The Cadet Band of Augusta, Maine

 

It's always the drum head.
 

Whenever I first look at a vintage photo of a band
I always check the bass drum
for a place and name of the musical group.
It was such a common advertisement for a band
that it's unusual when it is missing,
which would have been the case
with this particular photograph
except that someone helpfully wrote
the band's name in big block letters
onto the otherwise blank space of the drum head.
Augusta Cadet Band

 

 

There are 15 towns or cities named Augusta scattered around the United States, so a proper identification might have taken longer to discover except that when I purchased this photo it came with a few other photos from a family estate in Augusta, Maine. With this information it was easy to find the band in the Augusta and Kennebec County directories. The director and manager of the Augusta Cadet Band was Frank A. Dennis. He is the man holding a cornet who stands behind the drum.

 

1905 Kennebec County, Maine
Resident and Business Directory

Frank A. Dennis ran an business advertisement for his music store at 233 Water Street in Augusta where he bought, sold, exchanged and rented musical instruments. Besides the Cadet Band, he also directed the Dennis' Orchestra. Both had twenty-five men, which is the count we see in the full photograph.

 

 

 

It's a large 9½ x 7 inch photograph, unmounted on thin photo paper, and marked on the lower left with just the photographer's name, Mansur. Posed on a small indoor stage, the 25 bandsmen are all dressed in modest military cadet uniforms and hats, though two have fancier embroidered tunics. Two men have hat badges that read Augusta, but most are simple music lyres. However Mr. Dennis' hat badge is an eagle with an gold leaf trim, a suitable insignia for a band leader. Other than the name written in ink on the drum, there are no other marks, except for a little eye shadow and lip gloss applied to one clarinetist's face. To judge from their uniforms the photo might have been taken any time from 1900 to 1930, or even 1950.   

 

If only there was a good clue to date the photo.

 

 Surprisingly it is right there
in the good old star and stripes.

 

46 star flag of the United States of America
4 July 1908 – 3 July 1912
Source: Wikimedia

Hanging on the wall behind the Augusta Cadet Band is a large American flag. Though not all of it is visible, there are enough stars showing to see that it is not the pattern of our present day 50 star flag, or the preceding 49 and 48 star flags. It's the 46 star banner issued on 4 July 1908 after the admittance of the state of Oklahoma. It lasted just four years until July 1912 when New Mexico and Arizona joined the union. That puts the photo of the Augusta Cadet Band in a relatively small window of time between 1908 and 1912. My suspicion is that the band was preparing for a concert on Memorial Day, Flag Day (June 14), or the 4th of July.

 

Augusta is the state capital of Maine, situated on the Kennebec River about 109 miles inland from the Atlantic coast. In 1910 its population was 13,211 citizens, which is pretty small for a capital city. Over the past century that number has changed very little, as Augusta's 2020 census count is now just 18,899. In comparison, Portland, the largest city in Maine, had 58,571 people in 1910. We saw a few of them in my story about a 1870's photo of another Maine band, Before the Parade.          

 

Like the Portland brass band in that cabinet photo,  of the Augusta Cadet Band was a band of professional musicians engaged to provide concerts for all kinds of events like parades, political rallies, fraternal society conventions, and county fairs. For indoor events like balls and graduations, Mr. Dennis could produce an orchestra, hiring string players to augment his best wind soloists. But the Cadet Band was likely the best known group in a capital city like Augusta.

 

Source: Smithsonian Online Virtual Archives
Hazen Collection of Band Photographs and Ephemera
Augusta Cadet Band, Maine

The Smithsonian archives has two photos of the Augusta Cadet Band, found in the Hazen Collection of Band Photographs and Ephemera. Both are taken outdoors at some park and both are undated. The first has 25 musicians and a bass drum with lettering very like the handwritten name on my photo, which suggests they were both taken about the same time. Perhaps the drum was a new acquisition for the band and had not yet been painted. Several faces find a match between the photos. Mr. Dennis stands at the back, left center, behind two trombones. His distinctive eagle hat badge is clear. In the background are several men wearing fez caps eating at tall plank tables, so I think this is an oyster roast for a Masonic lodge. 

