RICHARD CRAWFORD

    Massachusetts Musicians and the Core Repertory of Early American Psalmody

    THE first English-speaking settlers of New England were Calvinists whose tradition of sacred music was governed by a mistrust of musical elaboration and of singing nonscriptural words. Within a short time after their arrival in Massachusetts they had produced their own metrical psalter, the Bay Psalm Book (1640). During the rest of the seventeenth century the colonists’ preoccupation with survival seems to have left little time for the cultivation and development of sacred music. By the early eighteenth century the skill of note reading had become quite rare. To correct this situation singing schools were formed and books of British psalm tunes for use in these schools were published. Between 1760 and 1800 the singing-school movement bore rich fruit. Musical literacy increased. Tunebooks were issued in greater numbers. And during the last third of the century the music published in these books included an increasing proportion of native American musical compositions.

    In the 1790s, however, there dawned the recognition that the music of American composers was very different from the music of their European contemporaries. It was then only a short step to the belief that American music was inferior. The vigorous folklike musical style the Americans had created more or less from intuition was gradually discredited by reformers who looked to Europe for their standards. By around 1810 many American tunebooks were carrying nothing but European tunes, often with prefaces denouncing American-composed music and claiming that European music better served the ends of “true religion.” After 1810 most congregations and singing societies in the urban East sang European and Europeanized music, while the indigenous New England repertory was gradually pushed westward and southward, where a number of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century New England pieces still survive today in Southern shape-note tunebooks.

    Fig. 332. Four woodcut pages from the Bay Psalm Book, Boston, 1698, of the first musical notation printed on the North American continent.

    From a bird’s-eye view the position of Massachusetts in this tradition appears preeminent. It was of course to Plymouth that the Pilgrims came, carrying Henry Ainsworth’s psalter with them. It was in Cambridge in 1640 that the Bay Psalm Book was published. Then in Boston in 1698 a supplement of tunes was added (fig. 332), apparently the first printing of music in the colonies. Complaints of Massachusetts clergymen such as Thomas Symmes and Thomas Walter spurred the formation of singing schools in the 1720s and instructional tunebooks compiled by Massachusetts minister-musicians issued from Boston presses.

    The first real impact of American creativity upon American psalmody bore a made-in-Boston label. In 1770 William Billings, a twenty-four-year-old Boston tanner, brought out The New-England Psalm-Singer, with a frontispiece by Paul Revere (fig. 333), and in one stroke increased tenfold the amount of American sacred music in print.

    Although Chester is now the best known of Billings’ tunes from The New-England Psalm-Singer, Brookfield (fig. 334) was favored by his contemporaries. Among American compositions, only Lewis Edson’s three fuging-tunes, Bridgewater, Greenfield, and Lenox, and Oliver Brownson’s Virginia received more printings. Although Revere signed the now famous frontispiece (fig. 333), the music was probably engraved by the Boston jeweler and bandmaster Josiah Flagg.

    The Massachusetts printer Isaiah Thomas issued probably the most influential and widely circulated tunebook of the second half of the century. His Worcester Collection (eight editions between 1786 and 1803; the first two published in Worcester, the rest in Boston) was the first American sacred tunebook to reflect changing musical taste systematically, by changing content in successive editions. Moreover, it was the first post-Revolutionary tunebook to be printed typographically rather than engraved.1 Finally, perhaps the most important milestone in the effort to reform American musical taste according to a European standard was published in Boston in 1795, The Massachusetts Compiler by Hans Gram, Oliver Holden, and Samuel Holyoke. Two additional statistical points must be made: (1) more than half of the sacred music titles published in America before 1811 were published in Massachusetts; and (2) a majority of American-composed sacred music printed during the same period is attributed to Massachusetts composers.2 When one considers these landmarks and these statistics, the roles of Massachusetts in general and the city of Boston in particular appear paramount beyond dispute.

    Fig. 333. Frontispiece engraved by Paul Revere, and title page (opposite) engraved by Josiah Flagg, from William Billings, The New-England Psalm Singer, Boston, 1770.

    Fig. 334. Brookfield, a sacred tune by William Billings, Boston, 1770.

    There is another perspective, however, which sheds a somewhat different light on Massachusetts musicians’ contribution to American psalmody. To establish this perspective it is necessary first to review the pattern in which the musical repertory of American psalmody grew. In 1698 the ninth edition of the Bay Psalm Book appeared with a supplement of 13 tunes. During the next sixty years, some thirty different issues of sacred music were published in the colonies. These tended to perpetuate the same musical repertory, so that by 1760 only about 75 different tunes had appeared in print on this side of the Atlantic.3 During the decade of the 1760s the repertory grew suddenly. By 1770 more than 400 different tunes were in print. And that growth, although briefly interrupted during the Revolution, continued until by the end of 1810 the repertory of sacred music included upwards of 7,000 different compositions.

    From the 1760s on the repertory grew both in size and complexity. Prior to 1760 it had accrued slowly and had remained remarkably uniform in style. From the standpoint of performance difficulty there is hardly any difference between Thomas Walter’s Grounds and Rules of Musick (Boston, 1721) and Thomas Johnston’s tune supplement (Boston, 1755). In fact, not until the 1760s did American tunebooks begin to carry music more elaborate than the rather stolid psalm tunes from seventeenth-century British sources. Collections of the 1760s such as James Lyon’s Urania (Philadelphia, 1761), Josiah Flagg’s A Collection of the Best Psalm Tunes (Boston, 1764) and Sixteen Anthems (Boston, [1766]), and Daniel Bayley’s The American Harmony (Newburyport, 1769) increased the repertory’s stylistic diversity and its difficulty. Long contrapuntal anthems and set-pieces, fuging-tunes, and florid, arialike hymn tunes were introduced. The repertory prior to 1760 remained within the bounds of oral command for the most part and the tunebooks which survive suggest that Americans possessed a uniform, rather modest skill as singers. By 1770, however, musical diversity was fully established and was confirmed by most of the tunebooks issued during the rest of the century, which, incidentally, presupposed the ability to read notes. The growing tendency toward musical elaboration was recognized in statements in tunebook introductions. In The Chorister’s Companion of 1782 Simeon Jocelin wrote:

    It is very obvious, that Psalmody hath undergone a considerable revolution . . . within the course of a few years, not only with respect to the method . . . of singing, but even the tunes formerly in common use, are now generally laid aside, instead of which, those of a more lively and airy turn are substituted.4

    The “revolution” Jocelin described can be attributed mostly to the singing schools. Created in the 1710s to teach note reading, this institution by the 1760s led to a dramatic expansion of the amount of music available and to its musical diversity. The singing school eventually succeeded in transforming the repertory from a cluster of established favorites into a growing number of freshly composed novelties, and encouraged tunebook compilers to search for new music to publish. This situation seems to have stimulated the composition of sacred music locally, sometimes by the compilers themselves. It can be said then that the singing school was largely responsible for a most important musical result: the emergence of a group of native composers in the American colonies.

    The contribution made by American composers in creating the repertory of sacred music can be determined exactly. Approximately 4,600 of the some 7,200, or two-thirds, of the sacred compositions published in the colonies and the United States through 1810 can be traced to musicians—mostly native along with a handful of immigrants—who lived and worked in America. However, a closer look at the catalogue of published psalmody which follows shows that only about one-third of the total repertory was reprinted during the period covered; of those 2,000-odd pieces only a fraction received more than three or four printings. As these figures prove, most of the music, especially from the 1770s on, was ephemeral. In so changeable a repertory, knowing precisely how many American tunes saw the light of print is of little value in determining the degree of acceptance those tunes achieved.

    What are important, however, are the particular tunes identified by the tunebooks themselves: those pieces which were constantly reprinted, appearing in collection after collection and forming a substantial ballast or core in an eclectic and ever growing repertory of sacred music. Because they achieved the widest circulation and popularity these tunes are the most representative sample for study and the best means of judging the native contribution to American sacred music. This group of tunes is referred to here as the core repertory: the 101 sacred pieces most frequently printed in America between 1698 and 1810.

    The core repertory could be studied from a number of viewpoints. Like most popular repertories which accrue over a long span of time, it is eclectic in its makeup. The oldest tunes date back to the original Anglo-Genevan Calvinist psalmody of the mid-sixteenth century; the newest were composed in New England during the 1790s. A study examining and contrasting the musical styles of the various layers would be welcome, especially if it could shed some theoretical light on the New England musical idiom as exemplified by its most widely circulated tunes.5 Attention might also be given to the settings of core repertory tunes. It is generally believed that in Northern psalmody, unlike the later Southern tradition, tunes passed from book to book in essentially the same settings, individual tunes circulating as polyphonic compositions for three or four voices rather than melodies with varying harmonizations. Core repertory tunes, all of which received many printings, would provide an excellent basis for testing that belief. A comparison of settings might confirm it or perhaps reveal that compilers made significant musical changes. At the very least such a study would help to trace tunes from one collection to another and to find out who borrowed what from whom.

    Broader and certainly more elusive than these matters is the question of precisely what factors and circumstances beyond purely musical ones determine the content of any popular musical repertory. In American psalmody, for example, what roles did printing technology, book distribution, and copyright laws play? Why did the ideology of “good taste” begin to exert its influence when it did in the 1790s and what effect did it have on the makeup of the core repertory? What factors of tradition, education, and religious belief interacted to confer an almost canonical status on certain pieces of music? A study of the core repertory might reveal the answers to these and other questions. And, given the unusual character of psalmody as a genre—at once functional and aesthetic, sung both for recreation and worship, akin in some aspects of use and genesis to folk music, yet written and published—a study of its origin and development may help to illuminate how other popular repertories, either oral or written, have been formed.

