The Glee Club of 1870 is a forerunner group to the Virginia Glee Club that is attested by a mention in the Virginia University Magazine, which suggests the group's prospects are not bright:
Prof. Fife, of Charlottesville, has at last succeeded in organizing a singing class in college. It is said that most of the members are "fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils." Woe now be to him whose room adjoins that of one of these aspiring songsters! Really it is singular that so little attention is here paid to music. This organization and the "Glee Club" will, we trust, start the subject into new life. The latter, we are told, has succeeded in procuring most of the fragments of an "ante-bellum" violoncello, and hopes are entertained of their ultimate union. It is told by a member of the aforesaid club, that in a recent serenade, several of them, on hearing something fall from the balcony, rushed frantically to the spot to grasp the expected bouquet or perfumed billet-doux, dropped by the fair hands of the ladies for whom the dulcet strains were evoked. But, lo! 'twas but the "gentle rain from heaven which falleth upon the earth beneath," and the disappointed singists found nothing but the damp ground to reward their eager search. They had mistaken for bouquets the rain-drops falling from the gutter. Of course nobody took the "grins."[1]