Broadside Ballads of Boston, The Isaiah Thomas Collection

Broadside Ballads of Boston,The Isaiah Thomas Collection

ARTHUR SCHRADER

ON AUGUST 19, 1814, one hundred and one new gifts fromIsaiah Thomas to the American Antiquarian Society werelisted in the Society's record book of donations. The

itemized gifts covered a wide range fi-om ' "Voyages of ChristopherColumbus, Americus Vespucious and many others,"—600 pages,Basil 1536—valued for it's antiquity &c, at $15. say $10.' throughtwo hound volumes of Thomas's own Massachusetts Spy, J 812—i 3,$6.1)0, which is followed by two volumes of the Massachusetts Cen-tinel, also for 1812-13, ^^ valued at $ 10.00. Just before the listingfor the Spy on page twenty-three, is the entry 'Songs and Ballads-printed separately, but collected and bound in 3 vols. [In useamong the common people in 1813 &c—] 6.00''

This article is an interim report on a project to publish the Isaiah Thomas Ballad Collectionheld by the American Antiquarian Society in facsimile, with background information andthose associated nines that can be verified. The project has extended over some years andwas very much assisted and refined during niy AAS/NEH Fellowship in 1979. Broadsideballads need an interdisciplinary npproach, so 1 am much indebted to Kenneth Goldstein,foiklorist, who opened his comprehensive personal librar)' of Anglo-American folk song tomy search for Thomas's 'Songs, Ballads Sec' in our oral tradition.

I. 'Donors and donations to the American Antiquarian Society. iHi 3-1829,' pp. 21-¿4,archives, American Antiquarian Society.

ARTHUR SCHRADKR is a social historian who specializes in topical song.He was music associate at Old Sturbridgc Village for nineteen years and now

performs historical song programs for many organizations.

Copyright © 19HK by American Antiquarian Society

69

70 American Antiquarian Society

These three volumes, annotated, signed, and dated by Thomason the flyleaves are still among the treasures of the Society. Thefirst volume carries the following inscription:

Songs, Ballads, &c. In Three Volumes. Purchased from a BalladPrinter and Seller in Boston, 1813. Bound up for Preservation, to shewwhat articles of this kind are in vogue with the Vulgar at this time,[814. N.B. Songs and common Ballads are not so well printed at thistime as they [were] 70 years ago, in Boston.

Presented to the Society byIsaiah Thomas

August 1814

Excluding duplicates, these 'articles... in vogue with the Vulgar'consist of 298 distinct broadsides, which include 365 song, ballad,and hymn texts and thirty prose texts. Of the verse texts, 121; maybe classed as topical, which in this study means texts referring toactual people and events. The broadsides span the period from theRevolutionary era through the early part of the War of 1H i 2 andinclude a few texts on executions and disasters. Twenty-eight arereligious, primarily revival hymns and ballads. Sixty-six of thesecular verse texts are 'folk' in origin or distribution, and many ofthese have been found in American oral tradition by folksongcollectors in the twentieth century. Popular song texts from stageand parlor make up the largest group of 146 texts. It is probablethat most of these popular song texts were taken from songsters,songbooks, other broadsides, and perhaps occasionally firom sheetmusic.

II

Although these broadsides as published have no musical notation,the majority of their verse texts circulated in New England totunes that were well known in 1H13, however obscure they mayseem today. It would be easy to arbitrarily attach old and new,popular and folk tunes to all of these texts, but the result would bebad folklore and worse history. We would express our own prefer-ences and would leam nothing about the tastes of the people who

The Isaiah Thomas Ballad Collection 71

wrote and sang the songs in the first place. So this article, and thefacsimile edition in preparation, are dedicated to learning aboutand documenting the following matters: i. What tunes of 18(3actually were associated with these texts? 2. How popular werethese texts and tunes? 3. What did these texts and tunes mean tothe people who sang these songs 'in vogue with the Vulgar'?

Through his purchase, Isaiah Thomas became the first knownbroadside ballad 'collector' in the United States. But he was, ofcourse, preceded by many in England. The first great Englishbroadside ballad collector was John Seiden, a jurist and scholar(1584-1654), who, like Thomas, evoked their special qualities inthe succinct statement that 'more solid things do not show thecomplexion of the times as well as ballads and libels.'' Anotherseventeenth-century antiquary, Anthony Wood, bequeathed alarge collection of ballad sheets to the Ashmolean Museum in169 s. In addition, both the Bagford Collection and the RoxburgheCollection at the British Library were initially assembled in theseventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

The English broadside ballad collections are much larger thanThomas's, which has 340 sheets, including more than thirty dupli-cates. Selden's collection, acquired and expanded by Samuel Pepysand bequeathed to Cambridge University, has 1,671 ballads. TheRoxburghe Collection numbers more than 1,300 sheets, and theMadden Collection, assembled during the nineteenth century andnow at the Cambridge University Library, fills twenty-six largevolumes for a total of nearly 30,000 well-preserved song and balladtexts.

But these large English collections represent the cumulativeproduction of numerous printers and the avid efforts of a numberof enthusiastic collectors working over several lifetimes of buying,borrowing, trading, and occasionally stealing from each other.Pepys's acquisition of the Seiden Collection remains under acloud. One suggestion is that he legitimately borrowed it but failed

I.John Seiden, Table Talk, ed. Sir Frederick Pollock (London, 1927), p. " Î , quoted inAlbert B. Friedman, The Ballad Revival (Chicago, 19(11 ), p. 76.


to return it to the estate after Selden's death. Gordon Gerouldtells us: 'The evidence is fairly clear that one John Bagford [ 1651 -1716] in the service of Robert Harley, first Farl of Oxford, stoleon a grand scale from the Ashmolean Museum, to which Woodhad bequeathed his ballads. Harley's acquisitions, before his deathin 1724, filled two volumes, while Bagford had three volumes ofhis own. Toward the end of the eighteenth century, the ThirdDuke of Roxburghe, who at that time owned Harley's collection,added another great volume, largely made up of material likewiseabstracted from Wood's papers.' ' As Leslie Shepard summed it up,broadside ballads 'were sold for pennies in the streets, finally stolenand hoarded as dry leaves in the libraries of fanatical collectors.'"*

Isaiah Thomas made only one major effort at ballad collecting,as just one part of his steady effort to assemble the materials ofAmerican history at the American Antiquarian Society. All butperhaps eight of his ballad sheets seem to have been acquired atone time from Nathaniel Coverly, Jr., 16 Milk Street, CornerTheatre Alley, Boston; in less than three months the broadsideswere 'bound up for preservation' and deposited at the Societylibrary in Worcester.

The few known original catalogues of seventeenth- throughnineteenth-century English and American ballad printers are ofcourse cherished by scholars because they provide checklists ofprinters' stocks, and hence are a clue to the tastes of customers.Thomas did not preserve a Coverly catalogue of ballads for 1813,but he may well have preserved examples of most of Coverly'sactual ballad stock in trade for the year 1813. That is what makeshis collection unique. No other broadside ballad collection in theEnglish language seems as extensive for a single printer for soshort a span of time—little more than a decade.

The details of this ballad purchase are incomplete, and datingproblems remain; however, additional documentation does exist.Under 'cash paid away' in his journal of accounts for June 2, 1814,

3. Gordon Hall Gerould, The Ballad of Tradition (Oxford, 193 2), p. 24H.4. hcsUe Shepard, The Broadside Ballad (London, 1962), p. 105.


Thomas wrote, 'Paid for Songs, Ballads &c., 4.5o.'s His diaryfurther records that on June i he attended the stated meeting ofthe American Antiquarian Society in Boston and went to the Bos-ton Athenaeum and to Cambridge. On June 2, he 'walked over toCharleston, Visited Dr. Morse [Jedidiah Morse] ." ' If he alsostopped by at Coverly's printing office to pay for the ballads, hedid not think it important enough to record. For that matter,nowhere does Thomas specifically identify his 'Ballad Printer andSeller.' We assume it was Nathaniel Coveriy, Jr., because 144 ofthe broadsides have his imprint in varying forms, and most of theremaining broadsides that have no imprint seem to use the sametype, cuts, and ornaments. The eight exceptions will be discussedlater.

An article written in 1962 on Thomas and the American Anti-quarian Society implied that Thomas's acquisition of the Coveriybroadsides was a spontaneous purchase in which Thomas walkedunannounced into Coverly's shop and asked for one of everybroadside." No date was suggested in the article, but June 2, 1814,when Thomas noted the payment for the ballads, seems reasona-ble. Possibly, a hasty effort to comply with his unusual requestmight explain the presence of the thirty-five duplicates thatWorthington C. Ford found in the collection in 1923 when heprepared his checklist.*^ To quickly select just one each of ôodifferent sheets requires an organized storage system that wasquite unlikely in Coverly's shop.

However, Thomas's inscription 'purchased . . . in Boston, 1813,'the [ 81Í dates on the spines of the bound volumes, and the datablesheets in the collection all argue for longer-range planning byThomas, perhaps as much as a year and a half before he picked up

5. Benjamin Thomas Hill, ed., 'Diary of Isaiah Thomas, i«o5-[828,' Transactions andCoUectiom of the American Antiquarian Society ^{i(^)f)): 232. (Hereafter, Thomas, 'Diar/) .

6. Ibid., 229-30.7. Ivan Sandrof, 'Americana With Bells on,' The New-England Galaxy 3 (n;62): 36.fi. Worthington C. Ford, 'The Isaiah Thomas Collecdon of Ballads,' Proceedings of the

American Antiquarian Society 33 (1923): 34—! 12. This checklist is widely available in the1924 ofiprint as well as in the Proceedings, so I use Ford numbers for the Thomas broadsidesmendoned in this study. (Hereafter, these items are cited as Ford, 'Thomas Ballads.')

I


and paid for the ballads. Furthermore, a spontaneous purchase inJune 1814 should have gathered a substantial number of 1H14sheets. But there are only five: a topical ballad for February 21, onComdr. John Rodger's retum ft-om his fourth cruise (Ford 47); aprogram sheet for the April 30 meeting of the Washington Be-nevolent Society, which Thomas could have acquired at the meet-ing (Ford 197);' and three dated reprints of earlier songs (Ford238, 279, and 298). In contrast, the year lHi 3 shows twenty-eighttopical sheets, even with an 'event gap' between Harrison's victory,October 5, 1813, at the Battle of the Thames (Ford i i3and2üi )and the execution ballads for Livermore and Angier in Boston,December 16 and 18 of that year (Ford 25 and 267).

Questions about the date of the purchase remain, but for thepresent I suggest that perhaps late in 181 2 or early in 181 3 Thomasasked Coverly to assemble ballad sheets from his stock in trade andwhatever new broadsides he might publish in 1813. Further, Isuggest that it was assembled by Coverly's assistants, at first withenthusiasm, from stocks on the shelves since 181 o and earlier, thenlater in a more casual and erratic fashion, even being neglected inNovember and early December, and, finally, that many duplicatesand the 1814 sheets got into the collection during a last-minuteeffort to complete the gathering in time for Thomas's expectedarrival early in June 1814.

The Washington Benevolent Society program is the only exam-ple of job printing in these volumes, which is one reason why Ibelieve that Thomas obtained it at the meeting rather than bypurchase from Coverly. I see no reason to believe it was initiallyintended for sale to the general public, which was certainly truefor all the other sheets in the collection.

