American writers and compilers of sacred music

Front matter

NK J. METCAL

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Part I 4 Contents

CONTENTS 5

PART IV

John Henry Newman..... 1801-1890........... aay George James Webb...... IBOS-1B870 Fe ae. Q41 George Hood............ 1807-1882........... 245 Deodatus Dutton......... TOUGH Lboee oe eee pl: Q47 David Creamer.......... ISIS TISST ten. 2 8 249 Henry Wellington Great-

(See Meinecke)

6 CONTENTS

PART V nite

Revivalist Group, The... ..1868-1872........... Sit Camp Meeting Music, 7. ..5)... 6. ee ee 325 An Indian Hymn, “In De Dark Wood”......... 335 Washington Hymnody and Psalmody........... 336 Mathias Keller........... 1813-1876; 5%. 4a ee 362 “The American Hymn’?. .. 2:s s<09 ee eee 366

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Earuiest Music Printep In America... .Frontispiece FACING PAGE

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Preface

Tue following pages are the results of ten years of research into the history of the writers of sacred music. For at least an equal period prior to that the writer had been studying the history of hymns, and had written much concerning them, when suddenly he discovered that very little had been written up to that time about the tune composers. When he sought information he found few sources. Encouraged by Mr. Edmund S. Lorenz, he began to collect facts about the development of church music, and the results were published in the Choir Herald, and other publications of the Lorenz Company. By the courtesy of Mr. Lorenz, permission has. been granted to use those articles which appeared from time to time in his magazines. The other articles appear for the first time and afford some information regarding nearly every one of the composers whose work was done before the year 1800, and it has been thought advisable to include also some matter of a miscellaneous character which has from time to time been gathered for various occasions.

The printed periodicals relating to sacred music, or containing information about American composers of tunes, begin with the Euterpiad, edited by John R. Parker in Boston, 1820 to 1828, but it furnished very little about the early writers. Nearly every such periodical printed up to 1900, and many of those printed since that date which might prob-

10 PREFACE ably add any items of interest, have been read, and other sources of information have been sought. Much of the record here preserved has been obtained from relatives of the composers through private correspondence. Genealogies and biographies have furnished much of value, and many of the music books themselves contain facts that cannot be obtained elsewhere. It would be impossible to give credit to every source from which facts have been extracted. The Library of Congress, the Boston Public Library, and that of the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, Massachusetts, have been those whose contents have been most thoroughly explored, and the thanks of the writer are hereby extended to the librarians and attendants of those institutions for the many courtesies extended.

Frank J. Metcatr.

Washington, D. C.

PART I

1689-1757

THE REY. JOHN TUFTS AND THE FIRST AMERICAN TUNE ROOK!

1689-1750

For one hundred years after the landing of the Pilgrims and the founding of the towns in eastern Massachusetts the communities had to rely upon the music which they had brought with them from England. Most of the singing was by rote, and books which contained the tunes were very scarce; in fact, they were not desired, for in most churches it was preferred that the lines should be read one at a time, and the congregation should sing them after the reading. In 1708, John Tufts graduated from Harvard College, a youth still in his teens. He had some knowledge of music, had some ideas as to how he would like to hear it sung, and was soon to become the first compiler of a tune book in the colonies. He had studied theology, and in 1713 was a candidate for pastor of the church in Charlestown, receiving eight votes out of the one hundred and fifty-nine cast. It was not long after this that he secured a church in Newbury, the second parish. Their pastor was getting old and an assistant was desired. The parish records show that on

January 15, 1713-4, voted to give Rev. John Tufts £70 a year so long as Mr. Samuel Belcher lives, and the use of the whole parsonage, and after the decease of Mr. Belcher £80 a year, provided the said Mr. Tufts accepts the call to the ministry in the parish and preacheth a monthly lecture.

