Military Music of Colonial Boston
WHEN Isaack de Rasieres visited the colony of New Plymouth in 1627 he noted that “they assemble by beat of drum, each with his musket or firelock, in front of the captain’s door.” Describing the procession to the meetinghouse for religious worship, he continued, “and so they march in good order, and each sets his arms down near him. Thus they are constantly on their guard night and day.”
This description, so typical of early settlements, indicates that the English had carried the militia system of military preparedness to the colonies. Every able-bodied man was required to contribute his part to assure the security of a society that faced the ever present danger of attack. That is, military experience was an ordinary, not extraordinary, aspect of civilian life.
The “beat of drum” introduces another everyday part of the life of the colonists. The drum was deemed an essential instrument not only for the militia, but also for other lay and religious purposes. The drum was used to warn, signal, give notices and orders. Edward Johnson commented in 1636 that the inhabitants of Cambridge “had as yet no bell to call men to meeting and therefore made use of a Drum.”
In 1637, what is now known as the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts became the first militia company to be chartered in the western hemisphere.
Besides the drum, there were other musical instruments used in connection with military and civilian functions. Samuel Sewall noted in his diary the celebration in remembrance of the king’s birthday in 1686: “some marched throw the Streets with Viols and Drums, playing and beating by turns.”
Massachusetts colonists also had brass instruments, for Sewall noted that the eighteenth century was welcomed at daybreak on the Boston Common by four trumpeters.
Fig. 69. “A Procession,” an engraving from A Little Pretty Pocket-Book (Worcester, Mass.: Isaiah Thomas, 1788).
Fig. 70. “8 Trumpets, the Kettle Drums, the Sergeant Trumpet, the Six Clerks in Chancery,” an engraving by Nicholas Yeates, London, 1687.
Fig. 71. “Man with a Bugle on Horseback,” an anonymous American woodcut, logo of the Boston Gazette, 1719–1734.
Like the instruments, the music and traditions of the colonies were imported from Europe, and so it is necessary to be familiar with Old World developments in order to understand New World practices. The military band of the seventeenth century was developed in the army of Louis XIV, and consisted of three oboes and either a bass oboe or a bassoon. In an effort to reinforce the inner voices, and to add a new tone color, two French horns were added in the first quarter of the eighteenth century. At the same time one or more trumpets appeared occasionally, normally for use in flourishes or signals, but not as yet an integral part of the band.
Armies still marched to the cadence of the drum, but other instruments were added to provide interest with melody. As the number of instruments increased and their repertory likewise grew, the band tended to become an entity distinct from the regimental drummers, who along with the fifers continued as the field music. The word hautboys, from the oboes of Louis XIV, came to signify the combination of military instruments, as well as the musicians themselves, regardless of the actual instruments used. Thus a newspaper report of the “Hautboys and Fifes in Ranks” preceding Col. Benjamin Franklin in a parade of the Philadelphia Regiment in 1756 can be interpreted to mean that a band was present, not restricted to oboes alone.
About the middle of the eighteenth century the clarinet was introduced into the band, and the instrumentation became standardized in the Western world into what is now referred to as Harmoniemusik. Until the end of the century the ideal band had pairs of oboes, clarinets, bassoons, and horns, though less affluent regiments might do without the oboes or clarinets. The number of musicians was very much a question of money, for the bandsmen were not paid by the Crown, but rather hired, uniformed, and supported by the officers of the regiment. A print of the changing of the guard in London in 1753 (fig. 72) indicates how the band was used at that time. One can clearly see the band of eight musicians which precedes a grenadier company. There are no drums visible in the picture, as those instruments were not a part of the band. The regimental drummers and fifers would be apart, remaining with their own companies and forming the field music for certain special ceremonies in the military routines of camp life.
Fig. 72. Detail from View of the Royal Building . . . St. James’s Park, London, an anonymous hand-colore engraving (London: H. Parker, 1753).
A print of the changing of the guard at St. James’s Palace, London, around 1790 (fig. 73) depicts the band in England just before the turn of the century. Comparing this print with the same changing of the guard in 1753 (fig. 72), one can see that the original Harmoniemusik combination has been altered. A serpent has been substituted for one of the bassoons in order to strengthen the bass line; a trumpet has replaced one of the clarinets or oboes, and the horn is the crooked variety instead of the earlier natural horn. The bassoon, on the other hand, appears to be a double curtal, a remnant from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In front of the combined band and field music marches the drum major. His baton is a gentleman’s walking stick, more French in form than the traditional British mace. As part of the field music, he wears drummer’s lace, as do the rest of the fifers and drummers.
