DUNCAN HALL CELEBRATES 75 YEARS                         Back to Schedule

Thomas Duncan Hall will hold a 75th Year Celebration on Sunday, April 9. The event is free and open to the public. There will be a program starting at 4:00PM with music provided by the Fountain Trust Pipe Band. The music honors the hall’s benefactor, Thomas Duncan, who came from Scotland to the US in the late 1800’s.

Duncan Hall president Linda Sutter will then signal the premier of a documentary video which features some highlights of the hall’s history. The video was produced by Purdue students Clare Riley, Chris Panzica and Maciej Brzozowski.

Then there will be a special performance by Jefferson High School Senior Samantha Benson. She will perform one art song and four operatic arias. Soon after Duncan Hall opened 75 years ago, the world renowned contralto, Ernestine Schumann- Heink gave a recital in Lafayette, which included both classical selections and popular music of the 1930’s. The art song Samantha will perform is a selection composed by Schubert from Schumann- Heink’s program, entitled “Wohin?” and the four arias are various selections from operatic mezzo-soprano roles.

Following that performance, there will be the opening of an exhibit in the Sarah Duncan Room of artifacts collected by Thomas Duncan and Dr. Wetherill on their 1921 travels in Africa. The artifacts are on loan from the Tippecanoe County Historical Society.

Tours featuring the architecture, artwork and antiques of the hall will be available, as will refreshments. There will be a drawing for door prizes at 5:30 PM. Duncan Hall is located at 619 Ferry St in downtown Lafayette. For more information: (765) 742-4788 or duncanhall.org

Background: Duncan Hall
The two-story Georgian Colonial red brick building was dedicated on April 6, 1931. To build the elegant sculpture, over $100,000 was bequeathed in Thomas Duncan’s will to the Lafayette Community House Association. This brilliant inventor/industrialist/philanthropist made his fortune in Lafayette as the inventor and manufacturer of the Duncan Meter.

His wife, Sarah Ely and Sarah’s mother were members of a dynamic group of women who had worked tirelessly for the welfare of the community since the late 1800’s. The group incorporated in 1922 to become the Lafayette Community House Association. Along the way, these civic minded, visionary individuals provided employment training for hundreds of unskilled women as well as housing for many who had no other place to live. They started a free kindergarten which at five sites served for 26 years until being absorbed by the Lafayette School Corporation .They made comfortable meeting spaces available for scores of community groups. Such groups as the Girl Scouts, Civic Theater and the YWCA were incubated at the original Community houses on Ferry St.

The CHA merged in 2005 with the Sarah Duncan Education Council to form the 501c3 organization, Thomas Duncan Hall, Inc. Its purpose is to preserve Duncan Hall and its history, as well as to provide educational programs the promote citizenship, civility and character. One such program, Manners Are Fun has been successfully presented for five years to thousands school children in Greater Lafayette.

Samantha Benson
Samantha Benson is a senior at Jefferson High School and has been taking voice from Vergine Miller for five years. At Jeff, Samantha is a member of the Varsity Singers concert tour, First Edition show choir, art club, National Honors society and Nautilus yearbook staff as well as being the Valedictorian of her senior class. Samantha is accustomed to the stage and has been active in Civic Theater for many years. At Jeff, she has sung not only with the choirs but in four musicals and with the jazz band.
Samantha plans to go to Indiana University in the fall and double major in biology and vocal performance with hopes of pursuing operatic performance, genetic research or veterinary medicine. For the Duncan Hall celebration she will perform:
*“Wohin?” by Shubert (one of Schumann-Heink’s songs)
*“Non so piu cosa son cosa faccio” And “Voi che sapete’ both from Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro
*”Faites-lui mes aveux” from Gounod’s Faust
*”Prince Orlofsky”s aria from Johann Strauss’s Die Fledermaus

Fountain Trust Pipe Band
The band began in 1999 with five pipers and has grown to a group of fifteen. Although the Pipe Major Campbell White is from Lafayette (he is an attorney at Stuart and Branigin) other members come from Covington, Crawfordsville, Rockville, Terre Haute, Danville, IL and as far south as Bloomington, Indiana.

The band is dedicated to becoming a strong competition pipe band. They have competed and placed well at competitions in Carrollton, Springfield, Illinois and Fort Wayne. They have performed at such venues as the Conseco Fieldhouse for the boys’ state basketball championship, at half time in Cincinnati for the Bengals and the 500 Festival Parade in Indianapolis.

On November 4 of this year the band is sponsoring the first Tartan Ball at Duncan Hall, featuring piping, Scottish dancing with The Whole Nine Yards, and a Scottish dinner. For more information see www.fountaintrustpipeband.com



The TCHS Duncan-Wetherill African Artifact Exhibit

In 1922 Thomas Duncan fulfilled a lifelong dream and embarked on an extensive journey to Africa. He traveled with Dr. Richard B. Wetherill, a retired Lafayette physician, chemist, anthropologist and world traveler. The two journeyed deep into the east and central sections of Africa from Cairo to the Cape. They traveled over 10,000 miles by water, railroads, donkey and on foot with over forty attendants, interpreters and carriers. They collected many items, ancient and modern: trophies of the hunt, collections of native dress, musical instruments, weapons and botanical specimens, etc.. Mr. Duncan was an avid photographer and shot hundreds of photos along the trail. Mr. Duncan later left much of his collection to TCHS in which he and Wetherill were deeply interested.

When they returned from Africa, Duncan could find no sufficiently large, suitable meeting place in which to gather a group to share his photos and slides. That inspired him to leave monies in his will to the Lafayette Community House Association to expand the work they were doing on Ferry St. and to build Duncan Hall.

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