He was ordained June 13, 1714, and a few months later published a small book of church hymns and psalm tunes with instructions for singing by note. This was the first publication of its kind in America, and was considered by many as a daring innovation. Before the appearance of this book the number of tunes known and used in the ordinary congregation could be counted upon the fingers of one hand. This new collection contained thirty-seven tunes, arranged for the several meters that were needed. At least eleven editions of this little book were issued during the next twenty-five years. The date of the first edition is given by different writers as between 1714 and 1721. The earliest which I have seen is the fifth, dated 1726, in the Boston Public Library. Its title page is as follows: AN INTRODUCTION To the Singing of PSALM TUNES In a plain and easy method with A collection of tunes In Three Parts By the Rev. Mr. Tufts.

The Fifth Edition Printed from Copper Plates Neatly Engraved BOSTON in N. E.

Printed for Samuel Gerrish At the Lower End of Corn- Hill, 1726.

The copy of the tenth edition in the New York Public Library has a modern binding, but the partial covers which are included indicate that the original was a pamphlet bound in marbled-paper covers. There were twenty-three pages. It is not strange, therefore, that most of the copies of so small a book should have been lost during the nearly two hundred years that have elapsed since it was first issued, and that only a few are to be found at this day. Again, as the new book of Thomas Walter came out with notes instead of letters, as Tufts’ book had, the old was doubtless discarded and not valued as the remaining copies of it are at the present time. An interesting incident in point is told of an experience of the Bodleian Library, which possessed a copy of the First Folio of Shakespeare’s works when it was first issued, But when the Second Folio came out the First was disposed of as a duplicate of less value. The strangest part of the story is that three hundred years later, after such a high value had been placed upon first editions, this very volume was offered for sale on the market, and the Bodleian Library placed it again upon its shelves, but at a cost of £3,000.

Some of the rules of Tufts’ book are as follows:

The tunes are set down in such a plain and easy method that a few rules may suffice for direction in singing. The letters F S L M marked on the several lines and spaces in the following tunes, stand for these syllables: that is, Fa. Sol. La. Mi. Mi. is the principal note, and the notes rising gradually above Mi. are Fa. Sol. La. Fa. Sol. La., and then Mi. again; and the notes falling gradually below Mi. are La. Sol. Fa. La. Sol. Fa., and then comes Mi. again in every eighth. For as every eighth note gives the same sound, so it has the same letter and name. The place of Mi. is altered by flats and sharps put at the beginning of the five lines on which the tune is prick’d.

The length of the tone is not indicated by different kinds of notes as it is in present-day music, for there were no notes used. But, for instance, the letter F indicated a quarter; F. (followed by a period) was equal to a half; and F: (followed by a colon) was equal to a whole note. The thirty-seven tunes are printed on twelve pages, and, as has been implied, the letters took the place of notes upon the lines. ‘The tunes in this book were set in three parts called cantus, medius, and bassus.

BioGRAPHY

John Tufts was born in Medford, Massachusetts, May 5, 1689, and was the son of Captain Peter Tufts and Mercy Cotton. His maternal grandmother was Dorothy Bradstreet, the oldest daughter of Simon and Anne Bradstreet, the latter being the first female poet in America. Through his mother he could also trace his ancestry to the Rev. Seaborn Cotton and the Rev. John Cotton, the latter of whom was frequently referred to as the patriarch of New England. Because of these ministerial ancestors it was but natural that he should follow the same profession after his graduation from Harvard in 1708. One of the earliest references to him after he had settled in Newbury is found in a curious contract dated May 13, 1718, by which a few persons were given permission to use certain lands in that town on condition that they give one salmon per year to the pastor of the First Church, and one to the Rev. John Tufts, pastor of the Second Church in Newbury “if they catch them.” It was in 1731, while he was still pastor of the Second ©

