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D. H. Mansfield and
The American Vocalist
by
David William Deacon
A Thesis submitted to the faculty of The University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the
Curriculum of Folklore.
Chapel Hill
1991
Approved by:
______________
______________
______________
Reader
Advisor
Reader
2
Table of Contents
Chapter One: Introduction ................................ 3
Chapter Two: D. H. Mansfield's Background, Life, and
Character ................................................ 24
Chapter Three: The Social Context of The American Vocalist
......................................................... 54
Chapter Four: The Religious Context of D. H. Mansfield and
The American Vocalist .................................... 73
Chapter FIVE: The American Vocalist: Publication and
Contents ................................................. 95
APPENDIX A .............................................. 157
Index of Tunes ........................................ 157
Index of First Lines .................................. 170
WORKS CITED ............................................. 182
3
Chapter One:
Introduction
Peru, Vermont lies on the old turnpike that cut across
the northern parts of Windham and Bennington Counties.
At
the eastern end of the highway is Bellows Falls, an old
industrial and transportation center and gateway to the Upper
Valley of the Connecticut River; at the western end is
Manchester, the northern shire town of Bennington County.
Along the way the traveler passes through agricultural and
lumbering towns (Chester, Andover, Londonderry, Landgrove,
and Peru) and over the Green Mountains at Bromley Mountain.
Peru, the last stop before the old resort town of Manchester,
is tucked snugly against the eastern slope of the mountains.
Nancy M. Haynes, who contributed the article on Peru to
Abby Maria Hemenway's Vermont Historical Gazetteer, wrote,
"The West part of the town is a primeval wilderness; the
mountains high, rugged and broken upon the summit," (Hemenway
206).
Haynes continued:
From some parts of the town the view of the
surrounding country is exceedingly grand.
Wachusett Mountain in Mass., and Monadnock in N.H.,
are discernible in the far distance, while near,
billow upon billow of the Green Mountain Range
rises. . . . Between the latter and us lies a vast
4
basin, miles in extent, comprising woodland and
meadow, cornfields and pastures dotted with
farmhouses, humble it is true, but full of
happiness withal. There years pass gently and
peacefully, each telling its tale of births and
deaths, of change and decay, but all so quietly
that to learn the history of one is to know the
history of all. (Hemenway 208).
Indeed, the history of Peru speaks quietly.
I became
acquainted with Peru through the Long Trail, the leg of the
Appalachian Trail which passes through Vermont.
The Peru
station of the trail is at the end of a narrow, unimproved
town highway.
Here are mossy, wooded highlands, with soft
beds of shamrocks, and tangled, lush woods, well-suited to
contemplative hikes, but hard country off of which to live.
Less than a mile from the access of the Long Trail, there is
a single grave, set back several feet from the road.
The
inscription reads:
Johnnie M.
Son of
J. T. & L. Howard
Crushed to death by
a load of logs here
Sept. 21, 1887
Æ. 13 yrs.
This grave quietly tells a story of the hard country around
Peru.
This was a town that, even in Vermont's golden age of
the late nineteenth century, was still poor.
One day I went
to visit Johnny Howard's grave, to walk a stretch of the Long
Trail, and to visit the Johnny Appleseed Bookshop (once owned
5
by the poet Walter Hard) in Manchester.
The book I found
this day was an oblong hymnal (about six and one-quarter by
nine and one-half inches), titled The American Vocalist,
compiled by the Rev. D. H. Mansfield, and published in Boston
in 1849.
The title page announced ambitiously that the book
embraced "a greater variety of music for congregations,
societies, singing schools, and choirs, than any other
collection extant."
In its format, The American Vocalist
resembles contemporary Northern tunebooks, for like Lowell
Mason's Carmina Sacra and the Hallelujah, it presents the
tunes in open scores with the air above the bass.
The book
contains 522 tunes separated into three sections, in the
common "Watts and Select" format with the most formal "Church
Music" in the first section, the "more important Vestry
Music" in the middle, and "the lighter kind of Vestry Music"
(including camp-meeting spirituals) at the end.
The first
section is the largest, with 352 tunes, including a wealth of
material from the late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenthcentury composers
from New England such as William Billings,
Abraham Maxim, and Daniel Read; it also contains fifty-seven
fuging tunes.
While the first section is heavy on old,
genteel music, the second and third sections (containing 170
tunes between them) have a folky tone.
The second section
6
contains tunes such as "When Marshalled on the Nightly Plain"
(a setting of the popular "Bonny Doon") and "Star in the
East," which are common in Southern as well as other folky
Northern tunebooks.
Moreover, the harmonies of these tunes,
while not contrapuntal or polyphonic like Southern harmonies,
are often stark and open; Mansfield harmonized twenty-two
songs with fewer than four voices.
This book, well-used, with its broken covers mended with
plaid fabric on the inside, and protected with a handmade
leather cover on the outside, held for me another quiet
story.
Several things about the book impressed me:
immediately, I was impressed by how well used the book was,
but also by the good condition in which it had remained
through more than one hundred and thirty years, including a
half century of regular use.
The book was signed in several
places with faded pencil; inside the back cover the
inscription was still legible:
Harvey Stone
Peru Vermont
A.D. 1850 December 5
In the first section of the book, penciled "X"s marked
favorite hymns.
One of the Stones had used shreds of a
Windham County Reformer dated Friday, September 29, 1893, to
mark other favorites, and on a page in the second section of
7
the book was a shopping list with materials for clothing and
curtains (cloth, hooks, calico, indigo, and so on).
What sort of family and community used The American
Vocalist? The book's original owner, Harvey Stone, was one of
the leaders of Peru's Methodist society.
churches:
Peru had only two
Congregational and Methodist (Hemenway 101, 106).
Its neighbor on the east, the tiny gore (a small tract of
land that because of rugged terrain could not be included in
any of the adjoining towns) of Landgrove, had only a
Methodist church, while Manchester, on the west, had only
Congregational (Hemenway 198).
On the eastern side of
Landgrove, Londonderry, which as its name suggests was
originally Presbyterian, was still split between Calvinism,
in its Congregational form, and Arminian Methodism (Child
247-8).
Because of "death and removal" (specifically the
great western exodus started by the cold year of 1816),
Methodism was failing in this region by 1850, when Harvey
Stone acquired his copy of The American Vocalist (Batchelder
106).
But Harvey, his brother Hezekiah, and his sister
Lenora (whose shopping list, I assume, marks the page in the
hymnal) remained Methodists throughout their lives.
Ira K.
Batchelder, in his Reunion Celebration Together with an
Historical Sketch of Peru, Bennington County, Vermont, and
8
Its Inhabitants from the First Settlement of the Town,
described the Stone family in 1891:
Harvey and Hezekiah Stone, sons of Joseph Stone,
were born on the farm where they now live, and
received their education in the town. They
inherited the farm from their father, and have
always lived on it, their only sister keeping house
for them. They attend strictly to their own
business, although financially they stand among the
highest in town. They are the only representatives
of the large family which existed in town sixty
years ago. Harvey Stone has been an active
citizen, and has been elected to important offices.
He is a hearty supporter of the Methodist Church
(133-4).
Batchelder recorded other details about the Stones.
Their father, Joseph Stone, was one of three brothers who
settled in Peru between 1802 and 1808.
The first, Samuel,
came from Gardner, Massachusetts in 1802, and "commenced
clearing the unbroken forest with strong hands and determined
will that overcomes all obstacles, having soon a clearing
large enough to build a log house" (68).
father of Harvey, came two years later.
Joseph Stone,
Batchelder writes:
He made cardboards, which were used for carding
wool and tow in the domestic factories of the land,
transporting his goods to Gardner by team. Uncle
Joe would inspect the wilderness to find smooth
beech, of which he made his cardboards, and no
landmarks interfered with his right to do this.
Mr. Stone married Polly Stiles in 1828, and moved
on to the place which his children now occupy. He
began new on this place, erected all the buildings
and made the road. Mr. Stone died in 1856, aged 75
years, leaving three children, Harvey, Hezekiah and
Lenora, who are all unmarried and living on the old
homestead (69).
9
Finally, Capt. Josiah Stone:
Capt. Josiah Stone came from Gardner in 1808, and
began on a new lot east of his brother Samuel's.
He built the best log house in the town, it being
made of peeled spruce, long and straight, nicely
laid up, and all made square at the corners. The
house had two large rooms, with a stone fireplace
in the centre of each, and a comfortable chamber.
The house was shingled, and the family occupied it
about thirty years as it was first built. Capt.
Stone soon had cultivated land in the place of the
forest, and planted an orchard, where he had a
quantity of grafted fruit, which the boys would
watch and sometimes take. It was not long before
he commenced making sugar, at first using troughs
to catch the sap, but soon had the best pine
buckets, which he made himself. He boiled the sap
in a three-barrel kettle, made more than an inch
thick, and shaped like an earthen bowl, it having
ears on the sides by which it was hung over the
fire. When the fire was in full blaze the sap
would boil furiously, but a slice of pork thrown
into it would prevent its running over. If this
sugar was not as nice as our modern sugar it was
sweet and palatable, even if it had been strained
in order to get the coals and leaves out of it, and
everybody was invited to try it in the sugaring
time. Capt. Stone was skilled in manufacturing
salts for market. He would cut and pile the maple
and birch, then burn it and collect the ashes,
obtain lye, boil it and run it into casks or
kettles to harden. On one occasion he had a fivepail kettle of salts that
had hardened, and in
trying to split the salts, for which he used an
iron wedge, he split the salts and the kettle as
well (70).
What made The American Vocalist peculiarly suited to the
tastes of the Stones, and their evangelical brethren in the
surrounding area, was their economic and political
marginality.
Dickson D. Bruce, Jr., in his And They All Sang
Hallelujah, notes that this was the salient characteristic of
10
the Southern plain folk who attended camp-meetings during the
first half of the nineteenth century (18-9, 22).
In the
Northeast, a similar group of people (yeoman farmers who were
not particularly well educated and who were under-represented
in government) was attracted to experimental religion); the
Stones were solid representatives of this group.
From their memorials, we see that the Stones shared with
their Southern brethren an identity partly based on having
conquered a wilderness.
We see the Stones clearing their own
land, building their own buildings, and exploiting the
resources of the wilderness, but despite their
resourcefulness there lingered the fact that the mountain
country of Peru just was not productive, and poverty lingered
over the area like the heavy overcast before a snowstorm.
Indeed, as early as 1803, more than ten years before the
turnpike made Peru accessible, the town was concerned about
its reputation as a poverty-stricken town:
Sometime [sic] between December, 1803, and
February, 1804, the name of the town was changed
from Bromley to Peru. It is said this change was
made because Bromley, so far as it had any
reputation abroad, was noted for being a poverty
stricken place, and few would go there to settle;
but the name of Peru being associated with the
wealth of the South American province, conveyed an
entirely different impression. And indeed, very
soon after the change, people began to come to the
place, and for a time the town increased quite
rapidly. It is thought by some even now, that Peru
11
is a poor township of land; true, there is no great
wealth here, but there have been 16 years (not
consecutive) during which no "poor" have been upon
the town. Truly here, if anywhere, has been
answered the prayer of Agur, "Give me neither
poverty nor riches." (Hemenway 207).
Besides being poor, the town was also dangerous. This
was country in which youths were killed in logging accidents,
in which wolves killed livestock, and in which exposure to
the winter elements could be fatal.
The town of Stratton, to
the south, and Mount Holly, to the north of Peru, remembered
young women who froze on a mountain, and both of these towns
had these events memorialized by poems written by Seba Smith
(famous for lampooning Andrew Jackson through the character
of Maj. Jack Downing).
While the "Stratton Mountain
Tragedy," about a woman who strips herself to save her baby,
was based on an actual event and remained a local song,
"Young Charlotte" enjoyed a much broader circulation and was
localized to commemorate an event which may have never
happened in the Green Mountains, or at least one in which the
circumstances were different (Flanders, 1931:27-8).
But
whatever the truth of the songs, they were popular because
they were plausible:
the mountains.
people really did freeze to death in
Nancy Haynes, in her history of Peru in
Hemenway's Gazetteer, recorded the following story:
For sometime previous to Feb. 1832, the wolves so
molested the sheep in Peru, that two young men,
12
Joseph Long and Joseph Barnard took their guns and
watched for them, one night where they had been the
previous night and killed several sheep. Soon they
were heard howling, but passed by, about 40 rods
from the barn . . . and took their meal from a
horse which had been killed there, which, it is
supposed, they scented in the distance. The next
morning it was decided the wolves must be feretted
out. Seth Lyons and Isaac Long started in search
of them, on snow shoes with food sufficient to last
some time. It was warm and pleasant when they set
off, but soon the weather became intensely cold.
They followed on the track of the wolves, until Mr.
Long's snow shoes became unfastened, and the hands
of both men were so stiff with cold they could not
fasten them. They came to a branch of the Otter
Creek, but instead of following the wolves farther,
they followed the river down. They were obliged in
some places, to go so close to the shelving edge of
the stream, that, being almost frozen, they could
not keep their balance, and fell into the water two
or three times. They had now been out three days
and two nights, when Mr. Long, sinking into the
snow at every step, became so weary he could go no
further. Mr. Lyons left him to seek help,
expecting he would perish before aid could be
obtained. At length he came out at Danby Borough,
and with others went back for Mr. Long, who was
carried back to the borough senseless, his right
hand frozen tight to his gun, which he had used as
a cane. His boots had to be cut from his feet and
his body was badly frozen (Hemenway 211).
In this hard country, the hopeful Gospel preached by the
Methodists offered comfort.
The citizens of Peru may not
have had comfort or prosperity in their present
circumstances, but the Methodists assured them that God
offered free grace to all.
They could go to the "kingdom";
all they had to do was accept the offer.
13
The music in which Methodists made this offer belongs to
one of the more recently explored branches of folksong.
In
1939, Phillips Barry, in a note in Helen Hartness Flanders's
New Green Mountain Songster, could still write, "Folk hymnody
is a field of research as yet largely unworked" (54).
When
he wrote this, George Pullen Jackson had published two books
detailing his research in this field, White Spirituals in the
Southern Uplands and Spiritual Folk-Songs of Early America.
In the first book, Jackson wrote of eighteenth-century Yankee
singing masters and of how new, genteel, urban music,
emanating from Boston during the 1820s, pushed these
itinerant teachers to the South and West (16).
These singing
masters settled in southeastern Pennsylvania, where they
joined the local Pennsylvanian teachers.
Gradually, they and
their descendents wandered down the Valley of Virginia and
across the upland South (22-4).
By 1937, when Jackson
published Spiritual Folk-Songs of Early America, he had
identified two important books containing folk tunes from the
"deep North":
probably the first folk tunebook, the
Christian Harmony or Songster's Companion, compiled by
Jeremiah Ingalls (a resident of the upper Connecticut valley
in Vermont) in 1805, and the Revivalist, published in Troy,
New York, in 1868 (245).
Moreover, he had also discovered
14
The Christian Lyre, compiled by Joshua Leavitt and published
in New York in 1833, and a rural, Pennsylvania tunebook,
Church Harmony, compiled by Henry Smith in 1834.
By 1942,
when Jackson published Down-East Spirituals and Others, he
had discovered several other important Northern books, A. D.
Merrill's Wesleyan Harmony, H. W. Day's Revival Hymns, and
Joshua Himes's Millenial Harp.
These books, together with
the wealth of Southern shape-note material he discovered,
helped him to develop a balanced view of Northern and
Southern spiritual folksong traditions.
Jackson did much to
fill the need of which Barry had written.
Since Jackson's time, many people have written about
Southern spiritual folksong traditions.
Glenn C. Wilcox
edited a reprint of the 1854 edition of Walker's The Southern
Harmony, Daniel W. Patterson and John F. Garst have done the
same for McCurry's The Social Harp, and Dorothy D. Horn, Ron
Petersen, and Candra Phillips have edited Swan's The New Harp
of Columbia.
Dorothy D. Horn has also written of Southern
revival music in a book titled
Sing to Me of Heaven.
In
1987, Joseph Dennie Scott wrote a dissertation titled "The
Tunebooks of William Hauser ("The Hesperian Harp," "The Olive
Leaf") in which he analyzed the texts and tunes Hauser's
books (DAI 48, 776A).
In 1988, Daniel W. Patterson published
15
an article titled "William Hauser's Hesperian Harp and Olive
Leaf:
Shape-Note Tunebooks as Emblems of Change and
Progress."
Buell E. Cobb has written a modern assessment of
the Sacred Harp tradition.
Finally, Dickson D. Bruce has
written about plainfolk, camp-meeting religion, examining
shape-note tunebooks for information about Southern folk
religious beliefs.
Several studies have focused on specifically Methodist
church music.
Two dissertations have discussed musical
trends in the Methodist church during the nineteenth century.
These are:
"A Study of Tastes in American Church Music as
Reflected in the Music of the Methodist Episcopal Church to
1900," by Double E. Hill, (DAI 23:
4377-8A) and "Evolving
Tastes in Hymntunes of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the
Nineteenth Century," by Terry L. Baldridge, (DAI 43: 2485A).
Finally, Thomas Frank Bickley, wrote a master's thesis
titled, "David's Harp (1813), a Methodist Tunebook from
Baltimore:
An Analysis and Facsimile" (MAI 22: 280).
Northern research on vernacular musical styles has
tended to emphasize either older or more elite trends than
Southern research.
James Lyon's Urania: A Choice Selection
of Psalm-Tunes, Anthems and Hymns (1761) has been republished
in a facsimile edition.
William Billings has received much
16
attention.
Hans Nathan has edited a facsimile edition of
Billings's The Continental Harmony (1961), David McKay and
Richard Crawford have written a biography of this composer,
William Billings of Boston:
Eighteenth-Century Composer
(1975), and Karl Kroeger and Richard Crawford have edited The
Complete Works of William Billings: Vol 1, The New England
Psalm Singer (1981).
Several dissertations have examined
examined musical trends in eighteenth and early nineteenth
century New England.
These include Relford Patterson's
"Three American 'Primitives':
A Study of the Musical Style
of Hans Gram, Oliver Holden, and Samuel Holyoke (with)
Appendix:
Music of Gram, Holden, and Holyoke" (DAI 25:1957),
Marvin Charles Genuchi's "The Life and Music of Jacob French
(1754-1817), Colonial American Composer, Volume I:
Background, Biography, Style Study; Volume II:
Music
Supplement of Anthems, Psalm Tunes, and Hymn Tunes" (DAI
25:1247A), John Worst's "New England Psalmody 1760-1810:
Analysis of an American Idiom" (DAI 35:4605A), and Wanda Jean
Criger Eddy's "Joseph Stone (1758-1837), an Early American
Tunesmith" (DAI 49:652A).
Finally, Carol A. Pemberton has
written a biography of Lowell Mason, titled Lowell Mason:
His Life and Work, and Judith Steinberg
17
Several studies have focussed on Northern revival music.
James Cecil Downey, has written about eighteenth-century
Northern revival music in his dissertation, "The Music of
American Revivalism" (DAI 29: 3168A), and a book,
"Revivalism, The Gospel Songs, and Social Reform."
David
Grover Klocko has written about Jeremiah Ingalls in his
dissertation, "Jeremiah Ingalls's 'Christian Harmony:
or,
Songster's Companion' (1805)" (DAI 39:1182A) and has edited a
facsimile edition of that tunebook (1986).
C. D. Stribling
examined The Christian Lyre in a thesis titled "Joshua
Leavitt's 'The Christian Lyre': A Historical Evaluation."
Finally, in a study of a tradition that stretched from the
North to the South, Daniel W. Patterson has examined the
manuscript record and the surviving oral tradition of Shaker
music in The Shaker Spiritual.
Since Phillips Barry wrote
his notes for The New Green Mountain Songster many scholars
have examined spiritual folk songs and the rural New England,
however, there is still plenty to keep scholars busy.
Despite the recent popularity of Sacred Harp singing in
Vermont, and the recent publication of The Northern Harmony
(a collection of eighteenth-century music from New England
set in four-shape notation compiled by Larry Gordon, Anthony
G. Barrand, and Carol Moody), there appears to be no unbroken
18
spiritual folksong tradition in the "deep North."
Research
among the various Pentecostal and Full Gospel churches that
are widespread in Maine, however, could turn up some
interesting data to prove otherwise.
The field of nineteenth-century Northern tunebooks, in
particular, still has much to offer.
While Jackson
identified folk tunes in the Millerite tunebook, The
Millenial Harp, and devoted two chapters of his White and
Negro Spirituals
to the importance of spiritual folk songs
within the Adventist movement, a complete study of Adventist
musical trends could prove rewarding (1943:101-9).
Moreover,
a complete study of revival hymnody--and even just
conservative, anti-Pestalozzian hymnody--in mid-nineteenthcentury Maine,
and northern New England in general, still
needs to be done.
Tunebooks such as The Cumberland
Collection, published in Portland in 1839, The Wesleyan
Sacred Harp published in the same city in 1853, as well as
numerous words-only religious songsters, could help to
enlarge our understanding of the musical world of which D. H.
Mansfield was a part.
The Rev. William McDonald, one of the
compilers of the last book mentioned, spent some of his
pastoral career at a station near the town at which Mansfield
was stationed.
McDonald even composed a tune which he called
19
"Mansfield."
I have found a tune arranged by McDonald, "The
Heavenly Home," in Great Revival Hymns, compiled by Homer
Rodeheaver and B. D. Ackley, and published in Chicago in 1911
(Number 278).
My purpose in examining The American Vocalist is to fill
a gap in our understanding of religious folksongs in northern
New England.
Folklorists and hymnologists have largely
overlooked this important book.
George Pullen Jackson does
not seem to have had access to it.
Phillips Barry, mentions
it in passing in The New Green Mountain Songster (1).
Daniel
W. Patterson notices it for its two Shaker songs (545).
Frank J. Metcalf, in his American Composers and Compilers of
Sacred Music mentions it in his discussion of A. D. Merrill's
song, "Joyfully, Joyfully Onward I Move," but fails to
describe it in its own right.
Not only has the book been
ignored, but some of the information about it has been, in at
least two instances, incorrect.
John Weeks Moore, for
example, writing during Mansfield's lifetime, quoted
liberally from the book's preface but identified Mansfield as
a Bostonian.
Frances Turgeon Wiggin, in her Maine Composers
and their Music:
A Biographical Dictionary stated that
Mansfield was born and lived in Bangor--yes, he lived in
Bangor, but only for two of his forty-five years.
These
20
details might seem small, but I believe that The American
Vocalist would have been altogether different if Mansfield
had been a city-dweller.
The American Vocalist is an important book for a variety
of reasons.
First, the book is remarkable for the liberal
and ecumenical spirit of its contents.
At a time when
Northern tunebooks often represented only one musical and
religious tradition--European-inspired "New Music," music for
"Old Folks Concerts," or revival music--Mansfield included
some of everything.
The Vocalist appears to have been a
source for songs in other collections such as The Revivalist,
The Wesleyan Sacred Harp, and The Golden Harp.
The Vocalist
also invites us to take a fresh look at the relationship
between Northern and Southern traditions, for it seems more
closely related (by its format, the inclusiveness of its
contents and resulting tension between folk and genteel
elements, specific melodic variants, and to a lesser extent
its open harmonies) to Southern books than other Northern
tunebooks do.
The American Vocalist does not invite us to
cast out the old theories of Northern and Southern folk
hymnody.
Rather, it helps us to refine and expand our
understanding of this field.
Jackson's theories about the
movement of folk spirituals from north to south and back
21
north again and about the role of urban, religious musical
culture as the enemy folk hymnody still hold (1952b:365,
369).
The Vocalist suggests, however, that the Northern
spiritual folksong tradition was stronger, more widespread,
and more long-lived than Jackson supposed.
I replace
Jackson's image of a flood-tide with that of estuary waters
where currents move in two directions simultaneously
(1952b:365).
Moreover, I try to demonstrate that the
Southern plainfolk religious trends that Dickson D. Bruce
explored had parallels in the culture of northern New
England:
the social and spiritual needs as well as the
cultural expressions they inspired appear in similar forms in
mid-coast Maine.
Finally, what has made The American
Vocalist an attractive subject is the small community from
which it came.
D. H. Mansfield's home community, the Waldo
Patent in modern "mid-coast" Maine, was colorful, though
terribly poor and bitterly divided.
Despite its poverty, the
community produced people such as Mansfield, various town
historians, and newspaper reporters who documented local
culture.
Similarly, the Maine and East Maine Conferences of
the Methodist Episcopal Church were meticulous in recording
their own history and attitudes toward their faith.
The
history of the East Maine Conference, compiled by one of
22
Mansfield's closest friends, and the conference minutes, for
several years edited by Mansfield, are excellent resources.
All these religious and secular materials bear a distinctive
stamp from a tradition of ethnic diversity and bitter class
rivalry.
In this study of D. H. Mansfield and The American
Vocalist, I concentrate on four areas.
a biographical sketch:
The first chapter is
I discuss his family--a combination
of Massachusetts Yankee and old Waldo Patent stock, his life-and his personality.
How can records of his career as a
Methodist minister help us to understand his attitudes as a
tunebook compiler?
The second chapter is a discussion of the
secular community of the Waldo Patent.
How did the patterns
of settlement in the first half of the eighteenth century,
the efforts by land speculators to develop the territory at
the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth
centuries, and the bitter and persistent class consciousness
of the region influence Mansfield as he compiled his book?
The third chapter examines the religious life of the Waldo
Patent:
the initial establishment of ethnic churches, their
decline and the rise of the Congregational church, and
finally the rise of the denominations which appealed to the
plainfolk of the patent.
Finally, I look at The American
23
Vocalist itself:
the history of its publication, its
reception, the audience that Mansfield wanted to serve, and
finally its contents.
I concentrate on the second and third
sections of the Vocalist because they contain almost all of
the book's folk material.
In examining the book's contents,
I use George Pullen Jackson's collections and Daniel W.
Patterson's The Shaker Spiritual to show similarities in
melodic characteristics, styles of transcription, and actual
melodic variants between the Vocalist and already recognized
bodies of spiritual folksongs.
Finally, I examine the
Millennialist strain the texts in the Vocalist--almost half
of the texts in the second and third sections of the book
either appeared in The Millenial Harp, the Millerites'
hymnal, or develop some aspect of Millennialist doctrine.
In
this way I try to show the place of The American Vocalist in
the history of folk tunebooks and also in the plainfolk,
religious community of mid-coast Maine.
24
Chapter Two:
Character
D. H. Mansfield's Background, Life, and
In the history of American tunebooks, D. H. Mansfield
was a transitional figure, for in his American Vocalist he
tried to reconcile conservative and progressive as well as
folk and elite musical elements.
Although his repertory is
decidedly conservative, he recognized his debt--at least for
his pedagogy--to the urban, Northeastern musical community.
In his career as a Methodist minister we also see his
simultaneous conservative and progressive allegiances, for
while he clearly was a product of the old, egalitarian
Methodism and fervently clung to that spirit, he represented
modern, institutionalized Methodism in his role as agent for
the East Maine Conference Seminary (popularly called the
"Bucksport Seminary").
Mansfield's voice in his tunebook,
however, was conservative.
preserver:
He saw his role as that of
he sought to preserve the music of "Puritanic New
England" and the plainfolk revival community (1849:ii).
Mansfield was a product of both of these communities.
25
The Mansfield family was old, English Puritan stock.
