he dissipated it as soon as made, and died a beggar and an outcast.’
A month before his premature death, Mitchell had been ordered by Victoria’s Supreme Court to pay John S. Potter, the manager of the Victoria Theatre, $47. On 7 September 1861, Mitchell had performed at the Victoria Theatre, as part of an evening’s entertainment that included Mysterious Murder, a three-part play, and ‘A laughable farce’ Turned Heads. Mitchell was scheduled to perform ’Two popular dances.’
Daily Evening Press, 6 September 1861
Although Mike Mitchell appeared to be well-liked by the newspapers and, as will be seen, by his contemporaries, this admiration was not universal (is it ever?). ‘Colored Man’, a correspondent in a letter to the editor of the Los Angeles Star, two months after Mitchell’s death,decried ‘the disgusting negro performances of such low scum as Mike Mitchell, Max Irwin and their like.’ In 1860, Mike Mitchell and Tim Darling’s Minstrels Troupe performed in California; it seems probable that it was the Minstrels, of which there were several troupes that toured the far west in this era, even visiting the Cariboo goldfields of British Columbia, which drew ‘Colored Man’s’ ire.
Mike Mitchell was buried at Portland’s Lone Fir Pioneer Cemetery on Tuesday, 14 January 1862, the day after he died. On Saturday, 26 April, The Weekly Oregonian informed its readership that ‘the friends of the late Mike Mitchell…have had made a beautiful tombstone to place at the head of his grave. Considerable taste and skill have been displayed in getting it up.’ For those interested, the tombstone could be viewed at Young’s Marble Yard, situated on Front Street in the city.
The Nevada Democrat (Nevada City, California) were not as enamoured of the tombstone as their Portland contemporaries, writing: ‘Mike Mitchell, the celebrated jig dancer, “shuffled off his mortal coil”…last winter, during a heavy spree. His friends erected a handsome marble slab over him; and after…came the following lines, which are undoubtedly the worst we ever saw, even of Oregon Manufacture:
Here lies one who has taken steps
That won the applause of man;
But grim death came and took a step
Which he could not withstand.
© Mark Young 2026
Sources
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/50808273/michael-mitchell
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-nevada-democrat-horrible/194974041/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-nevada-journal-minstrels/194974074/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-weekly-oregonian-worthy-act/194974000/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-weekly-british-colonist-frozen-to-de/194877139/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-oregonian-death-of-mike-mitchell/194973930/
Hellish Fiends, and Brutish Men 
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