Seven other Thomas ballad sheets that may or may not havebeen purchased from Coverly's shop in 1814 are the Fnglish en-graved and colored broadsides originally issued by I. Evans, No.42 Long Lane, West Smithfield, London (Ford 23, 63, 157, 210,

9. T h o m a s , 'Diary,' April jci, 1814.


231,240, and 292). Probably all of these were published fairly closeto the 1791 and 1792 dates given on three of the sheets (Eord 23,240, and 292). I know of no way to determine whether these werepart of Coverly's stock in trade or whether Thomas got them fromanother source. The latter is possibly more likely because they arebound together in the second volume as sheets now numbered 106to 112 and represent the only coherent grouping to be found inthe original volumes. Many more of these Evans ballad sheets arein the Madden Collection at Cambridge University, but I have notseen them in any other American collection. A few engraved songsheets similar to these were produced by Horace Doolittle, son ofengraver Ajnos Doohttle, betweeen 1799 and 1804.'"

On his return to Worcester, Thomas's concern for the broad-sides was limited to protecting them fi-om dispersal by havingthem tightly bound in three volumes, roughly according to size,and by annotating their flyleaves. There was no other attempt toorganize the ballads. For some of the larger sheets in the thirdvolume, the bindings are a procrustean haven. These broadsideshad to be folded one or more times to fit within the covers. A fewof the sheets have a second text printed on the reverse side. Thevolumes are bound in marbled paper used previously for an at-tempted American pirating oï Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure,better known as Fanny Hill," and bear gold-stamped calf spineswith green labels. Only the spines carry the title 'Songs /[rule]/1813' and the volume number.

Eor the next ninety years the broadsides were seldom noticedpublicly, and perhaps one volume was misplaced for awhile. Theentry 'Songs' in the 1837 catalogue of the Society's holdings lists'22.4 Songs and Ballads printed on sheets and bound in 2 vols. 4to.'The catalogue has no other more specific entr}' under 'Songs' or'Ballads' that describes the three Thomas volumes.'-

10. Thompson R. Harlow, 'Connecticut Engravers, 1774-1820,' Connecticut HistoricalSociety Bulletin 36 (1971): 107-8, and illustrations No. 48 and 49.

IT. .M. .\. jMcCorison. 'Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure or Fanny tiill in New England,*American Book Collector 3 (iy8i>): 23-3(t.

¡2. A Catalogue of the Library ofthe American Antiquarian Society (Worcester, 1837), p. 26.


The first scholarly citation of the collection seems to be inDuyckinck*s Cyclopedia of American Literature (1855), which illus-trated the history of 'Yankee Doodle' by printing verses from oneof the Thomas copies ofthe song (probably Eord 300), with versesprinted in Farmer and Moore's Collections.'^ The Cyclopedia listedits sources and included a summary of Thomas's inscription.

Beginning in 1901 with Albert Matthews's paper on the originand use ofthe term 'Brother Jonathan,' the broadsides were citedmore often. Matthews quoted the Thomas flyleaf inscription alongwith lines from 'The Embargo, A New Song' (Eord 78). He cred-ited the librarian of the American Antiquarian Society, EdmundM. Barton, with bringing the ballads to his attention. Matthewsalso footnoted an acknowledgement to Worthington C. Ford fora comment on the importance of such broadsides as 'desideratumin Americana.' '•* George Lyman Kittredge later cited this footnotein a letter to Clarence Brigham, then director of the Society, inwhich he strongly suggested that Ford's embarrassment at havingpublished a major work on Massachusetts broadsides without in-cluding the Thomas collection in his bailad supplement was en-tirely his own fault, since he had changed his mind on what toinclude at the last minute before publication.'^

On October 1 ç, 1904, a young New England ballad collectorand scholar, Phillips Barry, transcribed 'Lord Bakeman' (Ford 149)from the collection and cited that date and his source when hepublished it.'^ Thereafter, Barry, George Lyman Kittredge, andsome of Kittredge's students cited the collection in many of theirpublications. Barry went on to become the first American to collecttunes as well as texts of folksongs and ballads and one of very fewto use research methods to locate tunes originally associated withhistorical broadside ballads.

13. Evert A. and George Duyckinck, Cyclopedia of American Literature, 2 vols. (New York,1855), 1:463-64.

14. Albert Matthews, 'Brother Jonathan,' Transactions of tbe Colonial Society of Massachu-setts 7 (iy«ii): 115.

15. Kittredge to Brigham, November 14,1922.Archives, American Antiquarian Society.16. Phillips Barry, 'Traditional Ballads in New England, Jl'Journal of American Folklore

18 (iyo5): 109-11.


Albert Matthews returned to the Thomas collection and itscopies of'Yankee Doodle' for his richly detailed study of the originof the term 'Uncle Sam' as a nickname for the United States.'" Healso corresponded with Oscar G. Sonneck, the first trained musichistorian to comment on the Thomas collection. Sonneck, thenchief of the music division of the Library of Congress, was mostgrateful for Matthews's help because he was then preparing hisreport on 'Yankee Doodle' for government publication. Sonneckreproduced and discussed the two 'Yankee Doodle' broadsides(Ford 300 and 30 \ ) in the Thomas collection. Unfortunately, onlyone of the two broadsides (Ford 300) was correctly identified forSonneck as part of the Thomas volumes, which led him into anunnecessary defense of the provenance of the second broadside.'**Sonneck correctiy asserted that some of the Thomas broadsidesmust be earlier than 1813 in spite of Matthews's strong supportfor an 1813 limit.

In 1922, Worthington C. Ford published his checklist of 2,949broadsides printed in Massachusetts betweeen 1639 and 180« witha supplement of 474 entries entitled 'Songs, Ballads etc. Undatedor After 1800.''*' Ford sent a copy to Clarence Brigham. Brighamwrote to him in October 1922 about the Thomas collection, andFord wrote back, asking to borrow it. He was quite upset when hereceived and examined the volumes in Boston a few weeks laterbecause they contained so many items not in his supplementarylisting. 'Three titles to every one I got,' he wrote.^" Ford's latertabulation listed eighty duplicates that were verified in other li-braries. More duplicates have been found since 1923, but Ford'sestimate remains essentially valid. Even today, two-thirds of theThomas broadside are not to be found elsewhere.

17. Albert Matthews, 'Uncle Sam,' Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society 19(1908): 21-65.

18. Oscar George Theodore Sonneck, Report on "The Star Spangled Banner," "HailColumbia," ''America," '^Yankee Doodle" (Washington, D.C., 1909; repr. New York, 1972),pp. 13ÍÍ-4Ü.

19. Worthington C. Ford, Broadsides, Ballads. &c. Printed in Massachusetts, tÓjp-iSoo,Collecdons of the Massachusetts Historical Society 75 (192 2). (Hereafter, Ford, Broadsides,Massachusetts.)

20. Ford to Brigham, November 11, 1922, archives, American Antiquarian Society.


Ford accepted Brigham's invitation to give a paper on the collec-tion at the Society meeting in April 1923. This paper, publishedwith Ford's checklist in the Proceedings of the Am etican AntiquarianSociety, became the starting point for my own work with theThomas collection. Ford's checklist gave a total of 302 distinctsheets, not counting duplicates, but he necessarily had to work inhaste from November 1922 to April 1923 under pressure frommany other obligations. My more leisurely collation of the origi-nals with Ford's photostatic set (most of which is still in the Mas-sachusetts Historical Society) shows that four of the broadsides hecounted (Ford 9, 138, 203, and 209), were laid in the bound vol-umes after August 19, 1814, but before November 1922. Forddistinguished each of these four broadsides with an 'a' added tothe volume and page number for the sheet in his checklist. I assumethat with more time he also would have commented on the factsthat Ford 138 had been extensively folded as though carried insomeone's pocket, that Ford 209 could not have been printed untilthe late i82()s, and that, judging by the photostats, none of thesefour were actually bound into the volumes in 1922. ' So my countfor the collection is that there were 298 distinct sheets whenThomas turned the three volumes over to the Society in 1814.

Two naval historians utilized the Thomas collection in theirstudies. Gardner W Allen presented a paper to the AmericanAndquarian Society in 1925 in which he read and discussed navalballad texts from the Thomas collection. Four of the broadsides(Ford 4, 12, 27, and 29) were reproduced when the paper waspublished in the Proceedings.-^ Robert W. Neeser worked with theThomas broadsides during the Í930S, and in 19^8 he published acomprehensive selection of naval song and ballad texts from theRevolution to the middle of the nineteenth century. Seventeen of

21. Ford 209 is 'Perry's Victory. . . . Sold wholesale and retail by L. Deming, No. i,South Side of Faneuil Hall, Boston.' The Printers'Authority File at the .'Vmerican Andquar-ian Society reports Leonard Demingat this address in i K2(;-î(i. The song text was probablyfirst published closer to the battle date, September 9, 1813.

2Î. Gardner W. Allen, 'Naval Songs and Ballads,' Proceedings of the American AntiqtiarianSoaely 35 (1925): 64-78.


the twenty broadsides photographically reproduced in Neeser'sbook are obviously from the Thomas collection but are creditedsimply to the Society. At least twenty-five more of the reprintedtexts credited to the Society are probably from the Thomas collec-tion.''

Meanwhile, Ola Elizabeth Winslow in 1930 had publishedAmerican Broadside Verse, a fine model for future broadside studies.Although Winslow worked with the Society's broadside holdingsshe made little, if any, direct use of the Thomas collection, prob-ably because she was concerned primarily with the colonial era.However, her explication of early American broadside characteris-tics and subjects is itself a starting point for demonstrating thechanges in American broadside style and content after 1790,changes well illustrated in the Thomas collection.-^

G. Malcolm hd.ws,]T h American Balladry from British Broadsidescited the collection for seventeen texts that met his threefold stan-dard of British broadside origin, broadside ballad style, and 'cur-rency in North American oral tradition.'-^

In 1952, Frank Spinney, then curator of Old Sturbridge Village,was directing the restoration of one of Isaiah Thomas's officebuildings, which had been moved from Worcester to the museum.When Spinney learned about the Thomas ballads from ClarenceBrigham, he began plans to reproduce some of the broadsides.These efforts matured in 1957 when Bill Bonyun, the first desig-nated ballad singer at Old Sturbridge, selected fifteen of the broad-sides to be reproduced in facsimile for illustration and interpre-tation during his performances and for display and sale at therestored 'Isaiah Thomas Printing Office.' In February [958, theprinting office began to reproduce the facsimiles in public from

13. Robert W. Neeser, ed., American Naval Songs & Ballads (New Haven, 193 8). (Hereaf-ter, Neeser.)

24. Ola Elizabeth Winslow, American Broadside Verse (New Haven, i c p ; repr. NewYork, 1974).

25. G. Malcolm Laws, Jr.,--Iw/mf//« Balladry from British Broadsides {Phihdeiphi:^, 1957)-Also, Laws to Clifford Shipton, August 23, 1954, and Shipton to Laws, August 27, 1954,archives, American Antiquarian Society.

8o American Antiquarian Society

electrotype plates on a restored flatbed press. All ofthe facsimileswere full size and carried a credit line for the American AntiquarianSociety but not specifically for the Thomas collection.-'^' The So-ciety now has its set of these facsimiles filed in the BroadsidesCollection at the Society.

Bonj^n wanted songs that could be performed for the generalpublic, so he selected topical songs on well-known events andfolksongs for which he found matching texts with tunes in twen-tieth-century oral tradition. This did not provide a balanced sam-pling ofthe Thomas collection, but it was an effective introductionfor many people who had never previously seen or heard of abroadside ballad. From 1958 to the mid-1970s, ballad singing atOld Sturbridge Village and the Thomas ballads complementedeach other so well that many thousands of the facsimiles weresoid.^^ And during the Society's 175th anniversary celebration, aprinting press from Old Sturbridge Village was moved to theSociety, and copies ofthe Thomas ballad *Battle ofthe Kegs' (Eord18), were printed for visitors.

