April 14, 1852, :”Grand National Concert” at Castle Garden on April 14, [1842], celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill with the first performance of a “descriptive symphony” The Battle of Bunker Hill” by Simon Knaebel, a Philharmonic violinist/cellist/hornist. In two parts,  the work consisted of a setting for male voices of the poem “The Battle on Bunker’s Hill” by the American poetess Lydia Sigourney, sung by the German Liederkranz under their leader Herr Agricol Paur, followed by a musical description in twenty sections of the battle, performed , not by a military band but by two separate “Powerful Orchestras” [note 14: “Most all the resident talent is engaged for the occasion,” puffed Saroni’s Musical Times (April 5, 1851, p.19), “ and we sincerely wish a crowded house may reward the efforts of Mr. Knaebel.”] representing the American and British armies.  Each of the twenty subdivisions bore a programatic title, sometimes musically explained, as in section 2, “Digging Fortifications”; or section 16, “’The Fall of General Warren,’ a Marcia funerale preceded by a choral of four Trombones”; or section 18, “Charlestown on Fire.” It all ended with a belicose “March and Combat, between both Orchestras, on the National Airs.”
(Saroni’s Musical Times, May 24, 1851, p. 92, reprinted from the Message Bird, April 19, 1851, p. 19)

April 30, 1851 Jenny Lind concert announced by P.T. Barnum, the concerts to begin May 7.  Julius Benedict would conduct a Grand Orchestra of “nearly 100,” comprising the best New York musicians combined with the Germania Society [note 22: The orchestra included the foremost members of the New York Philharmonic and the entire Germania (which had been touring with Parodi).  … Among the second violins … Knaebel. … A complete listing of the orchestra personnel is found in the Herald of May 11, 1851.

At the final concert of their eventful twelfth season, on April 22, [1854], the Philharmonic, in a huge program, gave the first performance of  the Symphony No. 20 by the prodigiously  prolific German composer Friedrich Schneider (1786-1853), a work dedicated to the Society in appreciation of the composer’s having been elected an honorary member in absentia in 1853. Additionally the Society yet again repeated Spohr’s “ponderous” Die Weihe der Töne and Beethoven’s Egmont Overture.. Also on the program a Duo Concertante on the Air “Araby’s Daughter” by F. Baumann for two french horns and orchestra played by Messrs. H Schmitz and S. Knaebel. [note 46: Popular in the earlier nineteenth century as set by the English composer George Kiallmark (1781-1835) to a poem from Thomas Moore’s Lalla Rookh (1817), the tune was later adapted to Samuel Woodworth’s poem “The Bucket,” and retitled “The Old Oaken Bucket” (c. 1833).

March 4, 1854 As one of the earliest members of the [Philharmonic] Society and a  recently elected director, and as a composer, it was [George Frederick] Bristow ‘s not unbiased opinion that the predominantly German Philharmonic was dedicated to a “systematized effort for the extinction of American music.” (Musical Times and World, March 4, 1854, p. 100; excerpted in Dwight’s, March 11, 1854, p.182) … The Society replied that they had performed numerous works “written on American soil” by locally resident composers” albeit mostly of assorted foreign origins (including Knaebel (German)).
[Lawrence, Strong on Music, vol. II, 189-90, 149n, 492, 486]

S. Knaebel, one of the violinists of the orchestra, was an exceedingly versatile German performer, able to turn his attention at will to horn, violoncello, or violin. He was also a composer, and wrote a cantata, "The Battle of Bunker Hill," which enjoyed a measure of popularity in its day.
[Krehbiel,  p.?]