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John's group gave a few concerts from December into early 1885.   "Mrs. Hutchinson and her little boys,"  said one paper,  "won rounds of applause. . . .   Although little Jack, a boy of five years of age, showed great natural ability and skill, yet it remained for Richard, a little tot of three summers . . . to more than astonish his hearers.  No one can conceive of the marvellous voice possessed by that child and his ability to carry a tune to its close, until he has heard him sing.  We never heard such singing by one so young."

In August, John visited the Pattons, for they were about to leave on a trip to Idaho.   Just a few months earlier, the Boston Evening Transcript marveled at how lightly time had touched Abby  -  she "retains in middle life all the charm of manner and the attractiveness which marked her golden youth."

John and his family spent much of September singing for temperance,  including two days of mass meetings in Philadelphia.

That year,  "boy hoodlums"  ran all over the Hutchinson property, disturbed a series of Sunday open-air concerts, and raided the apple orchard.  "The nuisance,"  said John,  "finally became so great that my janitor was appointed a special policeman.  That solved the difficulty and the trouble ceased."

Around this time, the Campbells moved from New Mexico back to Massachusetts to be near Fanny, whose health was not good.  On November 26, John's family, including all his descendants, gathered for a Thanksgiving Day celebration at Daisy Cottage.

In November,  John gave several concerts with Lillie  -  then his most frequent singing partner;  and in December his company filled engagements in New Hampshire.

"On May 31st [ 1886 ],"  said John,  "Lillie and her boys left for the West, going to her old home in Chicago. . . .   I let them go with my blessing, but my heart went after them, and during the years that have passed since I have lost no opportunity of seeing them in whatever part of the land they happened to be."

John was anxious about Fanny.   "During 1886 my wife's health became alarming.   Consumption had fastened upon her, and it was evident that she could not hope for permanent recovery.  Yet, as is so often the case, she kept about most of the time, visited friends and received their visits, and hoped for the best."

On June 14, John left for Minnesota on business.   Stopping in Chicago, he visited Lillie's home and played with her boys.  Lillie came to Hutchinson on probate matters connected with Henry's land, and there was no way John was going to miss the opportunity to lure her into a concert or two.  "The lady,"  said the Glencoe Register,  "possesses a voice, the equal of which is seldom heard anywhere off of the highest operatic stage."

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Back in Massachusetts,  Viola reported that her mother's health seemed to improve.  Then,  "for various reasons,"  the Campbells thought it best to move to Boston.

On November 29, Daniel McKeever was reading the New York Times.   Glancing at the wedding announcements, he noticed that his son had gotten married.   Oh?   Later that day, the Times received a note saying, "In reference to the announcement of the marriage of McKeever and Loveridge . . . I beg to say that steps have already been taken to annul the marriage on proper legal grounds."

Earlier that year, the Pattons summered, as usual, at the Hutchinsons' North River Road homestead in Milford.  Marietta Loveridge and her family also were there.

Marietta Caroline Bartlett was Sister Rhoda's daughter from her first marriage, to Isaac A. Bartlett.  Isaac died when Marietta was but an infant, and Jesse Hutchinson, Sr., became her guardian.  Jesse Sr. died seven years later.  After that, records pertaining to Marietta appear to be scarce.  In 1860, the United States Census recorded her at Orramel Whittlesey's Music Vale seminary in Salem, Connecticut: the first school in the United States dedicated to the subject of music.  Marietta may have been training to be a music teacher.

Marietta Bartlett, in 1866, married New York banker Henry Loveridge, a native of England.  Marietta and Henry Loveridge had just one daughter, Marion.  By this time, the Loveridges, McKeevers, and Pattons were all neighbors in Orange, New Jersey, and Henry Loveridge had become president of the Maryland Coal Company.

Young  William D. McKeever  was a guest of the Loveridges at the homestead for a couple weeks in the summer of 1886.

Back in Orange, McKeever continued seeing Marion Loveridge.  In November, according to Rev. Theodore C. Williams of New York's All Souls' Church,  "A lady of high standing in this city called upon me on the morning of the 22d, and made arrangements for me to marry the young couple in the evening at my house.   I agreed to do so.  Such marriages are by no means rare."  Marion asked McKeever to come to the Pattons' home around 6 PM.   His accounts of this story could hardly be called consistent; but a passage from the same article seems to have a ring of truth.  "When I got there, instead of being shown into the parlor and meeting Marion, as I expected, I was directed to another room and confronted by Dr. Howe.  He charged me with having got Marion in trouble. . . . "

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"At 7 o'clock Mr. McKeever and Miss Loveridge appeared,"  said Rev. Williams,  "accompanied by the girl's mother, the lady who had called upon me in the morning, and a gentleman. . . .   I made the couple man and wife, and as they were both of age, no one can question the marriage."