Clearly, Eord's checklist is the starting point for serious studyof this collection, but in 1957 a second significant and useful con-tribution appeared: Thomas Philbrick's essay and checklist'British Authorship of Ballads in the Isaiah Thomas Collection,'which identified authors for eighty of the texts and gave primaryor reliable secondary sources for each identification.'" In a shortintroduction, Philbrick suggested that Eord had incorrectly de-cided that most ofthe verses were produced in America and quotedEord's remark that 'the authorship of most of these verses cannever be so much as conjectured.'^^

26. Spinney to Brigham, May 19, 1952; Alexander J. Wall to Brigham, July 25, \i.)y~,and February 10, 1958, archives (under 'Old Sturbridge Village'), i^cr ican AntiquarianSociety. Reprinted were Ford numbers 18, 22, 53, 55, 59, 92, 143, 150, 191, 204, 219, 271,273, 281, and 3(H).

27. Personal communication with the author in 1978, from Robert Willman, previouslyassistant director of crafts. Old Sturbridge Village.

38. Thomas Philbrick, 'British Authorship of Ballads in the Isaiah Thomas Collection,'Stupes in Bibliography Í) (1957): 255-58.

29. Ibid., p. 255.


Philbrick's selection of quotations from Ford suggests a cer-tainty on the collection that Ford did not unequivocally expressand probably did not intend. The 'authorship . . . conjectured'phrase follows several pages of specific comment on 'purely Amer-ican ballads,' which certainly are mostly anonymous. Thus, Ford'sphrase may as justly be interpreted to refer to these Americanpieces as to the whole collection.'" In his essay, Ford twice com-mented on the English origins for much ofthe collection. 'Apartfrom the war and patriotic poems there is a large class of verses ofsentiment, original or borrowed from England,' he stated, laterdeclaring that 'most of these sentimental ballads are of Englishorigin.' Moreover, the whole tone of Ford's introductory essaysuggests that his original intention was to provide a modicum ofentertaining and occasionally instructive commentary for the au-dience when the paper was read at the Society's meeting in April192 3. Although Ford's introduction ought not to be taken as seri-ously as his checklist, the Ford and Philbrick checklists remainindispensable aids for work with the Thomas ballads.

In the summer of i960,1 alternated with Bill Bonyun singing atOld Sturbridge Village. The following year I joined the museumstaff on a part-time basis as the regular ballad singer, with addi-tional responsibilities as music associate to 'locate and re-createthe music of rural New England from 1790 to 1840.' As one ofmy research projects for the museum and for my own concert-lectures, I continued and extended the work that Bonyun hadbegun with the Thomas collection. Using a negative microfilm, Imade two complete photographic sets ofthe ballads that could beannotated and organized or reorganized as needed. , >

At the outset, the administrators at Old Sturbridge Village andI had agreed that our joint music projects must achieve and main-tain the standards of documentation and authenticity required ofthe museum's curatorial and research departments. Such concernwith authenticity and documentation has long been common prac-

. Ford, 'Thomas Ballads' (offprint) pp.


tice for musicologists working with art music of the past, but evennow the standards are only gradually being applied to the class ofsongs found on early broadsides. During the last fifty years mostwriters who published broadside and other historical song textsfor singing, and most performers and record producers dealingwith such material, were content to set the old texts almost willy-nilly to folk tunes collected in the twentieth century, on the mis-taken assumption that these were automatically close to the tunesthat the ballads would have been sung to.

This musical mixing and matching sometimes combined tunesand texts separated by two or three centuries and hundreds ofmiles without a wisp of documentation or association to connectthem. Some who found composing easier than research or scan-ning folksong anthologies made up their own melodies. Ironi-cally, some of those recent tunes have been widely accepted aseighteenth-century works, especially some compositions by JohnAllison in the 1940s for texts ostensibly from the Revolution.^'

Begirming early in 1962, I had assistance from Irving Lowens,then at the Library of Congress, as well as from S. Foster Damonand later Roger Stoddard, both of whom were with the HarrisCollection at Brown University, in locating primary sources fortunes associated with eighteenth- and early nineteenth-centurytexts. Byjanuary 1979, when I lefi: Old Sturbridge Village, I had,in my spare time, located and documented associated tunes for justover a third of the 365 Thomas texts, and, in the process hadexhausted and gone beyond the published indexes of early music.An AAS-National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship in1979 enabled me to work at the Society with the Thomas collec-

3 r. Susan Rhodes Slyman, 'John Allison: The Collector as Folk Artist,' New York Folklore9 (19X3): i7-jf). Slyman details many of Allison's textual changes in Revolutionär}' Warsong texts in Burton Stevenson, Poeifis of American History (Boston and New York, 190«).Allison believed such changes were necessary for his radio audiences in the late 19311s andearly 1940s. Some of Allison's tunes are unconscious adaptations from musical theatersongs of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Others are drawn from folksources, including his own family's singing tradition. He also had a talent for composingoriginal catchy tunes such as 'The Riflemen's Song at Bennington,' recorded on John andLucy Allison, with Sawyer's Minutemen, 'Ballads of the American Revolution and the Warof 1812,'Victor 26460 (P I 1-16), 1940.

The Isaiah Thomas Ballad Collectiofz 83

tion. My main objectives were to find as much more music as-sociated with the texts as possible and to prepare the collection forpublication. By a fortunate coincidence, I was able to work with aprepublication set of computer printouts for the National TuneIndex of 18th-Century Secular Music, a database of 38,500 musicalentries from British and American primary sources that allows oneto search for the beginning of a specific tune almost as easily asone searches for the first line of a poem.'^

I l l

Since no music is given in the Thomas collection and only nineteenof the texts have indicated tunes (see figs. 5 and ro), some kind ofsearch and reassembly is necessary if the songs and ballads are tobe sung as they were in 1813. But first, the tunes have to be found.Even an indication of a tune name may be only the starting pointfor a long search that requires the reading of many texts as well asthe usual examination of checklists and music files. One difficultexample from the American Revolution is a topical text to the tune'Get You Gone Raw Head and Bloody Bones,' which is still not tobe found in any published list known to me. There are folklorereferences to the phrase but these are no help in a search for themusic. The answer only comes in reading the whole text to an earlyeighteenth-century 'nursery song' variously listed as 'Hey My Kit-ten' (from its first line), 'Here We Go Up, Up, Up' (from itschorus), 'The Kitten Song,' 'The Nursery Song,' and 'A New Songfor Mothers and Nurses.' Note that, so far, these variant titles willbe catalogued under K, H, and N in various libraries and check-lists. The fifth verse of this song begins 'Get you gone Raw Headand Bloody Bones, Here is a child that don't fear ye.' The musicfits the Revolutionary War text perfectiy and illustrates the factthat a new title for an eighteenth-century tune could be generated

32. Kate Van Winkle Keller and Carolyn Rabson, eds., Tbe National Tune Index ofiSth-Century Seailar Mtisic (New York, 1980). (Hereafter, NTl.) My fervent thanks to theeditors, who made special efforts to get the eight)' pounds of printouts to me for use duringmy fellowship. , , _


by any distinctive line in a song text. Hence, in tune searches thereis a necessity for close familiarity with a wide range of song textsand variant tides as well as first lines and verse forms in Englishand American sources.

Of course in 1813 many readers of the Thomas texts had a largemental repository of associated tunes that they could instantlymatch up with these texts, even when no tune was indicated on thebroadside. This still works fairly well for a very few of the Thomastexts in our time, such as the topical ballad 'Rogers and Bingham'(Ford 228):

Once Bingham took the Little Belt,And from the Downs he sail'd her,

And when he came upon our coast,Brave Rogers spy'd and hail'd her.

Yankee Doodle, keep it upTo Rogers he the Glory

From insult to protect our flagAnd tell an honest story.

But it only works 'fairly well' because 'Yankee Doodle' is a folktune that has moved in reverse. Usually, a much-used tune devel-ops new variations over a period of years. But a half-dozen or morevariant tunes of'Yankee Doodle' in circulation from the 1770s tothe [820s were squeezed into one, somewhat official version bythe time of the Civil War. So, a strict historical reconstruction of'Rogers and Bingham' should select one of those early 'YankeeDoodle' variants, justify the choice, and at least acknowledge theexistence of other possible choices.

The ground rules for evaluating and then setting associatedtunes to the Thomas texts ought basically to be the same as thosefor evaluating, reassembling, and editing any other historical textwhose elements have been separated by time or the medium ofpublication. Application of those mies to this study may be sum-marized by the following points:

I. The 'association' of a tune with a Thomas text must be de-monstrable and documented by standard historical procedures.


Ideally, the tune and basic text ought to be found together oneor more times in primary sources that bear dates reasonablyclose to that ofthe hroadside copy."

2. The text and tune should fit together easily without manipula-tion of either, except for the usual small adjustments of rhythmfrom verse to verse, which are necessary with most multiverseearly songs and ballads, and except for occasional rebarring. Fora discussion and demonstration of reharring, see the notes belowfor 'General Burgoyne's Lamentation' and figures 8 and 9.

Í. My term 'the same basic text' will always compare a Thomastext to a matching printed or manuscript text that tells the samestory in the same verse style with mostly the same words inmostly the same order. Minor word differences and differencesin punctuation and capitahzation will be ignored unless theyaffect the meaning.

4. 'Indicated tune' is one form of'association' and is illustrated infigure 5 ('Brother Sailor,' tune, 'Indian Chief) and figure 10('General Burgoyne's Lamentation,' tune, 'Irish Lamentation').Tracing an indicated tune to a primary source usually meansthat the tune, when found, will be with a different text or no textat all, hut this is not a problem if the Thomas text and the tunefit easily. The final test is always, does the Thomas text fit theassociated tune easily, without manipulation?The following examples will demonstrate the procedure.

The EMBARGOA FAVORITE NEW SONG

Ford 77 (Fig. 2; see also 6g, i )

This text has been quoted by historians but not yet studied as asong.'-^ As sold to Thomas in 1814, it had no indicated tune orauthor and was no longer newsworthy. It could have been a leftover

3 3. At least 11 o ofthe Thomas texts can be found with di reedy associated music in printor manuscript in the United States for the period 17Ó9 to 1822.

34, For example, Samuel E. Morison, Maritime History of Massachusetts (Boston,p. 187, quotes the sixth verse as a headnote for his chapter 13.

American Antiquarian Society

Dear Sirs, it is wrong to de - mand a song; I have

let all the breath J can spare go; With the

Í # 0

Muse I've con - fer'd and she wont say a word. But keeps

laugh-ing a ~ bout the Em - bar - go,

FIGURE I. 'The E?nbargo,' set to the melody One of'Come Let Us Prepare,'from TheMasonic Minstrel. Superscript musical notes and symbols on this and the followingtratiscriptions indicate editonal changes. See broadside, fig. 2.

from 1808 when the topic was timely, or it could have been a laterreprint to meet a small continuing demand, since some short-termembargos were imposed during Madison's administration.

The first notice of 'The Embargo' is for July 4, 180H, whenHenry Mellen Esquire sang his 'much admired' song during theEederalist dinner at the Court House in Dover, New Hampshire,about ten miles from Portsmouth. Public exercises that samemorning had commenced with 'an appropriate ode, composed forthe occasion by Henry Mellen Esq. which was sung and played bya select band of musicians in a style of superior excellence.' Thesereports were published in the Portsmouth Oracle for July 9, 1808,along with the earliest dated printing ofthe song text, including acredit to Mellen and the indicated tune 'Come Let Us Prepare.'The text was reprinted in the July 23,1808, issue of Tbe Sim, TheDover Gazette, and County Advertiser without title or indicated tunebut with the author attribution.

