D.
MUSICAL THESES AT COLONIAL HARVARD
by Edward T. Dunn, S.J.
Harvard commencement theses are a rich and inadequately mined vein of information about the college’s curriculum during the colonial period. These theses were propositions from undergraduate subjects which any bachelor candidate was supposedly able to defend in syllogistic form if called upon at morning exercises on Commencement Day. Following the practice of the Scottish universities, an intimidating list of theses, divided according to subject matter, was printed on one side of a large sheet called a broadside.1 The broadside for 1722, which was representative of the period, contains seven theses in technology (the discipline which assigned boundaries to other disciplines), twenty-five in logic, eight in grammar, seven in rhetoric, twenty-two in mathematics, and fifteen in physics.
The theses were drafted by four members of the graduating class called collectors and were submitted to the president for approval two months before commencement. Edward Augustus Holyoke, son of President Edward Holyoke (a.b., 1705) and a member of the class of 1746 noted in his diary on May 1st of his senior year, “The Thesees Collectors Carried down Theses;” and a month later he wrote, “None of all our Theses Rejected.”2 Samuel Eliot Morison, Harvard’s foremost historian, has written of these theses that “many if not all of them had been the subject of undergraduate disputations.”3
As a concession to reality, it was prearranged that designated commencers, called respondents, should defend certain theses against selected opponents. Theses chosen for disputation were asterisked or otherwise marked out on the broadsides. On the 1722 sheet, one proposition in logic was asterisked and two in physics, a typical number and distribution pattern. Rhetorical theses were never and grammatical theses hardly ever marked for disputation. It was hard to start an argument over statements like “Whatever is painful to a speaker cannot be pleasing to his listeners,” or, “Punctuation is an essential part of composition.” Over the years, stock subjects for debate were space, time, matter, ideas, soul, passions, freedom of the will, sensation, animal life, planets, gravity, reason and revelation, natural law, creation, the Deluge, and the decalogue.
Broadsides were printed for every commencement from 1642 until 1820. Those for only seventeen years have survived from the seventeenth century, and from 1693 to 1717 only those from 1708 and 1711 have come down to us. From 1717, however, a complete series is available. All extant theses are reproduced in microprint in Early American Imprints, 1639–1800, American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts.
Concerning these theses, at least up to 1708, Morison has written:
Most of the propositions are so general and vague as to afford no clue respecting the books read or the philosophical trends in the College. Some are merely definitions; and others, especially in mathematics, are very elementary. If studied in connection with surviving textbooks and other data, these theses . . . turn a little light into these dark recesses of our long-forgotten curriculum.4
The influence of Alexander Richardson’s Ramist The Logician’s Schoolmaster (London, 1657), and of the manuscript “Compendium Logicae secundum principia D. Renati Descartes catechistice propositum,” the first edition of which was written by William Brattle (a.b., 1680), is easily discernible in many logical and technological theses in the seventeenth and early eighteenth century. John Locke’s first recorded appearance on a Harvard thesis sheet was in 1719, when eight of the twenty-four theses in logic were simply Latin translations of key statements in the Eassay on Human Understanding. It was probably Henry Flynt (a.b., 1693) tutor from 1699 to 1754, who introduced the students to this giant of the English Enlightenment. For decades thereafter, Lockean statements stood out prominently among the theses logicae, where they were joined in the mid-1720s by selections from Isaac Watt’s Logick, or the Right Use of Reason in the Enquiry after Truth (London, 1725), a work which has been called “one of the most popular textbooks of the next hundred years.”5
Newtonian propositions began to appear in the physics section in 1717, undoubtedly because of the influence of Thomas Robie (a.b., 1708), Fellow of the Royal Society and tutor from 1713 to 1723, whom Clifford K. Shipton has called “the most famous New Englander in science in his day.”6 More advanced mathematical theses date from the 1730s, following the installation of Isaac Greenwood (a.b., 1721) as first Hollis Professor of Mathematics and Natural and Experimental Science, who taught at Harvard from 1728 to 1738. Theses in calculus can be traced from 1752, during the tenure of the second Hollis Professor, John Winthrop (a.b., 1750), who held that post from 1738 to 1779. Mr. Frederick G. Kilgour of the Harvard Library composed the following evaluation of these science teachers for inclusion in Sibley’s Harvard Graduates:
Thomas Robie was probably the first New Englander to whom science was a systematic body of knowledge and not just something “curious.” Greenwood is the logical step after Robie, and Greenwood’s pupil, Winthrop, brought the position of science in colonial New England to its greatest height.7
Most of the time, Commencement theses bore no relation to contemporary events, but not always. In 1746, during King George’s War it was stated in a technological thesis, of all places, that “soldiers who doubt whether a war is just should not fight.” A 1753 thesis in rhetoric stigmatized an “enthusiast” as one who “causes heaven and hell to resound with his loud and disordered shouting.” Nine years before, the Harvard faculty had issued their Testimonial against the Reverend Mr. George Whitefield (Boston, 1744) in which the first charge levelled against the noted evangelist was that he was an enthusiast.8 A 1770 thesis in ethics (a category which had existed in the 1640s and had been resurrected in 1751) announced that “enslavening Africans is vehemently opposed to the natural law.” This early bit of abolitionism was marked for debate. Finally, in 1778 another classification was introduced, theses politicae. Two years after the Declaration of Independence, graduates were prepared to defend the proposition that “the condition of a man in a despotic empire is like that of wild beasts,” and that “the power or authority of the supreme civil office is founded on the people, therefore that office has no authority which has not been given to it by the people.”
The earliest theses on music are those from 1717. From then until the end of the colonial period—taken here as the launching of the federal government in 1789—the music theses were as follows. The author (who was assisted by Canisius College Professors Paul J. McCarthy and Edith De Luca) has adhered as closely as possible to the wording and word order of the original Latin.
Since, save for 1711, no theses broadsides are extant from 1708 until 1717, too much significance should not be read into the first appearance of a thesis in music in 1717. Robie may have been responsible for their introduction, as he was for that of Newtonian theses. In his considerable literary remains, Flynt betrays no interest in music. From 1717 until 1730, music theses were placed in the theses mathematicae category. The reason for this may be contained in the 1722 broadside, where the general statement is made that “mathematics is the art of investigating all quantity,” which is followed by a division of the subject into theses in arithmetic, geometry, algebra, astronomy, and music. One immediately thinks of the medieval Quadrivium, which embraced music, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy. Though music theses were first placed in the category of physics in 1731, they did not reappear until 1759, when the dubious assertion was made that “air waves set up by musical instruments promote health by communicating their motion to the body,” an idea which was repeated twice again in succeeding years. Like theses grammaticae, music theses were never marked for disputation.
As Morison stated concerning Harvard theses in general, most of these musical theses are so general as to afford no clue about their sources. Charles Morton’s Compendium Physicae, a manuscript which has been printed as Volume XXXIII of the Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, was the “textbook in science used by Harvard students during most of the forty years between 1687 and 1728,” according to Morison.9 Its treatment of music takes up three of the eleven pages of “Chapter 24, Of Hearing” in the printed version; but while expressions such as unison, single string, concord, vibration, waves, diapason, harmony, and proportion occur in both the theses and in Morton, it is clear that the latter was not a source for the former. This may have been all to the good, since, as Morison observed, “Morton’s introduction to music is not very helpful, for he appears to be in error in his description of concord and in his scale of musical notes.”10
Theses collectors frequently used old theses sheets as a resource for new theses, since the same propositions keep recurring. Sometimes the students changed a word or two; at other times the wording remained unchanged. Theses in music were no exception to this custom. The definition of music as “the art of modulating sounds” appears under slightly different guises eight times. Moreover, since music was classified under mathematics between 1722 and 1730, it was the physical rather than the aesthetic properties of music that concerned these collectors—and presumably their teachers. When treated under physics from 1731 on, theses in music were always placed immediately after statements on the nature and characteristics of sound. Music at eighteenth-century Harvard had to do with quantified material reality.
Errata, Volume i
Fig. 58. Instead of “High Life below the Stairs,” this illustration should have been the dance instructions for “Haste to the Wedding” both from Select Collection of the Newest & Most Favorite Country Dances, Waltzes, Reels & Cotillions (Otsego, [New York]: H. & E. Phinney, 1808), American Antiquarian Society.
Fig. 68. Shown is the full view, rather than a detail, from “The Procession,” an etching by Elkanah Tisdale (American, ca. 1771–1834), from Trumbull’s McFingall (New York, 1795). Department of Prints and Drawings, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
1 Oscar George Theodore Sonneck in his landmark volume Early Concert-Life in America (Leipzig, 1907; repr. Wiesbaden: Dr. Martin Sändig oHG, 1969), pp. 250–251, identified the earliest concert in America as the one advertised in the Boston News-Letter for December 16, 1731, under the direction of Peter Pelham. On pp. 1–9 he also discusses the advent of public concerts in England and Europe and cites a London tavern as the location for the first concert to which the audience had to pay an admission fee; he credits the initiative for it to John Banister in 1672.
2 The revisions were published in the Bay Psalm Book (Cambridge, 1640).
3 Among these music historians are George Hood, F. L. Ritter, L. C. Elson, Daniel Gregory Mason, Albert Stoessel, Deems Taylor, Paul Henry Lang, John Tasker Howard, and Cyclone Covey supported by Walter Muir Whitehill.
4 Although Sonneck’s book Early Concert-Life in America dealt with a later episode in the history of American music, he was the first major scholar to recognize that there had been a musical culture in the fledgling years of the colonies. Other authors who supported the counter-movement were Henry Davey, Gilbert Chase, Irving Lowens, Robert Stevenson, Irving Sablonsky, and H. Wiley Hitchcock.
5 Percy Scholes, The Puritans and Music in England and New England (Oxford, 1934; repr. 1969); Henry Wilder Foote, “Musical Life in Boston in the Eighteenth Century,” American Antiquarian Society, Proceedings, New Ser., xlix (1939), 293–313.
6 The cutoff point of £200 was suggested by a colonial law of 1651 concerning apparel, amended in 1662, which specified that “no person within this Jurisdiction, . . . whose visible estates real and personal, shall . . . exceed the true and indifferent value of two hundred pounds, . . . shall exceed their ranks and abilities, in the costliness of fashion of their Apparel in any respect, especially in the wearing of Ribbonds or great Boots, (Leather being so scarce a commodity in this Country) Lace, Points, &c. Silk Hoods, or Scarfes . . .” (William H. Whitmore, The Colonial Laws of Massachusetts [Boston, 1890], pp. 5–6).
7 Scholes, Puritans and Music, p. 206.
8 Scholes, Puritans and Music, p. 291–292.
9 Scholes, Puritans and Music, p. 33, states that during his search of the Records and Files of the Quarterly Courts of Essex County, Massachusetts, 8 vols. (Salem: Essex Institute, 1911–1921), he found only one musical instrument, iii, 231; it belonged to Nathaniell Rogers of Rowley who died in 1654 [actually 1655]. Apparently Scholes did not search the Probate Records of Essex County, 1635–1681, 3 vols. (Salem: Essex Institute, 1916–1920), for among the many psalmbooks and bells, he could have located three citterns belonging to: Thomas Wells of Ipswich, d. 1666 (ii, 72); Samuel Winsley of Salisbury, d. 1667 (ii, 83); Jonathan Browne of Salem, d. 1667 (ii, 84); and “a drum & sticks” among the household items of Daniel Rolfe of Ipswich, d. 1654 (i, 176). These are included in Table I.
10 Scholes, Puritans and Music, pp. 36, 42–43.
11 This writer concurs with Abbott Lowell Cummings, Rural Household Inventories, (Boston, 1964), p. xiii, that the appraisers taking the inventory recorded items in the order they found them. This arrangement illuminates the colonists’ patterns of living.
12 In the case that a householder died intestate or with only a nuncupative will, the colonial Massachusetts law of 1641 regarding dowries allowed a wife one-third of her husband’s estate free and clear of any liens and incumbrances he might have incurred during his lifetime (Whitmore, Colonial Laws, p. 42). In this case the colonial laws of 1641 and 1649 concerning wills provided that the children’s inheritance be divided among them with a double portion for the eldest son. If both parents died intestate the county court of the jurisdiction in which they lived had the power to assign the portions among the children. If the children were all female they usually received equal shares (Whitmore, Colonial Laws, p. 158).
13 Thomas Bellows Wyman, Genealogies and Estates of Charlestown, in the County of Middlesex and Commonwealth of Massachusetts 1629–1818, 2 vols. (Boston, 1879), p. ix.
14 All existing household inventories for Suffolk and Middlesex Counties from 1630 to approximately 1730 were read (with occasional glances at wills) from the contemporary ledger copybooks on file in the two courthouses. When an instrument was located, the entry was checked against the original inventory taken in situ and preserved in the individual’s docket file. At that time all other papers found therein were searched as well. By this means, extant original wills for those individuals who owned instruments were read as well. Still there are instances where the original will has disappeared, but a record of it exists in the ledger books. Because the various documents were probated at different times, it is rare to find an individual’s inventory and will side-by-side in the ledgers. Although there are indexes for locating the records of an individual’s documents in the copy ledger books, those in the Suffolk County Probate Registry have a high incidence of inaccuracy.
For bibliography of the Essex records, see footnote 9.
15 Instead of assigning docket numbers in chronological order as the documents for each individual were filed, which was done for the Suffolk County Probate Court Records, the clerks for the Middlesex Court seem to have filed the dockets in alphabetical order without numbers until 1871. In this year, probably for the purpose of indexing the records, the clerks first numbered consecutively the dockets filed in alphabetical order, whereupon beginning with the year 1871 the docket numbering system was converted to a chronological one.
16 Reports of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston, 39 vols. (Boston, 1876–1909), I, 5. Hereafter these Commissioners’ Reports will be abbreviated as BRC.
From John D. Cushing at the Massachusetts Historical Society it was learned that the clerks of probate often worked at home. Mr. Cushing also stated that in his extensive study of the incidence of fires in New England, 1630–1820 (a typescript is on deposit in the library at Sturbridge Village), there was virtually no building left standing by 1820 that had not burned at some time. This fact coupled with high tides and other natural disasters, and the scattered files of the clerks of courts for want of a single location in which to store the records, no doubt accounts in large part for the low percentage of records which have survived.
17 The Boston newspapers which have been searched for references to music and instruments from their inception through 1734 are: Boston News-Letter, beginning 1704; Boston Gazette, beginning 1719; New-England Corn ant, 1721–1726; and the New-England Journal, beginning 1727. All published Massachusetts diaries written prior to 1735 and listed in American Diaries: An Annotated Bibliography of American Diaries Written Prior to the Year 1861, comp. William Matthews (Boston, 1959), have been read along with a number of unlisted ones both published and in manuscript.
18 Several entries are plural but do not specify exact numbers. See for example Increase Gatchell’s inventory (d. 1729) for number of flutes.
19 Excluded from the statistics are the listings of instruments in plural by Enstone and Hardcastle. The less familiar instruments will be described in detail later.
20 The phrase “with his music” in the seventeenth century commonly signified a musical ensemble. Sewall’s Diary entry for July 16, 1689, corroborates this usage of the word: “Saw London Artillery Company pass by about 2 aclock. . . . Had Musick besides the Drums” (The Diary of Samuel Sewall, 1674–1729, ed. M. Halsey Thomas, 2 vols. [New York, 1973], I, 228). Here “Musick” obviously refers to a band of music. See also OED, “music” entry.
21 See Table i for the inventories of John Paine, shopkeeper, and Robert Cutler, ironmonger, both deceased 1665.
22 See Table i for Increase Gatchell’s inventory, deceased 1729.
23 The Puritan and Separatist movements of Calvinists which came to the American continent held that each of its own congregations of believers was an autonomous body, but the movement was intolerant of other religious sects. Each Puritan congregation chose its own minister, and administered religious, moral, and sometimes civic discipline. In order to exploit the resources of the New World, the Crown gave the Puritan colonists full authority to govern all English subjects living in New England. Further, the Crown permitted the Massachusetts Bay Company to govern itself, and to locate both its headquarters and charter in New England. This freedom worked to the Company’s advantage, for the Crown had relinquished direct control over the Company’s charter and the activities of its servants, the colonists themselves. In his introduction to and compilation of The Laws and Liberties of Massachusetts, 1641–1691, 3 vols. (Wilmington, Del., 1976) 1, xiii–xiv, John D. Cushing compared the organization of the Company’s structure to a modern corporation: “the Governor had powers similar in many respects to those exercised by a modern chairman of the board; the eighteen Assistants might be compared roughly to a board of directors; while the Freemen, at least in the early days of the company, were actually the stockholders. These three elements, together with a Deputy Governor, were required to meet quarterly in a general court for the purpose of electing officers, admitting new members, and making necessary rules for the management of the company and the welfare of the people.”
24 In 1631 the second annual meeting of the General Court reelected John Winthrop as governor and unanimously approved an order of considerable consequence for the colony. Recorded in A Memorial History of Boston, ed. Justin Winsor, 4 vols. (Boston, 1880–1881), I, 118, it reads as follows: “And to the end that the body of the commons may be preserved of honest and good men, it was ordered and agreed that for time to come no man shall be admitted to the freedom of this body politic, but such as are members of some of the Churches within the limits of the same.” Controversy, protests, and conflict ensued, because the requirements of church membership for enfranchisement was not only in direct violation of the charter, but they created a religious elite which controlled the New England Commonwealth.
By the time Massachusetts Bay became a royal colony, the colonists had already established a firm social, political, and economic foothold for themselves. Winsor, Memorial History, I, 166, 199.
25 When an individual’s religious affiliation was not indicated the available original church records were searched. By this means a number of instrument owners’ religious connections were identified.
26 Cyclone Covey, “Puritanism and Music in Colonial America,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Ser., viii (1951), 382.
27 Covey responded to the challenge and was supported by Walter Muir Whitehill. See letters to the editor of William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd. Ser., ix (1952), 129–133.
28 Mr. Whitehill read volumes iv–vii, covering graduates of the classes of 1690 through 1725, of Biographical Sketches of Those Who Attended Harvard College (Boston, 1933–1945), continued by Clifford K. Shipton and henceforth known as Sibley’s Harvard Graduates, 17 vols. (Cambridge, C. W. Sever; Harvard University Press, 1873–1975). Mr. Whitehill’s participation in the controversy is to be found in William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Ser., ix (1952), 135.
