Parade Committee Selects Mattatuck Drum Band For 2010 Legends And Pioneers Award

By Nancy K. Crevier

The Newtown Labor Day Parade committee is pleased to announce that this year’s Legends and Pioneers Award goes to the Mattatuck Drum Band of Waterbury. The Legends and Pioneers Award has been awarded since 2008 to an individual or organization that has helped make the parade a special tradition through longtime participation. Previous years’ recipients were the Rockin’ Roosters Square Dance Club in 2008 and the Lathrop School of Dance in 2009.

The Mattatuck Drum Band has been a popular addition to the Newtown Labor Day Parade for more than 30 years, with the more than two dozen drum and fife players a familiar sight in their navy and red wool uniforms, red and white feathers bobbing in their three-cornered caps, stepping smartly down the street, rain or shine, and Drum Major William Pierpont leading the way.

The band is the oldest continually active drum band in the country, said Mr Pierpont, Thursday, August 19. “It started out in 1767 as a training band for the Farmingbury Parish Militia, in what is now Wolcott,” he said. In 1881, the band was brought to Waterbury by a gentleman named Charles Miller and renamed the Mattatuck Drum Band, using a Native American word for “place of no trees.” It has called Waterbury home ever since.

Close to 60 members make up the entire volunteer band, although it is very rare for all to march at one time. Usually, between 25 and 30 members make up the band for an event. They range in age from the junior assistant drum major, usually 4 to 6 years old, to several longtime marchers nearing 70 years of age. They march to the beat of a dozen rope-corded snare and bass drums topped with calf-skin or Kevlar heads, and the piping of a an equal number of B-flat wooden fifes.

In 1931, the Mattatuck Drum Band moved its rehearsal quarters to a barn in Waterbury owned by Mort Pierpont, William Pierpont’s grandfather. But that was not the real reason that the half-century veteran of the band joined. “I had no choice. My father was in the band, so I learned to drum at 11 years of age, and joined in 1949. Then I took up the fife,” recalled Mr Pierpont, “and then I became the drum major. I hate to say it, but I’ve been the drum major for 40 years now.”

The drum major is responsible for keeping the lineup in order, starting and stopping the band, and directing the music. The long baton that he carries is called a mace, and it is used to keep the time and to give directional cues to the marching band. “A drum corps without a drum major kind of flounders,” said Mr Pierpont.

“I use my mace in a kind of unorthodox way,” admitted Mr Pierpont. “I just throw it up in the air, keep the time, and smile at the people,” he said. Leading the way without a sunny smile is just not his style, said Mr Pierpont. “I’m there to have fun,” he said.

The Newtown Labor Day Parade is one of more than two dozen parades in which the Mattatuck Drum Band marches each year. Over the years they have marched in numerous events throughout New England and the eastern states. They have drummed for audiences at private parties, banquets, balls, and celebrations of all kinds. They have drummed in Wisconsin and Florida, and this past Fourth of July, the Mattatuck Drum Band performed in Philadelphia.

“It is a pleasure to have received the Legends and Pioneers Award from the parade committee,” said Mr Pierpont, “and we’re glad that they think enough of us to have given us this honor. The Newtown Labor Day Parade is a good parade,” he said. “We feel like we’re part of the community.”