Excerpt from The Taverns and Stages of Early Wisconsin During the fore part of the grand dances the fair participants wore dark prints, but at midnight they repaired to the dress ing room, provided by better taverns, and donned their party clothes, light colored airy dresses of tarlatan or muslin, or darker ones of delaine or debeige. The elite wore pumps of bronze or black kid, the others dancing in their ordinary shoes or moroc co, prunella, or wax calf. Some of the men had pumps, but more were boots, and occasionally one danced in his stocking feet. The music, furnished originally by a fiddler, who was some times assisted by a manipulator of a bass viol, improved as the larger towns came to boast of excellent cotillion bands; these were in good demand for the important functions of the popular taverns, while local talent was engaged for ordinary events. These string bands consisted generally of four instruments, but occasionally of a larger number.t Among the famous co tillion bands of the time were those of Hess of Milwaukee and Severance of Whitewater. Sometimes the landlord himself was a musician or dancing master, or both, as in the case of Jerome B. Topliff of Elm Grove. New Years, Washington '8 Birthday, the Fourth of July, and Thanksgiving were the occasions for grand balls, when enter prising landlords made extraordinary efforts to attract a large attendance. A shrewd selection of popular oor managers from the various tributary communities constituted an important part of these carefully planned preparations. These functions were sufficiently numerous to satisfy the most ardent dancer. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."