LVII. THE OLD BRASS BAND.

 

The first musical band in Marshall county was what was called The Plymouth Sax Horn Band, which came into existence in the winter and spring of !853. The members at the time of organization as near as can be remembered were William H. Salisbury, leader, Daniel and Platt McDonald, David Vinnedge, Rufus Brown, A. C, Capron, Thomas K. Houghton, Rufus Mert Brown. There might have been two or three others in the original organization, but if there were their names cannot now be recalled; Later on from time to time new members were admitted until the band consisted of about sixteen pieces, among whom were Alex Thompson, John McDonald and Charles H. Reeve. Mr. Reeve was not a permanent member, but met with the boys frequently and was useful in writing music and in helping them to learn to play.

 

"Old Joe Pierson," as he was familiarly called, who resided some place in LaPorte county, was employed as teacher and bandmaster. He had put one eye, the other having, in some way, been put out. He came at stated intervals by stage from LaPorte to Plymouth, and generally remained two or three days. He was not a very brilliant or accomplished musician, but as a teacher, as the boys used to put it, "he was onto his job," In those days there was no printed band music as new, and the music for the different instruments was all written with a quill pen on blank music paper by "Old Joe.”! He first selected the melody and then composed the accompaniments and various parts to fit the several instruments. Among the. pieces remembered are: "Wood-up Quickstep," "Old Dog Tray," "Lilly Dale," "Old Kentucky Home," "Ben Bolt," "Old Uncle Ned," "Old Folks at Home," "Number 14," and many more that were popular in those days. There was no foolishness about "Old Joe." When the time came for practice every member was supposed to be on hand ready to do his part. If he found a member particularly weak he would give him special attention until he was able to master the difficulties. Then all the instruments would be started, and such music as was made in the beginning was not such as is said to have "charms to soothe the savage beast; to rend the rock, or split the knotted oak." But it was not long before the members became quite proficient and were able to follow the score fairly well. The leader of the band was William H. Salisbury, who was an accomplished cornetist, who had learned the mysteries of that instrument at LaPorte

 

311                                          HISTORY OF MARSHALL COUNTY.

 

before coming here. He was employed as bookkeeper for the firm of Pomeroy, Houghton & Barber, the principal business firm in Plymouth at that time. He was a most pleasant, genial gentleman, and has many delightful memories clustering around his life while a resident there.

The band began to play in the political campaign of 1854, but did not get down to real business until the memorable presidential campaigns of 1856 and 1860, and it played for most of the local entertainments and picnics, of which there were many in those days, nearly always without money, or anything else but thanks! During the wartime the band went to pieces, many of those belonging to it enlisting in some of the several companies recruited in Plymouth; the instruments which belonged to the individual members were sold or given away - at least none of them have ever been seen since. Since then many bands have been organized, flourished for a time, and gone to pieces as their predecessors have done. In 1900 Ben M. Seybold organized a band, which has developed into the best one Plymouth ever had.

 

Music is the grandest and most sublime of the seven liberal arts and sciences. It is the only thing earthly of which there is any account of in heaven. Shakespeare put it none too strongly when he said :

 

The man that hath no music in his soul,

And is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,

Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils –

The motions of his spirit are dull as night,

And his affections dark as Erebus –

Let no such man be trusted."

 

Again he makes a lover say to his sweetheart :

 

How sweet the moonlight Sleeps upon this Dank.

Here will we sit, and let

The sound of music creep into our ears.

Soft stillness and the night

Become the touches of sweet harmony."

 

Music is the only universal language in existence. The confounding of the languages at the tower of Babel did not destroy the language of music. It speaks the same language to every inhabitant of the earth that it did when the loud timbres sounded the grand chorus o'er Egypt's dark seas. The German who cannot understand a word of English will go into ecstasies over the playing of "The Blue Danube" or "The Watch on the Rhine," and the Frenchmen in a strange land will weep tears of joy on hearing "The Marseillaise Hymn," and our own American, when among peoples whose language he cannot understand, will shout for joy when he hears played  America," "The Star Spangled Banner," "Hail Columbia," or "Yankee Doodle," because they speak to him a language which he understands.