Church, that a petition was presented to the General Court of Massachusetts for a division of the parish; and the Fourth Church of Newbury was organized. The third parish had been formed in 1725, now the First Church in Newburyport, and the dedication sermon had been preached by Mr. Tufts on June 25, 1725. Two of his sermons have been printed and may be seen in the library of the Massachusetts Historical Society. One of them, “The Duties of Ministers,” was printed in 1725; the other was preached at the ordination of the Rev. Benjamin Bradstreet at Gloucester, September 18, 1728. After more than twenty years of service in the Newbury church, Mr. Tufts was in 1737 accused of immorality and unchristian behavior by some of the women of his parish, and in February a council of ten ministers was called to consider “‘the distressed state and condition of ye Second Church of Christ in Newbury.” Mr. Tufts strenuously opposed the investigation and declined to cooperate with the council or to question the witnesses called to testify against him. On March 2, 1738, “in consequence of the unhappy differences prevailing in the parish,” he asked to be released from the duties of pastor. The church voted to grant his request and the council with only one dissenting voice consented to the separation, “hoping thereby to restore harmony to the church.” During the first year of his pastorate Mr. Tufts had married, December 9, 1714, Sarah Bradstreet, a daughter of Dr. Humphrey Bradstreet and Sarah Pierce. There were four children, the second of whom, Joshua, graduated from Harvard in 1736, and became minister in Litchfield in 1741. After leaving Newbury Mr. Tufts went to Amesbury, where he died in August, 1750. His “easy method of singing by letters instead of notes,” as one of his title pages reads, was not a success, in the sense of being permanently adopted, though his book passed through at least ten editions in twenty-five years. Much opposition followed the attempt to teach the congregation to sing by note, instead of the old way of having the tunes taught by rote. But Mr. Tufts’ book was the entering wedge for the new way, and it was only a short time before his ideas, if not his methods, were adopted.

EpiIrIons

The date of the first edition of Tufts’ “Plain and Easy Introduction to the Art of Singing” is given as 1714! and 1721. I am inclined to think that the latter date is the correct one. The Brinley library had a copy of this year, “Printed by J. F(ranklin) for S. Gerrish,” which sold for ten dollars. It was a small pamphlet of sixteen pages, and was of such a size that it could be laid in or bound in with the psalm books in use at that date. Charles Evans in his American Bibliography gives the title page of a copy printed in Boston in 1723, but does not locate it. The earliest copy that I have seen is in the Boston Public Library. It is the fifth edition, printed in Boston for Samuel Gerrish, 1726. <A news note states that the sixth edition bears date of 1728. The seventh edition is in the library of the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massa-

1George Hood, in his History of Music in New England, says that he has “the word of a gentleman, who is always correct in dates of olden time, that he has seen a copy of it dated 1714.”

“OxFORD” AND OTHERS

A page from John Tufts’ Introduction, fifth edition, 1726. Boston Public Library. The first American compilation t . ~ st ab J : ’

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Pike, » ’ . * ‘ a . ' | Ss “ ‘ a . . * 2 5 chusetts, bound at the end of a book of Psalms. It has 2, 10, 12p. The eighth edition, Boston, 1731, in Massachusetts Historical Society. The ninth edition, Boston, 1736, in Essex Institute, Salem, Massachusetts, bound at the end of what appears to be the Bay Psalm Book. The tenth edition, Boston, 1738, in the New York Public Library. The eleventh edition, Boston, 1744, noted by Evans, but not located.

THOMAS WALTER! 1696-1725

Tuer second book of psalm tunes, set to English words and printed in this country, was larger than that of John Tufts and was more extensively used. Its compiler, the Rev. Thomas Walter, was only twenty-five years old when the first edition of his Grounds and Rules of Musick was published. Tufts had used letters on the staff in his book, but Walter’s book had notes, though they were diamond shaped instead of the round ones with which we are so familiar.

