The Franklin Silver Cornet Band, formed in 1856, is one of the oldest volunteer
community band
A community band is a concert band or brass band ensemble composed of volunteer (non-paid) amateur musicians in a particular geographic area. It may be sponsored by the local (municipal) government or self-supporting. These groups rehearse reg ...
s in the United State
The band plays concerts throughout the summer months in
Franklin, Pennsylvania as well as an indoor concert in Franklin's Barrow-Civic Theatre the day after Thanksgiving.
The Franklin Silver Cornet Band is the only non-military band to appear at both the Centennial and Bicentennial celebrations in Philadelphia. The band has made a number of other out-of-town appearances over the years, including performances at the
Chautauqua Institution in
Chautauqua, New York,
Hersheypark, the
Smithsonian Institution in
Washington, DC, and the
Henry Ford Museumbr>
The band incorporated in the summer of 1873 with seventeen members, including a carriage maker, a dentist, a well worker, and several Civil War veterans. John E. Butler, one of the veterans, had traveled on an
orphan train to
Princeton, Indiana, where he was a drummer boy with the
17th Indiana Brigade.
[Greene,Musical Service, xLibris, 2006.]
The first known director of the band was William Bell, who had been a cornet player in his native England. Later directors of the band included Charles Brassington, who led the band from the 1880s until 1918, Charles Ackley, who had led the "house" band at
Cedar Point
Cedar Point is a amusement park located on a Lake Erie peninsula in Sandusky, Ohio, United States. Opened in 1870, it is considered the second-oldest operating amusement park in the U.S. behind Lake Compounce. Cedar Point is owned and op ...
amusement park, and Edwin W. Frye, who served the longest in that capacity, retiring from active bandmastering in 2000.
[
The band faced occasional difficulties. Hanna's Hall, where the band's rooms were located, burned down in 1886. The band itself briefly disbanded in 1919 but was aided in revival by the remnants of the Rocky Grove Band. In the 1950s, the band was sometimes no larger than a dozen men, and in the 1960s, it entered a joint venture with the American Legion Band of Oil City.
The book ''Musical Service: The Life and Times of the Franklin Silver Cornet Band'' retells the band's history.
]
References
External links
Franklin Silver Cornet Band official site
Musical groups established in 1856
Venango County, Pennsylvania
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