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Early in January 1879, John's group made its San Francisco debut at the Metropolitan Temple.   "The harmony of voices,"  said pastor I. S. Kalloch,   "is wonderful; the rendering of every tone is faultless."  The Hutchinsons got off to a fast start, giving many concerts at different churches around the city and in Oakland.  They sang to good houses and were praised by the press.  When they entertained in San Jose, one newspaper advised,  "Don't miss this the greatest treat of the season.  Go early if you would have good seats."  John said his family gave fifty concerts in San Francisco in three months.

On the 10th of March, John started his band moving south.   He announced that they would return in April for a limited number of engagements.  On March 22, they gave their first concert at Santa Barbara to a large, fashionable audience.  "The singing,"  said the Advertiser,  "was different to anything that has ever been heard here.  There was nothing florid about it; it was pure, simple melody, the harmonies being so perfect that there seemed to be nothing left to wish for, except that they could abide with us."  The same paper gave Lillie a puff over her performance on Sunday.  "Her voice is full of sympathy and sweetness, and one to which her audience could have listened for hours without feeling weary."

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Late in March, John's group sang at Los Angeles.   Then they went to San Diego for a show on April 3.   A journalist recalled, as a boy, hearing about the family from his elders.  "Last evening we heard those old songs, sung by the Hutchinsons in San Diego, and we can now well understand why they linger in the memory through long years.  These are voices from the heart to the heart.  Their singing is natural, true and pure."

The News,  speaking of John, said,  "For a man of his age, he has the best command of his voice, and the most voice, of anyone we have ever met with."  "Miss Lillie,"  said the San Diego Union,  "has a clear, mezzo soprano voice, very sweet and full, and her enunciation is simply perfect.  Her ballads are really charming, sung with pure intonation and every word as distinct as though rendered by a professional elocutionist.  Her voice also shows good cultivation, and in the 'Flower song' from Faust, was as flexible and yet as true to the score as the severest critic could desire."

John's company gave four or five successful concerts in San Diego to enthusiastic audiences.  "We will venture,"  said the News,  "that when the family leave us that their report of our town and its people will be complimentary to us."  And it proved true.  The Hutchinsons loved San Diego.  They left town, with sincere regrets, by the evening steamer on April 8.  The next day, John's group was singing again in Los Angeles.

By May, John's company was back in San Francisco for a brief stay before visiting the Yosemite Valley and making a tour to Canada.  None of the many available notices up to this point mention that Lillie was singing for two.  Yet, on Saturday, June 7, 1879, Henry John Hutchinson  -  fondly known as Jack  -  was born to Henry and Lillie at Leidig's Hotel in Yosemite Valley.  "Here we stayed many weeks,"  said John,  "enjoying with all travelling America, the magnificent scenery and making ourselves happy with hundreds of the tourists there gathered."

On the 26th, they left San Francisco on the George W. Elder for the Pacific Northwest.  Their agent thoroughly advertised them, and they were welcomed by good houses.  "We have waited here one fortnight for our steamer,"  wrote Abby,  "and just as your agent will arrive and announce that you are coming, off we go to Sitka.  It would not do to have so many distinguished people at once in town."  John's family traveled through Seattle to Victoria, British Columbia, just missing the Pattons.

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John's company gave concerts all along the way.   They returned to Portland around the same time as the Pattons.  Abby and Ludlow were full of enthusiasm for Alaska; and they gave glowing descriptions, reporting that  "they had seen more real beauty on this trip than ever before."

Back in San Francisco all this time, Rev. I. S. Kalloch was the Working Men's Party candidate for mayor.  During the heat of the campaign, Kalloch was shot by Charles de Young, founder and principal proprietor of the San Francisco Chronicle.