Thomas Walter was born in Boston, December 7, 1696, and was the son of the Rev. Nehemiah Walter and Sarah Mather. Through his mother he was the grandson of Increase Mather and Maria Cotton, and a great-grandson of the Rev. John Cotton. He graduated from Harvard in 1713 at the age of seventeen. He was not a hard student, but was fond of society in his youth, yet “so retentive was his memory that he easily made himself master of almost all the learning of his uncle Cotton Mather by frequent conversations with him. In this way he acquired more knowledge than most others could have gained by a whole life’s diligent study.”

In regard to his call to the Roxbury Church the records show that “at a church meeting of the east end of Roxbury in the old meetinghouse, the first day of March, 1717-18, it was unanimously agreed and voted as follows:

1. That it was necessary to choose some meet person for an assistant to our reverend pastor.

2. It was agreed and voted to choose such an assistant at the present meeting. Accordingly the votes being brought in and counted, every vote was for Thomas Walter, son of the reverend pastor.

3. The said church chose and appointed the deacons a committee to acquaint Mr. Walter herewith, and inform the inhabitants of the town in their next meeting with the church’s doings, in order for their future proceedings.

On the 13th day of May of the same year

The town met to consider of a settlement of Mr. Walter. . . Voted that there should be five hundred pounds raised for Mr. Walter, as encouragement for his settling among us.

This call was accepted and he was ordained as colleague with his father on October 29, 1718, the ordination sermon being preached by his grandfather, the Rev. Increase Mather. On the Christmas Day following he was married to Rebecca Belcher, daughter of the Rev. Joseph Belcher, of Dedham. Among the names of the fifteen ministers who signed the preface of his book, recommending his Rules of Musick, are the names of his father-in-law, Joseph Belcher; his father, the Rev. Nehemiah Walter, and also Cotton Mather and Increase Mather. Thomas

Walter had one daughter, Rebecca, born in 1722, who died unmarried January 11, 1780, at the age of fifty-eight, the last of the Walter family. In a letter written in 1768 by the Rev. Doctor Chauncey to Doctor Stiles he says:

Dr. Jeremiah Dummer, Mr. John Bulkley, and Mr. Thomas Walter I reckon the first three clergymen for extent and strength of genius and powers New England has yet produced. I was acquainted with the latter, and often had occasion to admire the superlative excellence of his natural and acquired accomplishments. His genius was universal, yet surprisingly strong. He seemed to have almost an intuitive knowledge of everything. There was no subject but he was acquainted with, and such was the power he had over his thoughts and words that he could readily and without any pains write or speak just what he would.

Surely this was high praise for a man who died before he was thirty years old. He was a popular preacher and a keen disputant. His sermons and writings that may be consulted in some of the larger libraries are the following: “Faustus and Jack Tory,” “Essay on Infallibility,” “The Scripture Rule of Faith,” and “The Sweet Singer of Israel.” In 1722 he preached a sermon on “Regular Singing,” in the preface to which in the printed copy it is stated that it “is the first fruits of your young minister’s, who claims a pastoral care for you, though of a different kind.” It was dedicated to “Honorable Paul Dudley, esq. one of his Majesty’s Council for the province of Massachusetts Bay in New England and one of the Justices of the Superior Court.”

The Rev. Thomas Walter died on Sunday, January 10, 1725, of pneumonia, near the close of the afternoon. He was buried in the parish tomb in Roxbury, where the Rev. John Eliot, the Apostle to the Indians, had been buried thirty-five years before, and where his own father was laid a few years later. The funeral bill for the burial of Mr. Walter is an interesting paper which includes items for gloves, rings, a barrel of wine, pipes and tobacco, and a box to put the bones of old Mr. Eliot and others in. The funeral sermon was preached by his uncle, the Rey. Cotton Mather, and was printed soon afterward under the name of “Christodulus: A Good Reward of a Good Servant.”