Seven generations before Daniel's lifetime, about 1636,
Andrew Mansfield left Norfolk, England, and landed in this
country at Boston.
Soon he was followed by his father,
Robert, and by 1638 they had traveled north to the part of
Lynn, Massachusetts, which is now called Lynnfield.
Here the
family prospered, farming, and becoming active in town
affairs (Lewis 172).
Before the American Revolution, the
Mansfields were gentlemen and even slave owners (Lewis 344).
In the second half of the eighteenth century, as
speculators began to open new lands on the New England
frontier, D. H. Mansfield's grandfather, father, and uncles
gradually moved north.
About 1766, his grandparents--Daniel
and Lydia Mansfield--left Lynn, travelled to Marblehead, and
finally settled in New Ipswich, New Hampshire, a town between
Ashburnham, Massachusetts, and Jaffrey, New Hampshire.
Daniel Mansfield settled into the life of a self-sufficient
farmer, and built a Georgian-plan, Federal-style house, which
still stands, west of the Mason town line.
In the late 1780s, two of his sons--Jacob and another
Daniel Mansfield, the oldest of the Mansfield children in New
Ipswich--left the town for the Barrettstown (or
"Barrettston") Plantation in mid-coast Maine.
The Twenty
26
Associates of Lincolnshire, the owners of the land, had
contracted with Charles Barrett, a land speculator who lived
in New Ipswich, to settle their tract; they had given him the
inland portion of the town Camden and all of the future town
of Hope (which he had named for himself) on the condition
that he settle forty people.
Jacob Mansfield responded to
Barrett's call for settlers, and in May of 1789 bought his
first 160-acre parcel.
Jacob's younger brother Daniel
followed him, settling in Camden, closer to the sea.
Jacob--the father of the compiler--gradually bought and
sold pieces of neighboring lots until he had about four
hundred acres.
His land, a sweeping valley between Hatchett
Mountain (1120 feet) and an unnamed hill of about 710 feet,
was bounded on three sides by roads:
at the northeast corner
of his land was a four corners, and at the northwest corner
was Boges Upper Pond, which, in the middle of the nineteenth
century, was renamed Mansfield Pond.
Today, much of the
pasture remains, as do traces of the old farm road.
Mansfield Pond is hidden from view during the summer by a
thick stand of second-growth trees.
Much of the land,
climbing the unnamed hill, is a blueberry field.
Almost at
the top of the hill is the Morey cemetery, named for the
27
Mansfields' neighbors:
here much of Jacob Mansfield's
family, including his son D. H., is buried.
In her history of the town of Hope, Anna Simpson Hardy
notes Jacob's two principal interests:
the Methodist Church (1990:58, 117).
common schools and
The two-story house
that Jacob had built by 1794 served both causes, for its
upper story was a large hall used during the week for common
school classes and on the Sabbath for worship (117).
In
1805, when Barrettstown was incorporated as the town of Hope,
the town built a district school house at the four corners by
the Mansfield home, and named it the Mansfield School (58).
Hardy notes that the residents of Hope called the Mansfield
house the "Chapel House."
In 1855, the house's owners,
Israel Mansfield (Jacob's oldest son) and James Rudden sold
it to the town's Methodist society and officially made it a
chapel.
What made Jacob shed the elite religious and social
allegiances of his family?
His change was a gradual one.
His family moved gradually from the center of "Puritanic New
England."
New Ipswich was still conservative and rigidly
Congregational, but it was at least a couple of days away
from Massachusetts Bay, and Barretstown was even more
completely separate.
Still, his brother in Camden remained
28
in the standing order.
Jacob appears to have identified more
closely than his brother with the culture of the Waldo Patent
which surrounded Barrettstown, a region noted for its ethnic
diversity, poverty, and antipathy to the standing order
(religious, economic, and social).
By 1795, Jacob had
married a woman named Charity Payson.
Her family had endured
the hardships on the patent in the early days of its
settlement, sixty years earlier.
From family letters
preserved in the Maine Historical Society, we know that
Charity's sister Eunice
Fairbanks was a Methodist; I suspect
that Jacob became a Methodist through the influence of the
Payson family.
In any case, by marrying Charity, Jacob
joined the culture of the surrounding Waldo Patent.
This
young couple synthesized the cultures of "Puritanic New
England" and the turbulent, class-conscious Waldo Patent.
Jacob and Charity raised a large family.
Charity had
fourteen children, eleven of whom reached adulthood.
Tunebook editor Daniel Hale was their tenth child, born June
23, 1810.
Jacob supported his family by farming, and like
most farmers in the towns surrounding the limestone center of
Rockland (then a part of Thomaston) supplemented his income
by making barrels.
plainfolk family.
This branch of the Mansfields was a solid
29
Not surprisingly, living in the "Chapel House," Daniel
Mansfield became interested in religion early.
His obituary
printed in the East Maine Conference Minutes of 1855 noted
that "he was blessed with pious parents and a religious
education and when but nine years of age, gave evidence to
his friends of a change of heart." (1855:24).
He was most
likely influenced by the preacher who stopped at the Chapel
House in 1819, Henry True, who like Jacob Mansfield had left
the standing order for the Methodist Church.
John Fairbanks,
a singing and common school master and D. H. Mansfield's
uncle (he had married Charity's sister Eunice), probably also
influenced the child Mansfield.
Mansfield's most important influence, however, was
Benjamin Jones, the preacher stationed on the circuit which
included Hope during 1829.
converted a second time.
In this year Mansfield was
Jones inspired this conversion,
welcomed Mansfield as a member of the Methodist Church, and
trained him to become a local preacher.
W. H. Pilsbury, the
historian of the East Maine Conference, noted that Jones
became Mansfield's spiritual father (1886:19).
Jones assumed two roles for Mansfield:
guide and example, and that of teacher.
Benjamin
that of spiritual
Mansfield learned by
his example the qualities of a Methodist minister, and he
30
received more concrete tutelage in English composition,
rhetoric, sermonizing, and the literature and theology of the
Methodist Church.
Mansfield's obituary noted that Jones trained Mansfield
to be a preacher.
At the age of twenty-one, however,
Mansfield set out not to preach but to be an itinerant
singing master.
His travels took him throughout New England
and the Middle Atlantic states.
According to a newspaper
advertisement for The American Vocalist in the Belfast,
Maine, Republican Journal (November 30, 1849), his purpose in
his extensive travels was to acquaint himself with sacred
music on a national (or at least a Northern) level.
Between
1831 and 1840 (and perhaps sporadically for another five
years) Mansfield expanded his musical and religious interests
from what he considered the modern spirit of New England
Puritanism as well as the spirit of the yeomanry of the Waldo
Patent to include what he felt were national musical tastes
and religious concerns:
hence the musical diversity and
ecumenical appeal of his tunebook.
By 1840 Mansfield had settled in Thomaston, Maine, the
unofficial capital of the Waldo Patent.
The Gardiner
Quarterly Meeting assigned him, together with a T. Hill, to
preach in the town (which then included the villages of East
31
and West Thomaston, modern Rockland and Thomaston).
Their
task was to unify the town's badly divided Methodist society.
George Pratt, who was remembered in the East Maine Conference
chiefly for his success at this task fifteen years later,
described Mansfield's and Hill's task:
Not far from the year 1840, an effort was made to
organize permanently a Methodist society in this
town. The Rev. H. C. Henries was appointed pastor,
but, at a time when all looked like prosperity, a
dark cloud shut them in. It seems that a serious
difficulty broke out between the minister and his
people, in which the former was censured and
finally dismissed from the charge. The little
society was stunned for years and staggered to and
fro like a man null of reason. Some effort was
made immediately afterward and they were favored by
the labors of the Rev. Daniel Mansfield and the
Rev. T. Hill for a season; but nothing could induce
them to rally (quoted in Morse 141-2).
Mansfield, whom eulogists remembered for his congenial
personality, may have been the obvious choice to reunite the
Methodist society in Thomaston, but he failed.
After the
failure of the Thomaston Methodist society, Mansfield
remained in Thomaston, where in 1844 he wrote an obituary for
one of the prominent members of the Methodist society at
Friendship, on the tip of the Muscongus Peninsula south of
Thomaston (Pilsbury 141).
In 1845 Mansfield married his first-cousin-once-removed,
Lucy Maria Fairbanks.
Lucy Maria, the grand-daughter of the
singing master John Fairbanks, was born in Parkman, Ohio, in
32
the Western Reserve, in 1821.
Her father, Major Abner
Fairbanks, had served at Fort Erie during the War of 1812 and
had continued west after the war.
Like the Mansfield family
a generation earlier, Abner was attracted to Ohio by a land
speculator, Samuel Parkman.
Parkman, who owned a large piece
of land in the northwestern part of the Waldo Patent, was a
friend of the Fairbanks family in Hope (Letter from John
Fairbanks to Abner Fairbanks, September 1, 1821).
On
February 15, 1818, Abner married Nancy McMillan, "a lady of
Scottish descent and of rare accomplishments" (Gravestone,
Abner Fairbanks, Morey Cemetery, Hope, Maine).
end of 1818 and 1824, they had four children:
Between the
Lewis, Lucy
Maria, Winfield Scott, and Caroline.
In 1825, Nancy and the children, except for Lucy Maria,
died of dysentery.
Judge Robert Parkman adopted Lucy Maria,
and Abner returned to Hope, "to die among his kindred in his
native place" (Gravestone).
He died in February of 1827.
Abner's brothers and sisters wanted to take Lucy Maria to
Maine.
In 1838, when she was seventeen, her uncle, John
Fairbanks (son of the singing master), wrote that he wanted
to take her to Hope to prevent her from marrying (letter from
John Fairbanks to Lewis Wentworth, August 12, 1838).
He was
33
apparently successful, for seven years later, she married D.
H. Mansfield.
In 1845 Mansfield was accepted as a probationary member
of the Maine Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church,
and was appointed to Old Town, a village sixteen miles north
of Bangor on the Penobscot River.
years in Old Town.
The Mansfields spent two
In 1846 they had a daughter there, Helen,
who died in infancy.
Mansfield's time in Old Town was a success, for at the
end of his tenure he was ordained a deacon and assigned to
Frankfort.
This was a prestigious move for Mansfield.
The
town of Frankfort (which then included Frankfort and Marsh
villages--modern Winterport and Frankfort, respectively) was
one of the early Methodist stations east of the Kennebeck:
Jesse Lee, the founder of Methodism in Maine, had established
a station there early in the 1790s.
In Frankfort Mansfield
was under the watchful eye of Joshua Hall, the unofficial
patriarch of Methodism in eastern Maine.
In 1795, Hall had
collected Jesse Lee's stations along the Penoscot and had
united them into the Penobscot Circuit.
The spiritual son of
Jesse Lee, Hall was also the spiritual father of Benjamin
Jones.
Although Hall was superannuated by 1847, he remained
active in local and conference affairs for another fifteen
34
years.
By assigning Mansfield to Frankfort, the conference
and bishop gave him one more year of the mentor/disciple
relationship that was the key to the Methodist church's
training of its clergy.
In 1848, when the stations in the Maine Conference that
were east of the Kennebeck became the East Maine Conference,
the new conference appointed Mansfield to "Belfast Mission."
Belfast was an important ship-building, commercial, and
agricultural market center at the northern end of the Waldo
Patent.
It had had Methodist preaching since Joshua Hall had
included it on the Penobscot Circuit in 1795, but for the
fifty years before Mansfield's time there the preaching had
been sporadic.
Because the Penobscot valley was the center
(symbolically if not geographically) of the new conference, a
strong station at the mouth of the river was necessary to the
development of the conference.
The conference called Belfast
a mission because of its undeveloped potential.
Mansfield,
was a strong candidate for the assignment because he knew the
area--Belfast is separated from Hope only by the town of
Lincolnville--and because he was already known for his softspoken evangelism.
The Belfast Republican Journal announced
Mansfield's arrival:
"We have heard Mr. Mansfield, who is to
35
be stationed in this town, favorably spoken of, both as a man
and a speaker" (August 11, 1848).
Joseph Williamson, one of Belfast's historians, and a
contemporary of Mansfield, in a pencil-written annotation to
his list of preachers in the town, remembered that Mansfield
was a "very popular preacher" and had inspired a revival
(Williamson papers, Belfast Free Library, notes for
Williamson 304).
Indeed, revivalism appears to have been the
thrust of Mansfield's ministry in Belfast.
During
Mansfield's tenure the East Maine Conference established a
camp-meeting in towns adjoining Belfast, first on Isleboro,
in Penobscot Bay east of the town, and from 1849 until 1933
in Northport, three miles south of Belfast.
Mansfield, with
his talents in music and preaching, had much to offer to the
East Maine Conference's revival efforts.
During the two years that Mansfield was stationed in
Belfast his publishers released both editions of his
tunebook.
The Belfast newspapers announced the first edition
of The American Vocalist on November 11, 1848, and on
November 30, 1849 they announced the revised edition.
At the annual conference of 1850, the conference
assigned Mansfield to the First Methodist Church, Bangor,
popularly called the "Brick Chapel."
Mansfield's move from
36
Belfast to Bangor was a shift from the role of missionary to
that of administrator and fund-raiser.
The Brick Chapel was
one of the largest, wealthiest, and most solidly established
stations in the conference:
in the conference minutes of
1852 Mansfield called the church "redoubtable" (1852:7).
In
his earlier stations, Mansfield had represented old,
egalitarian Methodism, but in Bangor he was firmly intrenched
in the modern, increasingly institutionalized trends of the
denomination.
During his two years in Bangor, his major
accomplishments were in raising money for the Missionary
Societies of the East Maine and General Conferences.
In the
minutes of the East Maine Conference for 1851, Mansfield
announced that the Brick Chapel had raised $300 for the
missionary societies.
He noted,
"Average per member $2,20
[sic] which exceeds that of any other church in New England"
(1851:27).
Bangor was Mansfield's last pastoral charge.
His fund-
raising efforts were so successful that at the annual meeting
of 1852 the conference asked Bishop Osmon Baker (later famous
for his role in establishing the Boston University School of
Theology) to appoint Mansfield agent of the East Maine
Conference Seminary, a request which the Bishop respected.
L. L. Knox, the principal of the seminary, noted in his
37
"Funeral Discourse" for Mansfield that Mansfield, fearing the
job as agent would keep him from his chosen work of
preaching, accepted the appointment reluctantly.
Mansfield's task as seminary agent was to raise a
permanent endowment of $25,000.
By the annual conference of
1853 he reported that he had raised the full amount.
The
conference of 1853 renewed his appointment, and the
conference the following year renewed it for a final term.
During his final year, he and representatives of other
seminaries in the state (including Bucksport's sister school,
the Maine Wesleyan Seminary at Kent's Hill) lobbied the state
legislature for financial support.
While in Augusta during
January of 1855 Mansfield contracted a fever, and on Sunday,
February 25, he died.
During his time as seminary agent, Mansfield had
returned home, in 1852 to the family farm in Hope, and in
1853 to Warren.
Anna Simpson Hardy, Hope's historian, noted
that he stayed at his father's house, the "Chapel House"
(118).
In Warren, the Mansfields boarded with Lermond
Kelloch (or Kalloch, the clerk of Probate spelled the name
both ways), a deacon in the Baptist church.
The Mansfields
had two daughters in Warren, Caroline Cushing (named after
the town of Warren's neighbor to the southeast) and Helen
38
Maria.
While the family was in Warren, in February of 1854,
Lucy died of "a rapid consumption" (Belfast Republican
Journal, March 3, 1854).
Mansfield's obituary in the
conference minutes noted, "His companion died one year before
him, and they have left two little orphan daughters to the
sympathy of the Church which their parents loved."
the church did care for the children:
Legally,
specifically, the
guardian appointed by the probate court was Ammi Prince,
Mansfield's successor as seminary agent.
They spent most of
their childhood, however, between their uncle Israel's farm
in Hope and their aunt Wealthy's home in Warren.
What sort of man was D. H. Mansfield?
We can piece
together a portrait of his character from a variety of
sources, including the Old Town town history, L. L. Knox's
"Funeral Discourse," newspaper and conference obituaries,
probate records, and Mansfield's own writings in conference
minutes, the conference history, and The American Vocalist.
What emerges is a picture of a man devout to an extreme,
"inordinately" fond of music, generally soft-spoken but
occasionally intemperate in his speech and writing, popular
both for his powerful preaching and his social talents,
39
generally liked by his colleagues but occasionally judged to
be too harsh (Norton 104).
L. L. Knox, W. H. Pilsbury, and David Norton, the
historian of Old Town, emphasized Mansfield's devotion to the
Methodist Church.
Indeed, other aspects of his character,
including his love of music, stemmed from his religious
devotion.
For example, David Norton wrote in his Sketches of
Old Town:
"He was very much imbued with the spirit of his
divine mission, and not only carried it out in his action,
but he talked it and sung it."
Pilsbury wrote that Mansfield
was "absorbed entire, soul, spirit and body, in whatever work
he undertook, taking hold, holding on, and never letting go,
till his work was done" (19).
Mansfield's entire absorption into the Methodist spirit
accounted for several of his remarkable characteristics.
Both Pilsbury and Knox commented on Mansfield's distinctive
prose style.
Knox commented:
His sermons were his own; he could not have
preached a borrowed sermon; nor could anybody else
have borrowed and preached one of his. Thus his
discourses were peculiar; and generally they were
peculiarly striking and effective (14).
Pilsbury was similarly impressed by Mansfield's command of
language--his "most forcible diction" (19).
Pilsbury wrote
of Mansfield's oratorical and disputative talents:
40
Gifted with remarkable readiness of perception and
thought and with an unlimited ready and easy flow
of language, in controversy he could not be taken
by surprise. He was direct to his point, and
intolerant of rebuff by evasive issues, by which he
would not allow himself to be turned aside, and
which he managed to turn upon his man, to his own
purpose (192).
Pilsbury saw Mansfield's stamp on the conference obituary for
Benjamin Jones.
What marks this as Mansfield's work is the
brilliant imagery--with the Gospel trumpet, rejoicing
converts, and laurels of victory--and description of setting
and events.
As in the preface to the Vocalist, he sets
religious piety into the unbroken New England wilderness:
He was never so much in his element as when he
was preaching pardon and salvation to sinner
through the blood of Jesus! It was then that his
heart became a gushing fountain. It was then,
while tenderness beamed in his eye, and the big
tear-drops rolled over his cheek, that Father Jones
became a champion of eloquence, and whole
congregations were subdued before him.
The hills and valleys, and mountains and
rivers of Maine have borne testimony to his toils
and faithfulness in storm and sunshine for more
than forty years; and her deep forests and silent
glens have witnessed his tears and echoed to his
prayers for the conversion and salvation of her
people. . . .
He gave the trumpet a certain sound. His
warnings fell upon the ear of thousands like a
solemn cry at midnight, and aroused them from their
slumbers to seek a refuge in Christ. His labors,
always useful, were almost invariably attended with
revival. It is believed that no preacher who
survives him in New England ever witnessed a
greater number of conversions as the result of his
labors.
Such was Father Jones . . . one of the chiefcaptains of the Lord's host,
who fell at his post
41
upon the walls of Zion, with the shout of victory
upon his lips, and covered with laurels of unfading
glory. He has no abbeyed burial, but he sleeps in
Jesus. His sculptured representative may have no
niche in the temple of fame, but HE will stand in a
more glorious lot. Thousands welcomed him to the
immortal shores, and thousands who lingered still
on earth cried as they beheld his upward flight,
"My father! my father! the chariots of Israel and
the horsemen thereof!" (Minutes, 1851:32 and in an
edited form, Pilsbury 18-9).
Mansfield's love (and oratorical use) of music was
another product of his religious zeal.
David Norton noted
that he "talked and sung" Methodism (emphasis added):
He was a fine singer, and accompanied his voice
with the violin, which he was inordinately fond of,
and played with a great deal of skill and
intelligent science. Many a good sing we have had
together, and the aroma of its spirit still lingers
around its memories (104).
Pilsbury noted his use of music as an oratorical tool:
Sometimes, when his eloquent oratory failed to
carry he would resort to still more eloquent song,
where he was entirely at home, and with which he
seldom failed (19).
Anna Simpson Hardy, in her history of the town of Hope,
recorded an anecdote that when Mansfield entered or left a
home he would "sing a verse or two of an appropriate hymn to
which the sweetness of his voice lent additional charm"
(118).
His eulogists also remembered him for his bursts of
anger:
David Norton, who knew Mansfield in a social context,
found this contradictory to his pious spirit, but his
colleague L. L. Knox excused it as a product of his zeal.
42
Other colleagues (the authors of his obituary in the
conference minutes and his friend, W. H. Pilsbury) wrote that
his hot temper was a product of his nervous and weak physical
and physical constitution.
The conference obituary noted his
"frail constitution, predisposed to pulmonary disease," and
Pilsbury wrote of "his fine strung nervous system" that was
"acutely susceptible" to excitement (Conference Minutes,
1855:24 and Pilsbury 192).
David Norton, who shared a duplex
with the Mansfield's noted his "natural temper, which would
sometimes flash out beyond his control," and illustrated his
point with the following anecdote:
One day in the month of February, Mrs. Mansfield
and Mrs. Norton passed the day with Mrs. Hiram
Smith, and in the evening Mansfield and Norton
joined the group; it was the season of the February
thaw, and it begun [sic] to rain in the afternoon,
and rained powerfully all the evening; there was a
great depth of snow upon the ground. About ten
o'clock, the party began to talk about going home,
but on account of the storm, Mrs. Smith urged the
party to stay all night, and especially the ladies;
but Mrs. Mansfield demurred, and the persuasions of
the whole company had no effect to change her
determination. So they started for home; the wind
blew so hard that no one could carry an umbrella,
and thus they had to brave the whole force of the
storm, sinking into the snow nearly a foot at every
step; arriving near home they found the ditch which
they must cross, on the side of the road, filled
with water, and in the attempt to cross it Mrs.
Mansfield managed to slip and fall at full length
upon her back right in the deepest of the puddle,
which was deep enough to half cover her person.
Mansfield took no notice of her, nor offered to
help her, but trudged along into the house and left
43
her to get out of the trouble as best she could,
which she, being very nimble, and urged in her
efforts by the chilling water, readily did (118).
Mansfield's conference obituary, however, noted:
In his mental constitution there was nothing
negative; hence his feelings and convictions were
likely to be expressed so forcibly as sometimes to
give offence. He was no conservative--to him,
between right and wrong there could be no
compromise (1855:24).
In his "Funeral Discourse," L. L. Knox developed this theme
further.
Knox noted, "In some of his pleas for . . . [for
the cause of the seminary] his brethren have thought him
unduly severe," and then reflecting with blunt honesty
continued, "perhaps he was."
Knox then tried to explain
Mansfield's peculiar temper:
His rebukes were keen-barbed, and so accurately
aimed that the right bird generally fluttered. The
acuteness of his sensibilities and the ardor of his
interest in the object for which he labored, and
not the rankling of an unkind emotion in his heart,
are the true explanation of his apparent severity.
Nothing chafes and crushes a generous mind so much
as to find all its great plans of usefulness
crippled by the perverse selfishness of those to
whom it has a right to look for prompt co-operation
in the execution of those plans (14).
The point of Pilsbury's and Knox's emphasis of
Mansfield's zeal was that they considered him a martyr to the
cause of the seminary.
Pilsbury wrote of "his exclusive and
unselfish devotion to his work in behalf of the seminary. .
." and "his self martyrdom in its interest" (192).
His
eulogists wrote in his obituary in the conference minutes:
44
The last year of his life he was engaged in
procuring donations for building a Seminary
boarding-house, and when his last illness fastened
upon him, he was at Augusta, soliciting from the
State Legislature a donation for the
seminary. . . . The exhaustion consequent upon the
anxiety and toil he endured for this noble
enterprise, without doubt, abridged his span of
life (1855:24).
Knox titled his memorial sermon for Mansfield, "Duty, Death,
Destiny:
A Funeral Discourse, For Rev. Daniel H. Mansfield."
In it he showed that Mansfield's death was a providential
illustration of these "great doctrines" (13).
Specifically,
Knox showed that Mansfield accepted the assignment as
seminary agent because of his sense of duty:
He consented to take the duties of that agency at
first with great reluctance, for he felt that it
was withdrawing him from the cherished work of his
life. But in this, as in other cases, he regarded
the voice of the Conference as a sufficient
indication of duty (14).
Knox argued that his death was caused by a combination of
factors, beginning with the frustration over ungenerous
wealthy members of the church:
When he found an individual possessing abundant
means, and recognizing the claims of the church,
and professing the high principles of Christian
benevolence, who utterly refused any assistance, or
who gave with a stinted and grudging hand, his own
throbbing ardor was rebuffed and shocked. . . .
This he felt most keenly; and coming upon him, as
it did, in connection with that sad providence
which smote from his embrace the central object of
his domestic enjoyments--the wife of his love and
mother of his babes--it fitted his susceptible
constitution to become an easy victim of disease.
The peculiar circumstances attending his efforts to
45
procure aid from the Legislature for the
Institution, contributed still further to the same
result; and when the sad announcement was made that
he had fallen, we all felt and said that his life
had been sacrificed to the interests of the East
Maine Conference Seminary (15).
The ideal that was central to Mansfield's thinking as a
minister and singing master was the synthesis of the heritage
of "Puritanic New England" and Southern Methodism.
While he
was devout in his Methodism to the point of martyrdom, his
identity was self-consciously that of a New Englander.
In
his earliest writing, an obituary for Frederick Bradford, a
prominent member of the Methodist society at Friendship,
Maine, he combined the sense of dignity and historical
continuity of old New England with the ideal of charity to
the poor that was more distinctively Methodist:
He was descended from the family of the early
Governors of Massachusetts. He had been a
respected member of the Legislature of Maine, and a
faithful and efficient class leader in the
Methodist Episcopal church for thirty years. The
way-worn stranger, and the weary Methodist
preacher, always found a home at Father Bradford's.
The widow and the fatherless never applied in vain
for assistance (Pilsbury 141).
He developed this theme again in his obituary for his
spiritual father, Benjamin Jones.
In this obituary he
defined what he considered to be Puritan ideals as they
applied to Methodism:
As a preacher he was decidedly of the Puritan
stamp. Few men have been less warped by popular
opinion or practice. His profession of religion
46
was a declaration of independence from every
unhallowed bias; of every moral question he was
always on found on the right side (Pilsbury 18).
Finally, in the preface to The American Vocalist he explains
why he chose music by "the old composers" such as Billings,
Holden, and Read:
"Many of them were holy men, and their
music, composed among the hills and forests of Puritanic New
England, is but an embodiment of pious devotion"
(1849:ii).
Mansfield's admiration of Puritanism extended only to
its examples of "pious devotion" and integrity of conscience:
as a Methodist he accepted neither the Puritans' Calvinism
nor their class consciousness.
We see Mansfield's sense of
duty toward the poor particularly strongly in his selection
of tunes for the second and third parts of The American
Vocalist, the tunes that were popular among the "thousands of
illiterate persons"
(1849:ii).
Mansfield consistently urged his brethren to be generous
to the church.
We see this concern in his obituary for
Frederick Bradford and also in his role as seminary agent,
when he aimed his oratorical spears at ungenerous, wealthy
Methodists.
He personally gave liberal donations, "to make
even change," to the Missionary societies 1852:27).
