On Friday, October 18, 1867, the
Sandusky Männerchor gave a vocal
and instrumental concert at Norman Hall, on Water Street in downtown Sandusky.
Norman Hall was eventually incorporated into property owned by the Hinde and
Dauch Paper Company, and today no longer stands.
Many towns in the U.S. had a männerchor in the
nineteenth century. It was a male chorus made up primarily of those of German
descent. Members could socialize, enjoy music, and preserve elements of the
German culture. The group was assisted by J.L. and E. Bonn, Miss B. Silva, and
Cornelius Schnaitter. J.L. and E. Bonn had been born in Bavaria, and moved to
Sandusky with their family, where they ran a grocery store not far from the
Sandusky Library.
Cornelius Schnaitter was also a native of Bavaria. He moved
to Sandusky in 1849, and ran a successful tailoring business.
It appears that many local businessmen could work at
their jobs in the day, but still enjoy participating in singing societies
during their time off at night and on weekends. An article in the October 19,
1873 issue of the Sandusky Register
reported that a full house attended the männerchor concert. A song
which brought the house down was a comic song called “Frog” in which several
men wore costumes of green and ashen hues, and leaped around the stage like
frogs. The performers were accompanied by a grand piano, and their numbers were
well received by the audience. To read more about the musical societies of
Sandusky’s early German-American citizens, see pages 160 to 173 of Sandusky Then and Now.
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