It’s Wayback Wednesday, sponsored by Pharmasave Huntsville!
C.O. Shaw (right), owner of the Anglo Canadian Leather Company, had recruited men from the village of Meana DeSusa in Italy to work for him. One of the immigrants, Vincenzo Grosso, a cornet player, taught some of his coworkers some music and formed a makeshift band. Shaw was impressed by their talent and offered to supply music and instruments to the men to give them a “useful” pastime while off-duty. The band grew in size and Shaw, a cornet player himself, eventually invited Herbert L. Clarke (left), who was considered the greatest cornet soloist in North America and at that time was the assistant director with John Philip Sousa’s band, to Huntsville to hear the Anglo Canadian Leather Company band. Clarke signed a contract to become leader of the band in 1918. The band had mandatory rehearsals twice a week—a doctor’s certificate was the only acceptable excuse for absence—and under Clarke’s direction became famous across North America. Clarke continued as the band’s leader until 1923, and it was disbanded in September 1926. (Photo courtesy of Muskoka Digital Archives. Details from Huntsville: With Spirit and Resolve, by Susan Pryke.)
Herbert L. Clarke (left), leader of the Anglo-Canadian Leather Company Band with the company’s owner, C.O. Shaw (Image from Huntsville: With Spirit and Resolve, courtesy of the Muskoka Heritage Place Collection)
Here are two photos of the band:
The Anglo Canadian Leather Company Band sometime in the 1910s
The Anglo-Canadian Leather Company Band. CO Shaw is in the front row, eighth from the left.
Last week we shared this photo with you:
At one time, steamships ruled the waterways in Huntsville. This is the Empress (a.k.a. Empress Victoria) in dry dock at the Brunel Locks, ca. 1900. Captain George Marsh placed her on the Huntsville-area lakes in 1894. She had been built on the hull of another ship, the Excelsior, which had burned in the Great Fire of 1894. The Empress Victoria was dismantled in 1915. Marsh played a leading role in the development of steamboat navigation and the promotion of tourism in Huntsville and Lake of Bays. He was also the owner of a sawmill at the falls on the Oxtongue River and those falls have been named for him ever since (Marsh’s Falls). (Photo courtesy of the Muskoka Heritage Place collection. Details from Huntsville: With Spirit and Resolve, by Susan Pryke.)
If you want to see more Wayback Wednesday photos, click here.
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