ML 
 200 
 .8 
 
 I B7 
 [ F53 
 
 *(OTES ON ^MUSIC 
 
 in oud mosro^ 
 
 WILLIAM iARMS FISHER 
 
Ofarnell Utttocraitg Sabrarg 
 
 3ttfaca, 5?etn lark 
 
 BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE 
 
 SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 HENRY W. SAGE 
 
 1891 
 
Cornell University Library 
 ML 200.8.B7F53 
 
 Notes on music in old Boston / 
 
 3 1924 022 271 559 
 
The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924022271559 
 
^CPTES ON tMUSIC 
 IN OLD mOSTO^C 
 
^(OTES ON iMUSIC 
 IN OLD "BOSTON^ 
 
 "BY 
 
 WILLIAM zARMS FISHER 
 
 "BOSTON 
 
 OLIFET^DITSON COMPANY 
 
 1918 
 
Copyright, mcmxviii, by Oliver Ditson Company 
 
lACKNOWLEDqMENT 
 
 /IN the preparation of this book special acknowledgment 
 \2J is due to <^hCr. Walter Kendall Watkins, Secretary of 
 the Society of Colonial Wars, for his invaluable knowledge 
 regarding early 'Boston. The chapters on "Some Early 
 Book and Music Shops" and the "Site of the Hay-Market 
 Theatre' ' are due to his research. 
 
 Thanks are also due to zJxCr. "Julius H. Tuttle of the 
 ^Massachusetts Historical Society, z^ftCr. Charles F. Read 
 of the Tlostonian Society, Mr. Otto Fleischner, Mr. Walter 
 G. Forsyth and zJtfiss Barbara Duncan of the Boston 
 Tublic Library, and zMiss zJWary <Alden Thayer of the 
 Harvard ^Musical ^Association for courtesies extended. 
 
 The author is also indebted to Mr. Joseph M. Jennings 
 of the Old Corner Bookstore, zMr. Edward iM~cGlenen, 
 City Registrar of Boston, <JxCr. J. <iM. Triaulx and 
 Mr. H. J . Haney for illustrations, and to Mrs. George 
 Whitefield Stone for the portrait of her grandfather, G. 
 Graupner, and for information regarding him. 
 
 The author takes pleasure in acknowledging his indebt- 
 edness to the indispensable bibliographies of Mr. O. G. 
 Sonneck on "Early Concert-Life in America' and"Early 
 Secular American Music," and to that of Mr. Frank J . 
 Met calf on "American c Psalmody." 
 
 W. A. F. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 Acknowledgment vii 
 
 List of Illustrations xi 
 
 Boston Common, a prefatory note xiii 
 
 First Seventy Years, The 1 
 
 Eighteenth Century, The 6 
 
 Some Early Book and Music Shops 20 
 
 Nineteenth Century, The 30 
 
 Site of the Hay-Market Theatre 50 
 
 Fifty Years More 70 
 
 Chronology of the Oliver Ditson Company 76 
 
 Ditson Building, The 79 
 
 Index cl 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 'Buildings, "Views and oJkCaps 
 
 Back Bay district in March, 1918, from Ditson Building 94 
 
 Beacon Hill and Boston Common in 1838 from intersection of 
 
 the Providence and Worcester railroads 38 
 
 Beacon Street in March, 1918, from roof of Ditson Building 92 
 
 Bonner's Map of Boston in 1722 Frontispiece 
 
 Boston from Pemberton Hill in 1816, from the painting by Salmon 26 
 Boston Common and Vicinity in 1722, from Bonner's Map 49 
 
 Boston Common in 1804, from the painting by Dobbins xiii 
 
 Boston Common and State House about 1820 30 
 
 Boston Common and State House in 1830, from the water-color 
 
 by George Harvey Title, 29 
 
 Boston Common and Public Garden about 1850, birdseye view 41 
 Colonnade Row, in 1844 67 
 
 Colonnade Row, in 1858 66 
 
 Colonnade Row, in 1860 65 
 
 Common Street (Tremont Street) in 1798, Robertson's view of 61 
 Common Street (Tremont Street) from West Street to Frog 
 
 Lane, in 1800, from pencil drawing by George M. Woodward 50 
 Concert Hall, Hanover Street 16 
 
 Ditson Building, new, interiorviews 81-91 
 
 Ditson Buildings, various 37, 39, 40, 71, 72, 74-79, 96 
 
 Great Organ in Music Hall 45 
 
 Hatch Tavern, from pencil sketch by George M. Woodward 59 
 
 Hay-Market Theatre, from pencil sketch by George M. Woodward 59 
 Head Place and House, from pencil sketch by George M. Woodward 59 
 Hay-Market Theatre in 1798, Robertson's view of 61 
 
 Holden's Organ 13 
 
 House in Louisburg Square in which Jenny Lind was married 44 
 
 King's Chapel about 1865 33 
 
 Knot-Work, Title page of New Alphabet in, by Abiah Holbrook 56 
 New Winthrop House in 1852 67 
 
 Old Corner Bookstore about 1837 37 
 
buildings, Views and ?JMaps 
 
 State House, old, from Cornhill (Washington Street) in 1791 
 State House, old, and State Street in 1801 
 
 State House, new, from roof of Ditson Building in March, 1918 
 Tremont Street from Colonial Building in March, 1918 
 Tremont Street from West Street to Boylston in March, 1918 
 Washington Street, West Side in 1845 (No. 107 to No. 135) 
 
 Page 
 
 19 
 
 20 
 95 
 96 
 93 
 39 
 
 zJxCusic 
 
 Page 
 
 Adams and Liberty, from Boston Musical Miscellany, 1815 62 
 
 Cambridge Short Tune, from Bay Psalm Book, 14th edition, 1709 4 
 
 Hollis Street, from Billings' New England Psalm Singer, \11§ 12 
 
 Medfield Tune, from New England Psalm Singer, 1770 12 
 
 Windsor Tune, from Bay Psalm Book, 9th edition, 1698 4 
 
 Windsor Tune, from Bay Psalm Book, 14th edition, 1709 4 
 
 Windsor Tune, from Walter's Grounds and Rules of Musick, 1721 7 
 
 York Tune, from Bay Psalm Book, 9th edition, 1698 4 
 
 York Tune, from Walter's Grounds and Rules of Musick, 1721 7 
 
 'Portraits 
 
 
 Page 
 
 
 Page 
 
 Briggs, Edward W. 
 
 87 
 
 Healy, P. J. 
 
 70 
 
 Buck, Dudley 
 
 48 
 
 Higginson, Henry Lee 
 
 42 
 
 Carreno, Teresa, at ten 
 
 45 
 
 Holden, Oliver 
 
 13 
 
 Church, John 
 
 70 
 
 Lang, B. J. 
 
