A Remarkable Photograph

A Remarkable Photograph

2026 | Historic facts, Music

By Paul Hobe

Wouldn’t it be remarkable if there were a photograph of one of the first noteworthy performances of the Alliance City Band in existence? In essence there is. These seminal historical events are revealed in two newspaper reports and one telling photograph.

It is generally well-known in the Alliance community of the involvement of the J. Ridgeway Haines family, the Underground Railroad and the Civil War. Antislavery meetings were often held at the Haines farm. One such event was for young people on a warm August 13, 1859. These gatherings included nationally-known activists, entertainments and music. An article in the Antislavery Bugle states that “a tune from the band” followed a talk: “We know no law for Slavery” by J. J. Freeman.

Another meeting occurred in Alliance in August 1860. At that meeting the “friends of freedom” met at the town hall and then formed a procession “with the Alliance Brass Band in front followed by ladies and gentlemen, two-by-two and then buggies and carriages brought up the rear.” After parading around the principal streets of Alliance they ended up at the “Haynes” Grove. It is recorded that the band played as part of the program. However, we will just have to picture that event in our minds.

But a real photo does exist and it came as a surprise to me!

The story of Abraham Lincoln stopping for lunch at the Sourbeck House on his journey from Pittsburgh through Alliance to Cleveland and then to Washington D.C for his inauguration also is acclaimed in Alliance. Might the band have been part of the welcome for Lincoln at this event?

There is no press record of an Alliance band playing at the event. However, support for the Alliance Band playing at the Lincoln visit comes from an article: “An Old Photograph” published in The Alliance Review in 1919. That article states: “S. W. Seacrist is exhibiting a photograph in the latter part of February 1861, showing the Alliance Cornet Band as it appeared upon the occasion of Abraham Lincoln passing through Alliance enroute to Washington to be inaugurated president of the United States.” It mentions that “the picture shows the band men standing in one of T. F. Stanley’s livery wagons.”

It turned out that I had a modern glossy black and white print of that photograph in some items I had been given years earlier.

That short article also lists three men who were in the picture and still living then (1919). They are “Tump” Haines of Detroit, David Johnson of Mount Union, and Mr. Seacrist of Alliance. The only person I can identify in that photo is Haines, third to the left of the bass drummer but in the back row. He stands just behind the bass horn player and has a mustache. Remember that face; you will see it in the next blog. The keen observer will notice that the bass drum has the words “Haines Cornet Band” painted on it. What do you suppose those bandsmen were thinking, having just seen or anticipating seeing Lincoln, when the shutter was clicked?

It All Started with a Flutophone

It All Started with a Flutophone

2026 | Music

By Ralph Holibaugh

There was a time when a small pipe with holes became very important to me. It didn’t just drop down from the heavens into my lap, but it was presented to me as part of a system that combined science and art which I knew nothing about. Very slowly I learned, not on my own, but through a teacher who was a master of this system.

In 1948, when I began attending South Lincoln Elementary School, Mr. Nash, or more informally, Alexander or Al, was one of its teachers. He was an accomplished, practicing musician whose love of music led him to study music and education at Mount Union College. His education led him to adopt the Flutophone, a widely available, inexpensive plastic wind instrument, as a primary tool in his music instruction. For the first time, he brought the possibility of testing for music aptitude to all elementary schools.  

After these basic steps had been taken, each of his individual students, brimming with the enthusiasm that only new students seem to have, took the next step of playing together in their first ensemble of Flutophones. Mr. Nash did his best to patiently reign in those students who were looking around in any direction other than the “conductor,” making faces at one another, and those clueless deemed “tone deaf” by someone along the way. Somewhere in his studies he learned to patiently accept the general cacophony that often raged around him.   

With a graduation ensemble performance behind them, the proud graduates each had their names announced and received individual certificates indicating the achievement of their new status. Bravo!  Armed with training, practice, experience, and the confidence of learning how to ‘play together,’ the final step was to be taken.  

In consultation with Mr. Nash and their parents, a choice needed to be made of a musical instrument that was appropriate to their goals, including keyboard (in many cases untried), an instrument in the brass or woodwind families, or perhaps that most intimate of instruments, their voice. To have constantly pursued these steps in all his schools for so many years, with warmth, patience, and caring, Mr. Nash’s presence not only offered core music instruction to all students throughout the Alliance school system, but it was a significant element in the character and growth of the entire city.

 

A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words

A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words

2026 | Historic facts, Music

By Paul Hobe

Pictures, photographs actually, bridge the time between the instant the shutter was pressed until the moment it is noticed my someone at a later time. I was that someone. The five or six framed photographs of the Alliance City Band were displayed on the wall of the front room in the band’s rehearsal hall in the early 1960s. The band has a history the senior members of the group, some going back to the 1920s, related to me. It was the oldest continuous musical organization in the state of Ohio. The band had played when President-elect Abraham Lincoln stopped in Alliance on his way to his inauguration in Washington DC in February 1861. That was impressive to a young mind.

In 1988. the Alliance City Band performed at the Memorial Day/Decoration Day observances as it had traditionally done for eleven decades. Regrettably, that was the last performance of the Alliance City Band after a run of 129 years. In 1992. the organization officially ceased to exist and the assets were transferred to the Alliance Symphony Association.

I had thought that the story of the Alliance City Band should be told. Nineteen years had passed since the official demise; many of the older members had passed away and none of us were getting any younger. One of those who had left us was Al Nash. Several weeks later his daughter, Sue Grove, mentioned to me that they found several old framed photographs of the Alliance City Band in his effects. Knowing that I was interested in its history she asked what she should do with the pictures. I suggested she loan them to me and I would copy or record them for reference and then give them to the Alliance Historical Society.

The winter of 2010-2011 found me at Rodman Public Library searching through microfilm copies of The Alliance Review for any mention of the Alliance City Band. This and other sources resulted in A Band of Music, the Alliance City Band Story, 1859 – 1992. The title reflects the way bands were referred to in the era media. It can be found online at: http://www.ibew.org.uk. Copies can be found at Rodman Public Library and the Music Library at the University of Mount Union. It includes a list of directors, community involvement, financing, and stories about the band and some of its people. A feature of A Band of Music is a year-by-year description of significant band performances and activities from 1866 through 1992. It is illustrated with 20 pictures of the Alliance City Band. Please note that Figure 20 is mislabeled and should be the “cement slab” concert site. Readers may wish to refer to A Band of Music . . . along with this blog for additional information.

This blog will reflect the people, activities, financing, and demise of the Alliance City Band. This is an adjunct to the Alliance City Band Reenactment Concert compiled and directed by Joseph N. Rubin, scheduled for July 4, 2026, at Alliance’s Silver Park as part of the Alliance Historical Society celebration of the nation’s 250th anniversary. Serendipitously, it turns out that this concert is another anniversary as it is exactly one hundred years, to-the-week, of the Alliance City Band’s first concert at Silver Park in 1926.