A Band Wagon

On August 20, 1876, the Union Sunday School officers were planning the annual picnic as usual, and apparently had considered the usual destination, Robertsdale, but suddenly they changed their minds, and the venue of the picnic became our own Wood's Mill.


(Click on images to enlarge)
Images courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

Further down on the same page, we see a committee appointed to procure teams for the excursion — that is, horses to pull the wagons that the attendees would ride to Wood's Mill; we also see the Hobart Cornet Band being invited to go along and provide music.

The next Sunday (August 27), the officers make arrangements to raise money for a team of horses to pull the "band wagon" carrying the Hobart Cornet Band.



I take that to mean that the band played music all along the way from Hobart to Wood's Mill. That must have been pleasant for the others in the wagon train, and for the people they passed along the way, to whom mobile music was a rare treat — not an everyday convenience as it is to us. I expect the wagon train went from the Unitarian Church south down (to use the modern-day names) Lincoln Street, west on Tenth Street, south again on Grand Boulevard down to the Joliet road (73rd Avenue), thence east to Wood's Mill. All of those were dirt roads. I can only imagine the difficulty of trying to play a wind instrument as you jolt along a rutted country road. Those were some hardy musicians on the band wagon!

At least there were no railroad tracks to cross. The Grand Trunk Railroad came through in 1880, and as for the EJ&E, I'm not sure but I think it came through sometime later in the 1880s.