 

 

The second photo of the Cadent Band is at a similar, if not the same, park location but there are only 20 bandsmen. This time the bass drum has different lettering. Perhaps the drummer struck a bit too hard and busted the drum head, requiring a replacement. That would be another reason for the blank drum head in my photo. Again there are several musicians who appear in all three photos. The horn player with the handlebar mustache is one, as is the tenor saxophonist. Here the band's leader, Frank A. Dennis, is standing to the right of the bass drum and clearly is the tallest man in the group.

 

 

Source: Smithsonian Online Virtual Archives
Hazen Collection of Band Photographs and Ephemera
Augusta Cadet Band, Maine

From the 1870s to the 1920s, the cornet was the premier solo instrument in America. Many talented cornet players like Frank Dennis built successful careers by performing and teaching their instrument. Born in 1868, the second youngest of a farming family of seven children, Frank Arthur Dennis was only 20 years old when his name was listed in the 1888 Augusta city directory as leading three different ensembles: the August Concert Band, the Dennis Orchestra, and the St. Joseph's Brass Band. Forty years later he was still listed as leading his orchestra and the band. 

 

It was not uncommon for a band leader/cornetist to set up a music store. A music shop on a city's main street that offered music lessons, sheet music, and musical instruments provided a cultural hub for meeting fellow musicians and clients looking to book a band or a music teacher. In many ways, Frank Dennis' life follows Ralph L. Reinewald, a cornet player in nearby Portsmouth, New Hampshire, whose story I wrote about in The Leader of the Dover Cornet Band. 

 

That 2014 story was also based on a small collection of antique photos I found listed from an estate. For the Augusta Cadet Band, I acquired several photos that I believe came from one of Frank A. Dennis' descendants. It included this handsome photograph of a young trombonist. 

 

 

It's a very nice 3/4 portrait in an oval mount cabinet card. The camera lens caught the fine detail of the trombonist's fancy embroidered tunic, the engraved pattern on his trombone, and even the music notation on the music stand beside him. His name is written on the back:

 

 Chas. Pike
played in
father's band
and orchestra.

 

 

Charles Albert Pike was born in 1886, and his portrait has the look of a graduation picture. The photographer, E. E. Bond, operated a studio in Augusta only from 1901 to 1904, so judging from Charles' fresh mustache I think the photo was taken in about 1903-04 when he was about age 18-20. The studio at 239 Waters St. was in the same block, if not the same building, as Mr. Dennis' music shop at No. 233. Curiously Bond's studio was taken over in 1905 by Clarence B. Pike, so there may be a family connection. Charles Pike  appears in all three photos of the Augusta Cadet Band and may have been the principal player. According to his draft card and the U.S. consulate registration papers  papers, Charles chose dentistry as a career and for a time lived in Winnipeg, Canada with his wife Sarah Ingalls Pike. 

 

 

 

The Augusta band could boast of a formidable low brass section with four trombones, two helicons, and a tuba. It also had three French horns which were not common in small town bands, and usually found only in larger so-called "military" or "marine" bands. Military bands typically included a bassoon which the Augusta does not have, but its tenor saxophonist was a good substitute for that musical color.

 

Sharp-eyed readers may have spotted an unusual brass instrument next to the drum. It's a double-bell euphonium, similar to the instrument I featured my story of The Citizen's Band of South New Berlin, New York back in May 2021. In the 1900-1920 era, the double-bell euphonium was not uncommon to find in large bands like the Augusta band or even small brass bands like in South New Berlin. Its musical function was as a novelty solo instrument where the valve configuration allowed the player to instantly change the sound from the larger baritone bell to the smaller treble bell. But the euphonium in Augusta has a contrary twist to its plumbing design which positions the little bell on the player's left side, the mirror opposite of the euphonium in South New Berlin.

 

 

The Augusta euphonium appears in the first photo from the Smithsonian's Hazen collection but not in the second which adds another clue that suggests my photo was contemporary to the time of that first park photo. Taken all together, the musical life of Frank Dennis and his Augusta Cadet Band was not much different from other American bands of this era. Except for one thing.

