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The problematic health of Judson W. Hutchinson rarely allowed him to take center stage; but on February 17, 1883, he did just that.  "There was never a jollier party,"  said one report,  "than that assembled at the residence of John W. Hutchinson, at High Rock, on Saturday evening, Feb. 17, the occasion being the 21st birthday of his son Judson Whittier. . . . "   The evening began, like so many, with "The Cot Where We Were Born."  Then Judson entertained, playing a fife.  Lillie was said to preside at the Chickering piano; and apparently she and Henry did most of the singing.  The evening ended with the younger folks dancing to Judson's fiddle playing.

John's concert company  -  including Fanny, Henry, and Lillie  -  remained intact, he appeared before the public from time to time, and his temperance work went on as always.

Improvements at High Rock kept John and Henry busy in 1883.   More money than expected was invested in the property, and John was determined to make it turn a profit.   A cottage was finished; and work began on Terrace Lodge, a three story, 90-by-35 foot tenement.  Henry was in charge of the construction.  Around this time, Richard D. Hutchinson was born to Henry and Lillie.

On July 9, John started west to see Viola.   Henry's health was poor, and John thought this trip would do him good.  He may have been right.  But Henry wanted to stay home, and he did.  John arrived at Santa Fé on the 15th.  By an amazing coincidence, he got there during the great Tertio-Millennial Exposition, which he visited enthusiastically and enjoyed to the fullest.  He started for Lynn August 16 and took Viola and her daughter Kate with him.  The three gave a couple concerts along the way.

On the 29th, the day after they reached Hutchinson, John, Viola, and Kate joined Asa and family in singing to an outdoor gathering.  That summer, Asa had been involved in a serious accident in which he received a hard blow to his head.  John may have steered his party's way home through Hutchinson to provide for a visit to his ailing brother.  A concert followed, not much later, at the Vineyard Church.  On October 4, John, Asa, Viola, and Abby Anderson entertained in Brownton.  John started again for Lynn on October 25.  He wrote that he felt great concern for his niece Abby's health.

John found many engagements awaiting him.   His group was made up of himself, Viola, Henry, and Lillie.  They gave their first concert at the North Avenue Methodist-Episcopal Church.  Henry had been busy, while John was away, putting in the foundation for Terrace Lodge.  He was getting run down, and his cough was quite bad.  Fanny, too, was not well.

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On her way to Washington, Abby Anderson's health grew worse.   By the time she reached New York, it was decided that she was not well enough to go on.  She was put to bed at the Pattons' house, where she died on Saturday, January 5, 1884.   A Hutchinson, Minnesota, newspaper said  "She was all that God or mankind could demand  -  a loving daughter, a faithful, devoted wife, an affectionate, dutiful mother, and a true-hearted friend."

Though the Hutchinsons are generally thought to be self-taught or natural musicians, Abby Anderson was, in fact, a graduate of the Boston Conservatory of Music.

Asa went to High Rock and saw old friends.   Then he visited Milford.   Later in the month, he met John in New York.  With Sister Abby, they went to Washington to see many of the stirring scenes of their youthful triumphs, just forty years earlier.  It was of great personal satisfaction, of course, that the slave market was gone, and with it the peculiar institution of American slavery.

By March, Asa was in Leadville.   No doubt his visit did not go well.   Most likely it is in the context of this trip that we are told,  "Suddenly it was discovered that his health was declining, and his friends and family deemed it expedient for him to seek some other altitude.  He disappeared, and since that time has lived only in the solicitous memory of hundreds of Leadville friends who, had he remained here, were willing and ready to lift him upon the threshold of happiness."

Asa must have been filled with disappointment.   He had let an excellent concert company go, his investments had proven unwise or at least unlucky, and his marriage had broken up.  Now his daughter was gone and his own health appeared to be shaky.

Henry Hutchinson's condition grew steadily worse.   John spoke of  "nights of weary watching by his bedside.  One morning he awoke, looked at me, lying on the lounge in the room, and remarked, 'Well, father, I've got to go.'"

On Saturday, April 12, 1884, Henry died of consumption at Lynn.   Kate Dearborn had just arrived.  Years later, she recalled that "Katie" was the last word he spoke.  "He had a magnificent voice,"  she said,  "and was [a] beautiful soul."  Henry's funeral took place on the 14th.  His son Jack sang "The Sweet By and By."  Henry was interred at the Eastern Burial Ground.

Newspapers described Henry as a gifted singer, and many paid tribute to his character.   "A few years ago,"  added the New York Tribune,  "he was a handsome young man, erect and robust as an athlete.  His long yellow hair was like the mane of a lion and he seemed destined to live many years."

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"Lillie,"  said John,  "bravely took up the work of supporting her boys, continuing to sing in church, and opening a studio for piano pupils on Market Street.  She was a successful teacher as well as a fine singer, and soon became engrossed in her work."

In Hutchinson on July 10, Abby Anderson was buried.   This must have been a melancholy day for Asa.  Evidently he had not been making decisions about his future.  He was marking time, instead, with a lemonade stand; and he took out a license to sell cigars.  Articles from his Leadville days suggest that, even back then, he was spending much of his time thinking about the past.  So, that summer Asa gathered together a collection of memorabilia, placed these items in a small, vacant building on Hutchinson's Main Street, named this place  "The Old Curiosity Shop,"  and began welcoming visitors.

