The Temples: a quartette with a history

              1905

Figure

THE TEMPLES
A Quartette with a History
Thirty-seventh year with the
REDPATH LYCEUM BUREAU
BOSTON, PHILADEPHIA, CHICAGO



TALENT
A Quartet with a History
BY ANNA L. CURTIS.
NOVEMBER, 1905

BOSTON, the home of the male quartet, has the honor of having produced, among over twenty others now actively engaged, the oldest quartet in existence in the United States to-day.  This is the well-known Temple Quartet, which has a record of nearly forty years of active work and growth.  The organization of the Temple Quartet was an outcome of the dedication of the Masonic Temple of Boston.  A choir of twelve members played an important part in the dedicatory ceremonies, and four of these twelve soon afterwards left the choir and organized themselves into a quartet, primarily to assist in the Masonic ceremonies of other lodges.  They soon widened their field, however, to include the general public, and were received with very great favor.

This was the beginning of the old Temple Quartet, which, in those days, consisted of Mr. D. F. Fitz, first tenor; Mr. W. H. Fessenden, second tenor; Mr. H. A. Cook, baritone, and Mr. A. C. Ryder, basso.  The four studied hard to perfect themselves, and made rapid progress under the skillful training of Mr. J. B. Rhoades, a Boston broker, who is still doing business on State Street, and who may well be called the father of the Temple Quartet.

For nine years there was no change in the personnel of the singers; but in 1876 Mr. Fessenden left them to join the Boston Ideal Opera Company, and during the next two or three years his place was filled by Mr. William McDonald, Mr. Edward Prescott and Mr. I. Lewis Brackett, in turn.

Mr. Fitz also resigned in 1878, and was succeeded by Mr. W. C. Tower, who died two years afterwards.  In this year (1880) Messrs. George G. Parker and George W. Want joined the organization as first and second tenor, respectively.  However, they only remained with it one year, and their places were filled in 1881 by Mr. W. R. Bateman, first tenor, and Mr. E. F. Webber, second tenor, who resigned from the Weber Quartet for the purpose of joining the Temple.  With these two, then, and Mr. Cook and Mr. Ryder, still baritone and basso, the quartet remained unchanged


Figure



W. H. Fessenden, Second Tenor
D. F. Fitz, First Tenor
H. A. Cook, Baritone
A. C. Ryder, Basso

The Original Temple Quartet, Organized 1868 until 1890, when Mr. Thomas L. Johnson became first tenor, being succeeded the next year by Mr. E. M. Spears.  In 1892 Mr. Ryder died, and Mr. Cook immediately resigned, thus depriving the Quartet of the last two of its originators, who had sung together for twenty-five years.

The baritone's place was at once filled by Mr. E. G. Maquard, who in 1893 gave place to Mr. Robert Bruce.  Mr. L. B. Merrill stepped into Mr. Ryder's shoes, but in 1896 resigned to join the Bostonians, leaving his place to Mr. B. G. Willard.  The year afterward Mr. Spears also resigned, and was followed by Mr. E. E. Bullock as first tenor.  For four years there was no further change, but in 1901 the Quartet was almost entirely reorganized, Mr. H. S. Tripp becoming first tenor; Mr. P. F. Baker, baritone, and Mr. A. C. Steele, basso, while Mr. Webber remained as second tenor.  This is still the personnel of the quartet, and from present indications they are preparing for another nine years of unbroken harmony.

Although the Quartet did not begin purely professional work until about twelve years ago, it has been under the management of the Redpath Bureau almost exclusively, since that bureau was founded in 1868.  Before 1895, however, it had never traveled much, confining its work mainly to Boston and nearby places, which alone gave the organization as many engagements as it desired, while each winter they took a six or seven weeks' tour through the West, occasionally going as far as Colorado.

They have usually been accompanied by an assistant entertainer, even while classed as amateurs.  When singing near home, a local performer was easily obtained, as a general thing; while on the road, they have always had an organized company, the assistant being in earlier times other musicians; of late years, a reader or impersonator.  Annie Louise Cary and Carlyle Petercelea, the pianist, once accompanied them on a tour through the West, and among other musicians who have appeared with them are Cora Louise Kellogg, soprano; Aline Osgood, soprano; Mrs. Humphrey Allen, soprano; Mr. Francis Gilder, pianist; Madame Etelka Gerster, soprano, and Lilian Chandler, violinist.  For the last ten or fifteen years, however, they



TALENT
NOVEMBER, 1905


Figure



W. R. Bateman, First Tenor
A. C. Ryder, Basso
H. A. Cook, Baritone
E. F. Webber, Second Tenor

The Temple Quartet in 1881

have been assisted by readers only.  Carrie Hale, the first to accompany them on a tour, was succeeded by Nella Brown Pond, one of the greatest favorites of her day, and she by Fay Davis, who afterwards scored a decided success upon the stage.  Grace Eldridge and Genevieve Pugh played well their parts in the next two years, Miss Pugh being followed in 1895–1896 by delightful Katherine Ridgeway, then new to the platform, who traveled with the Quartet for two seasons.  Miss Barnett, an artistic and original reader, and a member of the company for three years, gave place to Adelaide Jump, a most excellent interpreter of child-life, while Victoria Lynn, a worthy successor to Miss Jump, was followed after a year by Miss Catherine Cole, who is still with them.