In 1851
he humorously admonished his brethren to be more generous in
their offerings:
47
There are a very few close calculators found in
almost all societies who seem to have contracted a
special and unaccountable antipathy to that most
harmless, inoffensive, and very useful thing--the
CONTRIBUTION BOX. God bless them! It is because
they are such strangers! A little close
acquaintance would do their very souls good! Let
the "stewards", then, pass it along, very
goodnaturedly, as though all was fair weather, and
(it's a fact!) these same dear brethren (for they
are brethren, and this thing is their only failing)
will soon learn to smile most graciously when it is
held before their eyes in all the simplicity of its
eloquence to plead the cause of the poor and of the
benighted. Now it is well known that, in our
church, no man is compelled to any thing. All is
free. But, I should judge, that three of these
long handled contribution boxes, as it regards the
reformation and general welfare of society, are
about equal to an ordinary preacher (20).
Among his various roles as a member of the East Maine
Conference the one in which he was most comfortable was that
of preacher, and particularly that of circuit rider.
As a
preacher he was decidedly of the old school, so much so, that
Pilsbury, in his history of the conference, included
Mansfield's biography with the memorials of the earliest set
of preachers even though Mansfield was really in the
conference's third generation.
A verse inscribed on
Mansfield's gravestone illustrates his identity as a
"soldier" in "that hardy, brave, and noble-hearted band"
of
itinerant preachers:
Thy brethren in the field,
That hardy, brave, and noble-hearted band,
48
In Zion's ranks oft from their side will miss,
Thy strong, and fearless hand.
("Inscribed to the Memory of Rev. D. H. Mansfield by S.
Milligan," Morey Cemetery, Hope, Maine).
In the next verse, the poem notes Mansfield's devotion
to the church, calling him a "voice that oft hath cheered her
on."
Indeed, Mansfield was an active voice in conference
affairs from 1849, when he was ordained an elder, until his
death six years later.
At various times he served on
conference standing committees (for Peace, for Education, for
Memorials, and for the Publication of the Minutes) and on the
committee to examine candidates to membership in the
conference (appropriately, he examined candidates in
rhetoric, logic, and sermonizing).
His prefaces and parenthetical notes as a member of the
standing committee for the publication of the minutes between
1849 and 1852 show his values and interests as a member of
the conference.
In 1852, for example, he declared his
support for republicanism, the predominant political stance
of his brethren (8).
At other times he voiced anti-
intellectual opinions.
For example, he praised Benjamin
Jones for his theological conservatism:
His power of description was more remarkable for a
close adherence to Bible delineation than for any
49
romantic conceptions of an unlicensed imagination.
The glorious platform upon which he stood, and
every step that conducted him to it, were seen as
by sunlight. He never obscured the word of the
Lord by drawing around it the drapery of vanity,
nor marred its fearful beauties by foolish attempts
at wit. He never stooped from the glorious heights
of Eternal Truth, to touch even "fancy's loftiest
thought." The distance was too great, and the
point to be gained in a wrong direction to excite
his ambition (32).
He continued this theme in a footnote to the minutes,
offering his readers perjorative definitions of "Rationalism"
and "Transcendentalism:"
"Rationalism," as applied to religion, is a
sullen and dogged opposition to the truths of the
Bible,--including a special and sapient
determination to discard all FAITH, and to adopt
into its creed no proposition either in Nature or
Revelation but such as is perfectly comprehended
and fully known in all its principles and results.
Consequently its creed is a profound and wonderful
IGNORANCE of all that is believed, known, heard,
seen, or thought of, either in the heavens above or
in the earth beneath.
"Transcendentalism," on the other hand, in its
popular sense, is a (pretended) thorough
acquaintance with the secrets of Omniscience--a
complete knowledge of the motives and principles
that influence the Almighty in all His designs, and
of the laws by which the system of universal Nature
is governed--comprehending at a single glance all
that has been, is, or will be done in heaven,
earth, or hell. Its creed was written with the
shadow of a phantom, upon the smooth surface of a
mirage by moonlight, by a being that existed only
in the imagination, while sitting enveloped in fog
upon "the baseless fabric of a vision." It
transcends, in depth, the researches of Moses or
Solomon, Copernicus or Newton--in height, the
sublimities of David, Isaiah, or St. John--in
length, the moral law--in breadth, the Gospel of
Jesus Christ--and in every direction the limits of
50
common sense. It is difficult to tell which of
these systems is more transcendently irrational.-Ed (22).
In his comments in the conference minutes, Mansfield
again showed his short temper.
He cheered on the conference,
but he worried that poor record-keeping would frustrate its
lofty goals.
He persistently admonished his brethren to take
greater care and speed preparing their entries.
In the
minutes of 1851 and 1852, he did this in sarcastic prefaces.
In 1851, complaining of his fellow ministers' poor penmanship
and his difficulties reading the returns, he invoked the
spirit of the sharp-tongued dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral,
Dublin:
An Egyptian hieroglyphic that stands for the proper
name of some respectable individual might be read
in a dozen ways by as many different persons. The
same figures might represent 9 cts, 9,90, or 9000
dollars. Now, it would be, to say the least, very
unsatisfactory if a donation of $20, to the
Missionary Society by Jonathan Swift should appear
"in the print" an offering of 2 cents to some
unknown society by "John Smith"!
In 1852, he used puns to chastise his brethren. He
complained that the members had not paid attention to his
comments the year before.
Finally, he said he had had
enough, and would no longer serve as a "minute-man:"
Even now, twenty days after adjournment, when
the rest of our manuscript has long been ready for
the printer, we are compelled to wait for Reports
that ought to have been in our hands before session
closed! And, what is a little animating, the very
51
brethren who cause this delay will be the first to
sing-"Why do our MINUTES move so slow."
Or,-"Why should they be HOURS (ours)?
Now, we can raise corn on a ledge, or funds
from a sand-bank, any time; or lay our course, and
sail at decent speed against tide and current, with
streamers flying, and the wind dead ahead. But the
vast weight of honor, that has for four years past
rested on our shoulders as a "Minute"-man, has so
egregiously overwhelmed us that we are pretty
decidedly averse to another campaign. And, in
obedience to an old established law of Nature--the
law of self-preservation--we must respectfully ask
leave to withdraw our unworthy name, for a while,
at least, from the nominee-candidacy.
During his years as seminary agent, Mansfield showed his
attachment to his homes in Hope and Warren.
He derived his
spirit--his passionate spirituality as well as his
republicanism--from the Waldo Patent.
Returning home, he
could bring up his children with the simple, agrarian,
egalitarian spirit with which his parents raised him.
Mansfield appears to have identified more closely with
Warren than with Hope.
Indeed, the conference obituary
claimed that he was born in Warren.
The oversight is
significant, for the cultures of the two towns were
distinctive.
Hope was a product of "Puritanic New England:"
it had been set off from the Waldo Patent; its culture was
originally the Puritanic culture of central New England, not
the Scots-Irish and German culture of the rest of the patent.
Warren, on the other hand, was the heart of the Waldo Patent:
52
it was noted for its ethnic diversity and its social,
economic, and religious strife.
While Hope represented
Mansfield's own background, Warren represented what Mansfield
fought for as a "faithful soldier" of Christ.
The poor
illiterate persons whom Mansfield championed in his tunebook
were by and large citizens more of the Waldo Patent than of
Hope.
During his pastoral career, Mansfield was interested in
preserving the spirit of Methodism in eastern Maine as the
denomination entered a new era.
Because of the establishment
of the new conference, Methodism in Mansfield's region was
becoming increasingly institutionalized.
As a fund-raiser
for the Missionary Society and agent for the conference
seminary, Mansfield was a voice of the new Methodist spirit.
Still, he worried that the new conference would suffer from
mediocrity and intellectual vanity.
He helped Methodism push
toward final perfection ("He was no conservative"), but he
warned his brethren to stick to the "narrow way" (Minutes,
1855:24). Mansfield's attachment to the old, egalitarian
spirit of Methodism sprang from his background as a native of
the Waldo Patent.
In Mansfield's lifetime, class conflict
had severely divided the patent; Methodism was peculiarly
suited to address the needs of the agrarian poor.
Perhaps
53
because of his background, Mansfield felt the urgency of the
Methodist message:
he reflected this in his ideal of
generosity, in his respect for the Methodist hierarchy (the
authority of the bishops and conferences), in his fastidious
record-keeping, and in his sense of duty to the point of
self-sacrifice.
Finally, he reflected his devotion to the
old, informal spirit of Methodism in The American Vocalist
with its music of "Puritanic New England" and camp-meeting
revivalism.
54
Chapter Three:
Vocalist
The Social Context of The American
Although D. H. Mansfield claimed a national audience
with the title of his tunebook, he directed the book to an
audience which could sympathize with his sentiments about
"the hills and forests of Puritanic New England" and his
devotion to the "thousands of illiterate persons" who lived
there.
While this community had spread through much of the
Northeast and Mid-West during the beginning of the nineteenth
century, it had also shrunk as cities had claimed the hills
and stripped the forests in New England.
In much of northern
New England, however, the relative wilderness remained, at
least in the recent memories of the residents of the region.
In particular, residents of the Waldo Patent, the region in
which Mansfield was born and spent most of his life,
maintained an ethos based on an intense (even violent) class
consciousness and their ancestors' wilderness experience.
It
was primarily this community that Mansfield, with his folky
and conservative choice of tunes, addressed with his
tunebook.
To understand The American Vocalist one must
55
examine the social, political, and economic factors that
shaped the secular community of its compiler was a part.
The Waldo Patent was a large tract of land, stretching
from modern Waldoboro in the south to the southern end of
Bangor in the north.
coast" Maine today.
It included much of what we call "midThe patent was part of a larger tract
which had been owned by the Council of Plymouth (from 1606),
but in 1629 the Council sold to John Beauchamp and Thomas
Leverett, the tract between the Muscongus and Penobscot
rivers (Locke, 1859:19).
Beauchamp and Leverett called their
Patent the Lincolnshire or Muscongus Patent.
In 1719 John Leverett, President of Harvard College,
became the sole owner of the Patent; he divided it into ten
shares, which he sold to a corporation calling itself the
"Ten Proprietors" (Locke, 1859:19).
They divided their
shares into three parts and were joined by the "Twenty
Associates," becoming the "Thirty Proprietors."
Among the
"Twenty Associates" was Thomas Waldo, a merchant from Boston.
At the Treaty of Utrecht, the King attempted to repossess the
patent, but the thirty proprietors engaged Brigadier Samuel
Waldo, son of Thomas, to "obtain a relinquishment of the
arbitrary claim presented" (Locke, 1859:20).
Waldo won the
fight, and the thirty proprietors rewarded him with one half
56
of their patent.
In 1768, after Waldo's death, the "Ten
Proprietors," the "Twenty Associates," and the heirs of
Samuel Waldo divided the patent, with the "Ten Proprietors"
receiving the northernmost 43,000 acres, the "Twenty
Associates" receiving 57,000 acres in the middle, and the
Waldo heirs receiving the bulk of the land, some 400,000
acres (Locke, 1859:22).
In 1729, Waldo began to settle his land.
He travelled
to Europe--principally to the German Palatinate and the north
of Ireland--and distributed handbills advertising his patent.
Waldo's primary goals were to settle people who were
Protestant in religion, and not friendly to France in their
politics.
The groups which responded to Waldo's
advertisements were German Palatines, escaping from the
religious persecution in their area at the turn of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and Scots-Irish,
escaping the disenfranchisement of non-Anglicans in the wake
of the Glorious Revolution (Stahl 85-6).
Jacob Stahl, Waldoboro's twentieth-century historian,
shows that the Germans began to arrive on the southern end of
the Waldo Patent--the colony which he called "Broad Bay"--in
1729.
The largest groups of settlers, however, arrived
during the 1740s and later.
The German settlers were not
57
ostensibly a folk group.
They were refugees from political
and religious persecution, not poverty.
They quickly
developed a stratified society, and maintained their German
identity into the nineteenth century.
In 1735, Waldo's second group of immigrants-Presbyterians from the north
of Ireland--arrived on his
patent and settled on the banks of the St. George's River in
modern Cushing, Warren, Thomaston, and Union.
Most of these
settlers had been in the New World for a number of years:
they were scattered along the coast, from Boston to Pemaquid
(modern Newcastle and Damariscotta, Maine) and inland to
Londonderry, New Hampshire (Eaton, 1851:52).
In 1734, before
Waldo had secured the rights to develop his portion of the
Muscongus Patent, he hired Robert McIntyre to build a lime
kiln on the St. George's River.
Encouraged by rich mineral
deposits and the potential of abundant farm land, the ScotsIrish settlers followed McIntyre to the St. George's.
Waldo
gave one hundred acres to each settler, on the condition that
they improve the land; he took as rent one peppercorn "if
lawfully demanded," Cyrus Eaton, Warren's historian, wrote,
"to preserve a kind of feudal claim in the family, and
prevent the lands from escheating to the crown" (1851:54).
58
During this early period English settlers were a
minority on the patent.
Waldo's primarily English settlement
was at the tip of the Muscongus Peninsula, the modern town of
Friendship.
During the 1780s, the Twenty Associates of
Lincolnshire settled their land, a strip extending from the
port of Camden to the agricultural town of Liberty and
surrounded on three sides by the Waldo Patent, with English
Puritan stock from central New England.
Gradually the groups on the patent mingled and produced
a cohesive community.
While German communities generally
remained separate from their Scots-Irish and English
neighbors, several of the more entrepreneurial German
families spread through the patent:
Peter Ott, for example
took credit for founding the ostensibly English village of
Camden (gravestone in Camden village cemetery).
As we have
seen with Mansfield's own family, settlers of the Waldo
Patent gradually moved in and out of the Twenty Associates'
land, diffusing the cultural distinctions between the
patents.
What united the old settlers of the three ethnic groups
was an identity based on their victory over early hardships.
The settlers discovered that Waldo had generally overstated
his claims about the condition of the patent.
In particular,
59
the German settlers, arriving in the autumn, discovered no
settlement, as Waldo had claimed.
Moreover, they discovered
that Waldo had divided his land into parcels of awkward
sizes, making farming difficult (Eaton, 1851:67).
Settlers
of every ethnic group had to clear land, fight wolves, and
subsist on whatever food they could find.
Several local histories, including John L. Locke's
history of Camden and William Crosby's history of Belfast
record stories of settlers spending an entire winter eating
only clams.
Locke writes:
At one time Robert Miller of Belfast, was returning
in a boat from Camden with a bag of meal, when he
went ashore at Northport to get dinner prepared in
a cabin there, which was the only one probably then
in Northport. On entering the room, he there found
a family sick and destitute, who had subsisted for
a number of days on nothing but clams, and appeared
to be in a state of starvation. After partaking of
a repast he soon got prepared, he shared with them
his bag of meal, and went home rejoicing at the
privilege of thus feeding the hungry. This
incident was commemorated by some poetaster by the
following doggerel verse:
"Camden for beauty
Belfast for pride;
If it hadn't been for clams,
Northport would have died" (Locke, 1859:30).
Cyrus Eaton, the historian of the towns of Warren and
Thomaston records a similar anecdote about Samuel Payson, D.
H. Mansfield's grandfather and one of the early settlers of
the part of Warren which became Cushing:
60
During his residence here, he had much to encounter
from wild beasts, poverty, and the scarcity of
provisions. Often, (says one of his daughters)
whilst weaving, with nothing but alewives to eat,
was she compelled to lay her head down upon the
beam and weep till rest enabled her to resume the
shuttle, and this for days and weeks together. A
cow, which they subsequently obtained, added much
to the comfort of the family; but one dark evening
the boys heard a rustling among the green corn, and
the father, not doubting but that it was a
marauding bear, levelled his musket in the
direction of the sound, fired, and found to his
dismay that he had killed his only cow (1851:2134).
The poverty described in the above stories lasted
relatively late--the incidents described happened about the
time of the Revolution--and even after the hardships eased
they left an imprint on the local culture.
Because of the
early poverty and the resulting ethos based on the settlers'
victory over the wilderness, the culture of the Waldo Patent
was similar to the Southern plainfolk culture which Dickson
D. Bruce describes in his discussion of the cultural context
of camp-meetings (31).
We see on the Waldo Patent the same
concerns with individualism and ruffianism.
Eaton for
example writes fondly of Samuel Payson's eccentricities.
He
also tells of a quick-tempered Irish school teacher who was
famous for his sharp tongue and ready wit and Locke mentions
the violent tempers that flared in Camden over the issue of
American independence (Eaton, 1851:242-3 and Locke, 1859:36).
61
In the poor, rough communities of the Waldo Patent, folk
beliefs, stories, and songs flourished.
Eaton, in his Annals
of Warren, writes of the lack of books on the patent, and
describes the oral traditions with which the settlers
entertained themselves.
Interestingly, he seems to divide
their songs into "old ballad" and "broadside ballad"
groups:
Few means were found of gratifying, by reading,
that love of marvellous adventure and moving
incident so pleasing alike to the learned and
ignorant. This want was supplied, as in the middle
ages, and the ages more remote that preceded the
invention of letters, by ballads, songs, and
stories which cheered the long evenings and stormy
days of winter. These were made up of real
encounters with bears and savages on the one hand,
and those of giants, witches, and demons in
enchanted castles on the other (156).
Moreover, in his history of Thomaston, Eaton writes of an Asa
Bennett, a ballad maker at the end of the eighteenth century,
whose "doggerel rhymes contributed much to the merriment of
the huskings, raisings, and other gatherings of the time"
(227).
He notes that some of Bennett's songs were still
popular in 1865.
Although Eaton tries to discount the importance of
superstition, he and John Sibley, historian of the town of
Union, record examples of these beliefs.
Eaton notes, for
example, that the Scottish settlers brought with them beliefs
in fairies.
He writes that the beliefs gradually died out:
62
The fairies and elves continued their sports, at
times, till after the revolutionary war. But the
whole tribe of invisible beings seem to have
accompanied the settlers from Europe rather from
personal attachment, than from any expectation of
making a permanent settlement in the new world. As
the first emigrants died off, the creatures of
their imagination gradually abandoned the new
generations that sprung up, and, except perhaps now
and then a freak in some obscure quarter, no longer
trouble the community (156).
Eaton felt that the early settlers did not generally believe
in witchcraft, and that it was mostly the Puritan settlers
from Massachusetts and New Hampshire who brought the beliefs.
Sibley, however, records a story of a bewitched horse that
entertained an entire neighborhood until some of the
residents cropped the animal's ears and burned them with a
hot poker to drive out the witches (228-9).
Finally, we see
evidence that the residents of the Waldo Patent believed in
witches down to Eaton's, Sibley's, and Mansfield's time in
the Belfast Republican Journal of October 5, 1855.
It
printed a news story from Hampden, the northernmost town in
the patent:
An individual given to superstitious notions is
also located in this town. He is still in
existence. The story goes that he always thought
himself the son of a witch when a boy, one day
raking in his father's flied [sic], a black cat ran
up to him and crouched at his feet. He struck him
with the rake, and broke his back. At the same
time a loud shriek was heard from the house, and
his mother was heard calling him; hurrying to
answer her, he was met by her ghostly form; she
told him he had broken her back; she was dying, and
63
he must "do penance for the sin," he must wear his
beard for seven times seven years. This command
this interesting person obeys.
Gradually, the autonomy of the old communities declined.
After the settlers had been on the patent for about thirty
years, settlers from Massachusetts began to resettle and
claim the territory.
On the neighboring Kennebec Patent,
during the 1760s, a new professional class displaced the
German and Scots-Irish settlers.
After the Revolution, the
same thing happened to the Waldo Patent:
the most celebrated
member of this new class was the Revolutionary hero, Henry
Knox.
During the Revolution, the Waldo family sided with the
Loyalists.
The revolutionary government, under the
Confiscation Act, took the family's land, and at the end of
the war awarded it to Waldo's grand-daughter, Lucy Fluker and
her husband, Knox.
Knox set about improving the land, buying
pieces that the Waldo family had sold as well as portions of
the Ten Proprietor's land to the north.
He developed the
patent's rich limestone deposits, bought from Charles
Barrett, the founder of the town of Hope, a series of locks
on the St. George's River, and experimented with crops and
livestock.
To overlook his grand estate, Knox built an
extravagant mansion which he named Montpelier.
64
Knox's ambition--and Lucy's gambling habit--drove him
into debt (Locke, 1859:23).
He demanded that the squatters
buy their land, and he evicted those who refused.
squatters organized for a rebellion.
The
Their leader was Samuel
Ely, a Congregational minister, Socinian in his religious
views, and something of a professional troublemaker.
Convicted for his part in Shays's Rebellion, he was expelled
from that state.
He travelled north to Vermont and started
similar agitation there:
again (Hall 453).
the Vermont government expelled him
He settled on the New Canaan Plantation,
now Northport and Lincolnville, where he farmed and preached
occasionally in Belfast.
In his fight against Knox, he
published a pamphlet entitled The Deformity of a Hideous
Monster, Discovered in the Province of Maine by a Man in the
Woods Looking After Liberty in which he questioned Knox's
(and even Waldo's ) rights to the land.
Knox had him
expelled again, but he fled only to Isleboro, a short ferry
ride from his home, where he eventually died of drowning
(Manuscript in the Williamson papers, Belfast Free Library-the source is
John Locke).
Knox's debts eventually overwhelmed him, and he died
insolvent in 1806.
to foreclosure.
His estate lost large pieces of his land
When his creditors tried to survey the land,
65
they encountered the same opposition Knox had met.
On the
southern end of the patent the Massachusetts legislature
threatened to use the militia to enforce the survey, but as
Cyrus Eaton noted, the state feared that the militia would
not follow orders.
This fear, combined with the settlers'
threats of insurrection (and acts of intimidation, including
leaving an open coffin on the doorsteps of Col. Thatcher, the
lawyer for one of the landowners) caused the legislature to
postpone the survey (1851:299-300).
A similar course of
events happened on the northern end of the patent.
In the
rural towns west of Belfast, townspeople intimidated the
surveyor, tarred and feathered him, and ambushed him dressed
as Indians (Locke, 1989:215-6 and Robinson, 1983:40-55).
The
militia in Belfast, fearing that Indians would storm the town
in the night, organized to defend themselves, but discovered
in the morning the threat had been a bluff.
Local historians
dubbed this event the "Greene Indian War," and a local ballad
maker named Joseph Doloff commemorated the event with a song
of twenty-nine stanzas.
Doloff satirized the seriousness and
military ineptitude of the respectable Belfasters:
Good people all, both great and small,
Give ear to what I write,
I will tell you where a dreadful war
Took place the other night.
66
In Belfast town some guns did sound,
Which struck like death's alarm,
It was no jeast, for sure the Priest,
Did call all hands to arms. . . .
John Russ now comes without a gun,
An Indian he would kill,
He took a stake, their heads to break,
Priest Johnson cries "Be still."
"Don't you go nigh, for you'll surely die
If you the Indians meet."
He says to all, "I heard a ball.
Lets make our best retreat". . . .
Judge Reed now comes with sword and gun
And ammunition large,
The prudent Squire did not once fire,
Though seven times did charge.
The next morn when light appeared
His gun was two-thirds full,
Although t'was cold, I have been told
The Judge was warm as wool.
Then all the host did brag and boast,
And all as one did say,
"The Indians failed, and we prevailed,
For we have gained the day." (52-5)
In a later generation, the plight of the squatters
attracted the attention of Nathaniel Hawthorne who used the
conflict in his House of The Seven Gables (published in
1851).
In the novel, the Pyncheon family claimed "the
greater part of what is now known as Waldo County, in the
State of Maine. . . (25)."
Commenting on the virtual land
war, Hawthorne wrote:
But, in course of time, the territory was partly
re-granted to more favored individuals, and partly
67
cleared and occupied by actual settlers. These
last, if they ever heard of the Pyncheon title,
would have laughed at the idea of any man's
asserting a right--on the strength of mouldy
parchments, signed with the faded autographs of
governors and legislators long dead and forgotten-to the lands which they
or their fathers had
wrested from the wild hand of nature, by their own
sturdy toil (26).
The lasting effect of the land wars on the character of
the region was to solidify the communities, and define
ingroups and outgroups:
they forced the common people to
illustrate graphically their personality traits, especially
their belligerence toward authority.
The common people--"the
thousands of illiterate persons"--on the Waldo Patent had,
out of necessity, bonded themselves into a cohesive unit
early in their tenancy on the Patent, and they defined
themselves by what they were not.
They maintained themselves
as distinct from the mainstream of Massachusetts culture
(although technically part of Massachusetts until 1820):
they scoffed at the genteel life of Boston, early laughing at
their own fumbling over the novelty of tea, and telling
derisive stories about the haughty Lucy Knox.
Cyrus Eaton, generally Whiggish in his sentiments,
recorded several of these stories in his history of
Thomaston.
Eaton consistently portrayed General Knox as kind
and hospitable but a browbeaten by his bitter wife.
In one
story he tells of her religious hypocrisy describing how she
68
hired a carpenter to alter her pew, "to suit her ease or her
fancy," but then was "never seen there but one-half day
afterward."
Eaton continues to describe her rudeness to a
supply preacher whom the General invited to dinner:
On their coming to the table and finding her
seated, [General Knox] pleasantly said, "rise, my
dear, and the parson will ask a blessing." She
took no notice, but sat unmoved in her stateliness.
He repeated his request in a more distinct, loud,
and emphatic manner. Still she did not move.
Then, with something of that stentorian voice which
at the battle of Trenton rose above the tempest, he
repeated "rise!--my--dear!--the parson is going to
ask a blessing!" This being also without effect,
the blessing was asked, and the dinner partaken of,
without any allusion to the circumstance (221).
In another story, Eaton describes her contempt for the local
squatters:
[General Knox] loved to see every one happy, and
could sympathized with people of every class and
condition, rejoice in their prosperity, and aid
them in adversity. His companion, on the contrary,
wished to have nothing to do with what she
considered the lower classes, unless when she
needed their service; and made no visits, exchanged
no civilities that we are aware of, with any
families in the place--except, perhaps, on one
occasion at the house of Capt. Vose. She used to
ride out in her coach, the only one in the
vicinity; but return, like Noah's dove, finding no
place to alight at. On one of these occasions her
carriage breaking down, she had to wait for some
temporary repairs to be made; the good people of
the neighboring house came out, inviting her and
her children into their dwelling; but she chose to
remain standing in the muddy street till the injury
was repaired (221).
Lucy Knox and Montpelier became an symbols of an
outgroup.
The settlers contrasted her opulence with their
69
thriftiness, the elegant, Federal-style Montpelier (with its
piazzas, arched facade, and decorative urns) with their
cabins, built not to afford them a gracious lifestyle in the
fashion of the well settled Middle Atlantic, but to shelter
them from the deadly winter weather.
The settlers defined
themselves in their ingroup by their resiliency and
ingenuity.
parties.
They lived a life of hard work, not fancy dinner
As Montpelier was an symbol of the outgroup, so
their buildings were symbols of their ingroup.
The settlers
built log cabins, eighteen by twenty feet, with wood and mud,
"cat-and-clay," chimneys, and windows protected only by
either greased paper or mica, called "isinglass."
