I think it would be great fun have an old time band like the ones  described below.  To save you some time, the instrumentation in  the two passages below is described about two-thirds of the way down  each paragraph.  I wouldn't argue that these lineups were standard  before 1843, but they were certainly not unusual.  
  
  Another couple of cases from New York (the state and the city)  Philander Seward was a flute player who left behind a hand written  collection of music that included a fair number of fiddle tunes.   And then there was Micah Hawkins, another flautist who was an uncle or  something of W.S. Mount, the fiddler and painter who knew something of  banjos as well.  
  
  I would not dismiss these accounts as representing only the  North.  Fiddle with banjo were far from ubiquitous or standard in  the South before 1843.  In fact, that pairing was extremely rare,  according to the historical evidence I have seen.  (We've plowed  this ground here before, but it's worth turning the dirt over again.)
  
  Enjoy these.  I'd love it if other precincts would report.
  
  Paul "ah, the good old days" Tyler
  
  
  Detzer, Mrs. Laura G. "Pioneer Days and Ways."  1905.  (regarding July 4th at the fort at Fort Wayne, Indiana)
      In 1869 Mrs. Laura Suttenfield wrote a short sketch  giving a glimpse of the lonely life of the little garrison in 1814,  when Major Whistler was in command.  She says: "The fort at that  time contained sixty men of the regular army, all patriotic and anxious  to celebrate one day in the year.  They made three green bowers,  one hundred feet from the pickets of the fort, where Main street now  is, one bower for the dinner table, one for the cooks and one for the  music.  Major Whistler had two German cooks and they prepared the  dinner.  There were but eleven persons at the table, but three are  now living to tell of that day.  Our dinner consisted of one fine  turkey, a side of venison, roast beef, boiled ham, vegetables in  abundance, cranberries and green currants.  As for dessert we had  none.  Eggs were not known here for three years from that  time.  There were three bottles of wine sent here from Cincinnati,  but one was made use of.  Then there were a few toasts and
 after  three guns and music they went into the fort and the ladies changed  their dresses.  Then Major Whistler called for the music, which  consisted of one bass drum, two small ones, one fife, violin and  flute.  There was a long gallery in the fort, the musicians took  their seats there.  But three of the gentlemen would dance.   There were but three ladies present.  A French four passed off  very well for an hour.  Then the gates of the fort were closed at  sundown, which gave it a gloomy appearance.  No children no  younger persons for amusement, all retired to their rooms.  All  was still and quiet.  The sentinel on his lonely round would give  us the hour of the night.  In the  morning we were aroused by  the beating of the reveille.
  
  Hoffman, Charles Fenno.  A Winter in the West: Letters Descriptive of Chicago and Vicinity in 1833-4.
      We had not been here an hour before an invitation to  a public ball was courteously sent to us by the managers,  and  though my soiled and travel-worn riding-dress was not exactly the thing  to present one's self in before ladies of an evening, yet in my  earnestness to see life on the frontier, I easily allowed all  objections to be overruled by my companions, and we accordingly drove  to the house in which the ball was to be give.  It was a  frame-building, one of the few as yet to be found in Chicago; which  although one of them most ancient French trading-posts on the Lakes,  can only date its growth as a village since the Indian war, eighteen  months since.  When I add that the population had quintupled last  summer, and that but few mechanics have come in with the prodigious  increase of residents, you can readily imagine that the influx of  strangers far exceeds the means of accommodation: while scarcely a  house in the place, however comfortable-looking outside,
 contains more  than two or three finished rooms.  In the present instance, we  were ushered into a tolerably-sized dancing room, occupying the second  story of the house, and having its unfinished walls so ingeniously  covered with pine branches and flags borrowed from the garrison, that  with the whitewashed ceiling above, it presented a very complete and  quite pretty appearance.  It was not so warm, however, that the  fires of cheerful hickory, which roared at either end, could have been  readily dispensed with.  An orchestra of unplaned boards was  raised against the wall in the centre of the room; the band consisted  of a dandy negro {sic} with his violin, a fine military-looking bass  drummer from the Fort, and a volunteer citizen, who alternately played  an accompaniment upon the flute and triangle.  Blackee, who  flourished about with a great many airs and graces, was decidedly the  king of the company; and it was amusing, while his head followed the  direction of his
 fiddle-bow with pertinacious fidelity, to see the  Captain Manual-like precision with which the soldier dressed to the  front on one side, and the nonchalant air of importance which the cit  attempted to preserve on the other.

Pamela and Stephen Carr <[log in to unmask]> wrote: I think wooden flute sounds great 
with fiddle / banjo / mandolin (and although fife might be more authentic, I 
prefer the lower flute sound) and I feel excluded when local string groups 
or old time bands form, cause they never include flute - out of habit, or 
tradition, who knows.


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