musical life in boston in the eighteenth century · musical life in boston 293 musical life in...

1939.] Musical Life in Boston 293

MUSICAL LIFE IN BOSTON IN THEEIGHTEENTH CENTURY

BY HENRY WILDER FOOTE

TT WAS a cynic who said that "history is a lie•*- agreed upon," but his cynicism was not withoutjustification. There are innumerable illustrations of theway in which a popular myth, first set afloat either toglorify or to discredit an individual, a group, or acause, has been unquestioningly accepted as soberfact by credulous or lazy historians, and transmittedwith heightened colors and swelling distortions throughgenerations to come. That is the excuse for the"debunking" of history in vogue in recent years. Itwas used chiefiy to uncover the human limitations ofpopular idols, and sometimes has gone so far as tostrip them of well-nigh every shred of decency andhonor. It has less often been applied to the rehabilita-tion of persons or groups who have been the victims ofmalicious disparagement.

In the last three-quarters of a century few groupshave suffered so much in reputation from "lies agreedupon" as the Puritans who settled in New England.This is true of a,lmost every aspect of their lives, notleast in regard to their cultural standards. Thus, in theface of the documentary evidence afforded by sometwo hundred portraits which were painted in NewEngland before Copley rose to fame, the histories ofAmerican art offer nothing but a medley of misin-formation and prejudice in their scanty commentsabout all the painters who preceded Copley. And whenthe historians have dealt with early American musicthey have been, for the most part, just as ignorant, asprejudiced, and as parrot-like in their unquestioning

294 American Antiquarian Society [Oct.,

reiteration of the popular mjrth that "the Puritanshated music."

There are, of course, notable exceptions. TheEnglish writer, Mr. Percy A. Scholes, in his book"The Puritans and Music" has accumulated a massof information about the actual place of music in theseventeenth-century life of both England and NewEngland which, for any open mind, completely destroysthe myth; and Oscar G. Sonneck, in his "EarlyConcert Life in America," has brought to light anothergroup of records from the eighteenth century whichcarries on the story. I am largely indebted to theseauthors for much of what I have included in thispaper.

These two authors are, however, exceptional. Atypical example of the customary uncritical repetitionof the popular myth, distorted into a grotesque, is tobe found in Elson's "History of American Music."On the first page of the revised edition of 1925 are tobe found the following statements :

The true beginnings of American music . . . must besought in a field almost as unpromising as that ofIndian music itself . . . the rigid, narrow and oftencommonplace psalm-tunes of New England. It maybe admitted that there was civilized music on theseshores that antedated psalm-tunes. There wereEnglishmen in Virginia almost a generation beforethe Pilgrims reached their destination . . . andthey gave concerts long before the Pilgrims orPuritans (who would have deemed "concerts" a veryheterodox thing) lifted up their voices in holy strainsin New England.

And on the second page he asserts that "both Pilgrimsand Puritans . . . united in a distrust of music" ; thatthey "at first used but five tunes for their psalmody";and that both groups used "Ainsworth's Psalter."

It would be diflBcult to pack a greater number ofmisleading statements into so few words. In the firstplace the psalm-tunes were not "rigid, narrow and


commonplace." Many of them were noble andmoving tunes, the best of which are being recoveredtoday for our modern hymn-books. "Ainsworth'sPsalter," which was used by the Pilgrims, but not bythe Puritans except in Salem for about a generation,contains thirty-nine tunes, half of them from Dutchand French sources. Anyone who has examined themin Prof. Waldo S. Pratt's little book on "The Music ofthe Pilgrims" knows that although they are cast inthe musical pattern of the early seventeenth centuryand are often in the minor key, they are beautiful andprofoundly moving. The Puritans brought with themthe Psalter of Sternhold and Hopkins, of which noless than four editions with musical settings were avail-able. These had been brought out by Damon, in 1579;by Este in 1592; by Allison in 1599; and by Ravens-croft in 1621. All these editors were competentmusicians.

When "The Bay Psalm Book" was published in1640, without music, the editors included at the endan "Admonition" calling attention to some fiftytunes in "our English psalm-books," commendingespecially the music in "Ravenscroft's Psalter."Thomas Ravenscroft was one of the leading Englishmusicians of the day; he acknowledges his indebted-ness to a score of other musicians of his own or thepreceding generation, including Dowland, Farnaby,Morley, Tallis and Tomkins, all outstanding men; andhis book remained the standard one for more thanhalf a century, until superseded by Playford's. Theauthors of "The Bay Psalm Book," that is to say,were acquainted with, and recommended to the usersof their book, the very best sources for psalm-tuneswhich England afforded in 1640.' The English in

'Eîlson waa aware of these faota, for he says (p. 4) that by the time "The Bay PsalmBook" waa published "the repertoire had now extended beyond the original 'five tunes'and more than fifty melodies were suggested," but he has no explanation of how thisastonishing musical development was achieved in the few years between the first settle-ment and the publication of "The Bay Psalm Book." Elson'a statement about the "fivetunes" is, of course, a twisted quotation from Palfrey's "History of New England." WhatPalfrey really says is that by the end of the seventeenth century the ability to sing had sodeclined that most congregations were limited to ten tunes and aome could sing only five.