Cyrus
Eaton described the most elegant log cabin, built by Matthias
Hawes for his bride Sarah Payson (D. H. Mansfield's uncle and
aunt), in Stirlington, the Higland Scots district of Warren:
According to Mrs. Hawes, the house which Mr. Hawes
had begun was by some considered "a little more
stylish" than any other of the log-houses in the
plantation. No other house in Stirlington was
shingled. This was covered with shingles made by
Mr. Hawes himself. It contained a kitchen,
bedroom, buttery, and had a good cellar. The logs
of which the walls were made, instead of being
rough, were hewed both inside and outside. There
was a regularly laid floor; but, as the boards were
not nailed down, considerable care was requisite,
in drawing up the table for a meal, to prevent it
from being upset. On the west end was a place
designed for a chimney. For a flue, boards were
stuck up endwise, ten or twelve feet apart at the
bottom, to secure them from taking fire, and tipped
70
inward toward the top, so as to leave a
comparatively small opening for the passage of the
smoke. The fire was built upon the ground, and a
flat stone was used for a chimney-back. The only
window was made by a wooden slide. This was closed
when it stormed and thus the newly married couple
saw by means of the light which came down the
chimney. As the ground on which the fire was built
was lower than the floor, the occupants, when it
was cold, sat on the ends of the boards, and
suspended their feet in front of the fire
(1865:51).
This house, built in 1777, was only twenty years older than
Montpelier.
The couple lived in relative comfort, the tight
log walls keeping out the drafts, and the large fireplace
supplying ample heat (with a more than ample virgin forest
for fuel only yards from the door).
Sarah Payson Hawes had a
spinning wheel and loom, occupying, Eaton notes, "a very
important portion of the room" (Warren 51-3).
Houses were a
necessity, but barns were a little more luxurious, and one
"Yankee Barn" (a three bay, eaves-front barn of about thirty
by forty feet), could hold the grain grown by several
families.
The settlers built their barns sturdily.
With
twelve-inch square oak timbers, the barns were a defiant
declaration of victory over the forest (1851:39).
While the settlers scorned the Knox's opulence, they
laughed at their own lack of social graces.
An example of
this is the story of the first cup of tea served in Warren,
in 1740.
Cyrus Eaton thought the story so good that he
71
included it in both his history of Warren and his history of
Thomaston (1851:62 and 1865:48-9).
By his accounts, Samuel
Waldo encouraged Henry Alexander, one of the Scots-Irish
settlers of Warren, to run for the post of Captain of the
militia.
Alexander was elected, and to celebrate he held a
party at his house:
Tradition relates that on this occasion he procured
at the fort one gallon of rum and a pound of tea.
Directing his wife to prepare the latter for the
women, he served out the former to the men who were
enjoying their rude mirth out of doors. On coming
in to see how matters went on within, he found his
wife had served up the tea leaves, well buttered,
as a species of food. On apprising her of her
mistake and inquiring for the broth, his wife said,
"THAT is good for nothing, for I poured it out, and
the very pigs would not drink it." When we
consider that tea had been used even in England but
seventy years before this, we may well believe the
truth of this anecdote (1851:62).
The class consciousness of the Waldo Patent expressed
itself during the second quarter of the nineteenth century
with heavy support for Andrew Jackson.
Jackson was popular
generally across Maine, as Seba Smith, in his letters of Maj.
Jack Downing illustrated.
The republican fervor was great
enough during the 1840s that Belfast had two republican
papers, the Republican Journal and the Maine Free Press.
The
republicanism of the Waldo Patent made the territory fertile
ground for the egalitarian religious sects, the Methodists
and Free Baptists.
72
Like his fellow townsmen and clergymen generally, D. H.
Mansfield was a republican, and this social and political
allegiance is the characteristic which makes his tunebook
remarkable among contemporary Northern books.
Mansfield was
born only two years after the Greene Indian War; during his
youth the patent was still feeling the effects of the
Betterment Act.
He absorbed the Waldo Patent's class
consciousness, pride its early history, and its healthy folk
culture.
His background as a member of the communtity of the
Waldo Patent guided him both as a preacher and as a tunebook
compiler.
73
Chapter Four: The Religious Context of D. H.
Mansfield and The American Vocalist
Although D. H. Mansfield fashioned his tunebook to have
an ecumenical appeal, he was emphatically a Methodist, and
the book bears the stamp of his faith.
Methodism was a major
voice on the Waldo Patent, but except in the town of Union it
was not the dominant denomination.
As we have seen,
isolation and class-conflict divided communities on the Waldo
Patent.
The eighteenth-century denominations (the German
Lutheran, Reformed, and Moravian churches, the Scots-Irish
Presbyterian church, and the Congregational church) felt the
effects of this social and political strife.
The
Congregational Church, the dominant denomination at the
beginning of the nineteenth century, represented the urban,
land-owning class.
It failed to address the needs of the
agrarian tenantry which flocked to the new "experimental"
denominations, the Free Baptists and the Methodists.
"Experimental" or "practical" religion was one of the
legacies of the Great Awakening.
Jonathan Edwards had
defined it in his Treatise Concerning the Religious
74
Affections and his Dissertation on True Virtue (Heimert lii,
liii).
Jesse Lee, the founder of Methodism in Maine, defined
experimental religion simply as the knowledge that God had
pardoned one's sins (Thrift 7).
From the moment of receiving
grace, a saint's life would be totally transformed and
animated by the Holy Spirit.
The experimental religion
movement became anti-intellectual; because its followers were
"inwardly moved by the Holy Ghost," they felt that their
personal relationship with God was more important than formal
study (Thrift 41-2).
By contrast, the Congregational church
on the Waldo Patent was formal and rationalistic.
At the
beginning of the nineteenth century, the rivalry between the
head and heart denominations was bitter.
Gradually, during
Mansfield's lifetime, the denominational rivalry on the Waldo
Patent began to fade.
During the 1840s, the experimental
denominations joined with the rationalistic Congregational
and Unitarian churches in condemning slavery.
In this
period, Methodist and Baptist churches were becoming more
formal and institutionalized while the Congregational church
joined the Methodists' and Baptists' evangelical fervor.
Especially in 1843, when the Millerites believed Christ would
begin the Judgment, the Congregationalists joined their
Methodist and Baptist brethren in a great inter-
75
denominational awakening (Williamson 303).
Mansfield
presented The American Vocalist to this religious community;
the book was a response to the ecumenical spirit of the
1840s, but it was also a reaction against the growing
institutionalization of the Methodist and Baptist churches.
The historical trends of the Waldo Patent during
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries affected the religious
communities as they affected the secular communities.
The
assimilation of the German and Scots-Irish communities, rise
of land speculators and their failure to make the patent part
of the downcountry Massachusetts culture, and the success of
the agrarian, inordinately class-conscious plainfolk
communities had parallels in the decline of the German and
Scots-Irish churches, the short-lived dominance of the
Congregational church, and the success of the Baptist,
Methodist, and (after these churches had lost much of their
relevance to the agrarian communities) Millerite churches.
The ethnic diversity--with its attendant distinctive
folkways--economic hardships, class strife and resulting
prominence of Jeffersonian and Jacksonian political ideals,
and finally religious revivalism were the salient
characteristics of the patent through Mansfield's lifetime.
The culture of the patent, like the culture of the Southern
76
plainfolk communities, was one of marginality:
because the
Methodists and Baptists directed their missions to these
marginal communities they were successful in this region.
Although the Congregational church was established by
Massachusetts law on the Waldo Patent until Maine became a
state in 1820, it never captured the hearts of the majority
of the region's residents (Pilsbury 7-8).
It failed here
partly because of the ethnic diversity of the region, and
partly because of the political and social allegiances of the
church.
When Waldo had settled his patent he had cared
little about the religious connections of his settlers.
He
was an absentee landlord and had designed his patent to be
self-sufficient:
he demanded no rent and no cultural
conformity to the rest of Massachusetts.
He was so
successful that when his successors--General Knox and his
creditors--became resident landlords, they found the culture
set and the people resistent to their authority.
When the
land speculators began to resettle the land and claim it for
the "standing order" at the end of the eighteenth century,
they found opposition from the local ethnic churches:
the
Lutheran and Reformed churches among the Germans and the
Presbyterian church among the Scots-Irish.
77
Between about 1765 and 1795, however, the Congregational
church became the dominant religious force on the patent.
During this period, the ethnic churches began to decline.
In
several parts of the patent--notably Waldoboro and Belfast-this was a
natural part of the assimilation of the children
and grandchildren of the original settlers.
Jasper Stahl,
the historian of Waldoboro, notes that the memberships of the
Lutheran and Reformed churches declined because of those
churches' failure to adapt to the needs of the younger
generations.
Particularly, the ministers and older church
members refused to conduct services in English.
The young
German-Americans discovered that the Congregational church
satisfied their desires for services in English as well as
their social aspirations (Stahl 43).
In Belfast, the town's Presbyterians were glad to hear
any preacher who would stop in the relatively remote
settlement.
The accounts by Belfast's various historians
(Locke, Crosby, and Williamson) record no stories of
factional disputes.
The first preachers who visited the town
were Presbyterian, but gradually Congregationalists took
their places. Congregationalism, with its vestigial
Calvinism, appealed to the Presbyterians.
The church took
hold because of its ability to remain relevant.
At the end
78
of the eighteenth century, the church was rustic and
egalitarian, but as the town developed the church became more
dignified.
William G. Crosby, an early settler and
eventually a Governor of Maine, recorded his memories of
Belfast's early religious life for Joseph Williamson to
include in his town history.
He described the town's first
church, "We used first to go to meeting in Miller's barn on
this side of the river, & in James Patterson's on the E.
side; had rough boards for seats, & a high place built up for
the minister,"
(Williamson Papers).
By 1818, the town had
built an imposing Federal-style church on the town common, on
a hill overlooking Belfast Bay--by this time the progressive
Belfasters had adopted Unitarianism.
Belfast was the exception, however:
generally, the
decline of the ethnic churches and establishment of the
Congregational church divided communities and created
factional disputes which the towns still felt in Mansfield's
time.
The most colorful instance of this took place in
Warren:
here, the town accused the local minister, John
Urquhart, of bigamy.
Urquhart was a prominent member of the
Salem Presbytery, which covered the coastal New England
states, and when the town proved its charges (the first Mrs.
Urquhart arrived in town and discovered her husband had
79
remarried) the presbytery fractured.
Urquhart and his
erstwhile defenders left the Presbyterian church, and the
presbytery was crippled by the loss of membership (Eaton,
1851:184-8, 205-212).
Warren officially adopted
Congregationalism.
Still, the Congregational Church was unable to address
the needs of the local yeomanry.
Stephen Allen, the
historian of the Methodist Maine Conference, notes that
Congregationalism failed generally across Maine partly
because its leaders preached Federalist politics to
ostensibly republican audiences (2-3).
The anti-Federalist
fervor at the end of the eighteenth century was particularly
strong on the Waldo Patent.
The rise of the Methodist and
Baptist societies on the patent spanned the period between
Henry Knox's attempts to develop the land at the end of the
Revolution and the passage of the Betterment Acts, in 1808,
which established land-owners' rights to evict (with proper
compensation) squatters.
Congregationalism failed in remote parts of the patent
because it was not an evangelical denomination:
with its
centralized organization, Congregationalism did little to
penetrate the inland settlements.
By contrast, the
Methodists and Baptists were ostensibly evangelists; those
80
churches found their greatest successes in towns which did
not have a Congregational establishment.
On the Waldo
Patent, these towns were on the Muscongus Peninsula-Friendship and Cushing--and
along the first range of hills
west of the coastal settlements.
The Twenty Associates'
land--Hope, Appleton and Searsmont--as well as the Greene
Plantation--Montville, Greene and Morrill--became Baptist,
while Union became Methodist.
In Warren, the town's
confidence in its established clergy had been so shaken by
the Urquhart scandal that it accepted the Congregational
clergy with skepticism:
eventually, the Baptist church
became the dominant church there.
The Calvinistic Baptists were slow to establish
themselves on the Waldo Patent.
The first Baptist missionary
to the region was Isaac Case, who established a church at
Thomaston in 1784.
This congregation was strengthened by
disaffected members of the Congregational society in Warren
in 1792 when a dispute over the Congregational meeting-house
caused a split in that church.
In 1798, the Bowdoinham
Association sent a missionary named Andrew Fuller to minister
to the Baptists in Barrettstown; he extended his mission to
Warren.
By 1800, the Warren Baptists were strong enough--
with fifteen members--to apply for exemption from the
81
ministerial tax.
Cyrus Eaton, in his history of Warren,
notes the strife that the development the Baptist church
caused:
Two religious parties were formed, the difference
between which was widened by mutual prejudice and
occasional collision; the one rejoicing in the
clearness of head, the other in the warmth of
heart, and each stigmatized the other's religion as
learned coldness, or misguided fervor (288).
The Baptists developed a reputation for being subversive to
the standing order, and for attracting "common people."
For
example, Paul Coffin, a Congregational minister who travelled
throughout Maine at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries, called the Baptists "superstitious, ignorant, and
predestinarian," and wrote of a society of Baptists in
western Maine:
Gideon Ford, much of a Baptist, talked with one of
his sect with good temper, disputing for them as
well as he could. . . .
I said to him I do not
wonder that common people are baptists, but I do
wonder "that men of sense and learning are, since
no passage of Scripture denies the church
membership of infants, or proves the necessity or
reality of dipping" (353).
It was not until the beginning of the nineteenth century
that the Baptists--by this time "Free" Baptists--had claimed
large portions of the Waldo Patent.
In 1811, John Colby, a
missionary from northeastern Vermont who at age twenty-four
was already a veteran of preaching in Ohio, made a trip to
the northwestern corner of the Waldo Patent--the towns of
82
Montville and Searsmont.
In Colby's time, Montville had been
relatively untouched by religious settlement.
The town was
noted for its poverty and opposition to land speculators:
its distance from Belfast was social as well as geographical.
Consequently, townspeople were eager to hear Colby.
inspired a revival:
He
between November of 1811 and February of
1812, Colby, by his own count, baptized eighty-eight people
in the town. Colby was noted for his devotion to the poor,
and Mansfield attributed this stanza to him:
For
"Go
Bid
Bid
In Montville,
lo, a heavenly voice I hear,
preach my gospel to the poor,
mourning souls on me believe,
all the world free grace receive" (1849:340).
as elsewhere, Colby was noted for his music and
inspiration of enthusiasm.
He wrote, for example:
The people in Montville had about given me up,
as I did not get into town on Saturday night, and
concluded I should disappoint them. But all their
doubts were dissolved, when they saw me approaching
the large barn, where they were assembled. As I
entered the assembly, I sang the following hymn:
Brethren we have met again;
Let us join and pray and sing;
We're alive, and Jesus reigns,
Praise him, in the highest strains.
The glory of God rested on the people, and it was a
solemn weeping, and rejoicing time with us all
(Colby 135).
The Methodists established their first missions on the
Waldo Patent in 1793.
Their leader was Jesse Lee, a native
of Brunswick, Virginia.
Lee had been converted in the
revival around Brunswick during the 1760s.
He started to
83
preach in southern Virginia and North Carolina shortly after
the Revolution, and when he brought Methodism to New England
in the 1790s, it retained the flavor of his experience in the
South.
This was especially true in remote areas such as the
Waldo Patent where Methodism resisted institutionalization
and retained its egalitarian informality well into the
nineteenth century.
Like Colby, Lee was an emotional preacher; indeed, he
measured his success by the emotional response of the
congregation.
On the Amelia Circuit in Virginia in the
winter of 1784, for example, he wrote:
On Sunday morning we had a happy love feast; at
which time I wept much, and prayed earnestly that
the Lord would take every evil temper and every
wrong desire out of my heart and fill my soul with
perfect love (Thrift 57).
Later, in Brunswick, Virginia, Lee wrote:
I spoke with many tears, and was very happy--the
hearers wept greatly--it was a time of refreshing
from the presence of the Lord. When I met the
class, the people could hardly speak for weeping.
It was a precious day to my soul. When I arose in
the morning, I spent some time in walking about,
meditating, and in earnest prayer. After a while I
went into the woods and sat down, and began to
reflect on what the Lord had done for my soul; and
then began to think what He was still willing to do
for me, till I wept before him. My cry was, "glory
to God for ever;" he is the joy of my heart all the
day long. . . (Thrift 58).
Lee's emotional style left its mark on the character of
Methodism in eastern Maine.
Barbara Copeland Wentworth
84
(1811-1890), a native of Cushing, remembered a camp-meeting
"which could be heard for three miles distant, with Shouts as
was common in those days (10)."
She continued, "For years I
did not attend meeting without hearing the shouting that made
the church ring" (9).
In 1851, Mansfield reflected Lee's
ideals of emotional preaching and silent meditation in his
obituary for Benjamin Jones.
Lee remained an ideal for Maine Methodists for more than
a century.
For example, Stephen Allen, the late nineteenth
century historian of the Maine Conference, used Lee to point
out the ideal characteristics of a Methodist preacher:
He went among strangers, preaching, singing and
praying, in barns, school-houses, or in the open
air, wherever he could obtain an audience; forming
classes whenever two or three were willing to unite
with the society. Lee and many other of the early
itinerants were good singers; and the admirable
lyrics of Charles Wesley were used by them, with
wonderful effect. The wretched doggerel so much
used at the present time, in our social meetings,
had not then come into fashion. Lee's impassioned
sermons, fervid prayers and grand singing drew
crowds to hear him. His genial manners and ready
wit, made him an agreeable guest in the families of
the people, especially in the rural neighborhoods
(1886:10).
Supporting Lee's legendary position in the history of Maine
Methodism, Allen gives us an anecdote about his horsemanship:
Lee was a man of vigorous physique, imposing
presence and great power of endurance. In weight,
almost two hundred and fifty pounds. In traveling,
he rode horse-back, and like most other circuit
riders of those times, he was a skillful horseman.
85
In most of his travels, two horses were required
for his use: each for a relay, when the other
became fatigued. The horses were trained so that
they would come to him at his call; and each would
follow the other. So completely did the horses
understand their duty, that if any person attempted
to frighten away the companion horse, the indignant
animal, with a show of teeth and heels, would drive
away the intruder, and the itinerant rode on
without further molestation (10).
Finally, an illustration of Lee's status in the Methodist
culture of the region was the first Methodist church built in
Maine--in Readfield, northwest of Augusta--which in the 1930s
was renamed the "Jesse Lee United Methodist Church."
Lee claimed the Penobscot River and Bay for Methodism in
1795. He established stations along the Penobscot, from
Union, south of Penobscot Bay to Castine at the eastern edge
of the bay and north to Orono and appointed Joshua Hall to
ride this large circuit. Between 1795 and his death in 1862,
Hall was a tremendously important figure in Methodism in
eastern Maine.
Especially in later years, his chief
importance was that he gave continuity to the Maine and East
Maine Conferences.
Even in Mansfield's time "Father" Hall
(as his brethren in the conference affectionately called him)
was the only minister who had preached in Maine continuously
since the days of Jesse Lee.
His role, increasingly, became
one of exhorting his brethren to think of the Methodist
spirit as it had been planted in Maine by Lee.
At the
86
Northport camp-meeting of 1852, for example, he "exhorted. .
. [the audience] to keep to the old landmarks" (Belfast,
Republican Journal, September 16, 1853).
In this late period
he delighted in telling of his first trip to the Penobscot
Circuit--in newspaper accounts and in Williamson's history of
Belfast there are three versions of the story.
The Belfast
Progressive Age recorded this version of the story in an
account of the proceedings of the East Maine Conference of
1857:
Arriving in a vessel at Broad Bay (now Waldoboro)
with his horse, the same year, he preached his
first sermon on Union Common, and thence he passed
through Barrettown [sic] (now Hope) and Canaan (now
Lincolnville) where he preached, and followed the
road, indicated by spotted trees, to Belfast, he
preached in the Frothingham house--then occupied by
the Millers' [sic]. He was ferried across Belfast
river, swimming his horse after him. Wending his
way through the wilderness to Buckstown (Bucksport)
he there crossed the river by fastening two canoes
together, and sharing the room with his bestial
companion and the ferryman. Hence he passed on to
the settlements along the river as far as Bangor,
and penetrated the wilds of Maine as far north as
the early pioneers had erected their rude cabins.
In most of the settlements he visited, he organized
societies, and went on his way rejoicing as a true
evangelist (May 28, 1857).
The egalitarian spirit of Jesse Lee's Methodism survived in
the East Maine Conference until the Civil War partly because
of Hall's prominence.
One of Hall's "old landmarks" of Methodism was the
institution of the camp-meeting.
Camp-meetings had been
87
popular in Maine since the first decade of the nineteenth
century, within several years of the first meetings in
Kentucky.
The first recorded camp-meetings on the Waldo
Patent took place in 1826 and 1827 in the town of Union.
At
various times during the first half of the nineteenth century
Methodist societies organized camp-meetings along the coast
as far east as Mount Desert and even Eastport.
With the formation of the East Maine Conference in 1848,
the presiding elders of the new conference organized a
conference-wide camp-meeting, held first on Isleboro, and in
1849 and after, in Northport.
These meetings survived until
1933, after the Maine and East Maine Conferences had
reunited.
The trustees of the Northport camp-meeting named
their ground "Wesleyan Grove."
They selected a natural
amphitheater in which the congregation could see, behind the
stand, the dramatic backdrop of Penobscot Bay, Isleboro, and
Blue Hill.
Surrounding the ground, members of the various
societies which participated in the meeting erected wooden
tent frames over which, during the meetings, they stretched
white canvas.
The Belfast Republican Journal of September
16, 1853, described that year's meeting:
A hushed audience of five thousand persons, the
tents around with the different names upon them,
the fleet of steamboats and vessels off the point,
the moving of wind through the trees, in the
88
intervals made by an impressive speaker, suggested
the swells of a mighty organ played by a master
hand, mingled with the slight deep diapason of the
sea, formed a scene of picturesques [sic] and
beauty, calculated to strike agreeably the mind of
the cultivated and the uncultivated person.
Besides the religious impulse, the social sentiment
which lead people to associate in masses, and which
as a principle is destined to have such an
important use, does a large share in bringing
people together on such occasions.
Wesleyan Grove was a modern adaptation of an old tool. Its
purpose was essentially the same as that of its predecessors:
the salvation of souls.
H. C. Tilton, a preacher who
described the meeting of 1853 for the Republican Journal,
noted, "Deep impressions were made.
Many went from the
ground to think most seriously respecting their religious
state."
The meetings, however, were part of modern
Methodism:
they became as much fashionable social outings as
religious meetings.
John Locke, a newspaper reporter for the
Belfast Progressive Age noted:
The remark is often made, that one can find whoever
they wish to, by going to the Northport Campmeeting. It has become, in fact,
the place of
resort for those in this section who enjoy a
religious, intellectual and social feast (September
15, 1859).
Another of the "old landmarks" to which Hall referred
was the political consciousness of Methodist ministers:
the
ministers were almost unanimously republican--first
Jeffersonian, later Jacksonian, and finally radical.
himself followed these ideals passionately, and even
Hall
89
expressed them as state senator from Waldo County (Pilsbury
21).
The political connection between Methodism and
republicanism was, of course, controversial. During the
1850s, for example, the Maine Free Press, an organ of the
conservative wing of the democratic party in Belfast ran
articles with titles such as "Still Braying," condemning the
political stance of Sullivan Bray, the Methodist preacher
stationed at Camden (August 15, 1856).
Bray, one of the most
venerable preachers in the East Maine Conference, allied
himself with the more radical abolitionists, disobeying the
advice of the General Conference to refrain from agitating
for the abolition of slavery.
The East Maine Conference
generally stood behind Bray, and in 1852 passed a strongly
worded resolution against the Fugitive Slave Act (Conference
Minutes 22-3).
What were the doctrinal concerns of Mansfield and his
brethren?
Methodist doctrine had remained unchanged since
the denomination had developed during the 1780s:
the
"Articles of Religion" published in the Methodist Discipline
of 1845 were identical to those published in the first
discipline in 1798.
The "Articles of Religion" listed
Methodist doctrines beginning with the Holy Trinity and
90
defining "the Word, or Son of God" and the Holy Ghost within
that concept (1845:9).
The articles defined the Methodist
beliefs in the "sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures for
Salvation," Original Sin, Justification by Faith, the denial
of Free Will, and the belief that man could "fall into sin
after justification."
They defined the Church as "a
congregation of faithful men, in which the pure word of God
is preached, and the sacraments duly administered according
to Christ's ordinance. . . ,"
only two Sacraments:
The Methodists believed in
Baptism and the "supper of the Lord."
They denied the other sacraments stating that they grew "out
of the corrupt following of the Apostles" (1845:8-19).
One of the clearest delineations of Methodist doctrine
as it applied to the East Maine Conference was the discourse
which L. L. Knox preached in memory of D. H. Mansfield before
the annual conference in 1855.
Knox used the example of
Mansfield's life to review Methodist ideals and doctrines for
the Conference, particularly
what he called, "the great
doctrines of duty, death and destiny" (13).
doctrines proceeded one from another:
These three
death was the central
point, separating man from his time of probation when he can
answer God's call, and preparing him for the final judgement.
About the doctrine of duty, Knox wrote:
91
By far the majority of our race utterly ignore that
high department of their nature which raises them
up to celestial relations, and gives a fearful
import to the ideas of duty and retribution. Men
will not give heed to that great truth, made so
clear to us both by the philosophy of the human
mind and by the word of God, that responsibility is
an essential element of their nature (3).
The "child of God," Knox explained, answered God's call to
duty (Mansfield, of course was an example of this first
group); by contrast, sinners ignored this call.
Knox
continued, explaining death first to the sinner and second to
the "child of God."
He showed that death to the unredeemed
was a frightening experience:
To the child of God death is quite another thing.
The darkness is all on the earthly side of death:
the other shore is radiant with inviting glories.
All the attachments of the soul are thither; its
eye and heart turn longingly towards heaven, for
its friends are there or on their way, its
treasures, its home are there (7).
Finally, Knox presented a picture of the resurrection,
showing how God will reconstruct people's bodies and minds.
He described how the "dissolved and inanimate elements will
be gathered up, and the body will be reconstructed" in a
perfect form, without blemishes, how the intellect will be
restored, "sufficient to endow it with a perfect power to
retain, and perfect a readiness to bring forth every thought
and impression which had ever been experienced"
(11).
Thus,
Knox continued, at the resurrection, man will be able to
comprehend his entire time in earthly probation:
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And the mind of man, with its enlarged capacities,
grasps the whole; the quickened memory retains the
whole--forever. With this great increase of mental
capacity, and this inconceivable augmentation of
knowledge, man begins the career of his eternal
destiny, body and intellect both fitted for an
exalted sphere of action and enjoyment (11).
With his perfect body, the sinner, bound to hell, will
understand with unbearable poignancy the lost opportunities
for salvation.
Knox concluded this description of the
resurrection by noting that the "moral nature of man"
experiences none of the changing powers that perfected the
body and intellect.
Saints would remain saints, and sinners
would remain sinners:
each had already chosen his destiny.
Mansfield was zealous in his love of the old landmarks
of Methodism, but he was a member of a larger ecumenical
community.
By his adulthood, the denominations on the patent
recognized their common goals:
particularly, they were
united in their social and political ideals, in their support
of temperance and the abolition of slavery.
During the years
preceding the Civil War, the conservative Republican Journal
and the Maine Free Press took strong anti-clerical stances
because of every denomination's condemnation of slavery.
In
Belfast, this ecumenical spirit reached at least as far back
as 1843, for Joseph Williamson, one of the town's historians,
wrote of a religious revival in that year which swept all the
denominations (303).
During the 1850s, the trustees of the
93
Wesleyan Grove camp-meeting ground expressed the ecumenicism
by allowing other denominations to use their land.
