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Late that fall, the brothers traveled to Deacon Bales' Baptist church in East Wilton, near Milford, to give their first concert under the name, the Æolian Vocalists.  They prepared a program that served, too, as a poster  -  in spite of its comically small three by two-and-a-half inch size.

The trio of brothers used this telling bit of promotional verse written by Judson:

At the time, English composer and singer Henry Russell was having great success performing for American audiences; and the Tyrolese Family Rainer triumphed in Boston just before the Hutchinsons arrived in that city earlier in the year.

An audience of more than fifty people at East Wilton paid  12½ ¢  each to hear this new attraction; and many stayed after the performance to congratulate the young singers.  The concert was less encouraging financially, though, for the group made only  6¼ ¢  after expenses.  But clearly the Hutchinsons considered the East Wilton engagement to be an important early milestone in their career.

Next, the Æolian Vocalists packed their wardrobe  -  such as it was  -  in their sleigh and made a tour mostly of small New Hampshire towns.  They gave concerts at West Wilton, Wilton, Wilton Center, New Ipswich, Hancock, and Peterborough, with maybe enough money coming in to meet expenses.  "Come, boys,"  said Judson,  "if we don't do more next week, I shall quit."  Then came a short trip through northern Hillsborough County and down to Nashua.  The trio, by this time, had established a pattern  -  "Small profits,  but lots of praise."

Wednesday, January 19, 1842,  is a red-letter date in the history of the Hutchinsons,  for the concert that evening marks the beginning of the classic Hutchinson Family quartet.  Abby sang one or two solos and a duet with John.  "Abby sang from her heart,"  said an early biography,  "and her artless melodies,  enhanced by the indescribable charm of her manner,  found their way direct to the hearts of her auditors."

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The singers went to Boston to purchase clothes that were more stylish for their public appearances.  Then from Lynn, the smartly-dressed Hutchinsons headed east, through Portsmouth, into coastal Maine.  Asa made the programs, the others sang the solos, and John distributed music to the vocalists  -  for the Æolians were reading from scores, having not yet committed their songs to memory.

At Kennebunk the group found that, through some error, their concert bills had not been distributed.  Jesse, who was with them, saw a chance.  "Making a desperate dash at a huge dinner-bell, he rushed with his prize into the street, and assuming for the time the office of town crier, announced the concert in the loudest tones he could command."

This short tour brought the Hutchinsons back through Portsmouth to Lynn.  There, late in February, they received a heartfelt letter from Jesse Sr., advising them to abandon their ambitions for careers in music and asking them to come home to help on the farm.  The father gave his six youngest children a written deed for the home property, with conditions:  "[W]e were to give up our itinerant life, take care and provide for the wants of our mother as long as she lived, and continue a peaceful mode of living."

Though the Hutchinsons accepted this proposition with reluctance, they threw themselves into the tasks at hand with their usual vigor  -  to the satisfaction of their father.  "Buildings were moved,"  said John,  "and some were torn down.  The old hop-house, where we used to dry our hundreds of weight of hops annually, had become obsolete, and was also moved away. . . .   The old homestead and farm was put in thorough repair. . . . "

The attention of Judson, John, and Asa was directed away from farm work, when three lovely young women  -  Jane and Sarah French and Tryphena Tupper  -  came to Milford to attend the Female Academy.  Soon, they joined the church choir.  John wrote:

Meanwhile a visitor,  after hearing the Hutchinsons sing,  said,  "Why, if you managed rightly, you might make as much in some places, in one night, as you do here in a year."

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During the first week of June 1842, the brothers, without Abby, took the first tentative steps toward a return to the world of concert singing.  The trio, with Lyman Heath, gave two entertainments in Concord to thin houses.  But these engagements would have exceeded the Hutchinsons' expectations had they sung to an audience of one.

Nathaniel Peabody Rogers, a gifted writer and a lover of music, was the editor of the Herald of Freedom, the Concord-based newspaper of the New Hampshire Antislavery Society.  Though the subscription list was not as large as Rogers would have liked, the Herald of Freedom was read with interest by influential reformers on both sides of the Atlantic.

