The Band's Beginnings... 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.