29 Although one’s estate value is hardly a clear indication of one’s economic or social situation it is referred to here simply as another crumb of evidence in obtaining a clearer picture of the musical environment. In determining the owner’s social class, the writer has drawn the following monetary lines: below £200, lower middle class; £200–1,000, upper middle class; above £1,000, upper class.
30 The reader should be reminded that Table ii is based on literary references to musical instruments. This may tend to exaggerate the wealthier and/or better-educated component of owners, and, if so, it may create a class bias in the statistics.
31 The year he joined the Artillery Company.
32 The year he joined the Artillery Company.
33 The year he graduated from Harvard College.
34 The year he graduated from Harvard College.
35 The year he graduated from Harvard College.
36 The year he graduated from Harvard College.
37 The year he joined the Artillery Company.
38 The year he graduated from Harvard College.
39 The year he joined the Artillery Company.
40 The year he joined the Artillery Company.
41 The year he joined the Artillery Company.
42 The year he graduated from Harvard College.
43 The year he joined the Artillery Company.
44 Sonneck in Early Concert-Life in America, p. 251, and Henry Woodward in “February 18, 1729: A Neglected Date in Boston Concert Life,” Notes, xxxiii (December 1976), 250, both assume the February 1, 1733 concert was postponed until February 15.
45 The writer was tempted to include a fifteenth virginal, culled from the Suffolk County inventory (mis’l. docket) of Antipas Boyse (ca. 1640–1669), a wealthy Boston merchant, which included the following item: “. . . 1 virinall . . . In the closett.” However, other items in the list (it appeared among other effects of a gentleman’s toilet) and its location within the home, not to mention its unusual spelling (not only was the “g” missing, but it appeared in the singular), forced the writer to conclude that it was in fact a urinal.
46 James Savage, A Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England. Showing Three Generations of Those who Came before May 1692, on the Basis of the Farmer’s Register, 4 vols. (Boston, 1860), iv, 101.
47 For Merry Mount, see Thomas Morton’s New English Canaan, or New Canaan, containing an Abstract of New England (Amsterdam, 1637); William Bradford, The History of Plymouth Plantation, 1602 to 1648, ed. Alfred Seelye Roe (Boston, 1901); and Scholes, Puritans and Music, pp. 81–89. “Merry Mount” was a small heretical community established by Thomas Morton about 1625 in the colony of Plymouth. Over and above their moral and religious objections to Morton’s enclave, the Pilgrims found the pagan practice of setting up a maypole particularly offensive. But as Scholes points out the real charge against Morton and his followers was that they sold liquor and lead to the Indians.
For Gibbons, see Savage, Genealogical Dictionary, ii, 245; and Winsor, Memorial History, I, 282–293, 578.
48 Winsor, Memorial History, I, 578; Savage, Genealogical Dictionary, iii, 532.
49 Probably about one-third of the instrument owners’ wills survived and were read by the writer.
50 Savage, Genealogical Dictionary, iv, 210, reports that Mary’s husband, William Stone (1662–1730), died in Guilford. Perhaps an attempt to pick up the trail in Connecticut records would prove fruitful.
51 For Hammond’s Journal, see Massachusetts Historical Society, Proceedings, 2nd Ser., vii (1891–1892), 148–149. For Morton’s account of this experiment, see Charles Morton, Compendium Physicae, ed. with a biographical sketch of Morton by Samuel Eliot Morison, Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Publications, xxxiii (1940), 173.
52 Sarah Foster married Col. Thomas Hutchinson, Sr. (1675–1739), in a resplendent ceremony attended by Sewall (see his Diary, I, 493). Although no journals for Thomas Sr.’s generation are extant, their son Thomas Hutchinson, Jr., did leave diaries. (See Peter O. Hutchinson, Diaries and Letters of His Excellency Thomas Hutchinson, Jr. [Boston, 1884–1886].) In his journals dancing was a subject learned by the youth. One can assume that this interest in dancing (and probably music, too) did not suddenly spring up in the younger generation.
53 The index to M. Halsey Thomas’ edition of The Diary of Samuel Sewall identifies Mr. Hiller as Joseph; Shipton, Sibley’s Harvard Graduates, v, 263, states that Joseph Sr. “emigrated from England, kept a tavern, practiced some law in the interest of London clients, but was generally known as a tin-plate worker.” Hence Hiller could have brought with him or imported a virginal which he then sold to Sewall; or was he making wire strings and possibly stringing the virginals for the Sewalls?
54 Savage, Genealogical Dictionary, iv, 364, states that Valentine became a freeman in 1675. The following diarists comment on Valentine’s suicide: Sewall, Diary, ii, 1011–1012; Jeremiah Bumstead (1678–1729), diary published in New England Historical and Genealogical Register, xv (1861), 200; and Joshua Blanchard (1692–1748), diary published in Abraham English, “Builder of the Old South Meeting-House,” New England Magazine, New Ser., xiii (1895–1896), 397. Bumstead states: “Mr. Harris minister, & Mr. Auchmuty giving oath of his distraction, he had a funerall, and was buryed in ye Church yard on ye 4 day of ye month.” According to a colonial law passed in 1660 regarding “self-murder,” any man “willfully guilty” of his own death was “denied the privilege of being Buried in the Common Burying place of Christians,” but should be buried along the highway with “a Cart-load of Stones laid upon the Grave as a Brand of Infamy . . .” (Whitmore, Colonial Laws, p. 137). In order for Valentine to have been buried in the churchyard, he first would have had to be judged non compos mentis.
55 Scholes, Puritans and Music, p. 255; Sibley’s Harvard Graduates, ii, 62; Savage, Genealogical Dictionary, iv, 536–537; Boston News-Letter, January 22, 1730.
56 Savage, Genealogical Dictionary, I, 396; ii, 468; Middlesex Probate Court Records, iii, 32, docket 10756; Savage, Genealogical Dictionary, I, 291; Middlesex Probate Court Records, I, 199, docket 3420 (although the docket contains no originals).
57 Anna Maria Fay, “Some Accounts of the Life and Times of the Rev. Peter Bulkeley (1583–1659),” New England Historical and Genealogical Register, xxxi (1877), 154. Hereafter abbreviated as NEHGR.
58 Bulkeley’s will specifically leaves “6. M. Aynsworth notes upon the 5 bookes of Moses & upon the psalmes” to his son Edward. This would indicate that Bulkeley was familiar with, if he did not possess, the Ainsworth Psalter.
The Concord Public Library has a repository of Bulkeley’s papers. Although the librarian could not specifically recall any musical references among them, the writer feels this material is worth perusal.
It might be mentioned here that neither Bulkeley’s original will and household inventory nor their contemporary copies in the court’s ledger book by the court clerk are extant. The surviving copy book is in a late nineteenth- or early twentieth-century hand.
59 Thomas Mace, Mustek’s Monument; or, a Remembrancer Of the Best Practical Musick, Both Divine, and Civil, that has ever been known, to have been in the World (London: T. Ratcliffe, and N. Thompson, 1676; facsim. repr., Paris: Editions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1958), p. 62.
60 Foster purchased the press from Marmaduke Johnson who had brought it from England but had been forbidden by the colonial legislature to set it up. (See George Emery Littlefield, Early Boston Booksellers, 1642–1711 [New York, 1969], p. 89.)
61 Sibley’s Harvard Graduates, ii, 222–228.
62 Samuel Eliot Morison, “The Rev. Seaborn Cotton’s Commonplace Book,” Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Publications, xxxii (1935), 320–352.
63 NEHGR, iv (1850), 263.
64 Ralph Day’s careful assignment in his will of his property to his heirs and his specification of their responsibilities reflect a prudent man. His wife, Abigail, was entitled to the free and full use of the parlor and cellar as well as the whole southerly end of the house. A new door into the yard was to be constructed for her; she was given free use of sundry furniture, although he specified the pots and kettle she was to have; and she was allowed free passage into the hall to use the oven and the said room [in which] to brew and wash.” She also received land and pasture and their two sons were directed to care for it for her at the expense of the estate. All this she was entitled to with the condition that she remayne in the state of widdowhood.” Should she marry, Day specified that she would be allowed £10 worth of the goods aforementioned and the sons were to be “discharged of getting firewood for her.” (Savage, Genealogical Dictionary, ii, 450.)
65 Hoar was a 1650 graduate of Harvard College who went to England where he took a doctorate in medicine. He returned to the Massachusetts Bay Colony and was president of Harvard College from 1672 to 1675. Soon after his resignation from that post he died.
66 Massachusetts Historical Society, Collections, Ser. 1, vi (1799), 106.
67 William S. Pattee, “Quincy Inscriptions,” NEHGR, ix (1855), 151. See also The Diary of Tutor Henry Flynt of Harvard College 1675–1760, Edward T. Dunn, ed., 3 vols. (Buffalo, N.Y., 1978), ii: 1106–1107. The writer is indebted to the Rev. Edward T. Dunn, S.J., of Canisius College for bringing the epitaph to her attention.
68 Sewall, Diary, ii, 855; Shipton, Sibley’s Harvard Graduates, v, 441–444.
69 Sumner Chilton Powell, Puritan Village: The Formation of a New England Town (Middletown, Conn., 1963), pp. 41–42, 116–120. A portrait of Browne is said to have been the property of Henry A. Whitney of Boston in 1895. See Oliver Ayer Roberts, History of the Military Company of Massachusetts, 4 vols. (Boston, 1895), I, 283. The writer’s efforts to locate this portrait have proved unsuccessful thus far.
70 Peter Thacher’s manuscript journals (vol. I: 1679–1682; vol. II: 1682–1699) may be found at the Massachusetts Historical Society.
71 It is presently not known who occupied Hobby’s house after his death in 1715. The newspaper advertisement may be referring to balls that Hobby may have hosted in his house (he was noted as a “gay man, a free liver” [Winsor, Memorial History, ii, 540]), or perhaps Enstone (an Anglican as well as Grainger) briefly taught dance in the evenings in this house before removing to his “Large House in King Street” in September of 1720 (See Boston Gazette for September 12, 1720). Yet another although lesser possibility is that Grainger himself taught dancing in the evenings after regular school hours. If so, this endeavor was a brief one; this is the only hint that Grainger was ever directly involved with dancing.
Henry Wilder Foote, Annals of King’s Chapel, 2 vols. (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1882), I, 396, quoted Timothy Cutler’s opinion of Grainger from the King’s Chapel Church Documents of Massachusetts, p. 230: “There is also one Mr. Grainger, a Churchman, who is a private Writing School Master; has about 100 Scholars, and recommends himself by his distinguishing capacity for that business.” And Sewall entered in his diary for March 8, 1720 (ii, 942): “Went to the Town-house to meet Mr. Oliver &c. Col. Fitch express’d himself as much prizing Mr. Granger’s Accomplishments to Teach Writing; never such a person in Boston before. Resolves to send his Son to him; has told him he will do so. Professes himself of the Church of England. As far as I could gather, He and Capt Noyes would be glad he might Teach in the new South-School-house.” Obituary notices in both the Boston Gazette and the Boston News-Letter for January 10, 1734, considered Grainger’s death a public loss.
72 Benjamin Wadsworth’s interleaved almanac, account book, and diary (in pencil: p. 77), Massachusetts Historical Society.
73 Foote, Annals, I, 269; Boston Gazette, December 16, 1723.
Grainger, Sir Charles Hobby (ca. 1665–1715) (whose house Grainger occupied sometime after Hobby’s death), and Enstone were all Anglicans. Both Hobby and Grainger served King’s Chapel as vestrymen, while Enstone played the organ there from 1714 to 1723. Grainger ended his private teaching career in 1733 when he was chosen to take over the Episcopalian parochial school funded by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel.
74 Sewall, Diary, I, 124; Winsor, Memorial History, ii, 315; Dictionary of American Biography; Charles Morton, Compendium Physicae, ed. with a biographical sketch of Morton by Samuel Eliot Morison, Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Publications, xxxiii (1940). Morton, in his Compendium Physicae, Chapter 24, “Of Hearing,” p. 172, gives abstract reference to viols and violins: “Now Seeing there is Such an Agreement between the Eye and the Ear (as is before noted) the Same is the reason of Sounds in all other concords, and yet it must be confessed there are Some men have less regard to harmony in Eye, or Ear, than others tis Supposed they will not boast of it as their perfection. Some are also more pleased with the Sound than with the proportion, therefor [sic] the briskness of a trumpet or the [Squeale] of a Violin Soundly Rubb’d to make a noyse dos affect them more than the best compositions of Viol Consorts, but that is because they are more Sensuall than Rationall.”
75 Edmund Browne’s library, appraised in 1678 at thirty-eight pounds, contained 180 volumes among which were his “musicall bookes.”
76 Records and Files of the Quarterly Courts of Essex County, Massachusetts, vii (1919), 251. Scholes, Puritans and Music, p. 376, abbreviated this entry.
77 Whitmore, Colonial Laws, p. 57.
78 Could the curious spelling of “Viall Inns” in Morton’s inventory refer to the association of the violin with inns?
79 BRC, xi, 49.
80 Annie Haven Thwing, The Crooked & Narrow Streets of the Town of Boston, 1630–1822 (Boston, 1925), pp. 88–89; BRC, xi, 48; Savage, Genealogical Dictionary, iv, 201.
81 “Letter from Leonard Hoar to Josiah Flynt,” Massachusetts Historical Society, Collections, 1st Ser., vi (1799), 106.
82 The Diaries of Benjamin Lynde and of Benjamin Lynde, Jr., ed. F. E. Oliver (Boston: Houghton & Co., 1880), p. 134. For the numerous references Benjamin, Jr., made to dancing, see pp. 133, 135, 157.
83 See “The Jew’s Harp as Aerophone” by Frederick Crane in the Galpin Society Journal, xxi (1968), 66–69.
84 Records and Files of the Quarterly Courts of Essex County, Massachusetts, 1 (1911), 316.
85 Daniel C. Colesworthy, John Tilestons School (Boston: Antiquarian Book Store, 1887), p. 46.
86 Roberts, Artillery Company, I, 185–186.
87 Savage, Genealogical Dictionary, ii, 88–89; Roberts, Artillery Company, I, 284.
88 The writer has examined firsthand an early pewter fife in private ownership. The instrument’s design places it no later than the eighteenth century and it could be considerably earlier. Its known provenance points to a New England origin. That Dyer was a militiaman and an ironmonger and that his “flutes” were located in his shop suggest that he was either making and/or selling fifes. Was he a second fife maker?
89 The range of the mock trumpet was f′ chromatic to g″ or b″ depending on whether or not the instrument was equipped with keys which assisted in reaching the two highest notes. This range was the same as the clarino or highest register of the true four-octave trumpet; only in the clarino register or fourth octave could a “clarino” trumpet player produce a stepwise succession of notes necessary for playing melodies. It should also be noted that trumpeters were not required to be proficient in the entire harmonic series of their instruments; because the trumpet was so difficult a player specialized in one portion of the range. See: Thurston Dart, “The Mock Trumpet,” Galpin Society Journal, vi (1953), 35–40; Caldwell Titcomb, “Baroque Court and Military Trumpets and Kettledrums: Technique and Music,” Galpin Society Journal, ix (1956), 66–70; and Colin Lawson, “The Early Chalumeau Duets,” Galpin Society Journal, xxvii (1974), 125–129.
90 Other lip-vibrated instruments less demanding of the player were also used in the Bay Colony. Madam Sarah Knight made mention of a post horn sounded by the post rider she traveled with part way to New York. (The Journal of Madam Knight, intro. Malcolm Freiberg [Boston: David R. Godine, 1972], p. 9.) The Rev. Hugh Adams of Dover, N.H., in 1724 earnestly believed that by having his two sons blow “two silver trumpets” as Jehovah had commanded before the Israelites went to war, he could evoke God’s protection of his family against the Indians. Although silver trumpets were inaccessible to Adams in the wilderness, he found “horns of cattle” to be as effective. To the sounding of the horns, he attributed the preservation of his family as well as Capt. Lovewell and the volunteer company during their first two Indian expeditions. (Shipton, Sibley’s Harvard Graduates, iv, 330. See also Carleton Sprague Smith’s article in volume I of this book.)
91 Massachusetts Historical Society, Collections, 1st Ser., iv (1852), 12; Sewall, Diary, I, 152; “The Diary of John Marshall,” Massachusetts Historical Society, Proceedings, 2nd Ser., 1 (1884–1885), 153; Sewall, Diary, I, 380, 383; Eileen Southern, The Music of Black Americans (New York, 1971), p. 30; and the New-England Courant, November 30, 1724.
92 Raoul F. Camus, Military Music of the American Revolution (Chapel Hill, 1976), p. 27, reported that “On 22 March 1693/94 John Mawgridge, His Majesty’s drum major general, issued a warrant ‘to presse or cause to be impressed from time to time such numbers of Drums, Fifes and Hoboyes as shall be necessary for His Majesty’s Service either by sea or land’.” Camus in his article in volume I of this book also states that in 1768 the 14th Regiment of Foot had black drummers “whom the colonel of the regiment had bought and trained for that duty while the regiment was stationed in the West Indies.” If this indeed was the case with Charles Blow, then that he was employed by three ship captains means that in fact he had been at some time owned by the three.
93 Sewall, Diary, I, 441–442; 1, 367; 1, 516; ii, 631. The levet or fanfare to herald the year 1710 was no doubt played on January 2nd because the 1st fell on a Sunday.
94 Sewall, Diary, ii, 694; ii, 915.
95 Roberts, Artillery Company, I, 139–140.
The only extant seventeenth-century drum from New England is that by an unknown maker, which descended to its donor to the Connecticut Historical Society from his ancestor Samuel Porter, who was one of the town drummers of Farmington, Connecticut, in 1708 and 1709. Decorating the exterior in brass nail heads are the initials “L D”, perhaps those of its original owner. See below, fig. 374, in this volume.