 46 
 
 Ditson, Charles H. 
 
 69 
 
 Lind, Jenny 
 
 44 
 
 Ditson, Oliver 
 
 68, 73 
 
 Paine, John K. 
 
 48 
 
 Dwight, John S. 
 
 43 
 
 Rudersdorff, Hermine 
 
 47 
 
 Eichberg, Julius 
 
 46 
 
 Urso, Camilla, at eleven 
 
 45 
 
 Graupner, Gottlieb 
 
 30 
 
 Vane, Sir Henry 
 
 2 
 
 Grisi, Giulia 
 
 44 
 
 Woodman, Clarence A. 
 
 89 
 
 Haynes, John C. 
 
 74 
 
 Zerrahn, Carl 
 
 42 
 
ftOSTO^ COzMtMO^ 
 
 A PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 1 he buildings that face Boston Common look out 
 upon open acres set in the very heart of a city that 
 has grown great about them. 
 
 On or near the Common much of interest in Ameri- 
 can history has occurred, great men have walked there 
 and near its borders great deeds have been done. To 
 erect a new building overlooking it means more, there- 
 fore, than breaking the old sky-line, for it relates the 
 new structure and the daily activities within it to an 
 historic past rich in associations from which they can- 
 not be detached. 
 
The newest of these buildings houses the oldest 
 music publishing concern in the United States. Its 
 windows look west across the Common, over the even 
 ranks of the Back Bay chimney-pots to the Charles 
 River and to Cambridge beyond, with the tower of 
 Harvard's Memorial Hall silhouetted against the re- 
 moter heights of Arlington. 
 
 Beneath its windows near the southeast corner of 
 the Common begins the Long Path that leads to Joy 
 Street, made unforgettable through the charm of the 
 ^Autocrat of the ^Breakfast 'Table; and when Holmes 
 was a youth of fifteen General Lafayette was escorted 
 with pomp along the street below, a throng of school 
 children on the Common welcoming the hero by sing- 
 ing The zJbCarsei/taise, one of the young singers being 
 Wendell Phillips. Now the broad walk along the 
 Tremont Street side of the Common is known as 
 Lafayette Mall. 
 
 It may have been nine years earlier that young 
 Emerson is remembered to have driven the family 
 cow down Beacon Street along the Common to an 
 adjoining pasture, for it was not until 1833 that cows 
 were excluded on complaint of the ladies. The boys 
 always have used and still claim part of the Common 
 as a playground, and the man whose name is cut in the 
 white marble front of this new building played there, 
 too, a hundred years ago. 
 
 A little to the right in our window picture, on the 
 knoll where the tall Soldiers' Monument stands, British 
 
artillery was stationed during the siege of Boston, and 
 in the years preceding, British troops delighted in 
 shocking religious Bostonians by racing horses on the 
 Common on Sunday or causing their bands to play 
 Yankee 'Doodle outside church doors. 
 
 The waters of the Back Bay once lapped the Com- 
 mon's marshy edge, and in the right of our window 
 picture, where Blaxton had his wharf, the British 
 troops, on the night of April 18, 1775, took their 
 boats on the eve of the battle of Lexington, and with 
 muffled oars rowed to the Cambridge shore; and in 
 the little triangular burying ground close by are graves 
 of British soldiers killed at Bunker Hill. Somewhere 
 in the same enclosure is the unmarked grave of the 
 patriot composer, William Billings. 
 
 Over yonder, across the Charles, when the provin- 
 cial troops were quartered in the churches and college 
 buildings of Cambridge, they took down the leaden 
 window-weights and organ pipes of Christ Church to 
 mould them into bullets used at Bunker Hill; and 
 near this same church, on July 3, General Washington 
 took command of the levies assembled there prepara- 
 tory to the siege of Boston. 
 
 Directly across the Common, near the corner of 
 Beacon and Spruce Streets, long ago stood the hut and 
 orchard of the Hermit of Shawmut, the Rev. William 
 Blaxton, the first inhabitant, and it was from him that 
 the Town of Boston, in 1634, bought for ^30 all his 
 rights in the peninsula, reserving forty-four acres as 
 
Commons for the freemen of the town for a "trayn- 
 ing field" and for "the feeding of cattell." 
 
 That the new home of the pioneer music publisher 
 of the country should overlook Boston Common is al- 
 together fitting, for in its vicinity were issued the first 
 book printed in America, the first treatise on singing, 
 the first printed music, the first music instruction book, 
 and the first book wholly of American composition. 
 
 Not far from it the first singing school was held, 
 the first organ erected, the first spinet built, the first 
 public concert advertised, the pioneer orchestra organ- 
 ized, the first complete performance of an oratorio 
 given, and at the northeastern corner of the Common, 
 in Park Street Church, zJVCy Country, 'tis of thee was for 
 the first time sung. 
 
 As inheritors of so significant a past, it would there- 
 fore be only right to acknowledge the debt by briefly 
 noting some of the facts in the musical life of Boston, 
 that link the olden days to the present. 
 
 /j^/sC^-- ^<^-»<*t-* L/^mZL^ 
 
 Boston, February 22, 1918 
 
THE FI%ST SEVENTY YEA^S 
 
 When John Winthrop's company of Puritans found 
 shelter in Boston harbor in June, 1630, they located 
 on the mainland in Charlestown. The promontory of 
 Shawmut was then occupied alone by a bookish re- 
 cluse, the Rev. William Blaxton, "retaining no fim- 
 bole of his former profeflion but a Canonical Coate." 
 He had built him a hut and planted an orchard on 
 the southern slope of the Trimountaine. Almost on 
 its site stands today at No. 48 Beacon Street a tall 
 and solitary bachelor's apartment house. 
 
 In friendliness, well knowing that his cherished 
 solitude was over, Blaxton visited the newcomers 
 and invited them to establish themselves on the pen- 
 insula where there were goodly springs of water, the 
 situation moreover being much better adapted for de- 
 fence. The colonists accepted the invitation and on 
 September 17, 1630, it was ordered "that Trimoun- 
 taine shalbe called Bofton." 
 
 One of the first houses built was that of Mr. Isaac 
 Johnson, a man of wealth and honorable lineage. This 
 house was partly or entirely on the site of the build- 
 ing long occupied by the Old Corner Bookstore. 
 Across the way were located the notables of the town: 
 the governor, the elder of the church, the captain of 
 the Artillery Company, and near by were the meet- 
 
ing-house, market and town-house, school-house, and 
 the ever-flowing spring of pure water. 
 