It was just at this time, at the end of the eighteenth century, that widespread interest in Turkish music brought additional percussion instruments into the bands. From the professional army of Turkey came the bass drum, cymbals, triangle, and tambourine. The combination of these percussion instruments was known as Janissary music. Hence, one finds in figure 73 three turbanned and costumed Negroes and two young boys playing these instruments. They follow the band, but are clearly separate. Finally comes the field music, consisting of snare drums and fifes.
Fig. 73. Detail from Changing of the Guard, St. James’s Palace, an anonymous English hand-colored engraving, ca. 1790.
It was not until after the period of the American Revolution, however, that Janissary instruments became common in Europe. Some of the French bands that came with Rochambeau in 1781 are believed to have had Janissary instruments, but no indication has as yet been found that America subscribed to the fashion until the nineteenth century.
Having looked at European developments for an understanding of American practices, one can return to the musical life of colonial Boston. As early as 1716 Edward Enstone was selling “Haut-Boys” and other musical instruments, and offering to teach all the instruments that he sold.
Concerts were advertised in Boston newspapers from at least 1729 on, and Faneuil Hall was frequently the scene of musical performances. The musical climate of Boston must have been quite encouraging, for in 1754 the musician Stephen Deblois felt sufficiently confident of success that he built a hall “for the purposes of concerts, dancing, and other entertainments.”
In 1764 Deblois offered almost a full range of items available in Europe at the time, including music, accessories, and musical instruments. Significant to the military historian is the inclusion in the listing of “the 55 New Militia Marches . . . and 40 Tattoos and Night Pieces for serenading (18 Divertimenti . . .) [and] Tutors for Singing and for all Instruments singly . . . by Rutherford, Johnson and Thompson.”
The year 1764 also saw the appearance of A Collection of the Best Psalm-Tunes, in two, three, and four-parts by Josiah Flagg, engraved by Paul Revere and printed on paper manufactured in the colonies. There had been many psalmbooks published before, of course, but this marked the appearance of a musician who figured prominently in the military life of the community.
When British regiments landed in Boston on October 1, 1768, the inhabitants witnessed their entry onto the Common “with muskets charged, bayonets fixed, colours flying, drums beating, fifes &c. playing.”
Fig. 74. 49th Regiment, a painting by David Morier, English, 1751.
In spite of their familiarity with military customs through their militia training, Bostonians were shocked and annoyed by some of the British practices. “To behold Britons scourg’d [on the Common] by Negro drummers was a new and very discouraging spectacle,” wrote the editor of the “Journal of the Times,”
Most offensive to the Bostonians, however, was the practice of changing the guards with full ceremony even on the Sabbath. Editorials repeatedly complained about worshipers being disturbed by the “drums beating and fifes playing, unheard of [on the Sabbath] before in this land.”
The attitude towards bands of music seemed to have been quite different, however. Not only was there no complaint about the band that performed on a Sabbath in May of 1769, but rather the band was described as “elegant,” the French horns singled out as “inimitable,” and the tune that they played was included in the account by name.
In March of 1769 a concert was given at Concert Hall for the benefit of the “Fife-Major of the 29th Regiment.”
Since the military bands were financed by the officers of the regiment, it must be assumed that the majority of their performances were for these officers, and in the normal military ceremonial duties. It is rare therefore that one comes across references to such performances. John Rowe attended the funeral for one of his military friends at which the band of the 64th Regiment led the procession. This band also found time for concerts. In 1771 the band of the 64th performed twice at Concert Hall, the first time in conjunction with W. S. Morgan, the second with Josiah Flagg. They appeared regularly throughout 1772, 1773, and 1774, sometimes at Concert Hall and at least once at the British Coffee House. The nature of these concerts can be learned from the advertisement (fig. 75) carried in the Boston Evening Post of May 9, 1774. The actual pieces to be performed were seldom included in a concert advertisement; therefore this program is of great interest as an example of the typical concert fare of the time. It must be remembered that the military bandsmen of the eighteenth century were “double-handed,” that is, they performed on wind instruments while outdoors, and some exchanged those for stringed instruments for indoor and social occasions. This program, performed indoors, was not a band program in the modern sense, but rather a concert for orchestra.