96 The grand procession of Free Masons was described in detail in the Boston Gazette for June 25, 1739.
97 Dictionary of American Biography; Winsor, Memorial History, ii, 54.
98 For a detailed study of violones and violoncellos see Stephen Bonta, “From Violone to Violoncello: A Question of Strings?” Journal of the American Musical Instrument Society, iii (1977), 64–99.
99 Sewall, Diary, I, 123–124. Although the instrument referred to in the quote is no doubt a bass viola da gamba, a family of bowed stringed instruments quite distinct from the violin or viola da braccio family, it is quoted here to suggest another use for Burnet’s “large bass Violine” outside that of chamber music.
100 Table i records the value of instruments from the harpsichord family. It will be noted that the harpsichord belonging to Increase Gatchell (d. 1729) was valued at £10. Burnet’s instrument is at least six times as expensive as any of the other keyboard instruments in the inventories.
101 “A large bass Violine” was written over an error which had been carefully erased.
102 Perhaps the term clepsicord derived from the word collapse, in the seventeenth century used to describe the state of being broken down (see OED); and the word used here referred to a “folding” harpsichord, or clavecin brisé. This instrument was invented in France by Jean Marius who took out a twenty-year patent on it in 1700. The instrument, made for traveling, was built in three independent sections hinged together, and folded into a long rectangular box convenient for transporting.
103 The manuscript diary of Benjamin Walker, Jr., 3 vols. (1726–1749), I, fol. 3 iv. Massachusetts Historical Society.
104 Lowens, Music and Musicians in Early America (New York, 1964), p. 18.
105 See volume marked cust 3/b, fols. 125–129v, in the Public Records Office, London. This and other custom records are classified as cust 3, volumes 1–8, and begin with the year 1697. For the tax on a variety of musical instruments being shipped in and out of England, see: Guy F. Oldham, “Import and Export Duties on Musical Instruments in 1660,” Galpin Society Journal, ix (1956), 97–98.
106 See Carl Bridenbaugh, Cities in the Wilderness (New York: Oxford University Press paperback, 1971), pp. 188, 330–336, for further background information.
107 Made from sheep’s intestines, fiddle strings might have been produced domestically. The finest quality strings came from near Rome, however, where the intestines of sheep were the smoothest; hence the fascination with Italian strings which were advertised in newspapers throughout the eighteenth century. See David Boyden, The History of Violin Playing from Its Origins to 1761 (London, 1965), p. 111. New-England Corn ant, May 25, 1724.
108 Foote, Annals, I, 211–214.
109 BRC, xi, 222, 236; and ix, 2–3.
110 Foote, Annals, I, 269.
111 New-England Courant, December 2, 1723.
112 Boston Gazette, December 16, 1723.
113 New-England Courant, May 25, 1724.
114 Bridenbaugh, Cities in the Wilderness, p. 464.
1 Recalled as an auction conducted by Mr. and Mrs. Charles Lincoln Ketchum who operated an antiques shop in Old Saybrook at the time.
2 For the period spanning the late 1920s and early 1930s the eighteenth-century English conversation piece was promoted in this country and enjoyed a considerable vogue. Among the larger exhibits were those held at the Minneapolis Art Institute in 1930 and the New York Union League Club in 1933.
3 I am grateful to David McKibben of the Boston Athenaeum who alerted me to the situation at an early date. Subsequent material from the National Portrait Collection and the Metropolitan Museum provided further illumination. I am also grateful to Emanuel Winternitz of the Metropolitan Museum who confirmed the identification of the dulcimer, and to the many persons whose kindness in offering valuable time during one or more of the investigative steps has been of great assistance. They include: Lee Aukamp, Mary Black, Miles Chapel, Louisa Dresser, Gerald Finley, Henry Grunder, Virginius C. Hall, John H. Jennings, John Kerslake, Paul Kiehard, Sara Lichtenstein, Annette Merlis, Sir Oliver Millar, John C. Moon, Pinkney Near, William S. Powell, Jules Prown, Claudia Rummel, Harriet Stryker-Rodda, Edward J. Smits, John Sunderland, Margaret Watherston, the owners of paintings used for comparison, and the staffs of the New York Public Library, Frick Art Reference Library, Swem Library, Virginia Historical Society, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, British Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum, National Maritime Museum, and the Guildhall Archives, London.
4 William T. Whitley, Artists and Their Friends in England, 1700–1799, 2 vols. (New York: Benjamin Blom, 1968), I, 109.
5 Ellis Waterhouse, Painting in Britain, 1530 to 1790 (Baltimore, 1953), p. 118.
6 George Vertue, ms notes, 6 vols. (London: Walpole Society, 1930–1947), iii, in Walpole Society, xxii (1934), 14.
7 Horace Walpole, Anecdotes of Painting in England (London: Ward Lock: The World Library of Standard Books, [1879]), pp. 299, 348.
8 The English check was made by the Royal College of Music.
9 Reports of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston, 39 vols. (Boston. Rockwell and Churchill, 1876–1909), xxviii, 53, 277. This series, containing town records, acts of the selectmen, vital statistics as well as miscellaneous papers, is cited henceforth as BRC. BRC, xxiv, 138, 193, 222; BRC, xvii, 203; BRC, xxx, 217.
10 American Marriage Records before 1699, ed. William M. Clemens (Pompton Lakes, N.J.: The Biblio Co., 1926), p. 83; New England Historical and Genealogical Register, xxiv (1870), 15; BRC, viii, 53; The Diary of Samuel Sewall, 1674–1729, ed. M. Halsey Thomas, 2 vols. (New York, 1973), I, 181, 300, 328; The Notebook of John Smibert (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1969), p. 93; BRC, vii, 239.
11 George Groce and David Wallace, The New-York Historical Society’s Dictionary of Artists in America, 1564–1860 (New Haven, 1957), p. 356; Frederick W. Coburn, “The Johnstons of Boston,” Art in America, xxi, no. 1 (December 1932), 27–36, and xxi, no. 4 (October 1933), 132–138; William Arms Fisher, One Hundred Fifty Years of Music Publishing in the United States (Boston, 1933), p. 36.
12 See the study “Social Music, Musicians, and Their Musical Instruments in Colonial Boston” by Barbara Lambert in this volume, p. 422 ff.
13 Sewall, Diary, ii, 855.
14 The following is a more complete record of color: Rippingale’s once-green coat is trimmed with red, and he wears red hose. Elliston’s coat is a buff color, lined in red. Hale’s coat is light brown, and E. Low’s is blue with remnants of a salmon color for the trim. W. Low wears a rust-colored coat. Godbolt’s jacket, breeches, and hose are all dark grey. Jonathan Low’s coat is scarlet. The carpet is painted in strong tones of red against a blue field, with a few touches of yellow in the pattern. The design on the dulcimer soundboard is red.
15 Hugh Jones, The Present State of Virginia (Chapel Hill, 1956), p. 80.
16 Louis B. Wright, The Cultural Life of the American Colonies (New York, 1957), p. 13; John W. Molnar, “Art Music in Colonial Virginia,” Institute of Southern College Lectures 1960 (Farmville, Va.: Longwood College, 1961), pp. 66–68.
17 John W. Molnar, Songs from the Williamsburg Theatre (Charlottesville, 1972), p. viii (foreword by Carleton Sprague Smith).
18 Published as selection lviii, “Libraries in Colonial Virginia,” William and Mary Quarterly, 1st Ser., iii (1894–1895), 251–253.
19 The Secret Diary of William Byrd of Westover: 1709–1712, ed. Louis B. Wright and Marion Tinling (Richmond, 1941), p. 85; p. 41n.
20 North Carolina Wills, 1663–1789, ed. J. Bryan Grimes, xix (North Carolina Secretary of State, 1912), 6; Primrose Watson Fisher, One Dozen Pre-Revolutionary War Families of Eastern North Carolina and Some of Their Descendants (New Bern, N.C., 1958), p. 126; North Carolina Historical and Genealogical Register, ii (1901), 153; i (1900), 58.
21 Acts of the Privy Council of England, Colonial Series: 1680–1720, ii (London: Public Record Office, 1910), 296; Lower Norfolk County Virginia Antiquary, ii (1897), 48; “Records of Hanover County Virginia,” William and Mary Quarterly, 1st Ser., xxi (1912–1913), 58; Henings Statutes of Virginia: 1736–1763, vii (1820), 25, 197.
22 William Byrd of Virginia: The London Diary (1717–1721) and Other Writings, ed. Louis B. Wright and Marion Tinling (New York, 1958), p. 455.
23 Jones, The Present State of Virginia, p. 221 (annotated note by Richard L. Morton); Louis Morton, Robert Carter of Nomini Hall (Williamsburg, 1945), p. 42n.
24 London and Its Environs Described, 6 vols. (London: printed for R. & J. Dodsley, 1761), vi, 99.
25 Mary Mann Page Stanard, Colonial Virginia: Its People and Customs (Detroit: Singing Tree Press, 1970), p. 185.
26 Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, xxxiii (1925), 363.
27 The editors of Another Secret Diary of William Byrd of Westover, 1739–1741 (Richmond, 1942), Maude Woodfin and Marion Tinling, identify him as Charles City County merchant, ca. 1737–1751, Thomas Wendy; p. 13n.
28 By coincidence, perhaps, this portrait, given to Colonial Williamsburg in 1952 by Mrs. Pickney W. Snelling of Hartford, a descendant of the sitter, had found its way to Connecticut, the last provenance for A Musical Gathering. Moreover, the portrait of Dering’s Williamsburg acquaintance, Nathaniel Walthoe, with whom he visited William Byrd (Byrd, Diary, 1739–1741, p. 139) also came to Colonial Williamsburg (in 1956) via a Connecticut source, Thomas Williams, a dealer in Litchfield (Frick Art Reference Library records).
29 Byrd, Diary, 1739–1741, pp. 82–83, 131, 139, 140–149, 160, 166–167, 171–179; all refer to the years 1740 and 1741.
30 Louis B. Wright, The First Gentlemen of Virginia: Intellectual Qualities of the Early Colonial Ruling Class (San Marino: Huntington Library, 1940), p. 335.
31 References to indentured servants as musicians occur in the Virginia Gazette for January 13, 1738; May 19, 1738; September 26, 1745; August 21, 1752? October 20, 1752; and later. References to convict servants as musicians occur on July 4, 1751, and later in 1771 and 1772. References to slaves and musical instruments occur on May 5, 1738; March 27, 1746; and later. The subject is also treated in Molnar, “Art Music,” p. 69, and in Albert Stoutamire, Music of the Old South: Colony to Confederacy (Rutherford, Pa.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1973), p. 27.
32 James Curtis Ballagh, “A History of Slavery in Virginia,” Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science, xxiv (1895), 33–37.
33 Molnar, “Art Music,” p. 69.
34 Stanard, Colonial Virginia, p. 309.
35 Letters of Robert Carter 1720–1727: The Commercial Interests of a Virginia Gentleman (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1970), pp. 22–23.
36 Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, vi (1898), 3–4.
37 William Byrd London Diary, pp. 456–464.
38 Robert “King” Carter Day Book for October 7, 1722, at the University of Virginia Library.
39 Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, xxxiii (1924), 41–42.
40 At least some of these portraits were likely commissioned to be painted from earlier likenesses.
41 It is also of interest here, with regard to the fate of oversize colonial art, to note that the Last Supper had been sold at auction in a Maryland junkshop for $50 in 1840.
42 J. Hall Pleasants, “William Dering: A Mid-Eighteenth Century Williamsburg Portrait Painter,” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, lx (1952), 60; Documents Collection, Virginia Historical Society.
43 J. Hall Pleasants, “Biographical Notes, 2858,” Frick Art Reference Library (1957). Dering’s move from Virginia and his South Carolina activities are expanded upon by Graham Hood in “Charles Bridges and William Dering: Two Virginia Painters, 1735–1750,” Antiques, cxii (1977), 935.
44 His name had previously appeared in Waldron P. Belknap, American Colonial Painting: Materials for a History (Cambridge, 1959), pp. 222–223. There is evidence here that he had a number of American sitters in the early eighteenth century, including Jonathan Belcher, Governor of New Jersey, and Samuel Mather, brother of Massachusetts clergyman Cotton Mather.
45 Thomas Wharton Jones, “The Pedigree of Alliston or Elliston of Essex and Kent and of Philipps of Chesham, Bucks., with that of Jones, in continuation thereof,” Herald and Genealogist, v (1870), 401–426.
46 Philip Morant, History and Antiquities of the County of Essex (London, 1768), pp. 126, 133.
47 Surtees Society, Publications, cxxxiii (1920), 104; Sir William Musgrave, “A General Nomenclator and Obituary,” Harleian Society, Publications, xlviii (1900), 146.
48 Painters and Stainers Guild, Journal entry for October 1, 1746, at the Guildhall Library, London.
1 The earliest usage of the word songster in connection with song anthologies I have been able to trace is in the alternate title of The Universal Musician; or, Songster’s Delight (London, 1737), later editions of which appeared in 1738 and 1750. Similar titles followed soon after: The Merry Companion; or, Universal Songster (London, 1739); The Ladies Delight; or, The Merry Songster (London, 1741); The Vocal Medley; or, Universal Songster (York, ?1749); Vocal Melody; or, The Songster’s Magazine (London, 1751) in three volumes; The Goldfinch; or, New Modern Songster (Glasgow, 1753); Melpomene; or, The Songster’s Merry Companion (Waltham, ?1753); The Vocal Companion; or, The Delightful and Merry Songster (London, ?1757). The first usage of the word as part of the regular rather than the alternate title appears to have been in The Polite Songster (London, 1758). The earliest-known similar use of the word on this side of the Atlantic occurs in The Mock Bird; or, New American Songster (New York, 1761). Although the exact meaning of songster as used in these titles is not quite clear, the word gradually came to refer to the collection itself rather than to the singer of the songs it contains.
1 Prior to 1790 most American tunebooks were printed from engraved copper plates. The swift increase in typographical printing which occurred in the 1790s and 1800s signaled the increasingly important role of professional printers in the field of sacred music. See Richard Crawford, “Connecticut Sacred Music Imprints, 1778–1810,” Notes, xxvii, nos. 3 & 4 (March & June 1971).
2 Statistics given here and elsewhere in the article are drawn from my unpublished index of sacred music published in America through 1810, and from the bibliography of sacred American music through 1810 which I have compiled in collaboration with Allen P. Britton and Irving Lowens, to be published by the American Antiquarian Society. The bibliography includes roughly 440 issues of sacred music: approximately 390 tunebooks (collections of 4 or more pieces) and about 50 occasional publications and pamphlets (items containing 3 or fewer pieces). More than 30 additional sacred music editions were published during the period, but copies have yet to be located.
3 The figures given here cover only English-language publications. As early as 1752 there appeared in Philadelphia a two-part work containing Lobwasser’s metrical version of the German psalter and a collection of 700 hymns, reprinted from the German publication Kern alter und neuer (Marburg: Johann Henrich Stock, 1746). Both parts contained monophonic tunes. The Philadelphia work, Neu-vermehrt- und vollständiges Gesang-Buch (Germantown, Pennsylvania: Christopher Saur, 1753; also 3 later editions), served a tradition which by culture, language, and geography was separate from the English-language tradition described here. After 1800 in Pennsylvania and Maryland some interaction between English- and German-language sacred music took place, but that issue is peripheral to this paper.
4 [Simeon Jocelin and Amos Doolittle], The Chorister’s Companion (New Haven: Jocelin and Doolittle, 1782), p. [1].
5 A similar study has recently been completed by Professor John W. Worst of Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan: “New England Psalmody 1760–1810: Analysis of an American Idiom” (University of Michigan, Ph.D. diss., 1974).
6 The tune Psalm 100 New is discussed by Irving Lowens in Music and Musicians in Early America (New York: Norton, 1964), pp. 53–55. It is also mentioned in Theodore Finney, “The Third Edition of Tufts’ Introduction to the Art of Singing Psalm-Tunes,” Journal of Research in Music Education, xiv, no. 3 (Fall 1966), p. 169. Professor Nicholas Temperley of the University of Illinois, who is compiling an index of British psalm tunes to 1750, reported early in 1974 that he had yet to find Psalm 100 New in a British source.
7 Law’s career is covered and all of his publications enumerated and indexed in Richard Crawford, Andrew Law, American Psalmodist (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1968).
8 The Complete Works of William Billings is being edited for publication by Hans Nathan and Karl Kroeger under the sponsorship of the American Musicological Society and the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, making Billings the first American composer whose complete works will appear in a critical edition. Volume ii, the first volume to be published, was issued in 1977, followed by vol. I in 1981.
9 Lowens, Music and Musicians, p. 239.
10 At the beginning of this project I had some difficulty deciding what to tabulate, first choosing core repertory tunes on the basis of the number of different collections (i.e., titles) in which they appeared, and disregarding reprintings of the same tune in more than one edition of the same collection. The basis for that decision lay in the notion that one compiler’s inclusion of a tune in several editions of one tunebook should not count as heavily as several different compilers each including the tune in one edition of one tunebook. Gradually, however, this notion seemed more and more unsatisfactory, since, by appearing in several editions of a popular work, a tune probably achieved wider circulation than in single printings in several less successful works. Since the list was and is an attempt to measure popularity, however roughly, counting the total number of printings seemed preferable. (It might be noted in passing that the two methods produce remarkably similar lists.) An edition by Richard Crawford of the music in the core repertory is in preparation. It will be published by the Institute for Studies in American Music, Brooklyn College, in its Recent Researches in American Music series.
11 A statistical method which took into account the period of each tune’s popularity would have certain advantages over a mere tally of the printings of each tune and would certainly produce a different core repertory list. For example, tunes published in the Bay Psalm Book, 9th ed. (1698), Walter’s Grounds and Rules (1721), and Tufts’ Introduction, 3d ed. (1723), could achieve more than 20 printings from these 3 collections alone by 1765, since they were so often reprinted, usually with little or no change in the music. It might seem, then, that a tune popular early in the century could be included in the core repertory, even though it fell out of favor later on. Conversely, a tune appearing late but enjoying immediate popularity might replace on the core repertory list a tune with less spectacular but more persistent or enduring popularity because of the greater number of tunebooks published toward the end of the period covered here. As it happens, the present list contains one tune of the late-appearing type. Adeste Fidelis was not published in the United States until 1801; however, it enjoyed immediate and enormous popularity. There are no examples of the earlier situation, partly because musical reform after the turn of the century created a strong impetus toward reviving the earlier psalm tunes, and every tune on the core repertory list which was introduced between 1698 and 1725 either maintained consistent popularity through the whole period or regained a place in the repertory during the decade 1801–1810.