Where do Mansfield and his tunebook fit into the
religious culture of the Waldo Patent?
Mansfield united
several divergent spiritual strains in his book:
the modern,
non-denominational religious trends of the middle of the
nineteenth century, old Congregationalism, and the traditions
of the egalitarian and uninstitutionalized Methodists and
Baptists.
But it was his devotion to the last strain which
made his book unique:
while there were at least two other
books--The Cumberland Collection and Ancient Harmony Revived-published
during the same period in Maine that sought to
preserve the music of "Puritanic New England," the Vocalist
appears to have been the only book which preserved the
Methodist and Baptist revival music of the region.
The Methodist and Baptist movements were successful
because of their ministry to the poor and because of their
rejection of the genteel formalism of the Congregational
church:
the hymns that Mansfield recorded were popular for
the same reasons as the denominations that used them.
The
folk hymns that Mansfield recorded were both evangelical
tools and the expressions of faith by the experimental
religious movement on the patent.
Mansfield compiled his
94
book at a critical time in the history of Methodism on the
patent.
He preserved the music which expressed the early
ideals of the experimental denominations at a moment when
these groups were changing rapidly and were in danger of
losing touch with their spiritual roots.
This was especially
true of Methodism, a product of the late-eighteenth-century
revivalism of southern Virginia.
The split between the
Northern and Southern bodies of the church in 1844 and the
subsequent increasing institutionalization of the Northern
church threatened the basic identity of the Methodists of
eastern Maine.
The musical and religious need that Mansfield
filled was to remind the members of his communities of the
simple, anti-formalistic spirit of what the folk hymnists
called "pure religion."
95
Chapter FIVE:
Contents
The American Vocalist:
Publication and
In his preface to The American Vocalist, D. H. Mansfield
wrote that his aim was, "to preserve in a single volume, the
most valuable music now in existence; much of which had been
crowded from our churches, by the soulless and unmeaning
harmony of the present."
He allied himself with two
complementary movements in religious music in New England:
the conservative, nationalistic movement that was a reaction
against efforts by Lowell Mason and others to instill
European tastes and pedagogy into American music, and the
camp-meeting movement.
Mansfield recognized his debt to
Mason's progressive musical community--especially in his
pedagogy--and he included enough of its music to make his
collection representative, but the thrust of his book was
toward the old, indigenous styles which Mason's community
threatened to destroy.
Mansfield wanted to compile a book
that was representative of American musical tastes but also
of the American religious spirit:
he saw this as pious,
democratic, emotional, and non-formalistic.
Musically, he
96
found this spirit in the church music of the late eighteenth
and early nineteenth centuries--from English composers such
as Aaron Williams and William Tans'ur and from American
composers such as William Billings, Daniel Read, and Abraham
Maxim--in popular vestry music, and in camp-meeting
spirituals.
He wanted to represent every denomination from
the Congregationalists at the institutionalized end of the
spectrum, to the Methodists and Baptists in the middle, and
to the Millerites and Shakers at the uninstitutionalized end.
The strength of his collection, as his title page proclaimed,
was that it embraced "a greater variety of music . . . than
any other collection extant."
Mansfield wanted his "singing book" to be a standard
collection.
Because of this he wanted to get the book into a
final form and leave it unchanged.
He published only two
editions, the first in the fall of 1848, and the second a
year later.
The first edition contained 352 tunes.
first year, it sold about 16,000 copies.
In the
This success
encouraged Mansfield to enlarge and refine the book without
substantially altering the variety of its contents.
He
omitted one camp-meeting spiritual and several texts, and
added 171 tunes.
He also moved several hymns from the first
to the second section and vice versa, and added his initials
97
to thirteen hymns which he had composed.
Once he had made
his additions and corrections, he was satisfied with the
collection, and announced that he would make no further
changes.
During the two years in which Mansfield's publishers
released the Vocalist, the compiler lived in Belfast, Maine:
the town's newspaper, the Republican Journal, announced the
new singing book enthusiastically:
Although we do not pretend to a critical knowledge
of musical language, yet we do confess to a love of
music. We have before us a collection of church
music, prepared by Rev. D. H. Mansfield, which we
deem really worthy of the attention and patronage,
not only of the religious community, but all that
numerous class who love music for its own sake
(November 3, 1848).
Announcing the revised edition, the same paper ran the
following article and advertisement for the hymnal:
THE AMERICAN VOCALIST, by Rev. D. H. Mansfield:
Boston, Wm. J. Reynolds & Co., 27 Cornhill.--We
would direct the attention of singers and those
interested in this beautiful and important part of
religious worship, to the above work. The first
issue of the Vocalist met a cordial reception at
the hands of the public,--so completely so, as to
warrant an additional effort for their further
gratification. In the revised edition are added
171 beautiful tunes not in the first edition. The
book is in three parts, and Mr. Mansfield has
employed his excellent taste in placing in each
part that music which is best adapted to a
particular branch of worship. That portion of our
new and fashionable music which a just taste would
reject as worthless, has been thrown out; and we
are happy to notice that in the first part, adapted
to church service, are preserved the finest
98
compositions of the masters of the German and
Italian schools,--Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven,
Pleyel, Mazzinghi, Weber, Neukomm, Cherubini,
Giardini, Radiger, Venua, Burgmeller [sic], Malan,
Wiesenthal, Wartense, De Pinna, &c., whose music is
always the representation of idea, and has a
meaning, and is as much worship as words can be.
In the second part, adapted to vestry worship, are
to be found those more stirring pieces, in which
there is a beautiful adaptedness between the words
and the airs, which are the finest English,
Scottish, Irish, Spanish, and Italian Songs,
arranged for four voices. Throughout the book, a
whole hymn, instead of a verse is set to a tune.
In the work is also a plain and concise System of
Elementary Instruction, which is particularly
adapted to Singing Schools, Musical Societies, and
Choirs. The work may be had at Washburn's and
Caldwell's, or of Mr. Mansfield.
A New Singing Book!
______
THE
AMERICAN VOCALIST,
BY REV. D. H. MANSFIELD.
PUBLISHED a few months since, has had a most
rapid sale. The Revised Edition is enlarged by the
addition of 171 choice tunes, and it now contains
more than any other collection. It is divided into
three parts, all of which are embraced in one
volume, and is designated for the church, the
vestry, and the parlor.
PART I. consists of Church Music, old and new,
and contains the most valuable productions of
Billings, Holden, Maxim, Read, Holyoke, Edson,
Kimball, Morgan, Pool, Belknap, West, Wood, Swan,
&c., and eminent American Authors now living,-Mason, Webb, Woodbury,
White, Kingsley, &c., &c.,
&c.,--as well as of the most distinguished European
composers. . . , in all 330 Church Tunes, adapted
to every variety of metre found in the Hymn Books,
used by all the religious denominations in the
country, besides a large number of Anthems and
select pieces for special occasions.
PARTS II. AND III. contain all that is
valuable of the Vestry Music now in existence,
consisting of the most popular Revival Melodies,
99
and the most admired English, Scottish, Irish,
Spanish, and Italian songs, arranged for four
voices, expressly for this work, and accompanied
with appropriate sacred poetry, embracing in a
single volume more than 500 tunes adapted to every
occasion of public and social worship, and
containing nearly all the gems of music that have
been composed within the last 500 years, and a
large number of tunes never before published, the
whole designed as a standard in every department of
Sacred Harmony.
The poetry would fill a large volume, a whole
hymn being set to a tune instead of a single verse.
It contains, also, a plain and concise System of
Elementary Instruction, and is particularly adapted
to Singing Schools, Musical Societies, and Choirs.
MR. MANSFIELD has been a teacher of Vocal
Music for eighteen years, has travelled extensively
in all the Northern and Middle States, and has
spared no pains or expense to make himself
acquainted with the kind of music demanded for
popular use in this country. No alteration will be
made in future editions (November 30,1849).
The public's reception of the book was spirited. After
the first year of healthy sales, the book continued to sell
well:
40,000 copies by 1853, and a total of about 100,000
copies over about twenty years (Conference Minutes, 1853:33
and Wiggin:62).
Probate records relating to Mansfield's
orphan daughters show an average annual earning of about $250
through the Civil War.
W. J. Reynolds, the publisher of the
revised edition, published an advertising leaflet with
unsolicited praises for the book (the American Antiquarian
Society preserves a copy from a bookseller in Richmond,
Virginia).
These recommendations showed the ecumenical
appeal of the Vocalist as well as its success across northern
100
New England.
For example, Samuel Souther, Mansfield's
Congregational colleague in Belfast wrote:
Much of the Vestry Music is entirely new to me. On
a single opening, in the Second Part of the book, I
have found on the two pages before me, more true,
heart-subduing harmony, than it has been my fortune
to find in some whole Collections, that have made
quite a noise in the world.
Richard Woodhull, the Congregational minister at Thomaston,
wrote:
It is just what I have been wishing to see for
several years. Those old tunes--they are so good,
so fraught with rich harmony, so adapted to stir
the deep feelings of the heart, they constitute a
priceless treasure of Sacred Song, unsurpassed by
the best compositions of more modern times.
Joseph C. Aspenwall, an occasional member of the Maine
Conference then (1849) stationed in Springfield, Vermont,
noted the book's popularity in northwestern New England:
It is my opinion, that the AMERICAN VOCALIST is
decidedly the best Tune Book, ever used in New
England. It has been introduced extensively in
this vicinity since published, and has in every
instance given excellent satisfaction. The old
people receive the tunes as they would an old
acquaintance and friend; and the attention of the
young is arrested by their grandeur and novelty.
Finally, Mansfield received praises from Henry Little, a
fellow singing master and Methodist local preacher from
Bucksport, Maine.
Little had compiled the Wesleyan Harmony,
and had published it in two editions in 1820 and 1821.
Little, living less than twenty miles from Belfast and having
compiled the only specifically Methodist tunebook to be used
101
in Maine from 1820 through the time of the Vocalist, was
doubtless a great musical influence for Mansfield, and his
praises were significant:
From my heart I thank you, for your excellent
arrangement of those sweet Melodies, to many of
which sacred poetry is now, for the first time,
adapted. It is the best Collection of Church Music
I have ever seen, and it embraces the only complete
collection of Vestry Music that has ever been
published. I am glad that it is not a sectarian
work. I hope that it may be used in every
denomination in the United States.
Mansfield was not unique in his efforts to preserve the
music of "Puritanic New England"; indeed, he was part of a
growing movement that was reacting against the new music
movement led by Lowell Mason and the Handel and Haydn Society
of Boston.
This movement began as early as the 1830s and
lasted through the 1850s and 1860s, when Father Kemp turned
it into popular entertainment with his "Old Folks Concerts."
The earliest collection I have found devoted to preserving
"ancient harmony" was The New Hampshire Collection, compiled
by Henry E. Moore (brother of the musical lexicographer John
Weeks Moore) in 1832.
The Cumberland Collection, compiled by
Benjamin Sweetser, was another such book, published in
Portland in 1839, the same year the Portland Sacred Music
Society, a self-consciously Pestalozzian club, published its
own progressive collection.
In 1849, The American Vocalist
was one of three collections devoted to old music announced
102
in the Belfast Republican Journal:
the other two were
Ancient Harmony, Revived, (the second edition) published in
Hallowell and Boston, and The Antiquarian, compiled by
Leonard Marshall and published in Boston.
The Vocalist differed from Ancient Harmony, Revived and
The Antiquarian in its utilitarian approach.
Mansfield hoped
to revive nothing, nor did he select tunes simply because
they were old:
timelessness.
he selected tunes for their worth and
He published modern tunes but tried to keep
them in balance with the rest of the work:
if he under-
represented these tunes, he did so because he considered them
inferior.
For example, he wrote in the preface to the
Vocalist:
In every part of the United States, even where new
music is sung in the public congregation because it
is fashionable, let any one mingle with the devout
worshippers of God in their social meetings, and he
will hear--not the scientific gingling of imported
discord, but the simple harmony of old "Turner,"
"Northfield," the "Union Hymn," or something that
moves the hearts of good men, if it does not tickle
the fastidious fancy of infidels (ii).
Mansfield's approach to old music was the opposite of Lowell
Mason's.
He wrote that "no publisher dares to issue a
collection of sacred music without inserting enough of it
[the old repertory], say, just to preserve his book" (ii).
Mason did this, grudgingly, calling the old tunes "ballast to
a ship."
In the Carmina Sacra he placed his emphasis on the
103
"many new tunes, embracing specimens from distinguished
composers of the present day in Europe" (3).
Mansfield organized the first section of the Vocalist
according to metre.
Within this basic outline he mixed tunes
of several categories:
the solemn, old tunes from English
and German sources that predated the tunes by eighteenthcentury American
composers; the tunes by Billings, his
contemporaries and imitators; the genteel European hymnody
which Mason and his community imported and imitated; and a
miscellaneous group which included tunes from folk sources.
In the first category, he included tunes attributed to Martin
Luther (including the erroneous attribution of "Old Hundred"
according to the custom of the time) and one attributed to
John Huss, the pre-Reformation founder of the Unitas Fratrum.
He drew a larger number from the seventeenth- and eighteenthcentury English
composers, Thomas Ravenscroft, William
Tans'ur, and Aaron Williams, whose tunes Daniel Bailey had
first published in this country in 1771 in two books titled
the American Harmony (Bailey, 1771 and Moore, 1853:761).
The strength of the first section of the Vocalist was
its body of early American hymns by the composers whom
Mansfield listed on his title page:
"Billings, Holden,
Maxim, Edson, Holyoke, Read, Kimball, Morgan, Wood, Swan. . .
104
."
Among these he included tunes rare in other collections;
Phillips Barry noted that William Billings's "Vermont" was
such a tune (although Mansfield may have found this in the
Temple Harmony, compiled by Japheth Washburn of China, Maine,
in 1818, (Flanders 1939:1).
The highlight of this section of
the book, however--and one of the characteristics that made
it similar to its Southern contemporaries--was Mansfield's
liberal use of fuging tunes.
The Methodist Discipline
discouraged the use of these tunes in worship because to sing
them properly demanded a select chorus (1845:80).
Henry
Little, in his Wesleyan Harmony, compiled in Bucksport,
Maine, in 1820, avoided fuging tunes, as did his more elite
predecessor Samuel Holyoke.
Mansfield, however, ignored the
Methodist dislike of fuging tunes and included thirty-seven
of them in the first edition and fifty-eight in the revised
edition.
A glance through the Southern Harmony, Social Harp,
and New Harp of Columbia reveals that sixteen of the fuging
tunes in the Vocalist also appear in at least one of the
Southern books.
(These are: "America," "Delight,"
"Devotion," "Edom," "Exhortation," "Greenfield,"
"Greenwich,"
"Heavenly Vision," "Lenox," "Lisbon," "Milford,"
"North
Salem," "Northfield," "Ocean," "Solitude New,"
and "Sutton
New.")
Mansfield attributes eight of the fuging tunes to
105
Abraham Maxim, the early nineteenth century composer from
central Maine.
The fuging tunes, and the non-fuging tunes of
the early composers from New England are the backbone of
Mansfield's identity as a representative of old New England
hymnody.
The fuging tunes were the marginal repertory of New
England.
Disliked by the elite musical community for being
both "jingling" and trendy, and by the democratic religious
communities for being elite, they lived a short life in New
England, ignored between about 1820 and the 1840s, when the
growing interest in old hymns led to their revival.
Of
course, the fuging tunes lived a long and healthy life among
the shape-note communities of the upland South.
They served
different purposes in the South than in the North.
In the
South they were the apex of the singing master's craft, while
in the North they became icons of a more pious age.
They
lived longer where they were part of a living tradition and
not ostensibly statements of nostalgia and conservatism.
Mansfield did not compile the first section of the
Vocalist to be folky.
An illustration of this point is the
distribution of gapped scales in the first part compared with
that of the second and third:
in the first section, about
69% of the hymns use seven-tone scales and only 25% percent
use the five- and six-tone scales that Jackson noted were
106
defining characteristics of folk hymns (this count excludes
the fuging tunes which were composed more for their harmony
and counterpoint than for their melodies).
In the second and
third parts grouped together only 39% of the tunes use full
Heptatonic scales and almost 57% of the tunes were built on
the common gapped scales.
Despite the relatively genteel
character of the first section, eighteen of the tunes appear
in George Pullen Jackson's collections of spiritual
folksongs, and eight of those are in his list of the eighty
most popular tunes in Southern tunebooks.
Mansfield's tune
"Voice of Mercy" (number seventeen on Jackson's "MPT list")
appears in the Southern Harmony and the Social Harp as "King
of Peace" (pages 6 and 59 respectively--Walker attributes his
setting of the tune to Freeman Price, McCurry 263, Jackson
1933:136).
Mansfield's tune "Joseph" is the melody for
"Joseph and His Brethren," which Jackson found in the
Southern book United States Harmony and also for "Kingfield,"
which Jackson found in the Original Sacred Harp--Mansfield
included the text, for the first song in his first edition
but omitted it when he made his revisions (Jackson 1937:166
and 1942:42).
Two tunes which Jackson did not include in his
collections but which are similar to other tunes which he did
find are "Zurich," which Mansfield attributes to Carolan, and
107
"Rest," which appears on the page facing "Joseph."
phrasing patterns of both tunes are ABBA.
The
Mansfield set
"Joseph" and "Rest" to two funeral hymns by Charles
Wesley
("How blest is our brother bereft" and "Hosanna to Jesus
on
high!").
"Joseph" is plaintive, while "Rest" is rousing,
with its strong, Ionian melody underscoring its vision of the
resurrection.
The melody of the second hymn resembles ballad
tunes, particularly the version of "The House Carpenter"
(Child number 243) which Helen Hartness Flanders published in
A Garland of Green Mountain Song (80-1).
While in the first section of the Vocalist Mansfield
kept his own creative involvement to a minimum, in the second
and third sections we see a strong personal stamp:
we see
his musical tastes and skill, religious concerns, and
especially his sense of duty toward the folk communities from
which he came and which he served.
He transcribed tunes that
he had heard and sung, set them to fresh harmonies, and
joined them to texts.
He told his intentions in his preface:
The Vestry music has been harmonized expressly for
this work, and with the design of suiting the
popular taste, and thus being useful, rather than
of pleasing a few scientific ears, and thus being,
in many instances, totally unfitted [sic] for
general use. Some tunes, as well as poetry, have
been admitted, not so much because they accord with
the taste of the compiler, as with the belief, (and
I beg the literati to consider this,) that they
have been and will be useful to thousands of
108
illiterate persons, who know more of God's
pardoning love, than of Mozart, Beethoven, or the
British poets, and whose songs of praise are most
assuredly acceptable to Him, though they should
prefer the music of old "Canaan" to that of Haydn's
"Creation" (ii).
About his transcriptions of folk tunes, he admitted, "a few
tunes have been written from memory, the origin of which is
uncertain."
The result of Mansfield's sense of duty was that
the second and third sections of the Vocalist are patently
folky.
Like his shaping of the first section, Mansfield's
efforts to preserve the vestry and revival music in the
second and third sections reflected a larger community.
The
Vocalist joined books such as H. W. Day's Revival Hymns,
Joshua Leavitt's Christian Lyre, and Abraham Merrill's
Wesleyan Harmony.
The difference between the Vocalist and
these books was that The American Vocalist was not designed
to serve a narrow market:
it was not simply a revival
singing book as Day's and Leavitt's books were, nor was it
specifically "Wesleyan."
It was a general-purpose singing
book designed to meet the needs of a wide audience.
Moreover, unlike Merrill's and Leavitt's books (Day's books
were little more than pamphlets), but like the Southern
books, Mansfield presented his tunes in the familiar oblong
singing-book format, with each voice set on its own staff,
109
and the melody on the line above the bass.
Mansfield
conceded to Mason's innovations in voice leading, and called
the top staff the tenor.
To examine the character of the tunes in the Vocalist,
we can compare the characteristics of the repertory with
those in two related bodies of religious folk song:
George
Pullen Jackson's collections, especially Down-East Spirituals
and Others, and Daniel W. Patterson's The Shaker Spiritual.
A comparison of the Vocalist and Jackson's Down-East
Spirituals and Others reveals that the distribution of scales
in Mansfield's book bears a general resemblance to that of
the repertory Jackson presented.
Because the Vocalist was
not devoted entirely to folk material it includes a greater
percentage of tunes using the Ionian mode than Jackson's
material.
Tunes in the Ionian mode represent 31% of
Mansfield's repertory.
The tunes that Jackson selected
favored the Aeolian mode (about 17%).
Mansfield preferred a
hexatonic scale--A-B-C-D-E-G-a--to the Aeolian:
this scale
represents 12.9% of the tunes in the second and third parts
of the book.
Following these two scales we find another
hexatonic scale, C-D-E-F-G-A-c, also with about 12.9% of the
repertory, followed by the pentatonic scale, C-D-E-G-A-c,
with 11.7%, C-D-E-G-A-B-c with 8.2%, Aeolian with 7.6%, C-D-
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E-F-G-B-C with 6.4%, Pentachordal with 2.9%, A-C-D-E-G-a with
2.3%, Dorian, Hexatonic 2b each with 1.2%, and Hexatonic 3b,
Pentatonic 4, and Tetrachordal each with .6% (one tune each).
If we omit the tunes ascribed to authors which Jackson did
not find in his sources we have a total of 147 tunes in the
group, thirty-seven of which are in the Ionian mode; the
predominant gapped scales and the Aeolian scale become
proportionally more significant.
Jackson's repertory is
similar except that in his tunes the
Aeolian and Pentatonic
scales predominate.
Jackson noticed in the Northern books he examined that
the compilers tended to "minorize" their Aeolian, Dorian, and
minor hexatonic and pentatonic scales.
He suggested that
this was due not to "a regional difference in folk-singing
manner, but merely to a difference in the amount of editorial
'correcting' of tunes which the editors recorded from actual
singing" (1942:9).
Daniel W. Patterson in The Shaker
Spiritual has shown Jackson's speculation was supported by
that denomination's body of song.
He writes of one Isaac N.
Youngs, a member of the community at Lebanon, New York, who,
because of his genteel musical sources, transcribed tunes
using the harmonic minor.
Youngs noted, however, that
singers performed the tunes using the Aeolian and Dorian
111
modes, and wrote, "'there can be no positive rule given'
concerning the position of semitones in the minor scale; 'a
critical ear alone must determine'" (Patterson 22).
Mansfield essentially agreed with Youngs's opinions.
In his
"Elements of Vocal Music" at the beginning of the Vocalist,
he described, however, the melodic minor in which "ascending,
six and seven are sharped, and the semitones occur between 2
and 3, and 7 and 8" (xii).
In a footnote he described what
Jackson calls a "minorized" dorian mode:
"In many
compositions the sixth descending must also be sharped,
though no sign appears."
Mansfield probably defined the
melodic minor because Lowell Mason did, but Mason continued
also to describe the more common harmonic minor (Carmina
Sacra 25).
Mansfield included only one tune in the second
and third sections (his own "The Sure Guide") in which he
sharped the ascending sixth, but he follows this tone with a
natural seventh, placing the tune into the Dorian mode.
Invariably, he presented his Aeolian tunes in the harmonic
minor, and in a majority of cases his minor tunes did not use
the sixth anyway.
Like his Shaker and Southern brethren
(Cobb also describes how Sacred Harp singers unconsciously
restore Dorian melodies which the compilers had transcribed
112
using the Aeolian mode, 33-4), Mansfield accepted traditional
practices more than musical formalism.
Patterson notes the importance of examining the
relationship between tonal range and song type.
He writes
that in Down-East Spirituals and Others, religious ballads
typically have a melodic range of a tenth or an eleventh
while folk hymns have a smaller range than other Shaker song
types.
He notes that Shaker hymns typically have a wider
tonal range.
In the Vocalist octave ranges predominate in
all categories of song.
In religious narrative songs, 36.8%
of the tunes have an octave range while 21.1% of the tunes
have ranges of a ninth (major and minor) or an eleventh.
Among the hymns we find that 31.3% of the tunes have an
octave range.
A range of a ninth again comes in second, with
22.1%, followed by a tenth with 17.5%, and by an eleventh
with 10.7%.
Spirituals have the tightest ranges:
52.4% have
an octave range, 14.3% have a tenth, and ninths, elevenths,
and sixths tie with 9.5% each.
A comparison with a body of
secular folk songs from northern New England, Helen Hartness
Flanders's Vermont Folk-Songs and Ballads, reveals that the
ranges of Mansfield's hymn tunes resemble those in that
collection more closely than those either in Jackson's or
Patterson's collections.
Among the sixty tunes in Flanders's
113
collection, 23.3% have a range of an octave, followed by 22%
with a range of a ninth, and 13.3% with that of a tenth.
Another indication of the folky character of the
Vocalist is the phrase structure of the tunes.
The
collection favors tunes with repetitious phrases.
of the tunes use the structure AABA.
About 26%
Patterson notes this
pattern in Shaker long-phrase hymns and writes of the ways in
which the Shaker singers gave variety to potentially
monotonous songs (156).
He writes that the Shakers would
divide a musical phrase--corresponding to a sentence of text-in half,
and that these half-phrase units were actually the
building blocks of Shaker melodies.
Mansfield also notated
his tunes in half-phrase units, although his liberal use of
repeat signs prevented him from varying these units.
In
barring his phrases, he divided tunes in two-measure (halfphrase) or
four-measure increments, following either the text
or the natural flow of the tune.
We see this in the tunes
such as "Hail, Sweetest, Dearest Tie" (a variant of "Cross
of
Christ") and "Child of Prosperity" (Jackson, 1937:91).
Mansfield used heavy bars to divide the first tune into eight
units (including repeats), corresponding to the text.
As he
barred the tune, it has the phrase structure ABABCC1AB; the
tune flows--and Walker presented it in this way--with the
114
simplified AABA structure (Walker 35).
On the other hand, he
presented "Child of Prosperity" with its phrases barred
according to the way people actually sang the tune.
The
phrasing of the tune is difficult, and the rhythm resists its
6/8 notation.
Mansfield printed the text with six lines to a
stanza and two stanzas to four phrases of melody.
has natural breaks in the middle of each phrase:
The melody
we can
label its structure AB AB CD A1B1 but Mansfield correctly
bars it AABA1.
Many of the tunes in the Vocalist follow traditional
forms, and it is not surprising that we find almost half
(eighty-one out 171) of the tunes in the second and third
sections in George Pullen Jackson's collections of spiritual
folk songs.
Some of the Vocalist's more common tunes (such
as "Star in the East" and "O Thou in Whose Presence My
Soul
Takes Delight") appear in identical or almost identical forms
in other books that Jackson drew on for his collections,
while others may share only a single phrase or a general
melodic affinity.
The Vocalist is one of the few Northern tunebooks which
Jackson did not examine (S. Hubbard's and William McDonald's
Wesleyan Sacred Harp and The Harmoniad by Asa Fitz are
others):
Jackson identified books from which Mansfield could
115
have drawn and one which could have drawn from Mansfield.
In
particular, Mansfield could have used Ingalls's Christian
Harmony, Leavitt's Christian Lyre, Day's Revival Hymns,
Merrill's Wesleyan Harmony, and Himes's Millenial Harp.
In
turn, Hillman, in his Revivalist could have used the Vocalist
as a source; moreover, William Hauser, in the Olive Leaf gave
the Vocalist as the source for his setting of "What Heavenly
Music Do I Hear" (Jackson, 1942:250).