One hopes that the musical performance was on a higher level than the printed advertisement, with its typographical errors and incompleteness. The opening work, for example, was by Pietro Guglielmi. In a set of Periodical Overtures printed by Robert Bremner around the year 1773 in London, the thirty-first work is Guglielmi’s overture La Pazzie di Orlando. Since this is the only work by Guglielmi in the whole set of parts, it may be assumed that the advertised “1st” is an error for “31st.” In the same set of six works, scored for string quartet, two oboes, and two horns, the other five are by François Joseph Gossec. Number 33 is a symphony, opus 12 number 2. In three movements, allegro, andante, and presto, it is typical of lighter orchestral music of the time. Carl Barbandt was another popular composer of the time, but which of his concertos was performed is not indicated. The song “All in the downs,” or “Black eyed Susan,” was a popular ballad in which the young lady bids farewell to her lover before he sails off to battle in his warship. Excerpts from Thomas Arne’s opera Artaxerxes were frequently performed, and most popular seems to have been the aria “The soldier tir’d of wars alarms.” The kettledrums and military uniforms of the musicians must have left a deep impression on the audience, many of them officers in His Majesty’s Service, as the soloist sang: “The Soldier tir’d of Wars Alarms forswears the clang of hostile arms. But if the brazen Trumpet sound, he burns with Conquest to be Crown’d, and dares again the field.” Thomas Erskine, Earl of Kelly, had three works published as part of the Periodical Overtures, but which one was the “Grand Simphony” [sic] that concluded the concert is not indicated.
There were British musical units active in Boston in 1774 in addition to the famous band of the 64th Regiment. A “Grand Concert of Vocal and Instrumental Music” given at Concert Hall in September of that year, by the same Morgan who had given the concerts with the 64th Regiment in previous years, featured “clarinets, Hautboys, Bassoons, French horns, Trumpets, Kettle Drums, &c., &c.” The advertisement noted that “The Gentlemen Performers of the Army, Navy, and of the Town, have promis’d Mr. Morgan their assistance in Concert; likewise some of the best Performers from the several Bands of Music of the Line.”
At the beginning of 1775 there were nine British regiments stationed in Boston, and at least eight of them are known to have had bands of music.
Others did not find the music quite as charming. Fifing and drumming on the Sabbath, a subject for complaints since the first British landing in 1768, seemed to be even more prevalent than before. The tune “Yankee Doodle” had been and continued to be widely used by the British as a musical taunt against the local populace. In March of 1775 there is a documented complaint that the tune was played by the field music of the 4th Regiment near a church during religious service in order to annoy the congregation.
The colonists had been thinking militarily before the start of the Revolutionary War. T. and J. Fleet had brought out a Boston edition in 1773 of The Manual Exercise as Ordered by His Majesty in 1764, the standard military regulations for the British Army.
Committees of Safety had been established, and the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, like similar groups throughout the colonies, had been reorganizing the militia, forcing out Tory officers and replacing them with sympathetic leaders. A resident described in detail his impression of the new volunteer militia units:
Am almost every minute taken off with the agreeable sight of our militia companies marching into the Common, as it is a grand field day with us; and I assure, were you to see ’em, you’d scarcely believe your eyes, they are so strangely metamorphos’d. From making the most despicable appearance they now vie with the best troops in his majesties service, being dressed all in blue uniforms, with drums and fifes to each company dress’d in white uniforms trim’d in ye most elegant manner; with a company of Grenadiers in red with every other apparatus, that equal any regular Company I ever saw both in regard to appearance and discipline, having a grand band of musick consisting of eight that play nearly equal to that of the 64th. What crowns all is the Cadet company, being perfectly compleat and under the best order you can conceive of, with a band of musick likewise, that perform admirably well. What with these and Paddock’s company of artillery make ye compleatest militia in America.
The occasion was the celebration of the birthday of the king. The troops participating were the Company of Cadets, commanded by John Hancock, with a band of music; the Company of Grenadiers with their band of music;
Attention is directed to the commanding officer of the Independent Cadets, Col. John Hancock, who later became president of the Continental Congress. At this time the Cadets had a band, presumably of eight musicians like that of the Grenadier Company, who played “admirably well.” A year later, when the Independent Cadets dissolved owing to the rising frictions leading to the Revolution, the musical instruments and equipage were turned over to Hancock for safekeeping until the Cadets could be reactivated.
Preparation for any possible outbreak of hostilities continued. Companies of minutemen were established, to be ready to respond at a moment’s warning. The first call was sounded by William Diamond, a drummer in Captain Parker’s militia company from Lexington. Born in Boston, and having learned the art of drumming from a British soldier stationed there, Diamond was only nineteen when he beat the call to arms. The drum that he used, now owned by the Lexington Historical Society, is illustrated in figure 76.
From all over New England men responded to the news from Lexington. Within a few days a conglomeration of militia units held together by common ideals, but little else, began a siege of Boston. The Massachusetts Provincial Congress resolved that eight thousand men be immediately enlisted and formed into companies of seventy-nine men each, including one drummer and one fifer, nine companies forming a regiment.
By March of 1776 the British situation in Boston had become untenable and Gen. Howe decided to evacuate all his troops. As the Americans entered Boston, they marched to the tune of “Yankee Doodle,” and traversed the town from end to end with “drums beating and colors flying.”