    “Early Music in Massachusetts,” however, was the topic of the conference which produced this study and which dictated the perspective set forth here. Perhaps the perspective can best be put in the form of a question: what does the core repertory reveal about the contributions of Massachusetts musicians?

    A glance at the core repertory seems at first to support Massachusetts preeminence. Of the 38 core repertory tunes which can be definitely assigned to American origin, 28 were composed by the Massachusetts natives William Billings, Daniel Read, Oliver Holden, Justin Morgan, Timothy Swan, Lewis Edson, Abraham Wood, Jeremiah Ingalls, and Ezra Goff, while the remaining 10 can be traced to the Connecticut natives Oliver Brownson, Amos Bull, Solomon Chandler, Alexander Gillet, Oliver King, and two more composers who are identified only as Carpenter, and Deaolph.

    Fig. 335. Worcester, a sacred tune by Abraham Wood, Cheshire, Connecticut, 1779.

    At the head of the list of Massachusetts composers of core repertory tunes stands Billings of Boston, clearly the foremost native American musician of the century. Holden, born in Shirley, was active in Boston musical life as a composer and compiler from the 1790s into the early years of the next century. Apart from Billings and Holden, however, none of the other Massachusetts composers of core repertory tunes worked in the orbit of Boston. Abraham Wood, for example, plied his trade in his native town of Northborough, some forty miles to the west. Figure 335 shows Worcester, a sacred tune by Abraham Wood, one of many small-town New Englanders who took to composing during the eighteenth century.

    The other core repertory composers are distinguished chiefly by their migration from the state of their birth. Daniel Read is solidly identified with Connecticut, having early left his home town of Attleboro and settled permanently in New Haven in his early twenties. Timothy Swan of Worcester lived in Sufifield, Connecticut, from the time he was twenty-two to the age of forty-nine, the years of his primary musical activity. Justin Morgan of West Springfield and Jeremiah Ingalls of Andover became Vermonters in the prime of life. Lewis Edson, born on a farm near Bridgewater, in his twenties moved to Lanesboro in the northwest corner of Massachusetts, but finished his days in New York State. Circumstantial evidence suggests that Ezra Goff was a Massachusetts man.

    If any pattern can be detected in this list it is that, except for Billings and Holden, the Massachusetts natives who composed core repertory tunes were men born in villages who moved out of the state as young men and spent the rest of their lives in small cities and towns, or in rural areas. Rather than a particular Massachusetts heritage, these composers have in common a small-town or rural background. Moreover, when the distinction is made between those born in Massachusetts and those who remained there, the size of the Massachusetts contribution to the core repertory changes considerably. As noted above, of the 28 American tunes assigned to Massachusetts natives no more than 10 compositions—8 by Billings and 1 each by Holden and Wood—are the work of lifetime Massachusetts citizens.

    As well as discovering the origin of the core repertory tunes, it is instructive to notice where they first appeared in print. Massachusetts compilers hold a wide statistical lead over those of other states; 51 or almost exactly half of the tunes in the repertory were introduced in Massachusetts publications. Only a small portion of the music Massachusetts compilers introduced, however, is of native origin. Of the 51, no more than 11 are definitely American: 8 by Billings and 1 each by Swan, Holden, and Amos Bull. One additional tune is possibly American; it appeared in John Tufts’ An Introduction to the Art of Singing Psalm Tunes, 3d ed. (Boston, 1723).6

    Turning to Connecticut for comparison, one finds that although only about 12 percent of American tunebooks of the period were issued there, Connecticut collections ushered into print 33 core repertory tunes. A state that produced only one-eighth of the publications introduced one-third of the most popular tunes. Moreover, 24 of the 3 3 tunes were American, twice as many as Massachusetts can claim. And that total includes first printings of core repertory tunes by all the major Massachusetts natives except for Billings and Holden: Daniel Read, Lewis Edson, Timothy Swan, Justin Morgan, Abraham Wood. Setting aside Billings’ tunebooks, all but one of which were devoted entirely to his own music, it was the Connecticut tunebooks that opened up the field to American composers, most notably Andrew Law’s Select Harmony (Cheshire, 1779),7 Simeon Jocelin and Amos Doolittle’s The Chorister’s Companion (New Haven, 1782), and Oliver Brownson’s Select Harmony ([n.p.], 1783).

    These works, the first two especially, did much to define the native component of the core repertory. The index to Andrew Law’s Select Harmony (fig. 336) names eight previously unpublished American composers: Babcock, Brownson, Carpenter, Deaolph, Gillet, Strong, West and Wood. Law’s mixing of British and American pieces helped to establish the pattern of eclecticism found in most successful American sacred tunebooks of the 1780s and early 1790s.

    Massachusetts tunebooks of the 1780s strongly influenced the makeup of the core repertory. But they took their guidelines for format and repertory, and indeed much of their music as well, from their Connecticut predecessors. For example, in 1784 Daniel Bayley of Newburyport pirated the title, format, and some of the music of Andrew Law’s Select Harmony; John Norman’s Massachusetts Harmony (Boston) included nearly 20 American compositions, all but 1 of which had appeared either in Law’s Select Harmony or Jocelin’s The Chorister’s Companion. In 1785, under the title The Essex Harmony, which he had used from 1770 to 1772 for a tune supplement devoted mostly to English favorites, Bayley published an eclectic collection with roughly a third devoted to American pieces from Law and Jocelin. In 1786 Isaiah Thomas’ The Worcester Collection appeared. Not only does it reflect the growing popularity of the Law and Jocelin repertory, but a comparison of settings shows that the tunes by Billings in The Worcester Collection were taken mostly from Jocelin rather than from Billings’ own tunebooks. Apparently this was done in order to avoid violating a recently enacted Massachusetts copyright law which prohibited borrowing from other Massachusetts publications.

    Fig. 336. Index to Andrew Law, Select Harmony, Cheshire, Connecticut, 1779.

    It was by way of Connecticut that many of the most popular Massachusetts tunes were circulated in the most successful Massachusetts tunebooks. In 1787 or early 1788 Sacred Harmony (Boston: C. Cambridge) was published. This work was a close relative of The Massachusetts Harmony, having been printed from some of the same plates. Yet the repertory closely resembled The Worcester Collection: 80 percent of the tunes, including almost all of the American pieces, had appeared in Thomas’ work. The Federal Harmony (Boston: John Norman [1788]; five more issues by 1794), shared plates with both The Massachusetts Harmony and Sacred Harmony and contained more than two-thirds of the compositions which had appeared in The Worcester Collection. Boston’s most popular collections of the 1780s bear an unmistakable Connecticut pedigree.

    Perhaps the strongest objection to the argument that the heart of eighteenth-century American psalmody reflects powerful influences operating outside Boston in particular and Massachusetts in general is the figure of William Billings. Born in Boston, Billings worked, composed, published, taught, and died there. Although the core repertory list shows that Daniel Read contributed one more tune than Billings, it in no way diminishes the high reputation Billings commands.8 Billings’ tune Jordan (fig. 337) appeared in the very successful tunebook The Village Harmony, of which 17 editions were made between 1795 and 1821. The Village Harmony carried the 1780s repertory into northern New England after it began to lose favor in Boston and environs. Jordan was the only tune by William Billings retained by the nineteenth-century reformers, who turned to Europe for their stylistic standard.

    Singular in personality, talented and original as a writer as well as a musician, Billings was far more prolific than any other composer on the list. More than any of his contemporaries, he was attracted to the large musical forms of his day. He was a vigorous and dominant, if somewhat unkempt figure.

    Billings’ fame has probably been the chief obstacle to a recognition that Boston composers made only a comparatively small contribution to the mainstream of eighteenth-century American psalmody. Now that the heart of the repertory has been isolated, it becomes clear that, rather than drawing from an established Boston creative tradition, Billings almost singlehandedly created whatever native tradition the city enjoyed. In this context Billings appears as a lone, talented composer living in Boston, not, as has sometimes been thought, as the chief representative of a group of composers centered there. Boston was an important center of tunebook publication from the beginning of the period, and so it remained. But all indications are that, except for Billings, Holden, Hans Gram, and perhaps the obscure Boston psalmodist William Cooper, the composers whose works were published there were outlanders who carried their newly printed works back to their native towns. The more closely one looks at the tradition, the more exceptional William Billings seems.

    Fig. 337. Jordan, a sacred tune by William Billings, Exeter, New Hampshire, 1800.

    When the composers, sources, and printing history of the tunes in the core repertory are examined, they offer powerful evidence that, for all the noteworthy contributions of Massachusetts composers and compilers, it was through Connecticut that the major impact of native American composers upon the heart of the repertory was made. The claim for the importance of Connecticut contributions supports a point made by Irving Lowens some years ago. Dealing with the fuging-tune, initially imported from Great Britain, Lowens wrote:

    The type of fuging-tune which attained a quite remarkable vogue on this side of the Atlantic, which was written in a uniquely American style, made its appearance first in Connecticut early in the 1780s. Very shortly afterwards, it spread to central Massachusetts, upper New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. It was not notably popular, at least among composers, in the Boston area, where Billings held forth.9

    Lowens might have gone on to mention that by the early nineteenth century Americans in regions to the south were singing New England music, fuging-tunes included, and were cultivating another indigenous musical idiom related to the one developed first in New England. Sutton (fig. 338), a fuging-tune by Ezra Goff, typifies the kind of fuging-tune Lowens writes about. It is cast in two sections: (1) a beginning in block chords, followed by (2) an imitative “fuging” section that resolves to a chordal close.

    Fig. 338. Sutton, a fuging-tune by Ezra Goff, Albany, New York, 1806.