Virginia had no other church music than these samepsalm-tunes, either before or after the Pilgrims reachedtheir destination. If they sang at all when theygathered for worship they must have used either"Ravenscroft's Psalter" or one of the earlier musicaleditions.

It is sheer nonsense to say that "there was civilizedmusic on these shores that antedated these psalmtunes," and that "Englishmen in Virginia . . . gaveconcerts long before the Pilgrims or Puritans . . .lifted up their voices in holy strains in New England."Setting aside the wholly unwarranted implicationthat the psalm-tunes were not "civilized music," thehistoric facts are that the earliest European musicheard upon either coast of North America above theSpanish settlements was the French psalmody sungby the Huguenots on the Carolina Coast in 1572before their brief settlement was wiped out by theSpaniards, and the English psalmody in "Sternholdand Hopkins," sung by Drake's seamen on the Cali-fornia Coast in 1579. The "concerts" which thesettlers in Virgnia held in the bitter period of confiict,hardship, disease and starvation which beset the firsttwenty years after their arrival at Jamestown are apure figment of the imagination, unless we picture thesettlers as gathered round a campfire after the fashionof pioneers in their hours of ease and roaring out to theaccompaniment of a few simple instruments the popu-lar catches which they had brought with them fromEngland. The earliest recorded performance in theNorth American colonies of anything that we shouldcall a concert took place in Boston more than ahundred years later, a fact of which Mr. Elson wastotally ignorant.

It is recorded by Edward Winslow that the Pilgrims,at the time of their departure from Holland, sang verywell. We have no similar report of the Puritans, butthey came from England at a time when that countrywas just passing out of a great musical epoch. Thereis not the slightest reason to believe that the men and


women of the first migration were any different fromthe people they^ left behind in their fondness for musicor in their ability to perform it. Sonneck makes gentlefun of such an hypothesis, saying (p. 7),

When reading the histories of music in America we almostgain the impression that the emigrants of the seventeenthcentury detested not so much the religious, political or eco-nomic atmosphere of Europe as the musical, and we feel over-awed by the constellation of mysterious motives promptingProvidence to send to our shores just those few thousandbeings who had no music in their souls.-The steady decline in the ability to sing which camewith the passing years in all the English colonies,whether north or south, was the natural result of thehard pioneer life; of the separation of the youngergeneration from the cultural influences amid whichtheir English parents had grown up ; and of their segre-gation in small and isolated communities.

A few of the immigrants brought music-books(other than psalm-books) and musical instrumentswith them, for their own use and enjoyment. Thisfact is also denied by the popular myth. In the bookentitled "The Art of Music" it is asserted.Instrumental music was taboo to them [the Puritans]. As faras we know there was not a musical instrument in New Eng-land before 1700. If there was it has shown remarkableingenuity in escaping detection.'

Evidence has a way of escaping detection by thosewho never take the trouble to look for it. This baldassertion in "The Art of Music" overlooks the well-known use of drums, trumpets and horns for sum-moning people to church before bells were available,to give an alarm and to assist in military training.Jews-harps were early imported in quantities; notbecause the Puritans were addicted to that childishinstrument, nor because they superstitiously thoughtit sacred because of its name, but because it was indemand for trade with the music-loving Indians.

'"The Art of Music," ed. Daniel Gregory Mason, N. Y. 1915, Vol. IV. Chap. I, p. 18.The whole chapter, by W. Dermot Darby, so far from being a reliable account of the partplayed by music in the early life of the colonies, is nothing but a flippant misrepresentationof a period about which the author was completely ignorant.


