The Morris County chronicle. [volume] (Morristown, N.J.) 1877-1915, 1910-10-04
DRUM SIS YEARS
old in PARADE
Atlantic City Hears G. A. R.
Relic Justify Beaten.
OWNER TEN YEARS ITS SENIOR

Sounder of Onsets First Played In
Polk Presidential Campaign and
Later Through Civil War-sanford
Nest Never Wounded Until Kicked
In Eye by Nebraska Mule.
A drum made sixty-six years ago out
of an ash tree at lockwood, Fulton
county, N. Y. was played at the ma
tional encampment of the Grand Army
of the Republic at Atlantic City. 1t
was made by two brothers. ten and
twelve years of age.
The younger of the boys played the
drum through the campaign that elect
ed James X Polk to the presidency.
Later he played it clear through the
civil war and drummed the Thirteenth
Illinois infantry into every engagement
In which it participated. Today ne is
an inmate of the Soldiers home at
Orting, Wash. The drum went with
him by slow stages across the CONT
nent. and it went back with him to the
Atlantic City encampment
The drummer. Sanford @. West, is
now seventy-six. He is little old
man. blind in one eye and weighing
not much more than 100 pounds, but
he puts the fire and energy of boy
into his drumming.
He can drum standing with his back
to the drum as well as face front He
is born drummer. crazy for the drum
from the time he wore his first trou-
sers. He drummed at public meetings
before he was eight.
One of Pioneer Family.
West comes from one of those old
American families which eternally go
west. His people arrived in New Eng
land some time in colonial days. BY
1884 they had got as far as lockwood,
N. ". where they were pioneers.
There Sanford drummed in the Polk
campaign, curling up to sleep on the
mems coats between the speeches.
BY the time Lincoln was running for
president the family had got to Illinois,
and young Sanford drummed through
that campaign too. The Thirteenth
Illinois infantry was the first that en-
listed for three years. West was new
err out of commission one day of that
three years, nor did he miss one en-
gagement.
His hat was shot off his head at
Lookout Mountain, but not hair of
his head was touched. At the first at
tack on vicksburg the sharpshooters
aimed at him when he was STOPPING
over and sent two bullets through the
wrinkles Of his blouse. but didn't
scratch him.
1t was his business to drum the boys
into the fight and then help carry the
wounded off the field on stretchers. AT
Ringgold. Ga. they shot through the
leg the man who was handling the
stretcher with him. West carried him
off the field on his back. got another
man and went back for the fellow he
had left on the stretcher. He seemed
to bear charmed life.
BY the time the war was over ILL
nois had grown too tame and civilized
for the, West blood. West moved to
Nebraska and made his home there for
the most Of his life. 1t was while
ranching in Nebraska that he met the
wound that was due him in the war.
Wounded by Mule.
federate sharpshooters were never able
TO do. The creature kicked him on
the head in way to blind one eye
for life. Twenty-eight pieces of his
skull were removed from the wound
and permanent indentation was made
on the left side of his head.
Still he drums with the same cheer
full vigor and seems as interested in
life as any boy. Nebraska grew too
civilized for him eventually, and he
made his way gradually westward UNI
til he reached the Pacific. Being un-
able to proceed farther he stopped, dis
concerted, and has since fingered as
near the jumping off place as he could.
Marquis Lafayette Fowler, leader Of
the Washington fife and drum corps,
is the old drummer boys side partner.
His given name betrays the Revolu-
tiOnary atmosphere that surrounded
his cradle. He had ancestors in the
Revolution and still possesses the coat
of one of them with its bell buttons.
An uncle was in the war of 1912 and
knew sharp fighting in and around De-
trOit. His older brother was tifer in
the war with Mexico, and Mr.. Fowler
has his fife as well as the one which
he himself played in the civil war and
several silver fifes that have been pre-
scented TO him as a mark of honor.
He has played the fife for fifty-six
years. He played it in campaign meet
ings when Fremont ran for president
at Charlotte. Mich. He went to the
front with the Twentieth Michigan.
There has never been year since the
war that he has not had charge of a
fife and drum corps somewhere. He
declares that in an experience of fifty
years West is the best drummer he
ever knew.
Swiss Adopt Watch Machinery.