12 The compositions which most narrowly missed being chosen include 3 British items: Stephenson’s anthem “Behold I bring you glad tidings,” and the psalm tunes Castle Street and Islington; and 7 American tunes: Bethlehem by Billings, Complaint by Parmenter, Psalm 46 by Chandler, Symphony by Morgan, Victory by Read, Walpole by Wood, and Washington by Billings. None achieved more than 42 printings nor less than 40.
1 See chapter 3, “John Tufts’s An Introduction to The Singing of Psalm-Tunes (1721–1744),” in Irving Lowens, Music and Musicians in Early America (New York, 1964), pp. 39–57, for an explanation of dating the first edition of this work by Tufts.
2 Byron A. Wolverton, “Keyboard Music and Musicians in the Colonies and United States of America before 1830” (Indiana University, Ph.D. diss., 1966), pp. 146–150.
3 For a reproduction of Lewis Deblois’ trade card from which the musical stock is quoted, see this vol., fig. 434, and p. 104 of this writer’s article on Thomas Johnston in Boston Prints and Printmakers 1670–1775, ed. Sinclair Hitchings and Walter Muir Whitehill, Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Publications, xlvi (1973).
4 As James Bishop Peabody pointed out in a letter to the author, Price was, rather than is, buried in Trinity, since the original burials were all dug up and scattered in the nineteenth century at about the time when the third and present edifice was erected.
5 For quotations referring to Price, see the chronology “William Price as Churchman” as well as the list of sources at the end of this article.
6 Henry Wilder Foote, Annals of King’s Chapel, 2 vols. (Boston, 1882), I, 269.
7 Wolverton, “Keyboard Music and Musicians,” p. 49.
8 Mary Kent Davey Babcock, Christ Church, Salem Street, Boston (Boston, 1947), pp. 132–134. Babcock’s book is the source of other information in this article on Christ Church’s organists.
9 Price was followed as organist by Stephen Deblois, Lewis Deblois, Timothy Buck, and from 1750 to 1753 by Johnston’s son William.
10 Reproductions of the Bonner and Burgis maps appear in John W. Reps, “Plans and Views of Colonial Boston,” Boston Prints and Printmakers 1670–1775, pp. 22–31, 40–41.
11 For a listing of sources, and a reproduction of Johnston’s trade card and other prints, see this writer’s “Thomas Johnston” in Boston Prints and Printmakers 1670–1775, pp. 128–131, 87, and passim.
12 A copy of this book which has the imprint “Boston: Printed by Benjamin Mecom at the New Printing-Office near the Town-House, for Thomas Johnston, in Brattle-Street” may date from 1760 and would establish Johnston as publisher of another edition of Walter.
13 Found in the Lemuel Shaw Papers, 1648–1923, a microfilm series published by the Massachusetts Historical Society.
14 Office of the Clerk of the Superior Court of Suffolk County, Superior Court Record No. 172920 (writ of attachment, 1765, against Abraham Stickney of Tewksbury, yeoman).
15 The Records of Trinity Church, Boston, 1728–1830, ed. Andrew Oliver and James Bishop Peabody, 2 vols. Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Publications, lv, lvi (1980–1982) 1, 84.
16 Babcock, Christ Church, Salem, Street, p. 133.
17 Wolverton refers to the June 1763 advertisement of the organ made by Johnston which had been “formerly made use of in Concert-Hall,” and Talmage Whitman Dean, in “The Organ in Eighteenth Century English Colonial America” (University of Southern California, Ph.D. diss., 1960), p. 201, says that the Johnston organ in Concert Hall “was replaced by an imported English instrument.” The Deblois family sold Concert Hall in 1769 to William Turner, and additional information will be needed to test the hypothesis put forth above, that an organ was brought in for Flagg’s concert in 1772.
18 The letter is printed in Letters and Papers of John Singleton Copley and Henry Pelham 1739–1776, published in Boston in 1914 by the Massachusetts Historical Society, and by Lila Parrish Lyman on pp. 73–76 of “William Johnston (1732–1772),” New-York Historical Society Quarterly, xxxix (January 1955).
19 Charles Evans, American Bibliography, 14 vols. (Chicago, 1903–1934; Worcester, 1956–1959), vi, no. 16205.
1 Originally imported around the beginning of the eighteenth century, it contains: stopt diapason 8′ (wood), principal 4′ (wood), fifteenth 2′ (metal), and sesquialtera ii (metal).
2 The Diary of Samuel Sewall, 1674–1729, ed. M. Halsey Thomas (New York, 1973), p. 602.
3 Henry W. Foote, Annals of King’s Chapel, 2 vols. (Boston, 1882 & 1896), i, 210. Foote cites as his source Essex Institute Proceedings, x, 96.
4 The organ can be seen and heard today in St. John’s Church (Episcopal), Portsmouth, N.H., formerly known as Queen’s Chapel.
5 Only the windchest and three of the four stops are original. The case and the other parts were made by an American builder around 1836. The fourth stop is a reconstruction of a missing original made at the time of the organ’s restoration in 1965 by Charles B. Fisk.
6 Records of the Brattle Square Church for July 24, 1713, quoted in Foote, Annals of King’s Chapel, i, 209.
7 Foote, Annals of King’s Chapel, i, 209.
8 Foote, Annals of King’s Chapel, I, 210.
9 George E. Ellis, History of the First Church in Boston (Boston, 1881), p. 216.
10 There is a tradition that the organ was originally offered to, and refused by, the town of Berkeley, Mass., named after the bishop. However, Berkeley’s strong connections with the Newport church, and the fact that his namesake town was not set off from Taunton and incorporated until 1735 (and that the only church there was of the Puritan persuasion), would seem to place this tradition in the realm of unsubstantiated legend. Mr. William King Covell of Newport has painstakingly documented the history of this organ in “The Organs of Trinity Church, Newport,” The Organ, xiv, no. 56 (London, April 1935), 245–256, and is also of the opinion that the Berkeley, Mass., legend has no substance.
11 Covell, “The Organs of Trinity Church, Newport,” p. 247.
12 Covell, “The Organs of Trinity Church, Newport,” p. 248.
13 Mary K. D. Babcock, Organs and Organ Builders of Christ Church, Boston (Boston, 1946), p. 1.
14 Babcock, Organs and Organ Builders, pp. 1–2.
15 Babcock, Organs and Organ Builders, p. 3.
16 Babcock, Organs and Organ Builders, p. 3.
17 Albert L. Partridge, “William Claggett of Newport, R.I., Clockmaker,” Old-Time New England, xxvii, no. 3 (1937), 110.
18 Partridge, “William Claggett of Newport, R.I., Clockmaker,” p. 110.
19 Covell, “The Organs of Trinity Church, Newport,” p. 248.
20 The records of Trinity Church edited by James B. Peabody and Andrew Oliver have been published by the Colonial Society of Massachusetts. Information concerning the Jordan organ, including the letter from Jordan, will be found in the first appendix.
21 “Extracts from Capt. Francis Goelet’s Journal, Relative to Boston, Salem and Marblehead &c., 1746–1750,” New England Historical and Genealogical Register, xxiv, no. 1 (January 1870), 55.
22 The letter of P. A. van Hagen was printed in Dwight’s Journal of Music for October 13, 1860 (Boston: Oliver Ditson, 1861), p. 232.
23 “Biographical Memoir of William M. Goodrich, Organ-builder,” The New-England Magazine (Boston, January 1834), p. 29.
24 “Biographical Memoir of William M. Goodrich,” p. 38.
25 From the author’s personal correspondence.
26 Harriet S. Tapley, St. Peter’s Church in Salem, Massachusetts (Salem, 1944), p. 27.
27 Joseph B. Felt, Annals of Salem (Salem, 1827), p. 425.
28 “Organ-Building in New-England,” The New-England Magazine (Boston, March 1834), p. 207.
29 Foote, Annals of King’s Chapel, ii, 170.
30 Assuming the initials “P.F.” to be those of the subject, Nina Fletcher Little in her catalogue to the Abbey Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Collection (Williamsburg, 1957) identifies the subject of this painting as “Peter Farrington, said to have been a Boston organist.” Further attempts to identify positively such a person have thus far failed. A singing master identified only as “Farmington,” from Andover, is occasionally linked with Samuel Holyoke’s concerts around 1800, but nothing more is known of him.
The portrait would seem to be a personage of some importance, however, and were it not for the initials, which might as well refer to those of the painter, the subject could conceivably be William Selby, or George K. Jackson. At present this is mere speculation.
See also Sinclair Hitchings, “The Musical Pursuits of William Price and Thomas Johnston,” in this volume, p. 645.
31 For a detailed announcement of this concert, see the Massachusetts Gazette for January 2, 1786.
32 “Biographical Memoir of William M. Goodrich,” pp. 37–38.
33 Gardner M. Day, The Biography of a Church (Boston, 1951), p. 30. The pedalboard of this Snetzler organ is illustrated in figure 359.
34 The will with inventory of Addington Davenport iii was recorded in the Registry of Probate for Rockingham County, Exeter, New Hampshire, Liber 16, Folio 61. It was dated September 1, 1756; however, no location was given. It is probable that the will was made in England. According to the will of Davenport’s paternal grandmother, Elizabeth, which was dated September 15, 1756, Davenport was not in the country at the time her will was made. See New England Historical and Genealogical Register, iv, no. 1 (January 1850), 111–116, and iv, no. 4 (October 1850), 351.
35 The Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles, DD., LL.D., ed. F. B. Dexter, 3 vols. (New York, 1901), I, 57–58.
36 Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles, iii, 162.
37 From uncatalogued manuscript at the Essex Institute, Salem, Mass.
38 The “chicken wire” in the doors is for protection only. Otherwise the appearance of the organ is wholly original, and it stands as an excellent example of the type of unpretentious chamber organ found in many musical eighteenth-century homes such as that of Edward Wyer, also of Charlestown, who died in 1788.
39 This letter is quoted in full in Appendix C in the section on William Turner in this volume.
40 The photograph reproduced here is the only one known to exist of the Samuel Green organ of 1790 in the Brattle Square Church, Boston. It was probably taken shortly before the church was demolished in 1872.
41 Peter Thacher, Dr. Thacher’s Century Sermon. A Sermon Preached to the Church and Society in Brattle Street, Boston, Dec. 29, 1799 (Boston: Young and Minns, 1800), p. 16.
42 Samuel Kirkland Lothrop, A History of the Church in Brattle Street, Boston (Boston: Crosby and Nichols, 1851), pp. 147–148.
43 This drawing, in which only half of the organ is shown in complete detail, is one of a set, now the property of the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, which was made shortly before the old building was razed.
44 Boston Post for July 31, 1871.
45 A contemporary mention of its removal from the Brattle Square Church can be found in: Boston Choir Register and Music Directory (Boston: William H. Gerrish, June 1872); in the author’s collection.
46 From an uncatalogued manuscript at the Essex Institute, Salem, Mass.
47 From an uncatalogued manuscript at the Essex Institute, Salem, Mass.
48 Thomas Prince, Panoplist, ii, no. 5 (October 1806), 194.
49 Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles, iii, 192.
50 Joyce Ellen Mangier, “The Deblois Concert Hall Organ,” The Tracker, iii (October 1958), 1.
51 This stereoscopic view of the Johnston organ in Christ Church, Boston, was taken before 1884 when the present additions were made to the sides of the organ case. This view shows the case as originally built. Although now painted flat black, there is evidence that the pine case was originally grained in imitation of Santo Domingo mahogany.
52 Babcock, Organs and Organ Builders, p. 10.
53 “Organ-Building in New-England,” p. 206.
54 Babcock, Organs and Organ Builders, p. 11.
55 Babcock, Organs and Organ Builders, pp. 12–13.
56 “Organ-Building in New-England,” p. 207.
57 From the records of St. John’s Church, Portsmouth.
58 “Organ-Building in New-England,” p. 208.
59 “Organ-Building in New-England,” p. 208.
60 “Organ-Building in New-England,” p. 209.
61 “Organ-Building in New-England,” p. 209.
62 W. J. Bruce, “A Chapter on Church Organs,” The American Historical Record, iii, no. 28 (April 1874), 161–171.
63 Maria Pratt Smith, “Henry Pratt, Organ Builder,” The American Organist (October 1933).p. 514.
64 “Organ-Building in New-England,” p. 208.
65 “Organ-Building in New-England,” p. 209.
66 Smith, “Henry Pratt,” p. 514.
67 “Organ-Building in New-England,” p. 210.
68 “Organ-Building in New-England,” p. 210.
69 “Organ-Building in New-England,” p. 210.
70 Frances Hall Johnson, Musical Memories of Hartford (Hardford: Witkower’s 1931), p. 39.
1 Mourt’s Relation; or A Relation or Journall of the beginning and proceedings of the English Plantation settled at Plimoth in New England (London, 1622; repr. in facsimile, Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, Inc., 1966), pp. 36–38.
2 Johnson’s Wonder-Working providence, 1628–1651, ed. J. Franklin Jameson (New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1910), p. 135.
3 For Plymouth, see Percy Scholes, The Puritans and Music in England and New England (London: Oxford University Press, 1934), p. 23. For Manchester, see Records and Files of the Quarterly Courts of Essex County, Massachusetts, 8 vols. (Salem: Essex Institute, 1911–1921), iii, 292.
4 Samuel Sewall, Diary 1674–1729, in Massachusetts Historical Society, Collections, 5th Ser., v–vii (1878–1882), v, 344, 444; vi, 27–28.
5 “William Adams, his book, Nov. 1670,” in F. M. Calkins, Memoir of the Rev. William Adams (Boston, 1849), p. 8.
6 John Langdon Sibley, Biographical Sketches of Graduates of Harvard University, 17 vols. (Cambridge: Charles Wm. Sever; Harvard University Press; 1873–1975), iii, 281. Barbara Lambert brought both the Adams and Saltonstall references to my attention.
7 Mention of Benson cited by Eileen Southern in The Music of Black Americans (New York: W. W. Norton, 1971), p. 30. The Burnet inventory in the Suffolk County, Massachusetts, Probate Registry, docket number 5849, is cited by Barbara Lambert in “The Musical Puritans,” Old-Time New England, lxii (Winter 1972), 71.
8 A bass viol bearing William Callender’s label reads: “Drums &c. sale at / William Callender’s / Music Shop / no. 62 Middle St.—Boston / Drums of all Sizes for the Artillery and Infantry, / small size do; Fifes of all tones & prices made / from the best Turkey Box—/ Wood and black Ebony—and with the above Drums are / warrented [sic] to purchasers for one year / ALSO / Trumpets and Bugle Horns for the Calvalry, / Rifle-men [torn] Clarionets; Hautboys; concert [torn and label pasted over] / KEWISE / Bass-viols: tenor-viols: Reeds, Books &c / with many other Articles [torn] urning and Gunnery Line—made from the best [paste over] auth [paste over] and Flutes or any other instruments purchased [paste over] repaired at short notice.” Barbara Lambert located this instrument in the collections at Historic Deerfield, Massachusetts.
9 Raoul F. Camus, “The Military Band in the United States prior to 1834” (New York University, Ph.D. diss., 1969), pp. 59–60. 379–383.
10 Kate Van Winkle Keller, ed., Giles Gibbs Fife Manuscript, 1777 (Hartford: Connecticut Historical Society, 1974). Robert Eliason pointed out the bugle horn by John Balthius Dash, and the Callender fife in “Early American Winds: Instruments, Makers, and Music,” an unpublished paper which he delivered at the 1972 annual meeting of the American Musicological Society. Barbara Lambert located the Crossman drum and the Willig fife tutor. See also Oscar George Theodore Sonneck and William Treat Upton, Bibliography of Early Secular American Music (Washington: Library of Congress, 1945), pp. 84–85.
11 Kate van Winkle Keller provided the information about the Benjamin Clark drum book; and Barbara Lambert that about the Lovering drum tutor. Camus, “Military Band,” pp. 258–260.
12 Daniel McCurtin, “Journal of the Times at the Siege of Boston Since our Arrival at Cambridge, Near Boston,” in Thomas Balch, Papers Relating Chiefly to the Maryland Line During the Revolution (Philadelphia: The Seventy-Six Society, 1857), pp. 20–21. For more detail on military music, see the Camus monograph in volume I.
13 Oscar George Theodore Sonneck, Report on “The Star-Spangled Banner” “Hail Columbia, America,” “Yankee Doodle” (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1909), pp. 140–142. See also index to volume I for references to other discussions of “Yankee Doodle” in this work.
14 From F. S. Drake, Life and Correspondence of Henry Knox (Boston: S. G. Drake, 1873), p. 70. See also Camus, “Military Band,” pp. 328, 341.
15 Diary kept at the siege of Louisburg March 11–August 2, 1745, ed. Samuel A. Green (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1909), p. 6. I have Barbara Lambert to thank for drawing to my attention this reference as well as the Tisdale engraving and Simeon Snow’s violin.
16 Margaret Dean-Smith in her introduction to Play ford’s English Dancing Master 1651: A Facsimile Reprint with an Introduction, Bibliography and Notes (London: Schott & Co. Ltd., 1957) points out that the first edition (1651) is scored for treble viol. By the second edition (1652) the newly fashionable treble violin is introduced. In the third edition (1665) Playford includes an engraving of the treble violin, says it is preferred to the viol as “more airee and brisk,” and includes lessons for it. In the ninth edition, part ii (1696), there is a piece for trumpet-marine. The fifteenth edition (1713) through the eighteenth (ca. 1728) list the availability of “Basses to all the Dances contained in this Volume.”
17 [Increase Mather and others], An Arrow Against Profane and Promiscuous Dancing, Drawn out of the Quiver of the Scriptures (Boston: Printed by Samuel Green and sold by Joseph Brunning, 1684 [sic; probably 1686]), pp. 24–25. Thomas James Holmes in Increase Mather: A Bibliography of His Works (Cleveland, 1931), pp. 20–26, states that the date 1684 on An Arrow’s title page was a misprint; he believes the pamphlet to have been published initially in 1686, based on Sewall’s contemporary Diary entry. For John Locke, see Alice Morse Earle, Child Life in Colonial Days (New York: Macmillan, 1899), pp. 24–26.