"There were several rumors afloat about the case yesterday,"  said the Times.  "As to one that Mr. McKeever intended to bring damage suits against Dr. Howe, Mrs. Patton, and others who figured in the hasty ceremony, the talk . . . may crystallize soon, judging from what is said by the plaintiff's lawyers.  It was further rumored that when Mr. McKeever had shown his whole hand the other side would begin counter-suits for damages."  "The fight,"  said a follow-up story,  "is expected to hinge upon the meeting held just prior to the ceremony in the house [ at ] No. 33 West Sixteenth-street.  Young McKeever alleges that he was entrapped there by a note from Miss Loveridge, and that Dr. Joseph H. Howe . . . threatened to shoot him or send him to State prison if he did not consent to a marriage without unnecessary delay.  At this interview were at least four persons, while the ceremony was witnessed by the same number, not including the minister and contracting parties.  It is their unanimous testimony that there was no coercion, duress, or fraud."

On December 22, McKeever left work and went to see Douglas Campbell, attorney for the Loveridge and Patton families.  The essence of their conversation was that McKeever professed his love for Marion and proposed that they live together as husband and wife.  Campbell presented the matter to Marion and her mother; her father was away on business.  Marion received the news very well.  Campbell got back to McKeever the next day, saying he would like to talk with Henry Loveridge before he considered the matter resolved.  But that evening, the couple sent their parents a message, saying,  "As we have tried our best to please you all by living away from each other, we have at last decided to please ourselves by living together."

Evidently by 1886, the long-standing dispute over ownership of a parcel of land near the summit of High Rock was settled.  John made a curious reference to  "the court's decision that the deed given to Brother Jesse was only a life-lease, though Jesse had purchased and paid for the land in good faith. . . ."   On New Years Eve at the Lynn Assembly, James N. Buffum referred to himself as the owner of High Rock.  "This made my blood boil,"  said John,  "and at the close of his speech I took the floor and reminded the audience that it was the Hutchinson family which had for years owned the rock and kept it open to the public."

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When Lillie moved back to Chicago she may have thought her touring days were over; but then on October 12, 1886, she married Rev. Robert Henry Morgan, a traveling evangelist.  The Reverend, who was commonly called Henry Morgan, was once a sea captain before becoming a member of the clergy, having sailed the ocean about eight times.  One of his longest ministries is said to have been in Australia.  Evidently in recent years Rev. Morgan was the pastor at Chicago's Millard Avenue Baptist Church, Lillie's home church and the one that lately employed her as a singer.  Lillie and Henry met, fell in love, and married.

Rev. Morgan, at some point, went home to Wales to attend a conference where the main line of talk was that you don't reach souls in big churches, you have to preach in the streets.  And he was converted.  It must have been around the time he married Lillie that Rev. Morgan began an eight or nine year traveling evangelical campaign.  Fortunately for Lillie, her experience as a touring Hutchinson Family concert singer prepared her for this nomadic life.

John, on one of two trips to Hutchinson in 1887, went looking for Lillie in Chicago.   He quickly learned that she was in Minneapolis.  He met her and they went to Hutchinson together.  After John got the foundations started for two houses on Park Place, he went home.  On his way, he looked up the Morgans in Springfield, Wisconsin, giving a concert with Lillie and her boys.  They parted at Chicago.

As work on Tower Cottage started, Fanny involved herself in the process  -  though she had been quite ill for several years.  She kept busy, said John,  "selecting the plans, specifying the style of finish, and arranging for the furnishing."

On February 2, 1888, John spoke and sang at a woman suffrage gathering at Boston's Horticultural Hall.  Julia Ward Howe was among the participants.  John liked to change one word in Howe's "Battle Hymn of the Republic."  He would sing,  "As he died to make men holy let us live to make men free."  His granddaughter, Kate Campbell, remembered once hearing them argue over it.  Howe turned to the little girl and asked,  "Katie, will you sing it as I wrote it?"   "Yes," answered Kate, with a smile.

John wrote in his diary,  "Wife has had a hard week; thinks she must go."   Fanny had been suffering from consumption since well before Henry died, with symptoms that were sometimes better, sometimes worse.  "On the 28th of February,"  said John,  "we moved into Tower Cottage.  Fanny was at this time so weak that I took her in my arms from Daisy Cottage to the new home."

