That Talented Fellow from Pillow, PA

 

The client's props are all carefully arranged.
His violin hangs precariously by a peg
on a music stand with an open fiddle case
inviting us to leave a small gratuity.

On the other side a second instrument, a cornet, 
the premier solo instrument of the era,
is casually displayed in its case
along with some sheet music
as a testament to the musician's skill. 

Standing above these musical instruments is the player,
a young man with a thin whisp of a mustache,
who wears a bandsman's cap and holds an ink pen.
On a table next to him is an ink bottle
and a scattering of papers and journals.
Fastened to the shoulders of his suit coat
are military style epaulets that add
a curious mix of prestige and a little conceit
to such a youthful face. 

Who is this talented fellow?

I don't know.

But he looks like a musician
who wants us to listen to him play
something, or even everything. 

By far the most common photograph of a musician in the era of the cabinet card format, roughly 1870s to 1910s, was a cornet player as it was a very popular instrument. Violinist posed for photos, too, but in my experience there were not so many as cornetists. For a person to master both a string and a brass instrument was not that unusual in the late 19th century, but few musicians chose to have their portrait made with both. The way he holds his pen and a large paper sheet of printed music, suggests to me that he considered himself a composer too. 

It a shame that this photo came to me very faded, which I have corrected, but alas the photographer's camera did not pick up any detail of the sheet music in the picture. 

The photographer was Mr. J. S. Aunspach of Pillow, Pennsylvania. If he had only penciled in a number for the negative, we might be able to get a copy of this man's cabinet card portrait. Or an enlargement or a colorized version.

Pillow, which is north of Harrisburg and very near the great Susquehanna River, has the unusual distinction of always being a very small town, or borough as it is called in Pennsylvania. Since the 1870 census when its population was 299 and 2020 when it was 291, Pillow's population has averaged only 324 residents every decade for 150 years. 

According to the Pillow Historical Society, the town was originally founded in 1818 by John Snyder, a land developer from Mercer County, who called "Schneidershtettle". In 1865 after the Civil War it was incorporated as "Uniontown" but this conflicted with another larger Uniontown in Pennsylvania, so the post office or the residents took to calling it Pillow, supposedly after Major General Gideon Johnson Pillow, a U. S. Army general who distinguished himself in the Mexican-American War of 1846-48. However, this seems a strange choice as Gideon J. Pillow was born in Tennessee in 1806 and during the Civil War served as a brigadier general of the Confederate Army of Tennessee, playing for the losing side. 

The website for the American Battlefield Trust has a bio for Gideon J. Pillow (1806–1878) that begins with this extraordinary unflattering description of the man. 

According to Who Was Who in the Civil War, Gideon Johnson Pillow was “one of the most reprehensible men ever to wear the three stars and wreath of a Confederate general” (Sifakis 508).   It was reported that during the January 2, 1863 Battle of Stones River, Pillow hid behind a tree instead of leading his men into the fray.  His most famous action, however, is his roll (sic) in the loss of Fort Donelson.

In the Battle for Fort Donelson, a Confederate fort near the Tennessee–Kentucky border that protected the Cumberland River route, General Ulysses S. Grant led a Union army to capture this strategic fort. As the Confederate generals realized they were defeated and now faced imprisonment, they handed command to a junior officer so that they might escape before being captured. When Grant later learned that General Pillow, whom he knew, was one of these officers who fled, he was told by the junior officer who surrendered Fort Donelson that, "He thought you'd rather get hold of him than any other man in the Southern Confederacy," 

"Oh," replied Grant, "if I had got him, I'd let him go again. He will do us more good commanding you fellows."

Considering that the name "Uniontown" honored the victory and restoration of the United States, naming the borough "Pillow" after this man seems a very peculiar choice for people of Pennsylvania. Moreover, the townsfolk did not actually vote for Pillow to be the town's official name until 1965. 

I think someone either got very confused about General Gideon Pillow's background or was trying to make an inappropriate political statement.  Somehow the current residents of Pillow seem happy to let the name stand.

1882 Harrisburg, Pennsylvania city directory

In any case, the photographer, whose full name was Jonathon S. Aunspach believed he lived in Pillow, and so did the publisher of the 1882 Harrisburg city directory which included a list of all the businesses in Pillow. At the time it reported the town has a population of 300. Mr. Aunspach was the only photographer amid a good number of other tradesmen. He was born in Pennsylvania in 1835 and died in Pillow in 1908 at the age of 72. 

The young man's hat has a cap badge, but the three letters are not clear. The second and third letters are C and B, which very likely stand for Cornet Band. But the first letter is too wide to know for certain. Pillow, despite its small size, did have a band in the 1880s which is when I think this photo was taken. But a search for "cornet band" in the newspaper archives returned dozens of different cornet bands from around this region of Pennsylvania. So sadly this musician must stay anonymous, though I think it safe to say he was some cornet band's multi-talented leader.

If only we could read the cover page of the music he holds. There looks like a good clue in the title but I'm stumped to read the big printed gothic letters. Maybe Bnnrannon? What kind of word is that? 

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday

where no one ever has all their papers and photos in order.