Rotary 100 — John Philip Sousa
This is the latest in an occasional series of posts leading up to the centennial of the Glens Falls Rotary Club in April 2022.
The March King spoke at a Glens Falls Rotary Club meeting in the club’s infancy.
Bandleader John Philip Sousa and baritone opera singer Oscar Seagle were “guests of honor” at the club’s July 20, 1922 meeting at the Finch, Pruyn & Co. paper mill cafeteria.
Sousa was in town with his band that day for a 2 p.m. concert at Rialto Theatre on Warren Street.
The concert featured a performance of his new march, “The Gallant Seventh.”
“Mr. Sousa entertained the Rotarians with an interesting address regarding some of his experiences and travels abroad, and Mr. Seagle thrilled the gathering with several solos rendered in a manner that brought forth bursts of applause,” The Post-Star reported the next day.
Seagle also performed several quartet numbers with summer vocal students John Boles of Glens Falls, Herbert Wall of Norman, Oklahoma, and E.L. Cox of Selma, Kansas.
Wall and Cox were members of Rotary Clubs in their respective home communities.
The Glens Falls Rotary Club added the following new members the day that Sousa spoke: George F. Bayle Sr., Dr. T. L. Henning, John R. Loomis Sr., F.B. Richards, D.L. Robertson, F.M. Starbuck.
Club member Fred B. Chapman had invited the club to meet that week at Finch, Pruyn instead of its usual meeting place at the Gift and Tea Shop at the Glens Falls Insurance Co. building.
About a dozen guests attended the meeting, including Louis P. Hyde and Maurice Hoopes of Finch, Pruyn.
“About fifty men were in attendance and at the conclusion of the party they proclaimed the officers of Finch, Pruyn and Company royal hosts.”
The 1922 concert was at least the fourth time Sousa and his band performed at Glens Falls.
Previous concerts were on June 24, 1918 at Empire Theatre on South Street and Sept. 24, 1920 and July 29, 1921 at the Rialto.
“Well, John Philip Sousa is coming back; he and his famous band, ‘The Estimable Eighty,’ as they were termed by one Chicago writer,” The Post-Star reported on July 11, 1922.
Click here to read the most recent previous post in this series.
Click here to read the recent previous post about John Philp Sousa in Glens Falls.
