Tom Turpin
Born: 18th November 1871, Savannah, Georgia, United States
Died: 13th August 1922, St. Louis, Missouri, United States
Nationality: American
Thomas Million John Turpin was an American composer of ragtime music.
Tom Turpin was born in Savannah, Georgia, a son of John L. Turpin and Lulu Waters Turpin. In his early twenties he opened a saloon in St. Louis, Missouri which became a meeting-place for local pianists and an incubation point for early folk ragtime, such as musician Joe Jordan. Turpin himself is credited with the first published rag by an African-American, his "Harlem Rag" of 1897 (it was composed by 1892, a year before ragtime's introduction to the world at the 1893 Worlds Fair).
Read more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Turpin