Some of the tunes which the Vocalist shares with other
Northern books appear in variant forms.
Mansfield admitted
that he transcribed some tunes from memory (although unlike
Hauser, he admitted to no collecting):
variants of popular revival hymns.
he preserved local
We find several variants
of melodies in Ingalls's Christian Harmony.
For example,
Mansfield's tune, "Keyes" is a variant of Ingalls's "Soldier
of the Cross," while Mansfield's tune "The Pilgrim Stranger"
appeared in a variant form in the Christian Harmony as
"Wandering Pilgrim."
Leavitt's, Day's, and Merrill's books
were all published closer in time to Mansfield's, and except
for the first, were compiled by New Englanders.
Mansfield
appears to have drawn songs from these books directly, not
always depending on his own or others' memories.
The
Revivalist, published in Troy, New York almost twenty years
116
after the Vocalist, contains interesting examples of folk
hymns recorded in different periods and parts of the
Northeast.
For example, Mansfield's distinctive, Dorian
tune, "Go When the Morning Shineth" is related in a general
and distant way to Hillman's "Glory in My Soul," while
Mansfield's "The Mountain Calvary," appears in the Revivalist
with the same text and a closely related tune as do "O Tell
Me No More," and "Better Days Are Coming."
Moreover, in
about ten instances melodies appear in identical forms in the
Vocalist and the Revivalist.
An interesting example of this
is Hillman's setting of a tune which appears in the Vocalist
as "Victory" and in the Revivalist as "Christian's Triumph."
Mansfield printed the tune in 6/8, but Jackson found the tune
in the Revivalist printed in common time.
Jackson corrected
it to match, unknowingly, Mansfield's setting (Jackson,
1952a:97).
The correlation of the tunes in the Vocalist with those
in Jackson's collections illustrates the strength of the
Northeastern folk-hymn tradition beyond the geographical and
chronological limits he defined in Another Sheaf of White
Spirituals (on his mapped, the dotted line showing the
tradition between 1750 and 1810 includes southern and western
Maine, but stops short of the "mid-coast"), but correlations
117
with his Southern material suggest a stronger tie between
Northern and Southern material than he was prepared to admit
(1952a:xiii).
Some of Mansfield's tunes that were common in
Southern books were also published in contemporary Northern
books.
These tunes include "Nettleton," "Star in the East,"
"The Lord Into His Garden Comes," "Pisgah," (see
especially
"Lord! remember me" in the Millenial Harp, part 1:42), and
"The Bower of Prayer" (a song composed by Thomas Ormsby of
Bradford, Vermont, and transported south, McKeen 355, 438).
There are, however, some more distantly related tunes which
show a more subtle relationship between the traditions.
One
of these tunes is "Hail Sweetest, Dearest Tie," which
Mansfield attributed to William F. Farrington (a friend,
mentor, and fellow member of the Maine and East Maine
Conferences) but which William Walker, in The Southern
Harmony, attributes to L. P. Breedlove (Walker 35).
Similarly, Mansfield set a text by John Colby, a Baptist
missionary who had converted communities in Mansfield's
region of Maine, to a variant of "Supplication," also in the
Southern Harmony and number one on Jackson's "Most Popular
Tunes" list (1933:133).
Further, Jackson found Mansfield's
"Gloom of Autumn" in the Hesperian Harp as "Babylon"
and in
the Southern Harmony and Social Harp as "Mouldering Vine"
118
(1937:51 and 1952a:137)
He found "O Come, Come Away" in the
1859 edition of the Sacred Harp (1952a:188), "The Voyage" in
Good Old Songs as "Arise My Soul" (1942:184) and "Sinner,
Can
You Hate the Savior" in the Original Sacred Harp as "Pleading
Savior" (1937:126).
Mansfield's "Saint's Adieu to Earth"
appears distantly related (by its 6/8 rhythm and emphasis on
the fifth and sixth degrees of the scale) to "You Must Be
Bornd Agin" (1952a:15).
We also see some interesting Northern and Southern
fragmentary variants in Mansfield's camp-meeting spirituals.
Typically, Mansfield set the verses and choruses of his
spirituals in different tempos and even different time
signatures.
These spirituals, like many Northern and
Southern spirituals, often borrowed their verses from other
hymns.
The tunes which correspond to the verses are usually
slow, often in "triple measure" (his term, iv), while the
choruses are set in a faster tempo, in "double," "quadruple,"
or "sextuple measure."
An example of this melodic and
textual borrowing is Mansfield's "The Decision," built on
Cennick's "Jesus My All to Heaven Has Gone."
The first line
of the music, repeated twice for the couplet, is a variant of
"Deep Spring," number seven on Jackson's "MPT" list
(1933:134).
The spiritual states this melodic theme in 3/4;
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the rhythm alternates half- and quarter-notes.
joins in after the couplet:
eight-notes.
The chorus
it is set in 4/4 and built on
Moreover, we find the verse melody of "When We
Pass Over Jordan" in three versions in two of Jackson's
collections including one from the Denson revision of the
Original Sacred Harp and one from William Hauser's Olive Leaf
(1942:213, 252 and 1952a:153).
Like the song above, the
tempo of the melody changes the verse and the chorus:
this
song remains in 4/4 but while the verse uses mostly quarternotes, the chorus uses eighth-notes.
"Better Days Are
Coming," which later appeared in the Revivalist, appears as
"Great Day" in the Original Sacred Harp, "Tilton" appears
in
the Olive Leaf as "Shout Old Satan's Kingdom Down," "The
Old
Ship of Zion" appears in the Hesperian Harp (Jackson's "B"
form of the tune), and "At the Judgment Seat" appears in the
Olive Leaf as "There Will Be Mourning" (1952a:38, 1937:179,
1942:265, 1937:211, and 1937:186)
Finally, Mansfield
included an interesting variant of "Royal Proclamation," a
common Southern revival hymn (although I think because of the
rhythmic change between the verse and the chorus--and changes
from a two-voice to a four-voice harmonization--Mansfield
thought of it as a camp-meeting spiritual) first published by
Ananias Davisson in the Supplement to The Kentucky Harmony,
120
in 1820.
The song is interesting because although it shares
the text both to the verse and chorus, its melody, except for
the general contour of the first phrase, ascent and descent
from the upper octave in the third and fourth phrases, and
distinctive chorus, had changed to be almost unidentifiable.
Mansfield did not even use the same rhythm:
he smoothed
Davisson's dotted quarter-note rhythm into an even quarter
and eighth-note rhythm (Jackson, 1937:111-2, Patterson:152).
From the variant forms of folk spirituals that we find
in both the Vocalist and Jackson's canon, we can establish
the position of this book within an already defined
tradition, but it is the tunes which we do not find in
Jackson that help us to enlarge our understanding of that
tradition, both geographically and in terms of the size of
its repertory.
Mansfield included as many as sixty tunes
which Jackson did not find in his sources but which clearly
follow the same melodic formulas as the rest of his canon.
We find, for example, four tunes in the "Lazarus" tune
family:
"On the Death of a Child," "Sweet was the Time,"
"The Impartial Song," and "Child of Prosperity."
Among this
group we also find the same assortment of gapped scales as in
Jackson's sources, particularly the major Pentatonic and
121
Hexatonic scales (those missing the fourth and seventh
tones), and the Hexatonic 2A scale.
One of the interesting features at the beginning of the
second section of the Vocalist is Mansfield's use of
contemporary popular musical forms.
"Go Worship at
Emmanuel's Feet," for example, is a polka tune, while "Thou
Knowest That I Love Thee," with its 6/8 time signature and
dotted rhythm, is reminiscent of a quadrille tune.
Similarly, "Compassion," with the same type of rhythm as well
as its chromatic turn in the first phrase, is another example
of a quadrille.
These tunes are noted for their prominent
use of leading tones, a feature, which in Mansfield's as in
Southern books, is notably lacking in the more archaic tunes.
Two related tunes, "My Mother's Last Gift" (which the
Wesleyan Sacred Harp credits to "Morris") and "The Great
Physician" share these popular characteristics.
however, lacks a leading tone.
The latter,
Finally, "O Fly to Their
Bowers" with its jaunty 6/8 rhythm and liberal use of leading
tones and subdominants, has a distinctive mid-nineteenthcentury flavor.
Mansfield's last major addition to our body of spiritual
folk songs is "The Gospel Is Lovely," which he labeled "A
Shaker tune" (338).
On the facing page he printed the Shaker
122
text, "The old Israelites knew what it was the must do" set
to an interesting member of the "Lazarus" tune family.
Although Mansfield only credited the first song to the
Shakers, his juxtaposition of the two suggests that he paired
them intentionally.
Jackson found "The Old Israelites" in
George W. Henry's The Golden Harp, published in Auburn, New
York in 1855 and commented, "This is apparently the only
occurrence of the above ballad text in American songlore,"
(1942:48-9).
He was apparently unaware of the Vocalist,
probably the later compiler's source, as well as the
occurrences of the text in at least two words-only songsters.
"The Gospel is Lovely" appears to have stopped with the
Vocalist.
Daniel W. Patterson notes that the tune "is a
garbled version of a tune known to Sister Mildred [Barker],"
a member of the Sabbathday Lake community (545).
The tune is
notable for its 6/8 meter, constructed with triple groups of
eighth-notes (4 4).
It uses the common pentatonic scale, C-
D-E-G-A-c, and its range--that of a major sixth--is
uncommonly narrow.
The song, with its driving rhythm and
narrow, repetitious melody is unique in the book.
In his study of the Sacred Harp, Buell E. Cobb describes
the singing style in that tradition.
He writes that the
printed page accounts for only a part of the Sacred Harp
123
sound, that singers unconsciously restore tunes to their
traditional forms, and that common sense often overrides
printed instruction (40-45).
In the North we have no
comparable living tradition.
I have found no evidence that
the Vocalist was used after the 1890s.
In its day, however,
the Vocalist was part of a larger tradition.
From
suggestions in his "Remarks" and in the songs themselves we
have clues that the singing styles of people who used the
Vocalist were similar to the styles that Cobb describes.
We
have already seen that Mansfield believed common sense had to
govern the performance of minor tunes.
Further, Mansfield
wrote that he had pitched each tune, "where it can generally
be performed with the greatest effect," but that "the tune
must be keyed to suit the singers."
Cobb notes that Sacred
Harp singers also consider the printed pitches to be relative
guides (40).
Cobb also writes that the Sacred Harp sound--
the restoration of traditional styles--comes not from the
printed page but from the traditional elements that the
singers add to (and the "rhythmic impediments" that they
subtract from) the music (44-5, also Jackson, 1933:116,
Patterson:27-30).
Mansfield believed that singers could not
effectively perform a song directly from the printed page;
his book was an educational, not a performance, tool:
124
Every singer should have a tune book; but he ought
to commit so thoroughly to memory as not to be
entirely dependent upon it in a public performance.
The singer who is obliged to refer constantly to
the music he is performing, will produce but little
effect (xvi).
Finally, from his "Remarks" Mansfield gives his opinions of
instrumental accompaniment.
Like the folk spiritual singers
in the South to the present day and the Shakers until the end
of the nineteenth century, Mansfield believed that religious
songs were best performed unaccompanied (Patterson:30).
He
did, however, make a slight concession, and considered
musical instruments--like his tunebook--useful educational
tools (his own skill as a violinist probably influenced his
opinion here).
He wrote, "Musical instruments may be useful
where singers are not thoroughly trained, but if they are, no
instrument can add to the sweetness of their music" (xvi).
In the scores Mansfield marked dynamics, staccato notes,
"passing" and "after notes," and especially fermatas
(he
called them simply "pauses").
Of all the markings, he used
fermatas most frequently--in sixty-one (about 36%) of the
songs in sections two and three.
He used them to capture the
nuances of sung, traditional phrasing which he could not
capture with the standard notation of rhythms.
Usually,
fermatas lengthen the last note in a phrase and occasionally
the first.
Sometimes they emphasize the middle of a phrase,
125
but occasionally they lengthen a note that does not fall on
one of these natural breaking points.
In "He Restoreth My
Soul," for example, Mansfield barred the phrases according to
the flow of melody rather than that of the poetry.
Yet, in
the middle of the phrase, there is a natural break.
In the
third and fourth phrases Mansfield lengthened the note which
broke the phrase in two, and in the fourth phrase he
lengthened the first note of the second half of the phrase.
In "On the Death of a Child," the fermatas mark the last note
of the first, third, fifth, and seventh phrases.
In the
fourth phrase the fermata falls on the second unaccented beat
of the measure.
The melody, a member of the "Lazarus"
family, has two eight-measure strains; the fermata at the end
of the first helps to mark the end of that strain, but it
also adds syncopation.
Mansfield's setting of "Amazing
Grace" is similar in its use of fermatas (see Jackson,
1942:140 for Jackson's notes on the tune).
This tune seems
to have a quicker tempo than the usual "New Britain" tune;
nevertheless, in the third and fourth phrases fermatas
lengthen the third beats in three measures.
Finally, in "The
Old Fashioned Bible," a fermata emphasizes the word "Bible.".
Probably because of their lives in oral tradition,
several of the tunes Mansfield collected, resisted notation.
126
In several instances, Mansfield used fermatas to smooth out
rhythmic peculiarities.
A basic example of this is
"Crucifixion," a close variant of "Saw Ye My Savior"
which
Jackson found in Henry Smith's Church Harmony (Chambersburg,
Pennsylvania, 1834).
Mansfield's and Smith's rhythms
resemble each other except that Mansfield fits the tune into
eight measures while Smith uses fifteen.
Smith uses a
syncopated rhythm in the third measure of the first phrase.
Where Smith uses an eighth-note followed by a quarter-note,
Mansfield uses a quarter-note followed by a dotted eighthnote lengthened
by a fermata (Jackson, 1937:44).
"Hail,
Sweetest, Dearest Tie," would fit loosely into a metre with
ten measures in 5/4 and six in 4/4.
Mansfield transcribed
the tune entirely in 4/4 with fermatas making up the
difference.
Mansfield attributed this tune to W. F.
Farrington (I suspect that he transcribed it from
Farrington's singing), but it is a close variant of "Cross of
Christ" which Jackson found in the Primitive Baptist book,
Good Old Songs (it is also in the Southern Harmony).
The
tune, a "close variant of 'James Harris. . . or 'Daemon
Lover' or 'House Carpenter'" is one of the strongest folk
tunes in the Vocalist, and Mansfield preserved it with its
non-metronomic metre relatively intact (Jackson, comparing it
127
to its "worldly relatives," believes the sixth tone should be
made sharp and the tune sung in the Dorian mode, 1937:117-8).
This use of fermatas is relatively straight-forward--in
following this method, however, Mansfield was more like his
Shaker brethren than Southern tunebook compilers.
Patterson
notes that Shaker scribes also used this method of
transcribing tunes in 5/4 (24).
presented another problem:
fifteen fermatas.
"Child of Prosperity"
in sixteen measures it uses
The tune wants no time signature;
individual measures fall into 6/8, 7/8, and 8/8, or, because
fermatas have a length left up to personal discretion, into
none of these metres (352).
These last two tunes give us more information about
singing style than we can find elsewhere.
While we can only
speculate that singing pupils sang these songs in the
traditional Anglo-American style of full-voice and with added
passing and after notes and other flourishes, Mansfield was
careful in transcribing the intricacies of phrasing
(Patterson 27, 30-2).
The fermatas show a relatively loose
rhythm but they also suggest a relaxed tempo, allowing the
singer to dwell on the important notes in the tune.
The final traditional aspect of the music in the
Vocalist is Mansfield's harmonic settings.
Musically,
128
Mansfield straddled a fence between genteel and folk camps.
While he genuinely admired the work of the major musical
reformers of his time, the tastes he exhibited in his
tunebook were conservative.
He wanted his book to be useful
to the whole, egalitarian plainfolk religious community and
felt that "scientific" harmonies made the music "unfitted
for
general use" (ii).
We see this ambivalence in Mansfield's
harmonies, for they are vertical, like the genteel Northern
and European harmonies, but they often violate "scientific"
rules.
Most of Mansfield's harmonies are strikingly different
than those in the contemporary Southern tunebooks.
In
general, they move from one chord to the next, lacking the
contrapuntal and polyphonic character of the Southern folk
spirituals.
There are, however, exceptions.
Twenty-two
songs have fewer than four voices (one is a solo); all but
three of these are either in a gapped scale or the Aeolian or
Dorian mode and thus resist a "scientific" vertical harmony.
The two voice songs (there are nine of these), particularly,
have counter-melodies rather than usual bass lines.
These
tunes are some of the most striking folk tunes in the book:
their modality is predominantly minor (Pentatonic 2 and
minorized Aeolian and Hexatonic 2A), and most belong to both
129
Northern and Southern traditions (Jackson found five in
variant forms in Southern books and another two in Northern).
Mansfield harmonized thirteen songs with only three
voices.
Four of these have an art song feel (including three
in the Ionian mode); the remainder are clearly as folky as
the two-voice settings.
Of the nine three-voice folk tunes,
six have a minor modality (four in Hexatonic 2A and one each
in Aeolian and Dorian modes).
Like Southern arrangers,
Mansfield harmonized his three-voice songs with open
harmonies, although the songs have none of the dissonance
characteristic of the shape-note arrangements.
For example,
Mansfield's arrangement of "Pisgah," a popular tune in the
South, has twenty-four chords, nineteen of which are not
triads.
Fifteen chords are open fifths, while three are
thirds and the final tone is unison.
Suspensions in the
tenor voice in measures three and eight add to the
contrapuntal feel of the arrangement.
The independent
movement of the tenor and all the voices' resolution to the
tonic give each voice a life of its own not unlike Southern
arrangements.
Another essentially major tune (Hexatonic 1A)
is "The Pure Testimony."
"Pisgah":
This song has a closer harmony than
of 78 chords, twenty-two have chords of an open
fifth, eighteen have a third, and three are only the root.
130
Like "Pisgah," open chords on the resolutions of each phrase-the
first phrase ends in unison--strengthen the stark sound
of the piece.
Mansfield voiced his minor, three-voice tunes
differently than the major ones.
While he used soprano
(air), tenor, and bass for his major tunes, he used soprano,
alto, and bass for the minor.
The result of this is that the
minor pieces resemble the two-voice settings with a third,
monotonous voice on the top.
and open.
Still, the songs sound stark
"In Evil Long" has thirty-one chords twenty of
which are not triads (seven are fifths, nine are thirds, and
four are unison).
In this song, like "Pisgah," the voices
resolve to a unison.
Dorian mode:
The melody of this song is in the
Mansfield used the sharpened sixth to build a
"five-of-five" chord, except the resolution is to an open
fifth.
"The Mountain Calvary" has a slightly closer harmony
with twenty-six of its forty-eight chords built on one or two
tones (fourteen are a fifth, fourteen are a third, and two
are unison).
Its final cadence ends on an open fifth.
Mansfield's harmony--the melody uses the Hexatonic 2A scale-weaves in
and out of the Dorian mode and the harmonic minor:
its dominant appears in major and minor forms, and the raised
sixth in the alto voice in the seventh measure suggests (it
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is missing the fifth) a "five of seven" chord.
The
resolution of this chord is to a chord missing its fifth.
Mansfield's two- and three-voice harmonizations show two
solutions to the problem of harmonizing modes and gapped
scales, but what was the character of his four-voice
settings?
In general, these settings follow a strict, though
simple, vertical pattern.
For example, "Deal Gently With Thy
Servants, Lord," a variant of "Charlestown" in Good Old
Songs
and a common tune in shape-note books, follows a simple
tonic/dominant progression, with an occasional subdominant,
one mediant, and one five-of-five which resolves to the tonic
(Jackson, 1942:101).
Still, several chords are not triads:
mostly they have the root in three voices and the third in
another.
In the final cadence, Mansfield uses a V7 chord,
but he adds the seventh at the expense of the third.
Other
major tunes, including "The Bower of Prayer," "Saint's
Adieu
to Earth," and "The Gospel Is Lovely" reveal similar
tendencies.
In the last two songs, the full cadence resolves
to an open chord--the root in three voices and the third in
the tenor.
Minor tunes, with their "uncertainty of . . .
structure," presented greater difficulties for Mansfield
(1849:xii).
major tunes.
Their sound is generally more open than that of
This is because, like his Southern
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counterparts, Mansfield tended to end his full cadences on
chords built on only the root and fifth.
Cobb notes this
tendency in harmonizations in the Sacred Harp (41).
Two
minor songs, "Fellowship with God" and "He Restoreth My
Soul"
have a more open sound than the rest.
songs are related:
The melodies of these
both are variants of "Night Thought,"
preserved in the Christian Lyre (Jackson, 1942:89).
Both are
haunting tunes; their melodic resolutions to the dominant,
and the awkward sound of their leading tones give the tunes a
Phrygian feel which Jackson also notes ("Fellowship with
God," particularly, appears to have once used the Hexatonic
5a scale, although Mansfield harmonized it in the harmonic
minor--in "A minor," its first tone is a "B," four of
its
phrases resolve to a "G," and four resolve to an "E").
Consequently, they resist a strong vertical chord
progression.
"Fellowship With God" begins on a dominant
chord which resolves to an open tonic chord constructed of
fifths.
In the chorus, the song avoids the dominant,
resolving first to the relative major, and then to the minor
fifth.
In "He Restoreth My Soul," Mansfield sets up an
harmonic tension between the minor tonic and its relative
major.
This tune is phrased AABBAA:
the "A" phrases have an
open--and relatively melodic--harmony.
Mansfield made
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liberal use of two-tone chords built on fifths and thirds; he
used minor fifth and seventh chords (the first half-phrase
progresses in A minor from A minor to C to E minor to C and
rests on G).
The "B" phrases, with their strong major feel,
have a closer harmony, except in their cadences.
Finally,
Mansfield harmonized camp-meeting spirituals in the same
style as the rest of his tunes.
In several songs, he
arranged the verse as a solo or duet, and arranged the chorus
with all four voices.
In its musical material, the Vocalist is surprisingly
close to its Southern counterparts.
In its textual material,
however, it loses this similarity, and it even departs from
the doctrinal opinion of the Methodist conference of which
its compiler was a member.
Dickson Bruce argues that
Millennialism was a relatively weak strain in Southern campmeeting spirituals (112-13).
The texts in the Vocalist,
however, have a strong Millennialist tone.
When Mansfield
published the Vocalist, the Millerite movement--the major
expression of Millennialism in Mansfield's region of Maine-was less than
five years in the past, and the Adventist
movement which grew out of Millerism was becoming an active
force in his region.
Between 1841 and 1843, Millerism (named
for the movement's leader, William Miller, who had calculated
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that the Judgment would begin on April 23, 1843) almost
displaced slavery as the major issue troubling the Maine
Conference (Allen 121-23, Pilsbury 58).
The movement
dissolved when Christ did not appear; most of the errant
Methodist ministers renounced their views and returned to
their stations.
Nevertheless, Mansfield represented these
"heretical" views particularly strongly in his singing book.
Indeed, almost half (about 47%) of his texts either appeared
in the Millenial Harp, the Millerites' hymnal, or speak of
the coming apocalypse, the mustering armies, the reunification of the churches
and peoples, the preparations of
the saints for their ascension to heaven, and the closeness
of Christ.
In the context of the Millerite or Adventist
hymns, many of the other texts take on a Millennialist tone.
Millennialism grew out of the "experimental" religion
movement of the Great Awakening and late eighteenth century.
Millennialism found one expression in Shakerism, but even the
more mainstream Methodists and Free Baptists at the beginning
of the nineteenth century expressed hopes in their spirituals
that they would "soon be in the kingdom" (Vocalist:328).
Evidence of this is that twenty-seven of the Millennialist
texts in the Vocalist appear in at least one of the revival
songsters that were current in Maine and Massachusetts during
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the 1820s and '30s.
(These books are Myers's Zion Songster--
a source for Southern as well as Northern singing book
compilers--Meriam's Wesleyan Camp-Meeting Hymn-Book,
published in Wendell, Massachusetts, in 1827, Springer's
Songs of Zion, published in Hallowell in 1827, Ripley's A
Selection of Hymns, for Prayer and Conference Meetings, a
Baptist collection from Bangor, 1831, and A Conference
Meeting Hymn Book, published in Eastport, Maine, in 1832.)
One of the best examples of Millennialist hymnody in the
Vocalist is "The Pure Testimony," a hymn that had been
published in the Myers, Springer, and Meriam collections.
It
describes preparations for the Apocalypse, and is virtually a
catalogue of Millennialist themes and images.
The purpose of
the song, like that of most of the Millennialist hymns in the
book, is to exhort sinners to "come out from foul spirits and
practices" and to join the last battle against the "great
Prince of Darkness."
The song begins with the image of the
"Pure Testimony"--the Word of God--as a "sharp two edged
sword" (Rev. 1:16, 19:15), and continues to describe the
condemnation of hypocrites and false teachers (Rev. 2:9-10).
The song devotes two seven-line stanzas to the gathering of
the nations and the churches, the 144,000 of the tribes of
Israel and the "great multitude which no man could number, of
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all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues" arrayed
in robes washed "in the blood of the Lamb" (Rev. 7:4-9, 14).
This theme of the re-unification of the Church also alludes
to Rev. 11:15, "and the seventh angel sounded; and there were
great voices in heaven, saying, the kingdoms of this world
are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ."
Like many of the Millennialist hymns, this song uses the
images of the trumpet blasts which herald the beginning of
the judgment (Rev. chapters 8 and 9).
Finally, the song
describes the preparations for the battle itself, the call to
"gird on your armor, ye saints of the Lord," and the warning
that the "great prince of darkness is mustering his forces,"
using "slanders, reproaches and vile persecution,/That you in
his cause may remain."
The song ends with the promise from
Rev. 17:14 that "the PURE TESTIMONY will give you the day."
The underlying image of the song is that not of the
battle but of the journey toward the battle.
In the third
stanza the trumpet blows to call the world to follow Jesus,
"O come ye from Babylon, Egypt, and Sodom,/And make your way
over the plain."
The song exhorts the listener to "walk in
the Spirit through Jesus' name," and preaches perseverence,
"The track of your Savior keep still in your view,/The pure
testimony will cut the way through."
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The idea that the sinner can choose to "walk in the
Spirit" is the doctrine of free grace.
It is distinct from
free will in that it accepts that man is powerless without
the Spirit, yet the Spirit offers grace to any who will
accept it.
The image of the journey to the "new Jerusalem"
is the most important and persistent image in the texts which
Mansfield selected for his singing book.
"The Pure Testimony" is important because it combined
several images and themes which Millennialist texts used
singly.
Theme of the gathering of the peoples "into the one
Spirit of God," for example, appears in "The Impartial Song,"
(a song which Samuel Holyoke had published earlier in the
Harmonia Americana):
The Spirit is come, and the work is begun,
And we all are united in one.
It also provides--with the concept of free grace added--the
basis for the camp-meeting spiritual, "The Christian Band,"
which tells, example by example, who can join the "multitude
which no man can number":
And Jew and Gentile, free and bond,
I will be in this band, Hallelujah!
And rich and poor the world around,
May belong to this band, Hallelujah! (328)
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Another camp-meeting spiritual, "Will You Go?" echoes theme
again.
In this text, the chorus "Will you go?
Will you go?"
follows the first, second, and last lines:
The way to heaven is free for all,
For Jew and Gentile, great and small,
Make up your mind, give God your heart,
With every sin and idol part,
And now with saints for glory start (336).