 Four years after the settlement of Boston, William 
 Hutchinson and his wife, Anne, arrived and came into 
 possession of the Johnson estate. Anne Hutchinson's 
 charitableness, superior mind, and force of character 
 quickly gave her influence and drew to her many of 
 the women and such prominent men as 
 the Rev. John Cotton, her former pastor 
 in England, and the young Governor, the 
 brilliant Henry Vane, son of a privy coun- 
 cilor and high in the confidence of King 
 Charles. Her independence of thought 
 with her protests against the Puritanic 
 legalism of the day divided the colony 
 and brought about her banishment in 
 1638 "as being a woman not fit for our 
 fociety." Cotton recanted, and Vane, defeated by Win- 
 throp for the governorship at the election of 1637, 
 returned to England in disgust. Today he is called to 
 mind by MacMonnies' spirited statue which stands in 
 the vestibule of the Boston Public Library. 
 
 In those days politics and theology were inseparable 
 and to criticise official orthodoxy was dangerous. It 
 was discontent with this autocracy that in 1638 led a 
 large part of the population of New Towne (Cam- 
 bridge), together with others from Dorchester and 
 Watertown, to emigrate to Connecticut; and the first 
 president of Harvard College, the Rev. Henry Dun- 
 
ster, was removed from office by this same autocracy 
 for questioning infant baptism. 
 
 It was the bequest of the Rev. John Harvard that 
 had changed an as yet unorganized school in 1638 into 
 Harvard College, and the name of New Towne to 
 Cambridge. In this town, now the home of the River- 
 side Press, the University Press, and the Athensum 
 Press, the first book issued in the colonies, with the 
 exception of an almanac, was printed in 1 640. This 
 was the metrical version of the Psalms known as The 
 TSay Pfalm Book. It contained no music, however. The 
 five or six tunes then in use, when noted at all, were 
 written in the back of the psalm books. Many con- 
 gregations had but three or four tunes they could sing 
 passably, for singing by rote was the custom, the 
 Psalms being "lined out" by the deacon. A desire to 
 better this condition was evidently felt by the Rev. 
 John Cotton, who published in 1647 n * s tract > Sing- 
 ing of Pfalms a Gofpel ordinance, touching the duty it- 
 self, the matter to be sung, the singers, and the man- 
 ner of singing. 
 
 If, as has been stated, music was printed about 1 690 
 to be appended to the psalm books, no specimens have 
 survived; and it was not until 1698 that the ninth edition 
 of The Bay Pfalm Book, printed in Boston, contained 
 thirteen tunes in two-part harmony. This crudely 
 printed book, without bars except at the end of each 
 line, is the oldest existing music of American imprint. 
 The notes were cut on wood, which will explain in 
 
 3 
 
part the appearance of the page reproduced here at 
 the left. A page from the fourteenth edition, issued 
 in 1709, is given at the right. The later edition con- 
 tains the melodies of twelve tunes. The notation of 
 both York Tune and Windfor Tune may be compared 
 with that given by Thomas Walter in the next chapter. 
 
 Kd- 71. JK Tmn. 
 
 UffffU *fu 
 
 I •■ 
 
 ■pr»l. n< "Wind/or Tune» 
 
 I love ; l*eaufe JthovLh doih 
 
 lliilliiiiii 
 
 my voice and prayer iatar. 
 35= 
 
 
 *fftffl» fffi,»f 
 
 And in my days will-call, becauft 
 
 he LowVl to me his car. 
 rr»l. 70 Cambridge Shoo Tuaf. 
 
 O Cod to refcue - jnt . 
 
 11 I f 1 »» 6 C 1 s f If 
 
 **n f e*ll 1 1 $\,IK 
 
 Lord to mine helpmakeiafle. 
 ^hofeek mjrfo'ul alfliaro'd letT>e 
 ami let tbera lie abaftf d- 
 
 As an evidence of progress it should be noted that 
 Brattle Square Church on December 20, 1699, "Voted 
 unanimoufly that ye pfalms in our public Worihip be 
 fung without Reading line by line." 
 
 About the only evidence that merry-hearted singing 
 
 4 
 
and dancing were known in this early period is due to 
 the fact that as a seaport Boston had many transient 
 visitors, especially seamen, who indulged in such pleas- 
 ure when ashore. Their conduct, made noisy no doubt 
 by "much wafte of Wine and Beer," resulted, as early 
 as 1646, in a law forbidding dancing in ordinaries and 
 inns under penalty of five shillings for each offence. 
 
 In those days the very name "musician" was one 
 of reproach, but stern as were the events and condi- 
 tions of the period surely some mother-hearts crooned 
 lullabies as they rocked the cradle, or over their house- 
 work hummed in soft undertone some unforgotten 
 folksong. 
 
 The Colonial literature of the last half of the seven- 
 teenth century, mostly an arid waste of forbidding the- 
 ology, reflects the sombreness of the period. At the 
 same time the growing material prosperity, coupled 
 with echoes from the reaction against Puritanism the 
 Restoration had brought in, the establishment of the 
 Church of England in Boston, the presence of an aris- 
 tocratic official British class, and other influences, had 
 a mellowing effect and bigotry gradually weakened. 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 Ini 700 Boston had become a thrifty town of grow- 
 ing prosperity, with a population of perhaps 7,000. 
 Two years before the first music of American imprint 
 had appeared and with the advent of printed music the 
 "new way" of singing by note came in. 
 
 The first book issued to meet this new want was en- 
 titled : "zA very plain and eafy Introduction to the <^4rt of 
 Singing Pfalm Tunes: With the Cantus, or Trebles, of 
 Twenty-eight Pfalm Tunes contrived in such a man- 
 ner as that the Learner may attain the Skill of Sing- 
 ing them with the greateft eafe and Speed imaginable. 
 By Rev. Mr. John Tufts. Price, 6d. or fs. the doz." 
 
 This little book of a few pages, the first American 
 book of sacred music published, was issued in Boston 
 in 1 714 or 171 5, and was so successful, in spite of its 
 substitution of letters for notes, as to reach its eleventh 
 edition in 1744. 
 
 The innovation of note singing raised a great tem- 
 pest among the older people, who regarded it as a plan 
 to shut them out from one of the ordinances of wor- 
 ship. It was bitterly objected to as "Quakerifh and 
 Popifh, and introductive of infbrumental mufick; the 
 names given to the notes are blafphemous; it is a need- 
 lefs way fince their good Fathers are gone to heaven 
 without it; its admirers are a company of young up- 
 
 6 
 
ftarts; they fpend too much time about learning, and 
 tarry out a-nights diforderly," with many other equally 
 strenuous and weighty reasons. 
 
