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.” Financial scares back in the thirties had knocked back the smaller industrial efforts in the county, and the wide-open American West called to new settlers. In 1856, Venango livelihoods were for the most part found in the dirt, planting in it, digging coal or limestone out of it. In Franklin, the business of being a county seat kept lawyers and clerks busy, but this was still a small backwoods town where the city park was as likely to be used for pasture as anything else.             The visit of the Pittsburgh band was but a memory here. Throughout the nation, these were rather mixed times for bands; bands had strong footholds in many areas, but it would be years before the golden age of bands dawned. Pat Gilmore was now a director of the Salem Brass band, and his fame as a director was spreading. His inspiration M. Jullien had less to rejoice over; he lost his entire library when Covent Gardens burned.             In Franklin, the May 7 issue of the Spectator delivered this cryptic note: “We are pleased to learn that a project is under way to revive the Brass Band, in this place.” Were they attempting a generic revival of the institution, or was there some previous specific group to rebuild? As of the writing of this book, we don’t know.             We do know that this group was well under way by Christmas. The December 24 Spectator cheerfully reports: “Instruments have been procured, and the performers are now under the tuition of a competent teacher.” A teacher was half the battle, for formal music instruction was a relative rarity, and qualified instructors were hard to find.             Procuring instruments may have been likewise difficult. Bands were common enough to keep manufacturers afloat, but hardly wealthy, and certainly not prolific. What kind of instruments the band purchased is uncertain. This period was a time of radical change in instrument design; December of 1856 saw a watershed confrontation between generations no less poetically apt than that between John Henry and the steam-driven hammer...