N. P. Rogers' early notices of the Hutchinson Family tell us much about their fledgling performances, both by what he wrote and by what is missing.  At this point, perhaps the main thing that distinguished the Æolian Vocalists from other troupes was that the eccentric Judson, the relentless John, and the noble Asa were all charismatic individuals.  In the first Herald of Freedom review, Rogers said the brothers  "performed with such modesty as well as talent, as deeply to interest me in the singers as well as their music."   "If I can judge rationally about it, (and if I can't, it is because they have enchanted me)  they are musicians of the very highest order, and with the practice and improvement they will naturally experience, before they pass their prime, will reach a rare degree of excellence in their glorious art."

More than likely Rogers' words of delight over hearing the Hutchinsons in concert ran through Judson's head like a catchy tune, as he rode to Boston taking John's bay horse.  He purchased a second-hand carryall for seventy-five dollars.  In what was later called an excess of enthusiasm, Judson gave John's horse a meal consisting of half a bushel of oats, a peck of Indian meal, and a large crib full of hay.  After this feast, the bay was not moving particularly well, so  "Judson had to leave the animal behind to digest the monster meal, and procure another horse to take the carryall from Boston to Milford."

As Brother Benjamin had supplied the sleigh that carried the singers to their first professional engagements, so now he provided a white mare.  This two-horse team was to take them on their grand start  -  a venture, we are told, their father opposed.  The Hutchinsons gave Fourth of July entertainments in Milford and Nashua, the latter with Lyman Heath.

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The Æolian Vocalists loaded their carryall and prepared for an exciting adventure.   Inside went a bag of clothes, two fiddles, and miscellaneous singers.  The cello was strapped to the top, and a small hair trunk containing Abby's wardrobe was placed on the rack.  They sent their concert bills ahead, at times by mail and at other times through the help of friends.

Members of the quartet made it their practice to sing a stirring melody from their carriage as they entered a town.  Villagers, curious as to what the singing was about, would come out of doors; and the music lovers among them would get a free sample of what to expect from an Æolian Vocalists performance.

The group gave concerts at Washington Hall in Concord, and again N. P. Rogers praised them.  Noting the addition of Sister Abby, he said that she was  "apparently quite young,"  but  "showed by her powers and skill that she was a legitimate member of this extraordinary and gifted family."

At Hanover, faculty and senior students of Dartmouth College patronized the Æolian Vocalists; but no women attended their first concert,  "somewhat to the embarrassment of the lady vocalist."  Professional musicians, like actors, generally had a reputation for being less than respectable.  Perhaps this was one reason why females shied away from the first Hanover entertainment.  After that, word-of-mouth advertising may have helped our singers' cause, for on the second evening, women came out in substantial numbers.

Next, the quartet crossed into Vermont, where frequent high tolls on the roads took a heavy toll on their common purse.  In the early days, to save money that would normally go toward hotel or boarding expenses, members of the group would take turns sleeping in the carryall.

By this time group members were keeping a journal.   From one of Brother Asa's early entries, it is known that they were quite interested in Samuel Thomson's program of botanic medicine.   A more important and enduring part of the Hutchinsons' approach to good health was a program of vigorous daily exercise.

On the road from Woodstock to Rutland, tensions among the brothers ran high.   The cause may have been the group's shaky finances, plus the long hours spent together in close quarters.  According to Asa's July 23 journal entry, before reaching the road's crest three of them got into a scuffle.  Judson's wristband was torn off.  Asa's coat was ripped and one of his knuckles was bruised.  Abby, who is normally described as gentle, became involved in the altercation, for Asa tells us that one of her fingers was numbed.  Only John escaped unharmed.

By the time the Æolians reached Whitehall, New York, a new song,  "The Snow Storm,"  had entered the group's repertoire.  The lyrics, which they knew from one of their school readers, tell the story of Harrison and Lucy Blake and their daughter Rebecca, who was a little over a year old.

