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1866-1869
Chapter 7 Part 2
We are not informed as to what part Professor Boulard took in the lighthearted moment when "Waterfalls and Frizzes," with its laughing chorus, was added to the group's repertoire. But it appears the Alleghanians were in a mood for fun, following their return to the United States.
Albert H. Fernald may have left the Alleghanians shortly after the troupe got back from Europe. An Alleghanians songster printed in the United States and dated 1866 lists the same lineup, except Fernald's name is replaced by that of "Mr. E. Telle, tenore." E. Telle appears to have left behind very little paper trail of any sort, and it is hard to know what to make of his service with the Alleghanians. Some reason exists to believe that Fernald was soon back with the group.
"Nora O'Neal," a popular Will S. Hays song known to have been sung by the Alleghanians, dates from just this time.
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"Nora O'Neal" O, the nightingale sings in the wildwood, As if every note that he knew, Was learned from your sweet voice in childhood To remind me, sweet Nora, of you. But I think, love, so often about you, And you don't know how happy I feel; But I'm lonely tonight, love, without you, My darling, sweet Nora O'Neal. O, don't think that ever I'll doubt you, My love I will never conceal; O, I'm lonely tonight, love, without you, My darling, sweet Nora O'Neal. |
"We are not informed as to what part Professor Boulard": "Waterfalls and Frizzes, With Laughing Chorus (Ad Libitum)," music:
If you know the identity of the composer, "T. E. A.," or if you think you may, and you would be willing to share your information, please e-mail us by way of the contact link toward the bottom of the Web page.
"An Alleghanians songster printed in the United States": Alleghanians, Songs Sung by the Alleghanians (New York: Printed by Edward O. Jenkins, 1866).
The Worldcat record for this item does not currently list an institutional holder. If you know of one, or if you know of a copy in private hands, and you would be willing to share your information, please e-mail us by way of the contact link toward the bottom of the Web page.
This songster could be immensely helpful in expanding our knowledge of changes in the Alleghanians' repertoire and approximately when these changes happened. And, of course, we know from the 1850 and 1873 songsters that this one could possibily include other pieces of valuable information.
"Mr. E. Telle, tenore" has never checked out in any way, and I am left wondering whether this reporting of the name may contain an error or may be wrong altogether. If you know anything about an 1860s vocalist called E. Telle or anything similar and you would be willing to share your information, please e-mail us by way of the contact link toward the bottom of the Web page.
"Some reason exists to believe that Fernald was soon": The Worldcat database has a record of a poster or concert bill presenting the Alleghanians lineup as made up of James M. Boulard, Albert H. Fernald, George Galloway, Carrie Hiffert, and Amy Jenner. One line of this Worldcat record says, "Inscription on verso: Library Hall, May 28/67." If this inscription indicates a concert date of May 28, 1867, which it very well may, then this lineup of the Alleghanians was together longer than previously thought. The timing could prove to be interesting in light of the New York City marriage of Amy Maria Jenner to James E. Barker on September 19, 1867. Amy Maria Jenner is the closest possible match found to date for the Amy Jenner who sang with the Alleghanians in the mid-1860s.
"Nora O'Neal, a popular Will S. Hays song known to": "Nora O'Neal," lyrics and music: Will S. Hays, first line of text: "Oh! I'm lonely tonight, love, without you," first line of chorus: "Oh! don't think that ever I'll doubt you" (New York:
Page 7
Sources generally agree that J.B. Packard died at Bloomington, Illinois, in 1866. He may have gone to Bloomington from Massachusetts with his brother, Dr. Charles R. Packard. J.B. would have been based in Bloomington little more than a year, if that. Though several family historians and others have characterized J.B. as having been "of Bloomington," for the great majority of his adult years, he was a Bostonian.
J.B. Packard seems to have led a busy life, teaching, composing, arranging, and performing music. Quite possibly he served as an early mentor for his future wife, Mary E. Durgin. Yet in spite of J.B.'s accomplishments, we get very little sense of him as a person. There does appear to have been a certain nuts-and-bolts wackiness to his humor, but clearly more research is needed for us to get a solid understanding of this early American music man.
J.B.'s children from his first marriage - those who are known to have survived him - went to live with their mother's family. This actually may have happened shortly after their mother died. Mary and her son, Chester S. Packard, wound up back in Mary's hometown, Exeter, New Hampshire.