18 From The Hutchinson Papers in Massachusetts Historical Society, Collections, 2nd Ser., x (1823), 183–184.
19 A Treatise against Dicing, Dancing, &c., quoted by Scholes, The Puritans and Music, pp. 85–86.
20 Cited by Samuel Eliot Morison, Builders of the Bay Colony (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1930), pp. 14–15. See Morton’s book, New English Canaan or New Canaan Containing an Abstract of New England (Amsterdam: Jacob Frederick Stam, 1637).
21 Sewall, Diary, v, 178–179.
22 Cotton referred to in An Arrow against Profane and Promiscuous Dancing, pp. 21–22. English wedding described in Dean-Smith, Playford’s English Dancing Master, p. xvii; ordinance in Nathaniel Shurtleff, ed„ Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, 1628–1688, 6 vols. (Boston: William White, 1853–1854), iv, 41.
23 Mather, An Arrow, pp. 1, 29. For a further discussion of this tract by Joy Van Cleef, see vol. I of this book, pp. 6–8.
24 Carl Bridenbaugh, Cities in the Wilderness (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1960), pp. 117–118.
25 Sewall, Diary, v, 103–104, 112, 120–122, 145. For Sewall’s activity as a printer, see George Emery Littlefield, Early Boston Booksellers 1642–1711 (Boston: Club of Odd Volumes, 1900; repr. New York: Burt Franklin, 1969), pp. 111–116.
26 Mather’s sermon Corderius Americanus: An Essay upon the Good Education of Children (Boston, August 1708), p. 19 (Evans 1361). Cotton Mather Diary of Cotton Mather, 1681–1728, ed. Worthington C. Ford, Massachusetts Historical Society, Collections, 7th Ser., vii–viii (1911–1912), 146.
27 For a reproduction of Enstone’s notice and another discussion of it see fig. 276 and p. 511 in Barbara Lambert’s contribution in this volume. Sewall, Diary, VII, 111; Norman Benson, “The Itinerant Dancing and Music Masters of Eighteenth Century America” (University of Minnesota, Ph.D. diss., 1963), pp. 334–339.
28 I am indebted to Barbara Lambert for locating Brownell’s bill and clarifying his itinerary. (See also Appendix C.) Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, intro, by Carl Van Doren (New York: Heritage Press, 1951), p. 10. For Brownell, see also Robert Francis Seybolt, The Private Schools of Colonial Boston (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1935; repr. by the Greenwood Press, 1970), pp. 12–14.
29 See Andrew Oliver, “Peter Pelham (c. 1697–1751): Sometime Printmaker of Boston,” in Boston Prints and Printmakers 1670–1775, ed. Sinclair Hitchings and Walter Muir Whitehill, Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Publications, xlvi (1973), pp. 133–173.
30 The particular dance manual is ‘Wright’s Compleat Collection of Celebrated Country Dances both Old and New (Printed for I. Johnson, Musical Instrument Maker at ye Harp & Crown in Cheapside, London, ca. 1742), a copy now located in the Essex Institute, Salem. Barbara Lambert provided the information about the Turners, Holyokes, and their relationship to one another. Information about the Holyoke-Turner marriage is from George Francis Dow, ed., The Holyoke Diaries, 1709–1856 (Salem: Essex Institute, 1911), p. xvii. Carl Bridenbaugh, Cities in Revolt (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1955), p. 367, reports that the balls in New York were discontinued in 1768 when consorts of Gen. Gage and Governor Moore could not agree on who should stand first in a country dance.
31 For Richard Hall, see Earle, Child Life, pp. 87–88. Quote on dance from Elias Howe, Howe’s Complete Ball-Room Hand-Book (Boston: Oliver Ditson, 1858), p. 23; John Adams, Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, ed. L. H. Butterfield, 4 vols. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1961), I, 172.
32 John Griffiths, A Collection of the Newest Cotillions and Country Dances (Northampton, 1794). See also S. Foster Damon, “A History of Square-Dancing,” American Antiquarian Society, Proceedings, New Ser., lxii (1952), 74–78.
33 Earle, Child Life, pp. 101–104. For Wentworth letter, see Louis Pichierri, Music in New Hampshire 1623–1800 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960), pp. 56–57.
34 “Extracts from Captain Francis Goelet’s Journal,” England Historical and Genealogical Register, xxiv (1870), 57.
35 Carl Bridenbaugh, ed., The Itinerarium of Dr. Alexander Hamilton (Williamsburg: Institute of Early American History and Culture, 1948), p. 146.
36 Samuel Eliot Morison, Harrison Gray Otis, 1765–1848: The Urbane Federalist (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1969), pp. 42–48.
37 John Adams, Diary, ii, 46–47.
38 John Adams, Diary, i, 172–173.
39 The Whyer notice was brought to my attention by Barbara Lambert. “Goelet’s Journal,” p. 53. For Newport reference, see George Champlin Mason, Reminiscences of Newport (Newport: Charles E. Hammett, Jr., 1884), pp. 101–103. For the actual dances, see figs. 8–13 in “Selected American Country Dances and Their English Sources” by Joy Van Cleef and Kate Van Winkle Keller in volume I of this book.
40 Morison, Harrison Gray Otis, p. 48. Bridenbaugh, Cities in Revolt, pp. 243, 366.
41 John Rowe, Letters and Diary of John Rowe, ed. Anne Rowe Cunningham (Boston: W. B. Clarke, 1903), p. 231. See also Malcolm Frieberg, Thomas Hutchinson of Milton (Milton: Milton Historical Society, 1971). Rowe also reported that Commencement Day, July 20, 1774, was not public because of the distressed situation of the town and province.
42 “Goelet’s Journal,” p. 53.
43 For Shirley Place, see W. W. Cordingley, “Shirley Place, Roxbury, Massachusetts, and Its Builder, Governor William Shirley,” Old-Time New England, xiii (1921), 51–63. The architectural drawings of the Shirley—Eustis House were kindly provided Barbara Lambert by Frederick C. Detwiller, architectural historian and executive director of the Shirley—Eustis House Association.
44 For Keeler Tavern, see Silvio A. Bedini, Ridgefield in Review (Ridgefield, Conn.: Ridgefield 250th Anniversary Committee, Inc., 1958), pp. 197–200. For sprung floors see John Mason and Virginia Palmer, “The Rise and Fall of the Spring Dance Floor,” Yankee Magazine, February (1973), pp. 124ff.
45 Bridenbaugh, Cities in Revolt, pp. 167, 362.
46 Alice Morse Earle, Stage-coach and Tavern Days (New York: Macmillan, 1900), pp. 100–137. On page 116, a description of a minister’s ordination in New England in 1785 cites that 80 people had 30 bowls of punch before going to meeting in the morning, and 68 who at dinner drank 44 bowls of punch, 18 bottles of wine, 8 bowls of brandy, and a quantity of cherry rum.
47 Report of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston, 39 vols. (Boston: Rockwell and Churchill, 1876–1909), 11th Report, p. 49. This reference and Kendall’s inventory from Suffolk County Probate Registry, Boston, docket number 3293, was brought to my attention by Barbara Lambert. See also pp. 477–478 and Table I in her monograph in this volume for more information on Kendall.
48 Annie Haven Thwing, The Crooked & Narrow Streets of the Town of Boston 1630–1822 (Boston: Marshall Jones Co., 1920; repr. Detroit: Singing Tree Press, 1970), pp. 79, 89. Georgia Bumgardner brought the drawing of the Green Dragon Tavern to my attention.
49 Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, iv, part ii, 100–101.
50 Samuel Eliot Morison, Harvard College in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1936), I, 113–117, 124–130. Also, Morison, “The Reverend Seaborn Cotton’s Commonplace Book,” Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Publications, xxxii (1937), 320–352.
51 John G. Whittier, Leaves from Margaret Smith’s Journal in the Province of Massachusetts 1678–1679 (Boston: Ticknor, Reed, and Field, 1849), p. 186, pointed out by Barbara Lambert. For examples of hanging ballads and “moral fakements” or confessional ballads, see vol. I of this book, pp. 332–341, and figs. 178, 180, 213, 216, 218, 220, 222.
52 Cotton Mather, Diary of Cotton Mather, 1709–1724, Massachusetts Historical Society, Collections, 7th Ser. (1912), viii, 242. Bridenbaugh, Cities in the Wilderness, p. 425.
53 “Goelet’s Journal,” pp. 53–61.
54 John Adams, Diary, I, 172.
55 John Adams, Diary, I, 341, quoted in full by Arthur Schrader on the first page of his study “Songs to Cultivate the Sensations of Freedom” in vol. I of this book. For the American prisoner, see George Carey, “Songs of Jack Tar in the Darbies,” Journal of American Folklore, lxxxv (April–June 1972), 167–180.
56 Morison, Harrison Gray Otis, p. 48. John Quincy Adams quoted in Life in a New England Town: 1787–1788 (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1903), p. 79.
57 Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, The Journals of Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, trans. Theodore G. Tappert and John W. Doberstein (Philadelphia: Evangelical Lutheran Ministerium of Pennsylvania and Adjacent States and The Muhlenberg Press, 1942), I, 320.
58 Benjamin Franklin, The Complete Works of Benjamin Franklin, ed. John Bigelow (New York and London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1887–1888), iii, 392. For a more detailed study of broadsides see the monographs by Carleton Sprague Smith and Arthur F. Schrader in vol. I of this work.
59 Rowe, Letters and Diary, pp. 171–172. For illustrations of a broadside of The Liberty Song, and Revere’s Liberty Bowl see the Smith monograph in vol. I of this book, figs. 169 and 170.
60 Sonneck and Upton, A Bibliography, pp. 227–228. For the advertisement and The Parody Parodized, see the Smith monograph in vol. I of this book, figs. 167 and 168, and for the Tory parody, see the Schrader monograph again in vol. I, fig. 110.
61 Swan’s portrait was given to the American Antiquarian Society in 1952 by descendants of Timothy Swan. Correspondence on file there between Nina Fletcher Little and Charles Bissell discusses these possible attributions for the painting. Barbara Lambert identified and provided the complete newspaper reference to Luther Allen.
62 For documents relating to dancing and music masters in Boston, see Appendix C. George Francis Dow, Every Day Life in the Massachusetts Bay Colony (Boston, 1935; repr. New York: Benjamin Blom, 1965), pp. 136–137. For the Androus reference, see Records and Files of the Quarterly Courts of Essex County Massachusetts, ii, 40. The 1673 reference is quoted by George Chalmers in Political Annals of the Present Colonies from their Settlement to the Peace of 1763 (London, 1780; repr. New York: Burt Franklin, 1968), pp. 434–435.
63 Rowe, Letters and Diary, p. 213. The watercolor was found in New Hampshire in 1949 when its purchasers were told that it represented a piano recital at Count Rumford’s, Concord, New Hampshire. In addition to the fact that the “piano” is a double manual spinet (probably a confused representation of a wing-shaped harpsichord), the water-color’s nationality is also questioned. Is it English as the fashions and the setting suggest, or is it American? If it is associated with Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford (1753–1814), he had removed from Concord, New Hampshire, to London in 1775, never to return to America. The Count, however, was a painter (see his biography in the Dictionary of Artists in America [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957]). It is possible that he painted the watercolor in London, ca. 1800—thus explaining the English appearance yet naïve “American” feeling of the work—and his daughter who lived with him in England and Europe may have subsequently brought it with her when she returned to Concord in 1844 to live out her days. This information was extracted by Barbara Lambert from various correspondence dating from July 7, 1966, to March 21, 1973, in the watercolor’s dossier on file in the office of the curator of American painting at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Helen Hollis brought the watercolor to my attention.
64 David McKay, “William Selby, Musical Emigré in Colonial Boston,” Musical Quarterly, lvii (October 1971), 609–627.
65 H. Earle Johnson, Musical Interludes In Boston (New York: Columbia University Press, 1943), von Hagens, pp. 270–271, 285, 161–162; Mallet, p. 286; Graupner, pp. 173–174, 179–181.
66 Oscar George Theodore Sonneck, Early Concert-Life in America 1731–1800 (Leipzig, 1907; repr. Wiesbaden: Dr. Martin Sandig oHG, 1969), pp. 264–265. Johnson, Musical Interludes, pp. 269–273.
67 The Greenwood information was kindly supplied by Barbara Lambert. Pichierri, Music in New Hampshire, p. 23.
68 Robert Eliason pointed out the New-York Journal reference to Dash in his unpublished paper “Early American Winds” delivered at the American Musicological Society annual meeting in 1972. He has in preparation a directory entitled Early American Makers of Woodwind and Brass Musical Instruments.
69 Johnson, Musical Interludes, pp. 269–270. Sheridan Germann, the owner of the piano by Meinke, Meyer & Meyer, and herself an expert on stringed keyboard instrument decoration, pointed out to the writer the partnership between the von Hagens and Crehore. In a forthcoming article Mrs. Germann will support her theory here advanced in the text that Crehore made her piano’s Hepplewhite stand in Boston upon the instrument’s arrival, just as it is generally accepted that the stand for John Harris’s Boston-made spinet discussed below was not made until the instrument arrived at its first home in Newport.
The earliest extant harpsichord made in North America is a spinet inscribed “Johannes Clemm Fecit Philadelphia 1739” now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (along with that by John Harris mentioned in the text).
For more information on the harpsichord builders in London with the surname of Harris, see Donald H. Boalch, Makers of the Harpsichord and Clavichord, 1440–1840, 2d ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974), pp. 58–60. Barbara Lambert pointed out the Harris bill in the Massachusetts Historical Society.
70 Samples of wood from the anonymous New England primitive square piano were analyzed in 1973 by the United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, in Madison, Wisconsin, and determined to be New England in origin.
71 Mary Kent Davey Babcock, Christ Church, Salem Street, Boston (Boston: Thomas Todd, 1947), pp. 153–157; Barbara Owen, The Organs and Music of King’s Chapel (Boston: King’s Chapel, 1966), pp. 22–23.
72 Thwing, Crooked & Narrow Streets, pp. 162–164.
73 Peter Pelham would not be occupying the house, for advertisements in the Boston Gazette list him progressively on Summer Street (Feb. 19, 1728), Cornhill and William’s Court, now Pie Alley (Aug. 18, 1729), and the “House of the Late Doctor Noyes near the Sun Tavern, Dock Square” (Boston News-Letter, Dec. 16, 1731). Cited by Oliver, “Peter Pelham,” pp. 136–139. See also the article “February 18, 1729: A Neglected Date in Boston Concert Life,” by Henry Woodward which appeared in Notes, xxxiii, no. 2 (Dec. 1976), 243–252, after my monograph was typeset.
74 Sonneck, Early Concert-Life, pp. 252–253.
75 Travels Through the Middle Settlements in North America in the Years 1759 to 1760 (London: T. Payne, 1775), p. 133.
76 John Adams, Diary, I, 54. Rowe, Letters and Diary, pp. 200, 211, 215; Thwing, Crooked & Narrow Streets, p. 86. In regard to the size of the audience, the bill to Josiah Flagg from Rea and Johnston in Sinclair Hitchings, fig. 348, in this volume includes an entry for Feb. 23, 1771: “To Printg 150 Concert Ticketts.”
77 “Goelet’s Journal,” pp. 54, 56.
78 Sonneck, Early Concert-Life, pp. 254–309.
79 See monograph by Sinclair Hitchings, p. 642 in this volume.
80 Sonneck, Early Concert-Life, pp. 261–264.
81 Sonneck, Early Concert-Life, pp. 257–259, 273–274.
82 For a list of the regimental bands with music, see footnote 32 on pp. 91–92 in Raoul Camus’s contribution in vol. I of this publication. Rowe, Letters and Diary, p. 179.
83 Rowe, Letters and Diary, pp. 180, 184.
84 Camus, “Military Band,” pp. 322, 160. John Andrews, “Letters of John Andrews, Esq. of Boston, 1772–1776,” Massachusetts Historical Society, Proceedings, 1st Ser., viii (1866), 323–332.
85 Rowe, Letters and Diary, pp. 291–304.
86 Thwing, Crooked & Narrow Streets, p. 86.
87 Sonneck, Early Concert-Life, pp. 274–284; David McKay, “William Selby,” p. 622. For an account of Washington’s entry into Boston, see the Boston Gazette for October 26, 1789.
88 Scholes, The Puritans and Music, p. 202.
89 The Acts and Resolves, Public and Private, of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, 21 vols. (Boston: Albert J. Wright, 1869–1922), iii, 500–501.
90 Samuel Eliot Morison, The Intellectual Life of Colonial New England (New York: New York University Press, 1956), p. 13.
91 Account of the two young Englishmen in George R. Minot, Continuation of the History of the Province of Massachusetts, 2 vols. (Boston: Manning and Loring, 1798–1803), i, 142–143.
92 From Evelyn’s Diary, October 18, 1666, quoted by Scholes, The Puritans and Music, pp. 210–211.
93 Increase Mather, A Testimony Against several Prophane and Superstitious Customs (London, 1687); Sewall, Diary, v, 103–104; Mather, An Arrow, pp. 25–26.
94 Sewall, Diary, v, 152, 154, 159–162, 169. Mather, Testimony, preface.
95 Sewall, Diary, v, 196.
96 Samuel Eliot Morison, Harvard College in the Seventeenth Century, ii, 464, 504–509, 547.
97 Sewall, Diary, vi, 167–168; Letter Book of Samuel Sewall, in Massachusetts Historical Society, Collections, 6th Ser., ii (1888), 29–30; Sewall, Diary, vi, 419–424.
98 Julius Herbert Tuttle, “Governor Burnet in the Diary of Benjamin Walker, Jr.,” Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Publications, xxxviii (1935), 243. Italics in the quotation have been added for emphasis.
99 Quoted from “James Ralph (c. 1699–1762) of Philadelphia and London” in Church Music and Musical Life in Pennsylvania in the Eighteenth Century, 3 vols. (Philadelphia: Pennsylvania Society of the Colonial Dames of America, 1938), iii, part i, 174–175.