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On December 19, 1821, the Blakes left Salem, New York, for a visit to family and friends in Marlboro, Vermont.  Crossing the Green Mountains, they found deeper snow than expected.  After proceeding with much difficulty, the horse simply stopped.  It was then nighttime.  The Blakes freed their horse from the sleigh and tried to keep moving, mother and child on horseback and father on foot.  Harrison went ahead for help.  The next day, a man found him in the snow.  When he was brought indoors  -  and to his senses  -  he said that his wife and child were still on the mountain.  Almost immediately after help arrived, Lucy Blake died.  "'O God!'  she cried, in accents wild,  'If I must perish, save my child,'"  says the song.  The baby was in the snow some distance away, wrapped in a great coat and blanket  -  unharmed, except for one toe.  The baby looked at her rescuer and smiled.

Journalist Seba Smith told this story in verses that were published in Ohio's Medina Whig; and Lyman Heath gave it a spare musical setting.  Like several other Hutchinson Family songs, it entered oral tradition, and survives today as the folk song,  "The Stratton Mountain Tragedy."

Concerts in Whitehall were financially unsuccessful.   From there, the group toured through Glens Falls, Sandy Hill, and on to Saratoga Springs.  They had about thirty-four dollars in cash  -  down to where it could do little more than cover the weekly board for the singers and their horses.  Leaving Saratoga Springs,  "low alike in pocket and in spirits, a stranger informed them that their horse had broken into his field and, not having the fear of the law before his eyes, had committed sundry and divers damages to the amount of four shillings and sixpence, which he demanded and they paid."

The group went to Ballston Spa and then Schenectady, where they found many bills advertising the Rainers' concert  -  but none announcing their own.  With the help of a friend, they got up a free entertainment and sent a crier around to promote it.  At the end of the show, a collection was taken to benefit our struggling musicians.   "[T]he sum of three dollars was collected,"  said John,  "but on examination we found one of the bills was counterfeit."  Next morning, they used these proceeds to settle their hotel bill; then they traveled to Albany and took quarters at the old Delavan House.  They arranged with Benjamin F. Briare for concerts at his ballroom in Knickerbacker Hall.

In Albany, the singers enjoyed little success.   "Poor as the devil,"  said Judson.  "Growing no richer very fast."  On the 13th, John recorded that the group had thirty-three dollars.  The next day, evidently after paying their board, Judson wrote that the group had just forty-two cents!

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Still singing to small audiences, their finances were on the brink of disaster.   Why, then, didn't they raise the white flag of surrender over their carryall and make the sad journey home?

One change,  at this time,  involved engaging a business agent,  in the person of their uncle,  Nathaniel K. Leavitt.

The  Albany  Microscope  of  August  20  said:

In fact, many Americans did seem to expect little from native talent.   Early in their experience, the Hutchinsons may have been held back, too, by a lack of the formal training that one could receive in a European music academy.  In any event, the quartet was still in the puzzling position of pleasing their audiences while going broke.  John  -  of all people  -  wrote:

This  friend  was  Luke  F.  Newland.

"When the storms of adversity lowered over their young prospects":   Joshua Hutchinson, A Brief Narrative of the Hutchinson Family (Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1874), 44.

"One change, at this time, involved engaging a business agent":   Asa B. Hutchinson, August 13 and August 15, 1842, in Cockrell (1989, 60-61, 63-64).

"We  seriously  contemplated  disbandment":   John W. Hutchinson (1896, 1:60).

Wilson Ludlow Scott   was a descendant of Sister Rhoda.   He took a real interest in the Hutchinson Family biography, Singin' Yankees, by Philip D. Jordan.  One passage he liked to quote is apropos to this part of the story.  It goes like this:

See Philip D. Jordan, Singin' Yankees (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1946), vii-viii.  The five, of course, refers to Jesse, Judson, John, Asa, and Abby.   I would make the number six, adding Joshua to the list.  He was far too important to take a back seat.  We would not be enjoying the Hutchinson Family story together if not for Joshua, the engine that got this train rolling.