Shortly before, or soon after, these newspaper issues, a broad-

The. EMBARGO.A FAVORITE NEW SONG.

D'EAR Sirs, it is wrongTo ilcniand a new Song ¡

i Jiavc Ice all r;ic breath 1 can spare go ¡With tiic MusL' I've confer'd.And slic «on't say a word,

But keeps laughing about the Embargo.

I wish that I could,Sing in Allegro mood ;

tiuc the iinics arc as stupid as Largo ¡Could I have my choice,I would sirain up niy voice ;

Till it snapc all the strings of Iinibargo.

Our great pliticians,'Ihosc dcatfts in visions.

On paper, to all lengths they dare go i\.But when cali'd to decide,Like il turtle they lude

In tl-cir own pretty shell the Embargo.

In the time rhat we try *To put out Britain's eye ;

1 tear we shall let our own pair go;Yci still uc're so wise,We can -tee with ïrencb Eyet,

And then we shall like tfvc Embargo.

A French Prhateer,Cm have nothin;^ to fear :

She may load 6i may here Si may there go¡Tlieir fnemlsiiip la such.And we love tlicm so much.

We let them slip thro' tlic Embargo.

Otir ships all in motion.Once whitcn'd the ocean.

They saii'd and reiurn'd with a cargo iNow doum'd to decay,They have fallen a prey

To jcffcrioii, worms and Embargo.

Ixst Britain should tikeA few men by mistake.

Who under false colours may dare go ;We're manning their iieft 'With our Tar.s, y ho retreat

From poverty, sloth and Embargo.

What a fuss we have nïado.About rights atid ftce trade.

And s« ore we'd noc lei our own share goNow' we can't for nur soulsBrijHj; a Hake from the shoals,

'Tis a breach of the twentieth

Our Farmers so p;a)'.How they gallop-j away,

Twas money that made the old marc go ;But now she won't stir.For rhe whip or the spur,

'Till they take ofFher clog the Etn&argo

If you ask for a debr,The man turns in a per,

" I pay, sir ? 1 ] | not I« a hairIt your officer comes,1 shall put up my thumbs,

And -lap on his breath an Embargo,

Thus Tommy destroys,A part of our joys j

Vet we'll nbt let ihe beautiful fair co •They all will contrive ' 'To keep comniirrce alive j

Tîcrc's nothing they hale li

Since rulers desipnTo deprive U3 of H iiif,

'Ti. best th^t we now hav;c a rare go ;lhen each to his pnst, .And see who H ill Jo inosr.

To kiioct out the blocks of Embargo.

FIGURE 2. haiah Thomas Ballad Collection, vol. 1:2^ (Ford 77). All broadsides illus-trated in this essay are held at the American Antiquarian Society (hereafter, AAS).


side copy was pubhshed by 'J.K. Remich, at his Printing Office inDover Landing' with the titie 'The Embargo, A Song Sung atDover, July 4, 1H08.' This broadside has the indicated tune 'ComeLet Us Prepare' but no attribution of authorship.'*^ Anotherbroadside copy entitied 'Embargo' has neither author, tune, date,or place attributions, but it includes a crude woodcut of a turtlewith head and legs drawn in, placed over the phrase 'I'm retiringwithin myself.' The broadside also has a toast at the bottom: 'TheEmbargo; Tbo' it shut our ports, may it open our eyes.'''* TheThomas text matches these four texts closely and, as noted, coulddate anywhere from 1808 to 1814.

With these copies in circulation, 'The Embargo' enjoyed suffi-cient notoriety by mid-August 1808 to become itself a target fordirect parody in 'The Sacred Refuge for Federalists,' with the firstline 'Dear Sirs you are wrong to tell lies in a song.' An undatedbroadside copy of 'The Sacred Refuge' at the American Antiquar-ian Society acknowledges Henry Mellen as the author of the orig-inal, credits 'Simon Pepperpot the younger' as the author of thiseleven-verse parody, and confirms 'Come Let Us Prepare' as thetune.î^ There are newspaper copies of'The Sacred Refuge' fromBoston and Newburyport, dated November 1H08, with the sametitie, indicated tune, and text of twelve verses. They also have whatmay be significant text variations.'"

The early August dating of'The Sacred Refuge' is based on theunusual circumstance that the parody itself was parodied in twelveverses, begitming 'You Say Sir 'tis wrong to tell hes in a song.' This

15. Broadside in New-York Historical Society, reproduced in Ralph Henry Gabriel, ed..The Pageant of America: A Pictorial History of the United States, 15 vols. (New Haven, 192 7),8:21ft.

}6. Broadside in New Hampshire Historical Society.37. Broadside Collecdon, American Andquarian Society. Reprinted in Neeser, minus

the introductory verse, pp. 75-76.y^. Boston tndependent Chronicle, November 7, 1808; The Statesman, Newburyport,

Mass., November lu, 1808. In addidon to the twelfth verse in the newspaper copy, thereare five textual variadons between the American Antiquarian Society broadside and theversion in The Statesman. Two of these variadons may suggest deliberate editorial changesrather than errors of oral transmission or tjpesetdng. 'People' in the last line, verse six, ofthe broadside reads 'scoundrels' in Tbe Statesman; 'demands' in the third line, second-lastverse of the broadside, reads 'damsels' in The Statesman.


parody was published in the Portsmouth Oracle on August 13,1808.That rebuttal to the 'The Sacred Refuge' was not the end of thisparticular cycle of songs on the embargo. The original song 'TheFmbargo' was itself revamped and expanded with twelve chorusesof five lines each to fit it to the tune 'Snug Little Island.' Thisrevision was printed in the Portsmouth Oracle for October 15,1808,and then reprinted, with credit to the Oracle, in the ImpartialOfoe/TfrofCooperstown, New York, on November 12, 1808.î^

I have dealt in detail with this proliferation of newspaper andbroadside copies of an original song text, along with parodiesand parody upon parody, because they indicate more than asimple knack for rhyme among some Federalists and Democratic-Republicans in New Hampshire. They show that a topical balladoriginating in a small town such as Dover, New Hampshire, couldinitiate a minor 'ballad war' and induce reprints in cities as largeas Boston and as distant as Cooperstown, New York. They showonce again that the writing and dissemination of topical balladswas not just a 'folk' phenomenon of the lower class, as is sometimesassumed today, but that it was practiced by a middle and perhapsan upper class as well.

'Come Let Us Prepare,' the first tune cited for 'The Fmbargo,'is from the first line of the best-known eighteenth-century Ma-sonic song, 'The Entered Apprentice,' whose tune had many adap-tations for war, politics, and additional Masonic texts before it wasused for 'The Embargo.' A variant of the tune had been publishedas early as 1714, but the version I have set to the Thomas text (fig.I ) was well established as the standard for the Masonic words fromthe time of their publication together in The Musical Miscellany

39.1 am indebted to Kate Van Winkle Keller for a copy of Kathleen Brown's unpub-lished senior project in music history 'Songs from the Federalist Era' (SUNY, New Paltz,N.Y., i9«7), which provided a copy of this variant text from the Impartial Observer ofCooperstown. The study included a credit to the Portsmouth Oracle for the text, which Iwas able to verify and date from the Society's newspaper file. 'Snug Little Island' waspublished with its music in The Nightingale (Ponsmouth, N.H., 1H04), pp. 15-16, and inWilliam Chappell, Popular Music of the Olden Time, 2 vols. (London, 1859; repr. New York,19A5), 2: 721-21 .

9O American Antiquarian Society

(London, 1730) through the 1820s in American Masonic song-books.4"

BROTHER SAILORFord 32 (Fig. 5; see also fig. 3)

Songs and hymns using occupational terminology, as occurs in'Brother Sailor,' are part of a tradition that continued into thetwentieth century (for example, in the union song 'Miner's Life-guard,' based on the late nineteenth-century hymn 'Life is Like aMountain Railway').* ' No author is known for 'Brother Sailor.'The basic text appears in The New and Evangelical Collection of1809, and, under the title 'The Mariner's Compass,' on an Englishbroadside printed by Fordyce (No. 133)about iH4oinNewcastle.-^-A second printing of 'Brother Sailor' is in the Thomas collection(Ford 31) with a Coverly imprint but no indicated tune.

'Brother Sailor' is to be sung to 'Indian Chief,' one ofthe mostpopular tune and text combinations in early America. It is foundunder a variety of tiUes from 1782 to the 1840s in American andBritish songbooks, sheet music, songsters, broadsides, and manu-script songbooks. The original text as published by an Englishwo-man, Ann Home Hunter, in [7H2 was entitled 'The Death Songof the Cherokee Indians.'-*' In the United States, that titie was

40. John Watts, Tbe Musical Miscellany, 6 vols. (London, 17 30), 3:71-73. The same basictune and text are in David Vinton, The Masonick Minstrel (Dedham, Mass., 1H16), pp. 2X-2g;Luke Eastman, Masonick Melodies (Boston, 1S18), pp. 1X8-89; and The True Masonic Chan(New Haven, 1824), text pp. 337-18, music pp. 175-76.

41. John Greenway, .^mmcflw Folksongs of Protest (Philadelphia, 1953), pp. 15-16.^2. A New and Evangelical Collection (Pittsfield, Mass., \ Hoy), p. 45 ¡. The Fordyce broad-

side is in the Madden Collection, vol. ri>, p. lyo, Cambridge University Library.43. 'The Death Song ofthe Cherokee Indians . . . Printed for the Author by Longman

and Broderip: London [17K2].' Copy in the Harris Collection, Brown University. Thiscitation is from Edith Schnapper, ed., British Union Catalogue of Early Music, 1 vols. (London,1957), 2: 587, which lists 'Ann Home, afterward Mrs. J. Hunter' as the author. That tuneand text are most conveniently available in The American Musical Miscellany (Northampton,Mass., 179H), pp. I [4-15, through the Readex microprint edition, no. 33294, or in the DaCapo reprint of'the miscellany (New York, i<;72). There is no basis for the claim that thistext was written by the American Ann Julia Hatton for her 1794 ballad opera 'Tammany,'as stated by W. Tliomas Marrocco and Harold Gleason in Music in America (New York,

The Isaiah Thomas Ballad CollectionJ.

Ye sons of the main, ye that sail o'er the flood. Whose

sins, big as moun - tains, have reach'd up to God, Re-

mem-ber thy short voy - age of life will soon end; Now coma

bra - ther sa~ i - lor make Je - sus your friend.

FIGURE }. ^Brother Sailor,'' set to the time 'îndian Chiefs CThe Death Song ofthe

Cherokee Indians'), from The American Musical Miscellany. See broadside, fig. j .

abbreviated and modified in many ways, and 'Alknomook' or 'Sonof Alknomook' was often used instead. 'Alknomook' is spelled inat least nine different ways in American sources.-^^

The tune was claimed to have been taken down by an 'EnglishGentleman' traveling in Cherokee country, but it is of course moreEnglish in style than anything else. Up until 1815, the tune isindicated for at least nine different texts and parodies, three ofwhich are religious. Perhaps the original text and tune are bestknown today through revivals of Royall Tyler's play 'The Con-trast,' where the tune begins act 1, scene 2. Shape-note publica-tions preserved the basic tune in their repertory as late as 1958.4sMost important, the presence ofthe basic tune and text of'IndianChief' in eight different eighteenth-century manuscript song-

1964), pp. 179 and 21}. Hatton did write for 'Tammany' an effective pro-Indian, anti-Federalist parody of'Indian Chief,' which is reprinted in Magazine of History, extra number170 ( T a r r y t o w n , l y i i ) : f^j.