100 New-England Weekly Journal, February 14, 1732. For An Act, see footnotes 88 and 89.
101 Oscar G. T. Sonneck, Early Opera in America (New York, 1912; repr. New York: Benjamin Blom, 1963), p. 133. Gardner citation from “Interleaved Almanac-Diary of 1759” (unpublished manuscript in the papers of Dr. Henry Wheatland at the Essex Institute, Salem), I, 10. This could have been a private reading by Salem citizens, for certainly later on in the century it is clear that Salem school children acted in plays for school exhibitions. William Pynchon records such an event in his diary on January 1, 1789: “I go to the scholar’s exhibition, under Master Harris, and am highly entertained with parts of the ‘Haunted House’, acted there . . . ,” The Diary of William Pynchon, ed. Fitch Edward Oliver (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin and Co., 1890), p. 326. Both are cited by Milton Gerald Hehr, in “Musical Activities in Salem, Massachusetts: 1783–1823” (Boston University, Ph.D. diss., 1963), pp. 42, 49. Ames quotes from Charles Warren, Jacobin and Junto or Early American Politics as Viewed in the Diary of Nathaniel Ames 1758–1822 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1931), pp. 18ff. Harvard reference in Morison, Harvard in the Seventeenth Century, ii, 464, footnote 4. The full Harv ard College prohibition is found in “College Book” (bound manuscript in Harvard College Library Archives), vii (November 16, 1762), 101, and is quoted by Ruth Michael in “A History of the Professional Theatre in Boston from the Beginning to 1816” (Radcliffe College, Ph.D. diss., 1941), I, 4. For New Hampshire reference, see Pichierri, Music in New Hampshire, p. 81.
102 Samuel G. Drake, The History and Antiquities of Boston (Boston: Luther Stevens, 1856), pp. 622–623. The American Magazine and Historical Chronicle, vol. iii (August 1746), p. 356. According to Frank Luther Mott in A History of American Magazines, 3 vols. (New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1930), I, 78, this magazine was published from 1743 to 1746. The third magazine begun in America, it was edited by Jeremiah Gridley (Harvard, 1725). A large proportion of its contents was taken from British periodicals.
103 Minot, History of the Province, pp. 142–143; Sonneck, Early Opera, pp. 10, 14–19; George O. Seilhamer, History of the American Theatre, 3 vols. (Philadelphia, 1888; repr. New York: Greenwood Press, 1968), I, 2–11. Sonneck cites evidence that George Washington saw this troupe in June 1752 during its Virginia tour.
104 Seilhamer, American Theatre, I, 122–128; Sonneck, Early Opera, pp. 31–33.
105 Pichierri, Music in New Hampshire, pp. 77–81; Hehr, “Musical Activities in Salem,” p. 93.
106 Oliver Morton Dickerson, comp., Boston under Military Rule (1768–1769) as revealed in the Journal of the Times (Boston, 1936; repr. New York: Da Capo Press, 1970), pp. 47, 55, 78; Drake, History and Antiquities of Boston, p. 756.
107 Rowe, Letters and Diary, pp. 200, 219, 221, 239–240, 264.
108 Pichierri, Music in New Hampshire, pp. 81–89.
109 William W. Clapp, Jr., A Record of the Boston Stage (Boston, 1853; repr. New York: Benjamin Blom, 1968), pp. 3–4. Roger Fiske, English Theatre Music in the Eighteenth Century (London: Oxford University Press, 1973), pp. 380–381.
110 Rowe, Letters and Diary, p. 298. Mrs. Warren (sister of James Otis, wife of James Warren, and close friend of John and Abigail Adams) had already published two earlier plays filled with political satire: The Adulateur (1773—Evans 13063), which pictured Thomas Hutchinson as a traitor, and The Group (1775—Evans 15213), which is directed against the Loyalist Party in Massachusetts. See Seilhamer, American Theatre, ii, 3–7. Mercy Otis Warren, The Blockheads (Boston, 1776) (Evans 15213).
111 Rowe, Letters and Diary, pp. 298–306.
112 Quoted by H. Earle Johnson, “The Adams Family and Good Listening,” Journal of the American Musicological Society, xi (Summer–Fall 1958), 167.
113 Sonneck, Early Opera, p. 134; Clapp, Record of the Boston Stage, pp. 4–5; Ellen Susan Bulfinch, The Life and Letters of Charles Bulfinch, Architect (Boston, 1896), p. 77. Quoted by Harold and James Kirker, Bulfinch’s Boston 1787—1817 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1964), pp. 56–57.
114 Benson, “Itinerant Dancing and Music Masters,” pp. 360–361.
115 Records of the Boston Selectmen: 1784–1796 (Boston: Rockwell and Churchill, 1886), xxxi, 267–268; Clapp, Record of the Boston Stage, pp. 5–6.
116 Philo Dramatis, The Rights of the Drama; or, an Inquiry into the Origin, Principles, and Consequences of Theatrical Entertainments (Boston: Printed for the Author, 1792), pp. 23, 43 (Evans 24691). William Haliburton, Effects of the Stage on the Manners (Boston: Young & Etheridge, 1792), p. 8 (Evans 24371).
117 Clapp, Record of the Boston Stage, pp. 6–15; Horace Elisha Scudder, Recollections of Samuel Breck (Philadelphia: Porter & Coates, 1877), p. 182; Frank Chouteau Brown, “The First Boston Theatre, on Federal Street,” Old-Time New England, xxxvi (July 1945), 1–7; William Dunlap, History of the American Theatre (New York, 1832; repr. New York: Burt Franklin, 1963), p. 247; Michael, “History of Professional Theatre,” 1, 26–40.
118 Columbian Centinel, September 8, 1792; Clapp, Record of the Boston Stage, pp. 11–15; Michael, “History of Professional Theatre,” 1, 38–41. For more information about the specific productions of the seasons, see Seilhamer, American Theatre, iii, 20–22; Sonneck, Early Opera, pp. 135–137; and Michael, “History of Professional Theatre,” ii, 2–14.
119 Clapp, Record of the Boston Stage, p. 19; Brown, “The First Boston Theatre,” pp. 2–4; John Alden, “A Season in Federal Street, J. B. Williamson and the Boston Theatre 1796–1797,” American Antiquarian Society, Proceedings, lxv (1955), 10–12.
120 A full description by Bulfinch of the theater is incorporated in Thomas Pemberton’s “A Topographical and Historical Description of Boston,” Massachusetts Historical Society, Collections, iii (1794), 255–256; Alden, “A Season,” pp. 11–12.
121 Kirker and Kirker, Bulfinch’s Boston, pp. 60–62, 282; Alden, “A Season,” p. 12.
122 Kirker and Kirker, Bulfinch’s Boston, pp. 61–62; Dunlap, History of American Theatre, pp. 252–258. Dunlap quotes Paine’s entire prologue (pp. 253–256). Paine, who in 1798 wrote the words to the song “Adams and Liberty,” later changed his name to that of his father: Robert Treat Paine.
123 Seilhamer, American Theatre, ii, 65–66; iii, 235–237.
124 Columbian Centinel, December 8, 1792; Benson, “Itinerant Dancing and Music Masters,” pp. 367–368; Sonneck, Early Opera, p. 137. The law officially expired on November 1, 1799.
125 Columbian Centinel, January 22, 1794. Julian Mates, The American Musical Stage before 1800 (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1962), pp. 188–189. Fiske, English Theatre Music, p. 258. Royall Tyler, engaged briefly to John Adams’ daughter Abigail, was a lawyer who later became chief justice of the Supreme Court of Vermont.
126 The Journal of an Excursion to the United States of North America in the Summer of 1794 (Salisbury: J. Easton, 1796; repr. with an introduction by Peter A. Fritzell, New York and London: Johnson Reprint Corp., 1969), pp. 42–43.
127 Hehr, “Musical Activities in Salem,” p. 380. For a discussion of the political factions in theater audiences and the favorite tunes of each, see Irving Lowens, “Benjamin Carr’s Federal Overture (1794)” in his Music and Musicians in Early America (New York: W. W. Norton, 1964), pp. 89–114.
128 Seilhamer, American Theatre, ii, 228–243, gives a complete list of the performances and the casts for the first season. Sonneck, Early Opera, lists all of the musical presentations for the Federal Street seasons from 1794 to 1800 on Table D between pp. 144 and 145.
129 For more information about the specific productions of the first season (1794) of the Boston Theatre on Federal Street under the management of Charles Stuart Powell, see Seilhamer, American Theatre, iii, 228–231; Sonneck, Early Opera, Table D between pp. 144 and 145; and Michael, “History of Professional Theatre,” ii, 15–26.
130 Johnson, Musical Interludes in Boston, pp. 169–171. For more information about the specific performances of the second season (1794–1795) under the management of Charles Stuart Powell, see Seilhamer, American Theatre, iii, 243–247; Sonneck, Early Opera, Table D between pp. 144 and 145; and Michael, “History of Professional Theatre,” ii, 27–38.
131 For more information about the specific performances of the third season (1795–1796) of the Boston Theatre, see Seilhamer, American Theatre, iii, 271–273; Sonneck, Early Opera, Table D between pp. 144 and 145; and Michael, “History of Professional Theatre,” ii, 39–64.
132 Clapp, Record of the Boston Stage, pp. 42, 36.
133 John Alden, “A Season,” pp. 12–13, 22; Johnson, Musical Interludes, pp. 172–175. For more information about the specific performances of the fourth season (1796–1797) of the Boston Theatre under the management of John Brown Williamson, see Seilhamer, American Theatre, iii, 332–353; Sonneck, Early Opera, Table D between pp. 144 and 145; Michael, “History of Professional Theatre,” ii, 64–91; and Alden, “A Season,” pp. 55–74.
134 For more information about the specific performances of the first season (1796–1797) of Haymarket Theatre under the management of Charles Stuart Powell, see Seilhamer, American Theatre, iii, 354–370; Sonneck, Early Opera, Table E between pp. 148 and 149; and Michael, “History of Professional Theatre,” ii, 485–500. Priest quote is from his Travels in the United States of America Commencing in the Year 1793, and Ending in 1797 (London: J. Johnson, 1802), pp. 165–166.
135 Sonneck, Early Opera, p. 147; Clapp, Record of the Boston Stage, pp. 56–57; Brown, “The First Boston Theatre,” pp. 4–8; Clapp, Record of the Boston Stage, p. 79.
136 Alden, “A Season,” pp. 32–35; Mates, The American Musical Stage, p. 77; Fiske, English Theatre Music, pp. 280–281. For Table x Graupner’s pay is calculated at half of the $30 paid to Mr. and Mrs. Graupner weekly.
137 Columbian Centinel, February 22, 1794; Philo Dramatis, The Rights of the Drama, p. 37.
1 See Sir Fernando Gorges, Wonder-Working Providence of Sion’s Savior in New-England (London, 1658), p. 103.
2 Arthur Perry was long known as town drummer. Among his duties were “drumming to the Company” and training younger drummers for the town. Perry owned a valuable estate in School St., between the corners of Washington and Common Sts. (now, Tremont) and died October 9, 1652. See Table II in Barbara Lambert’s contribution to this volume, and Z. G. Whitman, The History of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company [Boston, 1842], p. 77.
His son Seth joined The Company in 1662 and was also a drummer from 1662 to 1667. Seth’s name appears on a petition of handy-craftsmen presented to the town council in 1677. See Table II in Barbara Lambert’s contribution to this volume, Samuel G. Drake, The History and Antiquities of Boston (Boston, 1856), p. 427.
3 The Military Company was a voluntary association established in 1638 for the defense of the colony. It later became known as the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company. The Company performed its training exercises once a month on the Boston Common until 1657. Thereafter the number of field days per month was reduced to five and later to two (Whitman, p. 445).
4 Thomas Fitch rose to the rank of regimental colonel in Boston and was a justice of the peace. Fitch is connected with another musical personality in Boston, Murat the trumpeter. See page 495 in Barbara Lambert’s study in this volume, or The Diary of Samuel Sewall, 1674–1729, ed. M. Halsey Thomas, 2 vols. (New York, 1973), II, 694.
5 The proclamation promised a reward for information leading to the capture of the ring-leaders of the riot and a pardon for any participants who would divulge such information. Lt. Gov. Phips took these measures in the absence of Gov. Belcher who was in New Hampshire at the time.
6 This letter was one of several which was circulated about town in defiance of the proclamation by Lt. Gov. Phips (see above).
7 Extracted from Governor Pownall’s speech before the Council Chamber, June 1, 1759. Before leaving for “Penobscot Country” to establish the site for a fort along the Penobscot River, Governor Pownall had given orders to raise troops for the expedition against Canada.
8 Previous to the “false report,” the city had been alarmed by a great number of men from the frontier marching under arms. The insurrection was aborted and the marchers left the city peacefully, leaving two emissaries behind to present their petition to the Governor.
9 See also “Bells,” Sept. 28, 1668. Joseph Gridley also served as hogreeve and wood-corder from 1678 to 1680 and scavenger and inspector of brickmaking in 1686.
10 Hill was also appointed watchman on May 5, 1736.
11 The word “meeting house” was first used in England to refer to the place of worship of dissenters from the Church of England. To the New England colonies the word was used less discriminately to refer to any public house of worship.
12 Elbridge H. Goss, Early Bells in Massachusetts (Boston, 1874), pp. 11 and 20–21.
13 Goss, Early Bells, p. 15.
14 The Memorial History of Boston, ed. Justin Winsor, 4 vols. (Boston, 1880), II, 482.
15 John Josselyn, Voyage to New-England (London, 1674), p. 162. This same passage, incidentally, is cited in the O.E.D. (1933, VI, 177) as a literary example of the term “marmalet,” i.e., “marmalade-madam,” which is defined therein as strumpet.
16 This passage has been cited as evidence that Boston’s First Church, rebuilt in 1639, had a bell tower. Caleb H. Snow, History of Boston (Boston, 1828), p. 91.
17 Crumwell, a gentleman pirate commissioned by the Earl of Warwick, shared his Spanish booty with Bostonians. In his will of 1649 “he gave six bells to the town, doubtless some of his plunder.” Editorial note in Winsor, Memorial History, I, 509.
18 These Bostonians were granted incorporation in order to build a conduit to provide their neighborhood with water for drinking and for use in case of fire.
19 The Bellman’s watch supplemented the constable or militia watch. Bellmen were elected in September, to patrol from October through April, the winter months when people were most likely to keep fires for heat, thereby increasing the threat of fire in town. The bellman’s principal duty was to watch for fire and alarm the inhabitants thereof (see below, folio 11 in BRC, 7th Report, p. 11, October 27, 1662).
20 Capt. Davenport had been appointed commander of the fort at Castle Island in 1645, at which time plans were made to rebuild the fort. In 1651 “the armament and military property of the fort consisted of six murtherers [cannon-like weapons], two boats and a drum, and a suitable number of pikes for each soldier . . . In October, 1654, a committee reported that one of the boats had been lost and the drum spoiled, but not owing to the neglect of the captain. On the twenty-eighth of January, 1655–6, the town of Boston lent the captain of the Castle a great bell, probably the mate to the one lent to the undertakers of the conduit in Union Street, the same having been given to the town by Captain Crumwell. This looks a little as though things were improving at the Castle, and the idea is confirmed by the record that another attempt to finish and equip the Castle was made the next May” Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, A Topographical and Historical Description of Boston [Boston, 1891], p. 489.
21 Richard Taylor was serving as timekeeper for the watch. Robert F. Seybolt, The Town Officials of Colonial Boston 1634–1775, (Cambridge, Mass., 1939), p. 36, n. 88.
22 The following two verses from an old “New-England Ballad” could have been written during this time:
Now this cites New Dorchester as they told unto me,
A Town very famous in all that Country;
They said ’twas new Buildings, I grant it is true,
Yet methinks Old Dorchester’s as fine as the New.
Well, that night I slept till near Prayer time,
Next morning I wonder’d to hear no Bells chime;
At which I did ask, and the Reason I found,
’Twas because they had n’er a Bell in the Town.
—from Wit and Mirth; or, Pills to Purge Melancholy, ed. T. D’Urfey, 4 vols. (London, 1719), iv.
23 These extra measures were probably adopted as a result of the Great Fire of 1676.
24 Samuel Sewall noted in Diary (1:411) that Robert Williams “the Bell-Ringer, Publisher and Gravedigger died this morn [Aug. 25, 1695].”
25 Mrs. Margery Williams probably succeeded her husband, Robert Williams in 1695 as bellringer at Old South. Her son James was appointed to help his mother as gravedigger there in 1701. RRC, 11th Report, pp. 3–4.
26 The measures were taken as a result of the small-pox epidemic of 1721. In Charlestown the Selectmen ordered “that the Sexton do not on any account whatsoever, without order from them, toll above three bells in one day for the burial of any persons, it being represented to them a discouragement to those persons sick of the small-pox.” Winsor, Memorial History, II, 317.
27 Chambers also held the positions of clock keeper, watchman, and gravedigger at various times. He was paid as bellringer for September 1, 1773–March 1, 1742/43. Seybolt, Town Officials, p. 208.
28 Pierce was also appointed clockkeeper, gravedigger and watchman. Seybolt, Town Officials, 186, 195.
29 This was essentially a vote against the three markets which had been established the previous year by a slight majority. The strong opposition to public marketplaces finally closed the markets in 1738. The town nearly refused to accept the gift of Peter Faneuil in 1740, and in fact Faneuil Flail was temporarily abandoned five years after it opened in 1742. Samuel G. Drake, The History and Antiquities of Boston (Boston, 1856), pp. 596 and 611.
30 Sendall Williams had been appointed gravedigger in 1734. He was paid as bellringer for June 1, 1734–September 1, 1736 and as a clock keeper for June 1, 1734–June 1, 1735. He later held the positions of constable and caller of staves. Seybolt, Town Officials, 204.
31 Andrew Coffin was paid as bellringer for September 1, 1737–December 1, 1740. He also worked as watchman between June 1, 1738 and May 1, 1740, and was dismissed from this office for negligence in 1740. Seybolt, Town Officials, pp. 208, 211, 217.