    The significance of Lowens’ remark goes beyond the particular form of the fuging-tune or the relative weight of Massachusetts or Connecticut contributions. The distinction is deeper than the one established by state line; it extends to that between the country and the city. The distinction was crucial in the development of the fuging-tune, perhaps helping to explain its rise in popularity during the 1780s and its subsequent rejection in New England. Certainly the country/city distinction is helpful in interpreting the significance of the core repertory. For, seen in light of that distinction, the list reveals that the heart of the native musical repertory originated in rural and small-town New England with the exception of Billings’ output.

    Fig. 339. Winter and Windham, two sacred tunes by Daniel Read, Philadelphia, 1860.

    From this fact three suggestions follow. First, most of the American-composed sacred music of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries came from countryside and village rather than city. Second, the roots of the native American idiom of the period are to be found in rural practice. Third, the small-town/rural musical culture that Lowens identified in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, central Massachusetts, upper New York, and Connecticut transcended not only state lines in the North but regional boundaries between North and South, moved into western Pennsylvania, the Shenandoah Valley, and points south and west in the early nineteenth century, and became a major factor in determining the musical style of the essentially rural practice of shape-note psalmody which persists in parts of the South to this day. (Winter and Windham [fig. 339], two sacred tunes by Daniel Read, appeared in shape-note notation in The Sacred Harp compiled by B. F. White and E. J. King. The Sacred Harp was compiled in Harris County, Georgia, but bears a Philadelphia imprint because no musical type was to be found in Georgia in 1844, the date of its first appearance. It remains in print to the present day, and it includes some 33 core repertory tunes—proof of their continuing popularity.) Judging the validity of these hypotheses and examining their musical and cultural implications might be enough to keep someone busy for some time to come.

    the core repertory

    The statistical method employed here is empirical if not sophisticated. The core repertory consists of the 101 compositions most frequently printed in America from 1698 through 1810.10 The size, chosen arbitrarily, has turned out to be workable and convenient. It is large enough to provide a characteristic sample (nearly 1.5 percent of the entire repertory), small enough to be encompassed in a single, hefty tunebook. Admittedly, a claim that the list also represents the 101 most popular sacred pieces of the period might be disputed since a cumulative total arrived at through observation of more than a century of music will not necessarily reflect what music was popular at any given moment within that time. There is also a practical objection to equating “most frequently printed” with “most popular.” If one puts his trust in numbers he may well find himself making a distinction as decisive as that between the quick and the dead, between, for example, tunes printed 44 times and tunes printed 43 times, the former being canonized in the core repertory, the latter consigned to losers’ oblivion.

    The present core repertory may be subject to slight changes. Collections and issues now undiscovered seem certain to turn up in the future, and when they do they may alter a tune or two on the list. Granting the likelihood of imperfections in the present list, the fact remains that similar difficulties and possible unfairness are part of any attempt to choose a sample. The advantages of identifying a central, representative core of tunes for observation, analysis, and interpretation should outweigh reservations about the way they have been chosen. In fact, it may be that the method of choice used here enjoys a certain advantage over one which accounts for more variables. Its very simple-mindedness will perhaps help to remind the user of precisely what the list represents, while a more sophisticated, more complicated method might beguile him into thinking he is working with a repertory of tunes scientifically proven most popular.11

    One more problem should be mentioned: that of explaining what constitutes a tune printing. A printing is defined here as the appearance of a composition in one edition or state of one tunebook. That definition is not as simple as it may seem; precisely what constitutes a separate edition or state of a book is not always clear-cut. On the one hand, Andrew Law’s Select Harmony was printed more than fifteen different times from essentially the same copper plates, but without any separate edition numbers. Among all these printings, only three significant changes of musical content are found: Law published part of his work late in 1778, issued the complete version a few months later, in early 1779, and published an edition early in 1782 with small but noteworthy musical changes. He continued to print the last version into the 1790s, issuing it at least twelve times with no significant musical alterations. For the purpose of this study only the two printings for tunes appearing in the 1779 and 1782 issues were counted. Since the 1778 was so obviously makeshift it was not counted. And since only close bibliographical scrutiny can detect variations among the dozen issues of the 1782 version—Law gave no separate designation to any of them—they are treated in the count as a single edition. On the other hand, although Andrew Adgate’s Philadelphia Harmony was published eight times with Rudiments of Music, second through ninth editions, between 1789 and 1807 with the same music on the first fifty-six pages in all editions, each tune’s printing has been counted.

    Law and Adgate represent extreme cases, but the tune count in both of these works reflects a basic rule of thumb: if there is evidence that a compiler has rethought the content of a collection, either by bringing out a new edition, or by bringing out an altered issue which amounts to a new edition even if it is not called one, the tunes in that issue are counted as new printings. Therefore, appearances of a tune in separately designated editions of a single tunebook are counted as printings. Likewise, appearances of a tune in a substantially altered issue not designated as a separate edition are also counted as printings.

    Most of the tunes are listed here under the titles of their earliest American printings. A few, however, became more widely known in America under titles other than the ones they initially bore. In these cases the tune is listed under the more common title, and the title of the first printing appears in parentheses. No attempt has been made to give a comprehensive list of alternate titles.

    In the following table, the first column gives the standard tune name, with alternatives in parentheses; the second reports only those composers whose identity is established beyond question; the third and fourth are self-explanatory; the fifth gives the date of the earliest discovered printing of each tune. For American tunes the date in the fifth column is the one appearing in the fourth. For non-American tunes the dates are not all definitive. Dates of non-American tunes are distinguished as follows:

    1. 1. Tunes known to have been printed first in a given year are given definite, unqualified dates, e.g., 1718.
    2. 2. Tunes whose first printings have been traced to a collection of uncertain date are dated approximately, e.g., ca. 1765.
    3. 3. Tunes whose first printings have not been established are dated by the earliest printing I have found through an extensive, though not systematic, search of English tunebooks; these dates are enclosed in brackets, e.g., [1741], or if the date of the collection is tentative, [ca. 1741]. If a tune of non-American origin has yet to be traced to a non-American source the fourth column is blank.

    The first printings of most of the non-American tunes on the list are documented in hymnological works. For example, see: Maurice Frost, English & Scottish Psalm & Hymn Tunes c. 1543–1677 (London: Oxford University Press, 1953); Maurice Frost, ed., Historical Companion to Hymns Ancient & Modern (London: William Clowes, 1962); Hymns Ancient and Modern, historical edition (London: William Clowes, 1909); William Jensen Reynolds, Hymns of Our Faith: A Handbook for the Baptist Hymnal (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1964); Nicholas Temperley, The Music of the English Parrish Church, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979). I am also grateful to Professor Temperley for generously providing information from his files.

    TABLE VII

    The Core Repertory of Early American Psalmody

    Tunes known to be American are marked with an asterisk (*). Tunes which have not been traced to a European source and thus may have been composed in America are designated with a dagger (†).12

    Tune name Composer Number of printings First American printing Date of first known printing

    Adeste Fideles

    Wade

    46

    Shumway 1801

    1782

    (Lisbon, Oporto, Portugal New, Portuguese Hymn)

           

    All Saints

    Knapp

    56

    Johnston 1763 or Flagg 1764

    1738

    (Bolton, Knap’s 100, Wareham)

           

    *Amherst

    Billings

    73

    Billings 1770

    1770

    Amsterdam

     

    48

    Flagg 1764

    1742

    Angels Hymn

    Gibbons

    71

    Lyon 1761

    1623

    (Angels Song, Angels Tune, Old Angels Hymn)

           

    *Anthem for Easter:

    Billings

    45

    Billings 1787

    1787

    “The Lord is risen indeed” (Easter Anthem)

           

    Aylesbury

     

    126

    Lyon 1761

    1718

    (Aylesburg, Exeter, Gainsborough, St. Philips, Wirksworth)

           

    Bangor

    Tans’ur

    108

    Johnston 1763 or Flagg 1764

    1735

    Bath

     

    90

    Johnston 1755

    1713

    (Buckland)

           

    Bedford

    Wheale

    82

    Lyon 1761

    ca. 1723

    Bray

     

    46

    Flagg 1764

    ca. 1760

    (Danville, George’s, Leeds, St. George’s)

           

    Bethesda

     

    49

    Williams 1769

    ca. 1760

    *Bridgewater

    Edson

    97

    Jocelin 1782

    1782

    *Bristol

    Swan

    78

    Brownson 1785

    1785

    Bromsgrove

     

    61

    Walter 1760

    1724

    *Brookfield

    Billings

    86

    Billings 1770

    1770

    Buckingham

     

    71

    Williams 1769

    ca. 1763

    Burford

     

    45

    Walter 1760

    1718

    (Buford, Hexham, Norwich, Uxbridge)

           

    *Calvary

    Read

    46

    Read 1785

    1785

    Canterbury

     

    90

    Bay 1698

    1592

    (Low Dutch)

           

    *Chester

    Billings

    57

    Billings 1770

    1770

    Christmas

    Madan

    50

    Law 1783

    1769

    (Bristol)

           

    Colchester

    Tans’ur

    95

    Walter 1760

    1735

    (Colchester New)

           

    Coleshill

     

    45

    Dawson 1754

    1644

    (Dublin)

           

    *Coronation

    Holden

    47

    Holden 1793

    1793

    Dalston

     

    71

    Flagg 1764

    1763

    (Psalm 122)

           

    Denmark

    Madan

    93

    Law 1782

    1769

    (Anthem: Before Jehovah’s Hymn)

           

    Dunstan

    Madan

    54

    Law 1783

    1769

    Dying Christian

    Harwood

    46

    Law 1786

    ca. 1770

    (New York, Vital Spark)

           

    *Enfield

    Chandler

    56

    Brownson 1785

    1785

    Funeral Thought

     

    93

    Flagg 1764 or Bayley 1764

    1763

    (Funeral Hymn, Radnor, Walden)

           

