Making Much of Music

So long as a one-ring circus was a drawing card, L. B. Lent enjoyed a prestige and advantage. The New York Circus had a metropolitan reputation and, furthermore, the manager was enabled to control the services of sterling performers all the year around. Such artists as the Melvilles, Robert Stickney, William Dutton and others of the same ilk continued season after season and aided in sustaining the show’s great fame as a gilt-edged, kid-gloved affair. It is safe to say that every person who entered L. B. Lent’s arena wore silk next to the skin and could find their way off the lot at night by the light of their diamonds.

In the winter season, it was the New York Circus as a whole that drew, the complete excellence of the entertainment pulling the people. But two out of all the great individual features caused any appreciable effect on the receipts and these were admitted by Mr. Lent to be Carlotta de Berg (Mrs. James E. Cooke) and a big monk billed as the “bynocephalus.”

L. B. Lent, as a circus manager, in the language of the song, believed “it all depends upon the style in which it’s done.” On the road he drew the cream of the community and his outfit was always the pink of perfection. Added to a clean bill, every number was worthy of the reputation of the management. The music was a feature, although the noise was less than the bands of most rival tent exhibitions.

Late one season, when the show was almost home, it met with a railroad accident in which the capable manager, Harry Whitbeck, was killed and the band wagon, quite an elaborate affair, was destroyed. (41) Fisk and Gould were at the head of the Erie road. It might be well to reverse the order of the names, but the loud Colonel Jim was posing in the front rank and in such an important matter did his own squaring. Fielding was ordered to turn out a chariot to “beat the band” and produced a magnificent monster affair, by far excelling anything of the kind in the country, either for size or gorgeous display of carving and gilding.

The next spring the New York Circus took the road with a band that woke the echoes of newspaper and popular praise. The spielers not only made music that was music but they made money for L. B. Lent, who ingeniously, by poster, program and press, heralded the band! the band! the band!

The way the band drummed up recruits was a caution. And “everybody that was anybody” went to the show to get more of the band. As an advertising card, the big band was a large winner for several seasons. As the people used to say, “The band alone is worth the price.”

During the winter of 1877-78, Den Stone, George R. Bronson, and Frank Hyatt combined to enter circus management and called to their council Frances M. Kelsh. Dennison W. Stone had been in management for a good part of the time from 1842 and had enjoyed much popularity as a clown. George R. Bronson had piloted many shows on land and western waters and stood high as a router. Frank Hyatt, who had invested his entire pile (and the only one that did), has for many years been the superintendent of the Barnum & Bailey Shows under several regimes.

When the three managers and Kelsh put their heads together, they all seemed to be of one mind or were readily brought to be. Frank had a most eloquent gift of convincing gab and, having been educated in the school of Col. Rufus Welch and L. B. Lent, succeeding Whitbeck as manager of the New York Circus, all his prejudices and predictions were in favor of a straight, one-ring, legitimate circus. Den Stone, bred to one ring and the good old way, readily acquiesced in the suggestion that the head of so high order of affair should not play clown. Bronson and Hyatt fell in line and a first class, one-ring circus was determined on, with “no cats” (and this in 1878, after the people had been dosed with big Barnum shows and all the other managers were swelling to burst to increase their dimensions, both on the billboards and on the lot).

The head and front of D. W. Stone’s Grand Circus and Musical Brigade argued that a very large number of persons did not care for the newfangled several ring affairs and a very large number of persons said so who would only go to a show with a large street display after all. Some folks telephoned through their tiles then as now.

A most excellent [and] phenomenal company was engaged: Caroline Rolland, Mollie Brown, the Lawrence Sisters, Emma Stickney, Robert Stickney, Rudolph Mette, Charles Lowrie, “Lewis” the colored rider, William F. Burke,(42) William Conrad and his dogs, Frederick F. Levantine (F. F. Proctor), Shed LeClair, the Three Duval Brothers, James Campbell, Charles S. Burrows, Nicholas Lawrence, Adolph Livingston and Thomas Murray. Robert Stickney led the leaps and LeClair, Lowrie and Campbell appeared in the revival of “The Trampolins,” the show concluding with “A Horse to Let.” A feature of all announcements was, “Smoking in the tent not tolerated and most positively prohibited. A corps of uniformed ushers in attendance.”

Yours truly joined out to do the bill writing and act as press agent with the show. My complementaries were headed with the quotation from Hamlet, “Report me and my cause aright.” And the request was complied with. The newspapers praised the show without stint. But I will not anticipate.

With the success of Lent’s big band in mind, Kelsh was instrumental - that’s good! - in inciting the management to have a big band, also a fife and drum corps. But to save expenses and as a novelty the band should foot it and not ride in a golden chariot. Argumentative Kelsh figured that the fife and drum corps would wake them up to be entranced by the music of the band. To further entice music lovers, the advance man made a free distribution of sheet music, composed by the bandmaster.

The musical brigade of twenty-five pieces was led by J. A. Emidy, a most competent conductor, both as a manager of men and as a musician. And it is a fact worth mentioning that Mr. Emidy was a Negro, a fact which did not in any way interfere with his efficiency, either as a musician or director. His brother was also a member of the organization I believe. William Rolland was star B-flat cornet soloist and William E. Marsh, trombone soloist, performed on a solid silver instrument. The uniforms were as gorgeous as any I have seen.

