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��MANNERS AND CUSTOMS IN HOPKINTON.
��the state provided each company with a fife, a snare drum and a base, drum.* If companies desired other instruments of music, they were allowed to provide, at their own expense, as many as they wished. The old military practices de- veloped a good use in stimulating the musical talents of the young. Instru- mental music was cultivated everywhere, and military bands frequently estab- lished. There was in Hopkinton, at the close of the old military system, a band of no mean ability, being com- posed of players upon clarionets, bugles, trombones, and other instruments. Sub- sequently to 1S51, the interest in mar- tial music rapidly declined to complete extinction. It revived again, however, in 1859, when the Hopkinton Cornet Band was organized, under the leader- ship of Melvin Colby. This organiza- tion expired in 1873, but in 1877 anew one was formed under the old name, and under the leadership of John F. Gage. The Cootoocook Cornet Band was organized in 1861, under the lead- ership of W. H. Hardy ; re-organized in 1875, under the leadership of C. T. Webber. Amos H. Currier is the pres- ent leader.
A noted martial musician of this town was Mr. Jonah Campbell, a famous drummer, who died on the 6th of May of the present year, at the advanced age of 83 years. Mr. George Choat, a cele- brated fifer, is still living at an advanced age.
MEDICAL.
Although this department of our present subject hardly comes within the domain of popular themes, yet the prac- tice of the curative art has been modi- fied so much since the beginning of civilized history in this town that some particulars cannot fail to interest the reader. It must be understood, too, that the curative art was very large- ly popular in the first years of this local community. A pioneer society in New England, a century ago, was forced
- The first base drum used was propor-
tionately longer in form than the present one, was slung - horizontally from the neck, and played with two drum-sticks, one in each hand.
��to maintain existence in spite of many professional privations. In such a con- dition, people are accustomed to draw constantly upon such special resources as their domestic circumstances afford. A society so situated could not fail to produce local characters famed for their skill in emergencies. Among such characters, females would enjoy a gen- erally allotted prominence in the depart- ment of remedial knowledge. However, experienced men and matrons in prim- itive circles would convey abundant traditions of the medical value of sundry herbs, roots, barks, and other domestic resources, in the instance of the various ills that afflict the human body. Confi- dence inspired from such a source an- nually replenished the earlier homes of this vicinity with a profusion of herbal packages and bundles, provided against the dreaded prospective wants of the sickened individual or household. Rum- maging through this domestic materia medica, one could find specific reliefs for fevers, chills, aches, eruptions, etc., the efficacy of which was as firmly reput- ed as any specific in the officinal list of the professional corps today. The cura- tive products of the concocting skill of some local or itinerant* domestic prac- titioner of extraordinary repute were often regarded as indispensable house- hold equipments. Most likely some famous plaster or salve, or some re- nowned liniment, was included in the list of special reliances.
The professional physician of the earlier times was practically beholden, in a large degree, to his knowledge of the reputation of purely domestic remedies. The first physicians in this vicinity were often educated solely under the tutor- ship of reputable practitioners in their respective localities, and their practice was somewhat of an eclectic character. Yet they were relatively skillful, as a
��*An itinerant doctor of repute in this
town was Dr. Flagg, who carried
a stock of medicines and travelled on foot. He seems to have been esteemed by many adults, but greatly feared by the children, "who regarded him as a monster having mysterious and dreadful uses for chil- dren, especially if they had red hair.
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