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Speaking of balls, reminds us of the parties we used to have about 20 years ago, and a few years later, before our society people became high-toned. In those early days dancing and the music necessary for its successful performance, were primitive, but no less inspiring than now. The first "ball" we remember, was in the old cooper shop, which stood at the mouth of the harbor, on a spot just north of where Hurd & Co.'s warehouses now stand. It stood on piles over the water, and you could shoot muskrats through the cracks in the floor. Charlie Chaddock was the leading musician those days. Charlie was the engineer on the tug Commodore Nutt, which towed the woodscows. He was as a good musician as they went. He only played about three tunes for quadrilles and one he called a waltz. One of the tunes was known in the repertoire as "South Arm," which was repeated several times before morning.
Twenty years ago next summer the hall over Fox's "new store" was completed, and the balls became more reserche (?). Ben Campbell succeeded Charlie as the fiddler for a number of years, with an occasional feast of tone music from the Cremona of Tim Smith. Squire Robert Miller was one of out loveliest young men on the floor those days, and Squire William B. Vosburg and his lady, from Marion, attended most of the parties . Old Uncle Philo Beers would dance a “figger” then sit down and laugh at the rest. Captain Lance Aldrich was the best dancer in town, and many are the sedate matrons of today who helped to make things lively then. When Ben Campbell hollered "everybody dance," you could hear the breakdowns from Lake Michigan. We shrink from relating our own experience on these festive occasions. It was on one of them that a cloud passed over one life. That fatal Monie Musk, with Mrs. Carpenter as our partner. Our big, awkward feet- a damaged dress- our disgrace. We have never danced since, and scarcely smiled. We are trying to forget it and we trust the lady who misplaced her confidence is thinking charitably of us.
And the dances they used to have out on Tim Smith's farm. Tim always furnished the music, and it was excellent. Tim also did the prompting, which was not always stentorious, but well understood, alt ho ugh sometimes original. And that, reminds us that the late Louis Gebo led the orchestra on many occasions of terpsichorean (?) festivity. Louis was a good fiddler as they averaged those days, but there was always a rivalry between Louis and Tim. The latter was (and is yet) vain of his ability as a musician. Great days those- way back early in the '70's.
Honest old Henry Morgan, a devout Presbyterian who would lose a cargo before he would load a vessel on the Sabbath, was a fiddler- one of the heroic kind. He would never play for a dance, but occasionally he would get out the old fiddle in Dick Cooper's boarding house "office" am play for jig-dancing; and we have seen the stalwart old scotch churchman hand the instrument to Charlie Chaddock and dance a Scotch hornpipe until he was red in the face. And that makes us think of Uncle Richard Cooper in those days. A more graceful dancer of his size never kicked a floor than Dick. He never made a mistake, never missed a step, but great Caesar- you had to give him a wide berth on the floor. We have seen Dick glide through the figures of a quadrille with a grace and cadence that was enchanting. Dick never waltzed. We have never heard why. But those good old days are gone. "Blakeley's Quadrille Band," of Eastport, relegated our musicians to a back seat and the world moves.
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