In June 1867, the Alleghanians gave a series of six concerts at New York City's Irving Hall. A New York Times writer offered this appraisal:
The Alleghanians - that clever and entertaining company of vocalists and bell-ringers, whose concerts are among the pleasant recollections of long ago - reappeared at Irving Hall last evening; their old-fashioned ballads and unique instrumental performances are quite attractive, and are calculated to renew the lively feelings which were awakened in earlier entertainments.
One could imagine that James M. Boulard and other members of the group may have been well pleased by this favorable review, particularly coming as it did from such a large and prestigious newspaper as the New York Times. But in fact, we have every reason to believe that it made one important member of the company ill at ease. That person was managing agent Daniel G. Waldron.
Recall the Leavenworth Times critic who, in 1864, turned a bit grumpy over the Alleghanians' habit of sticking with old, familiar songs in the group's concert programs. Then in June 1867, the troupe earned a nostalgic New York Times review with "old-fashioned" near its center. These notices seem to describe a vocal group trying to keep the past alive and not necessarily one with a lively future.
"In June 1867, the Alleghanians gave a series of six": "The Alleghanians, Vocalists and Swiss Bell Ringers," Advertisement, New York Times, June 8, 1867, p. 7 col. 7.
"The Alleghanians - that clever and entertaining": "Amusements," New York Times, June 11, 1867, p. 5 col. 4.
Page 8
Charles Hamm in Yesterdays, his groundbreaking history of American popular music, speaking of just this period, described a great turning away from nostalgia and a comparably grand turn toward escapism. D.G. Waldron almost certainly understood that the Alleghanians' collective career was strongly grounded in a period of American history that many American music fans were in a mighty mood to forget. He was far too ambitious to go along with the present Alleghanians state of affairs.
D.G. Waldron, as a writer, had a clear talent for lack of clarity. If there was method to this madness - and no doubt there was - it was that his writing style allowed his readers to imagine richer happenings played out on a grander scale than the actual events and trends which lay behind his accounts and descriptions. And there is a lack of sense in his narratives' sense of timing. As an information source, Waldron's writings are not without their frustrations. Yet he began and ended his adult years as a journalist, and it seems highly likely that those things which seem wanting from our point of view were artfully effective from his. Put another way, once again we are left to guess precisely when coming events happened, the names of the parties involved, and what were the main forces behind changes in the group's makeup and repertoire and the direction of its career.
The mid-1860s to early 1870s, with respect to the Alleghanians, is one great blur broken only by a sprinkling of details. One of the details is that the Alleghanians started the year 1868 in the middle of the United States, with a show evidently at Kansas City on Monday, January 6. Later in the year, the troupe was in New Brunswick on one of its frequent Canadian tours. One source said the group's membership included a Scotchman and two musicians of Swiss origin. The former may have been George Galloway, but who were the two with familial links to Switzerland is a bit of a mystery. Little is known about most individual members of the Alleghanians, and this would be the group's darkest period, documentation-wise, for some time to come.
Dr. Jason R. Orton, an important early co-worker and friend of the Alleghanians, is said to have died in 1867. No source consulted in preparing this booklet gave his place and date of death, making locating an obituary and conducting further research difficult.
William B. Bradbury, another early colleague of the Alleghanians, died on Tuesday, January 7, 1868, at his home in Montclair, New Jersey. On occasions similar to these, John W. Hutchinson of the Hutchinson Family often spoke of melancholy breaks with the Hutchinsons' happy past. We may well imagine that veteran members and former members of the Alleghanians had similar feelings.
Not enough is currently known about the connection between William B. Bradbury and the Alleghanians. Group members probably became initially acquainted or better acquainted with him soon after he took over directing the choir at New York's Broadway Tabernacle. The Alleghanians started singing "My Own Native Land," according to currently available information, around this same time or not a lot later. Bradbury was a leading collector and publisher of mountain songs, material that was indispensible to singing bands in the Alleghanians field.
Early 21st-century researchers, including family historians, know a few things about the period under consideration that Alleghanians members living through those same times did not.
"Charles Hamm in Yesterdays, his groundbreaking history": Charles Hamm, Yesterdays: Popular Song in America, 1st ed. (New York: Norton, 1979), 254-255.
"Dr. Jason R. Orton, an important early co-worker and": I was unable to find a citation for an obituary or death notice for Dr. Orton in either the New York Times Index or the New York Times online archives.
"William B. Bradbury, another important early colleague": "Death of Prof. William B. Bradbury," New York Times, January 9, 1868, p. 4 col. 7.