 One of the valiant defenders of the "new way" was 
 the Rev. Thomas Walter of Roxbury, who brought out 
 in 1 72 1, The (grounds and T^ules of Mujick explained, 
 or an introduction to the art of finging by note. This, 
 the first practical American instruction book, and said 
 to be the first music printed with bar-lines in America, 
 was from the press of J. Franklin, at a time when his 
 younger brother Benjamin, then a lad of fifteen, was 
 learning the printer's trade as his apprentice. 
 
 ^ ^fiyiuiJivTtrYfMiyTfi^AAui^AiUkl 
 
 ' y Gutbu. 
 
 <3-m^rr 
 
 < £/u/n&. 
 
 y^lliittl' ll tf-[fn"i i H|iiiti i 'l i "itij|N li > 
 
 ''flimtiiH i m i tuuiiJTitH i .if'p 
 
 Canbu. 
 
 York Tune. 
 
 p pl H i m i . j m \ ii 1 i f i t t^ ^ J4 U i ^ 
 
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^g 
 
 ^^^ai^^^^^ M 
 
 Page, reduced, from Walter's "Grounds and Rules of Musick" 
 
 The gradual victory of the advocates of the "new 
 way" led to the establishment of singing schools, and 
 as early as 171 7 one is said to have existed in Boston. 
 Judge Sewall records in his diary, under the date 
 
 7 
 
March 1 6, 1 721: "At night Dr. Mather preached in 
 the School-House to the young Musicians, from Rev. 
 14.3. 'No man could learn that Song.' — House was 
 full, and the Singing extraordinarily Excellent, such 
 as has hardly been heard before in Boston. Sung four 
 times out of Tate and Brady." 
 
 The Rev. Cotton Mather, Sewall's uncle, wrote in 
 his own diary of the same date: "In the Evening I 
 preached unto a large Auditory, where a Society of 
 persons learning to Sing, began a quarterly solemnity." 
 It is interesting to remember that when a few ven- 
 turesome Bostonians, at the risk of learning ungodly 
 songs, first met to sing in a class together, the mighty 
 Handel, under the patronage of George the First, was 
 dominating London's musical life, and the modest 
 Bach was living the quiet life of kapellmeister to an 
 obscure German prince. 
 
 The music, or rather, the psalm singing (for there 
 was little else) was of course without the aid of instru- 
 ments. When in 171 3 Thomas Brattle, Esq., of Boston, 
 willed the Brattle Square Church an organ, they de- 
 clined it. He had provided, however, that in this event 
 it was to be given to Queen's Chapel (known since the 
 reign of Queen Anne as King's Chapel), but so great 
 was the prejudice that the organ remained seven months 
 in the porch of the church before it was unpacked. 
 This instrument, set up in 1 7 1 4, was the first pipe organ 
 used in a church in the Colonies, and it was bitterly 
 denounced by Dr. Cotton Mather and other dignitaries 
 
of the day. In 1733 the second organ in New England 
 was set up in Trinity Church, Newport. In 1 790 the 
 Brattle Square Church, having taken seventy-seven 
 years to change its mind, ordered an organ built in Lon- 
 don, but even then one of its leading members offered to 
 reimburse the church for its outlay and to give a sum to 
 the poor of Boston if they would allow him to have the 
 unhallowed instrument thrown into the harbor. As 
 late as 1 8 1 4 there was no organ in Park Street Church, 
 Boston, the singing being supported by a flute, bassoon 
 and 'cello. Thomas Ryan of the Mendelssohn Quin- 
 tette Club, who came to Boston in 1845, played the 
 clarinet for two years in Father Streeter's Church in 
 Hanover Street, the other instruments being a double- 
 bass and ophicleide. There was then, he records, no 
 organ in this and several other Boston churches. 
 
 A growing interest in instrumental music is indi- 
 cated by the advertisement of Mr. Edward Enstone, 
 who came from England in 1 714 to be the organist of 
 King's Chapel, the second to occupy this position. The 
 Lofton News-Letter of April 16-23, 171 6, states: "This 
 is to give notice that there is lately fent over from 
 London a choice Collection of Muiickal Inftruments, 
 confifting of Flageolets, Flutes, Haut-Boys, Bafs- Viols, 
 Violins, Bows, Strings, Reads for Haut-Boys, Books of 
 Inftructions for all thefe Inftruments, Books of ruled 
 Paper. To be Sold at the Dancing School of Mr. En- 
 ftone in Sudbury Street near the Orange Tree, Bofton." 
 
 "Note. Any perfon may have all Inftruments of 
 
 9 
 
Mufick mended, or Virgenalls and Spinnets Strung and 
 Tuned at a reafonable Rate, and likewife may be taught 
 to Play on any of thefe Instruments above mentiori'd; 
 dancing taught by a true and eafier method than has 
 been heretofore." 
 
 In 1764 Josiah Flagg of Boston, published A (Collec- 
 tion of the bejl Pfalm Tunes, in two, three and four-parts, 
 the largest collection up to this time printed in New 
 England. This volume of about eighty small oblong 
 pages is notable in that for the first time light music 
 was intermingled with Psalm tunes, and because the 
 music was engraved with skill by the noted silversmith, 
 Paul Revere- — and further, that it was printed on paper 
 made in the colonies, which fact Mr. Flagg hopes 
 "will not diminifh the value of the work in the eftima- 
 tion of any, but may in fome degree, recommend it, 
 even to thofe who have no peculiar relifh for the mulic." 
 
 This Josiah Flagg was a man of energy and enthusi- 
 asm, and for some time the most important local musi- 
 cian. He gave concerts of quality, and as early as 1 77 1 
 the name of Handel appears on his programs. 
 
 In 1769 the Bojlon Qazette stated: "That a few days 
 fince was fhipped for From LONDON, 
 
 Newport a very curious JOHN HA R IV I S, 
 
 r, 1 1 t* r \\J HO* arrived In Capt. Calef, beg? le'avo 10 inform. 
 
 OOinnet, being the nrit W ibe public, ibai he MAKES and SELLS all fort* of 
 
 r , . . • HXRPSICHORDS and SPINNETS. 
 
 ever made in America, L'^vitomends, repairs. ne»"jrrings,asd tunes the raid la-. 
 
 ftrumenu , In tbe beft and neateft manner. . 
 i-V.0. norfnrmon/'s nf *U*± • Any G ""l«Kn and ladies ihatTvill hononrjlim wilhtbeir 
 I11C pcriUrilldllCC OI IJlC tnflom. Bull be punctually waited upon. He lives U 
 
 ... T . M'- Gavin Browa'jWuiA-nydterNOrih-fide of KIN V. 
 
 ingenious Mr. John street. 
 