Another example of theme of the gathering of the peoples
"into the one Spirit of God" is a chorus for Charles Wesley's
text, "Come sinners to the gospel feast," in which Mansfield
combines the "Jew and Gentile" phrase from the Millennialist
texts with the term "free grace":
Thro' grace, free grace,
Thro' grace, free grace,
To all the Jew and Gentile race (291).
Finally, two other spirituals speak of the coming unity:
"The Old Church Yard" has a stanza built on the repeat line,
"He'll awake all the nations" and "Soldiers of the Cross"
speaks of "pure religion"--religion without denominational
distinctions:
this, in the context of the Jubilee, assumes
the gathering of the kingdoms spoken of in Rev. 11:15.
Mansfield's spirituals dwell heavily not only on theme
of unity but on the trumpet image and on the assurance of
victory.
"Gabriel's Trumpet," a camp-meeting spiritual which
appeared in the first but not the revised edition of the
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Vocalist (as well as the Millenial Harp), uses the image of
the trumpet in the chorus:
For Gabriel's going to blow,
From on high, from on high-O Gabriel's going to blow,
By and by.
We see the trumpet image in two hymn texts in the revised
edition.
"Burst Ye Emerald Gates" (which had been published
in A Conference Meeting Hymn Book in 1832) has a chorus of
trumpets and lutes in its portrayal of the resurrection,
"Angel trumps resound his fame:/Lutes of lucid gold
proclaim,/All the music of his name" (317), and "What Sound
is this Salutes My Ear" (another text from the Millenial
Harp) begins with the lines:
What sound is this salutes my ear?
'Tis Gabriel's trump methinks I hear,
'Tis Gabriel's trump methinks I hear,
The expected day has come.
We see the assurance of victory from Rev. 17:14 in
several camp-meeting choruses.
The chorus to a setting of
Cennick's "Children of the heavenly king," for example,
proclaims:
Victory! victory,
When we've gained the victory,
Oh how happy we shall be,
When we've gained the victory (344-5).
Two other choruses, "O That Will Be Joyful" and "Give Me
Jesus," speak of the resurrection not in hopeful but in
certain terms.
The first is an adaptation of Watts's "When I
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can read my title clear to mansions in the sky":
the chorus
is, "Oh, that will be joyful, to meet to part no more."
The
second builds two stanzas on the repeated lines:
When I'm rising hear me shout, [Repeated three
times]
I have Jesus.
and:
When in heaven we will sing,
Blessed Jesus (345).
These peculiarly Millennialist texts and choruses set
the revival songs in the Vocalist off from their Southern
counterparts, but the dominant theme, that of the journey,
with its sub-themes of conversion (starting the journey),
exile and world-rejection, and hopeful arrival in heaven,
belonged to Southern as well as Northern plainfolk
traditions; Mansfield (and his sources) adapted them for
Millennialist purposes.
The journey theme is very broad,
covering the three areas of conversion, the actual journey-devotional
life both personally and within the community of
Christians--and the eventual ascent to heaven.
The Vocalist contains a variety of songs about
conversion experiences.
Several of these, including "In evil
long I took delight" and "Sweet was the time when first I
felt," are texts by John Newton.
In two ballads, "While
nature was sinking in stillness to rest" (Mansfield calls it
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"Gethsemane") and "Beside the gospel pool,/ Appointed for
the
poor," (the title is "The Gospel Pool") a direct experience
with Christ causes the conversion.
The first ballad had
appeared in Day's Revival Hymns and Himes's Millenial Harp
earlier in the 1840s, although the text is different in each
version (Day's first line is "When nature. . . ," while
Himes's version is quite different, see Jackson, 1942:28).
This song is interesting for its similarity to secular,
patriotic Irish broadside ballads popular during the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, particularly, "The
Blackbird," and "The Mantle of Green" (Randolph, and
Creighton:171).
In "The Blackbird," the narrator, taking a
walk, hears a woman lamenting the loss of her blackbird, a
symbol of the Stuarts.
In "The Mantle of Green," a man,
again on a walk, falls asleep on "a bank of primroses," and
dreams of a "goddess of liberty."
She identifies herself as
a "daughter of Daniel O'Connell," and tells him that she has
come from England "to awaken my brothers/That slumber on
Erin's green shore."
This song has the garden imagery as
well as the character of the mourning redeemer which we find
also in "Gethsemane."
In this song, a man, taking a
contemplative walk, pauses in a garden where he overhears "a
voice faint and plaintive . . . pleading in anguish the poor
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sinner's part."
The narrator discovers that the mourner is
"the loveliest BEING that ever was found."
He identifies
himself--"'Tis JESUS! from heaven I came!"--and says that he
is suffering because of the narrator's sins.
Mansfield ends
the song here, with the sinner aware of his condition.
Himes, however, continues the story through the narrator's
conversion, "journey to mansions above," and vision of "the
day of bright glory."
In "The Gospel Pool," the story is
similar but is based on John 4:6-28, the story of Jesus
meeting the woman at the well.
This song had been popular
for most of the nineteenth century in Northern revival
songsters:
we find it in Harvey's Hymns and Spiritual Songs,
on Different Subjects, published Albany in 1812, Nettleton's
Village Hymns, the Zion Songster, and Springer's Songs of
Zion.
This song tells the story of "a sinful soul" waiting
beside the "gospel pool" for a cure.
A stranger, Jesus,
approaches him and says offers him the cure of free grace,
"Only consent to be made whole,/You need no longer lie."
Jesus's voice "dispelled the charm," making the sinner
recognize his sins, and in agony call "for aid divine."
Dickson Bruce divides conversion experiences into three
stages:
the preconversion life of sin, often accompanied by
warnings from converts; a period of "conviction" during which
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the sinner recognizes his or her sins, worries about
damnation, and rejects his or her former sinful life; and,
finally, the actual conversion during which the sinner
receives grace and the knowledge that his or her sins are
forgiven (63-8).
We see evidence that conversion experiences
followed similar patterns among Northern revival communities
in the autobiography of John Colby, an itinerant Free Baptist
preacher from northeastern Vermont whose "hymn" (a religious
"come-all-ye" ballad) Mansfield included in the Vocalist.
Colby describes how his grandmother warned him against sin,
and how his feelings of guilt over attending a dance made him
recognize his sins and repent (9-10).
Finally, he reached
his conversion through a vision of the Apocalypse in which he
saw that his "name was not enrolled in the Lamb's book of
life. . . ."
The structure of Colby's conversion followed
that which Bruce defines; its details, however, are
consistent with the northern New England spiritual song
tradition in their Millennialist cast.
Mansfield included several songs that vividly described
conversion experiences which paralleled Colby's.
take the form of warnings.
Three songs
These are "Ah, guilty sinner,
ruined by transgression" (which had been published earlier by
both Leavitt and Merrill), "Delay not, delay not: O sinner
144
draw near," and "Hearken ye sprightly, and attend ye vain
ones," a warning ballad in the tradition of "Wicked Polly"
(Jackson, 1933:189-194).
Two more songs, "When thou my
righteous Judge shalt come" (published by Myers, Leavitt, and
Himes) and "There comes a day, a fearful day," describe the
urgency of conversion in the context of the impending
Apocalypse.
"Hearken ye sprightly" (called "Death-bed Reflections")
is interesting because it is a relative (indeed the only one
in the Vocalist) of the ballad "Wicked Polly" (Jackson,
1933:189-93).
This ballad is easy to overlook because its
meter, "11s and 5," lacks the easy flow of ballad poetry.
The diction is convoluted, and the last two lines of each
stanza break the sentences uncharacteristically for folk
poetry, "But was myself, in spite of all these warning/Long
life expecting."
Moreover, the lines do not rhyme.
The
narrative structure and message of the ballad fit the "Wicked
Polly" model exactly.
The ballad begins with the traditional
"Come all ye" and continues to explain the narrator's sinful
life, sudden illness, regrets for not listening to warnings,
recognition of his damnation, and death.
The song closes
with the traditional warning:
O ghastly death! pray stop one single moment!
While I give warning to my gay companions--
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No time is granted for expostulation,-SHUN MY EXAMPLE.
While the ballad above relates to the first stage of
conversion, two visions of the Apocalypse relate to the
second, that of conviction.
The mourning sinner, who has not
yet felt "God's pardoning love," sees the destruction of the
world and doubts his own worthiness to be saved from Hell.
Both descriptions of the Apocalypse use the worm metaphor
from Psa. 22:6--"But I am a worm and no man"--and Isaac
Watts--"Would he devote that sacred head/For such a worm as
I?" (Vocalist:279).
"There comes a day, a fearful day" ends
with a plea to God to save the mourning sinner:
Father, Eternal! God of love!
Look down from mercy's seat above;
Through Jesus now be reconciled
To me, a wayward, wandering child (343).
Many of the songs borrow Bunyan's metaphor of the
pilgrimage to heaven.
Bruce notes this theme in Southern
camp-meeting spiritual choruses, and writes that the
pilgrimage metaphor was a product of the "saints'" worldrejection,
that they looked more to the next world than the
present.
More accurately, I think, the saints' world-
rejection was a product of their identity as pilgrims.
The
conversion songs above exhorted sinners to disown their
worldly attachments, just as Bunyan's Christian--and Christ's
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apostles--left his family to seek heaven.
The songs about
Christian life (life as a pilgrim) fall into two groups:
the
first about Christian discipline, world rejection and prayer,
and the second about the actual journey.
Like the conversion
songs, these songs derived their urgency from their
underlying Millennialist tone:
the contemplative,
unencumbered Christian was prepared for Gabriel to blow his
horn, and the pilgrim knew his (or her) journey was near its
end.
"The Old Israelites," a Shaker text first published in
Millennial Praises in 1813, combines the elements of world
rejection and the journey.
This ballad combines images from
Exodus and Revelation (as Bunyan had done) using the story of
the Israelites' flight Canaan to explain the saints' journey
to heaven.
The voice of the ballad shifts back and forth
between third and first person:
the Israelites' "pillar of
light" in the first stanza becomes a "pillar of love which
doth onward still move,/And doth gather our souls into one"
in the second (Exodus 13:21 and 14:19-20 and Rev. 7:4-9,
11:15).
The ballad states its theme--that saints must reject
the world to make the journey to Canaan--at the end of the
second stanza, "Now all who would stand on the promised
land,/Let them take up the cross and go."
For the saints,
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particularly the Shaker author of this ballad, worldrejection was joyful:
If I'm faithful and true, and my journey
pursue,
Till I stand on the heavenly shore,
I shall joyfully see what a blessing to me,
Was the mortifying cross which I bore. . . .
When I all have forsook, like a bubble 'twill
look,
From the midst of a glorified throng,
Where all losses are gain, where each sorrow
and pain,
Are exchanged for the conqueror's song (339).
Mansfield's other Shaker song, "The Gospel is Lovely," also
use theme of the joys of "bearing the cross."
Mansfield
credits only the tune of this song to the Shakers, but theme
of the text is consistent with the Shaker text above (and he
printed it on the facing page):
I'm happy, I'm happy in bearing the cross
The comfort I find surpasses all loss,
There's nothing I've left I'd wish to recall.
I count it all worth--just nothing at all.
Mansfield's Shaker songs are one of the most interesting
features of the Vocalist because of the rarity of Shaker
material in non-Shaker books (Daniel W. Patterson writes of
eight of these songs, including the two from the Vocalist):
clearly, Mansfield used this material because it was
consistent with the Millennial tone of the book and with
themes of travel and world-rejection (Patterson:545).
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Complimenting these two songs about world-rejection are
several which tell of the joys of Christian discipline
without the pilgrimage metaphor.
"The Happy Man," for
example (a text published earlier in the Christian Lyre)
describes an ideal for Christian life:
a man content with
poverty, living prayerfully, and "drawing nourishment from
Christ the living vine."
Similarly, "How Precious is the
Name," a song with the common "Captain Kidd" stanzaic
structure (and melody), declares, "I've given all for Christ,
he's my all, he's my all."
(This text was published earlier
in A Conference Meeting Hymn Book and H. W. Day's David's
Harp.)
Finally, "Go When the Morning Shineth," another text
about the joyful discipline of prayer, concludes with a
stanza beginning:
Oh not a joy or blessing
With this we can compare-The power that he hath given us,
To pour our souls in prayer (268).
Several texts deal not with the joys of world-rejection
but with the vanity of worldly things--particularly wealth
and secular education--and the necessity of rejecting them.
Developing that theme, "The Source of Happiness" (published
earlier by Meriam), for example, calls learning, "that
boasting, glitterng thing," and beauty--using the same image
as "The Old Israelites"--"a painted bubble" (335).
Finally,
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the song states, "Sensual pleasures swell desire,/Just as the
fuel feeds the fire," a theme which "Always New," a popular
song in Northern and Southern, white and black traditions,
develops more fully:
And could we call all Europe ours,
With India and Peru;
The mind would feel an aching void,
And still want something new (Jackson,
1933:249, 1937:225-6, and 1952a:117).
Finally, "Child of Prosperity" echoes secular class conflict
in its harsh imagery:
Child of prosperity,
Nursling of vanity,
Slave to preferment, to wealth and renown,
Does love smooth thy pillow,
Is hushed each rude billow
Of care in thy breast, is thy wretchedness flown?
The solution to the problem expressed in all of these songs
is to accept free grace and to begin a pilgrimage to heaven.
"Child of Prosperity" expresses this in an interesting mix of
river and maritime imagery.
The hymnodist used an ocean
voyage as a metaphor for the life of a saint, thus, entering
heaven is coming into "the harbor of rest, for no billows are
there" (this refers to the spiritual "rude billows" of the
first verse.)
The hymn also uses the image of heaven from
Rev. 22:1, in which the river of life flows from the throne
of God and the Lamb.
The song ends with the promise that the
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saints will enjoy "Peace like a river," flowing to the
heavenly home (352).
Songs about the actual journey take several forms.
Journeys can be a walk "up the mountain Calvary," or, as in
"The Old Israelites," they be travels through the wilderness
and across the Jordan into Canaan; they can be more like
Bunyan's pilgrimage with its plunge into the river of death
before climbing to the Celestial City; or they can take the
form of an ocean voyage.
Implicit in the songs is the
knowledge (more than just a hope) that the journey will soon
come to a joyous conclusion.
For example, "When We Pass Over
Jordan," a camp-meeting spiritual has for its refrain:
On the other side of Jordan,
How happy we shall be,
We'll pass over Jordan,
And sound the Jubilee (327).
"On the Way to Canaan," (published in The Zion Songster and
the Conference Meeting Hymn Book) combines the journey with
the battle against Satan, the gathering of the nations with
trumpet blasts, and allegorical characters ("Faith," "Hope,"
"Desire," "Love," and "Patience") after the
style of Bunyan.
The narrator invites sinners to join the march to Canaan, in
spite of Satan's army; he or she offers witnesses--converts
who have already felt the rapture of the Jubilee through the
power of the Holy Spirit--as proof of the reward at the end.
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The song ends with a discussion among the allegorical
characters.
"The Pilgrim Stranger" is a dialogue ballad which
focuses not on the Jordan, but on the river death at the end
of Pilgrim's Progress.
Jackson writes that dialogues were
popular among early English Methodists, who had sung them
with "men sitting on one side of the meeting house, and the
women sitting opposite. . . [singing] alternate stanzas"
(1939:208).
He found "The Pilgrim Stranger" in several books
including the Christian Lyre and Good Old Songs (1942:81 and
1939:208).
In this song, like in Pilgrim's Progress, a
convert and a sinner walk through a wilderness and discuss
their journey.
The sinner is frightened by the wilderness,
but the saint says that she is not afraid because she has a
guide who will lead her safely to the end of her journey.
The song ends with an image of the resurrection: the saint
plunges into the river of death and rises, "Like an angel
clothed with light."
The concluding stanza speaks of the
sadness and alienation of the world after the ascent of his
friend, and ends with the Millennial assurance that the
narrator will soon experience his own death and resurrection.
The final example of theme of the voyage is the ocean
voyage.
Transportation imagery was common among revival
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songs:
Helen Hartness Flanders recorded a song called "The
Spiritual Railway," defining, point by point, how the railway
corresponds to our journey to heaven (1939:53-4).
Barry,
writing in the notes to this song, noted that the Shakers
were the first to use nautical imagery in a sacred ballad;
Patterson recorded a Shaker hymn, "Voyage to Canaan" from
Millennial Praises, and wrote that the song drifted through
Shaker and non-Shaker traditions, finding its way, via Dover
Selection, into the Southern Harmony as "The Spiritual
Sailor" (Flanders, 1939:54 and Patterson 157).
In the
Vocalist, "Child of Prosperity" touches on this theme, and
the common camp-meeting spiritual "The Old Ship of Zion"
develops it more fully (Jackson recorded both the "Spiritual
Sailor" and several versions of "The Old Ship of Zion.")
"The Voyage" ("Through tribulation deep/The way to glory
is")
follows the basic structure of "The Spiritual Railway,"
explaining how temptations are a hurricane, hope is an
anchor, and the Bible a chart.
Finally, pilot angels will
bring the ship safely into port where the saint will "be safe
for evermore."
This text is common, appearing as early as
1825 in John C. Totten's Selection of Hymns and Spiritual
Songs as well as the Myers, Meriam, Springer, and Leavitt
collections.
153
The reason the voyage image works in these hymns (and
Pilgrim's Progress) is that the saints understood the
destination to be near.
Several songs give us more than a
hope or even Christ's assurance that saints will enter the
kingdom of God:
they give us vivid, experiential views
("seen through the eye of faith") of the Jubilee.
"The
Release" explains these visions of the Jubilee:
A crown of glory bright
By faith I see,
In yonder realms of light
Prepared for me (266).
These songs express their visions either in the present tense
or soon in the future, with a joyful emotional intensity that
we would expect from the "grand sabbatic year" of 1843 (266).
In "The Saint's Adieu To Earth" the narrator bids farewell to
various worldly things and explains by what they will be
replaced when he reaches heaven.
In the first couplet of
each quatrain he explains what he is leaving, and in the
second he tells what he is gaining in heaven:
Ye mountains and vallies [sic], ye rivers and
plains,
Thou earth, and thou ocean, adieu;
More permanent regions, where righteousness
reigns,
Present their bright hills to my view
(268).
Mansfield, in his arrangement of the song, emphasizes the
heavenly aspect by repeating the second couplet as a chorus.
154
The song ends with the narrator's plea to Jesus to "come
quickly" and release his soul so it can "ascend the bright
regions of peace."
Two songs, "Burst Ye Emerald Gates" (published in the
Conference Meeting Hymn Book and Millenial Harp) and "What
Sound Is This Salutes My Ear," take their portrayals of the
Jubilee directly from the book of Revelation.
"Burst Ye
Emerald Gates" also uses images from Pilgrim's Progress,
especially the image of heaven with its brilliant light and
"melodious noise" (Rev. 21:23-4, Bunyan 250-3).
The song
also uses the image of the "four and twenty elders" from Rev.
4:4 and 19:4.
From Pilgrim's Progress, it uses not only the
image of light but of melodious notes:
Sweetest sound in seraph's song,
Sweetest note on mortal's tongue;
Sweetest carol ever sung:
Jesus! Jesus! flow along (316).
"What Sound is This Salutes My Ear" (published earlier in the
Millenial Harp and, according to Himes, in the Wesleyan Harp)
proclaims "the year of Jubilee" with its vision of heaven
from chapters 20 and 21 of Revelation, "Fair Zion rising from
the tombs," (20:12-13) and the image of the bridegroom (21:2,
9).
This song states in certain terms, voiced in the present
tense, the arrival of the Judgment day.
155
The texts in the Vocalist answer our question of what
were the religious concerns of the "thousands of illiterate
persons" to whom Mansfield addressed his book.
They show us
that the experimental religion which George Whitefield and
his Methodist and Baptist successors had spread through rural
New England was still the primary religious attitude among
the plain folk religious communities even while the
established churches were becoming more institutionalized.
Millennialism refined experimental religious attitudes, but
it had been, even among the Methodists and Baptists, a
persistent strain in these communities during the
developmental period of Northeastern folk hymnody.
Many of
the texts discussed above had been in circulation among the
plainfolk communities since the beginning of the 1830s; a few
had been recorded during the second decade of the century.
Moreover, "What Sound Is This Salutes My Ear" remained
popular in a Methodist setting at least for another decade,
for S. Hubbard and William McDonald included it in their
Wesleyan Sacred Harp.
The popularity of Millennial beliefs
explains why Mansfield included two Shaker songs in the
Vocalist:
they were relevant to the tone and doctrinal
message of the book.
Finally, the strong Millennial tone of
the Vocalist shows us the major difference between Northern
156
and Southern plainfolk religious attitudes.
is interesting for two reasons.
This difference
First, it is the only major
difference between Mansfield's and Southern collections-melodically,
the tunes in the Vocalist resemble those which
Jackson found in Southern books, and harmonically,
Mansfield's unscientific, vertical harmonies share some
important characteristics with Southern harmonies.
Second,
the texts suggest that the spiritual folksongs which D. H.
Mansfield recorded in the "deep North" were more than just
the "shore line" of the "flood" from the "Kentucky-Tennessee
area" as Jackson suggested (1952b:365).
157
APPENDIX A
Indices, The American Vocalist, 1848 and 1849 Editions.
Note:
In the first edition the second part begins with
page number 169 and the third part begins with page 227.
In
the revised edition the second part begins with page number
247 and the third part begins with page 321.
Mansfield's
first line index was only for "the principal hymns":
below
is a complete list.
Index of Tunes
Page
Page
First Edition Revised Edition
A Little While and Ye Shall See Me
Abington
Afton
Aithlone
Akron
Albany
All is Well
All-Saints
Always New
Amazing Grace
America
Amherst
Amsterdam
Andover
Angel's Visits
213
53
133
91
176
182
220
67
94
115
203
323
67
203
143
145
82
254
41
260
298
105
148
181
84
281
158
Antioch
Archdale
Arlington
Armley
Arne
Arundel
Ashley
At the Judgement Seat
Atonement
Autumn
Aylesbury
Ballerma
Bangor
Barby
Beatitudes, The
Benevento
Bermondsey
Bethesda
Bethlehem
Better Days Are Coming
Beulah
Blackburn
Blendon
Blessed be the Lord
Blessings of a Clear Title, The
Bower of Prayer, The
Boylston
Braintree
Brattle Street
Brentford
Brethren, Pray
Brethren, Sing
Bridgewater
Brighton
Brookfield
Brooklyn
Buckfield
Buckingham
Burford
Burial of Mrs. Judson, The
Burst Ye Emerald Gates
Caledonia
Calvary
Calvary
61
60
8
251
169
67
52
39
33
104
121
125
232
92
198
213
71
54
251
250
17
20
86
21
31
223
197
105
94
75
74
8
139
87
100
353
247
174
105
66
53
47
319
160
187
151
191
326
146
92
36
234
276
291
109
98
68
36
353
352
17
136
20
132
21
45
92
301
317
275
102
161
159
Cambridge
Camp of the Hebrews
Canaan
Canterbury New
Captive's Lament, The
Carmarthen
Carnes
Carthage
Castle Street
Chardon
Chariot, The
Child of Prosperity
Child's Evening Prayer
China
Christian Band
Christian's Requiem, The
Christian's Welcome Home, The
Christmas
Church in Affliction, The
Church's Welcome, The
Clarendon
Colchester
Columbus
Come for All Things Now Are Ready
Come My Brethren
Come Ye Disconsolate
Coming Home
Coming To Christ
Compassion
Complaint
Concord
Confidence
Contrast
Contrition
Conway
Corelli
Coronation
Corydon
Costellow
Coventry
Cowper
Cranbrook
Crucifixion
Dallas
Dalston
49
230
227
43
209
94
109
176
63
324
321
57
287
148
169
136
23
93
266
352
351
72
328
300
272
186
310
267
89
76
164
291
341
221
282
309
264
12
118
32
154
315
97
126
44
154
15
99
26
120
254
99
162
155
23
188
250
219
58
234
222
194
120
189
62
247
204
186
12
80
98
30
98
15
26
160
Danbury
Dartmouth
Darwent
Day of Wrath
Deal Gently With Thy Servants, Lord
Death of the Righteous, The
Death-Bed Reflections
Decision, The
Dedham
Delay Not
Delight
Demonstration, The
Denmark
Devizes
Devotion
Disciple
Dismission
Doxology
Dream of Pilate's Wife, The
Dresden
Dresden
Duke Street
Dunbar
Dundee
Durham
Dying Boy, The
Dying Christian
Dying Youth's Lament, The
Easter Anthem
Eaton
Eden
Edinburg
Edom
Effingham
Element
Elysium
Emmons
Evening Hymn
Evening Hymn
Evening Prayer
Evening Shade
Exhortation
Experience
Fading Flowers
79
13
171
177
231
37
95
197
55
110
11
71
39
33
214
216
82
196
134
65
27
75
66
246
200
76
59
242
91
117
13
343
249
316
255
325
51
337
149
275
210
69
37
170
230
223
320
139
139
11
109
53
47
292
216
294
207
128
274
204
79
27
39
113
80
340
123
278
114
73
336
306
161
Faithful Sentinel, The
Family Bible, The
Far From My Thoughts
Farewell, The
Fellowship With God
Florence
Fluvanna
Fountain
Friendship
Funeral Anthem
Funeral Bell
Funeral Dirge
Funeral Hymn
Funeral Thought
Gabriel's Trumpet
Galena
Ganges
Garden Hymn, The
Garland
Geneva
Gethsemane
Give Me Jesus
Glad Tidings
Gloom of Autumn
Glory To God in the Highest
Gloucester
Go When the Morning Shineth
Go Worship at Emmanuel's Feet
Good Shepherd, The
Gospel Feast, The
Gospel Freedom
Gospel is Lovely, The
Gospel Pool, The
Granville
Gratitude
Great is the Lord
Great Physician, The
Greater Light, The
Green's Hundredth
Greenfield
Greenville
Greenwich
Grieve Not the Holy Spirit
Guilford
219
191
230
177
45
64
125
284
66
37
302
308
269
324
255
103
59
78
191
220
262
241
80
51
243
91
228
58
63
239
187
207
190
173
172
206
244
84
107
25
208
81
141
143
322
72
77
333
345
265
285
240
137
268
251
347
250
284
338
346
164
355
235
262
289
35
130
167
25
286
119
162
Haddam
Hague
Hail Sweetest, Dearest Tie
Hallowell
Hamburg
Hamilton
Handel
Hanover
Happy Man, The
Harleigh
Hartford
Hartland
Hatfield
He Hath Done All Things Well
He Hears Thy Sighs
He Restoreth My Soul
Heath
Heavenly Vision
Hebron
Helmsley
Hendon
Here is No Rest
Hingham
Hinton
Holy Lord God of Sabaoth
Home
Hope
Horton
Hotham
How Precious is the Name
Howard
Hudson
97
16
193
36
19
I Have No Father There
I Know That My Redeemer Lives
I Love the Holy Son of God
I Will Arise
I Would Not Live Alway
I'm a Pilgrim
Impartial Song, The
In Evil Long
Invitation
Iowa
Irish
Italian Hymn
174
235
233
3
80
60
72
210
171
217
7
109
225
175
130
135
101
247
72
224
236
237
29
120
152
16
271
50
19
200
153
200
346
3
118
74
110
288
249
295
88
242
7
169
165
253
41
196
228
204
354
162
157
341
89
110
252
329
327
232
201
330
332
33
29
121
98
186
163
Jerusalem
John Colby's Hymn
Jordan
Joseph
Judea
57
246
Kedron
Kempton
Kendall
Kentucky
Keyes
Kingsley
Knaresboro
135
Laban
Lanesboro
Lansdale
Last Beam is Shining, The
Lathrop
Lebanon
Leicester
Lena
Lenox
Leon
Leoni
Lewiston
Liberty
Limehouse
Lincoln
Linden
Linstead
Lisbon
Little Marlboro
London
Long Time Ago
Lord's Prayer, The
Lord, Remember Me
Love Feast
Luton
Lynnfield
Lyons
Machias
Majesty
Marlow
Martyr's Death Song
97
123
77
209
48
79
119
55
108
93
124
73
6
103
70
203
172
16
126
100
50
131
71
340
104
152
189
205
172
96
115
287
199
62
117
99
185
206
124
69
102
168
147
144
190
111
135
6
40
159
124
125
108
95
281
246
347
250
16
30
192
156
64
94
197
164
Martyrdom
Martyrs
Mathews
Mear
Medina
Medway
Melbourn
Mendon
Mercy Seat, The
Meribah
Middletown
Milford
Millenial Dawn
Missionary Hymn
Missionary's Farewell, The
Monmouth
Montague
Morning Breaks
Mortality
Mount Auburn
Mount Vernon
Mount Vernon
Mountain Calvary, The
Munich
My Mother's Last Gift
Nantwich
Nashville
National Hymn
Nazareth
New Castle
New Durham
New Durham
New Jerusalem
New Sabbath
Newcourt
Ninety-Seventh Psalm
North Salem
Northfield
Norwell
Not Ashamed of Jesus
Nothing True But Heaven
Nuremburg
O Come, Come Away
O Fly To Their Bowers
4
36
117
89
102
112
113
200
4
18
225
11
59
226
23
237
9
180
83
122
32
40
41
52
82
41
195
179
97
95
4
50
120
34
96
183
309
140
158
83
178
179
278
4
18
319
11
73
176
23
331
9
258
37
129
188
87
46
54
55
66
33
128
33
90
55
127
311
273
165
304
257
165
O For a Closer Walk With God
O Land of Rest!