 

Life is motion, and motion, or vibration, is music. The whole world is full of music. The gentle zephyrs that stir the leaves of the trees; the tornado that fells the forests in its mad career; the roar of the ocean's waves as they dash against the rock-bound coast; the cannonading and rumble and crash of the thunder; the dashing of the raindrops on the roof ; the continual hum of the great cities; all these in one is the basis and foundation

 

312                                          HISTORY OF MARSHALL COUNTY.

 

of the music as we have it in its present form. The universe is a magnificent opera house in which the combined music of the earth and air is the grand anthem that is continually being heard by all the inhabitants of the world. The standard keynote, the "tonic" on which all instruments are keyed, is derived from the basic sound of all this music of nature and of the spheres.

 

Plymouth Silver Cornet Band.

 

This band was organized in 1868, under the control of the republican party, the motley for the purchase of the instruments being contributed by that party. It was; however, refunded by the members of the band about the end of the campaign of 1868. It was composed of twelve members originally, but soon fell to ten, which kept it going about ten years. Those who composed the band after the reorganization in the '7oS were: Charles Haslanger, Frank Smith, Charles Chapman, Edward Quivey, Wm. W. Davenport, Daniel B. Armstrong, James M, Confer, H. B. Miller, Thomas Noss, William Moore.

 

The present Plymouth band was organized out of the remnants of a former band, which had been organized out of still another band. Under - the leadership of Ben M. Seybold it is considered one of the best band organizations in northern Indiana.

 

In an interview not long ago with the only survivor of the original members of the old band he said: "In my time I have heard many world famous bands, such as 'The Washington Marine Band,' 'Sousa's Great Chicago Band,' 'Pat Gilmore's Band,' 'The German Prussian Band,' 'The

French Band,' 'The Mexican Military Band' of seventy-five pieces. And yet," he said, "in the language of our own Hoosier poet, slightly changed to fit the occasion, 'I want to hear the old band play !'

 

“It's good to go back in memory to the days of yore,

Considerin' it's been fifty year an' more

Since then! Oh dear! I see a wonderful change;

And many things have happened that's new and strange;

Especially at evening when yer new band fellers meet,

In fancy uniforms and all and play cut on the street.

* * What's come of old Dave Vinnedge and the sax horn fellers – say

I want to hear the Old Band play.

 

“What's come of Alex Thompson, an’ Mert Brown, an' where's Bert Capron at 

And Platt and John McDonald, Charley Reeve, Gene Hutchinson an' that

Air Doe Brown who played the drum twict as big as Jim ;

An' William Henry Salisbury-say, what's become o' him

I make no doubt yer new band now’s a compenter band

An' plays their music more by note than what they play by hand,

An' stylisher and grander tunes; but somehow-any way ,-

I want to hear the Old Band play.

 

HISTORY OF MARSHALL COUNTY.                                     313

 

 “Such tunes as' John Brown's Body' and' Sweet Alice, don't you know,

And' The Camels is A -comin '; and' John Anderson,. My Joe, ,

And a dozen others of 'em-' Number Nine' and' Number 'Leven ,

Was favorites that fairly made a feller dream o' heaven.

And when the boys 'u'd Eerenade I've laid so still in bed

I've even heerd the locus-blossoms droppin' on the shed

When 'Lilly Dale,' or 'Hazel Dell' had sobbed and died away-

I want to hear the Old Band play.

 

 

"Your new band ma'by beats it, but the old band's what I said-

It allus 'peared to kind 0' chord with sumpin' in my head ;

An' whilse I'm no musicianer, when my blame eye is jes ,

Nigh drowned out, an' memory squares her jaws an' sort 0' says

 She won't an' never will forgit, I want to jes' turn in

An' take the light right out 0' here and git back West a'gin

And stay there, when I git there, where I never ha'f to say-

I want to hear the Old Band play."