Tuba player struck up the band

By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History, Daily Gazette, Amsterdam Recorder 

     Amsterdam tuba player Herbert S. Breen was married twice.  His first wife, Maude Mosher, died in 1927, the year the Mohawk Mills Band was formed.  Two years later he married Carrie Wilbur. Breen said he met both women when he was playing in a band, “Must be that uniform that gets them.”

Born in Manchester, England, in 1879, Breen came to America at age six and his family settled in Amsterdam. Breen’s first job in 1896 was at John E. Larrabee’s, the city’s popular hardware store. He later opened his own plumbing and tinsmith shop. He also worked for Chuctanunda Gas and Light before returning to Larrabee’s, where he remained for 45 years. He serviced air conditioning units.

His passion though was music. According to a 1950 feature article in the Mohawk Carpet Mills publication Tomohawk, Breen started his musical journey playing an alto horn in the Rock City Silvertone Cornet Band, the same year he started working at Larrabee’s.

The musical group practiced in a grocery store at the corner of First Street and Forest Avenue in Amsterdam’s Rockton section.  Breen said the band could have been more successful, “People used to blow their lamps out if they thought we were going to play in front of their house.”

When the Rock City band broke up, Breen sometimes played in the Hagaman Citizens Band, Fort Hunter Military Band, Minch’s Military Band, Hagaman Boys Band and the popular 13th Brigade of the Knights of Pythias, a fraternal group. “As the band grows older,” Breen told Tomohawk, “it seems to me the boys go into a kind of a slump and have to start over again.”

Breen said the major “start over” in his musical life came in 1927 when the Mohawk Mills Band was formed, subsidized by the carpet mill owners, the Shuttleworth family. The band was led by a number of men but for many years one of the Musolff brothers—Edward, Harry or Frank---held the conductor’s baton.

Quite a few members worked for the mill but others, like Breen, did not. The band was in peak form in 1950 when Breen was interviewed for a company magazine article. He is pictured on the cover playing the tuba.

At age 70, Breen was the oldest member of the organization. The youngest was Amsterdam junior high school student George Guilbault, Jr., a percussionist. His father, George Guilbault, Sr., owned a supply business, was a snare drummer and persuaded his son to join.

Carpet weaver Al Pietro played clarinet. Finishing room worker John Carbonelli was a cornet player, as was weaver and charter member Arthur Cook.

Music store proprietor and former weaver Martin Dybas was a charter member and played clarinet, as did banker James McGibbon. Herm Bettine, who operated an auto repair garage, played bass drum.

Breen told Tomohawk that he didn’t consider himself “much of a musician” but said he had a “wonderful chance to do some clowning and have a few laughs.” In 1961 American Legion Post 701 took over sponsorship of the band from the carpet mill. Carpet production was now moving south.

Herb Breen died at Amsterdam Memorial Hospital in 1962 after a month-long illness. He was 82. His wife, one son, one step-son, one grandson and two great-grandchildren survived him.  He was buried at Hagaman Cemetery after a service conducted by Reverend Albert Brockway of First Methodist Church.

Members of the newly named Post 701 Band called to pay their respects. Breen had been named an honorary member of the Amsterdam Musicians Local. He was a charter member of the Hagaman Volunteer Fire Department

Bob Cudmore is a free lance writer.

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