    *Greenfield

    Edson

    102

    Jocelin 1782

    1782

    *Greenwich

    Read

    81

    Doolittle & Read 1786

    1786

    Habakkuk

     

    54

    Law 1783 or Stickney 1783

    ca. 1760

    (Bowden, Leominster)

           

    Hartford

    Carpenter

    47

    Law 1779

    1779

    Hotham

     

    59

    Law 1783

    1769

    (Hymn)

           

    Irish

     

    81

    Flagg 1764

    1749

    (Dublin, St. Patrick’s)

           

    Isle of Wight

     

    61

    Tufts 1726

    ca. 1720

    *Jordan

    Billings

    71

    Billings 1786

    1786

    *Judgment

    Read

    48

    Read 1785

    1785

    Kingsbridge

     

    49

    Flagg 1764

    ca. 1760

    Landaff

     

    85

    Neu-vermehrt 1753

    1558

    (France, Kingston, Old 50, Psalm 50)

           

    *Lebanon

    Billings

    48

    Billings 1770

    1770

    *Lenox

    Edson

    102

    Jocelin 1782

    1782

    *Lisbon

    Read

    68

    Read 1785

    1785

    Little Marlborough

     

    133

    Bayley 1764

    1763

    London New

     

    52

    Walter 1721

    1635

    (London)

           

    *Majesty

    Billings

    73

    Billings 1778

    1778

    *Maryland

    Billings

    57

    Billings 1778

    1778

    Mear

     

    119

    Bay 1737

    ca. 1720

    (New Meer)

           

    *Middletown

    Bull

    63

    Law 1779

    1779

    Milford

    Stephenson

    66

    Law 1779

    1760

    *montague

    Swan

    58

    Stickney 1783

    1783

    *Montgomery

    Morgan

    54

    Benham 1790

    1790

    Morning Hymn

     

    48

    Lyon 1761

    ca. 1760

    Newbury

     

    54

    Lyon 1761

    1749

    (Psalm 5)

           

    *New Jerusalem

    Ingalls

    52

    Village 1796

    1796

    (Jerusalem)

           

    *Norwich

     

    83

    Law 1779

    1779

    (Psalm 24)

           

    *Ocean

     

    75

    Law 1787

    ca. 1787

    Plymouth

    Tans’ur

    93

    Johnston 1763 or Flagg 1764

    1735

    Portsmouth

     

    54

    Tufts 1726

    1711

    (Namure)

           

    Portsmouth

     

    46

    Law 1783 or Jocelin 1783

    ca. 1760

    (Falmouth, Monmouth, Monvert, Portsmouth New, Trumpet)

           

    Portugal

    Thorley

    54

    Mass Comp 1795

    1789

    * Psalm 25

    Gillet

    46

    Law 1779

    1779

    (Goshen)

           

    Psalm 33

    Tuckey

    45

    Lyon 1761

    1761

    Psalm 34

    Stephenson

    114

    Flagg 1766

    1760

    (Creation, Psalm 47, Thro’ all the changing, Wiltshire, Wisbeach)

           

    *Psalm 46

    Bull

    44

    Bayley 1784

    1784

    Psalm 100

     

    223

    Bay 1698

    1551

    (Old 100, Old Savoy, Psalm 134)

           

    Psalm 100 New

     

    51

    Tufts 1723

    1723

    (Anthem, Anthem to 100, Geneva, New Hundred)

           

    *Psalm 136

    Deaolph

    47

    Law 1779

    1779

    Psalm 148

     

    53

    Bay 1698

    1558

    Putney

    Williams

    71

    Tans’ur 1767

    1763

    *Rainbow

    Swan

    49

    Brownson 1785 or Bayley 1785

    1785

    Rochester

    Holdroyd

    84

    Lyon 1761

    ca. 1724

    (St. Michael’s)

           

    *Russia

    Read

    68

    Doolittle & Read 1786

    1786

    St. Anne’s

    Croft

    88

    Dawson 1754

    1708

    (Maiden, Preservation)

           

    St. David’s

     

    58

    Bay 1698

    1621

    (St. David’s Old)

           

    St. Hellen’s

     

    72

    Bayley 1764

    ca. 1763

    (Jennings, Sunderland)

           

    St. Hellen’s

     

    72

    Bayley 1764

    ca. 1763

    (Jennings, Sunderland)

           

    St. James

    Courteville

    57

    Walter 1721

    1697

    St. Martin’s

    Tans’ur

    132

    Walter 1760

    1755

    (Gainsborough, Norfolk)

           

    St. Michael’s

     

    117

    Tufts 1726

    1708

    (Hanover, Psalm 149)

           

    St. Thomas

    Williams

    51

    Law 1779

    1770

    (Beverly)

           

    *Sherburne

    Read

    74

    Read 1785

    1785

    Silver Street

    Smith

    60

    Jocelin 1788

    ca. 1780

    (Falcon Street, Hymn, Newton, Skeensborough)

           

    Southwell

     

    47

    Bay 1698

    1579

    (Cambridge Short)

           

    *Stafford

    Read

    81

    Jocelin 1782

    1782

    Standish

     

    56

    Tufts 1723

    ca. 1700

    (Bedford, Wendover)

           

    *Suffield

    King

    60

    Law 1779

    1779

    Sutton

     

    60

    Flagg 1764

    ca. 1760

    (Old Sutton)

           

    *Sutton

    Goff

    47

    Shumway 1793

    1793

    (Sutton New)

           

    *Virginia

    Brownson

    91

    Jocelin 1782

    1782

    Walsall

     

    57

    Lyon 1761

    ca. 1721

    (Durham)

           

    Wantage

     

    68

    Flagg 1764

    ca. 1763

    Wells

    Holdroyd

    160

    Lyon 1761

    ca. 1724

    (Rugby)

           

    Weston Favel

    Knapp

    45

    Flagg 1764 or Bayley 1764

    1738

    (Weston Flavel)

           

    Winchester

     

    52

    Williams 1769

    1690

    (Harlem)

           

    *Windham

    Read

    66

    Read 1785

    1785

    (Windsor)

           

    Windsor

     

    119

    Bay 1698

    1591

    *Winter

    Read

    51

    Read 1785

    1785

    *Worcester

    Wood

    59

    Law 1779

    1779

    York

     

    57

    Bay 1698

    1615

    collections cited

    Bay 1698

    The Psalms Hymns, and Spiritual Songs of the Old & New Testament, 9th ed. (Boston: B. Green, and J. Allen, for Michael Perry, 1698).

    Bay 1737

    The Psalms Hymns, and Spiritual Songs of the Old & New Testament, 24th ed. (Boston: S. Kneeland & T. Green, 1737).

    Bayley 1764

    [Daniel Bayley], A New and Compleat Introduction to the Grounds and Rules of Musick (printed for Daniel Bayley of Newbury [port], 1764).

    Bayley 1784

    [Daniel Bayley], Select Harmony (Newburyport: Daniel Bayley, [1784]).

    Bayley 1785

    Daniel Bayley, The Essex Harmony (Newburyport: the Author and Son, 1785).

    Benham 1790

    Asahel Benham, Federal Harmony (New Haven: A. Morse, 1790).

    Billings 1770

    William Billings, The New-England Psalm-Singer (Boston: Edes and Gill, [1770]).

    Billings 1778

    William Billings, The Singing Master’s Assistant (Boston: Draper and Folsom, 1778).

    Billings 1786

    William Billings, The Suffolk Harmony (Boston: J. Norman, 1786).

    Billings 1787

    William Billings, An Anthem for Easter [Boston, 1787].

    Brownson 1785

    Oliver Brownson, Select Harmony [Connecticut, 1785].

    Dawson 1754

    William Dawson, The Youths Entertaining Amusement (Philadelphia: German Printing-Office, 1754).

    Doolittle & Read 1786

    [Amos Doolittle and Daniel Read], The American Musical Magazine (New Haven: Amos Doolittle & Daniel Read, [1786–1787]).

    Flagg 1764

    Josiah Flagg, A Collection of the Best Psalm Tunes (Boston: Paul Revere, 1764).

    Flagg 1766

    Josiah Flagg, Sixteen Anthems (Boston: Josiah Flagg, [1766]).

    Holden 1793

    Oliver Holden, The Union Harmony, vol. I (Boston: Isaiah Thomas and Ebenezer T. Andrews, 1793).

    Jocelin 1782

    [Simeon Jocelin and Amos Doolittle], The Chorister’s Companion (New Haven: for Simeon Jocelin and Amos Doolittle, 1782).

    Jocelin 1783

    [Simeon Jocelin and Amos Doolittle], The Chorister’s Companion, pt. 3 (New Haven: T. and S. Green for Simeon Jocelin and Amos Doolittle, [1782–1783]).

    Jocelin 1788

    [Simeon Jocelin], The Chorister’s Companion, 2d ed. (New haven: Simeon Jocelin, 1788).

    Johnston 1755

    [Thomas Johnston, Tunes] (Boston: Thomas Johnston, 1755), 18 pp.

    Johnston 1763

    [Thomas Johnston, Tunes] (Boston, 1755 [i.e., 1763–1767]), 22 pp.

    Law 1779

    Andrew Law, Select Harmony ([Cheshire: William Law], 1779).

    Law 1782

    Andrew Law, Select Harmony [Cheshire: William Law, 1782].

    Law 1783

    Andrew Law, A Collection of Hymn Tunes (Cheshire: Wm. Law, [1783]).

    Law 1786

    Andrew Law, The Rudiments of Music, 2d ed. [Cheshire: William Law, 1786], 4, 48 pp.

    Law 1787

    Andrew Law, The Rudiments of Music, 2d ed. [Cheshire: William Law, ca. 1787], 4, [78] pp.

    Lyon 1761

    James Lyon, Urania (Philadelphia: [William Bradford], 1761).

