Don't know Jack? You will very soon!

See that tall guy, all the way to the left, holding a Sousaphone? His name is John Welsh Richardson, although he went by "Jack," and it turns out I've been driving right by him for years now! That is, he is buried in Brownstown, PA, which I pass through on the latter part of my weekly commute from Harleysville to Manheim:

When it comes to the history of the Sousaphone, I seem to be geographically blessed! 

As I have shared earlier in this blog, the original Sousaphone, built by J. W. Pepper in Philadelphia, currently resides at the Pepper headquarters in Exton, which is also right along my weekly commute. The first Sousaphonist, Herman Conrad, spent the latter part of his illustrious music career based in Philadelphia, and then Camden - I pass right by his Ridley Park home every time I go to the airport. And his daughter and son are both buried in nearby Conshohocken (Conrad himself is buried in Detroit, MI, but that's another story).

Even the namesake of the Sousaphone, John Philip Sousa, spent his entire music career out my way: from 1880-1892, he led the United States Marine Band, based in Washington D. C., just a few hours south of me (I've done extensive research in their wonderful library); and from 1892 until his death in 1932, he led his famous civilian band, based in New York City, just a few hours northeast of me. Oh, and Sousa is buried in the Congressional Cemetery in D. C.

I'm not sure if I would have dove in so deeply to this hobby were it not for my geography! But back to Jack . . .

Richardson was the second Sousaphonist that Sousa featured in his touring concert band. Conrad held that conspicuous post from 1895-1903, and when he left the band, Richardson succeeded him as the centerpiece of Sousa's bass section. Here's the notice, from April 1904, in a local Lancaster County, PA, paper, that celebrated this towering tubist (he was six-and-a-half-feet tall!) reaching the top of his profession:

Once I finish my long-awaited article on Conrad, I hope to write a similarly definitive article on Richardson. Meanwhile, both men are briefly highlighted in my upcoming article, "Sousaphone Milestones in Sousa's Incredible Band," which will appear in the Fall 2023 issue of the ITEA Journal.

But my goodness - Richardson's history was (almost) all played out right here where I live and work! Knowing that, I visited the Ringgold Band room in Reading last Friday, in the hopes of seeing if they had a photo of Sousa's Band from 1904, which a contact at the Library of Congress told me they did. And if they had it,  was it possibly clear enough to get a good look at Richardson, at age 29, right after he was recruited by Sousa?

Well, I struck gold (okay, Ringgold)! Not only did I get a good shot of the whole bass section (seen at the top of this post), but check this out:

So, lots more digging to do, in order to tell his whole story (and again, Conrad comes first!), but this is a great start. I have never seen so clearly this image of Richardson in the very year he started playing with Sousa (and he went on to serve a combined 22 years in that famous band - the longest tenure of any tuba player).

Stay tuned for lots more on this once famous, but now largely forgotten, "Lancaster Countian"!

P. S. Here are a few photos of the Evangelical Cemetery of Brownstown (est. 1918), where Richardson is buried, along with the location of his gravestone:

Exactly why there is a huge Carpenter gravestone sitting almost on top of the Richardson stones is a question I am trying to get answered. The four Richardson stones, from right to left, are: John W. (my guy), Samuel W. (behind the Carpenter gravestone), F. Alma (also partially eclipsed), and then J. Thomas (far left; those two were married). Eight or so feet behind the Carpenter gravestone is the wedge-shaped Richardson stone, marking the family plot.

However, elsewhere in this cemetery, rather than as part of this plot, are those brother's parents, Adam F. and Mary J., as well as another brother, Adam B., and a sister, Susie W. Wolf. Yet one more brother, Aaron W., and sister, Amanda Hahn are not buried here.

Sousa Dies Suddenly in Reading, PA

Looking at the photo above - the last taken of Sousa before his death - one is tempted to wonder if the bandmaster knew what was coming, especially when you read below that he had "laughed and joked" for a good part of that evening, at the banquet in his honor, making wisecracks as he was being lauded! 