 

There was one instrument that set the Augusta Cadet Band apart, not only from other town bands, but from every professional and amateur musical group too. It was a musical oddity that I have never seen in any photo of an American wind ensemble. It was so unusual that Frank Dennis took a photo of it all by itself.

 

 It is called an Ophicleide.

 

The ophicleide is a keyed brass instrument invented in 1817 by a French instrument maker, Jean Hilaire Asté, (also known as Halary or Haleri) with a patent date of 1821. Its sound is produced just like other brass instruments by the player vibrating their lips into a cupped mouthpiece. But instead of an assembly of tubing linked by valves, the ophicleide is a fully conical instrument, not unlike a folded-up alphorn, with 9 or sometimes 11 holes covered by keyed pads that open to change its pitch. The name ophicliede comes from the Greek words for keyed serpent. Though it superficially resembles a saxophone, the key mechanism of an ophicleide does not follow the principles of woodwind instruments and has an entirely different fingering system.

 

 

On the back of the small photo, written in ink, is a note. "Backroom (looking out on Kennebec River) as Dennis' Music Store - 233 Water St., Augusta, used for Augusta Cadet Band rehearsals."  The note is a bit confusing since the river is not pictured, but the connection to Mr. Dennis and the Augusta Cadet Band it clear. But why would Frank Dennis have such a thing in his band?

 

The 1817 ophicleide of Jean Hilaire Asté, predates the first piston valve tuba, which received a Prussian patent in 1835. The Belgian instrument maker, Adolphe Sax (1814 – 1894) did not get a  patent on his piston valve saxhorns until 1845, and his saxophones a year later in 1846. In the 1820s the ophicleide added a new baritone or bass voice to a band, at time when only the bassoon could play notes in the lower register. Though the ophicleide was designed as a complete instrument family of different sizes from soprano to contrabass, it was the bass model, like this instrument in the Augusta band, that found favor with opera composers like Berlioz, Mendelssohn, Meyerbeer, Verdi, and even Wagner, who scored their instrumentation to include a part for ophicleide. However as tubas, tenorhorns, and euphoniums soon proved to be more versatile, and easier to play well, they became the dominant low brass instruments and by the 1890s the ophicleide was rarely found outside of France, Belgium and England and then only occasionally in opera orchestras and church bands. To see a British example of an ophicleide from the 1870s, check out my story from May 2019, The Happy Couple.

 

Certainly in America the ophicleide never took hold in brass bands or orchestra, so that's what makes this photo so special. The ophicleide's tone color is similar to the French horn which is why this bandsman stands on that side of the band. But how did he find one and learn to play it?

 

  

A few French music instrument companies continued to manufacture the ophicleide in the 1900s, though it seemed to be marketed for church choirboys. I would expect Frank Dennis had a number of their catalogs in his music store, as French-made piston valve cornets, tubas, and assorted other brass were still popular in American bands. Dennis also seemed to have a connection to England too, as there was a cabinet photo of a British army bandsman which came with the Augusta Cadet Band photos. And of course, Quebec, Canada is not too far from Maine. So it is not impossible that Dennis ordered an ophicleide for a French-Canadian or English musician who lived in Augusta. Or maybe he just liked the sound of it from hearing it in a British military band. 

 

 

 

 

Frank Arthur Dennis died in 1930, aged 62, as did his wife Minnie M. (Dyer) Dennis a few months before, also at the same age. They had two children, Ruby and Raymond. Their son, Raymond Dennis, died in 1928 and is buried next to his parents at the Mount Pleasant cemetery in Augusta. The reference to "Father's band and orchestra" on Charles Pike's photo leads me to believe the annotations were made by Frank's daughter, Ruby M. Dennis Marquardt, with whom Frank was living at the time of his death in the 1930 census. But as usual there are gaps in my research that prevent me from being certain I have all the family history correct. 

 

 

 

 

 

The sound of an ophicleide is surprisingly more mellow than its size and shape would suggest. I think the tone color is less brassy and more woodwind-like emphasizing a bit more treble than bass. Here is a splendid demonstration of an ophicleide quartet cleverly performed by Francesco Gibellini on an ophicleide in C.  Extra points if you can sing the words to the tune.     In the original French.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday
where time is not measured in calendars 
but in photographs.