Elmira’s Whistling Prima Donna: Alice Shaw

by Erin Doane, Curator

In 1885, Alice Shaw was living with her father in Elmira. Her husband had gone off to make a living for himself and didn’t return, leaving her with four young daughters to support on her own. She tried to make money as a dressmaker, but it wasn’t enough and they were struggling. What was the poor woman to do? Alice screwed up her courage, took a deep breath, and whistled her way to international stardom.

Alice Shaw, The Cotton States and International

Exposition and South, Illustrated, 1896

Alice Horton was born in Elmira in 1853. She married W.H. Shaw when she was 20 years old. He was a widower with four sons, and ran a successful wholesale ration business in Detroit. Alice moved into her husband’s home in Detroit and the couple had two daughters. Around 1878, his business failed, and the family moved to New York City. They had two more daughters there, but he was never able to find profitable work. Alice gave up on living in New York City, and brought her four daughters to her father’s home at the corner of West Water and Grove Streets in Elmira. W.H. came with her but soon struck out on his own. Alice, too, decided to go her own way.

Music had been a part of Alice’s life from an early age, and she had always been oddly skilled at whistling. I say oddly, because, at that time, it was considered improper for women to whistle, and it was also considered difficult for them to learn in the first place. A reporter for the New York Times in 1887 explain that, “from the earliest times it has been agreed that it is a very hard thing for a girl to learn to whistle. The position of the lips is such as can only be maintained for any length of time in stern isolation from the male sex.” Alice somehow managed to overcome those difficulties, and in December 1886 she was a featured soloist at the holiday reception of the Teachers’ Association in Steinway Hall in New York City.

Illustrations of Alice Shaw and “the Pucker,” New York Sun, January 1, 1888

That one performance got such rave reviews that Alice was soon working as a professional whistler at high class concerts, private musicales, and society entertainments. The New York Sun ran an article on November 16, 1887 describing her talents:

Rather a unique figure in the amusement world is Mrs. Alice J. Shaw, who appears at benefits, private musicales, and similar performance. She is a wonderful performer, whistling without any instrument whatever in her mouth. She gives airs of the utmost intricacy and elaboration with complete accuracy and truth of expression. She is of rather majestic presence, decidedly handsome, and she has a larking expression of the left eye when she whistles which is no little factor of her success.

Recording of Alice Shaw whistling, 1888

After two years performing throughout New York City, Alice went to London. She was very well received in England, and even performed for the Prince of Wales (who later became King Edward). From there she continued touring the world. She spent a year in Russia, where she performed for Czar Nicholas. She was in India for a year, spent six months in Germany, and then returned to England for several more years. In 1899, while touring South Africa, she and her daughters had to hastily leave Johannesburg when the Boer War broke out. Her children traveled with her most of the time. Her twins, Elsie and Ethel, actually whistled with her on stage, starting when they were just five years old.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmoREPRdSJw

Recording of Alice Shaw and her daughters whistling, 1907

On February 24, 1889, Alice’s ex-husband was seen at her concert at Lafayette Hall in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. Their divorce had become official just four months earlier. He did not meet with her in person that night, and it was the first time he had seen her in over two years. When a reporter spoke to him about his world-famous ex-wife, he had little nice to say about her. “The wealth of the Indies wouldn’t tempt me to call her wife again,” he declared. “She has changed very much since I saw her last. She is growing fleshier.” While the comment about her “fleshiness” was certainly rude, Alice obviously understood the appearance of her body, and even capitalized upon it. In 1897, she supplemented her income by endorsing Dr. Edison’s Obesity Pills and Salts.

Advertisement for Dr. Edison’s Obesity Pills and Salt

featuring Alice Shaw, Philadelphia Inquirer, April 4, 1897

Alice returned to Elmira several times through the years to visit friends and to perform. In 1888, near the height of her popularity, she whistled at a benefit performance in support of the Elmira Elks Lodge. She returned in 1900, and offered two performances daily for a week at Dixie’s Theatre. Her twins whistled and danced with her.

Advertisement for Alice Shaw’s performance at Dixie’s

Theatre in Elmira, Star-Gazette, December 10, 1900

On April 24, 1918, Alice Shaw returned to Elmira one last time. Two days earlier, she died from heart failure in New York City. She had been suffering from ill-health for the past seven or eight years. A private funeral service was held at her home at 388 Manhattan Avenue before her body was brought to Elmira for interment in Woodlawn Cemetery. She was 65 years old.