Organs were not, of course, imported or built hereuntil the eighteenth century. They took up too muchprecious space on shipboard, and were too costly, andvery few indeed of the early immigrants can have beenfamiliar with them, for their use in England waslimited to the court, the cathedrals, college chapels anda few of the larger parish churches. Of the smallerinstruments the bass-viol—very much like what wecall a violoncello—was the most common instrument inuse, but it was fragile to transport and took up pre-cious space. Persons emigrating to the colonies hadto turn their possessions into cash to pay for theirpassage and to buy the equipment for settlement. Onlya man devoted to music would go to the expense andtrouble of bringing his musical instrument with him.Such cases did occur. Nathaniel Rogers of Rowley,dying in 1664, left a "treble viall," and Rev. EdmundBrowne of Sudbury, who died in 1678, left a "bassvyol" and some books of music, and was reputed tobe a good musician. Browne was past seventy-oneyears of age at his death and had been ordained inEngland some years before his emigration in 1638, sono doubt he brought his viol and music books withhim. Tutor Wigglesworth of Harvard, in his "Diary,"about 1650, notes that he caught an idle studentin the forenoon with ill company playing musick, though I hadso solemnly warn'd him but yesterday of letting his spirit goafter pleasures.'

That might be interpreted as disapproval of music, butit is more reasonable to take it as disapprobation of alazy boy who was spending the morning hours, whenhe ought to have been studying, in amusing himselfwith undesirable companions.

Seaborn Cotton, of the class of 1651 at Harvard, wasthe son of Rev. John Cotton, born on the voyage overhere, and himself later a minister. In his manuscriptcommonplace book he copied out nearly the wholeof three well-known English ballads—The LovesickMaid, the Last Lamentation of a Languishing Squire,

'Sibley, "Harvard Graduates," I 264.


and The Two Faithful Lovers—with bits of others,and Elnathan Chauncey's commonplace book of thesame period contains similar fragments of ballads, anda bar of music jotted down as the memorandum of atune.

A letter which Leonard Hoar, later president ofHarvard College, wrote from London on March 27,1661, to his freshman nephew Josiah Flynt, perfectlyillustrates the Puritan attitude. Josiah had writtenasking his uncle to send him a fiddle. Hoar replieswith a very lengthy epistle of sensible advice about hisstudies and his conduct, which had been none too satis-factory. Near the end he says,Musick I had almost forgot. I suspect you seek it both tosoon, and to much. This be assured of that if you be notexcellent at it Its worth nothing at all. And if you be excellentit will take up so much of your mind and time that you will beworth little else: And when all that excellence is attained youracquest will prove little or nothing of real profit to you unlesseyou intend to take upon you the trade of fidling. Howbeithearing your mother's desires were for it for your sisters forwhom tis more proper and they also have more leisure to lookafter it: For them I say I had provided the Instrumentsdesired. But I cannot now attend the sending them beinghurrying away from London' . . .

Evidently Hoar had no objection to music for the girlswho would not have to go out and earn a living, butforesaw that a fiddle would only tempt Josiah to wastehis time over an amusement from which he could nothope to gain a livelihood.

At the end of the century, on December 1, 1699, wefind Samuel Sewall going to a shop in Boston to inquireabout his wife's harpsichord, apparently left there forrepairs. Obviously, instrumental music was not un-known to the Puritans, nor was it condemned bythem. John Cotton in his "Singing Psalms a GospelOrdinance," 1647, saysNor doe we forbid the private use of any Instrument ofMusick therewithal!; so that attention to the instrument doenot divert the heart from attention to the matter of the song.

>S. E. Morison, "Harvard in the Seventeenth Century," Vol. II, p. 643.


The idea that instrumental music was more prevalentin Virginia in the seventeenth century is, so far as Iknow, unsupported by evidence, but it is probablethat in a few houses of the great planters, as they grewrich, there was a good deal more use of secular musicthan in New England, though not among the lessprosperous people.

By the end of the seventeenth century singing hadsunk to a low level in all the colonies and the ability toplay instrumental music was presumably limited to avery few persons, owing to lack of available teachers.Rev. Thomas Symmes, of Bradford, who graduatedfrom Harvard in 1689, in his discourse upon "TheReasonableness of Regular Singing: or Singing byNote," 1720, does, indeed, say that there had beensinging-schools in the early days of the colony, andaccounts for the decline in singing by saying, "Singingschools and singing books being laid aside, there wasno way to learn." Music, he goes on,

was studied, known and approved of in our College, for manyyears after its first founding. This is evident from the MusicalTheses, which were formerly printed; and from some writingscontaining some tunes with directions for singing by note, asthey are now sung ; and these are yet in being, though of morethan sixty years' standing.

The papers to which he refers were presumably lost inthe fire which destroyed the college library in 1764,but his statement carries back to at least 1660 thetime when there was some study of music at Harvard.