Asa planned an auction of farm animals for October 27.   Around then, he went to Glencoe, where he sang to a Republican gathering.  "Returning home,"  said the Glencoe Register,  "he complained of not feeling as well as usual and from that time grew rapidly worse. . . . "   About two weeks later, Asa's condition caused great alarm among his family, neighbors, and friends.

"He has been bothered and worried with petty cares,"  said Abby Patton,  "until he could no longer bear the strain.  His last letters to me showed how he had worked and worried all summer."  Dennett, too, had grave concerns about his father's health.  Joanna was sent for.  Whether Asa was feeling better or made a determined effort, on the day she arrived he got dressed-up and met her stagecoach.  According to a tradition in his family, Joanna told her husband,  "I came to bury you, not to nurse you!"  and quickly returned to Colorado.  Late in November, a physician determined that Asa should go to the psychiatric hospital at St. Peter; but a blizzard made the trip too treacherous.

On Tuesday, November 25, 1884, Asa B. Hutchinson died at Dennett's home.  According to the Glencoe Register, Asa's health had declined so quickly that, when they announced his death, most of the paper's readers had not yet even heard that he was seriously ill.

Asa had been thinking about giving concerts once again.   He had hoped to sing with John; and just weeks before he died, he was making plans to go to New Orleans to meet with freedmen there  -  evidently in connection with the New Orleans Exposition.

Asa's funeral took place on November 28.   Liberty Hall said,  "Let us think of him as we knew him at his best estate, before the clouds of disease had closed in around him and obscured his mental vision."  Asa was buried with his family at the cemetery in Hutchinson.

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"I am trying hard to be resigned, and at peace with God,"  wrote Abby Patton,  "but it is hard.  Abby in January, Henry in April, Asa in November.  You and I are alone."

"A piece of intelligence that will awaken universal sorrow,"  said the Leadville Democrat,  "reached the city this morning, announcing to Mrs. J. C. Hutchinson, proprietress of the Clarendon hotel, the death of her venerable husband, Asa B., in Hutchinson, Minnesota.  The message was very brief, and was unaccompanied by a single detail."

Asa had a $10,000 life insurance policy.  The value of his remaining Colorado investments was not mentioned at the time of his death.  It took some time for his estate to be settled.

A few of Asa's songs, such as  "Hannah's at the Window Binding Shoes"  and  "The Creed of the Bells,"  outlived him by years, even decades.  His association with  "The Battle Cry of Freedom"  and  "Tenting on the Old Camp Ground"  -  songs that he did much to popularize  -  helped keep his memory alive all these years.

"Whether in a quartette or a full chorus,"  said Joshua,  "his voice, aided by his violoncello, or otherwise, was positive and reliable, never allowed to betray the other parts; a rare gift to be most earnestly coveted. . . .   He loved the profession, not only as a means of pecuniary profit, but for the higher development of intellectual culture, and as a powerful auxiliary to devotion, thus imparting the greatest good to man."

Joanna showed talent for the hospitality business when she operated Hutchinson House.   On September 15, 1884, when the Clarendon Hotel reopened, Joanna was in a management position.  This arrangement did not work out, at least not to Joanna's total satisfaction; and the following June she signed a lease for the new Tabor Grand Hotel, amid predictions of certain success.  The grand opening took place on July 16.

On September 15, 1885, Joanna married George W. Bittinger.  He had formerly been in the wholesale fruit business, but that enterprise was totally destroyed by the great Chicago fire of October 1871.  Bittinger's marriage to Joanna took place just a day after one Lizzie Kline sued him for breach of promise to marry.  Later, news reports suggest that Kline was pregnant and that Bittinger was said to be the baby's father.  Yet at the time, he seemed to be riding high financially; and lavish praise was heaped upon the Bittingers in the press.

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Matters went well for the newlyweds over the next few months; but by June 1886, the hotel directors dismissed them.  It became quickly apparent that Joanna and her husband had run up considerable debts during their brief tenure at the hotel.  And George Bittinger seemed to think he might be able to escape paying those debts.  He was swiftly charged with embezzlement, while both he and Joanna were charged with conspiracy to defraud.  By one account, Joanna said she would not even think of leaving town before she paid a certain employee the substantial sum she owed her.  Three days later, Joanna slipped away in the dark of night, having paid the employee nothing.  Thus, on the morning of June 24, Joanna was arrested  -  to ensure that she would appear at a hearing the following morning on the conspiracy charges.

Local newspapers had stopped praising the Bittingers.   They were reporting, instead, that members of the community were unanimous in their feelings of indignation.

It would appear that the seriousness of the charges against the Bittingers got their attention fast.  They made full payments to some of their creditors and numerous partial payments.  The embezzlement and conspiracy-to-defraud charges were eventually dropped.  Earlier, George Bittinger had retaliated with damage suits; but in time these, too, were dropped.  Finally, the couple left town, though they had not fully repaid their debts.

A small clipping appears in Ludlow Patton's scrapbook, reporting the results of various cases in United States District Court.  It reads as follows: "In the case of O. D. Hutchinson against Joanna Hutchinson a verdict for $3,804 in favor of the plaintiff has been returned."  This judgment against Joanna probably gave Dennett tremendous satisfaction.