Within two weeks of assuming command he ordered that his chief executive officer, the brigade major, set up his office in the general’s own quarters, and that the “drums-and-fifes majors of the whole brigade” meet in that office on the following day.
All the drums and fifes in town are to attend the stated exercises at the time and place appointed. All the drums-and-fifers majors of this division of the army are to meet twice a week, on Tuesday and Friday, on the bottom of the Common, for practice. The drums and fifes of each regiment off duty are to practice separately, under the direction of their respective majors, till the chief drum-and-fife majors shall think them sufficiently instructed to join in one body. It is recommended the musicianers of each regiment that they emulate each other in striving to excel in this pleasant part of military discipline.
To reinforce the total effect of this drive, Ward decreed that the next day’s parole, or sentry’s challenge, would be “martial.” to be answered by the countersign “music.”
It will be remembered that, two years before, the musical instruments of the band of the Independent Cadets had been turned over to its commander, John Hancock, for safekeeping until such time as the Cadets could be reconstituted. Some other officers had different ideas, and took advantage of the situation. Writing from Philadelphia, where he was serving as president of the Continental Congress, John Hancock requested a favor of Gen. Philip Schuyler:
On the Departure of our Troops from Boston, to New York, Colo Greaton & I believe some other of the Cols from my Colony, Without my Knowledge or Consent took into their Possession & out of the hands of the proper officer with whom I had left them, some French horns, Bassoons & other Instruments of Musick which I purpose imported for the use of a Military Corps under my command. I have to request the Favor of you to Give Orders to Colo Greaton, or any officer who may have them, to deliver them to you. I shall esteem it a Favor, if you have any good opportunity, You would please to order them to be sent to me. I believe you will find my name on them.
Gen. Schuyler was at the time away from the main part of the army, so he requested his second-in-command, Gen. Gates, to collect the instruments and forward them to his house at Albany.
Boston remained peaceful after Howe left in March of 1776, and their distance from the actual site of warfare seems to have given the Bostonians some sense of assurance that military preparations were no longer an emergency. On May 29, 1777, the following order was given to the troops in Boston:
The Honble House of Representatives having represented that the frequent Drumming around and near the Court House greatly interrupts the Debates of the Assembly, and desire that a stop may be put thereto, the General therefore forbids any Beating of Drums during the sitting of the Council or House of Representatives (except on some special occasions) either for practicing or on Duty, above the Coffee House in Congress Street, or between the Old Brick Meeting House, and the Town Pump in Main Street. Fife Major Hywill will fix a parade for the Musick of Colo Crane’s Battalion, somewhere without the before mentioned Limits.
The fife major referred to in the orders was John Hiwell, who had been appointed to that position in Knox’s Regiment of Continental Artillery on February 1, 1776.
In June of 1777, less than a month after the above order was given, Hiwell received 180 dollars from Col. Crane “to recruit men for his Reg. of Arty.”
In 1778 Hiwell was appointed as inspector and superintendent of music for the Continental Army, with the pay and allowances of a captain of Artillery.
Following the surrender at Yorktown in October of 1781, there was little organized fighting, particularly in the North. Not wishing to disband completely his army prior to the formal acceptance of a peace treaty, Washington decided to grant furloughs, thereby maintaining the organization of the army. Having functioned as a unit for so many years, the members of Crane’s band remained together even while home on leave. The Salem Gazette of January 16, 1783, carried the announcement illustrated in figure 77. Hiwell had drawn two clarinets and cane for bassoon reeds from the commissary specifically for Crane’s band, and the advertisement mentioned “Duets on the Horns,” so that the band must have been the standard Harmoniemusik combination of pairs of oboes, clarinets, bassoons, and horns, similar to the style accepted by the European bands.
The concert was performed “at so great acceptance” that the band was engaged to assist in a concert for the poor the following week. Less than a month later the band performed a similar concert at Portsmouth,
The band returned to the regiment in time for the announcement of the cessation of hostilities on April 19, 1783, and finally the day arrived for which the men had been waiting so patiently: “Regimental Orders, 9th June 83. . . . The men engaged during the war are to parade tomorrow morning 10 o’clock before Col[onel’s] Quarters—prepared to march to their respective homes—. . . The Non Commissioned Staff and Band are to [be] furnished with Musketts and Accoutrements from the 3 years men. . . .”
Certainly the musicians must have continued playing when they got back home, for there are many references to “the Massachusetts Band” performing in Boston. Richard Franko Goldman has traced a direct relationship between this band of Col. John Crane and that of Patrick S. Gilmore, almost a century later: “The Massachusetts Band was formed in Boston in 1783; it was known from about 1812 as The Green Dragon Band, changing its name again in about 1820, to the Boston Brigade Band. It was this band that became, in 1859, Gilmore’s Band, the first great American band and undoubtedly one of the finest that has ever played.”