Over the years, Alice Shaw has faded into obscurity, but now and again, her extraordinary story is rediscovered.

Ripley’s Believe it or Not, Binghamton Press and Sun-Bulletin, June 5, 1983

Arnold Hager and His Famous Band

by Erin Doane, Curator

In June 1906, Hager’s Band of Elmira was the official band of the State of New York at the gigantic Old Home Week Celebration in Auburn. In just four years under the leadership of Arnold Hager, the band had gone from playing small, local performances to being one of the most celebrated musical groups in the state.  

Hager’s Band, early 1900s

Arnold Hager was interested in music from a young age. He was born in Elmira on November 26, 1873 to Frederick and Ida Hager who had come to the United States from Switzerland. His father was a musician, so it was natural for him to start taking piano lessons at age eight. He went on to learn the cornet and played with the 26th Separate Company Band before he was even a teenager. At 14 he started violin lessons and played in the YMCA orchestra. At age 17, he played his first theater engagement at the Madison Avenue Theater.

In 1892, Hager’s father died suddenly. So, at age 19, he took his music on the road to help support his family. He took a job as cornet player with the Sig Sawtelle Canal Boat Circus which traversed the Erie Canal. A year later he joined Lee’s London Circus out of Canton, Pennsylvania. Over the next few years he jumped from job to job playing music for theaters, circuses, and minstrel shows. Finally, in 1896 he returned to Elmira, took the civil service exam, and got a job as music instructor at the Elmira Reformatory.

Arnold Hager, c. 1936

When the Spanish-American War broke out in 1898, Hager joined the Thirtieth Separate Company and was appointed leader of the regimental band. When asked by a newspaper reporter why he enlisted, he answered, “To charm or rather hypnotize the Spaniards with my reformatory band.” After his service, he returned to the Reformatory and was promoted to director of the music program.

In 1902, Hager got the opportunity to become leader of his own independent band. Ten years earlier, Haytt’s Military Band was popular around the city, playing at grand receptions and balls. In 1894, there was a schism in the band. Some members wanted Ralph Mulcare to become leader rather than Professor Haytt. So, Haytt and several of his most devoted followers left and the remaining musicians became Mulcare’s Band. The new band was very active through the late 1890s and early 1900s, but finances were a persistent problem. In 1902, Mrs. Julia S. Reynolds sued Mulcare for not paying rent for eight months on a room the band used for rehearsals. Mulcare settled the case out of court, but resigned as band director.

Program from a Mulcare’s Elmira Band concert, 1901

Hager was a member of Mulcare’s Band and when Mulcare stepped down, the other band members elected Hager as their new director. Thus, Hager’s Band was born. Their first engagement was playing at the annual military ball of the Thirtieth Separate Company on Thanksgiving night, 1902. From then on, Hager’s Band grew in popularity. They played at conventions, parades, parks, and fairs throughout the state, including their highly-lauded performance at Auburn’s Old Home Week Celebration. Under his direction, Hager’s Band became recognized as one of the foremost musical organizations in the country.

Hager’s Band, early 1900s

While Hager was leading his own band, he was also a member of the Grotto Band, and offered private musical lessons on the side. And on top of all of that, he was still musical instructor and director of the Elmira Reformatory Band. In order to devote more of his time to what would become a 40-year career at the Reformatory, Hager pulled back slightly from his outside musical interests. In 1922, Hager’s Band became the Elks’ Band. The Elmira Elks Lodge took over management of the band while Hager continued to carry the baton as leader. He remained director of the 35-person band until his death.

On April 13, 1936, after several months of ill health, Arnold Hager passed away. He was 62 years old. Hundreds of people came out for his funeral including family, friends, officers of the Elmira Elks Lodge, fraternal brothers, members of reformatory staff, former music students, and members of the general public who may not have known him personally but were touched by his music. Musicians who played under his direction in Hager’s Band played a funeral march as the procession moved through Woodlawn Cemetery to his family’s plot. It was a fitting tribute to the man who had devoted his life to music.

