The Repasz Band of Williamsport

Founded in Williamsport in eighteen thirty-one and named for one of its honored directors, Daniel Repasz, this community band has outlasted nearly everything. It played at the surrender ceremony at Appomattox in eighteen sixty-five when Lee surrendered to Grant. Thirty-two years later, its members marched at the dedication of Grant's Tomb in New York in eighteen ninety-seven.

It also participated in the inaugural parades of Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft. The march it inspired, simply called The Repasz Band March, is still played by bands today. Most American communities have a band; very few can trace a continuous line of music from the age of Jackson to the present.

The Repasz Band can. It remains one of the oldest continuously active community bands in the United States.