    Mass Comp 1795

    [Hans Gram, Samuel Holyoke, and Oliver Holden], The Massachusetts Compiler (Boston: Isaiah Thomas and Ebenezer T. Andrews, 1795).

    Neu-vermehrt 1753

    Reformed Dutch Church in the U.S., Neu-vermehrt- und vollständiges Gesang-Buch (Germantown, Pennsylvania: Christoph Saur, 1753).

    Read 1785

    Daniel Read, The American Singing Book (New Haven: for the author, 1785).

    Shumway 1793

    Nehemiah Shumway, The American Harmony (Philadelphia: John M’Culloch, 1793).

    Shumway 1801

    Nehemiah Shumway, The American Harmony, 2d ed. (Philadelphia: John M’Culloch, 1801).

    Stickney 1783

    John Stickney, The Gentleman and Lady’s Musical Companion (Newburyport: Daniel Bayley, [1783]).

    Tans’ur 1767

    William Tans’ur, The Royal Melody Complete, 3d ed. (Boston: W. M’Alpine, 1767).

    Tufts 1723

    John Tufts, An Introduction to the Art of Singing Psalm-Tunes, 3d ed. (Boston: T. Fleet for S. Gerrish, 1723).

    Tufts 1726

    John Tufts, An Introduction to the Singing of Psalm-Tunes, 5th ed. (Boston: for Samuel Gerrish, 1726).

    Village Harmony 1796

    The Village Harmony, 2d ed. (Exeter, N.H.: Henry Ranlet, 1796).

    Walter 1721

    Thomas Walter, The Grounds and Rules of Musick (Boston: J. Franklin for S. Gerrish, 1721).

    Walter 1760

    Thomas Walter, The Grounds and Rules of Musick (Boston: Benjamin Mecom, 1760).

    Williams 1769

    Aaron Williams, Universal Psalmodist (Newburyport: Daniel Bayley, 1769). Part 2 of Bayley’s The American Harmony, 5th ed. (Newburyport: Daniel Bayley, 1769).

    composers of core repertory tunes

    The biographical summaries below are consistent with each other only up to a point. All begin with the composer’s name, or as much of it as is known, the place and date of his birth and death if these are known (if they are not, an educated guess is offered as well as the years of active life). His occupations and activities follow. The rest of the entry focuses upon the publication history of the composer’s music. That information has been compiled from the index mentioned in footnote 2, above. Readers will find accounts of the better-known figures in DAB (Dictionary of American Bibliography), Metcalf (Frank J. Metcalf, American Writers and Compilers of Sacred Music [New York, 1925; repr. 1967]), or in specialized articles or studies whose titles are given in full at the end of the biographical sketch. Accounts of lesser known figures give as much detail as possible and are also documented at the end.

    William BILLINGS (b. Boston, Massachusetts, October 7, 1746; d. Boston, September 26, 1800), tanner, writer, singing master, and compiler. He was a lifetime Bostonian, though he conducted a few singing schools in communities outside the city. Billings’ first publication, The New-England Psalm-Singer (Boston, 1770) (see figs. 333 and 334), contained 126 of his own compositions and increased tenfold the number of American sacred compositions published at that time. There followed The Singing Master’s Assistant (1778, with three more editions by ca. 1790), Music in Miniature (1779), The Psalm-Singer’s Amusement (1781), The Suffolk Harmony (1786), and The Continental Harmony (1794). At least half-a-dozen smaller occasional publications also appeared, all printed in Boston. Except for Music in Miniature all of the tunebooks were devoted entirely to Billings’ music. His published compositions number more than 300, including some 50 anthems. From late in the 1770s when American compilers began to print American tunes, Billings’ tunebooks, particularly the Singing Master’s Assistant, were prime sources. A vigorous, earthy writer in his tunebook instructions, Billings briefly edited The Boston Magazine (1783) and wrote at least one prose pamphlet, The Porcupine, alias the Hedge-Hog (Boston, 1784), under a pseudonym. His later years were marked by financial difficulties, and he died in poverty.

    Bibl.—DAB; Metcalf; Carl E. Lindstrom, “William Billings and His Times,” Musical Quarterly, xxv, no. 4 (October 1939); J. Murray Barbour, The Church Music of William Billings (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1960; repr. New York: Da Capo Press, 1972); David P. McKay and Richard Crawford, William Billings of Boston (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975); Hans Nathan, William Billings: Data and Documents (Detroit: Information Coordinators, 1976); The Complete Works of William Billings, ed. Hans Nathan and Karl Kroeger, 4 vols. (American Musicological Society & Colonial Society of Massachusetts, 1977–); New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie, 20 vols. (London: Macmillan Publishers; Washington: Grove’s Dictionaries of Music, 1980), ii, 703–705.

    Oliver BROWNSON (bapt. Bolton, Connecticut, July 8, 1746; d. Smithfield, New York, October 1815), singing master and compiler. He was mentioned as “Oliver Brunson, singing-master, Litchfield” in the Norwich Packet, February 16, 1775. Andrew Law’s Select Harmony (Cheshire, 1779) includes Jubilee, Brownson’s earliest printed composition. In 1783 Brownson published a tunebook, also called Select Harmony, which, according to Frank Metcalf, was printed in New Haven. Of the 70 compositions in the work 37 were new American pieces, including 22 by the compiler himself. Brownson revised the Select Harmony in 1785, replacing some familiar English tunes with new American pieces. According to Hartford’s Connecticut Courant for December 12, 1785, the revision was available at “Brownson and Benham’s New Hartford.” Brownson and Asahel Benham (1754–1803), composer and tunebook compiler born in New Hartford, were apparently partners in a brief business venture. Another issue of the Select Harmony, although still dated 1783 on the title page, came out around 1790. Brownson was married in Simsbury in 1774, lived in New Hartford from ca. 1779 to 1783 and again in 1786, and in Simsbury and West Simsbury from ca. 1783 to 1785 and 1787 to 1797. His second tunebook, A New Collection of Sacred Harmony (1797), “printed and sold, by the author at his dwelling house,” bears a Simsbury imprint. Roughly a third of A New Collection is devoted to original pieces, including 3 new tunes by Brownson himself, which brings to 33 the number of his published compositions. Brownson later moved with his family to Peterboro, New York, west of Utica, and he has not been traced between the time of the move and his death. He was a Baptist and the father of Greene Carrier Bronson (1789–1863), Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the State of New York from 1845 to 1851.

    Bibl.—Metcalf; Connecticut Magazine, vii (1902), 3–4, 196; M. M. Bagg, The Pioneers of Utica (Utica: Curtiss & Childs, 1877), p. 604; death noted in Hartford, Connecticut Courant, June 4, 1816. Ruth Mack Wilson, with the assistance of Kate Van Winkle Keller, Connecticut’s Music in the Revolutionary Era (Hartford: American Revolution Bicentennial Commission of Connecticut, 1979), p. 54, dates Brownson’s birth May 13, 1746, but without documentation.

    Amos BULL (b. Enfield, Connecticut, February 9, 1744; d. Hartford, August 28, 1825), storekeeper, school master, singing master, compiler. Bull was the first to propose the publication of sacred music in Connecticut. New Haven’s Connecticut Gazette, November 15, 1766, carried his advertisement for subscribers to the planned New Universal Psalmodist, which was to contain an introduction, a “Number of the most celebrated Psalm Tunes, collected from Arnold, Tans’ur, Lyon, Williams, etc. with some entirely new” and “a Number of Services, Chants, Hymns, Anthems, and Canons, suited to several occasions, never before printed.” The work apparently was never published. In 1774 Bull, who claimed he had “for many years taught psalmody in several parts of New England,” advertised for singing scholars in Holt’s New-York Journal for November 24, 1774. Apparently he had some success, for the Norwich Packet for February 16, 1775, lists a “Mr. Bull, Singing Master, New York.” In the meantime his Psalm 122 had appeared in John Stickney’s The Gentleman and Lady’s Musical Companion (Newburyport, 1774), though without attribution, and Andrew Law included 4 tunes by Bull in his Select Harmony (Cheshire, 1779). In 1795 Bull, then a storekeeper in his mid-fifties, compiled and had published in Worcester his only tunebook. The Responsary contained 65 pieces, 49 by Bull himself, 12 of which were anthems. In 1805, Bull advertised a “school for Reading, Writing and Arithmetick.” He seems to have remained active as a composer rather late in life. A previously unpublished tune, Immortality, was attributed to him in Griswold, Jenks, and Frisbie’s The Hartford Collection (Hartford: Lincoln and Gleason) in 1807; and three more new tunes were assigned to him in Little and Smith’s The Easy Instructor (Albany: Websters &; Skinner and Daniel Steele, [1808–1810]): Piermont, Psalm 23, and Psalm 29. When he died in Hartford, he had lived there for at least the last thirty years.

    Bibl.—Metcalf; Heads of Families at the First Census of the United States Taken in the Year 1790, Connecticut volume (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1908), p. 46, col. 3; Amos Bull File, Connecticut Historical Commission, Hartford; Wilson, Connecticut’s Music, pp. 52–54.

    [Elihu] CARPENTER (b. Rehoboth, Massachusetts, December 18, 1752; d. probably after 1804). A copy of Jocelin and Doolittle’s The Chorister’s Companion (New Haven, 1782) in Yale University’s Beinecke Library is inscribed “Elihu Carpenter of Rehoboth his Book given him by the authors. May 13, 1783,” suggesting the identity of the Carpenter to whom 8 different tunes in the repertory are attributed. All of Carpenter’s compositions appeared first in Connecticut tunebooks: one in Law’s Select Harmony (Cheshire, 1779); 2 in Jocelin & Doolittle’s The Chorister’s Companion, pt. 3 (New Haven, 1783); 2 more, including an anthem, in Langdon’s Beauties of Psalmody (New Haven, 1786); another in The American Musical Magazine (New Haven, 1786–1787), and 2 in Read’s The Columbian Harmonist, 2d ed., and its Supplement (Dedham, 1804; compiled in New Haven). In view of this printing history it seems likely that Carpenter was a Connecticut man by residence, if not by birth.