Having completed 40 years of touring with his incredible band, the evening of March 5, 1932, would be the last time this beloved bandmaster would lead a musical group. Here is the story, as it was told in local newspapers, of the days surrounding the sudden death of John Philip Sousa.

The Friday, March 4, 1932, edition of the Ephrata Review summarized what was going to be happening in Reading the next couple of days:

That previous Monday, the Reading Times said this:

Sousa arrived in Reading on Saturday, as planned, rehearsing the band, and then speaking briefly at the banquet, and then returned to his hotel. But the Sunday morning papers ran this shocking headline:

Here is the brief account of what happened, in the Morning Call of Allentown:

And here is the extensive article that was run in the Reading Times the following day (Monday, March 7):

That same edition also included this feature:

And further included these reports:

The following day, Tuesday, March 8, that same paper ran this:

As well as this:

Then, this came out on Wednesday, March 9:

And then this, on Thursday, March 10:

These two articles appeared on Friday, March 11:

Then this, on Saturday, March 12:

Then, two days later, on Monday, March 14:

And finally, this on Wednesday, March 16:

I thought about simply writing out the story, but decided it might be worth taking everything in exactly as those who were hit with this news in 1932.

Yesterday, August 18, 2023, I visited the Ringgold Band room to conduct some research related to tuba history, and among the many other wonderful things hanging on their walls, there is this historical marker:

Checking out a 1906 Higham helicon

I spent the afternoon today at the Ringgold Band room in Reading, PA, at the gracious invitation of their assistant historian, Wendy Schmehl. My reason for the visit was to see if there was any evidence that the band, at one time, featured a J. W. Pepper helicon (yes, they had one years ago - but that's for another post), as well as the original Sousaphone, also built by Pepper (yes, they featured it in a special concert in 2007). I also wanted to see their wonderful photo of Sousa's Band at the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis (more on that later!).

The biggest surprise was what Wendy had waiting for me when I arrived: a dusty and tarnished old helicon tuba built by Joseph Higham Ltd. of Manchester, England! I even tried playing it, and while the rotary valves were quite sticky, and the horn felt rather stuffy, I was able to get a passable sound out of this old monster (seen above)!

And it was clearly an "old monster" - but how old? We both wondered.

The bell had the serial number on it, 56347, as well as the maker (Higham) and importer (Fillmore Brothers of Cincinnati), and within minutes of researching Higham instruments on the internet when I got home, I found an article by musicologist Arnold Myers titled, "Made in Manchester: Instruments of the Higham Firm," published in 2018 by The Galpin Society Journal. At the end of the article, there is a serial number listing which places the year of this horn at 1906.

So, my goodness -117 years old! Here are some photos, so that you can get a closer look:

[Concerning the photo above, note the high pitch tuning slide that is tied to the tubing to the left of the valves - presumably to keep it from getting lost.]

Finally, here is what it has on the bell (the diameter of which is unknown at present, as I did not have any way to measure it on this visit):

Just to be clear, it says:

PATENT

CLEAR BORE

CLASS

A

EXHIBITION

PRIZE MEDALS

AWARDED

TO
J. HIGHAM LTD.
MAKERS

127 STRANGEWAYS

MANCHESTER

ENGLAND

56347

FILLMORE BROTHERS

COMPANY
CINCINNATI

SOLE AGENTS
UNITED STATES

As we looked at all of the historic photos around the band room (and there are many - the band was established in 1852!), we found four that showed this horn with the band in past years (when the silver plating was shiny and bright!). First, from 1910:

Then, from the 1920s (but clearly the same player):

And then, on the march in 1923:

Finally, there was this photo from 1983, when a few of the band's relics were pulled out for show:

I'm hoping to locate a Joseph Higham instrument catalog from around 1906 to learn more about the horn, and this pursuit already looks promising: I stumbled upon this image, from some sort of Higham publication (and posted at the Joseph Higham, Ltd. Facebook page), that reveals the nickname, "Dreadnought," which is apparently a kind of battleship!

