Los Angeles Herald, Wednesday Morning, December 16, 1903, page 5.
Will Give Series of Entertainments to Raise Funds.
Drummer Boh of Shiloh, Who Passed Through Many Battles, Is Member of Corps.
With a view to establishing a fund to pay its expenses to the next national encampment of the G. A. R., which will be held in Boston, the veteran fife and drum corps of Los Angeles has conceived the idea of giving a number of popular entertainments. The idea, as far as it has crystallized, is a three-quarters of an hour musical and literary entertainment, to be followed by a dance, which will be kept up till midnight. An entertainment of this description was given at Blanchard’s hall last night, which proved an auspicious beginning to the series of monthly entertainments proposed to be given.
Most of the men of the Veteran Fife and Drum corps have been here for twenty years. Two of their number — J. A. Barrows and G. W. Wolfe—have been In Los Angeles much longer, the former having been for thirty-five years a resident of the city and the latter for thirty. Consequently very few of the fourteen members have had an opportunity of attending national encampments of the G. A. R. The corps attended the encampment at San Francisco this year. It was the only drum corps at the encampment, and, perhaps on this account, received a large share of the public honors. Everywhere it went during the encampment it was greeted with cheers.
To defray the expenses of the trip money was voted by the Bartlett, Logan, Stanton and Pasadena posts, but this was not needed as the city paid the corps’ expenses and the Southern Pacific furnished it with transportation.
The aggregate age of the corps is 875 years, which is an average age of over 62. In the natural course of events there will not be very many more encampments for these veterans, and, naturally, they are anxious to take in all they can. None of them would be able to afford the expense of the trip and the week’s stay at Boston next May, and if the funds cannot be raised in the way they propose they will have to stay at home.
The company was reorganized four weeks ago with the intention of keeping its fourteen members together as long as they are physically able. They elected a manager, secretary and treasurer, and all the money that is realized from their proposed entertainments will be put in a bank as a national encampment fund. The women of the relief corps have promised to do all they can towards making these entertainments a success by providing local talent and selling tickets.
The personnel of the Los Angeles Veteran Fife and Drum corps is: Fifers— John S. Vennum, leader and manager of the corps, company I. Twentieth Illinois Infantry; George W. Wolfe, fife instructor and second In command, company L. Fourteenth Illinois cavalry; J. W. Stansbury, company B, First New York artillery; J. A. Barrows, company E, Second Connecticut Infantry; I. Culbertson, company E, Sixty-eigth Ohio infantry; F. L. Fox, company G. Thirty-ninth Illinois infantry; P. F. Longwell, company D. 145th Ohio infantry. Drummers—Philo L. Case, drummer boy of Shiloh, company D, Second lowa Infantry; Robert Bayne, company B, Fifth lowa Infantry, who has a drum that was captured from Burgoyne’s Hessians in 1777 and which he carried through the civil war; L. A. Taylor, drum Instructor, company D, Sixty-fourth New York infantry, who also has a drum that he carried through the civil war: B. F. Hilliker, company A, Eighth Wisconsin Infantry; M. L. Spottswood, company B, 105th Pennsylvania Infantry and company D, 184th Ohio infantry; M. J. Mattern, company E, First Illinois artillery, the famous “Waterhouse” battery: S. H. Hazeldine, company F, Thirty-fourth lowa infantry; J. T. Orr, company I, 139th Pennsylvania Infantry.