44. For five variant spellings, see NTI, under 'Sun sets at night.'45. William Walker, The Christian Harmony, revised byjohn Deason and O. A. Pams,

publisbed by Christian Harmony Publishing Co. (n.p-, \^$H), p. 344.


r rDress'd u - n i ~ form Chr ¡st's sol - d¡ers are when

J J Jdu - ty calls a ~ broad: Not pur - chased at their

Î E ^COST or

níVls ~ Pw r

care Butf 1

by

1 —\ ^

their

' 0r——J

Pr ince, 0

be - stow'd.

1—1

r—p ±~r *Christ's sol - diers do eat Christ- like bread, wear

r Jr r- I - men ~ tal dress, 'Tis heav'n - ly white, and

fac'd with red, 'Tis Christ's own r igh ~ teous- ness.

FIGURE 4. Melody line and first verse of'Christian Uniform,' fro-m The ChristianHarmony. Final measure shown as in the original. For singing, add a two-count restbetween verses. See broadside, fig. 5.

books suggests that many people could have adapted the 'BrotherSailor' text to the tune at sight.- ' (See fig. 3.)

SPIRITUAL SOLDIER'S UNIFORMFord 32 (Fig. 5; see also fig. 4)

A general review of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Congregational psalm books shows few correlations withthe religious texts in the Thomas collection. On the other hand,most of the Thomas texts can be found, usually in variant forms,

46. See NTl, under 'Sun hides at night* and 'Sun sets at night.'

BROTHER SAILOR;An Addrefi to Sailors. Tune, Indian Chief.

Together with the Spiritual Soldiers' Uniform.

E fan! of the mata, ye that fiii o'er the flnod,Whofc Uni, big ai mount ai as,hive reich'dup to God,Remember thy Ihort vuyige ul titc will ioon end ;Nu» come brothel iiilor make Jclui your trieoil.

Look aÜern ! nn four life, fee your wike mirk'dnirh fill,

I,fn>kihe»d,fe£«hit toftnenii you'Ufoonfoutitierin,Thehird rocki of death fiinn will beat out your kfcl,Ihcn your venel and ciigu will lU iitik tu bell.

Liy by yntjr clt! cnmpsfi, 'twill dn ytu npROOd,li ne'er will direct yiiu the ri|;bt wa^ to GUD ;Mind your heltn, brothct fîlac, »nd don't f>llille«p,lâtch and pra; aigbt tad diy leU ycu Qck io the

deep. '

Spring your ItifT.brothcr fii!or,tbe Iireeie now Íi fiîr,ï r tm your !u\t t« the witid itid tlibfe lurmetit you'll

clear ;Tour leading ftar, JESUS, keep full in thy view,ïuu'll wcaiber tin danger, bell guideyou late thro'.

Henounce your old cïpiiin. the devil ftiiiglit way,The crew that you fail wiih will lead you alli ly,Dtfert tlieir black colours—eouie under llie red,Wbere JE ilJH tut tjpiaiu lo coi.qutlt be ltd.

Hi« flitidard'i onfurl'd fee it wave lliro' tUe air.And vtiluiiieerB coming from lar ufi", iiid neir,Vcw't \h' time, bro'ber íiílí^r, no longer <tiliy,Embaik now witli JESUS, good wage» he'll piy.

The bounty lie'llgive.wheii rhe voyaRe doth btgiii.He'll ti'i'give yoiit tranfgrcliiLiiii aud cleiule you

from (in.Good ulige be'il give while you Ciil on the way,l^tid Oionly you'll anchor in Heaven't broid biy.

In the birbour of glory lorevtr you'll riJr,'Tree from quickfanda & dinger» & fins rapid tide,Waveiolde»thceafe to roll and the tempelibe o'er,!ri>e baarfe breaih ofBorcai dirmilt ihee DO more-

Thy tarpnlin jacket no lotiger you'll wor.But robei dipt in hiaven ;itl while dean and fair ;A crnwn ot> tby heiJ thii wiiuld dizzle Ihe fun,And truci {lory ta gliiry eternally IUQ.

TAREST uniform Chrîfl'i fu Id i er» are,•*-' Wben duly callMbrmd,Not putcbas'd by their tC'S or carej

But by tbeir Piince bcQow'd.

Chrifl's MdientoobaveChriilllkebreldAnd regimental drefi ;

'Tis liiitien wliite and tac'd wi li red ;"lia Chiiit't owD right cou lucfg.

A ritb and coflly robe Íi Is,And to th: loidier dear,

Nil ri<fe can Icatn to blulh like thii,Nor lilly looLfo <iir.

Tis wrmijîht by Jefiij' ikilful hand,And liii^'d *iili hi» im II blood ; .

It miliF' tilt Chtriibs gieinp Randl o view tliis robe ui GOD.

Its of one piece and wove throughout,So cutinufly thai mine

CiQ dref! up in this leiiiilefa coat,'rill J£äU;i |>ui« ii (<n.

Thii vellore nf v r «osdh old.Nur Ip'it itieieoii Lit) fiU ;

It ni.ke* the S.lditr ljr»vc mid bold,Aod duiilul withal!.

Thii robe put on me,* Lord, eacb day.Anil i{ flijtt hlile my Ibatne i

' Twill liiike me fight, and Gng & priy/Inii blefi iiiy Ci|itiin'a name.

How brive k huid Cliriil'-. faldiers are,Wdeiiditli up in lili) RoKe!

They louk like men cquip'd tor war,' Aiid like the füui ot Gud.

Their fliield iifîtli, their helmet hope.And (liuB thry msrcli Chrill'i road ;

CiirilVs Ijiirit Is iheir frlitt'ring fwurdTo pliy tlie mao ins God,

When drefi'd op ir thiiUniforoi,In order tiiirch along, - ;

Chrift Jeluï il ti'.cir leader now,Rcduniing I.ovc tbcir tung.

FIGURE 5. Isaiah Tho?nas Ballad Collection, vol. 2:j2 (Ford32), AAS.

94 American Antiqîiarian Society

in thirty-two early Baptist and Methodist camp-meeting and revi-val songsters at the American Antiquarian Society.

'Spiritual Soldier's Uniform' is set to music under the tide'Christian Uniform' in Jeremiah Ingalls's \ 804 tunebook ChristianHarmony. David Klocko's comprehensive study of the hymns inIngalls's publication is an important tool for examining thiswork.47 Klocko reports that in 1775 the text was attributed to J.Berridge, an Fnglish minister. Four American revi val-songsterprintings preceded Ingalls's publication, one in 179^, two in 1801,and one in 1802.-* The basic text was also published in a revivalsongster of 1809, followed by two in 1817. Neither Klocko nor Ihave found any broadside printings beyond this Thomas copy.

Klocko believes Ingalls's melody for 'Christian Uniform' is de-rived from the music for 'The Indian Philosopher,' a rather round-about love song based on popular notions of philosophic ideas tobe found in India. Klocko's analysis provides a note-by-note com-parison of'Indian Philosopher' with 'Christian Uniform' to provethe derivation.4v The tune and text of'Indian Philosopher' are inThe American Musical Miscellany ( 1798) and in The Complete PocketSong Book (1802), both printed in Northampton, Massachusetts,by Andrew Wright.^" Fliphalet Mason, the compiler of The Com-plete Pocket Song Book, gives credits: 'Words by Dr. Watts, —Musicby Oakum,' but Oakum has not yet been further identified. TheNational Tune Index shows four American music manuscripts be-tween 1797 and 1800 that have basically the same incipits (musicalfirst lines) as the version in the American Mmical Miscellany.^ ' Suchmanuscript evidence can be an important indication of popularacceptance of a tune in the absence of extensive commercial publi-cation. (See fig. 4.)

47. Jeremiah Ingalls, The Christian Hannony: or Songster's Companion (Exeter, N.H.,1805}; David Grover Klocko. 'Jeremiah Ingalls's The Christian Harmotiy: or Songster's Com-

panion (iHoi)" (Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 197ÍÍ).4H. Klocko, 'Jeremiah Ingalls,' p. 11)7.49. Klocko, 'Jeremiah Ingalls,' pp. 807-15.51). The A?neriarn Musical Miscellany (Nor&iàmpton, 1798), pp. 241-44; Eiiphalet Mason,

The Complete Pocket Song Book (Norxhampion, iKoi), pp. I H - J I .51. See Ar77, under 'Why should our joys transform to pain.'


The TWO LOVERS of EXETERFord 178 (Fig. 7; see also fig. 6)

The relatively few extant copies of'The Two Lovers of Exeter'may suggest that it was not widely reprinted in America andperhaps only moderately well known in England. But the copiesat Harvard University's Houghton Library are from important

Ihe 2VUNG SHOPKEEPER.—Miiüc by MASON.

ii:fe rzr-rtrczrarc:Oí aw near you young gaHanl», n hile 1 do unFold, As

as 'ver was tol-d, Twdi of a young couple whofe hearti were hn-

irz^zTill dcaih biolt« i - fun - der tb« eonirift a: I'l

Near Exeter city this couple did dwell.This lafs was fo pretty there's none could excell,Both comely in feature botli proper and tall,And confiant in heart the beft virtue of all.A briijc young fiiopkeeper who lived clofc by,Would upon this damlel be editing an eye,This damfel on him with fmiles did the lame,Till they both; were poHcired of a fçcret

6. Tèe Young Shopkeeper' ('Tbe Two Lovers of Exeter''), from The Com-plete Pocket Song Boole, Spîinêld (Mass.) Public Library. See broadside, fig. 7.

A TRAGICAL ACCOUNTOf the two hovQts oí Exeter, in England, who having missed of

each other, they died of grief on the Road.

DRAW rear you young Gallants, »hile I do unfolilA I ragical ua^'j as ever »as lotd ;

It's ni a young couple whose hcaits were link"(J fast,'Till Death iuoke asunder the contract at last.

NcarExiicr ciiy ihii couple did dwell.The Uis was (oprtit)- thai few COLJU cxret.Most coinely in features, buih propei and tsll,And constant in hrart the bi'st virtue ol'all.

But Cupiil «ho cunniiiply fixed his dart,tljd shoi this fair maid and umindeii her heart :Wiih his cunning arrow, he'd wounded her so.For love It V. til creep where it dare not » ell go.

A brisk young shopktepcr that lived hard by.Would often on this damsel be castinj; an c)e :Jhe often with imilrs upon him did the ssnic ;They both were posscst'd wüh a jwrct fiamc.

But love, lvhich would then be tio longer conccai'd,%1 thii loving couple was quickly rcveal'd :As they one evening did meet in a giove,This young man K-gan to Hiscovei hit love.

Well met, rny dear misirest, the joy ßf my heart,"JTie height ot perfection in every part,Thit lovt which 1 long in my heart have coticeai'd.Shall here to rny dcareit he quitkly revtal'd.

If you'll be so cruel my suit to deny,My amorous jewel, for you Ï must die jMy heart is a bleeding, and'lies at your feet.Then kill me or cure me. a» yomhink it meet.

The damsel appcitrd like one struck quite dumb.While blushes liki- Hashes of lightning did fome :At length she reijly'd i here's iioVrusiing young men.And what would you have me to auBwer you then?