 Harris of Bofton." Judging from his advertisement 
 
 10 
 
in the 'Bojion Chronicle of November 14, 1768, Mr. 
 Harris was a newcomer. 
 
 As some of the members of the Puritan congrega- 
 tion became more proficient in singing, they naturally 
 drew together and later were assigned special seats. In 
 this way choirs gradually came into existence before 
 the sterner opposing faction realized the transition. 
 Vocal collections increased in number and by the end 
 of the eighteenth century nearly eighty had appeared 
 in New England alone. 
 
 But little of the music in these collections was origi- 
 nal, though native composers began to appear. The 
 first man of note was the eccentric, one-eyed, snufF- 
 taking tanner's apprentice, William Billings. He was 
 born in Boston, October 7, 1746, four years after 
 Handel produced The <3tCessiah in Dublin, and ten 
 years before Mozart saw the light in Salzburg. Bil- 
 lings' first book, The J\(ew England T^falm Singer, ap- 
 peared in the year of Beethoven's birth, 1 770. Thus, 
 one hundred and forty years after the founding of 
 Boston, the first book of native music was issued, and 
 with it the publishing of American composition may 
 be said to begin. *It contained one hundred and eight 
 pages and presented one hundred and twenty tunes, and 
 several anthems, as well as twenty-two pages of ele- 
 mentary instruction, and an essay on the nature and 
 properties of musical sound. In 1 778 Billings published 
 
 *James Lyon's Collection of Psalm- 1761 or 1762. It was based on Eng- 
 tunes, anthems, and hymns entitled lish sources but of its forty tunes six 
 Urania appeared in Philadelphia in were by Lyon himself. 
 
 I I 
 
a revision and abridgment of his first book entitled The 
 Singing Majier's AJjistant, which soon became known as 
 "Billings Best." In his naive preface to the new book, 
 Billings characterizes his first book as "this infant pro- 
 duction of my own Numb-Skull," and further on says, 
 "I have difcovered that many of the pieces in that Book 
 were never worth my printing, or your infpection." 
 
 <?4 
 
 HOLLIS Strtrt. WbrdshiytheRev'dDTByks: 
 
 PM. 
 
 (Unite in thr Praifeof Wus out-King, J ( V tunrful hofennas eteiTulyfii 
 
 ,|Q P|a,. | ,,| | ,int'Pl.?nl'HfiPe 
 
 M£DFIELD. Words by thr late S«%b»les. M D. LM. 
 
 I Whala kind god has doneformf, l (l.M lovcthefpringfrom whencettie> 
 
 When lt«y various bleffings fcs ) ( myheartwithgratijudeftiouldglow,) 
 
 Page from Billings' "New England Psalm Singer" 
 
 Billings' music with all its uncouthness was, in com- 
 parison with the prevailing style, melodic, cheerful 
 and rhythmic. In 1779 he issued <JXCuJic in zJtCiniature , 
 and two years later, The T'f aim-Singer s ^Amufement, 
 which also became popular. His sixth and last book, 
 The Continental Harmony, was published in 1794. He 
 died in Boston, September 26, 1800. Billings is said to 
 
have been the first to introduce the violoncello in New 
 England churches, as well as the first to use a pitch- 
 pipe to "set the tune." The singing class of forty-eight 
 residents of Stoughton, Massachusetts, he taught in 
 1774, was formally organized November 7, 1786, 
 shortly after the Revolution, as the Stoughton Musi- 
 cal Society, and still exists. 
 
 The fuguing style of Billings' music and its crudities 
 may now provoke a smile, but after a century and a 
 half of the dull and monotonous drawling of a few 
 threadbare psalm tunes the spirited style which Bil- 
 lings introduced must have delighted the young people 
 of his day. He gave to local music a new meaning, a 
 fresh impulse, a greater freedom. 
 
 Another notable fig- 
 ure in the musical life 
 of this period was Oliver 
 Holden, born in Shirley, 
 Massachusetts, in 1765. 
 He settled in Charles- 
 town, Massachusetts, in 
 1788, as a carpenter and 
 joiner and then dropped 
 his tools to become a 
 music teacher. He is 
 remembered to this day 
 by his stirring hymn 
 tune, Qoronation, which 
 appeared in The zAmeri- 
 
 13 
 
 Holden" s Organ and Portrait 
 
can Harmony, published by Holden, in 1 792. He pros- 
 pered and his fine house in Pearl Street, Charlestown, 
 where he wrote Coronation, is still standing. The little 
 pipe organ he used is now in the custody of the Bos- 
 tonian Society in the old State House. In 1 797 Holden 
 published The Worcester Collection of Sacred Harmony, 
 which had a wide and long continued influence. It was 
 printed from movable types by Isaiah Thomas of Wor- 
 cester, who advertised in the Boston Independent Chron- 
 icle of January 26, 1785, that he "has received from 
 England a beautiful fet of mufic types whereby he is 
 enabled to print any kind of Church or other mufic 
 in a neat and elegant manner, cheaper than heretofore 
 done from copper and pewter plates. Specimens to be 
 seen at Battelle's Bofton Book Store, State Street." 
 (See page 22.) 
 
 In the latter half of the eighteenth century, because 
 of the victory of choirs and singing schools over "the 
 old way," books of music appeared in profusion. The 
 secular spirit is most manifest in The Columbian Song- 
 Jler and Free zJfCafon s Tocket Companion, published by 
 E. Larkin, No. 47 Cornhill, Boston, in 1798. "A col- 
 lection of the neweft and moft celebrated Sentimental, 
 Convivial, Humorous, Satirical, Paftoral, Hunting, Sea 
 and Mafonic longs, being the largeft and beft collec- 
 tion ever published in America." 
 
 While psalmody was predominant in the early mu- 
 sical life of Boston it must not be thought that music 
 
for recreation and entertainment had no place, for the 
 first half of the eighteenth century brought to Boston 
 men of rank in the British Navy and Army who were 
 accustomed to the life of English and Continental 
 society. Moreover the various military expeditions to 
 Canada against the French gave New England a taste 
 of the roving life of the soldier and sailor. These con- 
 ditions, together with increasing prosperity, naturally 
 gave rise to a demand for public entertainment. 
 