On their way to San Francisco, John's family crossed the mountains in a four-horse stagecoach that set new standards for lack of comfort.  At Redding,  wrote John,  "we rejoiced at our release from that style of travelling."  They sang at various stops and were back in San Francisco on September 21.  The weather was oppressively hot; and many of their would-be auditors were away, trying to keep cool at various seacoast resorts.  The heat didn't harm their prospects as much as seemed likely, though, for they sang in San Francisco, Sacramento, and nearby communities; and John reported good success.  On October 18, John's company appeared in a benefit for woman suffrage, raising their voices to the top of the wall at Dashaway, Dashaway, Dashaway Hall.  On October 27, they sang their farewell to the people of San Francisco.  The following evening they gave their closing concert in Sacramento.

Heading east, John's family gave return concerts in many of the cities and towns they had visited before.  On November 15, they reached Des Moines, Iowa, ending this marvelous tour.  Henry, Lillie, and Jack stayed there while John and Fanny went to Lynn.  Henry formed a quartet which performed in and around the city.  Also he and Lillie appeared as the characters Boaz and Ruth in the dramatic cantata, "Ruth, the Moabitess."  It featured "[e]legant oriental costumes direct from Boston, prepared solely for Ruth, and presented in this city for the first time."

A Mr. Gay had been resurveying Asa's portion of the High Rock land.   He discovered that when Alonzo Lewis originally divided the property, he left a strip several feet wide, running through the middle, which he assigned to neither John nor Asa.

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After tending to business in Lynn, John and Fanny were ready to go back to singing in the West; and by January 8, 1880, they were in Des Moines.  Over the next few weeks, John's family sang in Iowa and Illinois.  The January 22 issue of the Bedford (Iowa) Argus called their concerts  "by far the best musical entertainment ever given in our city."  Lillie's performances of "Let Me Dream Again," "My Trundle Bed," and the "Flower Song" from Faust were  "faultless and . . . deserving of especial praise.  With a soprano voice of finest culture, the most difficult passages in these songs were rendered without any apparent effort, and her notes came forth in sweet and rippling cadences, again modulating to tones so soft, yet so distinct, they seemed like threads of fine-spun silver long drawn out."

Viola and Lewis did not want to be left out of the family's general westward trend.   On March 8, John and Fanny got word that the Campbells planned to move immediately to New Mexico.

Asa was back at Leadville late in February, while Dennett was clearly in charge of the vocal group.  "Father Asa B. Hutchinson,"  we are told,  "will leave for Philadelphia in a day or two.  He has been sent for by his son Mr. Dennett Hutchinson to help him out with his concerts."  On March 9, Asa met John at Marion, Iowa, and said he planned to sell his share of High Rock.  John's heart must have sunk.  Asa wanted to raise as much money as he could right away to invest in real estate and mining.  "[H]e had ordered a surveyor to make a plat of his half of the property, and had cut it up into house-lots and offered it for sale.  This was not at all in accordance with my ideas, for it spoiled the apple orchard which Jesse set out, besides disfiguring the entire estate, and spoiling the original design, which had thus far been treated as a whole.   I considered the situation with all the judgment I possessed, and finally concluded to buy the lots when the sale occurred."

On April 19, Asa was in Lynn to show his property to potential buyers.  John arrived on the 22nd.  He rounded up a small trunk full of securities, and went home to Daisy Cottage.

John said that, initially, Asa tried to sell his stake in High Rock for $11,000.   Not much later  -  in March, at Marion  -  he offered to sell it to John for $17,000.   Now he was asking $20,000.   John hoped to buy the property  -  before the asking price went up again  -  with the plan to sell the summit, and an approach from Essex Street, to parties who would present it to the city for use as a park.  He paid cash for Asa's half of Stone and Bird's Nest cottages and the family's land on High Rock; but then the sale of the summit fell through.  "The failure of the park purchase made it necessary to sacrifice some valuable railroad and other stocks, and of course my taxes immediately doubled.  It was several years before houses enough were erected upon it to make it profitable; but I saved the apple orchard, which is still as Jesse left it, forming a semi-park, around which are several dwellings, including my own."

Affairs at High Rock had derailed a very promising tour.   Now John's desire to make his High Rock land profitable, by building rental properties, tied him to Lynn like never before.