32 West Church, founded in 1737, was the ninth Congregational church in Boston. Its first minister the Rev. Hooper, joined the Church of England some years later and became minister of Trinity Church, Boston.
33 Thomas Moulin had been appointed watchman in 1723, gravedigger in 1734. He rang bells for the town intermittently between 1734 and 1744. Seybolt, Town Officials, passim.
34 Nathaniel Band also served as hogreeve in 1740, as watchman from 1740 to 1745, and hayward from 1745 to 1750. Seybolt, Town Officials, passim.
35 Faneuil Hall was completed in September, 1742 and Mr. Thomas Jackson was appointed clerk at that time. The allotment of sixty pounds would have covered his salary and expenses, i.e., bell ringer for half a year.
36 Goss in Early Bells, pp. 16–17 writes: “In 1744, Christ’s Church was furnished with a ‘Peal of eight Bells,’ the first chime in America.”
fn. 1. “The aggregate weight of these bells is 7272 pounds; the smallest weighing 620 pounds, the largest 1545, and they cost £560 in England. Each one has an inscription, containing its own and much contemporary history, as follows:—
1st Bell. ‘This peal of eight bells is the gift of a number of generous persons to Christ Church, in Boston, N.E. Anno 1744. A.R.’
2nd Bell. ‘This Church was founded in the year 1723. Timothy Cutler, D.D., the first Rector. A.R. 1723.’
3rd Bell. ‘We are the first ring of bells cast for the British Empire in North America. A.R. 1744’
4th Bell. ‘God preserve the Church of England. 1744.’
5th Bell. ‘William Shirley, Esq., Governor of the Massachusetts Bay, in New-England. Anno 1744.’
6th Bell. ‘The subscription for these bells was begun by Iohn Hammock and Robert Temple, Church Wardens, Anno 1743; completed by Robert Ienkins and Iohn Gould, Church Wardens, Anno 1744.’
7th Bell. ‘Since generosity has opened our mouths, our tongues shall ring aloud its praise. 1744.’
8th Bell. ‘Abel Rundall, of Gloucester, cast us all, Anno 1744.’”
37 The Victory at Louisbourg was first celebrated in Boston when the news reached the town in July. The Victory was celebrated again with even more extravagance upon the return of Gov. Shirley and his Lady who had been at the scene of action.
“About twelve o’clock they landed at the end of Long Wharf, amidst a crowd of people, who gave repeated shouts of acclamations. Here they were received by his Majesty’s Council, the Speaker of the House, Magistrates, Gentlemen and Merchants of the Town. The regiment of militia under Col. Jacob Wendell, with a foot company belonging to Chelsea, were drawn up . . . as were also the Troop of Guards, with another Troop of the regiment of Horse under Col. Estes Hatch, and the Company of Cadets under Col. Benjamin Pollard, who paid the proper salutes. The new set of bells, with all the other bells in the Town, continued ringing the greater part of the day.’” Drake, Boston, p. 621.
38 In 1765 the Marquis of Rockingham succeeded Grenville as prime minister of England, a change which facilitated the Repeal of the Stamp Act supported by William Pitt.
39 It was Aaron Hobart who taught Paul Revere how to mould and cast bells in 1792. Edward and Evelyn Stickney, The Bells of Paul Revere, his Sons & Grandsons, rev. ed. ([Bedford, Massachusetts], 1976), p. 4.
40 On certain mournful occasions, it was the custom to cover the clapper of a bell with leather to reduce or “muffle” its sound.
41 Gov. Thomas Hutchinson had obtained tea consignments from the East India Company for his sons, Elisha and Thomas in 1773. It was this shipment of tea which was thrown into Boston harbor under the instigation of Samuel Adams, an event which is now referred to as “The Boston Tea Party.”
1 This appendix and that which precedes it are dedicated to the devoted efforts of a force of assistants and volunteers who helped me systematically search and collect, from the early Boston newspapers cited below and the Reports of the Boston Record Commissioners., all references to musical sounds. They include: Karen Baseman, Robert Blanchard, Deborah Crimmins, Ellen Cornell, Diane DiSalvo, Marjory Frankel, Rebecca Greenleaf, Naomi Harris, Elaine Greenstein, Laura Hodge, Virginia Hooper, Pamela Howell, Genevieve Jennings, Cathy Kent, Christie Kenyon, Elizabeth Layton, Sarah Lehrman, Ruth Levitsky, Jennifer McGregor, Jean Moreno, Roberta Oppenheim, Betty Press, Barbara Russell, Kathy Schwarts, Edith Schmidt, Lindsay Davidson Shea, and Stephanie Welch.
Those to whom special thanks are due for their extensive efforts are: Carole Greenleaf, Frances Knight, Ruth Piken, Juliette Rogers, and most especially M. Sue Ladr.
1 There possibly were two other dancing instructors in the seventeenth-century Boston area. The first is cited by Carl Bridenbaugh, Cities in the Wilderness (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 117: “A dancing school, opened in Boston in 1672, was shortly suppressed by the authorities, and we know that in 1676 there were no musicians by trade.” The compiler of this Appendix searched Mr. Bridenbaugh’s references and read the microfilm of the Boston Town Records in ms at the Boston Public Library, but could locate no primary source for this school.
The second was Margery Hoar Flynt (d. 1687) of Braintree. For details, see p. 465 of Barbara Lambert’s contribution to this volume.
2 NYG, July 12, 1731
The Noble Science of Fencing with Small Sword is taught by Charles Malone at his School-House in Smith-Street next door to the Three Pideons [sic] in New York, at the usual Prices given to neighbouring Professors.
His Hours during the Sultry-Season are from Five to Six in the Morning and likewise in the Evening.
3 Perhaps George Brownell, who had earlier established a good reputation in Boston, returned briefly after an absence of fourteen years, in order to pave the way for Thomas Brownell (? his son) to follow in his footsteps. See also the section on Thomas Brownell in this Appendix.
4 Sewall Diary, ii, 840:
Decr 24 [1716] . . . . heard of a Ship from England Confirming the Death of Mr. David Jeffries, Mr. Banister, Redknap, and all his Company saving Beard, the 2d Mate, who swam ashore; the others lost out of the Boat. . . .
Note: “The Amity had been driven aground on the Kent coast, and the passengers and crew took to the longboat which was upset.”
5 The house of Sir Charles Hobby (d. 1715) stood on the north corner of Rawson’s Lane (now Bromfield Street) and Marlborough (now Washington Street).
6 After regular hours, some of the more spacious schoolrooms were sometimes used as the location for dancing classes taught by approved masters with the tacit approbation of the selectmen.
7 According to Seybolt, Private Schools, p. 190, Grainger’s was the earliest evening school in Boston.
8 Thomas Grainger was in the Harvard College class of 1737, but left in January of 1734 because of the death of his father. Sibley’s Harvard Graduates, x, 185–186.
9 Andrew LeMercier was minister of the French Protestant Church in Boston.
10 As a boy Benjamin Franklin lived at the Sign of the Ball, on the south-east corner of Union and Hanover Streets.
11 One of the most valuable sources to date for information on Peter Pelham is Oliver, “Peter Pelham,” cited in the introduction to this Appendix.
12 Oliver, “Peter Pelham,” p. 135. This print “bears the distinction of being the first mezzotint known to have been made in America.” It is American in feeling because it does not flatter, but rather is simply a good likeness of the sitter.
13 Dr. or Capt. Oliver Noyes (d. 1721), a Selectman in 1708, 1711, 1719–1720 and a citizen of prominence, conceived of and built Long Wharf in 1710, a major development for Boston. Long Wharf extended King or State Street 1000 feet or more into the sea, and when one side was built up with shops and warehouses it had the effect of a continuous street. Noyes’ house was located on the corner of Pierce’s Lane which was on the opposite side of Dock Square from Wing’s Lane where Deblois held his concerts. Justin Winsor. The Memorial History of Boston, including Suffolk County, Massachusetts, 1630–1880, 4 vols. (Boston: James R. Osgood & Co., 1880–1881), II: xx, 502, 535.
14 Dumaresq’s house was located on the east corner of the present Hawley and Summer Streets. (Seybolt, Private Schools, p. 26.) Oliver, “Peter Pelham,” p. 149 said: “Dumaresq the merchant, vestryman of Trinity Church of which Pelham was a member . . . was doubtless delighted not only to aid Pelham, but to open his house to the ladies and gentlemen of Boston for such gaiety and social intercourse as Pelham’s talents promised.” Philip Dumaresq’s enjoyment of the polite social arts was conveyed to his granddaughter Ann, who in 1667 married the dancing master and impresario William Turner, Sr.
15 Oliver, “Peter Pelham,” p. 159. “It was early in 1750 or at the end of 1749 that John Greenwood painted the Rev. Thomas Prince, pastor of the Old South Church and well-known historian. Prince was an obvious subject for a mezzotint and subscriptions must have been come by readily. Pelham set to work and by May 24, 1750 the News-Letter could advise [of its availability]. In all likelihood [it was] a second venture between Pelham and [James] Buck [a Boston printseller].”
16 Oliver, “Peter Pelham,” p. 165. “Pelham’s painting of Moorhead from which the print was taken is lost, but it may well have been influenced by that done by Greenwood which is signed and dated 1749 and is not unlike the print. The Rev. Mr. Moorhead was the minister of what was known as the ‘Church of Presbyterian Strangers at Boston in New-England’.”
17 Arthur W. H. Eaton. The DeBlois Family (repr. from: New England Historical and Genealogical Register, LXVII, January, 1913).
18 In 1720 Edward Enstone moved to a “Large House in King-Street, Boston” where he taught dancing and other polite arts (BG, September 12, 1720). Enstone sold this house two years later, in December of 1723 (BG, December 2, 16, 1723). Was this the same property from which Stephen Deblois first offered dancing instruction?
19 The concert location in Wing’s Lane had to be large enough for an audience. Already by 1687 Samuel Sewell noted in his Diary that the evening of December 4 he and some friends.
. . . . Treat with Brother Wing about his Letting a Room in his House for a man to shew Tricks in. He saith, seeing ’tis offensive, he will remedy it. It seems the Room is fitted with Seats. I read what Dr. Ames saith of Callings, and Spake as I could, from this Principle, That the Man’s Practice was unlawfull, and therefore Capt. Wing could not lawfully give him an accomodation for it. Sung the 90th Ps. from the 12th v. to the end. Broke up.
Annie Haven Thwing. The Crooked & Narrow Streets of the Town of Boston (1630–1822), id ed. (Boston: Charles E. Lauriat Co., 1925), p. 129, said of Wing’s Lane: “There were several taverns near the Dock. The Castle was on the west corner of Elm Street. In the Book of Possessions, William Hudson, Jr., inkeeper, is credited with a house and garden here. In 1674 he conveyed to John Wing his house and buildings commonly called “Castle Tavern”. The estate was mortgaged and forfeited, and came into the possession of Benjamin Pemberton in 1694, “a mansion hitherto called Castle Tavern, then George Tavern.” Exactly when it ceased to be a tavern is difficult to say.
20 Stephen Deblois tuned the Christ Church organ, by an unknown maker, possibly William Claggett of Newport, Rhode Island, 1736, before this first public recital on it probably by William Price. The recital raised a total of forty-eight pounds towards the purchase of this organ. Mary Kent Davey Babcock, “Organs and Organ Builders of Christ Church, Boston, 1726–1945,” Historical Magazine of the Episcopal Church, XIV, 247.
21 Sonneck. Early Concert Life in America, pp. 260, 174, 75, suggests the possibility that if the 29th Regiment were militia, the civilian Mr. McLean, watchmaker, from whom tickets could be purchased to the concert in Boston on March 16, 1769, might be identical with the fife-major featured. On January 24, 1771, in New York, and later in the same year on December 5 in Philadelphia, a John M Lean or McLane, a fife-major and German flute player gave two concerts. However back in Boston a “McLane, Watchmaker” sold tickets to a concert for the benefit of William S. Morgan originally scheduled for January 25, 1771 but postponed to February 8 (BWNL, January 17, 1771; BPB, January 28, 1771. For the complete quotes, see these two sources in the section on William Sampson Morgan in this Appendix). Nothing more with regard to music is heard of McLean, Watchmaker, in Boston after this date. A possible explanation for assuming Sonneck correct might be that John M Lean or McLane, fife-major and German flute player, and the Boston Watchmaker McLean or McLane were related with the same surname, giving the latter reason for helping the former. Perhaps, though, the association is nothing more than military. W. S. Morgan had ties to the Navy.
22 Charleston County Wills, 1747–1752, Book VI, pp. 402–403. The spinet was valued at ten pounds, the clavichord at four pounds.
23 There are some interesting family connections in relation to the succession of Ephraim Turner to Thomas Brownell’s dancing school. Marriage intentions between Thomas Brownell’s widow Hannah and William Sheafe were published in 1738 (BRC, XXVIII, 230). William Sheafe (1706–1771) was a prominent musical figure in the city. He was a member of the “Consort”, a musical ensemble of gentlemen performers, and its spokesman when the group petitioned the Selectmen in 1744 and 1747 for the use of Faneuil Hall for the purpose of presenting two concerts (BRC, XVII, 89, 90, 159–160; for the full citations, see these sources in the section on Stephen Deblois in this Appendix). In 1750 William Sheafe is mentioned in the Diary of Capt. Francis Goelet, a mariner from New York, as one who invited Goelet to attend the “Consort of which he was a Member. . . . it Consisted on One Indifrent, Small Oargon, One Base Violin, One German Flute and Four small Violins” (New England Historical and Genealogical Society Register, XXIV (1870), 54). It is not known whether the couple actually married; on October 1, 1752, Sheafe married Susanna Child (Sibley’s Harvard Graduates, VII: 254). However, Sheafe’s first wife was Elizabeth Foye, daughter of John and Sarah (Belcher Lynde) Foye. Ephraim Turner in 1748/1749 took Dorothy Foye as his wife.
24 Ebenezer Swan was licensed to teach business subjects, and, as the advertisement stated, taught them during the “usual School Hours,” August 16, 1738 (BRC, XV, 129). Ephraim Turner could have occupied the same premises after hours. The head of Queen (now Court Street) was at the intersection of Hanover and Tremont, which jutted off at an accute angle to Queen. Swan’s ad identifies the location as the head of Queen Street, while the Selectmen specify Tremont as the same former address for Thomas Brownell. The building was therefore probably in the island where Queen and Tremont met, or possibly on the north-west side of the intersection. Concert Hall, opened in 1754 was on the east corner of Queen and Hanover Streets.
25 Norman A. Benson, Itinerant Dancing and Music Masters, pp. 82–94; and Maurer Maurer, “Peter Pelham,” pp. 6–13.
26 Seybolt, Public Schools, p. 54; Nash, American Writing Masters, pp. 15, 19. References to Holbrook not quoted in full here and which exclusively pertain to his work in the public school are: BRC, XV, 292, 349; BRC, XIV, 16, 26, 33–34, 39, 46, 51, 62, 65, 76, 77, 82, 177–178, 195–196, 199, 212, 230–231, 233–234, 243, 255, 256, 259–260, 274, 290, 307; BRC, XVII, 176, 186, 240, 292, 299; BRC, XVI, 11–12, 24, 42, 53, 59, 75, 94. 116, 141–142, 146, 185, 186, 207, 211–213, 216, 245–246, 247. Seybolt, Public Schools, pp. 22n, 23n, 24, 26, 27n, 32n, 47n, 48, 56n, 80, 82, 85, 86.
27 BRC, XIV, 26, 36–37. Deshon served the town in various offices.
28 Rowe’s Lane is now Bedford Street.
29 It would appear from this and similar instances (including those of William Turner, Sr. and Jr.) that there was an unwritten code of ethics which regulated the rights and succession of family trades.
30 Whitmore, “Early Painters and Engravers of New England,” pp. 206–208, 204.
31 Raoul F. Camus. Military Music of the American Revolution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, [1976]), p. 48. “The musicians may have been from the 29th Foot or from the band of the 64th Regiment, as Flagg later gave many concerts with their assistance. The men in one or both cases may even have been local musicians who were attempting to form a musical organization, for Flagg in an advertisement of 1773 claimed that he was the ‘First Founder, and had at great Expense of Time, Trouble, etc., instructed a Band of Music to perform before the Regiment of Militia in this Town.’
“Information about this first militia band has not yet surfaced, other than Flagg’s statement, but the concert of 1769 may have been performed by this band. Flagg had seen the example of the British regimental bands and wished to organize the same for his own militia regiment. The band may not have been very large at first, or may not have had a permanent organization but could still have been called a band.”
32 Flagg’s duet partner could either be James Joan (see fn. 45 below) who most recently to Flagg’s June 7, 1770 concert had “sung and read” on May 28, 1770 (see BEP, March 26, 1770 in the section on James Joan in this Appendix); or a Mr. Asby who advertised in the BWNL, March 29, 1770:
“For the Benefit of Mr. Asby, on Friday the 6th of April, Will be performed at Concert-Hall, A Grand Concert of Vocal and Instrumental Music, to which will be added a Cantata, called Cymon and siphigenia [in BG, April 2, 1770 the latter is spelled iphigenia], in the character of a Clown, by Mr. Asby.——Tickets (at Half-a-Dollar each) to be had of the Printers, Messirs. cox & berry’s opposite the Post Office, Mr. sharwin, Saddler in King-street, and of Mr. Asby in King-street. N.B. To begin at 7 o’Clock P.M.”
BG, April 9, 16, 1770 repeated this ad with the change of performance date to April 20. Either it was postponed or it was so successful it had to be repeated.
33 The performer of the organ concerto, “a Gentleman lately arrived from London, Organist of the Chapel”, was William Selby. See the section on William Selby in this Appendix.
34 Rowe Diary, p. 246. “June 4 [1773]. King’s Birthday aged 35. Colo. Hancock & Company of Cadets, Major Paddock & Artillery, Colo. Erving & the Regiment, Colo. Phipps & Company all made their appearance in the Common—Such a Quantity or Rather Multitude of People as Spectators I never saw before, they behaved very well.