    Bibl.—Wilson, Connecticut’s Music, pp. 106, 130.

    Solomon CHANDLER (b. Enfield, Connecticut, January 17, 1756; d. probably in or after 1804, place unknown). In American tunebooks printed before 1811, 10 compositions were attributed to Chandler, identified in Andrew Law’s The Musical Primer (Cambridge, 1803) as S. Chandler. Most likely he was the Solomon Chandler who on October 23, 1780, was chosen “chorister” at a meeting of the First Ecclesiastical Society, Enfield, Connecticut. Solomon Chandler’s name appears in the Enfield town records over the next decade-and-a-half, being last mentioned on February 11, 1794. A memoir of the daughter of New England composer Timothy Swan fills in further details of Chandler’s life:

    Father was well acquainted with Chandler who made several tunes tho’ he was no singer. He has the credit of making Enfield—The silver moon rolls clear—He lived in Enfield [Connecticut.] Tailor by trade[.] By some it is said that two others assisted Chandler in making the tune of Enfield[.] Tis a sweetly soft air.

    Chandler’s first appearance in print was in Brownson’s Select Harmony (n.p., 1783). He also contributed a newly published tune to Langdon’s Beauties of Psalmody (New Haven, 1786), which, like Brownson’s work, was devoted mostly to a Connecticut repertory. No new music of Chandler’s appeared again until 1795, when 2 collections were published in Lansingburgh, New York: Nathaniel Billings’ The Republican Harmony and Thomas Atwill’s The New-York Collection. These publications added 5 new pieces to the repertory, including the anthem “Hear O ye heavens.” The titles of 2 of the Chandler tunes in Atwill’s work, Poughkeepsie and Westpoint, suggest that Chandler was then living in New York State. This suggestion is strengthened by the disappearance of Chandler’s name from the Enfield records, and by the title of his last published composition, Hudson, printed in Atwill’s The New York & Vermont Collection, 2d ed. (Albany, 1804).

    Bibl.—Francis Olcott Allen, The History of Enfield, Connecticut (Lancaster, Pa.: Wickersham Printing Co., 1900), pp. 1668, 2537, 1241 (see also pp. 458, 1016, 1038, 1040, 1044, 1046, 1198 for other references to Chandler); Emily Cordelia Swan, “Memoir of Timothy Swan, March–August, 1842” (Timothy Swan Papers, American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts).

    DEAOLPH (fl. Connecticut, 1775–1793). The genealogical index at the Newberry Library lists a DeWolf family in Connecticut which sometimes used the variant spelling Deaolph. Three and possibly four men with the surname Deaolph and some tie to music were named in Connecticut newspapers of the 1770s. In the Norwich Packet, February 16, 1775, Oliver King included “Mr. Charles Deaolph, Singing Master, Brookline” and “Mr. Deaolph, Singing Master, Preston” in the list of agents taking subscriptions to his proposed Universal Harmony. And when Andrew Law advertised his forthcoming Select Harmony in New London’s Connecticut Gazetteer, July 10, 1778, “Mark Anthony Deaolph, at Chelsea in Norwich” and “Amasa Deaolph of Pomfret” were among those handling subscriptions. Charles (b. April 19, 1747), Amasa (b. December 26, 1748), and Mark Anthony were all sons of Simon DeWolf of Middletown, Connecticut. When Select Harmony (Cheshire, 1779) was published it included 2 tunes attributed to Deaolph. A third new composition, this one attributed to “Deolph,” appeared in Nehemiah Shumway’s The American Harmony (Philadelphia, 1793), a work which despite its place of publication introduced a large number of New England tunes into print.

    Bibl.—Calbraith B. Perry, Charles D’Wolf of Guadeloups, his Ancestors and Descendants (New York, 1902), p. 122; Wilson, Connecticut’s Music, pp. 88, 126.

    Lewis EDSON (b. Bridgewater, Massachusetts, January 22, 1748; d. Mink Hollow, New York, 1820), blacksmith and singing master. He served briefly in the British Army in the early 1760s, worked at his blacksmith’s trade, and from 1769 to 1776 taught singing in Halifax, Massachusetts. Shortly after the Revolutionary War broke out he moved to Lanesboro in the western part of the state. Simeon P. Cheney, in The American Singing Book (Boston, 1879), claims that Edson’s Tory politics dictated the move. Jocelin and Doolittle’s The Chorister’s Companion (New Haven, 1782) contains his earliest published compositions, including Bridgewater, Greenfield, and Lenox, the 3 American-composed fuging-tunes most frequently printed during the period. Other new tunes by Edson appeared in part 3 of The Chorister’s Companion (New Haven, 1783) and Asahel Benham’s Federal Harmony (New Haven, 1790). In 1791 Edson sold his land in Lanesboro and crossed the border into New York State. His whereabouts cannot be traced until 1806, when he settled in Mink Hollow for the rest of his life. However, new tunes by Edson appeared in the meantime: 1 in Andrew Law’s The Rudiments of Music, 4th ed. (Cheshire, 1792), 3 more in Thomas Atwill’s The New-York Collection (Lansingburgh, 1795), and 13 in Lewis Edson, Jr.’s The Social Harmonist, 2d ed. (New York, 1801), bringing the catalogue of Edson’s published compositions to 25.

    Bibl.—Irving Lowens, Music and Musicians in Early America (New York: Norton, 1964), ch. 9, “The Musical Edsons of Shady: Early American Tune-smiths.”

    Alexander GILLET (b. Granby, Connecticut, August 14, 1749; d. Torrington, Connecticut, January 19, 1826), clergyman and musician, graduated from Yale in 1770, studied theology, was pastor in Wolcott, Connecticut, from 1773 to 1791, and from 1792 until his death served as minister of the First Congregational Church in Torrington. Gillet wrote both poetry and music, and he played the bass viol. Andrew Law published 4 of his psalm tunes in Select Harmony (Cheshire, 1779) and many more appeared in the various editions of Law’s The Rudiments of Music and The Christian Harmony. Thomas Atwill’s The New-York Collection (Lansingburgh, 1795) contained 10 new tunes by Gillet, and evidence of his continued activity as a composer during the nineteenth century is found in The Hartford Collection compiled by Elijah Griswold, Stephen Jenks, and John Frisbie (Hartford, 1807), which includes 3 previously unpublished psalm tunes by Gillet. In all, 35 of Gillet’s compositions appeared in print before 1810.

    Bibl.—Arthur Goodenough, The Clergy of Litchfield County (n.p.: Litchfield University Club, 1909), pp. 77–80.

    Ezra GOFF (b. Rehoboth, Massachusetts, May 26, 1760; d. after ca. 1807) was a fifer in the Continental Army, in which he served from 1776 to 1780. He first broke into print as a composer in The Worcester Collection, pt. 3 (Worcester, 1786). Goff contributed another new tune to Nehemiah Shumway’s The American Harmony (Philadelphia, 1793). After more than a decade without the appearance of a new piece, Daniel Read’s The Columbian Harmonist, 2d ed. (Dedham, 1804), introduced another new tune by Goff and the Supplement to the same work included 1 more. Later, 9 previously unpublished tunes appeared in Daniel Belknap’s The Village Compilation (Boston, 1806). Finally, Goff himself published Dedication Anthem (Boston, ca. 1807), an eight-page pamphlet with 2 more of his tunes, bringing to 14 the total number of his published compositions. Dedication Anthem, written for chorus and instruments, bears the inscription “Respectfully presented to the Musical Society in Dorchester, by the Author.”

    Bibl.—Birth date from James Arnold, Vital Record of Rehoboth (Providence: Narragansett Historical Publishing Co., 1897), p. 620; Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War, vi, 535–536.

    Oliver HOLDEN (b. Shirley, Massachusetts, September 18, 1765; d. Charlestown, Massachusetts, September 4, 1844) (fig. 340), carpenter, storekeeper, member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives (1818–1833), was active as a composer and a compiler in Boston for two decades beginning late in the 1780s. The Federal Harmony (Boston, [1788]) was the earliest work to print any of his music. It contained Alstead, Hollis, and New Canaan, all without attribution but assigned to Holden in later works. Early in the 1790s Holden issued the first of his own tunebooks through the Boston press of Thomas and Andrews: the entirely original American Harmony (1792), and the eclectic Union Harmony, vols. i and ii (1793; later editions of vol. i, 1796, 1801). Together with Hans Gram and Samuel Holyoke, Holden brought out The Massachusetts Compiler (Boston, 1795), a powerful force in the movement toward musical reform. In 1797 he was made editor of The Worcester Collection, then in its sixth edition, and he supervised it through its eighth and final edition (1803). Holden compiled several more tunebooks, including The Modern Collection and Plain Psalmody (1800) and The Charlestown Collection (1803). His own catalogue of published compositions numbers at least 235, of which some 25 are anthems and set-pieces. See figure 361 for an illustration of the chamber organ he owned by “Astor & Compy,” London, 1796–1815.

    Bibl.—DAB; Metcalf; David McCormick, “Oliver Holden, Composer and Anthologist” (Union Theological Seminary, S.M.D. diss., 1963); New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, viii, 643–644.