EDITIONS

There were at least eight editions of Walter’s book. One of them was not dated, but the several issues may be identified by the names of the printers. The first edition was printed in 1721 and the title page reads as follows:

The Ground and Rules of Musick Explained, or An Introduction. to the Art of Singing by Note. Fitted to the meanest capacities, By Thomas Walter, M.A. Recommended by several Ministers. Boston. Printed by J. Franklin, for S. Gerrish near the Brick Church in Cornhill. 1721.

A copy of this edition is in the New York Public Library and was purchased by its original owner the year of its publication. It is oblong in form and has sixteen pages of engraved music. George Hood, in his History of Music, tells us that this book “was noticed in the Boston Gazette of May 8, 1721, and duly announced and advertised in the same periodical on the 17th of July.”

In April, 1723, the second edition of the work,

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“Enlarged, corrected and Beautified,”? was advertised in the Gazette. This shows upon the title page that it was “The Second Edition,” and was Printed by B. Green for 8. Gerrish. I have seen a photostat title in the Library of Congress.

The next (third) edition appears to have been printed in 1737. There is a copy in the Lowell Mason collection in Yale Library, which has no title page, but has a note by the one who presented it to Mr. Mason as follows: ;

Sir Strocxspripce, Mass., April 11/38. UF °

This had a title page which bore the date of 1737, if it is too old as to be new to you it may amuse you, if not, it may at least serve to mark the improvements of a Century of Music—to which you have contributed a full share, accept it with sincere regards of S. RockweELt.

The next edition was printed in 1740 for S. Gerrish, and in 1746 another edition was issued for Samuel Gerrish. In 1760 Benjamin Mecom was printing in Boston, and he printed Walter’s Introduction for Thomas Johnston. The last edition of this book was printed for and sold by Thomas Johnston in Brattle Street, over against the Rev. Mr. Cooper’s meetinghouse, in 1764. For forty years it held its place as the sole American tune book, but it soon gave way to the compilations of Daniel Bayley.

Dante Bayiery was an organist and a printer, rather than a composer of music. No record has been found of any musical pieces of his composition, but his services as organist of Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church in Newburyport and his published books of music are well known to students of psalmody. The date of his birth and the date when he went to Newburyport have not as yet been discovered, but the latter must have been previous to 1764, for in that year he signed the petition for the separation of what is now the city of Newburyport from the original town of Newbury.

He was probably born in West Newbury about 1725. He married first Elizabeth Deneen, of Gloucester, who bore him two children; and second Sarah Stone, who became the mother of five children. He lived at the corner of High and Summer Streets, directly opposite Saint Paul’s Church, where he conducted a small printing and engraving establishment, and engaged in the trade of a coppersmith. He also no doubt gave instruction in music to the young people of the town, and served as organist for many years in the church which became in 1797 the cathedral of the diocese over which Bishop Bass presided. Edward Bass was the rector of this church from 1752 for fifty years, the last five of which he was a bishop, though still continuing to perform the duties of a parish priest.

The organ upon which Daniel Bayley played was the first pipe organ introduced into America. It had been imported by Thomas Brattle of Boston, and at his death was bequeathed to the Brattle Street Church. Not being accepted by this church, it went to King’s Chapel, where it remained for forty years. Then, in 1756, when another organ was imported from England, the Brattle organ was sold to the parish of Saint Paul’s in Newburyport, where it remained for eighty years. It was during this period that Daniel Bayley was organist here. In 1836 the Brattle organ was purchased by the parish of Saint John’s Chapel at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and there this old organ is at the present day still in service after over two hundred years. Its tone is still agreeable and sweet, but its volume is not so great as in some of the smaller organs of the present day.