35 Earlier on October 21, 1773, the day originally planned for the Flagg benefit with his “Band of Music” which performed “before the Regiment of Militia in this Town”, Levi Ames was made an example of and hanged for burglery. See Rowe Diary, p. 257 and the section on five “moral fakement” ballads ostensibly by Levi Ames in the article by Carlton Sprague Smith in this book, vol. I, 330–341.
36 David P. McKay, “William Selby,” 613. The writer/compiler of this Appendix has not yet systematically searched the Newport newspapers and primary city documents for evidence of Flagg and music in that area.
37 Participating in the “Vocal entertainment of June 13, 1770,” the last night of the run, could have been James Joan, Mr. Asby (see fn. 32 above), or possibly David Douglass, an actor from New York and Philadelphia who had been in New England (Newport and Providence) in 1761, and had placed the following advertisement in MG (BWNL, for August 3, 1769:
to-morrow (being Friday 4th of August mr. DOUGLASS Will deliver his lecture on heads &c. &c. [To begin at Eight o’Clock.]
Mr Wardwell, an itinerant English actor, was in Salem in 1769 and is thought to have presented an entertainment which consisted of recitations from the ballad opera of Damon and Phillida with songs from the opera of Artaxerxes between the acts (EG, October 3, 1769; Milton Gerald Hehr, “Musical Activities in Salem, Massachusetts, 1783–1823,” Boston University, PhD. diss., 1963, p. 93).
British soldiers provide yet another possibility. In March of 1769 they had advertised their intentions of presenting plays in Boston, which they succeeded in doing throughout the first half of the 1770s. The following quotes illuminate the heated discussions about plays which ensued the announcement.
BWNL, March 16, 1769
Mr. draper,
Please to insert the following, and you’ll oblige Your’s, &c.
I am credibly inform’d, and it is with no small surprise, that a number of the soldiers now here, intend shortly to exhibit a Play in this town, in open violation of an act of the province for preventing stage plays and other theatrical entertainments. I would take the freedom to acquaint these subverters, rather than supporters of peace and good order, that should they, at any time, have the presumption to act in the capacity of Commedians in any part of this government, proper and legal measures will undoubtedly be taken by the civil power to prosecute the offenders.—’Tis to be hoped, that if this friendly hint, should not prove an effectual warning to prevent their intended exhibition, that the gentlemen officers will forbid their acting, till such time as entertainment of this kind, become more acceptable to the inhabitants of the town, than they are at present.
BEP, March 20, 1769
Boston, March 16, 1769.
Messrs, fleets.
Please to insert the following in your impartial Paper and you’ll oblige your constant Reader.
A Writer in last Thursday’s Paper says that he is “credibly informed and with no small surprize, that a number of the Soldiers now here intend shortly to exhibit a Play in this Town, in open violation of an Act of this Province for preventing Stage Plays and other Theatrical Entertainments.” I would inform this Writer and all other intermedledlers, that there is an Act of Parliament licensing Theatrical Performances throughout the King’s dominions, which I take upon me to say (and no one can contradict) intirely supercedes the Act of this Province for preventing the same : And besides, according to the little knowledge I have of the constitution of this Province, the Assembly are restricted to the making Laws not contrary to the Laws of England, and if so, certainly the Act of this Province abovementioned can be of no force.—That Plays are disagreable, as no person is obliged to attend that has not leisure, ability &c inclination, there cannot be any reasonable objection in that respect. I am told that a few years ago some Bunglers, as the means of making assignations, took upon themselves to exhibit Plays at unseasonable hours, which highly incensed the sober part of the Town, as well it might; but as the present Performers have very different and strictly upright motives, it is to be hoped, and may really be expected, they will meet with the approbation of the public, instead of a prosecution, which this Writer’s ignorance of the Law led him to insinuate would take place—which is the sincere wish of one that purposes in the intended Exhibition to be a spectator.
MG (BWNL), March 23, 1769
Mr. DRAPER,
boston, March 21. 1769.
Please to publish the following in your next, and you’l oblige your’s &c.
An Advocate for Theatrical Entertainments has made his appearance in last Monday’s Evening-Post, who endeavours to invalidate the good Effects my publication in your last, relative to Plays, was calculated to propose.—He asserts that, “there is an Act of Parliament licensing Theatrical performances throughout the King’s Dominions, which entirely supercedes the Act of this Province for preventing the same If there is such an Act in being, I readily agree with him that it does; however I know of none, neither did I ever hear, till now, that there was such an Act of Parliament extant; ’tis a matter of doubt to me whether he can produce it, if he can, it will undoubtedly be a satisfaction to the public to be made acquainted with it, as ’tis requisite they should know of it in order to prevent any prosecutions consequent upon a Breach of the Act of this Province for preventing such Entertainments.—His “knowledge of the Constitution of this Province,” as he himself observes, is but “little” for it seems he is entirely ignorant with regard to the ratification of all provincial Laws.—I will enlighten his Understanding in this respect,—and inform him that all Acts of this, as well as other Governments are transmitted, home for the Royal Approbation, and most certainly had there been an Act of Parliament “licensing Theatrical performances through the King’s Dominions,” the Act of this Province prohibiting the same, would have been disallowed of by his Majesty, and therefore been expung’d the Province Laws—“That Plays are disagreeable to the Inhabitants of this Town” is too evident to be with any color of truth contradicted, as manifestly appears by the strenuous efforts made a few Years since, to prosecute the performers of a Play, who were Natives of the Town, nothwithstanding the Expence to the Spectators was but trifling in comparison with what is now exacted.—“No Person,” he says, “is obliged to attend that has not leisure, ability and inclination,” very true,—and it is a melancholy truth, that some Persons, if they have but Forty Shillings in their Pockets, will appropriate it to purchase a Play Ticket, and absolutely deprive themselves and Family of the necessities of Life, only for the sake of gratifying their own foolish Curiosity.—What “Motives the present Performers” go upon, I know not, but I am well assured, they will not “meet with the Approbation of the public,” unless the public are disposed to encourage Persons in the Violation of the good and wholsome Laws of this Government.
For the Selectmen’s later directives to William Turner, Sr., owner of Concert-Hall where theatrical performances took place, see BRC, XIII, pp. 168–169 for March 24, 1773 in the section on William Turner, Sr., in this Appendix.
38 Daniel Rea, Jr., was a painter, decorator, and singer of some repute. He sang solos for several years at the anniversary dinners of the Ancient and Honourable Artillery Company, Boston. In 1764 he married Rachel Johnston (?1746–1801), daughter of Thomas Johnston, the organ builder. He and Johnston became business partners; and he wrote down Johnston’s brief nuncupative will in 1767. Sinclair Hitchings, “Thomas Johnston,” Boston Prints and Printmakers, 1670–1775, eds. Sinclair Hitchings and Walter Muir Whitehill, Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Publications, XLVI (1973). 121.
39 For Turner’s writs of attachment against William Sampson Morgan, see: Boston. Sessions of the Peace, docket 91657, March 25, 1773, in the section on Morgan in this Appendix.
40 Was Turner also involved in a concert on Harvard College commencement day a year earlier at the Court House, Cambridge, on the Wednesday next [July 15] after the BWNL issue of July 9 1772, (also in BG, July 13, 1772) for the benefit of Mr. Coleman? The ad read as follows:
On Wednesday next, (Being the Commencement at Cambridge) Will be performed A concert of Vocal and Instrumental music, For the Benefit of Mr. colman. In the Court-House there. To begin at 8 o’Clock, P.M.
TICKETS may be had at Mr. howe’s in Cambridge, at Half a Dollar each.
41 Sonneck, Early Concert Life in America, p. 258, believed that W. S. Morgan was the conductor of this concert series “. . . otherwise it would not have rested with the managers to appoint Feb. 2d for a ‘grand’ concert of vocal and instrumental music for Mr. Morgan’s benefit (see BEP, January 30, 1775, in the section on W. S. Morgan in this Appendix). On the other hand it is not quite clear whether the managers raised enough additional stock to carry on the concerts during March and April, and if Morgan, regardless of the signs of approaching war, on April 3d announced ‘his first evening’s entertainment’ in the Boston Evening Post, the form of his announcement almost leads one to infer that the contemplated series was an enterprise of his own. . . .”
42 Judith Holyoke (b. 1769) became William Turner, Jr.’s wife in 1795. William Jr., the son of William Turner, Sr. who held this dance, followed in his father’s footsteps and also became a dancing master.
43 The Green Dragon Tavern was on the west side of Union Street near Hanover. For a drawing of it, see fig. 403 in Cynthia Adams Hoover’s contribution to this volume.
44 Grateful thanks is owed Sally Gant from the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, for her generous contribution of valuable sources documenting Juhan and his activities as a builder of musical instruments in the South, and for permitting their inclusion in the section on this most interesting of eighteenth-century American musical figures.
Mrs. Gant has been an active researcher in the exemplary archival program to document early Southern American arts and to locate and trace the objects. Because this program is chiefly concerned with objects, there may still be newspaper notices which record Juhan’s activities as a performer that remain to be collected in the early Southern newspapers. One always hopes that more highly-organized efforts like the MESDA program will develop in other areas of the country to help trace Juhan as well as other musical itinerants.
45 Although James Juhan or Joan was “last from Halifax” (Boston. Sessions of the Peace, docket 88654, had a French name and offered to teach the French language in Boston (BWNL, October 20, 1768), he may have spent some time in London.
John Rowe in his diary entry for March 23, 1770 (p. 202), identified Juhan as the unnamed individual who advertised himself in the newspapers in 1769 and 1770 as “a Person who has Read and Sung in most of the great Towns in America”.
46 The two main violinists who have been identified during this period were James Juhan, documented in Boston by October 1, 1768, and William Sampson Morgan, “just arrived from England” (BWNL, December 7, 1770).
47 After the announcement of James Juhan’s son Alexander Juhan, as “Master of Music” in Philadelphia (PP, December 23, 1783), it is difficult to discern which Juhan is active in that city’s concerts. Both James and Alexander lived at Mrs. Perry’s in 1783, the address given for Mr. Juhan, the performer, in 1784. In January of 1786 the Juhan address changed to that of Mr. Brunot. The following two advertisements are certainly those of Alexander, however, because by April 19, 1786, James had taken up residence in Portsmouth, Virginia. The ads for performances by Alexander in Philadelphia are here given in full to record all the compiler knows of the Juhan family to date.
PP, April 22, 1786
concert. At Mr. Duplessis’s New Room, in Church alley, on Tuesday next, will be performed a concert of instrumental music, for the benefit of Mr. Juhan. The Concert will consist of the most favorite Music, viz.
First Part. Simphonie, Stamitz. Double Concerto flute & violin, Davsun, Quarteto, Gambini, Concerto forte piano, Smith.
Sec. Part. Simphonia, Vanhal, Concerto flute, Brown, Duetto forte piano, Smith, Concerto violin, Borghi.
Tickets, at 7/6 each, to be had of Mr. Juhan, at Mr. Brunot’s, the corner of Walnut and Second streets; at Mr. Rice’s Book-store; at the New Coffee-house, and at Mr. Duplessis’s.
April 19.
PP, April 27, 1786
Philadelphia, April 27, 1786.
a grand concert
of
sacred music,
For the benefit of the Pennsylvania Hospital; Philadelphia Dispensary, and the Poor, for which there has, hitherto, been no regular provision made.——will be performed, at the Reformed German Church, in Race-street, on Thursday, the 4th of May. The doors will be opened at half an hour after nine o’clock, in the morning, but not sooner, and the Music will begin precisely, at eleven o’clock, after which no person can be admitted.——
Order of the Music to be performed.
- I. Martini’s celebrated Overture.
- II. An Anthem from the 150th Psalm.
- III. An Anthem from the 18th Psalm, by the Rev. James Lyon.
- IV. Flute Concerto, by Mr. Brown.
- V. The voices of time.
- VI. An anthem from the 97th Psalm; by Mr. Tuckey.
- VII. A violin concerto, by Mr. Juhan.
- VIII. An anthem from the izzd Psalm, by A. Williams.
- IX. An anthem from the id of Solomon’s Song: by W. Billings.
- X. Handel’s celebrated Hallelujah Chorus, in the Messiah.
Tickets at five shillings each; are to be had of Mr. Young, at the southwest corner of Second and Chestnut streets, and of all the managers. To prevent confusion, care has been taken that the number of tickets struck off, should not exceed the number of persons who, by estimating, can be accommodated at the place proposed. Correspondent to this idea, all who apply for tickets will have a right to be supplied, till the who number prepared is exhausted, after which it will be out of the power of the managers to furnish more. And upon the same principle, on the morning of the exhibition, [those] persons supplied with tickets, as they successively offer themselves, will be introduced to their seats, indeed, it is the desire, and will be the endeavour, of the managers, to have the whole of this business conducted with that decency and dignity, which its nature and design seem to require.
To administer some relief to him whose hope is like a shadow, to raise up him who is bowed down with sorrow, and to show that the Fine Arts may and and ought to subserve the purposes of humanity, are we believe the with which the performers have, voluntarily awnsered their service on this occasion. Under a full conviction of their motives being such, and as the highest proof of our approbation, we have, cheerfully, complied with their request, and agreet to act as
managers,
William White, Henry Helmet, Casper Weinberg, Francis Hopkinson, George Nelson, Azariah Horton, Joseph Ker, Reynold Keen, Nathaniel Falconer, William Hall, Henry Hill, Samuel Miles, Joseph Snowden, Daniel Smith, Jacob Baker, William Will, Jacob L. Swyler, John Baker.
48 Hans Nathan, William Billings: Data and Documents, p. 15; David P. McKay and Richard Crawford, William Billings of Boston, Eighteenth-Century Composer (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975), p. 67.
49 Mr. Hartley was George Harland Hartley, an organist and performer in Boston who flourished there from 1763 to 1771. Hartley came to Boston in 1763 as organist to King’s Chapel, succeeding, after a two-year vacancy, Thomas Dipper. He retained this position until at least 1768. He also gave at least eight Boston concerts. For another reference to Hartley, see BG, December 18, 25, 1769, in the section on James Juhan in this Appendix. Because Hartley is not known to have offered any kind of musical instruction while in Boston, a section on him has not been included in this Appendix.
50 “Colo Dalrymple” was from the 14th Regiment, according to John Rowe in his Diary, p. 209, with whom Dalrymple dined on October 19, 1770.
51 Sonneck, Early Concert Life in America, p. 269, pointed out that the list of wind instruments indicates that this concert included a full orchestra of the period.
52 Propert’s “Expectation soon of the Arrival of a Capital Performer” was thought to be the return of W. S. Morgan. Morgan first appeared in Boston late in 1770 and stayed at least through September of 1771. From 1771 to 1773 he lived and worked in both Newport, Rhode Island and Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Propert stated in his ad in BEP, January 25, 1773, that “The Performer he expected is come . . .”. Propert sided with Morgan against William Turner, Sr., in presenting competing concerts. As was seen earlier, in the section on William Turner, Sr., in this Appendix, Turner had legitimate cause to be displeased with Morgan; Turner was the cause of the Selectmen’s warning of Morgan from Boston on March 25, 1773, which documents with certainty Morgan’s presence in Boston. Because Propert and Morgan continued to present concerts in Boston after this warning, Propert probably gave security to the Selectmen to indemnify the town from further problems arising from the difficult Morgan.
53 For a more complete description of William Selby’s career and a list of his compositions, see the excellent article by McKay, “William Selby,” pp. 609–627. See also Sonneck, Early Concert Life in America, pp. 263, 268–287, 293–295, 313, 317. Foote, in Annals, II, 403, said of Selby: “There is reason to believe that great care was taken from the time of the reopening of the Chapel that the musical service should be not only thoroughly devotional, but level with the taste and science of the time. There are not wanting indications that William Selby, who was organist from 1782 to 1804 [sic: 1798], was at the head of his profession, we can hardly say as an organist, for there cannot have been organs enough in Boston to justify a comparison, but as a musical performer. His salary was £66. 13s.4d. . . .”
54 The Post incorrectly identified Selby as John rather than William.
55 Sonneck, Early Concert Life in America, p.283, states that this fact was not correct, “as ‘Jonah, an oratorio, composed by S. Felsted’ was performed at New York on June 11, 1788.”
56 McKay, “William Selby,” p. 622, states unequivocally that Selby was the conductor of this concert.
57 Bromfield’s Lane, also called Rawson’s Lane is now named Bromfield Street. In 1779–1780 Vandale was instructor of French at Harvard College. Seybolt, Private Schools, p. 77.
58 Bradford Adams Whittemore. Memorials of the Society of the Cincinnati (Boston, 1964), p. 646.
59 Griffith published two dance manuals. They are:
John Griffith. A Collection of the Newest Country Dances and Cotillions. (Providence, [Rhode Island, 1788]). Evans 21122. For details, see fig. 29 in vol. I of this book.
John Griffiths. A Collection of the Newest Cotillions and Country Dances. (Northampton, [Massachusetts, 1794]). Evans 21121. For details, see figs. 7, 31, 31 in vol. I of this book.
60 Mrs. West is Susannah Holyoke, sister of Margaret Holyoke and Judith Turner.
61 The “new Assembly rooms” were in Hamilton Hall, built in 1805 and named in honor of Alexander Hamilton.
62 “Wm. Turner” could either have been William Jr. or his son William Henry who would have been fifteen years old in 1813.
1 Samuel Eliot Morison, The Founding of Harvard College (Cambridge, 1935), pp. 135–136; Harvard College in the Seventeenth Century, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1936), II, 580–582.
2 Holyoke Diaries, ed. George Dow (Salem, Mass., 1911), p. 39.
3 Morison, Harvard College in the Seventeenth Century, I, 159.
4 Morison, Harvard College in the Seventeenth Century, II, 161.
5 Wilbur Samuel Howell, Eighteenth Century British Logic and Rhetoric (Princeton, 1971), pp. 341–342.
6 Sibley’s Harvard Graduates; 17 vols. (Cambridge, 1933–1975), v, 452.
7 Sibley’s Harvard Graduates, vi, 481–482.
8 The Testimony of the President, Professors, Tutors and Hebrew Instructor of Harvard College in Cambridge, Against the Reverend Mr. George Whitefield, And his Conduct (Boston, 1744), pp. 4–8.
9 Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Publications, XXXIII, xxxi.
10 Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Publications, XXXIII, 170.