 The first advertisement of a public concert in Amer- 
 ica thus far discovered, appeared in the weekly Lofton 
 News-Letter of December 16-23, 1 73 I: "There will be 
 performed a Qoncert of<JxCuJic on fundry Inftruments at 
 Mr. Pelham's great Room, being the Houfe of the late 
 Doctor Noyes near the Sun Tavern." The next concerts 
 of record are those of November 23 and December 28, 
 1732, advertised in the ^ew England Weekly 'Journal 
 of November 13 and December 15, as "Conforts of 
 Mufick performed on fundry inftruments at the Con- 
 cert Room in Wing's Lane near the Town Dock." 
 This was a room in the George Tavern on what is 
 now Elm Street. The generosity of Peter Faneuil in 
 giving the town Faneuil Hall, finished in 1742, fur- 
 nished a room in 1 744 for a vocal and instrumental 
 concert. Ten years later, Gilbert Deblois, organist of 
 King's Chapel, and his brother built a brick building 
 on the east corner of Hanover and Court Streets. 
 Their shop, the sign of the Qrown and £omb, was on the 
 ground floor. Above was a hall fitted in a handsome 
 
 J 5 
 
manner for concerts. 
 This was known as 
 "Concert Hall" and 
 for nearly a century was 
 the resort of Bostonians 
 on pleasure bent. It was 
 torn down in 1869 
 when Hanover Street 
 was widened. The Lof- 
 ton Qhronicle, in No- 
 vember, 1768, adver- 
 tises concerts at the 
 Concert Hall "Murk-Hall in Brattle 
 
 Street, oppofite Dr. Cooper's Meeting-Houfe." 
 
 Concerts at this period were advertised to begin at 
 six o'clock, and the tickets were usually half a dollar 
 or "two shillings — lawful money." At a concert of 
 sacred music performed at the Stone Chapel (King's 
 Chapel), December 11, 1789, under the direction of 
 Mr. William Selby, the chapel's organist, the choruses 
 were by "The Independent Musical Society, the in- 
 strumental parts by a Society of Gentlemen, with the 
 band of His Most Christian Majesty's Fleet." This 
 William Selby, harpsichordist, organist, composer, 
 music teacher, active concert manager, and during 
 the stringency of the Revolution a grocer, was one 
 of the chief figures in Boston's musical life between 
 1772 and his death in December, 1798. 
 
 Most of the early concerts seem to have been for 
 
 16 
 
the benefit of the poor of the town and were given 
 by permission of the Selectmen. The name of Handel 
 began to appear in 1770 and occurs not infrequently 
 as "the late celebrated Mr. Handel." The French 
 Revolution drove a number of musicians to the colo- 
 nies, and after 1793 programs in Boston were in con- 
 sequence lighter in character. 
 
 Although music in the churches had advanced 
 greatly during the century a sidelight is thrown upon 
 it by a writer in the ^American Apollo of April 20, 1 792. 
 In "Lines written, rather out of temper, on a Pannel 
 in one of the Pews of S — m Church," he says: 
 
 "Could poor King David but for once 
 To S — m Church repair, 
 And hear his Pialms thus warbled out, 
 Good Lord, how he would fwear!" 
 
 During the last quarter of the century music teach- 
 ers began to appear and instrumental music to find a 
 place in the home. A French visitor, Brissot de War- 
 ville, writing in 1788 regarding Bostonians says: 
 
 "Music, which their Tlie New and FAvot/RiTS 
 
 teachers formerly pro- LH3ERT I SONG, 
 
 srribeH as fl Hiahnlical I* FREEDOM we're**™, ire. 
 
 scrioea as a aiaDoncai Neatly eilgTavecl „ corrtR-rLATe, the 
 
 art, begins to make part flzeo1 halfd " ieet °f r»pe«-. 
 
 ' . , . r T Set to MUSIC for the VOICE, 
 
 of their education. In Aud to W hieh is «ub added, 
 
 some houses you hear ASmSSTit^^^i'J"' 
 . GERMAN FLUTEand VIOLIN,, 
 
 the forte-piano. This |.,j u ft pubWlied and to be SOLD at the 
 art, it is true, is Still in LON.DON Bo U k.flo,c, Ktog.ftrea, Bojlon,. 
 
 Price Sixpence La vf'ul Tingle, and. 1 
 its infancy." Four'sujl linos Lawful, the dozen. 
 
 17 
 
That as early as 1 768 the publication of sheet-music 
 had begun in Boston is shown by the advertisement re- 
 produced on the preceding page from the ISoflon Chron- 
 icle of October 1 7. 
 
 The publication of secular music prior to the Revo- 
 lution was very slight, the years of war put a stop to 
 even this, and the period of readjustment and struggle 
 for National Government that followed was equally 
 unfavorable. The opening of the first Congress in 1 789 
 marked the turning point, the old order faded out and 
 in this very year secular music publishing took a start 
 in Boston and Philadelphia, while New York became 
 active in 1793. 
 
 Much of the secular music issued was patriotic, or 
 echoed passing events, the bulk of it being altogether 
 ephemeral. Naturally much English music was re- 
 printed, chiefly the songs of Hook, Dibdin, Shield, 
 and Storace. Reprints of the music of Haydn, Gluck, 
 Pleyel, Mozart, and Handel were few in number al- 
 though their names appear with increasing frequency 
 on concert programs. 
 
 While Boston was behind Philadelphia and New 
 York in the publication of secular music, in the out- 
 put of sacred music it greatly exceeded the rest of the 
 country, while the neighboring towns of Dedham, 
 Newburyport, Salem, Northampton, and Worcester 
 added their quota. 
 
 It was not until the close of the century that mu- 
 sic-shops, under the name of "magazines" or "empo- 
 
riums," began to appear. One of the first was opened 
 late in 1797 or early in 1798 by T'.^A. Von Hagen, 
 sen. & jun., at 55 Marlboro Street, and then at 3 Corn- 
 hill (Washington Street), where in 1799 they began 
 to publish music. The constant removals of the early 
 music and book-shops and the frequency with which 
 they changed hands suggest a somewhat precarious 
 existence for the pioneers. 
 
 19 
 
SOME EARLY "BOOK AND 
 tMUSIC SHOTS 
 
 1 n the early days there was neither the population nor 
 the publication to sustain music-shops. Books of psalm- 
 ody and the few instruction books were as a rule issued 
 to subscribers and distributed by the author or compiler 
 himself, by his printer, or through book-sellers. The 
 latter were the chief purveyors of music and music- 
 books and continued to be so until the close of the 
 eighteenth century. In fact, this combination of book- 
 selling and music-selling carried well over into the 
 first third of the nineteenth century, when it was fre- 
 
 State Street in 1801 
 
quently mixed with the sale of umbrellas and parasols, 
 together with even more mundane articles. 
 