My heart, my dearest, shall constant remain.The thoughrs of false Jovçrs 1 freely disdain jMaji I bid alt pleasurci for ever adieu,•My dearest, when first I prove false iinto you.

This btaiilifut lady no longer couid hideHer tender affection, but freely replyd.My heart is your o« n, and shall be till 1 die ;Then into his arms like lightning did fly.

A ring of pure gold from her finger she took.And just iti the middle the same she then broke.Says she, aa a token of love ytw this take.And this is ¡I pledge I ivill keep for your take.

With hiigemg and kissing in each other's arms.They both «ere possessed with capricious charms jAnd from that same minute they constant did prove,And loyal ai e'er did the dear turtle dove.

But fortune was cruel, and on them did frown.Their love to their parents was quickly made known;So they to their daughter were sharp and severe.She being an ^ i reü to five hutidc^d a /«v. -

They privately sent rhi3 young damsel away.To liOndon, that she with her uncle might stay.Thinking it) short time that her love uould abate.But irje lovers will not be serv'd at that rate.

Some time with her uncle (his damael did suty.While she did in private R letter conveyTo tier loyal lover and joy of htr heart.Whom covetous parents did cruelly part.

But when her true lover her letter did read.He seat her another in ansuer with speed.Saying, the whole world shall nm uf divide,Forl will come unto (hee, whatever beilde.

Her true lover's answer she never n.-ceiv'd.For wliith she lamentingly sighed and griev'd ;Saying, hath my love forsaken me ^ i t e ,Ü now all my fileasures have taken their flight.

Sure he » »s too loyal his love td deceive.Then here 1 in sorrow no longer will grieve.But I**™ to fair Exeter I will repair,Tho' my shadow is here, my heart it is there.

This damsel, without any longer delay.For Ejieier eity she then took her way ;Atid that very minute for t.ondrin he came.In hopes for Eo meet with his true love again.

But «till cruel Forrure upon them did trown.The one coming up, and the other guiiig down.And then on the road they each other did miss,O who can discover the sorrow of this Î

Now when ihey found that their labour was lost.And both their designs by misfortune were crost.Without any stay they returned again.With their hearts both poasen'd with invincible pain.

Thus three times together each other they miss'dWhile trouble and sorrow their hearts did possess :This innoctnt damsel her heart then did break.And dy'd on the road for her true lover'« aake.

Tlic inn where ihis djmsel that n'ghi had deceas'd.This yoùnp man her lover came to as a gueit:They asked this young nun what news wai abroad.It he knew that young damsel that dyd on the TUtd.

The corp* he desir'd then qtrickly to see.Which when he beheld, he cr.'d. ah «oe i% rhefMï long long travel now an end must hive.My dearest ahd I'll be bnth iniJ in one grave.

A thousand times over as weepiiij; he lay.He kiss'd her cold lips that were colder rhan clay;And that very nighi there his heart he did break,And like a true lover he dy'd fof her sake.

You covetous parent», wherever you be,Coilsiikr the aame, and lament now with me ;Let not gold tior silver true lovers divide.\A%\ drcidftil judgments unto you betide.

FIGURE 7. Isaiah Thomas Ballad Collection, vol. i:$i (Ford 278), AAS.


broadside and chapbook collections, and there is still much to belearned about the quantitative relationships between pdnt andoral tradition. Four of the Harvard copies are in chapbooks pur-chased by James Boswell. Two others are from a chapbook and abroadside owned by Bishop Thomas Percy, which he acquired inthe 1760s for his work as one of the first serious scholars of balladry.In addition to another broadside copy printed by Chatham inCoventry, England, Houghton Library has the only other reportedAmerican broadside of this ballad that was 'sold near Charles-riverbridge.'''-

But, for us, the most important American copy of this ballad isin Eliphalet Mason's 1802 Complete Pocket Song Book (see fig. 6).'"This copy is significant in part because it is there set to music thatthe compiler, Mason, claims to have written, and partly becausethat melody has the true sound of *folk music,' which is differentfrom the sound of cultivated popular music of the late eighteenthand early nineteenth centuries. Perhaps most of all it is importantbecause Mason may have been the first American to consciouslycollect and publish folk songs. In his introduction Mason explains,'The Compiler of the Pocket Song Book, having, for some yearspast, devoted his leisure time to the study of Music, and havingbeen in divers parts of the New-England States, he has selectedfrom singers of Song, those words and airs, which are most calcu-lated to instruct the mind and please the ear.''**

GENERAL BURGOYNE'S LAMENTATIONFord 93 (Fig. 10; see also figs. 8 and <;)

There are two other early hroadsides with the basic text of'General Burgoyne's Lamentation,' but there seem to be no other

52. The Boswell and Percy copies are listed in Charles Welsh and William H. Tilling-hast. Catalogue of English and American Chaphooks and Broadside Ballads in Harvard CollegeLibrary (Cambridge, Mass.. n>o5, repr. Detroit, lyAH). The .\merican broadside copy isNo. 3372 in Ford, Broadsides. Massachusetts.

53. Mason, Complete Pocket Song Book, pp. 2H-34.54. Mason, Complete Pocket Song Book, prefece.


- I

FIGURE 8. '/ríJ-¿ Lamentation^'from Justin Hitchcock manuscript., Pocumtuck ValleyMemoiialAssociation Lihwy, Deafield, Massachusetts. See broadside, fig. lo.

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FIGURE 9. 'General Burgoyne's Lamentation,^ set to the inelody Une of Îrish Lamenta-tion,'from the Hitchcock mamtscript. See broadside, fig. 10.

GENERAL BURGOTNEsLAMENTATION.

Y,E Powers lot* down and pity rny case, A .hur iheonte great BuKOoyKe is now inîüircss; YFor 1 am «urroimiitd by a numcrous fuc, j fThat I fear tuy «hole »rmy will soon overthrow ; V

O ' cunt be th- man ihit did ui deceive, Á.And curst be old Stbiiyler, thatrnade us bdifve, XHe HOuM retreat beiure us, and make no nhrm, ¡¿'TtUrttehid landed in Albany, ftce from till harm. T

Now I »m surrounded with sorrow atiij grief, <>Fair godites« Uiana, O send me relief! oO ! tend me some comfort, my mind for to feeii, ,X.Or bring me a cordial, for I ne'er had more need. Jf

Ami now fellow soldterj, what to advise you to, V"To go or a|•d ive cannot, twr back we can't go, ^Tor tn tarry here we must certainly die— A.My heart's overwhelmed, O where shall 1 fly. ^

What say you my lads, niustji'e yic'd unto men, YThat we have <0 long held in such great disdain .* VAmi calleil ihetn'/ífíí/j and despis'd yankcrJ lof>, ^>We have look'd upon them aj a cowardly crew i A^

Now sifetj' says yes, but honour says no, j fOur case is deploriiMe, O what shall we do ? j "Our hiiiioiit IS swett, but our live» arc more dear, V"Mine eyes do bieak ibrth in a fountain of tears. ó-

O ! eurst be the day that e'er \ came here, - j .And cross'd the Atlantic to buy wit so dear, jL*Yea, cursT b-:' the villain that did u! much hurt, VThat carry'd to England so false a report ; V"

For 'tis commonly rejiortcd in fair England, AThat ihesijiht ofa Btiton would make Yankees run¡ fy_•^ht report ofa cannon wuuld make Yankerl fly, TO ! were they as oum'/ous'as the stars in the skv. ^

k • è -To my'woefu! experience, ] find it wai fahe. O-

For 1 find that Iht Yaniices are equal to us j ' ÂThey will fight with great valiir in thcofieii field, ATake them in the forest, then Briioni must yield : X

Iriih L.imenlaiion,"

A O ! »hat shall we do, Dim» don't heat,X To my lupjjlicatioii she turns a deaf ear,•^ We'll compldinioflie Giidsiif our sorrow »nd nor '^ Our gooJ old friend j'lp'ler wiil help us I know ;

A l^**ill call imto Mercury, Saturn also,I . AnSlikewisc mild Vcnujshill hear uf our woelj¿ If they don't regard Ui, we'll make oiirvcompUinf,^ To the Lady Mary and the ¿noá uld saimi.

<> You jrenilemen all, thirik on't what you will,A, We Britons, have used the Amcricsni ill ¡X And for the lamc reason we're brought itiio ;JÍM!1 .

We never thall prtMjier in this war ai all :

The Gods will not hear us tho" we cry and weep,Thcy'ie gone a long journey I'rcise they're aslwpiThey ari as renardless of our request.As the British Court is of th' Anitrican Congre;.,.

I think it's in vain on the Gcd'a for to call,Fnr they are not able to hcljj us at all ;We will go to brave GAThs, and bow at hii feet.He »ill give us an <uiauer,give hopes that ait siveet :

He will grant us the privilege for to march out.With the honouM of war, tho' in the qtiicke« rout.If he will do so, »c will all bless his name,Atïd let him be crowned w ith honotii and fjnic

We are all agreeil to do as you've saiJ, .•.-Wç wilLigo vciy humble, lïith hopes on ouriiitdAeknowJedfte before him «e ali deicrve death.If he saves us, we'll praise him whilst »c bn\<: breath.

We went to his Honor, our rtnûcst he J t lHis bouniifiii hand did supply ill our wants :He tipcn'iJ his îtores, all uur wants tn snppli,Let brave GATIS'S enemiia bclorc him fly.

Ye Heavens «nd cloun your blessings amain.On ihc head of brave GATI S, let his foes be all ÍIAÍOr otherwise bow to Lhat bravie General,And let ill hit cncmTc«, before him fall :

iorthey'll shut tip one eye. and sifumt at theirgun,^ For his botior is great, a»d hii virtue rerown'd4^nd weiurcly are dt-wi, as soon as that's done ; i He sconu in his hcari the very thoughts of a clown'

W c »land no more chance in the Y.inkees paws, Y He is ipllant and brave, and generous tooThan to fliig an old c u ûuo hell wiihout claws. -fr Right honorable Getfti*!—I tud you idicu

FIGURE HI. ¡saiah Thomas Ballad Collection, vol. ¡:n/(Fordpj),A/iS.

loo American Antiquarian Society

copies in primary sources such as manuscripts or songsters.'^ Wil-liam McCarty may have used the Thomas copy or a duplicate forhis 1842 reprint.i*^ His printing has no textual variations whatever,beyond a few minor differences in spelling and punctuation. Incomparison, there are fifty-three minor textual variations betweenFord 93 and the other broadside copy of this piece at the AmericanAndquarian Society. Such variation is not unusual for separatebroadside issues when their texts run to twenty verses, as these do.

The indicated tune, 'Irish Lamentation,' is also scarce. Only onecopy has been found in print so far, and only two in manuscriptwith a text beginning 'When I hved with my grannam [or gran-ma].'S7 These are variants ofthe same tune, and either will fit theThomas text nicely. The Justin Hitchcock manuscript version ismisbarred. It has been given a time signature <C (2/2 time) whenit should be 6/8, or, in earlier practice, 6/4. Misbarring and incor-rect time signatures are among the most common errors ofamateurs when music is transcribed by ear. In such a case rebarringis necessary because otherwise the musical accents would fall atthe wrong places in the text.

Rebarring is a simple and historically straightforward proce-dure, if documented. In figures 9 and 10, my transcription appearsbelow the facsimile from the Hitchcock manuscript. I have set itin 6/4 time instead ofthe 6/8 time, which is more common today,to cause the least possible change in the overall appearance ofthemusic. Original barring is shown by dotted lines above the staves.

5 5. 'Burgoin's Defeat,' Broadside Collection, American Andquarian Society. Rider Col-lection No. 21, Harris Collection, Brown University.