Frank Kelsh, besides his ideas in regard to the show, had his views in regard to advertising. A 3-sheet in colors was prepared for each performer, who was also heralded by lithographic portrait in black. In consequence, the bills on the boards looked like those of a hall show and nothing circusy was to be seen in the windows.

The show opened at Mott Haven, then “next to nowhere” but now in the very heart of greater New York, and it was thought best to head the parade by a mounted man in uniform. I was offered the opportunity to display my horsemanship but declined; and Frank Whittaker, the sentorian announcer who had joined the forces, led the march.

He hadn’t moved a block before I heard a son of the sod remark:

“D’ye mond, they’ve only one boss.”

Until we left Boston we suffered many discomforts, having no sleeper and business at no point [being] remunerative. I was on my old New England stamping ground where I enjoyed a large newspaper acquaintance. The newspapers were kind but I felt that I was out of place and more needed in the advance. Those who did attend the show admitted that it was A-1 but they did not follow the big band in sufficient numbers, because the salary list was a large one.

In Boston the beaners found out what a good show we had when we jumped to Albany. But all the while the Boston press praised and they heeded not until it was too late and then they added their regrets to ours.

Again of the musical brigade, it was the most accommodating, best natured musical organization I ever met with and that is saying a good deal. No amount of work daunted either Emidy or his men. One night, at my request, they, after a performance, serenaded every newspaper office in Boston, playing several selections at each stop, Mr. Stone and myself climbing to the sanctums “to the music of the band.”

As soon as it could be managed, a reform in the billing was instituted. Large, regulation circus posters were interspersed with the individual 3-sheets. But no remedy was attempted in the way of window work.

The show made a bee line for Chicago and I recall the fact that I headed the procession in an open barouche “at the request of management.” Being reminded of the fact by a small boy’s request to be passed into the show on the lake front.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because the feller what driv your carriage run over me today.” And so he did. Of course the gamin went in free.

The Chicago newspapers were agreed as to the super-excellence of the circus. It was all circus and a good one but (and but again), but the paying people did not come, and the band stopped playing.

No vast amount of money was lent and it was just as well that more was not pooled in. The public was looking for quantity, and quality if they could get it; and if the quantity was there the great majority were not able to judge of the quality. Like the Irishman purchasing the boots, they were looking for the most for the money - size, not a fit.

At the collapse, when it would have been in keeping for conductor Emidy to have either directed a dirge on “Up in a Balloon, Boys,” the prophets all chorused, “I told you so.” And really, that was the prophecy of almost the entire managerial fraternity and their respective staffs. Indeed, I felt quite satisfied with myself when I put under the picture of the band on the program the quotation, also from Hamlet: “It will discourse most excellent music.” A cynical friend read it and remarked, “But it won’t draw the dollars.” And it didn’t to a sufficient extent to prove profitable or prevent the lithographer and printer from “paying the piper.”

D. W. Stone made much of the music, booming the big band; but L. B. Lent’s great success, with the prestige of the New York Circus to his credit and aid, was not to be repeated at so late a date as 1878. As a last resort, Mr. Stone donned the motley but the day of the clown as a drawing card had perished with the decline of Dan Rice and the disappearance from the arena of Wallet, Pentland, Nat Austin and Herbert Williams.

D. W. Stone, I believe, made the best attempt of any consequence to revive the glories of the one-ring, legitimate circus and [then] he himself resumed touring with the cat caravans. And my good friend Kelsh, Captain Francis, became united to the idols with the conglomerate shows of Batcheller & Doris and later guided the “Swift and Sure” of John B. Doris. As for the writer, he touched one wire to the home plate for fifty dollars and another to W. C. Coup, who was touring in Pennsylvania, where I immediately joined him.

I honestly believe that the splendid bands of Lent and Stone had an inspiring effect on other circus managers, even if the effect was not immediate. At any rate, year by year, circus bands, the main bands, grew better and better. Noise and small salaries gave way to merit and decent pay. And all the big shows took to having a pride in the music and the leaders were ambitious to please and excel.

Managers still make much of the music. And it is nothing unusual with a big show to see in line: big bands, little bands, fife and drum corps, martial bands, negro bands, cowboy bands, and even the ladies of the trumpet, not overlooking the jubilee shouters, the giant organ, the chime bells, or that ear-splitting, horse-scaring machine of torture, the calliope, sometimes described by the bill writer as the “steam piano.” Not only do managers make much of music but so do their patrons, who are not stingy with their applause of the men with brass in the face. The dressing rooms no longer furnish the whole of the show, because the band has become an important factor in filling the programs.

Footnotes

41. Lent’s circus accident occurred September 28, 1870, on the Erie Railroad. The train left Middletown, N.Y., at 5:00 a.m., en route to Patterson, N.J., with seven freight cars and two passenger cars in the rear; but stopped at Turner’s Station to check a heating “journal.” While there, it was rear-ended by the Atlantic and Great Western express, coming at top speed. Harry M. Whitbeck, manager of Lent’s New York Circus, had formerly been a successful businessman. He was about fifty when he died in the accident.
42. Day must be referring to William E. “Billie” Burke.


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William L. Slout and Circus Historical Society, Inc.