I also poked around the tuba chat rooms online, and discovered that John Bailey, who plays (or played?) tuba in the Ringgold Band, apparently considered buying this very helicon back in 2010. I interviewed John in 2015, when I was researching the original Sousaphone (as he owned it from 1973-1991), so I hope to get ahold of him again to see what he can tell me about this treasure of the Ringgold Band.

Stay tuned for more!

J. W. Pepper Built the World's First!

Most people in America have seen a Sousaphone before, even if they didn't know it by that name. This enormous horn shows up, often in large numbers, in high school and college marching bands each fall during football season. For example, here are more than 20 in the Penn State Blue Band in 2019, when my son was a member:

But that’s about where the familiarity ends. Very few people today know that the Sousaphone originally had a bell that pointed straight up; or that it was created not for marching, but for use in a concert band; or that it was named after a bandmaster who would quickly become the most popular entertainer of the day—John Philip Sousa (“Who?” I’m often asked).

But what almost no one knew for the better part of a century was that the very first Sousaphone was built by J. W. Pepper of Philadelphia in 1895.

Sousa Sets the Record Straight

Since around 1921, the C. G. Conn Company has proudly claimed to have created the original Sousaphone, and for good reason—their new horn was announced to the world in the January 22, 1898, edition of The Music Trade Review, as if such an instrument had never been seen before:

But tucked away in the August 30, 1922, edition of the Christian Science Monitor, there is an article in which Sousa himself recounted this:

The Sousaphone received its name through a suggestion made by me to J. W. Pepper, the instrument manufacturer of Philadelphia, fully 30 odd years ago. At that time, the United States Marine Band, of Washington, D. C., of which I was conductor, used a double B-flat bass tuba of circular form known as a “Helicon.” It was all right enough for street-parade work, but its tone was apt to shoot ahead too prominently and explosively to suit me for concert performances, so I spoke to Mr. Pepper relative to constructing a bass instrument in which the bell would turn upwards and be adjustable for concert purposes. He built one, and grateful to me for the suggestion, called it a Sousaphone. It was immediately taken up by other instrument makers, and is today manufactured in its greatest degree of perfection by the C. G. Conn Company, of Elkhart, Ind.

Here we learn that: 

• Sousa himself came up with the idea for the horn.
• This was while he was still leading the Marine Band (1892, his last year with that unit).
• It was built by Pepper, not Conn, although Sousa came to prefer Conn Sousaphones.
• It was created for concert purposes, not marching.
• Mr. Pepper honored Sousa by calling it a “Sousaphone.”

It took Pepper a few years to produce the horn, but by late 1895 he was ready to introduce it to the world, using the very announcement seen at the top of this post. And by January 1, 1896, if not earlier, it was indeed "played by Herman Conrad" and “used daily in Sousa’s Peerless Concert Band.”

Touring the Country with Sousa’s Band

This great ensemble spent the first three months of 1896 giving concerts from coast to coast. At the end of the tour, one newspaper took notice of the strange modified helicon, writing that “the large double bass played by Mr. Conrad is the largest bass horn in existence. It is called the ‘Sousaphone’.”

March 30, 1896, edition of The Allentown Daily Leader, n.p.

A few weeks earlier in that cross-country tour, while in Salt Lake City, someone took a photograph of the band in concert, in which the faint image of Pepper’s Sousaphone can be seen just above the head of the first chair clarinetist:

Concert at the Mormon Tabernacle, March 7, 1896

Curiously, following that tour, there seem to be no more photographs of, or reports about, this historic horn. Pepper’s Sousaphone just quietly disappears, while, less than two years later, Conn’s first Sousaphone appears in Sousa’s Band: 

Herman Conrad with C. G. Conn's first Sousaphone in 1898

Sousa used Conn Sousaphones in his band exclusively from 1898 until he passed away in 1932, featuring one in his bass section from 1898-1915, two from 1915-1921, and all Sousaphones in the section from that point on - sometimes as many as six!