    Jeremiah INGALLS (b. Andover, Massachusetts, March 1, 1764; d. Hancock, Vermont, April 6, 1838), cooper, tavernkeeper, singing master, and compiler. Ingalls came to Newbury, Vermont, in the 1780s. There he married, inheriting a farm from his wife’s parents. Financial difficulties forced him to leave Newbury around 1810, and he moved his large family westward to Hancock. His first published compositions appeared in The Village Harmony (Exeter, N.H.): 3 in the second edition (1796) and another in the fifth (1800). In 1805 Ingalls compiled and published his own tunebook, The Christian Harmony (Exeter, 1805). In the preface he wrote of the provenance of the music: “some being wholly, and some in part, the original composition of the Author, and others selected from various authors.” Ingalls left the matter there and did not bother to give the sources of individual tunes, so it is hard to determine precisely how many can be added to the 4 tunes he had composed earlier himself. Ingalls’ claim that some tunes are “in part” original points to the most unusual trait of The Christian Harmony: the melodies of some of the pieces are drawn from secular folk song. Ingalls was not the first New Englander to print folk hymns (secular folk tunes sung to sacred words), but he was the first to devote a large proportion of a tunebook to them. In doing so he anticipated many later southern compilers who were wont to make original settings of melodies from the oral tradition, rather than composing three- and four-voice polyphonic compositions from scratch, as was customary in the North. Ingalls’ The Christian Harmony proves that the folk song repertory circulating in Vermont around the turn of the century had tunes in common with an oral tradition that extended southward.

    Fig. 340. Portrait of Oliver Holden (1765–1844) of Charlestown, Massachusetts, by Ethan Allen Greenwood, Hubbardstown, Massachusetts.

    Bibl.—Simeon P. Cheney, American Singing Book (Boston: White, Smith and Co., 1879), pp. 177–178; Frederic P. Wells, History of Newbury, Vermont (St. Johnsbury: Caledonian Co., 1902), pp. 580–582; David Klocko, “Jeremiah Ingalls’ The Christian Harmony” (University of Michigan, Ph.D. diss., 1978).

    Oliver KING (b. Bolton, Connecticut, February 22, 1748; d. Bolton, July 6, 1818), singing master. The Norwich Packet, February 16, 1775, carried a long and detailed proposal for the publication of a tunebook to be called The Universal Harmony. The proposal was signed by Oliver King of Bolton, Connecticut, who identified himself as having “for several years past been employed in teaching Psalmody.” King’s proposal named seven other singing masters commissioned to receive subscriptions for the collection, including Oliver Brownson, Jonathan Benjamin, Amos Bull, and Andrew Law, who were to publish their own tunebooks in due course. King’s The Universal Harmony was apparently never printed. The core repertory tune Suffield in Law’s Select Harmony (Cheshire, 1779), assigned to an “unknown” composer in the first edition, was attributed to “King” in the second [1782]. Another new tune by King was introduced in Brownson’s Select Harmony (1783); and more than two decades later Stephen Jenks’ The Delights of Harmony (Dedham, 1805) contained a new set-piece attributed to O. King. In the meantime, Law had assigned a new piece in A Collection of Hymn Tunes (Cheshire, [1783]) to “A. King,” and 2 more new pieces are attributed to A. King in Thomas Atwill’s The New-York Collection (Lansingburgh, 1795), which also contains an attribution to O. King. Law, who first mentioned A. King in 1783, continued in The Rudiments of Music, 3d ed. (Cheshire, [1791]), to attribute Suffield to King without first initial, and thus it can with some assurance be credited to Oliver King.

    Bibl.—Birth and death dates from Vital Records of Bolton to 1854 and Vernon to 1852 (Hartford: Connecticut Historical Society, 1909), pp. 35, 178; Wilson, Connecticut’s Music, pp. 54–55.

    Justin MORGAN (b. West Springfield, Massachusetts, February 28, 1747; d. Randolph, Vermont, March 22, 1798), horse trader, singing master. He moved to Vermont in 1788, and served from 1790 until 1793 as town clerk in Randolph. Asahel Benham’s Federal Harmony (New Haven, 1790) marks Morgan’s debut in print; 8 of his compositions are published there. Another tune appeared in Andrew Adgate’s Philadelphia Harmony, pt. 2 (Philadelphia, 1791), bringing the list of Morgan’s published compositions to 9. Harmony, published without attribution in Jacob French’s The Psalmodist’s Companion (Boston, 1793), is credited to Morgan in Jonathan Huntington’s The Albany Collection (Albany, 1800); likewise, Silver Spring is attributed to Morgan in Little and Smith’s The Easy Instructor (Philadelphia, [1801]). Since attributions in The Easy Instructor are unreliable, the latter is not likely; that Morgan composed Harmony, however, remains a good possibility.

    Bibl.—DAB; Metcalf; Betty Bandel, Sing the Lord’s Song in a Strange Land: The Life of Justin Morgan (Rutherford, Madison, Teaneck, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1981).

    Daniel READ (b. Attleboro, Massachusetts, November 16, 1757; d. New Haven, Connecticut, December 4, 1836), storekeeper, singing master, and compiler, settled in New Haven before the end of the Revolutionary War and spent the rest of his life there. Read’s first published compositions appeared in Jocelin and Doolittle’s The Chorister’s Companion (New Haven, 1782; also pt. 3, 1783). With The American Singing Book (New Haven, 1785; five editions by 1795) Read became the first American after William Billings to offer a collection devoted entirely to his own compositions. From 1786 to 1787 he and Amos Doolittle of New Haven issued The American Musical Magazine in twelve numbers. This was the earliest musical periodical published in the English-speaking colonies. From 1793 until 1810 Read published a number of tunebooks under the general title The Columbian Harmonist. Eclectic in content, The Columbian Harmonist included new music by Read and other Americans, as well as established American and English favorites. Read’s involvement with psalmody continued to the end of his life. In his later years he came to agree in part with advocates of stylistic reform, even though his own earlier compositions were the target of some of the reformers’ criticism. Some 85 compositions by Read appeared in print.

    Bibl.—DAB; Metcalf; Irving Lowens, “Daniel Read’s World,” Notes, ix, no. 2 (Mar. 1952), reprinted in altered form in Lowens, Music and Musicians in Early America (Norton, 1964); Vinson Clair Bushnell, “Daniel Read of New Haven (1757–1836): The Man and His Musical Activities” (Harvard University, Ph.D. diss., 1978); New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, xv, 631–632.

    Timothy SWAN (b. Worcester, Massachusetts, July 23, 1758; d. Northfield, Massachusetts, July 23, 1842) (fig. 341), hatter, sometime poet, singing master, and compiler, spent most of his first two decades in Worcester, moved to Suffield, Connecticut, where he lived from 1780 to 1807, then settled for the rest of his life in Northfield, Massachusetts. Swan’s personal papers report that he received all of his musical training in singing schools while still in his teens. In 1783 a revised issue of John Stickney’s The Gentleman and Lady’s Musical Companion appeared in Newburyport. It included, though without attribution, Swan’s Montague. Law’s Rudiments of Music, 2d ed. (Cheshire, [1786]), contained another tune by Swan, this time credited to the composer. On December 5, 1785, the Connecticut Courant advertised a new issue of Oliver Brownson’s Select Harmony, to which “a number [7] of tune[s] . . . have been lately added by the ingenious Mr. Swan.” New tunes by Swan appeared during the 1790s in tunebooks of Connecticut provenance: Asahel Benham’s Federal Harmony (New Haven, 1790); Alexander Ely’s The Baltimore Collection (Baltimore, 1792) issued during a relatively brief sojourn in Baltimore; and Brownson’s A New Collection (Simsbury, 1797). Ely, a Connecticut native, engraved Swan’s The Songsters Assistant, a collection of secular songs. (See figure 412 for an illustration of its title page.) In 1801 Swan gathered together his unpublished sacred compositions, added them to the pieces he had already published, and brought out New England Harmony (Northampton), containing 63 of his own compositions. There is no record that he published any more psalmody, but he maintained interest in both sacred and secular music, and in poetry for the rest of his life.

    Bibl.—DAB; Metcalf; Sterling E. Murray, “Timothy Swan and Yankee Psalmody,” Musical Quarterly, lxi, no. 3 (July 1975); Guy Bedford Webb, “Timothy Swan: Yankee Tunesmith” (University of Illinois, D.M.A. diss., 1972); for information on Alexander Ely see New England Historical and Genealogical Register, ii, 326, and Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War, v, 335–336.

    Abraham WOOD (b. Northborough, Massachusetts, July 30, 1752; d. North-borough, August 4, 1804), a fuller of cloth, singing master, and compiler, was a soldier in the American Revolution, served on the Committee of Correspondence, and was captain of a company of militia after the war. An obituary notice in Worcester’s Massachusetts Spy, August 15, 1804, reports that he had been “an author of Music, and leader of the singers” in Northborough for 32 years, or since 1772. Solomon Howe’s The Farmer’s Evening Entertainment (Northampton, 1804) confirms Wood’s early emergence as a composer: “Mr. Wm. Billings and Capt. Abrm. Wood were first Authors of Note in America, Anno. 1770, &c.” Wood’s earliest published compositions appeared in 1779 in Andrew Law’s Select Harmony (Cheshire, [1786]) which included his Worcester and Billings’ Music in Miniature (Boston, 1779) which contained Royalston. The latter is the only tune directly attributed to another composer in any of Billings’ collections. Wood himself put out an eight-page work, A Hymn on Peace (Boston, 1784). Boston’s Independent Chronicle, May 6, 1784, lists Billings as the local seller of this item. Wood later contributed several new tunes to The Worcester Collection (Worcester, 1786), published the secular “Ode on Spring” in The Massachusetts Magazine (May 1789), and brought out Divine Songs (Boston, 1789) containing 11 original compositions. In 1793 Wood and Joseph Stone of Ward, Massachusetts, compiled The Columbian Harmony, a large collection devoted mostly to their own music, but including as well pieces by other central Massachusetts composers. Wood issued A Funeral Elegy on the Death of General George Washington (Boston, 1800) and contributed some new tunes to Daniel Belknap’s The Evangelical Harmony (Boston, 1800). The former was republished many years later in “adapted” form for “the funeral solemnities of W. H. Harrison, 1844.” (See Abraham Wood, A Funeral Elegy, Originally Composed and Used on the Death of General G. Washington, 1799 [Boston: A. B. Kidder, 1859]; copy in the Massachusetts Historical Society.) In all, 48 printed compositions, including 2 secular pieces, can be traced to Wood.