Such instruction in music as there may have been atHarvard, however, reached too few persons to stay thegeneral and rapid decline in musical culture. Therewas not a single "musician by trade," in Boston in1673, if we may accept the statement found in a briefanonymous report of conditions made in that year."The Bay Psalm Book" contained no music until theedition of 1698, which included at the end thirteentunes, crudely engraved on wood. Be it noted thatthis was the first music ever printed in the North


American colonies, but by this time probably fewusers of the book could read music.

Early in the eighteenth century, however, a revivalof music began with the dissatisfaction of the ministerswith the singing in church. The originator of themovement was Rev. John Tufts of Newbury, who,about 1712, published "An Introduction to the Sing-ing of Psalm Tunes in a Plain and Easy Method; witha Collection of Tunes in Three Parts.'" The earlyeditions contain twenty-eight, the later ones thirty-eight tunes. Tufts' little pamphlet, for it is nothingmore, is the first book of instruction in music to beprinted in the North American Colonies. His "instruc-tions" were derived from Thomas Ravenscroft andJohn Playford, but he could not have gone to bettersources. Tufts reinforced his pamphlet by travellingabout to lecture and to establish singing-schools. TheNew England Courant under date of September 30,1723, notes that:On Thursday last a Singing Lecture was held here [Boston]when the Rev. Mr. Tufts of Newbury preach'd.The redoubtable Cotton Mather, who had repeatedlycomplained in his diary of the poor singing in his con-gregation, lent his aid. Samuel Sewall recorded onMarch 20, 1720/21 :At night Dr. Mather preached in the school house to the youngmusicians, from Rev. 14:3—no man could learn that song.House was full, and the singing extraordinarily excellent, suchas hardly been heard before in Boston. Sang four times out ofTäte and Brady.

In the next few years a dozen other ministers, mostlyof the younger set, although cordially backed by theirelders, printed discourses in support of the movementand many more, no doubt, preached and lectured onthe subject. As with every attempt to improve churchmusic, there was opposition on the part of conservativelaymen who were satisfied with the old ways. Theaim of the reformers was to teach the people to sing

'This is the title of the later editions from the fifth on, by which the work is best known.Neither the title nor the exact date of the first edition is known.


"by rule," that is, from printed notes, instead of byear or "by rote." The innovation seems to us a simpleand obvious one, but it did stir up a controversy.Rev. Thomas Symmes, after he had introduced"regular singing" (that is, singing "by rule") reportedthat "a great part of the town has for near half a year,been in a mere flame about it," and the Rev. Na-thaniel Chauncey of Connecticut preached a lengthydiscourse before the General Association at Hartfordin 1728 in which he summed up, and answered, a longseries of the objections made by the conservative dea-cons. One objection was that "this practice leads to theChurch of England and will bring in organs quickly";another that "the very original of this way was fromthe Papists" ; to which he says " . . . the Gospel itselfcame from Rome to England, and its very probablethat singing came along with the Gospel." Again anobjection; "It looks very unlikely to be the right way,because the young people fall in with it; they are notwont to be so forward for anything which is good";to which he answers:As Old Men are not always wise, so young men are not alwaysfools. They are generally more free from prejudices thanElderly People; their present age disposes them to Mirth,and it should be a joyful and acceptable thing unto ElderlyPeople to see them forward to improve their Mirth accordingto Scripture directions.

The vogue for "regular" singing was, in truth, ayouth movement, eagerly taken up by the youngpeople. No one helped it more than Cotton Mather'snephew. Rev. Thomas Walter, who in 1721, at the ageof twenty-five, brought out his "Grounds and Rules ofMusick Explained," which went well beyond Tufts'pamphlet. The music was printed in modern notationwith bar lines for the first time in the colonies. It ranthrough many editions and was the standard book forforty years.

Even more significant as showing an enlightenedattitude towards music was Walter's discourse on "TheSweet Psalmist of Israel," delivered in 1722. The wholetitle is worth recording:


The Sweet Psalmist of IsraelA Sermon

Preach'd at the Lecture held in Bostonby the Society for promoting

Regular & Good Singingand for Reforming the

Depravations and Debasementsour

Psalmody labours under.In order to introduce the proper and true

Old Way of SingingNow published at the Desire of several Ministersthat heard it, and at the Request of the Society

aforesaid.By Thomas Walter, M. A.

Minister of a Church in Roxbury

Boston. Printed by J. Franklin, for S. Gerrish,near the Brick Meeting-House in Cornhill, 1722.

The sermon is dedicated to Paul Dudley, son ofGovernor Joseph Dudley and later Chief Justice, whose"young minister" Walter was.