Mr. Bayley died February 22, 1799, but where he was buried I have been unable to determine. One would expect to find a monument to his memory in the churchyard of Saint Paul’s Church, with which he had been so long and so closely associated, but a personal search has failed to reveal any such marker. There is, however, a stone over the grave of his son Nathaniel, who died May 3, 1849, at the age of seventy-eight, and of whom it was written, “His friends knew his worth.” Nathaniel’s wife, Abigail, who died June 24, 1856, aged eighty-four, is buried beside him, and near by is the grave of Elizabeth Bayley, a daughter of Nathaniel and granddaughter of Daniel, who married James Cheney, and died April 10, 1858. The son of James Cheney and Elizabeth Bayley was named James William Cheney. He was a musician, and lived in Washington for many years where he was librarian of the War Department. He played the organs in a number of churches, and was organist of a Masonic lodge. He used to tell that at least four in direct line beginning with Daniel Bayley had played the organ in

Saint Paul’s church, he himself having played one Sunday while he was on a vacation in the town of Newburyport.

Books

Besides his work as an organist Daniel Bayley kept a bookstore next door to the church, and about 1770 set up a printing press, from which he issued a number of music books. He had begun to compile books before this date, and the method he followed was to reprint selected portions of English works, taking those parts which suited his purpose and omitting the rest.

His first book was A New and Complete Introduction to the Grounds and Rules of Music, 1764. For this book he took the title and introduction from the most popular work of that day—that of Thomas Walter—the last edition of which had just made its appearance in Boston, while the second part was from William Tans’ur’s Royal Melody, which had been published in London in 1754. This composite book was doubtless issued from Boston, for it was “Printed for and Sold by Bulkly Emerson and Daniel Bayley in Newburyport.” Another edition was printed this same year “for and Sold by Bulkly Emerson of Newbury Port, 1764.” It appears to have been printed from the same plates, but there were several more pages of engraved music than in the other imprint. George Hood tells us that there was also a third printing in 1764 “at Salem, Mass., for Mascholl Williams.” Two years later an edition was “Printed and Sold by Thomas Johnston in Brattle Street, Boston, 1766,” and a new edition was

“Printed in Boston for the author at Newburyport, 1768.” .

By 1770 Bayley had established his press in Newburyport, for when he issued his Essex Harmony, it was printed and sold by the author at Newburyport. This was a small book of tunes prepared to be bound with the Psalms or other hymn books. Several editions of this were issued up to 1785.

In 1775 he issued his New Universal Harmony, or Compendium of Church Music, a book of 105 pages, at a price of six shillings. In his preface he says:

I have been advised with a number of friends of music about the choice of pieces that would be agreeable, and I flatter myself I shall have the approbation of the most of those that are judges of the Noble Art. And as I have determined to publish two or three more volumes in case I meet with encouragement in the sale of this, I would signify to my friends and customers that they may depend upon my sparing no pains in procuring such pieces as shall be agreeable to those lovers of church music. I expect I shall be able to procure some curious pieces that are productions of America by some masterly hands who have not yet permitted any of their work to be made public.

In 1784 he issued A Collection of Anthems and Hymn Tunes, and the following year, 1785, The Psalm Singer’s Assistant. The latter was a small pamphlet of sixteen pages, and was intended, like The Essex Harmony, to be bound with the collections of hymns.

The New Harmony of Zion, or Complete Melody, was compiled in 1788 by Daniel Bayley, senior, thus indicating a son of the same name. This was a book of 112 pages.

We have left to the last. two books which were more or less reprints from English sources. One of these was T'he Royal Melody Complete or the New Harmony of Zion, by William Tans’ur, and the date given by Evans is 1761, but this is doubtless too early. Tans’ur’s Royal Melody Complete was advertised in the Boston Evening Post of October 27, 1766, as “On the press, and soon to be published,” while in the issue for January 12, 1767, appears the advertisement :

This day published Tans’ur’s Royal Melody Complete, containing his preface on the excellency of church music, an introduction concerning all that is necessary for the Introduction of Learners with all his Psalm tunes, choruses, hymns and anthems, with several canons and ten of the most approved tunes from Williams’ Psalmody. The plates are neatly engraved upon copper and printed upon a superfine writing paper on each side.