 The sale of music was not even confined to book- 
 stores, for the Hojlon gazette of January i 2, 1 767, ad- 
 vertises that "Tanfurs Royal zMelody Compleat, the laft 
 and belt Edition, may be had at John Perkins's Shop 
 in Union Street. N. B. At the fame Place may be had 
 a large affortment of Paper Hangings for Rooms." 
 
 A prominent mid-century book-shop was the J^ottdon 
 'Book-Store, located on the north side of King Street 
 (now State Street), across from the old State House. In 
 1762 it was kept by James Rivington, afterwards a 
 New York publisher, and then by Rivington and Mil- 
 ler. In 1765 it was kept by John Mein, who had been 
 a book-seller in Edinburgh. His circulating library 
 consisted of above 1 200 volumes "in most branches of 
 polite literature, arts A ., ,, 
 
 r , . >> tu April Magazines, 
 
 and sciences. 1 ne „ |, wfuUi>ch . JD « ,„;»«) .0 .he lyoi», cpt»; 
 character of his music _ ' c0T - "><*>»L<> f . 
 
 stock is shown by the J 01111 JVlCIflL 
 
 advertisement (part of a At the London Book Store> King . 
 
 full column ad.) repro- ""*!• Bollon « • 
 
 j j r u <td a Williams's Unlverfal Pfalmodift, a new 
 
 duced irom the Bojton satm c^/uiij c <»r.-aej w impmcd. ■am «» 
 
 _, r T 1 Addition tf near 40 new Tunei end Anthems tint 
 
 Gazette 01 July 17? bavc m " ™«'* «»'««"/«' 4»/™&irf«.«a»»!g tit ««• 
 1 766. Knapp s new Set of Pfalms and An- 
 
 T / »» . thcmi, viitb a Ptfioral Hjmn fa lie famout Mr. 
 
 In 1769 Mein was Adda™ - 
 
 ll j c u- 4.4. Arnold's Complete Pfalmodifh or 
 
 mobbed lor his utter- f[iim fing „., Comf l Dioo . ' 
 
 ances in favor of the Church Mufic reformed 
 
 Leiceiterlhire Harmony 
 
 British Government in Green's Body of Pfalmody 
 
 21 
 
his paper the Ttojion Qhronicle, and his failure two years 
 later gave young Henry Knox his opportunity, for he 
 opened a new J^ondon 'Book-Store on Cornhill (Wash- 
 ington Street), where the office of the Boston Qlobe now 
 stands. Knox was popular, and his shop became a great 
 resort for British officers and Tory ladies. When the 
 loyal Knox left town at the outbreak of the Revolution 
 in April, 1775, to attain renown as a General and later 
 as Secretary of War, his store was robbed, pillaged of 
 its stock by the Royalists and his business as a book- 
 seller ended. 
 
 During the war, business was dislocated, foreign im- 
 portation of books and music was suspended and book- 
 selling was reduced to the small output of a few printers 
 M U & 1 C K. of American books. 
 
 Lately received, and S O L, D at . r . 
 
 E. BATTELLE's Book-Store,. After the war, in 
 
 A 
 
 viltfKKa&ta, of '783, Colonel Eben- 
 
 __ MUSiCKeooKs.eonfiftidgoi Airs> ezer Battelle, a native 
 
 Songs, Country-Dances, Minuets andMarcbes. 
 
 —Symphonies, Quartellos* Concertos, Sc- of Dedham, opened at 
 
 nata»j Divettiiementos, Duettos, Solos, Trios, - T _, _ , 
 
 Oratorios, &c, for the Organ, Harpfichord, JNo. 5 State Street (no 
 
 Clarinett, Freneh-Hotn, Hautboy, Flute, , ir ■ a \ L 
 
 Violin, Violinceilo, Harp, Piano-Foite,. longer King Street) the 
 
 Voice. &e - p s A L M D Y< Bofton Book-Store. His 
 
 Eft*? £££- ' music stock is indicated 
 
 ZZ'-lRuK^laS^hTuaesand in the advertisement 
 
 Cbauots annexed. reproduced here from 
 
 s Selt« tunes. r 
 
 Nv B. Books and Stationary as ufual, the z3XCa][achujetts (Sen- 
 tinel of November 6, 1784. 
 
 Colonel Battelle was a graduate of Harvard, served 
 
 during the Revolution in the Massachusetts Militia, 
 
 22 
 
was made Captain in 1 778, Major in 1 780 and Colonel 
 of the Boston Regiment in 1784. His military pro- 
 clivities interfered with his book business, which did 
 not prove profitable, especially under the depreciation 
 of Continental currency, for $4,000 in bills of credit 
 were worth but $100 in silver. On February 1, 1785, 
 Battelle moved to 10 Marlboro Street, but sold out his 
 music and circulating library at 8 State Street to Ben- 
 jamin Guild. In 1788, as a pioneer member of the 
 Ohio Company, he settled at Marietta, and died in 
 Newport, Ohio, in 1 8 1 5. 
 
 In the Independent Chronicle of Decembefr 1, 1785, 
 Guild advertises his lat- 
 est importations. 
 
 The following year 
 Guild moved his book- 
 store to 59 Cornhill, 
 "Firft door South of 
 the Old-Brick Meet- 
 ing-Houfe," according 
 to his advertisements in 
 October, 1786. 
 
 After Guild's death, 
 in 1792, his adminis- 
 trator, William Pinson 
 Blake, continued the 
 business at 59 Cornhill, 
 being succeeded in 
 1796 by William Pelham, at the same location where 
 
 23 
 
 Imported, in the laft veffel from London. 
 
 1 AND WOW SEJ.LINO, b r 
 
 Benjamin Guild, 
 
 At the BOSTON BOOK-STORE, 
 
 No. 8, State-Street, 
 
 GUTHRIE's&Tom Jones, 
 Geographical Cram- 1 Gill BIaf\ 
 mar, pubKlhcd laft May, | Churchill's Poem* f 
 >v»th large additions ajid^V.Goldfnutb's Ella**, 
 improvements, » $Wtft*« Polite Cunrarfa- 
 
 ;egih;t Eattads, new edi- ? ti*»n, 
 non, "t Thomfoo's Seafodf. 
 
 Buchan't Family Phyfia 311 . t &>"'* FalLa, 
 
 new edition, | Hudibrtfc, 
 
 Pulp* and fatuity folio Bi- AShenftooe's Poetical Workt 
 
 bi«, vrrtS tides and cats.S "Moore') FalLs, 
 Peregrine Pickle, | Roderick Random, 
 
 Triftrwn Shandy, * JoLph Andrew s, 
 
 Stotimental Journey,- *% ttaradife Loft. 
 