    Bibl.—Metcalf.

    Fig. 341. Portrait of Timothy Swan (1758–1842) of Suffield, Connecticut, by an unknown artist, United States ca. 1790.

    bibliography of composers of core repertory tunes

    Adgate, Andrew. Philadelphia Harmony, pt. 2. [Philadelphia, 1791.]

    Atwill, Thomas H. The New-York Collection of Sacred Harmony. Lasingburgh, New York: William W. Wands, 1795.

    Atwill, Thomas H. The New York & Vermont Collection of Sacred Harmony. 2d ed. Albany: [B. Buckley, 1804].

    [Bayley, Daniel.] The American Harmony. Containing William Tans’ur, Royal Melody Complete, and A. Williams, Universal Psalmodist. 5th ed., 2 vols. Newburyport: Daniel Bayley, 1769.

    Belknap, Daniel. The Evangelical Harmony. Boston: Isaiah Thomas and Ebenezer T. Andrews, 1800.

    Belknap, Daniel. The Village Compilation. Boston: J. T. Buckingham, 1806.

    Billings, Nathaniel. The Republican Harmony. Lasingburgh, New York: Silvester Tiffany, 1795.

    [Billings, William, ed.] The Boston Magazine, vol. I, no. 1 (October 1783). Boston: Norman & White.

    Billings, William. The Continental Harmony. Boston: Isaiah Thomas and Ebenezer T. Andrews, 1794.

    Billings, William. Music in Miniature. Boston: William Billings, 1779.

    [Billings, William.] The Porcupine, alias the Hedge-Hog: or, Fox turned Preacher. Boston: Benjamin Edes & Sons, 1784.

    Billings, William. The Psalm-Singer’s Amusement. Boston: the author, [1781].

    Billings, William. The Singing Master’s Assistant. [2d ed.] Boston: Draper and Folsom, [1779–1780].

    Billings, William. The Singing Master’s Assistant. 3d ed. Boston: Draper and Folsom, 1781.

    Billings, William. The Singing Master’s Assistant. 4th ed. [Boston]: E. Russell, [1786–1789].

    Brownson, Oliver. A New Collection of Sacred Harmony. Simsbury: the author, 1797.

    Brownson, Oliver. Select Harmony. [4th issue.] N.p., 1783 [recte, 1789–1791].

    Bull, Amos. The Responsary. Worcester: Isaiah Thomas, 1795.

    Cheney, Simeon Pease. The American Singing Book. Boston: White, Smith and Company, 1879. Reprinted, with an introduction by Karl Kroeger, New York: Da Capo Press, 1980.

    [Doolittle, Amos, and Daniel Read.] The American Musical Magazine, nos. 1–12. New Haven: Amos Doolittle & Daniel Read, [1786–1787].

    Edson, Lewis, Jr. The Social Harmonist. 2d ed. New York, 1801.

    Ely, Alexander. The Baltimore Collection of Church Music. Baltimore: John Hagerty, 1792.

    The Federal Harmony. Boston: for the editor, and sold by John Norman, [1788].

    [Flagg, Josiah.] Sixteen Anthems. Boston: Josiah Flagg, [1766].

    French, Jacob. The Psalmodist’s Companion. Worcester: Leonard Worcester for Isaiah Thomas, 1793.

    Goff, Ezra. Dedication Anthem. Boston: Manning & Loring, [ca. 1807].

    [Gram, Hans, Samuel Holyoke, and Oliver Holden.] The Massachusetts Compiler of Theoretical and Practical Elements of Sacred Vocal Music. Boston: Isaiah Thomas and Ebenezer T. Andrews, [1795].

    Griswold, Elijah, Stephen Jenks, and John C. Frisbie. The Hartford Collection of Sacred Harmony. Hartford: Lincoln and Gleason, 1807.

    Holden, Oliver. American Harmony. Boston: Isaiah Thomas and Ebenezer T. Andrews, 1792.

    Holden, Oliver. The Charlestown Collection of Sacred Songs. Boston: Isaiah Thomas and Ebenezer T. Andrews, 1803.

    [Holden, Oliver.] The Modern Collection of Sacred Music. Boston: Isaiah Thomas and Ebenezer T. Andrews, 1800.

    Holden, Oliver. Plain Psalmody, or Supplementary Music. Boston: Isaiah Thomas and Ebenezer T. Andrews, 1800.

    Holden, Oliver. The Union Harmony. 2d ed. Boston: Isaiah Thomas and Ebenezer T. Andrews, 1796.

    Holden, Oliver. The Union Harmony. 3d ed. Boston: Isaiah Thomas and Ebenezer T. Andrews, 1801.

    Holden, Oliver. The Worcester Collection of Sacred Harmony. 6th ed. Boston: Isaiah Thomas and Ebenezer T. Andrews, 1797.

    Holden, Oliver. The Worcester Collection of Sacred Harmony. 7th ed. Boston: Isaiah Thomas and Ebenezer T. Andrews, 1800.

    Holden, Oliver. The Worcester Collection of Sacred Harmony. 8th ed. Boston: Isaiah Thomas and Ebenezer T. Andrews, 1803.

    Holden, Oliver. See also Gram et al, The Massachusetts Compiler.

    Ingalls, Jeremiah. The Christian Harmony. Exeter: Henry Ranlet, for the compiler, 1805.

    [Jocelin, Simeon, and Amos Doolittle.] The Chorister’s Companion, pt. 3. New Haven: T. and S. Green, for Simeon Jocelin and Amos Doolittle, [1782–1783].

    [Langdon, Chauncey.] Beauties of Psalmody. [New Haven, 1786.]

    Law, Andrew. The Art of Singing, pt. 1: The Musical Primer. 4th ed. Cambridge: W. Hilliard, 1803.

    Law, Andrew. The Rudiments of Music. 2d ed. N.p., [1786].

    Little, William, and William Smith. The Easy Instructor. [Philadelphia, 1801.]

    The Massachusetts Harmony. Boston: for John Norman, [1784].

    Read, Daniel. The American Singing Book. 2d ed. New Haven: for the author, 1786.

    Read, Daniel. The American Singing Book. 3d ed., with Supplement to the American Singing Book. New Haven: for the author, 1787.

    Read, Daniel. The American Singing Book. 4th ed. New Haven: for the author, [1793].

    Read, Daniel. The American Singing Book. 5th ed. New Haven: for the author, [1796].

    Read, Daniel. The Columbian Harmonist, no. 1. New Haven: for the editor, [1793].

    Read, Daniel. The Columbian Harmonist, no. 2. New Haven: for the editor, [1794].

    Read, Daniel. The Columbian Harmonist, no. 3. New Haven: published by Daniel Read, [1795].

    Read, Daniel. The Columbian Harmonist. 2d ed. Dedham: H. Mann, 1804 [recte, 1805].

    Read, Daniel. The Columbian Harmonist. 3d ed. Dedham: H. Mann, 1806.

    Read, Daniel. The Columbian Harmonist. 3d ed. Boston: Manning and Loring, 1807.

    Read, Daniel. The Columbian Harmonist. 4th ed. Boston: Manning and Loring, 1810.

    Stickney, John. The Gentleman and Lady’s Musical Companion. Newburyport: Daniel Bayley, 1774.

    Stickney, John. The Gentleman and Lady’s Musical Companion. Newburyport: Daniel Bayley, [1783].

    Stone, Joseph, and Abraham Wood. The Columbian Harmony. N.p., [1793].

    Swan, Timothy. New England Harmony. Northampton: Andrew Wright, 1801.

    Swan, T[imothy]. The Songster’s Assistant. Suffield: Swan and Ely, n.d. [ca. 1800?].

    Thomas, Isaiah. See The Worcester Collection.

    [Tufts, John.] An Introduction to the Art of Singing Psalm-Tunes. Boston: T. Fleet, for Samuel Gerrish, 1723.

    (N.B. The 5th ed., mentioned in the text, is entitled An Introduction to the Singing of Psalm-Tunes.)

    White, Benjamin Franklin, and E. J. King. The Sacred Harp. Philadelphia: B. F. White and Joel King, 1844.

    Wood, Abraham. Divine Songs. Boston: Isaiah Thomas, 1789.

    Wood, Abraham. A Funeral Elegy on the Death of General George Washington. Boston: Isaiah Thomas & Ebenezer T. Andrews, 1800.

    Wood, Abraham. A Hymn on Peace. N.p., [1784].

    The Worcester Collection of Sacred Harmony. Worcester: Isaiah Thomas, 1786.

    The Worcester Collection of Sacred Harmony, pt. 3. Worcester: Isaiah Thomas, [1786].

    The Worcester Collection of Sacred Harmony. 2d ed. Worcester: Isaiah Thomas, 1788.

    The Worcester Collection of Sacred Harmony. 3d ed. Boston: Isaiah Thomas and Ebenezer T. Andrews, 1791.

    The Worcester Collection of Sacred Harmony. 4th ed. Boston: Isaiah Thomas and Ebenezer T. Andrews, 1792.

    The Worcester Collection of Sacred Harmony. 5th ed. Boston: Isaiah Thomas and Ebenezer T. Andrews, 1794.