Franklin Silver Cornet Band

In 1856, Big Ben was cast and Sir Henry Bessemer introduced his converter. The Crimean War ended and H. L. Lippman patented a pencil with an attached eraser. Oscar Wilde, Sigmund Freud, George Bernard Shaw, H. Rider Haggard, and Woodrow Wilson were all born. John Philip Sousa was two.

In 1856, Franklin was still a small town in a small country (we were yet to add our twenty-third state); Venango County had not yet reached the 25,000 mark in population. The Venango County school superintendent received a hefty $500 salary, which the Venango Spectator called “liberal.”

In May of 1856, the Venango Spectator printed the following: "We are pleased to learn that a project is on foot to revive the Brass Band, in this place."

By Christmas, the group had procured instruments and a teacher had been secured, and by the folowing summer, the band was able to serenade the newspaper editor: "Excellent-- the music of the Brass Band, under our window, on Monday night. It was appreciated. By the way, the members of the band exhibit a degree of proficiency in playing, which for the time they have been taking lessons, is truly commendable.

The next ten years were difficult and irregular for the band. Both the war and the oil excitement kept life in Venango County pretty exciting. But within a decade, the band would become a more stable, legitimate organization.

Charter Signers of 1873

After the war a group of players gathered in Franklin who joined togfether to revitalize and stabilize the band. In 1873, they went to the courthouse, filed the paperwork, and officially incorporated the band. These men are the first band members we know by name.

Justus O. Rockwell was a war veteran, a 1st Lt. with the 97th New York Regiment who had been captured at Gettysburg. He moved the Franklin after the war and became a painter, but he was also a cornet player. When the Baptists first started meeting in 1866, Mrs. Rockwell played the organm while Justus and Henry McCaughtry played their cornets.

J. O. and Hen were joined by Alfred Black and Perry Black. The Blacks were from a musical family. Their brother Isa had been a Civil War piper. Alfred and Perry were both young cornet players. Alfred would eventually become a District Attorney in San Francisco, where he would live through the great earthquake.

John E. Butler had ridden to Indiana on one of the orphan trains. His foster father taught him to play the drums and he enlisted as a drummer boy with the Indiana 120th Volunteer Infantry. At age 20 he was already a war veteran, and back in his adopted state he would be remembered for years as the drummer boy of Princetone, Indiana.

Will Bryden was the son of James Bryden, who had been a riverboat pilot on the Allegheny and was also supposedly the cousin of Gladstone, PM of England. He was one of the first Baptist deacons in Franklin, but would eventually settle out in Nevada silver territory.

Jaspar B. Myers was a carriagemaker and, compared to most of his fellow players, an old married man. Dan Dedrick was also in his thirties, another Civil War drummer (for a Wisconsin regiment). Dan had come to the oil region to put down wells. It was rough work, but he was known as a gentle man.

Albert Kolb was a dentist, and would eventually become a member of just about every club in town.Charles E. Bishop was a painter, euphonium player, and passable vocalist.Harry Bell was a carpenter.

We know relatively little about Harry Hughes, J. G. Martin, Jim Crisp, Curt R. Campbell, and S. C. "Cal" Wood.

The last name on the signers' list is William Bell. Billy had worked the mines in Northumbeland County, England. A bookish man who read during his meal breaks, he played in a brass band there. When he came to join his Uncle in America, he was soon enlisted to help the band. He wrote home that he was now leading the town band and "they arn't very good."

1873 Articles of Association