William Batchelder Bradbury (1816-1868)
Dr. Jason Rockwood Orton (1806-1867)
Page 9
The Robinson Seminary opened its doors in Exeter, New Hampshire, to young female scholars in September 1869. Mary E. Packard of that community, and now widowed, had been convinced by a friend - one of the trustees - to accept the position of voice teacher. Mary loved to teach. She started giving music lessons in her mid-teens and kept it up until a substantial loss of hearing forced her to stop around 1885. Yet for some reason, which she only partly explained, she did not feel up to the challenge of teaching voice at this promising private academy for girls. Years later, she recalled feeling "so ignorant, so unequal to it." Of all the group members in the Alleghanians long history, it is easiest to become acquainted with Mary. She had personality to spare, and this sense of honest modesty was a part of her personal charm.
Serving as a member of the Robinson Seminary faculty, doubtless along with teaching private lessons on her own, kept Mary full-time in the field of music. It is also known that she was a featured singer in church.
Mary was a scholar, herself, and it seems about certain that she had learned much from the time of her marriage to
John and Asa Hutchinson combined their concert companies for a series of shows in August 1869, starting when they were along the Massachusetts seacoast. At Nantucket, this group entertained a crowd taking part in a camp meeting.
While at this meeting [wrote John W. Hutchinson] I met Samuel B. Spinning of Bridgeport, Conn., a bass singer of a good deal of ability, in company with a friend, Frank Benjamin, who was gifted with a very high tenor voice. I at once saw that they would be an acquisition, as members of my company. Asa thought the same.
Evidently John offered Spinning and Benjamin more money than did his brother Asa B. Hutchinson, though John had a lifelong reputation for remarkable thrift. John recalled,
"I at once formed a male quartet," explained John. "Our family never had a successful high tenor voice for such work. I used to sing the parts in a falsetto voice, but disliked to. Benjamin took this part, I the second tenor, Henry the baritone and Spinning the bass. We took up the Arion glees, and had good times singing them."
"Years later, she recalled feeling so ignorant, so": Mary P. Waldron to Florence E. Chipman, San Francisco, June 1, 1895.
"While at this meeting wrote John W. Hutchinson I met": John Wallace Hutchinson, Story of the Hutchinsons (Tribe of Jesse), 2 vols. (Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1896), 1:491.
"Asa thought the same," in this instance, means that John's brother, Asa B. Hutchinson, thought Samuel B. Spinning and Frank L. Benjamin could be important additions to his own concert company.
A gentleman e-mailed me about printed sheet music he intended to sell via eBay.com, though this eBay posting appears not to have happened yet. His message was short on standard details. For instance, he did not give the song's title. He also did not respond to my replies, so my information here is quite limited. According to what he did say, though, this score was published to benefit Corporal Samuel B. Spinning of the Second Connecticut Battery. The score says that Spinning became totally blind from disease in the spring of 1863.
To the very best of my knowledge, nowhere in commonly-known Hutchinson Family literature is there any reference to Spinning being blind. So this is a very great mystery.
Reminiscing late in life about his earlier days of singing with the Hutchinsons, Samuel Spinning described scenes, here and there, as if he had seen them himself. In one such instance, Spinning spoke of the way John W. Hutchinson stood on stage. Spinning also said he did not recall Asa B. Hutchinson twiddling his thumbs. (Why this subject ever came up, then, is anyone's guess.) If one were to look through these reminiscences, one would come away with no sense that Spinning was blind. On the other hand, the 1910 United States Census included a question about whether each person being enumerated was blind. The numeral "6" was written in that column in line with the names of Samuel Spinning and his wife Isabel. So maybe he was blind after all, and perhaps Isabel Spinning was blind as well. My tentative interpretation of information which is available at present is that Samuel and Isabel Spinning were probably both totally blind in their right eyes. We currently have no information to go on as to how well each could see with their left eyes.
"John recalled, Finally I agreed to give them four": John Wallace Hutchinson, Story of the Hutchinsons (Tribe of Jesse), 2 vols. (Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1896), 1:491.
"I at once formed a male quartet, explained John. Our": John Wallace Hutchinson, Story of the Hutchinsons (Tribe of Jesse), 2 vols. (Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1896), 1:491-492.
Doubtless when John W. Hutchinson spoke of "Our family" he meant his own marriage family. His birth family was quite gifted in the area of high tenor singing in the person of his older brother, Judson J. Hutchinson.
