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One hundred years hence, what a change will be made,
In politics, morals, religion and trade, In statesmen who wrangle or ride on the fence, These things will be altered a hundred years hence. Our laws then will be uncompulsory rules, Our prisons converted to national schools; The pleasure of sinning 'tis all a pretense, And so we will find it a hundred years hence. Lying, cheating and fraud will be laid on the shelf, Men will neither get drunk, nor be bound up in self, But all live together, good neighbors and friends, Just as Christian folks ought to, a hundred years hence. Then woman, man's partner, man's equal will stand, While beauty and harmony govern the land; To think for one's self will be no offense, The world will be thinking a hundred years hence. Oppression and war will be heard of no more, Nor the blood of a slave leave his print on our shore; Conventions will then be a useless expense, For we'll all go free suffrage a hundred years hence. Instead of speech-making to satisfy wrong, All will join the glad chorus to sing Freedom's song; And if the Millenium is not a pretense, We'll all be good brothers a hundred years hence. |
John W. Hutchinson. "A Hundred Years Hence." [Music: John Wallace Hutchinson.] [Lyrics: Frances D. Gage.] First line of text: "One hundred years hence what a change will be made." Cleveland: S. Brainard's Sons. 1869.
- "A Hundred Years Hence" is included on Chestnut Brass Co., Tippecanoe and Tyler Too! (CD, Newport Classic
NPD-85548, 1992). - Fanny Gage's "A Hundred Years Hence" was introduced to the family's programs by Jesse Hutchinson, Jr., who read or recited it from the platform for a large outdoor audience in June 1851. Not much later, John W. Hutchinson set the words to music, and this song became a part of the Hutchinson Family's repertoire. It's most famous performance took place in Philadelphia, right after a group of woman suffragists walked out of the official United States Centennial ceremonies, as a protest for not being included, as they requested, in the program. Oddly, John didn't mention the Centennial incident in his book, Story of the Hutchinsons, though his daughter, Viola Hutchinson Campbell, did refer to it in her memoir, Memories of a Busy Life. I received a number of inquiries about this song in the year leading up to the U.S. Bicentennial celebration in 1976 - a hundred years hence.
- Frances Dana [née Barker] Gage (1808-1884) was commonly known as Fanny Gage.
- "A Hundred Years Hence" was republished in 1934, both with the original Fanny Gage lyrics and with new verses written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935). Evidently John Hutchinson knew her. Publication was in connection with the Ninth Conference on the Cause and Cure of War, an event that would have been dear to John's heart.
- Odd as it seems, New York City vaudeville great Tony Pastor - Antonio Pastor (1837-1908) - published a parody of "A Hundred Years Hence."
- Do you know of any connection between the Hutchinson Family and James Ramsey Murray (1841-1905).
![[earliest Hutchinson Family publicity likeness]](http://www.oocities.org/unclesamsfarm/quartet342.jpg)
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