Annual Meeting and Contests of the New York Caledonian Club: 7th

     “All the manly exercises for which the Scottish nation is so celebrated will be contest for the zeal which national feeling imparts to the competitors.  The Club will be arrayed in their tartan and led by their chiefs and chieftains to the music of the pipers of Robertson’s Band.”

“The Caledonian games which annually excite so general an interest among the Scottish residents of this Metropolis and neighborhood, came off yesterday with great éclat, at Jones’ Wood.

At 8 A.M. the Club assembled, 186 members strong, at the Mercer House, in Broome-street. . .

Shortly after 8 the line was formed, and preceded by Robertson’s splendid brass band of some thirty pieces, marched down Broadway to the City Hall Park and the Third-avenue cars, attracting great attention on the way by the variety and elegance of their dashing Highland costume, representing the plaids and the tartans of most of the clans. The day, although not brilliant, was well adapted to the proposed exercises, and at an early hour the Woods were thronged with a gay assemblage of lads and lassies, accompanied by their friends and parents, and flocks of sportive children…

Shortly after 10 o’clock, Pipers Clellan and Bowman paraded the ring, inspiring the multitude with the sweet strains of their bag-pipes, reproducing the martial and fireside airs of old Scotland.

This prelude was succeeded by a grand old-fashioned Scottish reel, the members or clansmen of the Club, preceded by the pipers, the officers and judges making the tour of-the ring, and then forming for the dance, which was rendered with indescribable spirit amid the huzzas of 5,000 spectators.”