Page 10
This foursome made a tour through parts of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. "On the
John's troupe reached New York on November 18, with high hopes for the winter season. Referring at first to engagements arranged by the American Literary Bureau, he said, "On the threshold of these concerts, I encountered a snag in the indisposition of Benjamin to continue unless important concessions were made to him in the matter of salary. I let him go and he joined the Alleghanians, and their agent put them through to California. The real fact was that he was of no especial advantage to us except in quartet work. Spinning continued with me several seasons."
This is John's public version of the story, and it may be more or less accurate as far as it goes. But it seems likely that Frank L. Benjamin, a graduate of the Conservatoire de Paris, was seeking an expanded role in John's company. Later we will see that Benjamin played an important part in an Alleghanians ensemble which was then larger, more musically varied, and evidently a good deal more widely-traveled than the Hutchinson Family's "Tribe of John." Benjamin's ambitions were probably a factor in his break with John Hutchinson.
Incidentally, the one likeness of Benjamin which turned up in this project is quite severe in appearance. It makes him look not so much serious as several shades beyond grim. One might wonder whether there was a personality clash of some degree between Frank L. Benjamin and that merry old soul, John W. Hutchinson.
John Hutchinson's account of Frank Benjamin asking for higher pay, John letting him go, Benjamin signing on with the Alleghanians, and that group's agent sending them to California makes it sound as though this all happened in quick sequence. No widely known information at present quite supports John's telling of this part of the story.
Alice Carey's "Milkmaid's Marriage Song" is a piece that both the Alleghanians and Hutchinsons picked up probably about this time.
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"Milkmaid's Marriage Song" Past the green barley ridge, o'er the shallow bridge, On thro' the clover, as red as a rose; We must be far away, ere the blue eye of day, Op'ning in sunshine, in shadow shall close. |
"On the evening of Tuesday, October 26, 1869 we gave": John Wallace Hutchinson, Story of the Hutchinsons (Tribe of Jesse), 2 vols. (Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1896), 1:493.
"Referring at first to engagements arranged by the": John Wallace Hutchinson, Story of the Hutchinsons (Tribe of Jesse), 2 vols. (Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1896), 1:495.
"But it seems likely that Frank L. Benjamin, a graduate": It would be helpful to know in what year Frank L. Benjamin graduated from the Conservatoire de Paris. Currently we do not have this information.
"Alice Carey's Milkmaid's Marriage Song is a piece": "Milkmaid's Marriage Song," lyrics: Alice Carey, music:
M. Keller is short for Matthias Keller.
Page 11
To many modern readers, this song's very title - which must have seemed quaint even at the time of publication - might make it a hard sell. But actually this is a charming song of innocent love.
Pastoral romance must have been first in the minds of the Alleghanians around 1869. "When the Corn Is Waving, Annie, Dear," which was dated that same year, was just such an addition to the group's repertoire.
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"When the Corn Is Waving, Annie, Dear" When the corn is waving, Annie, dear, Oh! meet me by the style, To hear thy gentle voice again, And greet thy winning smile. The moon will be at full, love, The stars will brightly gleam, Oh! come my queen of night, love, And grace the beauteous scene. |
"How the Gates Came Ajar" is another song published about this time which was sung by the Alleghanians.
"When the Corn Is Waving, Annie, Dear, which was": "When the Corn Is Waving, Annie, Dear: Song With Chorus Ad Lib," lyrics: Author unknown, music: Blamphin, first line of text: "When the corn is waving, Annie dear," first line of chorus: "The corn is waving Annie, dear" (Philadelphia:
"Blamphin" refers to Charles Blamphin.
"How the Gates Came Ajar is another song published": "How the Gates Came Ajar: Song and Chorus,"
"Eastburn" was a pseudonym used by Joseph Eastburn Winner.
"Thus far the Lord hath led me on." - Isaac Watts
One of the main goals for this first edition of Voice and Spirit has been to lay the foundation for an eventual revised, greatly expanded second edition. Thus far the Lord has led us on. A full-length biography of the Alleghanians is very much needed, and it is starting to look feasible. Whether it would take the form of a traditional, hardcopy book or remain as a World Wide Web-only publication is yet to be seen. Either way, I am hoping many readers of these pages will keep an eye out for Voice and Spirit II. If it is possible to make a full-length Alleghanians biography happen, my plan is to do it.
Alan Lewis, August 14, 2007
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Then hail, dear Columbia, The land that we love, Where flourishes liberty's tree. 'Tis the birthplace of freedom, Our own native home. 'Tis the land 'tis the land of the free. Yes yes yes yes oh 'Tis the land 'tis the land of the free. |
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Brattleboro, Vermont: Published by the author. 2007.
All rights reserved. Used with permission.