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John went to Washington for the fortieth anniversary of the Seneca Falls woman's rights meeting.  Then his return to Lynn in April was delayed by illness.  When he got home, he found Fanny's health was much worse.  The immediate family took care of her; and Jerusha, Brother Judson's widow, came down from Milford to help.  In her later years, Jerusha gave generously of herself, visiting neighbors and loved ones in times of trouble, and nursing them during illnesses.

On Friday, May 4, 1888, Fanny Hutchinson died at Lynn.  In her last moments, the family sang to her "The Sweet By and By" and "The Shining Shore."  Her passing was peaceful.  "One of her parting requests,"  said John,  "was that the inscription on her gravestone should be 'She hath done what she could.'"

On Sunday, September 16, 1888, Joshua's widow Irene died of consumption.  The Farmers' Cabinet said,  "She bore her long sickness with great patience and fortitude."  Her death was followed just a few months later by the loss of Judson's widow.  Jerusha died on Friday, December 28, 1888.  "In 1870,"  said the Farmers' Cabinet,  "she became the wife of  Dr. S. S. Stickney,  with whom her life was happily passed until his decease, July 10, 1878.  Since that date her life has been spent in the home of Mrs. Dearborn, which has been made glad by her presence. . . . "

Out West on January 10, 1889, Sister Abby sang with Lillie Morgan and her boys in San Francisco at the Y.M.C.A.   Evidently Lillie's trio began performing on the Pacific Coast during the 1887-1888 season and was active in the West until at least 1892.  Lillie, Jack, and Richard toured with Rev. Morgan  -  they singing, he preaching.  They performed in churches, in public halls, and out of doors including on town and city streets.  Lillie played a portable organ, Jack played a cornet, and all three sang.  Probably they appeared often under Rev. Morgan's name; and it seems the music group, itself, was simply called the Hutchinson Family.  They toured through every part of the United States and were among the longest-running of the family's many ensembles.

Lillie and Rev. Morgan also had a family of their own.   The most readily available news articles make no mention of their children being part of the vocal group.   But according to Morgan family accounts, the Morgans' sons, Bob and Albert, did sing with Lillie and the Hutchinson boys until the Morgans were old enough to say  "No."

Returning to the Pattons, around this time, a writer heard Abby and Ludlow sing at a hotel in Santa Fé.   "It is no exaggeration,"  she reported,  "to say that, although nearly sixty, she still retained the engaging manner and spiritual beauty of her youth, and that her voice had lost none of its rich melody."

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In February, John went to Washington for the inauguration of Benjamin Harrison.   He stayed at the home of Frederick Douglass; and, as Douglass' guest, John attended the new president's first reception.  During this stay, or not much later, they took part in a civil rights meeting at the African-American church on L Street, John singing and Douglass speaking.

In 1889, Nationalist Clubs were organized in many American cities, inspired by the success of Edward Bellamy's utopian book, Looking Backward.  John immediately joined the Lynn club, and he remained with this movement as long as it lasted.

In September, John, Abby, and Ludlow went with S. T. Pickard to see John G. Whittier in Danvers.   "As we rode up to the house,"  said John,  "we could see the straight figure of the aged poet, clad in his light coat and Quaker hat, among the shrubbery.  He was viewing the autumn foliage, and presented a picture indeed.  As we approached, he cautiously turned, and glanced in our direction.  Recognizing us, he hastened to the carriage, helped Abby out, and gallantly escorted her into the house.   A wood fire was burning on the hearth, making an agreeable impression of homelikeness as we came in from the chilly September air."  Family members asked the visitors to sing.  Oddly, the poet had never heard the Hutchinsons sing "The Furnace Blast."  When they finished, Whittier remarked,  "Well, if thee sang that song to the soldiers and pro-slavery generals with the unction and spirit that thee has just sung it, I do not wonder that thee had thy expulsion."

Concert-goers were hearing much less of the Hutchinsons these days.   The only opportunity most Americans had to hear them was being provided by Lillie and her boys in the West.  This general absence, which is said to make the heart grow fonder, may have caused the wave of nostalgia for the Hutchinson Family that was apparent in much of the country for close to a decade.

