Folk healer, widely known in the 1880's and 1890's as a voodoo doctor. He sold "amulets and charms with which to keep off the devil" and "herbs of mystic quality." He also cast spells. He wore red plush trousers and a fur vest with medals on it that he called talismans.

Dawson was a sort of ultimate outsider. At different times, he was jailed for: stealing hogs (1876), selling liquor without a license (1881 and 1882) burglarizing a gun shop (1882), illegal gambling (1883), and stealing chickens (1883 and 1906). He was also indicted and tried for performing an illegal abortion. In the abortion case, he was acquitted, even though a conviction had been widely expected. He seems to have gotten off mainly because he had a lot of friends who were willing to testify that he'd been in Xenia, Ohio, the whole time.

During the 1880's, Dawson "devoted himself generally to a double-headed-chicken-five-legged-calf show, with which he travelled the country in county-fair times relieving the monotony occasionally with a game of cards." In 1888, the Cincinnati Commercial Gazette described him as "very ignorant," while admitting that he was "possessed of a certain rude cunning."

As a voodoo doctor, King Prince Dawson had a large and varied clientele. in 1899, a reporter asked a friend of Dawson's whether all his clients were African American. The woman said no, that "heaps of" his clients were white, and that he derived more income from his white clients than from the Black ones.

– bio by Chris Hanlin