O Praise the Lord
O Tell Me No More
O That Will Be Joyful
O Turn Ye
O When Shall I See Jesus
Ocean
Ode on Science
Oft in the Stilly Night
Old Church-Yard, The
Old Fashioned Bible, The
Old Hundred
Old Israelites, The
Old Ship of Zion, The
Olivet
Olmutz
Omega
On the Banks of Jordan
On the Death of a Child
On the Way To Canaan
Orangeburg
Oregon
Orion
Orland
Palestine
Paralytic, The
Paris
Park Street
Passover
Pearl, The
Pearl, The
Pelham
Penitence
Pennsylvania
Pentonville
Peterboro
Pilesgrove
Pilgrim Stranger, The
Pilgrim's Farewell, The
Pisgah
Plainfield
Pleyel's Hymn
Plymouth
Plymouth Dock
183
178
232
186
38
243
1
245
244
207
221
231
235
74
114
3
88
10
10
111
185
78
62
5
248
196
100
30
85
261
256
238
326
344
264
342
52
214
304
337
297
1
339
338
285
127
355
299
325
329
112
180
151
3
134
344
10
9
171
313
263
116
354
198
124
76
5
350
312
274
84
156
44
131
166
Plympton
Poland
Pomfret
Poor Wayfaring Man, The
Portland
Portsmouth
Portugal
Portuguese Hymn
Preston
Princeton
Prodigal's Return, The
Promises, The
Providence
Psalm 46th
Psalm Hundred and Nineteenth
Pure Testimony, The
Putney
Quito
34
123
199
22
96
19
132
106
118
182
69
47
240
93
48
189
277
22
150
19
202
166
184
317
260
107
138
61
334
42
15
15
Rapture
Ravenna
Release, The
Remember Me
Rest
Rochester
Rockingham
Romaine
Rome
Rothwell
Royal Proclamation, The
Ruler's Daughter, The
Russia
126
192
86
266
298
153
82
42
177
158
8
290
259
10
Sabbath School Hymn
Sacramental Hymn
Sailor's Hymn
Saint's Adieu To Earth, The
Saint's Sweet Home, The
Salisbury
Salvation Belongeth Unto the Lord
Scotland
Seasons
Shades of Evening
Sharon
Shawmut
249
201
210
191
188
220
226
102
8
212
181
10
87
5
17
75
351
279
288
269
293
133
226
222
5
314
17
113
167
Shelburne
Sherburne
Shirland
Shoel
Sicilian Hymn
Siloam
Silver Street
Sinner, Can You Hate the Sinner
Sister's Farewell, The
Smithfield
Soldiers of Jesus, The
Soldiers of the Cross
Solemn Inquiry, The
Solitude
Solitude New
Sonnet
Sources of Happiness, The
Spring
Springfield
St. Anns
St. Johns
St. Martins
St. Thomas
Stafford
Stanley
Star in the East
Star of Bethlehem, The
Stephens
Stonefield
Stratfield
Sunderland
Sure Guide, The
Surry
Sutton New
Swanwick
Sweet Was the time
Sympathy
Symphony
Tamworth
Tell Me, Wanderer
There are Angels Hovering Round
There is an Hour of Peaceful Rest
There's Not a Star
Thou art Gone To the Grave
Thou Knowest That I Love Thee
46
77
27
107
63
68
28
234
201
238
241
44
116
31
70
187
170
6
24
14
44
64
236
90
129
198
175
90
60
115
27
167
77
106
344
318
28
349
328
279
315
81
332
335
58
182
95
88
45
108
125
176
265
248
101
6
24
39
354
14
58
78
330
142
195
173
305
276
227
303
223
253
168
Tilton
Tisbury
Tottenham
Triumph
Truro
Turner
241
35
Union Hymn
Unity
Uxbridge
99
81
155
119
34
51
159
65
229
101
283
67
161
256
333
Vermont
Vesper Hymn
Victory
Victory
Virginia
Voice of Mercy
Voice of My Beloved, The
Voyage, The
Wakefield
Walsal
Ward
Wareham
Warning, The
Warren
Warwick
Watch Night
Watchman
Wathman Tell Us of the Night
Wayne
Weep Not for Me
Welch
Wells
Welton
Wendell
West Sudbury
Weymouth
What Seraph-Like Music
What Sound Is This Salutes My Ear
When Shall We All Meet Again
When Shall We Meet Again
When We Pass Over Jordan
While Life Prolongs
Will You Go
Willington
218
13
42
205
53
105
178
239
128
7
48
193
185
118
127
73
122
217
2
115
92
202
192
181
233
242
69
335
49
163
296
13
56
122
194
7
62
271
263
184
193
111
233
188
295
175
2
34
181
122
146
280
342
270
259
327
307
336
107
169
Wilmer
Wilmot
Wilton
Winchelsea
Winchester
Windham
Windsor
Winter
Woburn
Woodland
Woodland
Woodstock
Worthing
Wyoming
Ye Christian Heroes
Yoakley
Yonder's My Home
York
Young Convert, The
Zephyr
Zion
Zurich
130
2
34
20
56
56
89
204
229
106
40
173
196
43
43
2
92
48
20
70
70
85
175
35
348
140
282
82
323
38
166
38
170
Index of First Lines
Page
Page
First Edition Revised Edition
A charge to keep I have
A father is praying The saviour to hear
A fountain of life and of grace
A man of subtle reas'ning asked
A poor wayfaring man of grief
Afflictions though they seem severe
Ah when shall I awake
Ah lovely appearance of death
Ah guilty sinner, ruined by transgression
Alas and did my Saviour bleed
201,
All glory be to God on high
All hail the great Immanuel's name!
All the week we spend
Am I a soldier of the cross
Amazing Grace! how sweet the sound
And are we yet alive
And didst thou, Lord, for sinners bleed
And must this body die
Arise, my soul, arise,
As on some lonely building's top,
At anchor laid, remote from home
At life's early morn, When my Bible
Awake, my soul, to hymns of praise
Away from his home
77
181
197
199
73
98
193
220
30
249
209
220
70
246
94
36
27
208
5
11
259
153
275
277
317
111
154
271
279, 298
87
44
351
287
298
108
139
123
148
50
27
286
5
302
171
Be earth with all her scenes withdrawn
Be thou, O God, exalted high
Before Jehovah's awful throne
Begin, my soul, th'exalted lay
Behold the glories of the Lamb
Behold thy waiting servant, Lord
Behold, the Judge descends
Beside the gospel pool
Bless God, O my soul
Blessed, be the Lord for evermore
Blest are the humble souls who see
Blest are the sons of peace
Blest be the Father and his love
Blow ye the trumpet, blow
Brightest and best of the sons
Broad is the road that leads to death
Brother, I go: farewell! farewell!
Buried in shadows of the night
Burst, ye emerald gates, and bring
By cool Siloam's shady rill
15
1
63
15
1
210
145
69
92
195
346
194
234
319
113
8
147
200
2
278
36
317
7
Can sinners hope for heaven
Child of prosperity, Nursling of vanity
250
Children of the heavenly king
185, 205
Children of Zion! what harp notes
189
Christ, the Lord, is risen today
Come and let us sweetly join
172
Come hither, all ye weary souls
4
Come Holy Spirit heavenly dove
42
Come humble sinner, in whose breast
59
Come let us anew our journey pursue
127
Come let us lift our joyful eyes
Come my beloved, haste away
29
Come my brethren, let us try
247
Come on, my partners in distress
91
Come precious soul, and let us take
237
Come said Jesus' sacred voice
106
Come saints, and view the Lamb of God
6
Come sinners, to the gospel feast
172
Come sound his praise abroad
68
Come thou almighty King
120
Come thou fount of every blessing
230
Come ye disconsolate, where'er you languish
Come ye sinners, poor and needy
107
Come ye that love the Lord
105
352
283
267
163
250
4
56
73
193
97
29
341
143
331
166
6
291
106
186
324
221
167
126
55
129
128
75
8
93
2
200
263,
164,
162,
250,
121,
172
Dark was the night, and cold the ground
Darkness, and clouds of awful shade
Death may dissolve my body now
Death, like an overflowing stream
Delay not, delay not: O sinner draw near
41
11
92
33
55
11
337
Enlisted in the cause of sin
250
Ere the blue heavens were stretched abroad 23
Eternal are thy mercies, Lord!
3
Eternal Power, Almighty God!
60
352
23
3
74
Fading still fading, The last beam
False are the men of high degree
10
Far be thine honor spread
69
Far from my tho'ts, vain world, begone
191
Far from the world, O Lord, I flee
53
Farewell honor's empty pride
102
Farewell, Farewell, Farewell, dear friends
Farewell, Mother! tears are streaming
Farewell, my dear brethren, the time
230
Father of all, Omniscient mind
Father of mercies, in thy word
Father of spirits! hear our prayer
Father, whate'er of earthly bliss
Firm was my health, my day was bright
20
Fly away to the promised land, sweet Dove 179
Forgive the song that falls so low
26
Friend after friend departs
From all that's mortal, all that's vain
177
From every stormy wind that blows
From Greenland's icy mountains
113
From the third heaven where God resides
52
From whence doth this union arise
99
206
10
107
269
67
158
312
318
324
136
96, 101
355
303
20
257
26
355
255
309
179
66
155
Gently Lord, O gently lead us
171
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth
Glory to God on high!
121
Go when the morning shineth
190
Go worship at Emmanuel's feet
173
God is our refuge in distress
84
God of my life, look gently down
34
God of the seas, thine awful voice
6
God, my supporter, and my Hope
Grace! 'tis a charming sound!
Great God, attend while Zion sings
17
249, 284
240
187
268
251
130
48
6
82
120
17
173
Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised
Guide me, O thou great Jehovah
Had not thy word been my delight
Hail the day that saw him rise
Hail! sov'reign love, that first began
Hail! thou blest morn
Hail, sweetest, deartest tie that binds
Hail, ye sighing sons of sorrow
Happy soul, thy days are ended
Happy the spirit released from its clay
Hark from the tombs a doleful sound!
Hark! how the choral song of heav'n
Hark! how the feathered warblers sing
Hark! how the gospel trumpet sounds!
Hark! the pealing Softly stealing
Hark! the vesper hymn is stealing
Hark! the voice of love and mercy
Hark! what mean those lamentations
Hark, my soul, it is the Lord!
Harken ye sprightly, and attend
He dies! the friend of sinners dies!
He framed the globe, he built the sky
He leads me to the place
He reigns, the Lord the Saviour reigns
He sends his showers of blessings down
Head of the church triumphant
Hear the royal proclamation,
Hearts of stone, relent, relent
Here o'er the earth, as a stranger I roam
High on his everlasting throne
His hoary frost, his fleecy snow
Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Sabaoth
Hope looks beyond the bounds of time
Hosanna to Jesus on high
How beauteous are their feet
How blest is our brother bereft
How can I sink with such a prop
How cheering the thought
134,
How did my heart rejoice to hear
How firm a foundation
How free the fountain flows
How gentle God's commands!
How happy are the little flock
How happy every child of grace
How happy is the man who has chosen
47
102
169
187
193
207
37
10
48
120
284
159
109
105
177
252
86
77
10
58
118
212
105
175
34
33
97
203
182
74
196
235
173
61
158
247
265
271
285
314
296
51, 90
9
62
186
262
229
176
169
161
255
132
115
10
72
184
290
161
253
33
48
228
47
153
122
152
94
204, 281
90
260
112
124
141
274
346
174
How
How
How
How
How
How
How
How
How
How
How
How
How
happy is the pilgrim's lot
92
large the promise how divine
48
long, dear Saviour, O, how long
41
lost was my condition
painfully pleasing the fond recollection
pleasant tis to see
100
pleasant, how divinely fair
pleased and blest was I
99
precious is the name, brethren sing
247
sweet to reflect on the joys
tedious and tasteless the hours
98
vain are all things here below
40
vain is all beneath the skies!
246
I beheld, and lo, a great multitude
I have fought the good fight
I have sought round the verdant earth
I hear the voice of woe
I heard a great voice from heaven
I know that my Redeemer lives
I love the holy Son of God
I love the kingdom of the Lord
I love the volume of thy word
I love this pure religion
I love to steal awhile away
I saw a wide and well-spread board
I will arise, I will arise
I would not live alway
133,
I'll praise my Maker while I've breath
I'm a lonely trav'ler here
I'm a pilgrim, and I'm a stranger
I'm on my way to Canaan
If angels sung a Saviour's birth
In de dark wood, no Indian nigh,
In evil long I took delight
In robes of judgment, lo!
In vain we lavish out our lives
Incumbent on the bending sky
Is this the kind of return
It is not that my lot is low
It was not sleep that bound my sight
Jerusalem! my glorious home!
Jesus died on Calvary's mountain
Jesus drinks the bitter cup
Jesus full of all compassion
131
242
81
235
233
72
83
234
56
174
224
82
204
236
235
252
237
4
51
79
57
203
116
111
146
62
55
262
297
156
40
155
341
274
154
54
340
242
197
336
119
220
329
327
110
129
328
70, 85, 103
252
232
199, 201, 203
128
282
330
329
83
331
4
65
43
117
315
320
71
281
182
171
175
Jesus I my cross have taken
Jesus my all to heaven is gone
Jesus sought me when a stranger
Jesus! transporting sound!
Jesus, and shall it ever be
Jesus, lover of my soul
Jesus, the name high over all
Jesus, to every willing mind
Jesus, with all thy saints above
Joy to the world, the Lord is come!
Joyfully, joyfully, onward I move
Just as I am, without one plea
Keep me, Saviour near thy side
Kingdoms and thrones to God belong
Let every mortal ear attend
Let him to whom we now belong
Let not despair nor fell revenge
Let party names no more
Let songs of endless praise
Let the world their virtue boast
Let thy kingdom, blessed Saviour
Let worldly minds the world pursue
Life is a span, a fleeting hour
Life is the time to serve the Lord
Lift up your heads in joyful hope
Like sheep we went astray
Lo! God is here! let us adore
Lo! he comes! with clouds descending
Lo! the Lord Jehovah liveth!
Lo! what an entertaining sight
Lord of mercy and of might
Lord of the worlds above
Lord what a feeble piece
Lord, dismiss us with thy blessing—Bid
Lord, dismiss us with thy blessing—Fill
Lord, how secure and blest are they
Lord, in the morning thou shalt hear
Lord, in thy great, thy glorious name
Lord, thou hast known my inmost mind
Lord, thou wilt hear me when I pray
Lord, what a thoughtless wretch was I
Lord, what is man, poor feeble man?
Lord, when thou didst ascend on high
Lord, who's the happy man that may
110
231
233
92
252
101
241
60
218
19
39
81
115
56
2
125
80
85
109
73
107
226
45
23
87
31
25
55
11
33
170
325
327
146
311
157
96
335
74
94
296
309
162, 164
19
252
84
53
119
127
181
347
306
70
2
191
118
131
169
173
88
354
151
111
230
167
42
59
23
133
45
25
69
11, 36
47
176
Loud swell the pealing organ's notes
Love divine, all love excelling
'Mid scenes of affliction with sorrow
'Mid scenes of confusion and creature
Mine eyes and my desire
Morning breaks upon the tomb
Mother! I'm dying now
Mournfully, tenderly, bear on the dead
My country! 'tis of thee
My God permit me not to be
My God the spring of all my joys
My God, accept my early vows
My God, my portion, and my love
My God, permit me not to be
My heart and flesh cry out for thee
My passions fly to seek their King
My Redeemer, let me be
My refuge is the God of love
My soul be on thy guard
My soul repeat his praise
My span of life will soon be done
My thoughts that often mount the skies
40
175
135
225
214
223
122
217
32
117
79
78
204
293
124
319
292
301
188
30
86, 295
43
95
34
46
84
183
81
117
116
97
102
No burning heats of by day
95
No more fatigue, no more distress
14
Not from the dust afflictions grows
Not to our names, thou only just and true 130
Now I lay me down to sleep
219
Now in a song of grateful praise
210
Now let our drooping hearts revive
Now let our mournful songs record
Now shall my head be lifted high
Now shall my inward joys arise
Now shall my soul in God rejoice
Now the Saviour stands a pleading
Now to the Lord a noble song
13
149
14
102
196
351
288
93
42
101
98
32
344
13
O
O
O
O
O
O
O
O
50
180
304
19
261
99
76
192
'twas a joyful sound to hear
Almighty God of love
come, come away!
could I soar to worlds above
for a closer walk with God
for a heart to praise my God
for a thousand tongues to sing
happy are they, Who the saviour obey
36
114
19
183
62
126
177
O holy, holy, holy Lord
O let me feel thy love
72
O praise the Lord with one consent
O tell me no more of this world's
232
O tell me where the dove has flown
O there will be mourning
251
O thou in whose presence my soul
178
O thou that hear'st the prayer of faith
91
O thou to whom all creatures bow
31
O thou who driest the mourner's tear
O turn ye, O turn ye, for why would ye die186
O what ship is this that comes sailing by 244
O when shall I see Jesus
O Zion, afflicted with wave upon wave
Oft as I lay me down to rest
Oft in the stilly night
Oh happy is the man who hears
52
Oh if poor sinners did but know
246
Oh no, we cannot sing the song
209
Oh! land of rest, for thee I sigh
178
Oh, could I speak the matchless worth
Oh, could our thoughts and wishes fly
On Jordan's stormy banks I stand 38, 59, 221
On the mountain's top appearing
106
Once more we come before our God
Once more, my soul, the rising day
62
Our blest Redeemer, ere he breathed
Our days are as the grass
71
Our Father in heaven
Our Father who art in heaven
Our life is ever on the wing
95
110
238
326
315
353
256
143
45
287
264
338
342
200, 310
139
304
66
340
287
256
144
99
52, 73, 299
166
88
76
354
109
194
246
91
Parted many a toil-spent year
Pass a few swiftly fleeting years
Peace, troubled soul, thou need'st not fear!27
Peace, troubled soul, whose plaintive moan 88
Praise God from whom all blessings flow
Praise to God! immortal praise
Prayer is appointed to convey
Preserve me, Lord, in time of need
Prisoners of hope, lift up your heads
Prisoners of hope, lift up your heads
270
38
27
134
223
165
269
139
135
137
Return, O God of love return
Review the palsied sinner's case
Rise, my soul, and stretch thy wings
53
344
181
39
115
178
Salvation belongeth belongeth unto the Lord
Salvation! O the joyful sound
49
Save me, O God, the swelling floods
44
Saviour, breath an evening blessing
200
Saviour, the world's and mine
122
Saw ye my Saviour
176
See Israel's gentle Shepherd stand
See Sodom wrapt in fire!
69
See the leaves around us falling
See the Lord of Glory dying!
108
See what a living stone
See, brothers, see! how the day rolls on 194
Shall the vile race of flesh and blood
20
Shall we go on to sin
67
Shepherds, rejoice: lift up your eyes
Show pity Lord, O Lord, forgive
Since man by sin, has lost his God
182
Sing praise! the tomb is void
Sinners hear the melting story
Sinners, turn, why will ye die
100
Sister, thou wast mild and lovely
226
Soft be the gently breathing notes
171
Soldiers of Christ arise
70, 197
Soon shall the glorious morning dawn
64
Sovereign grace has power alone
Spare us, O Lord, aloud we cry
12
Spirit! spirit! spirit, thy labor is o'er 222
Stay, thou insulted Spirit, stay
3
Sweet is the day of sacred rest
22
Sweet is the work, my God, my King
Sweet the moments, rich in blessing
Sweet was the time when first I felt 37, 236
226
63, 100
58
278
188
254
87
107
174
168
125
272
20
105
93
39
260
354
175
156
176
38, 249
108, 120, 275
78
347
12
300
3
22, 37
35, 41
172, 314
51, 330
Tell me, wanderer, wildly roving
That awful day will surely come
The chariot! the chariot!
188
The day has come, the joyful day
204
The day is far spent, the evening is night
The day is past and gone
The evening shades of life
76
The flowery spring, at God's command
5
The glorious time is rolling on
232
The God of Abr'am praise
123, 124
The God of glory sends his summons forth
The God we worship now
67
305
92
266
282
200
340
114
5
326
189, 190
198
105
179
The gospel is lovely and precious to me
244
The great God of love, hath shined
The heavens declare thy glory, Lord
The hill of Zion yields
80
The Lord descended from above
50
The Lord hath eyes to give the blind
The Lord into his garden comes
228
The Lord is our shepherd, our guardian130, 132
The Lord is risen indeed, Hallelujah
The Lord Jehovah reigns
97
The Lord my pasture shall prepare
89
The morning light is breaking
112
The morning sun shines from the east
The old Israelites knew what it was
245
The pearl that worldlings covet
185
The pure testimony put forth in the Spirit240
The righteous souls that take their flight 66
The vernal flowers their beauties spread
The voice of my beloved sounds
118
The wond'ring world inquires to know
Thee we adore, Eternal Name
There are angels hovering round
198
There comes a day, a fearful day
There is a band of brethren dear
234
There is a fountain, filled with blood
64
There is a land of pure delight
35
There is a stream whose gentle flow
7
There is an hour of peaceful rest
There's not a bright and beaming smile
There's not a star whose twinkling light
There's not in this wide world so blest
196
Thine earthly Sabbaths, Lord we love;
This book is all that's left me now! 180, 219
This day our souls have caught new fire
241
This life's a dream, an empty show
28
This world is all a fleeting show
195
This world's not all a fleeting show
Those evening bells, those evening bells
Thou art gone to the grave, but we
Thou art gone to the grave, we no longer
Thou dear Redeemer, dying Lamb
66
Thou great Instructor lest I stray
Thou sweet gliding Kedron
135, 207
Thou whom my soul admires
8
Thou, Lord, reign'st in this bosom
175
Through every age eternal God
16, 24
338
332
34
118
64
138
322
196, 202
207
151, 152
136, 140
178
214
339
263, 313
334
80
306
184
35
82, 95
276
343
328
78
49, 82, 104
7, 39
227
261
303
274
14
258, 308
335
28
273
273
250
222
223
80
34
205, 285
8
253
16, 24
180
Through tribulation deep
Thus far the Lord hath led me on
Thus saith the high and lofty One
Thy life I read, my gracious Lord
Thy name, Almighty Lord
Thy word the raging winds control
'Tis a point I long to know
'Tis finished, so the Saviour cried
'Tis the last blooming summer
'Tis the last sun that ever
To bless thy chosen race
To leave my dear friends
To thy pastures fair and large
Together let us sweetly live
Tossed upon life's raging billow
'Twas in a vale where osiers grow
'Twas thus by the glare of false science
239
7
231
75
53
103
9
216
216
213
225
227
210
90
333
7
37
325
113
67
159
9
294
294
124
291
165
321
288
142
289
Unveil thy bosom, faithful tomb
241
Vital spark of heavenly flame
216
Watchman! tell us of the night
Watchmen, onward to your stations
We shall see a light appear
We're travelling home to heaven above
Welcome sweet day of rest
What heavenly music do I hear
What if the saint must die
What seraph-like music falls sweet
What shall I render to my God
What sound is this salutes my ear?
What various hindrances we meet
What's this that steals, that steals
When all thy mercies, O my God
When converts first begin to sing
When for eternal worlds we steer
When God revealed his gracious name
When I can read my title clear
When I'm happy hear me sing
When in the sultry glebe I faint
When Joseph his brethren beheld
When marshalled on the nightly plain
When overwhelmed with grief
When shall I see the day
When shall the voice of singing
119
213
242
187
202
251
176
63
229
238
61
198
252
170
71
188
233
185
323
336
125
265
122
280
89
342
353
254
77, 89
323
332
75
276, 344
345
139
248
109
266
177
181
When shall we all meet again?
192
When shall we meet again?
125, 181
When snows descend and robe the fields
44
When strangers stand and hear me tell
21
When the Lord of glory cometh
243
When the spark of life is waning
217
When thou my righteous Judge shalt come89, 201
While life prolongs its precious light
While nature was sinking in stillness
239
While shepherds watched
46
While Thee I seek, protecting Power
54
While, with ceaseless course, the sun
104
Whither goest thou, pilgrim stranger
248
Who is this stranger in distress
15
Who shall ascend thy heavenly place
Who, from the shades of gloomy night
13
Why do we mourn departed friends
58
Why should the children of a King
43
With a witness within, and a record on high
With all my powers of heart and tongue
16
With reverence let the saints appear
30
With songs and honors sounding loud
65
Would Jesus have the sinner die?
82, 186
270
191, 259
58
21
337
295
140, 279
307
333
60, 98
68
160
350
15
41
13
72
57
316
16
44
79
128, 264
Ye boundless realms of joy
94, 96
Ye Christian heralds, go proclaim
17
Ye Christian heroes, wake to glory
Ye objects of sense and enjoyments of time191
Ye servants of God, your Master proclaim 126
Ye simple souls that stray
123
Ye soldiers of Jesus
Ye sons of men with joy record
18
Ye who know your sins forgiven
206
You will see the judge descending
243
Your harps, ye trembling saints
148, 150
17
348
269
192
189
349
18
284
127
182
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Choral Harmony, The.
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Bartlet, William S. 1853. The Frontier Missionary: A
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Fitz, Asa. 1857. The Harmoniad and Sacred Melodist.
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