Fred Jewell, the March King of Indiana

If you have ever heard a brass band swing into a circus march, you may have been hearing the work of a hometown boy from Worthington. Fred Jewell was born here in eighteen seventy five, and at sixteen he ran away to join a traveling dog and pony show, playing the euphonium. He rose to bandmaster for some of the greatest circuses in America, Barnum and Bailey, Hagenbeck Wallace, the Sells Floto.

Along the way he wrote more than one hundred marches and screamers, the fast, blazing tunes that sent crowds roaring. After leaving the circus he started his own music publishing company and came home to Worthington. He has been called the March King of Indiana, and his pieces still ring out from community and military bands today.

He died in nineteen thirty six, but the music never stopped marching.