Sousa's bass section for the 1925-26 tour (courtesy of Mark Jones)

The Long-lost Horn Resurfaces!

The story of how the original Sousaphone resurfaced in recent years is almost too good to be true. On a quiet Sunday afternoon in the spring of 1973, John Bailey, a 24-year-old tuba player and recent graduate of West Chester State College, joined his mother and sister for an outing to Renningers Flea Market in Adamstown, Pennsylvania. John had moved back home to Wernersville, near Reading, where he began teaching and occasionally subbing with the Ringgold Band—yes, the band that holds the distinction of being the very last one that Sousa conducted before he died.

John wasn’t looking to buy anything that day, but he noticed a vintage three-valve “raincatcher” Sousaphone, heavily tarnished and covered with dust, hanging upside-down from the rafters by a single loop of binder twine! When he was told that it cost only $50, he raced home to get the money. His plan was to get it into playable shape and have an interesting horn for use in parades.

John Bailey before selling the original Sousaphone back to J. W. Pepper in 1991

In cleaning up the Sousaphone, John discovered that it was unfinished, that is, just raw brass. He also found that the front of the bell featured some beautiful and highly significant engravings.

At the top, barely visible, is a portrait of Sousa wearing the uniform that was first used in 1894, and so the horn could not have been created before that year (unless, of course, the engraving was added later, but that seems unlikely). Below that is a twirling ribbon that contains, separately, the words “Sousa” and “Phone”—the name Pepper chose for this special instrument. Next are the words “Highest Medal & Diploma Chicago 1893,” referring to an award won at the World’s Columbian Exposition. This has led many to conclude that the horn was built in that year, but we just ruled that out. Plus, many Pepper instruments made later than this Sousaphone boast of this award on their bells, and that’s all that is going on here—a little boasting of recent accolades.

Finally, it says “Premier J. W. Pepper Maker Philadelphia and Chicago,” and then gives the serial number, 8800 (also found on the second valve casing), which supports what we already know—that the instrument was built in 1895.

For almost 20 years, John Bailey kept that historic horn in storage, collecting dust once again. Along the way, he received confirmation from experts that he had something special, but he never got around to having it restored and displayed. But then, in August 1991, John gladly sold the horn back to its maker, the J. W. Pepper company, who proceeded to have it restored, including adding a lacquer finish. Finally, after 96 years, the first Sousaphone was ready to go public again!

The author, with the original Sousaphone at J. W. Pepper in Exton, PA, in 2014

A One-of-a-kind Treasure

As far as we can tell, Pepper never made another horn like this one. It truly is a one-of-a-kind treasure. In fact, it wasn’t until late 1905—a decade later—that Pepper finally tried his hand at selling Sousaphones. But at that point, he chose to import, rather than build, a very different BBb Sousaphone, along with something never before seen in America—an Eb Sousaphone:

Page from J. W. Pepper's Musical Times and Band Journal, vol. 19, no. 222 (1905)

But even by that time the popular view of Sousaphone history had few people remembering that J. W. Pepper had anything to do with the new instrument. In promoting his imported Sousaphones in 1905, he urges his readers to “remember that we are the sole originators of this style of basses, and all others are imitations of these magnificent large proportioned monsters.”

There is no doubt about it. This historic horn—with a bore of 0.730 inches, a bell diameter of 24 inches, a height of 4 feet, 5 inches, and a weight of 24.9 pounds—is the very first Sousaphone, and it was created by J. W. Pepper in 1895.

For earlier posts on the original Sousaphone, click here. And for links to the overall history of the Sousaphone, click here. Enjoy!