Many articles about the singers were published in popular newspapers and magazines.  Then, too, there was a show involving impersonations of the Hutchinson brothers, performed at Providence on November 12, 1889.   A reporter for the Providence Journal interviewed Samuel B. Spinning, the former Tribe of John bass singer; and the article that followed was reprinted in newspapers from New England to the Midwest, and perhaps beyond.  "The whole history of the once-celebrated Hutchinson family of vocalists came up before me afresh, their travels and immense success. . . .   No quartet in the world was ever so popular as that consisting of the original Hutchinson brothers.  Like no other vocalists that ever appeared in public, they could sing enthusiasm right into an audience."

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A couple weeks later, disaster struck in Lynn.   "On November 26th,"  recalled John,  "Lynn's great fire occurred, nearly the entire manufacturing district being destroyed . . . and many families being rendered homeless.  The burned district was directly in front of my house, and the view of the conflagration from the summit of High Rock was simply magnificent, especially after the darkness had come on.  It was an immense smoking, seething, blazing mass of fire, the smoke streaming miles out to sea, a veritable pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night."

"On the 19th of December,"  said John,  "the Nationalists held their first anniversary in Tremont Temple, Boston.  Edward Bellamy, the author of 'Looking Backward,' was present and spoke.   I sang the  'People's Advent,'  creating a great furore."

On February 15, 1890,  John was in Washington for Susan B. Anthony's seventieth birthday celebration.

The Hutchinsons had a few friends who rivaled them for eccentricity.   One was George W. Putnam, who was their business agent for a while in the 1850s.  Putnam was quite concerned about his attire, and at times he would select a Harlequin's hat for just the right look.  He wrote often for The Liberator, though John called him a "free-soiler."  The Hutchinsons sang his songs, "Ridden by the Slave Power" and "Wax Works."  Putnam was Charles Dickens' personal secretary during his 1842 American tour.  Years later, he was an agent for Gerrit Smith.  Putnam invented a type of canvas chute for use as a school fire escape.  In the summer of 1890, he attached one of his chutes to a window of John's house, Tower Cottage, running it down into Highland Square and giving demonstrations.

By this time, John had resumed work on the Hutchinson Family history.   In November, he went to New York, where he spent many days looking over the manuscript.  Abby had been setting down some of her own recollections.  Probably John browsed through Ludlow's scrapbook, refreshing his memory about one event or another, and copying passages that he might want to quote.

John planned a seventieth-birthday party for January 5, 1891.   The day turned stormy, and many who wished to attend had to stay home.  Guests began arriving at 4 PM; and a few stragglers were still turning up late in the evening.  John and Abby greeted friends and family in the parlor as they came.  "One of the odd occurrences,"  we are told,  "was the occasional inquiry for 'Sister Abby' by some one who failed to recognize the charming and youthful singer of long ago in the small, gray-haired and piquant lady with whom he was at that moment conversing."

Charles E. Mann wrote a detailed account of this event, with an interesting sketch of Abby.  "A quick, nervous, care-taking woman, she would not sit, but stood by the organ, pressing the keys as she sung, and occasionally raising one hand to mark the time or gesticulate."   "[S]he was everywhere present,"  added John,  "seeing just who ought to put in a word here, and what song should be sung there.  She was the life of the occasion."

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Those in attendance were a fascinating group.   Theodore D. Weld was there  -  one of the few remaining early abolitionists.  Hutchinson family friends George A. and Charlotte J. Thomas came down from Portland.  Rev. Jesse H. Jones of Abington was in attendance; and author and social reformer Abby Morton Diaz was not to be kept away by a winter storm.  Charles P. Birney was there.  Charles O. Beede also came.  After James N. Buffum died, it was Beede who purchased his property on High Rock, including, by all appearances, the parcel of long-disputed ownership.

Judson's grandsons  -  the Dearborn Quartet  -  sang a greeting song, and Master of Ceremonies Charles E. Mann called the company to order at 7:30.  The first speaker was Theodore Weld.  By reputation, Weld was remarkable  -  even excessive  -  in his modesty about his activities in the cause of abolition.  Thus, it must have delighted the company when, at Abby's suggestion, he reminisced about his experiences in the antislavery agitation.

Rev. S. F. Smith  was in Chicago at the time and invoked geography as his reason for failing to appear.  After his letter of regret was read, the company sang his famous song,  "America" ("My country 'tis of thee").

Late in the evening, Brother Noah's son Lucius gave what was said to be a ringing speech.   We may judge that John and company had a wonderful time, for the party did not break up at the appointed hour.  When it finally ended, the singers gathered at the organ and sang  "Old High Rock."

A few days after his birthday party, John got back to work on his book.   He discovered that hundreds of manuscript pages were missing.  He spent much of 1891 reproducing his earlier work.