There is not a single sentence in the whole discoursein disparagement of secular or of instrumental music.On the contrary he says.Music considered alone and in itself is a sweet and pleasantscience. The Charms of Music are a most celebrated Subjectamong the best Writers. And they are so various and so sweet,that it is equally impossible to number them and sufficientlyto admire them. There is scarce an3d;hing in the whole Creationof God, so manifold and astonishing, as the Doctrine of Soundsand Harmony.

Naturally, however, Walter's primary purpose was toemphasize the importance of good singing in the serviceof worship. After various quotations from scriptureand the classics, and one from "the almost DivineMilton," he goes on.Upon the whole we may conclude, that music is not only ameans provided by the God of Nature and the Author of allReligion, to dispel and drive away the evil influences of Satan,but also to prepare the Soul for the Reception of the Inspira-tion of the holy Spirit . . . I t collects the scattered Powers


of the Mind, and so unites them, that the Soul with unwontedVigour and Strength mounts as on the Wings of Eagles, pur-suing the glorious Flight, till she is gotten beyond the Viewof mortal things, and enters the holy of Holies above. Then isshe rais'd and transported beyond the Limits of Time andSense, and is seated in the Lap of Eternity, where she dwellsupon everlasting Themes, and becomes a sharer in the sweetand uninterrupted Blisses of Angels and glorified Saints.

The battle for "regular" singing was over by 1730,and the psalmody in the churches had been greatlyimproved. In the meantime the development of thesinging-schools also indirectly affected the develop-ment of instrumental music. The Puritans, both inEngland and America, had opposed the use of instru-ments in church. In this, of course, they were notpeculiar. To this day no instrumental music is heard inthe Sistine Chapel at the Vatican; or in the RussianChurch; and organs were admitted into the Presby-terian Church in Scotland only in the nineteenthcentury. But when the singing-schools met in theschoolhouses or in private homes there was no ob-jection to a pitch-pipe, or to a bass viol to support thesinging, and as the young people became accustomedto such support they naturally wanted to have it alsowhen they sang in church. And in the course of thecentury the use of the bass viol, "the Lord's fiddle,"became general.

We have noted the presence in Boston of the virginalbelonging to Samuel Sewall's wife, before 1700. Cer-tianly from this time on there must have been a steadyincrease of musical instruments. In 1716 EdwardEnstone, the recently imported organist of King'sChapel, advertised in the Boston News-Letter (April16-23):This is to give notice that there is lately sent over from Londona choice collection of Instruments, consisting of Flageolets,Flutes, Haut-Boys, Bass-Viols, Violins, Bows, Strings, Reedsfor Haut-Boys, Books of Instruction for all these Instruments,Books of Ruled Paper. To be sold at the Dancing School ofMr. Enstone in Sudbury Street near the Orange Tree, Boston.Note: Any person may have all instruments of Musick mended,or Virginalls and Spinnets Strung and Tuned at a reasonableRate, and likewise may be taught to Play on any of these


instruments above mentioned; dancing taught by a true andeasier method than has been heretofore.Obviously a man does not advertise to tune "Virginallsand Spinnets" in a community where such instrumentsdo not exist, nor does he set up a music shop unlessthere is some demand for his wares.

The growing interest in instrumental music naturallyled to the giving of concerts. It should be rememberedthat public concerts of instrumental music were un-known in England at the time of the first migration toMassachusetts. There was orchestral music at court,and music-loving amateurs in places like London andOxford gathered to play chamber music, but concertsto which the public was admitted for a price did notcome in until late in the seventeenth century, and wereheld at first in London taverns. Boston was probablynot many years behind the majority of English pro-vincial towns of the same size when the first concertwas advertised in the Boston News-Letter of December16-23,1731, as follows:On Thursday the 30th of this instant December, there will beperformed a "Concert of Music" on sundry instruments atMr. Pelham's great Room, being the House of the late DoctorNoyes near the Sun Tavern. Tickets to be delivered at theplace of performance at "Five Shillings" each. The concertto begin exactly at Six o'clock, and no Tickets will be deliveredafter Five the day of performance. N.B. There will be noadmittance after Six.

This is the earliest authentic record of any concertof instrumental music to be performed in the Englishcolonies of North America, although it antedates byonly three and a half months the first recorded concertin Charleston, South Carolina, and Mr. Sonneck, fromwhose book, "Early Concert Life in America," thisinformation is derived, rightly points out that otherearlier concerts, of which no record has survived, mayhave taken place in either town. Other concerts fol-lowed, two each in 1732 and 1733; others in 1736, in1744 in Faneuil Hall, and again there in 1747; and afterthat more frequently at "The Concert Hall" until theRevolution broke. Unfortunately there is no record


of who the musicians were or of the programs playeduntil 1771. Previous to that date the public was onlyassured that the program would contain "Select piecesfrom the best masters." During the earlier part of thisperiod Charleston alone rivalled Boston in the numberof its concerts. The earliest recorded concert in NewYork took place in 1736; the first in Philadelphia in1757.

