Puffer Genealogy

LAMPHAM, Frederick Clayton[1]

Male 1881 - 1946  (64 years)


Personal Information    |    Notes    |    Sources    |    All

  • Name LAMPHAM, Frederick Clayton 
    Birth 18 Sep 1881  Rochester, NY Find all individuals with events at this location  [1, 2
    Gender Male 
    FindaGrave
    Residence 1900  Rochester, NY Find all individuals with events at this location  [3
    Residence 1924  Rochester, NY Find all individuals with events at this location  [4
    Residence 1937  Rochester, NY Find all individuals with events at this location  [4
    _COLOR 11 
    Death 21 Mar 1946  Orangetown, NY Find all individuals with events at this location  [2
    Burial Sparkhill, NY Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Address:
    Rockland Cemetery 
    Person ID I42684  Puffers
    Last Modified 2 Dec 2023 

    Father LAMPHAM, Fredrick D.,   b. 23 Aug 1858, Rochester, NY Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 6 Sep 1946, Manhattan, NY Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 88 years) 
    Mother Mary E.,   b. Sep 1860, NY Find all individuals with events at this locationd. Yes, date unknown 
    Residence 1935  Rochester, NY Find all individuals with events at this location  [4
    Family ID F15294  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

    Family PUFFER, Fannie May,   b. 9 Nov 1883, Rochester, NY Find all individuals with events at this locationd. Bef 1983 (Age < 99 years) 
    Marriage 7 Nov 1904  Rochester, NY Find all individuals with events at this location  [5
    Residence 1920  Rochester, NY Find all individuals with events at this location  [6
    leader of Lampham's Red Huzzar Bank and Orchestra 
    Residence 1936  Rochester, NY Find all individuals with events at this location  [4
    Family ID F15247  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
    Last Modified 17 Mar 2024 

  • Notes 
    • Frederick Clayton Lampham was born in Rochester, New York in 1881, the son of a barber in the Second Ward. He studied music at the Rochester Free Academy, becoming an accomplished cornet player. A soloist at concerts before graduation, when city-directory canvassers inquired at the end of 1899, he gave his profession as musician. The following year, he published his first song, “Since My Darling’s Gone,” for which he composed the music and penned the lyrics, leaving the arrangement to a more experienced pro.

      During the succeeding decade, Lampham helped make ends meet by teaching music, but bankrupted himself operating a music store for a short time. His main line was performance as a cornetist, a conductor and a bandleader. In 1902, he assembled his first large “Cadet Band” for concerts. Two years later, a small-town paper referred to the not-yet-23-year-old as the “world’s youngest bandmaster.” At the time, to be a band was nearly synonymous with being a brass band. The pinnacle of accomplishment aand fame and was represented by the “March King” John Philip Sousa, who had first published his own music three decades earlier and had led the U.S. Marine Band and his own eponymous commercial band. Lampham’s outfit followed the uniformed example of Sousa’s touring company, eventually dubbing his men, unoriginally, the “Red Hussars.”

      Not all were men, however. The Red Hussar Band would typically feature a female vocalist—originally, Lampham’s fiancee, Fannie May Puffer, a soprano, a solo pianist and a flautist. Multi-talented, she would later direct music for a photoplay, and would reappear fronting the Hussars occasionally in the 1910s, 1920s and 1930s.

      By 1909, the “Red Hussar Band and Extravaganza Company” consisted of “30 artists,” as Lampham insisted that each could competently solo, as he typically did each show. Their agent flogged them in “The Billboard” magazine as “the musical sensation of the century… a carnival of soloists combining in a human organ.” They were essentially based at the Ontario Beach Park resort, where they played the bandshell all summer, a return engagement from the prior year.

      Publicity led to gigs over an ever-wider area; Lampham’s band eventually performed in every corner of New York State and at resorts in Connecticut. They played concert halls, dance auditoriums and vaudeville theaters, and at county and state fairs, amusement parks and trade shows. They were busiest in their hometown. Lampham wrote and arranged “The City Beautiful” march and two-step to honor Rochester’s 1912 centennial, presenting the original manuscript to Mayor Edgerton at the festivities, and copyrighting it the following year. In April 1917, contemporaneous with Leonard Wood’s World War I preparedness campaign, Lampham led his band in a patriotic spectacle featuring his original composition “Hurrah for Old Glory.” The Red Hussars would perform the piece again at Ontario Beach in July.

      Despite the negative connotations of the color red and the rejection of militarism after the war, the Hussars hung onto their name and their dated uniforms until the early 1930s. They did freshen their repertoire, however, performing everything “from classical overtures… to modern jazz,” now referred to as a novelty band and orchestra. The outfit slimmed down to 20 pieces by 1920, but to meet the Jazz Age, a saxophone sextet was added. They also introduced their first regular female player, Rochester’s Deva Ellsworth on bass horn. Lampham demonstrated his willingness to keep up with popular music by composing “Honey Mine,” a number for the vaudeville revue “Fads and Fashions of 1921.” The band’s success and promotion landed them their first engagement in New York City in 1920, followed by gigs at Capitol Park, “Connecticut’s Coney Island” at Hartford; at Savin Rock in West Haven; and at Danbury.