The Quartet has always been most fortunate in its assistants, every one of these readers being excellent, and some of them, as Fay Davis and Miss Ridgeway, scoring the greatest of success in after years.  Miss Davis, who, like Miss Ridgeway, remained with the company two seasons, left behind her the memory not only of her wonderful rendering of Bret Harte's Letter, but also of one of the funniest incidents in the annals of the Quartet.  It happened in Wooster, O., a college town which Miss Davis will probably ever regard with abhorrence.  The curtains on the platform had been arranged so as to leave only an opening at the rear of the stage for the performers to pass through, while both wings were entirely hidden.  While Miss Davis was reading, a mouse suddenly appeared behind the scenes, quite undismayed by the presence of the Quartet, and was still in plain view when Miss Davis finished, came behind the curtain—and saw the mouse which at that moment made a dart to escape, alarmingly near her skirts.  The audience was forgotten.  With one tremendous scream Miss Davis clutched her skirts around her, and bounded like an antelope to the other side of the stage.  The audience had a kaleidoscopic view of her as she passed the opening in the curtains, and roared with laughter, while at her next appearance that evening she was greeted with a perfect ovation.

The Temple Quartet has always stood for the dignity of the platform in every way.  It has never condescended to bargain-day rates, but has insisted on keeping its prices up at the level where they belong.  And the rate standard is not the only one which they strive to keep up; their standard for songs is probably higher than that of any other Quartet in the country.  Their idea is, that if they commence with humorous songs, the audience will soon fail to enjoy the productions of the best composers.  So the entire program is made up of comparatively heavy music, and they trust to the encores to lighten it up.  But even in the encores they do not present the strictly comic until near the end; earlier in the evening singing such songs as Suwanee River, Old Kentucky Home, Blue Bells of Scotland, when near a Scotch settlement, or Dixie when in the South.

Dixie never fails to produce a storm of enthusiasm when sung anywhere south of Maryland.  On one ocacsion, near Grafton, W. Va., an old judge, somewhat under the influence of liquor, was completely carried away by the combined strength of his patriotism and his potations.  He sprang to his feet, threw his hat high in the air, and shouted at the top of his voice, You're all right, boys.  Go ahead.  The boys obeyed orders, and went ahead with their program, as desired.

The Quartet, like every other company which strives to entertain, has had its trials and tribulations, as well as its joys and delights.  Only a year or so ago they were in a small Missouri town where every one in the audience had either a cold in the head or on the lungs, or both.  The coughing, sneezing and sniffling were almost incessant, and absolutely impossible to overpower, either by singers or by reader.  Miss Jump came off after one of her selections, nearly crying: Everyone's coughing all the time, and when they're not, the man's putting coal in the stove.  The Quartet agreed with her that it was the worst place they


Reproduced from a Window Hanger of the Temples in 1891





TALENT
had ever been in.  What the village thought of the Quartet and Miss Jump was expressed in a misspelled letter which came later to the Redpath Bureau, saying that the committee didn't see how the Temple Quartet

Katharine Ridgeway
Reader with the Temples, 1895–1897
 could sleep nights after taking away so much money for so poor a show.

At another time the Quartet was forced to enter into a pitched battle with a brass band, which, of course, had quite the advantage, both in numbers and in noise-making powers.  This was only last Decoration Day, at Mt. Hope Cemetery, Boston.  They had been engaged by the Elks to sing for a Memorial Day service, and, to their horror, found that the aforesaid band was stationed only a short distance away with another service.  Fortunately the Quartet are blessed with strong voices, or they would have been overpowered completely by their formidable antagonist.

And once they were badly misunderstood, to use the mildest word possible.  This was in 1892, when the Quartet, then consisting of Messrs.  Spears, Webber, Cook and Ryder, made a short tour, accompanied by Mr. W. H. Gerrish, the Masonic organist, entirely in the interests of the Masonic fraternity.  One of their evenings was given in Genesee, N. Y., where is located a large and well-known inebriate asylum, which apparently drew most of the visitors to the place.  The five musicians were innocent of any knowledge of its existence, but that made no difference to the Geneseeans.  As they entered the dining room of the hotel that afternoon they attracted a good deal of attention, and an elderly lady remarked earnestly: It's a pity that five such fine-looking men should have to come here to the Keeley cure.  They wondered if she voiced the general sentiment.

Thanks to the care of the Bureau in giving them few long jumps with sufficient time in which to make them, the Quartet has missed but two engagements in the last five years, neither, of course, through any fault of their own.  One of these might even

The Temple Quartet in 1905


Catherine Cole, reader with the Temples
 have been avoided had the railroad men been what they proverbially are not—truthful.  The company were billed for Alva, Oklahoma, but when nearly there were stopped by a freight train which was wrecked on the track.  They could have driven, and so reached Alva by eight o'clock, but, trusting to the word of a train hand that the wreck would be cleared away in two hours, they remained at Harper—for ten hours.  The next day they set Alva down on the wrong side of the profit-and-loss account.

The Temple Quartet has traveled in nearly every State of the Union east of the Rockies; they have met every sort of audience in every sort of hall.  They have experienced the open-hearted hospitality of the South, and the open-handed generosity of the West, the business-like kindness of the East, and the cautious praise of the North.  They have made good everywhere, and though they declare the West and South to be much more demonstrative than the East, yet their return engagements—the touchstone of popularity—seem to be quite as numerous in the Middle and New England States as in the more excitable sections of the country.  And, after all these years of travel and experience, they still declare with one voice that the best part of the United States in which to travel is round the streets of Boston.



Figure


E.F.WEBBER


E.E.BULLOCK


B.G.WILLARD


ROBERT BRUCE

Temple Quartette OF BOSTON
ORGANIZED 1867
The Temples in 1896; reproduced from a window hanger