$6. William McCarty, Songs, Odes and Other Poe?ns on NationalSubfects, } vols. (Philadel-phia, 1K42), y. \u2-^.A\soreponedm'W\\\iamLeetStoae, Ballads aniJ Poems Relating tothe Burgpyne Campaign (Albany, 1893), pp. 29-32.

57.1 am indebted to Kate Van Winkle Keller for a copy ofthe 'Irish Lamentation' fromy[obn} Walsh. Third Book of tbe Compleat Country Dancing Master (London, 1735), p. 197.The music is also in thejustin Hitchcock manuscript (Mass., ca. 1S««)), in Pocumtuck ValleyMemorial Association Library, Deerfield, Mass., and in the Wilkes Allen manuscript(Conn., i7y<>)at the Library ofCongress. State names and dates given in parentheses withmanuscript sources in this essay refer to the original place and approximate date ofthemanuscript.

The Isaiah Thomas Ballad Collection i o i

[BRAVE WOLFE]The DEATH of GENERAL WOLFE

Ford 55 (Fig. 14; see also 6gs. 11, 12, and 13)

Whatever we Americans may think of our presidents, we haveseldom sung songs about them long after they were dead. And wehaven't often sung about long-dead generals, either. James Wolfeis an important exception, as these two song texts, printed togetheron American broadsides a number of times up to the 1830s, dem-onstrate. These are among the longest-lived and the most impor-tant of at least forty-five different verse texts and elegies on Wolfe'sdeath written and published in England and North America be-tween 1759 and the lyços.s^

{BRAVE WOLFE]

Remarkable longevity is one ofthe important characteristics ofthe text beginning 'Cheer up your hearts,' a folk ballad of unknowndate and origin best known as 'Brave Wolfe' or 'Bold Wolfe,'though it has other titles. It is preserved in broadsides, in fourAmerican manuscripts ofthe 1790s (two with music), in the Forget-Me-Not-Songster issues of the 1850s, in a printed songbook of1846, in a choral songbook of 1850, and, most importantly, ascollected from oral tradition in Arkansas, Massachusetts, Pennsyl-vania, West Virginia, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland between1917 and 1939; in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and NewYork in the 1940s; and in eastern Canada in the 1950s. W RoyMackenzie reported in 1919 that every traditional folk singer inCanada had his version of the song, and it was still cherished infolk memory in the United States 180 years after Wolfe's death onthe Plains

58. My preliminary list of forty-five examples is compiled from J. A. Leo Lemay. ACalendar ofAmeruan Poetry. , . Through 1761; (Worcester, Mass., 1972), from verses in TbeGanlenuimMagazine (London, August 1771 to October \ 773), and miscellaneous sources.

5«;. See Ford, Broadsides, Massachusem Nos. 1156-6(1 and 3048-52. See also song manu-scripts: Whittier Perkins ms. (Mass., 1790), Columbia Universitj' Library; Luther Kingsleyms. (Conn., ijifo), Mansfield Historical Society, Mansfield, Conn.; Rufus Bragdon ms.(York, Me., 17i/>), Old Gaol Museum, York, Me.; Hervey Brooks ms. (Conn., 1790), private

I O 2 American Antiquarian Society

FIGURE II. 'GmV Wolfe'' [''Brave Wolfe^], from the Whittier Perkins manuscript.

Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia Vniveisity. See broadside, fig. 14.

The earliest datable records of the tune and text of'Brave Wolfe'are in the four manuscript copies of the 1790s. The ballad couldhave been written and sung as early as 1759, as some writers have

collection; Stevens-Douglassms. (WyomingCounty,N.Y.,ca. i82 3-5f>),pHvatecollection,but published in Harold Thompson and Edith Cutting, eds, A Pioneer Songster (Ithaca,N.Y. ly^H), pp. yK-io!. Songsters (texts only): The Echo: or Columbian Songster, lá ed.(Brookfield, Mass., lyyH), pp. 152-53; Tht Lark (Northampton, 179K), pp. iy-21; TheGreen-Mountain Songster (Sandgate, Vt , 1* 23), pp. 22-23. ^he Forget-Me-Not Songsterseries of the i85(»s has been studied in a master's thesis by F. Jones (Brown University,1948). Forsongbooks that printed texts and music, see the following: .^«.-íw«ff«7?rGf7Ho/Song, Pt. I (Boston, 1H46), pp. 2-3; B. F. Baker and L. H. Southard, The Boston Melodeon,vol. 3 (Boston, 1850), p. 41). Fora partial listing of folk versions, see G.Malcolm Laws, Jr.,Native American Balladry, rev. ed. (Philadelphia, 19A4), p. 119. The Mackenzie quote is ¡nJosiah H. Combs, Folk-Songs of the Southern United States, trans, and ed. D. K. Wilgus(Austin, 1967), p. 76.

The Isaiah Thoinas Ballad Collection 103

^3Cheer up your hearts young men let noth-ing fright you,— Be

of a gal - lant mind, let that de - light you; Let

Éhot your cour - age fail till af - tsr tri - al, Wor

I verse 1-11 | ] verse 12 |

m w » II et your fan - cy move at the first den - i - a I.

FIGURK 12. ¡'Brave Wolfe''], froiri the Thomas broadside, set to the ^Gen'lWolfe'musicin the Whittiei Perkins manuscript. See broadside^ fig. 14.

claimed, but there is no reliable documentation for this. It couldalso have been inspired or encouraged by either of two revivals ofinterest in Wolfe during the 1770s. The best known of these revi-vals derived from Benjamin West's precedent-breaking painting,*The Death of Wolfe,' in which Wolfe appears in eighteenth-century dress, instead of the classical Roman garb. Thomas Flexnerdescribed the awed reaction of Londoners to this 'neo-classicalnews picture': 'Long before the Royal Academy exhibition of 1771opens, lines form on the street, impeding London traffic. Whenthe doors swing back, the crowd moves in a cramped mass untilthey are all gathered before a single picture. Men stare reverently,women weep into frilled handkerchiefs, or, past the aid of smellingsalts, faint into their escorts' arms. All day long, until the doorsclose again at evening, emotion surges and breaks in the gallerywhere hangs West's Death of Wolfe!'"' Of course, this Londonexhibition could not directly inspire ballad makers in America, but

60. James Thomas Flexner, The Light of Distant Skies, History of American Painting,vols. (New York, 1954; repr. 1969), 2: 32.

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folk creators thrive best in cultures that cherish heroes, and Westarranged for large and small engraved versions of his painting thateasily crossed the ocean.

The second, overlapping, revival of interest in Wolfe was liter-ary and may have been a direct inspiration for the second 'Deathof Wolfe' text on the broadside (which will be discussed below withthat text). Much remains to be said ofthe 'Brave Wolfe' text, butthree points in relation to its oral transmission seem essential.First, this version is generally a fine example of American folkballad style, but its last verse does not appear in oral versionscollected in the twentieth century or in most broadside versions.Probably it was an attempt by an early nineteenth-century poetas-ter with genteel ambitions to 'improve' on a version received orally.Second, even in 1S14 there were distinct variant forms for this text.The Thomas collection has a second version beginning 'Come allye young men all' (Ford 5S), parts of which are found in twentieth-century oral tradition. This second, Thomas version is the samebasic text that S. Foster Damon gives as his second version of'Brave Wolfe."'" Third, the ballad maker, as usual, made use oftraditional floating lines and verses to assist the process of compo-sition. For example, the third verse of 'Brave Wolfe' in Ford 55certainly is descended from the second verse of'The UnconstantMaiden,' which dates back at least to 1682:

Here is a Ring of Gold, my dear except it'tis for your sake alone, long have i kept it.

Read hut the Posie on't, think on the Givermadam i die for Love, I die for ever.''''

The associated tune for 'Brave Wolfe' also has had remarkablelongevity. Not only is it unusual for a ballad tune and text to be soclosely associated and to match so well in eighteenth-century

61. S. Foster Damon, Series of Old American Songs, Harris Collection, Bnmti University(Providence, I9ÍÍÍ), no. r.

62. 'The Unconstant Maiden,'Madden Collection, 3, no. 77S. Floating lines and verses(also called formulas, stereotypes, and ballad tags) are treated at length in .Mbert B. Lord,The Si7iger of Tales (Cambridge, Mass.. 1 y6o; repr. N.Y., 197 2), and in many formal studiesof Anglo-American ballad literature.

THE DEATH OP

GENERAL WOLE:men let aotltiagCH E E U up your hearts

fright you.He of a sallsüt mind, let Iliat dcliglit you ;Let not jour coursge fail (ill nftir trial.Nor lei your fancy move at the Grst dcnUl.

r went to see my love only to woo her,1 wont to guin her lutB not to un<lii her ;Wliciie'cr I spake a word mj' tongue did (jiiI could not speak my minci wliilcl was lAJtli her.

Li>vp, here's a diamond rin^ long time [Ve kbpt il,'Tis for your lakc HIODC, if you'll Bcccpt it ;Wlwn jou the posy read, tliinh on the giver.Madam, remember me, undone forever.

Brave Wolf then (oak hia ieaveof hia dmr jewel.Moat sorely did the grieve, saying doa't be cruel ;Said he, 'tig fur a spane that 1 must leave yoo,Vet love, where'er I gu, I'll not forget you.

So then this gallant youth Aid cross tlie ocean,To free America from her InTaaion ;Ho Inuricil lit Wutbec with all hia p»rty.The city (i> attack, both braye and hearty.

Brave Wolf drew up his men in form most pretty,On the [ilnios of Abraham, before iho ciiy ;Thero just hcfuro tlie tuwQ the French did meet

themWith double numbers they resoN'd to beal them.

Wliin drawn ap in a line, for death prcpnred,tVliilp in caeh other's face their armies stated ;So pleHSaotly bruva Wolf and MonlcBim talked,So ninrlially between their armies walked.

Kach mm (heo took his post at tlieir retire.Sa (he/! theiG numoroui lioils bi-gan tu Hre :The cannon on cich side did ruar l u e thunder,Aod youths in nil Iheir priilc were torn asunder.

The drums did loudly beat, colors were flying,7Tie purple gore did stream and men lay dying ;VVhcn shot from ott his horse, fell tbis brave hero.And wo lament his toss in wee»!« of Borruw.

The French Iwgsn to break, their ranks were Hying,Brave Wolf then seem'd to wake ÜB he lay dying jHe lifted up liis head while guns did raKlp,And to his army said, how goes the Imttle ?

H Í9 aid-dp-camp reply'd 'tii in our favor,tiuahec with all her pride, Wfsoon shall liavt hcrjbhe'll fail into our hands, with all lier traaaure,O then reply'd brave Wolf, I 'Jie with pleasare.

Ha cloa'd his eyes « ith joy on human |;Iory,And left each enrllily toy, so transitory ;BravE-Wolf Í9 now enroli'd Ihe first of heroesAnd joitis a host of thoH who feul no sorrow.

Dtalfi i¡f Gen. Wolf.

IN a sad mouM'ring c»ve where the wrelchodret rest,

Britannia sat wasted with caro ;She iHOurn'd for her Wolf and exdaim'd agninse

l«tB,AndgaTeheräFlf up tii deapair.

Thfi waJlä of her cell BIIE: had sculpiur'd around'iVilh tlie deeds of her favorite son ;

AnA even the ilnst ai it lay on the ground.Was engraï'd with some deeds lie h:id lionc.

The fire of the gods from her chriatalline Uiron«,Brhcld the disconsolate dume.