The Mr. Pelham in whose "great Room" the firstBoston concert was held was, of course, Peter Pelham,better known for his mezzotints. In 1732 or 1733 Bos-ton received its first visit from a European musicianof note, Karl Theodor Pachelbel. He soon went on toNewport, where he assisted in setting up the organwhich Bishop Berkeley had sent to Trinity Church,and thence to New York and Charleston, where helingered. Now Pachelbel was a thoroughly trainedGerman musician, son of a noted organist and closelyassociated with the family of J. S. Bach. We wouldgive much for some record of Pachelbel's visit toBoston and to know whether he took part in a concertthere. We do know that when he left he was accom-panied by Peter Pelham's eldest son, Peter Jr., whowent with him to study music. Peter did not returnuntil 1743, and on May 30 of that year modestly ad-vertised in the Boston Evening Post that after "nineyears under the Tuition of an accomplish'd Professorin the Art of Musick" he was prepared to give lessonson the harpsichord and in the "Rudiments of Psalm-ody, Hymns, Anthems, etc." He became the first organ-ist of Trinity Church in Boston, where he remaineduntil 1749, when he went to Virginia, where in 1755 hebecame the first organist at Bruton Parish Church inWilliamsburg, serving in that capacity for forty years.

The practice of holding concerts, once establishedin Boston, went steadily forward until interrupted bythe turmoil of the Revolution. Generally the proceedswent to charity. After the concert of 1744 in FaneuilHall the Selectmen received £205.5.0^ "for the use of

»If the price of tickets was five shillings for this concert, 821 persons paid admission.


the poor of the town." In the seventeen-sixties thereare records of "private" as well as of "public" concerts.Sonneck (p. 258) believes that the private or semi-public concerts indicate the existence, between 1761and 1775, of a music society in Boston which gaveconcerts in "The Concert Hall" with a fair degree ofregularity. After the Revolution several such organ-izations were formed, though none achieved perma-nence until the Handel and Haydn Society was foundedearly in the nineteenth century. The public concerts,before the Revolution, were sometimes aided bymusicians from the bands of British regiments quar-tered on the town. Evidently by that time a music-lover in Boston had considerable opportunities to hearpretty good music of varied types.

It has already been noted that there were no organsin the colonies in the seventeenth century. The onlypossible exception is the chance that some of theGerman settlers who lived for a time in the Wissahick-on Valley outside Philadelphia may have brought onein just before the end of the century. They certainlyhad a small one in 1703, and only a little later Dr.Christopher Witt, an Englishman who had joinedthem, built the first organ constructed in the colonies.Aside from these instances the earliest organ in thecolonies of which there is any certain record is the oneimported into Boston by Thomas Brattle not laterthan early in 1711. On May 29 of that year Rev.Joseph Green noted in his diary :

I was at Mr. Thomas Brattles; heard ye organs and sawstrange things in a microscope.

It may be observed that Green, though a Puritanminister, had no objection to listening to "Mr.Brattle's organs" in a private house, though he wouldnot have thought it suitable for use in a church. In1713 Brattle died, and bequeathed his organ to theBrattle Square Church, of which he had been one ofthe founders, or, should the church refuse it, to King'sChapel, with the further proviso that the church


which accepted the organ should "procure a soberperson that can play skilfully thereon with a loudnoise." The Brattle Square congregation declined thegift, and did not install an organ until near the end ofthe century, so the instrument went to King's Chapel,which used it for many years. When superseded by abetter organ it passed through various hands toSt. John's Church, Portsmouth, where it is stillpreserved in usable condition. King's Chapel thusbecame the first church in the colonies to installan organ for regular use. The second was the DutchReformed Church in New York, to which Gov.Burnet presented an organ in 1726. The third wasChrist Church, Philadelphia, 1728. The fourth wasTrinity Church, Newport, to which Bishop Berkeleypresented an organ in 1733. Thereafter the wealthierEpiscopal churches imported or built organs when theycould afford them and could secure organists. Thefirst Congregational church in New England to have anorgan was the one in Providence. Ezra Stiles recordsin his "Diary" that the organ there was first used indivine service on the first Sunday in July, 1770. TheFirst Church in Boston had to wait for the death ofRev. Charles Chauncey in 1787 before it got one, andthe Brattle Square Church imported one in 1790, andthen a member of the church offered to pay for theorgan and to sink it in the harbor rather than have itused.

