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Story of the Hutchinsons,  Vol. 1:   Preface,  pp. iii-iv.

At the request of the famous singer whose autobiography is contained within the leaves of this volume, the far from difficult task of writing the preface devolves upon me. The book is the result of our joint labors for many pleasant months. No apology is needed for its appearance. For nearly two decades the friends of reform and lovers of music of two continents  -  in the great centres of the British Isles, the leading cities and towns of the North and West, in the villages of New England, the hamlets of the West and Northwest, the cabins of emancipated blacks in the South  -  from the Atlantic to the Pacific  -  have been begging for the memorial narrative of the Hutchinsons.

For obvious reasons it has been deemed best that Brother John should tell his own story, and usually in his own way. To him it was given, more than any other member of the famous family, to be a participant in, or an eye-witness of, the scenes which have become indissolubly connected with the family name. The other tribes, after the "swarming," did good service in the concert-field, and never faltered in the work of upholding reform, but it was the "Tribe of John" that sang in the camps; that preached woman suffrage in the wonderful campaigns in Kansas and elsewhere; that talked and sung temperance in conventions in the North, South and West; and John, as the last of the "Tribe of Jesse," has

"The book is the result of our joint labors":   John W. Hutchinson began work on the Hutchinson Family memorial that eventually became Story of the Hutchinsons in the early 1870s. Two decades later, he had little to show for his efforts, after hundreds of pages of manuscript were somehow lost. Worse yet, he had been working on this project with Sister Abby; but she died in 1892, making many of her contributions irrecoverable. This was followed by some turmoil in John's branch of the Hutchinson Family. It wasn't until 1894 at the earliest and quite possibly 1895 that John started work with Charles E. Mann on what would become the final draft of this classic memoir of the music world, Story of the Hutchinsons.  Charles Mann's newspaper, the Lynn Daily Press, stopped publishing on or not long after January 26, 1895. My best guess, then, is that it was around this time that Mann started working with John on his book.

"For obvious reasons it has been deemed best":   In this Preface, Charles Mann wrote, "For obvious reasons it has been deemed best that Brother John should tell his own story, and usually in his own way."  "A single sentence has often been all necessary to produce a flow of eloquent reminiscence from the historian, which, taken down from his lips, has resulted in pages of manuscript in the exact language, emphasized by the sensitiveness to odd situations, the irrepressible Yankee wit, or the pathetic sorrow of the last survivor of the Hutchinsons. Page after page has poured from his lips, while his eyes danced with that characteristic brightness and his mobile face glowed with that expression which has made him irresistibly attractive to his audiences for nearly six decades."  Since John W. Hutchinson and Charles E. Mann produced the great majority of the main text of Story of the Hutchinsons together, the passages I have quoted in this note are a good part of the most authoritative account we have of how John told this tale. Yet his daughter Viola, unlike anyone else I can think of, couldn't bring herself to say that her father wrote this work. Instead, in her own memoir, she said that John "caused to be written" Story of the Hutchinsons. [Viola Hutchinson Campbell, Memories of a Busy Life (Plymouth, Mass.: privately printed [The Rogers Print], 1926), 5.]  That unfortunate choice of words is as petty as it is sad.

Page iv

stood by the biers of nearly all the eminent reformers with whom the family has been associated, and sung his requiem over the graves of all the members of his gifted family. On taking up the work with him I found the manuscript of the first two chapters and of the two foreign chapters written, and only needing editorial revision. We immediately began the work of reading diaries and correspondence and putting in narrative form the stories as told there. Our plan has been to read the diary as the record appears from day to day. A single sentence has often been all necessary to produce a flow of eloquent reminiscence from the historian, which, taken down from his lips, has resulted in pages of manuscript in the exact language, emphasized by the sensitiveness to odd situations, the irrepressible Yankee wit, or the pathetic sorrow of the last survivor of the Hutchinsons. Page after page has poured from his lips, while his eyes danced with that characteristic brightness and his mobile face glowed with that expression which has made him irresistibly attractive to his audiences for nearly six decades. Other pages have been dictated while tears of mingled grief and joy and hope coursed down the furrows of that grand old face. In telling the story of later years, the diaries of the lamented Henry have been of great assistance in furnishing additional details. The files of the Liberator have been freely consulted. As a general practice, whenever outside authorities have been used, credit is given.

Brother John's life-story is told; the desire of years is fulfilled in this book. May the reader find it not wholly uninteresting, nor without historic value.

CHARLES E. MANN.

Notes by Alan Lewis