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February 6, 2010

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE: The Continental Vocalists appear at Corinthian Hall

By Mike McCormick

TERRE HAUTE — In February 1855, 22-year old William Edward McLean was editor of the “Terre Haute Journal,” the city’s principal Democratic newspaper.

There was competition. “The Prairie City,” another pro-Democratic weekly, was being published even though editor James B. Edmunds resigned in early February.

Isaac N. Coltrin’s “Terre Haute Daily American” was discussed last week. John Babson Lane Soule was editor of the “Wabash Express” and Judge Jesse Conard was proprietor and editor of the “Wabash Courier.”

All five newspapers were reasonably attentive to the community’s artistic and entertainment needs.

On Feb. 9, 1855, editor McLean wrote:

“THE CONTINENTALS — This splendid group of musical ARTISTES have given two concerts in this city at Corinthian Hall on Wednesday and Thursday evenings (Feb. 7 and 8).

“They are confessedly the best troop (sic) of singers that have ever visited this place. Their selections are of the highest order of merit, their harmony and execution perfect.”

Such high praise was not based on naivete. The Continental Vocalists were the most popular singing group in America during the decade, succeeding the Hutchinson Family Singers, the most celebrated group of the 1840s.

The four men who visited Corinthian Hall at the northeast corner of Third and Wabash in February 1855 were the original quartet. Each had music training, played a instrument and sang.

All were natives of Connecticut: J. Wesley Smith of South Glastonbury; Charles Wesley Huntington of New London; William Dwight Franklin of Norwich; and William R. Frisbie of Branford. John A. Sterry of Norwich was the manager and conductor.

Smith, who performed along the eastern seaboard as a member of “The Smith Family” as early as 1840, is credited with having suggested forming a touring “continental band,” dressed as patriots and performing national music. He played the flute.

Organist Huntington, who later became a distinguished professor of music at Connecticut Normal School and Hartford Female Academy, is ascribed by some as the founder. He left the group in 1856.

Franklin studied at Boston Teachers Institute and taught guitar, violin, violoncello and voice for eight years before co-founding the Continentals in late 1852.

At some point, composer Franklin assumed the role as the group’s leader. Frisbie and Franklin played string instruments including the cello and violin.

The Continental Vocalists embarked on its first American tour Sept. 1, 1853. It is unclear whether it stopped at Terre Haute during its inaugural venture. The Terre Haute & Richmond Railroad was operating.

The second tour apparently began Sept. 4, 1854.

The quartet dressed in Continental uniforms and introduced songs that “awakened the memory” of the public, including national choruses, humorous ballads and patriotic songs, including “E Pluribus Unum,” by Terre Haute poet George W. Cutter.

The group also subtly advocated temperance.

The “Ballad of Johnny Sands,” a favorite of the Hutchinson Family, was adopted by the Continentals. The folk tale upon which the song was based goes like this:

After a quarrel with his wife, Johnny Sands wishes he was dead. She agrees. They go to a river where he asked her to tie his hands together and push him in. When she rushes him to push, he steps aside and in the river she goes. She begs for his help but he simply replies, “I can’t; you’ve tied my hands.”

Significantly, Terre Haute audiences witnessed the last tour of Frisbie, considered America’s most talented bass singer. A few weeks after leaving Terre Haute, he became ill but continued to travel and perform. On May 29, 1855. he was hospitalized in Jamestown, Va., with “bleeding lungs.”

Frisbie died in Branford July 9, 1855. Truman Watson of North Leverett, Mass. was hired as his replacement. In late July, Watson wrote to his family:

“I am now with the ‘Continental Vocalists.’ The circumstances are these — they lost their bass singer who was called the best in the United States and they tried over one hundred basses and could not be suited — they heard of me and send for me and they say they do not know of a bass singer that they can get that takes his place as good as I can.

“Well, if I do say it, my voice is the best for a male quartette that I have ever heard excepting ‘Hectors’ — had he been living they would have tride (sic) him. The Continentals have now the preference to any concert singers going – the Hutchinsons and Bakers not excepted. They show me their books of account kept for the last ten months and found that they had taken $14,000 within that time …”

With a few personnel changes, the Continental Vocalists continued to tour the northern states through the Civil War into 1867.

• • •

The light draught steamer Ben Coursin, purchased by Terre Haute grain merchant Horace B. Smith of H.B Smith & Co. in 1854, arrived at the Ohio Street wharf on Feb. 14, 1855.

Built in McKeesport, Pa., in 1851 and named for a noted McKeesport boat builder, the Ben Coursin was involved in two accidents on the Ohio River in 1853 and 1854 before Smith acquired it. When it was rebuilt at Cincinnati in late 1854, its size was increased from 149 to 161 tons.

Smith planned to run a tri-weekly packet between Terre Haute and Lafayette.

The Ben Coursin met a horrible fate two years later. At 2 a.m., Oct. 3, 1857 — several months after Smith sold it — the sternwheeler collided with the packet Key City commanded by Capt. James Worden near the confluence of the Black and Mississippi rivers. Between seven and 10 passengers were killed.

According to initial reports, Key City continued on her way up the Mississippi. Northern Light, a new 414-ton sternwheeler built in Madison, Ind. and commanded by Capt. Preston Lodwick, came upon the wreckage of the Ben Coursin two hours later and saved several passengers and crew members.

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