The first organ built in Boston, which was also thefirst to be constructed in the colonies by a native-bornAmerican, was the work of young Edward Bromfield,Jr., who graduated from Harvard in 1742 and died in1746, at the age of 23. Rev. Thomas Prince wrote ofhim.As he was well skilled in music, he for exercise and recreationwith his own hands, has made a most accurate Organ, with tworows of keys and many hundred pipes; his intention beingtwelve hundred, but died before he completed it. The work-manship of the keys and pipes surprisingly nice and curious,exceeding any thing of the kind that ever came here fromEngland . . . And what is surprizing was, that he had but a


few times looked into the inside work of two or three organswhich came from England.

During the middle and later part of the eighteenthcentury it is probable that, outside of the Moraviansettlements in Pennsylvania and North Carolina, thebest organ music in the colonies was to be heard inNew York, where an English composer and organist ofhigh quality, named William Tuckey, lived from 1753until shortly before his death in 1781; and in King'sChapel in Boston. In passing it may be mentioned thatTuckey conducted in New York a performance of partsof Handel's "Messiah" on January 16, 1770, a dateearlier than any performance on the continent ofEurope. The best organist at King's Chapel wasWilliam Selby, who arrived from England in 1771, anddied in 1798. He was also a harpsichordist, teacher,manager of concerts, composer and compiler. At con-certs which he organized in 1772 and 1773 music byBach and Handel was presented. In 1786 "the MusicalSociety" presented, under his leadership, a superbprogram of religious music in King's Chapel, "for thebenefit and relief of the poor prisoners confined in thejail of this town." Again the music was from Bachand Handel. And in 1789, in honor of Washington'spresidential visit to Boston, the entire oratorio,"Jonah," by a now forgotten composer, SamuelFelsted, was given in King's Chapel, preceded by twoanthems and an organ concerto composed by Selbyand by choral selections from Handel.

From 1764 on, Boston developed rapidly as a musicpublishing center. The first book of music to bepublished in the colonies after Walter's little book in1721 was "Urania," a large collection of hymn tunesand anthems edited by James Lyon and published inPhiladelphia in 1762. It was followed in 1764 by aBoston rival, Josiah Flagg'sA collection of the best Psalm Tunes, in two, three and fourparts; from the most approved authors, to all measures, andapproved by the best masters in Boston, New England; towhich are added some Hymns and Anthems; the greater partnever before printed in America.


Josiah Flagg was a musical enthusiast. In 1773 heorganized the first militia band in Boston, on themodel of the British regimental bands. He alsomanaged numerous concerts of vocal and instrumentalmusic, in which the works of Bach and Handel, asusual, held the prominent places.

Numerous collections of church music followed.There were about forty such American publicationsbefore the end of the eighteenth century, mostlyprinted in Boston, and many more in the first quarterof the nineteenth century. The most popular andinfiuential, though not the best, of these successors ofFlagg's "Collection" were "The New England PsalmSinger," 1770, and "The Singing Master's Assistant,"1778, both by the irrepressible William Billings. Hewas a picturesque figure, a tanner's assistant, one-eyed,lame, slovenly, but with a stentorian voice and bound-less enthusiasm. He went about New England,reviving the singing-schools by sheer contagion. Hewas determined that America should create her ownmusic, and did his part manfully by composing a greatnumber of tunes and anthems in the fiorid fugueingstyle which had come into vogue in England in theHandelian era. As he knew little and cared less for therules of musical composition, his work today seemsshockingly illiterate, but its lively, almost rollickingstyle was taking, and for thirty years in New Englandhad a popularity which perhaps we may compare withthat of the gospel hymns in America a hundred yearslater. Billings' tunes, however, were not always ap-preciated by his Boston contemporaries. He had aswinging sign in front of his house reading "Billings'sMusic." One evening some naughty boys hung twocats by their tails to the sign and ran away leaving thecats yowling and scratching. On another occasion awag approached Billings with "a serious question''—"was.snoring vocal or instrumental music?" Neverthe-less, Billings rendered a real service to his time, al-though his tunes largely dropped out of use in Bostonby 1800. They survived to a later date in rural New


England, and spread to other parts of the country,and are still to be found in the folk-hymnody of therural South. In the Boston publications, towards theend of the century, some of which were the best collec-tions of church music published in the colonies at thatperiod, there was a swing back to the more sedate andmusically correct type of hymn-tune. The earliestAmerican hymn-tune which is still in use is taken fromone of these collections—Oliver Holden's "Corona-tion," composed in Charlestown, Mass., in 1793.