      In the first half of the 1930s, the now sixteen-piece orchestra played summers at the real Coney Island, and began promoting itself as Lampham’s Coney Island Band or Luna Park Band. It was the era of the crooner and the “girl singer,” and female leads included Elizabeth Roderick around 1925, Mildred O’Done from 1930 to 1935, Pauline Stevens from 1935, and occasionally Fannie Lampham. In the late 1930s, they rebranded as the Exposition Band and, just before World War II, as the Scotch Highlander Band.

      One of the photographs depicts several members of Clayton Lampham’s “Red Hussar Band,” probably at a county fair or circus, with comic performers dressed as clowns and “keystone” cops and—manifesting the racial insensitivity of the time—as Mexican campesinos and blackface drag characters. Lampham stands to the right of the ringmaster.



      -- MERGED NOTE ------------

      Frederick Clayton Lampham was born in Rochester, New York in 1881, the son of a barber in the Second Ward. He studied music at the Rochester Free Academy, becoming an accomplished cornet player. A soloist at concerts before graduation, when city-directory canvassers inquired at the end of 1899, he gave his profession as musician. The following year, he published his first song, “Since My Darling’s Gone,” for which he composed the music and penned the lyrics, leaving the arrangement to a more experienced pro.

      During the succeeding decade, Lampham helped make ends meet by teaching music, but bankrupted himself operating a music store for a short time. His main line was performance as a cornetist, a conductor and a bandleader. In 1902, he assembled his first large “Cadet Band” for concerts. Two years later, a small-town paper referred to the not-yet-23-year-old as the “world’s youngest bandmaster.” At the time, to be a band was nearly synonymous with being a brass band. The pinnacle of accomplishment aand fame and was represented by the “March King” John Philip Sousa, who had first published his own music three decades earlier and had led the U.S. Marine Band and his own eponymous commercial band. Lampham’s outfit followed the uniformed example of Sousa’s touring company, eventually dubbing his men, unoriginally, the “Red Hussars.”

      Not all were men, however. The Red Hussar Band would typically feature a female vocalist—originally, Lampham’s fiancee, Fannie May Puffer, a soprano, a solo pianist and a flautist. Multi-talented, she would later direct music for a photoplay, and would reappear fronting the Hussars occasionally in the 1910s, 1920s and 1930s.

      By 1909, the “Red Hussar Band and Extravaganza Company” consisted of “30 artists,” as Lampham insisted that each could competently solo, as he typically did each show. Their agent flogged them in “The Billboard” magazine as “the musical sensation of the century… a carnival of soloists combining in a human organ.” They were essentially based at the Ontario Beach Park resort, where they played the bandshell all summer, a return engagement from the prior year.

      Publicity led to gigs over an ever-wider area; Lampham’s band eventually performed in every corner of New York State and at resorts in Connecticut. They played concert halls, dance auditoriums and vaudeville theaters, and at county and state fairs, amusement parks and trade shows. They were busiest in their hometown. Lampham wrote and arranged “The City Beautiful” march and two-step to honor Rochester’s 1912 centennial, presenting the original manuscript to Mayor Edgerton at the festivities, and copyrighting it the following year. In April 1917, contemporaneous with Leonard Wood’s World War I preparedness campaign, Lampham led his band in a patriotic spectacle featuring his original composition “Hurrah for Old Glory.” The Red Hussars would perform the piece again at Ontario Beach in July.

      Despite the negative connotations of the color red and the rejection of militarism after the war, the Hussars hung onto their name and their dated uniforms until the early 1930s. They did freshen their repertoire, however, performing everything “from classical overtures… to modern jazz,” now referred to as a novelty band and orchestra. The outfit slimmed down to 20 pieces by 1920, but to meet the Jazz Age, a saxophone sextet was added. They also introduced their first regular female player, Rochester’s Deva Ellsworth on bass horn. Lampham demonstrated his willingness to keep up with popular music by composing “Honey Mine,” a number for the vaudeville revue “Fads and Fashions of 1921.” The band’s success and promotion landed them their first engagement in New York City in 1920, followed by gigs at Capitol Park, “Connecticut’s Coney Island” at Hartford; at Savin Rock in West Haven; and at Danbury.

      In the first half of the 1930s, the now sixteen-piece orchestra played summers at the real Coney Island, and began promoting itself as Lampham’s Coney Island Band or Luna Park Band. It was the era of the crooner and the “girl singer,” and female leads included Elizabeth Roderick around 1925, Mildred O’Done from 1930 to 1935, Pauline Stevens from 1935, and occasionally Fannie Lampham. In the late 1930s, they rebranded as the Exposition Band and, just before World War II, as the Scotch Highlander Band.

      One of the photographs depicts several members of Clayton Lampham’s “Red Hussar Band,” probably at a county fair or circus, with comic performers dressed as clowns and “keystone” cops and—manifesting the racial insensitivity of the time—as Mexican campesinos and blackface drag characters. Lampham stands to the right of the ringmaster.

  • Sources 
    1. [S423] WWI Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918.

    2. [S1026] New York Death Index, 1852-1956.

    3. [S304] _1900 United States Federal Census.

    4. [S375] _US City Directories, 1821-1995.

    5. [S1166] New York State Marriage Index, 1881-1967.

    6. [S306] _1920 United States Federal Census.