Members of Hager’s Band leading Arnold Hager’s funeral procession into Woodlawn Cemetery, Star-Gazette, April 17, 1936

Bank or Canal?

by Susan Zehnder, Education Director

This summer, groups of local students visited the Chemung Valley History Museum. They looked for museum artifacts and documents on a scavenger hunt; heard the true story of the building’s exploding vault (see The Exploding Vault published January 11, 2016); and toured our new exhibit Getting Around: Transportation in Chemung County. They also challenged their engineering skills by designing, building, and testing simple canal boats.

Sometimes an unexpected question or answer gives us to pause and think about history from a different perspective. One of those moments came as we talked about canal boats. When students heard Chemung Canal, many thought we were talking about the bank. But I’ll bet you back in the 1800s, every kid in the area knew about the Chemung Canal.

 

Drawing of Elmira including canal and boats

  

Brief history of the Canal

Inspired by the robust success of the Erie Canal to the north, plans were made to build a canal between Elmira and Watkins Glen. This would connect Elmira’s Chemung River to the Erie Canal, and tap into the growing wealth and prosperity the canal was beginning to bring to western New York. Supporters of the Chemung Canal petitioned the state legislature who granted them the  go-ahead in 1829. Construction on the canal began July 4, 1830. A fairly modest sum of $300,000 was allocated for the project, which in today’s money would be close to 9 million dollars. The proposed canal would be the least expensive canal to date.

 

Photograph of canal construction

It took three years for construction crews to dig the 20-mile canal. Like other canals, it was shaped like the letter ‘u’ and only four feet deep. It reached twenty-six feet across at the base or bottom of the canal and spanned forty-two feet across at the surface. Canals didn’t need to be deep, because traffic on them consisted of canal barges or flat-bottomed boats. Canals were also fairly narrow because tethered humans, horses or working mules pulled them on towpaths along shore. Initial cargo consisted of lumber and agricultural products from the area until increasing demand for Pennsylvania coal dictated the canal be deepened to accommodate larger boats. To do this, workman simply raised the side banks another two feet. Navigating the Chemung Canal took boats two and a half days. They had to travel through the forty-nine locks situated from Elmira to Watkins Glen.

Chemung canal pathway on right side of map

When active, the canal brought prosperity to the area. However, yearly rains damaged the canal, and by 1878 it fell into disrepair. While the canal had been one of the least expensive to build, it had become one of the most costly to maintain. By this time railroads were shipping goods and moving things faster and farther. The Chemung Canal was abandoned and parts of its rights-of-way sold off.

Barge boats at dock along Chemung Canal

Today, parts of the Catharine Valley Trail follow some of the original Chemung Canal towpaths, and the Clemens Center Parkway navigates another part of the canal’s pathway. Unlike the better known Erie Canal to the north, little physical evidence is left of the 20-mile long canal that started in Elmira. 

This summer and fall various Erie Canal events are taking place. The Erie Canal challenge https://eriecanalway.org/explore/challenge is promoting biking, hiking and walking along the pathway at distances of 15, 90, 180, and 360 miles. Although they don’t mention the Chemung Canal, their website does include where to rent kayaks and places to explore near Watkins Glen and Montour Falls. At both places you can see short parts of the Chemung Canal still visible. Mostly the Chemung Canal is a memory.

https://fingerlakessum.wordpress.com/2012/05/13/catherine-valley-trail-bike-from-watkins-glen-to-horseheads/

This map of the Catharine Valley Trail and link share more Chemung Canal hiking and biking opportunities in the area to explore yourself.

The Bank

The Chemung Canal Bank Company started operations in 1833, the same year the nearby canal opened. The very first bank statement issued ten days after opening showed the bank had assets of $318,525 and deposits of over $10,000. A year later, the bank moved into its first permanent home, on East Water Street, now the site of the Chemung Valley History Museum. One of the bank’s founders, an entrepreneur and financier by the name of John Arnot, had emigrated from Scotland and settled in Elmira. He took over as bank president in 1852, and the bank changed its name to the Chemung Canal Trust Company in 1903.

Former Chemung Canal Bank, now home of The Chemung Valley History Museum

It’s easy to assume everyone knows these things, but for people new to the area-which if we think about it includes young students, history needs to be shared. Keeping that memory fresh is what we do here at the Museum.