Cornell College Banjo and Mandolin Club - Elmira Musicians

In the New York Newspaper archive I have found many traces of mandolin orchestras from the time around 1900. Here I present two documents about mandolin players in Emira.

Im Zeitungsarchiv für Zeitungen aus der Region New York habe ich viele Hinweise auf Mandolinenspieler und Orchester gefunden. Here zwei frühe Dokumente über Mandolinenspieler aus Elmira und den Cornell College Banjo and Mandolin Club:

Source / Quelle:

New York Newspaker Archive at

• http://fultonhistory.com/Fulton.html

Our Elmira Musicians

The tuneful and popular mandolin has been the means of bringing to the front rank in the musical world a young Elmiran, Harry Wadhams, who, now a resident of big and busy Gotham, is acknowledged to be one of the leading mandolin players and teachers of the county. Associated with him in the manipulation of that instrument in the popular Troubadours was Frank E. DeWaters, and when he left Elmira his place in that organization was filled by John Putnam, both well-known local players. J. B. Coykendall is another Elmiran thoroughly capable of extracting all the charming music contained in the instrument, and the list of ladies who are finished and pleasing mandolin artistes includes Mrs. Harry Hale Ford, Miss Maude Baxter, Miss Amy Kobinsou, Miss Buth Robinson and Miss Alice Reynolds, the latter having studied under Spanish masters in the very home of the mandolin.

source: Elmira NY Morning Telegram 1894 Grayscale - 0176.pdf

CORNELL COLLEGE CLUB.

It Furnishes Excellent Music and is Now on a Tour.

Society in many places, and especially that portion of it which may be termed "college society," is just now on the qui vive of expectancy, pending the arrival of the Cornell College Mandolin club. This club is famous for its thorough organization and real, genuine artistic merit. Its musical head is a Chicago boy, W. S. Coll. This is his second year as leader, and he has brought the club to a degree of perfection seldom attained by even professional mandolin players. The exquisite shading of the music rendered by this club, combined with the perfect tone in the soft and delicate passages can hardly be improved upon. Especially is this so in the selection, "Love's Dream After the Ball." The mandolin club consists of mandolins and guitars, and the combination is classical, or will one day be so considered from Verdi's having employed it in "Otello" for the serenade addressed to Deademont on her arrival in the Island of Cyprus. E. Welling Wyckoff, of Elmira, is manager of the club, which will appear in this city, at the Lyceum, in the near future.

Source: Elmira NY Morning Telegram 1896 Grayscale - 0017.pdf