Let us review the development of music in PuritanBoston of the eighteenth century by summarizing whatmight have been the experience of a music-lover whowas born there just as the century dawned and wholived to be past ninety. As a boy he had sung out of"The Bay Psalm Book," and had learned to read themusic of the tunes which, for the first time in thecolonies, had been printed in the back of the book twoyears before his birth. In the Brattle Square Church,in which he was brought up, they sang the tunesstraight through, but in most other churches thepsalms had been lined out, which broke up the singingbadly. He did not like "lining-out," and was glad thathe had lived to see the old custom disappear.

He had been taught to read music by his grand-father, who had a bass-viol and some of the musicbooks printed by John Playford in London during theProtectorate. After the Restoration grandfather hadmigrated to Boston, bringing these things with him.He had taught his grandson to play the viol, which hehad bequeathed to him. Knowing how to read musichad stood him in good stead when Rev. Mr. Tufts andthe other young ministers opened the campaign for"regular" singing and had organized singing-schools inalmost every town. At twenty he had joined the youngmusicians whose singing in the schoolhouse, wherethey sang four times out of "Täte and Brady," hadwon the praise of Judge Sewall. He had liked "Täteand Brady" better than "The Bay Psalm Book"because their book contained the very latest new


tunes, like Hanover, and St. Anne by Mr. Croft. Thesinging-schools had brought a great improvement inpsalm-singing in the churches, and had been very goodfun as well, because there the young people could singmusic not used in the churches, though not, of course,the ribald "catches" sometimes heard in the sailors'taverns. He had fallen in love with his wife at singing-school because of her enthusiasm and her sweet voice.

And then, when he was thirty-one, came the firstconcert in Boston, in Mr. Pelham's "great Room."He played the viol well enough to take part withother gentlemen-players, and the whole affair wasarranged in the latest London fashion. A year or twolater a great musician had come to town, and he hadseen and heard and talked with Mr. Pachelbel, whohad revealed a new world of music by what he told ofconcerts in Germany and who talked about his kins-man, J. S. Bach. Our Bostonian had thought prettywell of his own performance on the bass-viol until hemet Pachelbel, but after that he realized that he hadlearned only the rudiments of music. Throughout hiswhole middle life he went to concerts whenever hecould. There was a public one at least every two orthree years, some years there would be several; and heplayed with his friends at little private concerts quiteoften. After he was seventy he had heard the militiaband organized by Mr. Josiah Flagg. Naturally it didnot play as well as the British regimental bands, butit was a start in the right direction.

When James Lyon's "Urania" had reached Bostonfrom Philadelphia, with its great collection of newhymn-tunes and anthems, he had bought a copy,though it was very expensive. But he took greaterpride in Josiah Flagg's Boston "Collection," with themusic engraved by Paul Revere on paper actuallymade in the colony. And he followed with enthusiasmthe career of the tanner William Billings, who gave thesinging-schools a new lease of life. Billings, of course,was an odd stick, but he made people sing as they hadnever sung before. And Billings had taught the sing-


ing-schools to sing better music than his own. OurBostonian in his ninetieth year had been driven outby his grandson to Dorchester to hear the singingcontest between the singers of the First Parish and theStoughton Musical Society. The Dorchester singershad had the support of a bass-viol, but the Stoughtonsingers had won the contest when they had sung Mr.Handel's "Hallelujah Chorus" without an instrumentand without books. That, he refiected, was a greatadvance over the performance of the young musicianswith whom, at twenty, he had sung from Täte andBrady.

Our Bostonian remembered the heated discussion inhis boyhood about Mr. Brattle's organ. He had wishedthat the Brattle Square Church had accepted it, thoughhe had lived to see an organ installed there at last. Hehad sometimes slipped into King's Chapel to hear theorgan, when some recital of sacred music had beengiven there. The climax had been the oratorio whenGeorge Washington had made his presidential visitto Boston in 1789.

So, in great old age, our 18th century Bostonianlooked back over the music he had heard. As he re-membered his boyhood he marvelled at the growth ofmusical opportunities and appreciation in his nativetown. He had seen two revivals of singing; the intro-duction of concerts, and of organs into some of thechurches; and in the last thirty years the growth of afiourishing business in the publication of church music.He had never travelled, but he understood that hecould not have had better opportunities to enjoy musicin any other of the colonies—except among theMoravians at Bethlehem in Pennsylvania; indeed, hecould not have done much better in most of the pro-vincial towns in England. So, as he lay dying, hebequeathed his grandfather's bass-viol to his owngrandson, and told him that if he too lived to be ninetyhe might see the coming of a new music in Boston,surpassing anything that the eighteenth century hadknown.

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