And mov'd with her (enra lia tent Mercury down.And these »ere the tidings that came^

Britanrii«, furbeur ! not a sigh nor a tear.For thy Wulfäo dewrvcdly lov'd ;

Your tcsrs shall he thangd into triumphs of joy.For thy Wojf ÍB not dead but remoï'd.

The Eon) of Ihe eait, tlie proud giants cf old.Have crept frnm their ii;irksome aliodea,

And thia is the iiewa as in heaven we're told,They were murching lo war with the gods.

A counsel waa held in the ottamber of Jove,fi nil ihis WUÎ the final decree.

That Wnlf (hnuld be cali'd to Ihe »rmiea above,Acid the clwrge waa entrusted to me.

To the plains oF ftuebec, «itli the orden 1 flew.Where Wolf with his nrmy ihen Uy ;

Hfr cry'd, O l'orbear ! let rae victory «iaw.And then thy commanda I'll nbey.

With a darkening film f fncompasa'd his eyes,And hore him away in an urn,

Leat tha fondness h« bore for his own native ahoreShould tempt him again to return.

WNATir-VNIEL COVERLY, PÜINTEB, JUilk-tlnct,

FIGURE 14. Isaiah Thomas Ballad Collection, vol. i:6<^ (Ford i j j , AAS.

The Isaiah Thomas Ballad Collection \ 07

sources, but it is even rarer for such a basic tune and basic text toremain closely associated from the eighteenth century well intothe twentieth century without the assistance of many printedcopies to help maintain the association. In fact, the two slightlyvariant manuscript tune versions from the Í 79()S show little changeup through the printed Gem. of Song in 1846, and even on to theNewfoundland version collected in 1929, which is distinguishedfrom the earher versions mainly by its shift from the minor to theDorian mode.''^ Many of the other 'Brave Wolfe' tune/texts col-lected into the i94()S are part of this same tune family with thenotable exception of a West Virginia text reportedly sung byschoolchildren in 1924 to the tune of'Yankee Doodle."'-^ Indeed,some of these tune versions are so close together that they aredifficult to sing in sequence from memory.

I have set the Ford 55 text to the 'Brave Wolfe' tune preservedin 'Whittier Perkins Book,' a Massachusetts manuscript tunebookfrom the 179()s. (See figs. 11 and 1 2.)

The DEATH of GENERAL WOLFE

'Brave Wolfe' was certainly written/or the folk if not directly bythem, hut the text beginning 'In a mouldering cave' was addressedto a different cultural world, the upper and middle classes whopatronized concerts and theaters, played and sang keyboard parlorsongs, and understood classical allusions. Thomas Paine wroteverses to this ballad, had them 'set to music by a gendeman of thiscountry,' and published them with the music in the PennsylvaniaMagazine for March 1775 (see fig. 1 3). This was the third numberof the magazine but only the second for which Paine served aseditor. According to a Paine letter to Benjamin Franklin, which is

63. E. B. Greenleaf and G. Y. Mansfield, BaUads and Sea Songs of Newfoundlanbridge, Mass., iyiî ,repr. Hatboro, Pa., iy6S), pp. y6-(jH. To hear the difference betweenminor and Dorian modes, play eight notes (one octave) on the white keys of a piano, startingon A for the scale of A minor, followed by eight notes staning on D, also on the white keys,which gives the Dorian mode.

('14. Combs, Folk-Songs, pp. 153-55. Unfortunately, only the te.\t is given, but it couldbe sung to 'Yankee Doodle' with some rhythmic shifts. That of course implies that this'Brave Wolfe' text was not taken seriously by these schoolchildren in West Virginia in 1924.


essentially supported by an independent account from Dr. Benja-min Rush, the subscription list more than doubled from 600 to1,500 after Paine began his contributory editorship. Rush gavesome of the credit to this song: 'His song upon the death ofGeneral Wolfe, and his reflections upon the death of Lord Clive,gave it [the magazine] a sudden currency which few works of thekind have since had in our country.'^?

As with 'Brave Wolfe,' some modem writers have assumedPaine's song was written soon after Wolfe's death in October1759. But Damon quotes an 1825 American music book, whichnotes that 'Mr. Paine wrote this song with a view to its beingpresented to the committee for erecting a monument to the mem-ory of Wolfe, a premium being offered for the most approved pieceon the subject. It was however, never presented, but first appearedin a Philadelphia publication with which Paine had some connec-tion.'^ The work of that committee is reflected in twenty-oneepitaphs, inscriptions, and poetic effusions, some in Latin as wellas English, that were published in issues of The Gentleman'sMagazine between August 1772 and October Í773. Therefore,Paine could have written his verses for that quasi-literary compe-tition and had them in his baggage when he came to America inthe late fall of 1774.

In the original headnote to his text, Paine wrote, 'I have notpursued the worn out tract of modem song but have thrown it intofable.' This was hardly an innovation because the literary conceitof clothing eminent contemporaries in the mantle of Greek andRoman mythology was standard practice all through the eigh-teenth century.' '" Paine used a related conceit in a later song, inwhich the 'Goddess of Liberty' brings a tangible symbol of her

65. Frank Luther Mott, A History ofA?nericar> Magazines, 5 vols. (New York, i9i()), 1 :fiy, quoting Moncure D. Conway, Tbe Life of Tbomas Paine, 2 vols. (New York, 1H93), 1 ;40-41.

66. DAmon, Series of Old American Songs, no. 2, quotingJohnGrsham, Flowers ofMelotfy,2 vols. (New York, 1835), 2: 85.

67. For an extended study of the practice see James Snàierlinà, A Preface to Eighteenth-Century Poetry (Oxford, 1948; repr. New York, 1958).

The Isaiah Thoinas Ballad Collection 109

love for American patriots to sit beneath, to worship under, andrally around, 'The Liberty Tree.''^"

Paine's 'Death of General Wolfe' appeared in nine Americansongsters, out of a sample of seventy-three published between1786 and 1H15, which shows a small but steady popularity. Itsmusic was indicated for four songs, and parodies were publishedin eight songsters during the War of 1812; it had also been usedearlier in the Federalist-Democratic political struggles of the latei 79()S, as well as for a pro-Irish song in 1799.'*'' Once again, manu-scripts demonstrate a popularity that exceeds the printed evidence.The National Tune índex shows that 'Death of General Wolfe' wasreprinted with its original music only once in the eighteenth cen-tury, but it shows further that eight American manuscripts before1800 have the same basic tune and text as those printed in thePennsylvania Magazine J" Sukey Heath of BrookJine, Massachu-setts, made one of those 'General Wolfe' tune copies, harmonizedinto three parts, on October 2i, 1780.1 know of no other three-part arrangement for this tune.^'

Paine's text appears set to a quite different tune in two Americansongbooks that were published in iHo4and 1814.^'Meanwhile, inBritain, Paine's text was sometimes printed with the indicatedtune 'Gods of the Greeks,' which Paine had used as his model andtune for 'Liberty Tree.' In fact, the tune printed for his text underthe title 'Britannia or the Death of Wolfe' in the Edinburgh MusicalMiscellany begins as a somewhat convoluted but recognizable ver-sion of the tune for 'Gods of the Greeks.''^

fiX. 'The Liberty Tree, ' tune'Gods of the Greeks,'Penníy/tanwM/igíiz/n<r( July 1775).fiy. George John Devine, 'American Songsters 1806-1815' (Master's thesis. Brown Uni-

versit)', ii;4o), pp, 7, 211, 2^8, and 245. Also Alice Louise Thorpe,'American Son^ters ofthe Eighteenth Century' (Master's thesis. Brown University, 1935), pp. 15H and 109.

70. NTI, under 'In a mouldering cave.'71.'Sukey Heath's Collection from Sundry Authors,' discussed and reproduced in

facsimile in Richard Crawford and David P. McKay, 'Music in Manuscript, a MassachusettsTune-Book of 1782,' Proceedings of the American Amitjuarian Society 84, (1974): 43-64, and1() pages of facsimile.

72. 'General Wolfe,' Baltimore Musical Miscellany, 2 vols. (Baltimore, 1804), i; 194-96,and'Death of Wolfe,' The American nïfr/ofif Song Boo* (Philadelphia, 181 j), pp. 103-5.

73. The Edinburgh Musical Miscellany, 2 vols. (Edinburgh, 1792-93) 1: 284-86. 'The

11 o American Antiquarian Society

IV

One essential musical ingredient is missing from the transcriptionsand facsimiles of my project—íoawíí. A printed song is in someways like one of Plato's metaphorical shadows of ideals. In thatPlatonic sense, a 'song' only exists while it is being performed, or,to put it anotber way, a song is a temporal trilogy of words, music,and at least one sympathetic singer.

For a reader who wishes to be a sympathetic singer, simplicityshould be the guiding standard. Accompanying instruments werethe exception rather than the rule for broadside songs, but 'TheEmbargo' was composed for public political performance andmight originally have been given with an accompanying pianoforteor a small orchestra of winds and strings. The two revival songs'Brother Sailor' and 'Spiritual Soldier's Uniform' would have beensung loudly, in the fervor of a camp meeting, but they would havebeen sung without accompaniment. Paine's 'Death of GeneralWolfe' is only on these broadsides by adoption. It was originallycomposed for singing in theaters and upper-class parlors to akeyboard accompaniment, with perhaps occasionally a flute ob-ligato. 'General Burgoyne's Lamentation' is an enlisted man'scampfire ballad. Probably it was usually sung unaccompanied, btitwe know that such songs were sometimes backed with fife and withdrumsticks on a table (or a log, if no table could be had)."-^ 'TheTwo Lovers of Exeter' and 'Brave Wolfe' certainly should be sungwithout accompaniment and in a free-flowing style that does notemphasize a beat.

Of all these songs, only 'Brave Wolfe' has been sensitively re-corded by a performer who was expert in the unaccompanied style.

Gods of the Greeks' music is reproduced in facsimile under an alternate title, 'The Originof Fnglish Liberty,' in Arthur Schrader, 'Songs to Cultivate the Sensations of Freedom,'in Barbara Lambert, ed., Musicin Colonial Massacbusetts 16^0-1820, 1 vois. (Boston, 19S0),1: ioy.

74. Frank Moore, Diary of tbe American Revolution, 2 vois. (New York, iKi)!; repr. 1S76),1: 254, cites a letter from Capt. Caleb Gibbs, of Washington's Guard, which describes suchsinging and playing: 'After the toasts, little Phil, of tbe Guard, was brought in to singH 's new campaign song, and was joined by all the under officers who seemed muchanimated by the accompanying of Clute's drum sticks and Aaron's fife.'


Frank Warner collected a variant called 'Montcalm and Wolfe' inthe Adirondacks in the [940s, and he sings it on a recording thatis long out of print hut well worth searching for. s

I must regretfully conclude with the information that my favor-ite instrument, the Spanish guitar, is not historically appropriatefor use with these songs and ballads. Although ubiquitous as ac-companiment for what is called 'folk song' in our day, it wasscarcely known in the United States during the War of 181 2. Notuntil the 1H30S would the European craze, 'Guitaromanie,' hringthe Spanish guitar into some modest prominence in the UnitedStates as an occasional alternative to the pianoforte for middle-class parlor songs.''"

75. Frank Warner, 'Songs and Ballads of America's Wars,' Elektra Records (EKL 13),

5476. Frederick Grunfeld, 'L'Accord Parfait en Amour: Incidental Notes to the Graphic

Music of Balzac's Paris,' The Guitar Review (197ÍÍ): ' - i -

Broadside Ballads of Boston, The Isaiah Thomas Collection

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