 AIJ01 may bt had, (btfutts a general aftrtment cf 
 looks) 
 
 ThcMaffichufcttsRegiftcrjTIioinas's, 
 
 Bickdrftaff'*, George's, Low's and WcatlirrwiTe's Al* 
 manacka, for 1786 ; a large and rl(*«-arit alTortmcnt of 
 Account and other Blank-books; Alphabets; Vifuing 
 Cards; Ink and Int-PowcVr ; Jnk-Siands ; Pencils; 
 counting-houfe and other Penknives ; Mates ; cafes of 
 Snrvcyis* Inftnimcnts ; iYory Folders ; £py-Giaflr» i 
 Money-tJcJes ; poAct-Eooks , Maps; Cl.»i:v; and a 
 great variety of Oilier articles. 
 
 £5* A few patent LAMPS. 
 
his relative, William Price, previously lived and had a 
 book-store. 
 
 William Pelham, born in Williamsburg, Virginia, 
 in 1759, was a grandson of the Peter Pelham who 
 married Mary Copley, mother of the painter, John 
 Singleton Copley. The building at 59 Cornhill (now 
 219 Washington Street), the original site of Thomp- 
 son's Spa of today, had been purchased in 1736 by 
 William Price, who published in 1743 his View of 
 Lofton. Price also dealt in music, for in 1 769 he ad- 
 vertises on his map of Boston, "Flutes, Hautboys & 
 Violins, Strings, Mufical Books, Songs, &c." 
 
 In the Independent Qhronicle of October 22, 1804, 
 Pelham makes the following announcement: 
 
 William Blagrove ^ W. PELHAM, 
 
 Tn ESPECTFULLY apprifes his friends and cuftomers 
 
 was a son of Pelham's * "« M c S , i ^ ff LIBRjar , 
 
 • n L TJ 11, from No.ro, Cornhill, to No. 5, School-Street. 
 
 SISter, Oaran relnam. W. P. having placed this branch of hisbulinefsen- 
 
 tircly onder the direction of Mr. WILLIAM BLAG- 
 In IoOO he WaS at 6l ROVE, folkits a continuance of thof« favors he has 
 
 been amiftomtd to receive during eight years part, the 
 
 Cnrn Villi onrl f-Vi** npvr greater part of which rime he has been conflantly aflilled 
 Urillllll, dllU II1C 11CAI by Mr. Blagrove. whofe habitual attention to the wilbes 
 n V j ^ of his Cuftomers preclude* the neccflhy of recommenda- 
 
 year at 3 OCnOOl Otreet. tiou. Since the publication of his laft Catalogue, many 
 
 new and valuable books have been added to the Collec- 
 O j} Y) e C e m b e r IO tioo. 1 A new Catalogue containing all the late addi*. 
 
 7 ' lioos, is in forwardncs, and will {hortly be pubfi/hed. 
 ,fi Tn K P orlvprtisps in |J3- BOOKS and STATIONARY for Sale, a» 
 
 ioio, ne aavernses in a sufuai,atNo.«9,co*MBiiu oa.»*. 
 
 the Columbian fyntinel the sale of Loo counters, playing 
 cards, chess men, 50 gallons of black sand, and books, 
 including 500 flairs Cjrave in sheets, and 200 Qurfew, 
 a play in sheets. The music advertised was "A lot of 
 music, consisting of Songs, Marches, Sonatas, etc. (a 
 Catalogue of which may be seen), amounting to $400 
 or upwards, will be sold in sums of 10 dollars at 25 per 
 
 24 
 
cent discount, in sums of 50 to 100 dollars at 33 per 
 
 cent discount from the retail price." 
 
 On April 27, 181 1, this notice appeared in the 
 
 Columbian Centinel: . , . ,,.- . . ... 
 
 u ^ Union LirLUlating Library, 
 
 Samuel Hale Parker Q.,„„, „ ».„_>- .v,3,w.^^, 
 
 QAMUEL H. PARKER, respectfully informs it, 
 
 WAS horn in Wnlfhnrn P"tr°n»of lhi» establishment and ihe public, that lr 
 
 WaS DOm in VVOlIDOrO, nM UB d>„, fcen (ne future management of the busines 
 
 Nyj ■ q 1 (Mr. Blacsovi having relinquished ilj and solicits] 
 
 . -ll ., in I y O I , tne SOn continuance of the distinguished patronage if has hits 
 
 - . rrto experienced. Constant attention will be paid t 
 
 OI JVIattheW Stanley the wishes of his customers, and large ADD4TI0!* 
 
 J are cenvemphtted to be made during the su.nmer. j, 
 
 Gibson Parker. His ' l ""« t ° fti '"' l " i °8 b Mb ' w \ 
 
 NOTICE. 
 
 Uncles Were Tudee Wf BLAGROVE having relinquished Inemanagt- 
 
 J D VV . rnent of the business of the Union Circu.'utt\g 
 
 William Parlr^r and *»*"»3(, respectfully calls upon those ofhislate cu»ton- 
 
 vv Illldill X d.1 1S.C1 rtllU era from whom small arrearages are -still due, for irt- 
 
 pi • rr t 1 t> t r mediate settlement, as he u about closing hisaccuuuis 
 
 Onerirr J Onn r arKer OI with the Proprietor of the Establishment. 
 
 _ T . . •.•Books which have been defamed otter me f&nti 
 
 .N eW Hampshire, and I 101 " 1 be, returned ; and all detained over 6 weeks wit 
 
 * be considered as purchased, according to the condition!, 
 
 Bishop Samuel Parker ""'"' 'nnneoiatelT sent home. apr37 
 
 of Boston. His brothers were Matthew Stanley Parker, 
 cashier of the Suffolk Bank, and William Sewall 
 Parker, a book-seller of Troy, N.Y. 
 
 After serving an apprenticeship to a book-binder in 
 1802, Samuel H. Parker began as a book-binder on 
 Court Street, continuing that business until he took 
 over the shop of William Blagrove in 1 8 1 1 . This shop 
 was on the south side of School Street, three doors 
 from Marlboro (now Washington Street). He con- 
 tinued at 3 School Street until he moved to 4 Corn- 
 hill, where he temporarily joined his interests with the 
 book-sellers, Munroe & Francis, under the name Mun- 
 roe, Francis and 'Parker, who so advertise in the Col- 
 umbian Centinel of September 13, 181 5. The Centinel 
 of December 23, 18 15, advertising the first concert of 
 
 2 5 
 
the Handel and Haydn Society states: "Tickets of ad- 
 mission may be obtained at the Bookstores of Munroe, 
 Francis and Parker," and others, including "G. Graup- 
 ner, Franklin Street." In 1816 Parker withdrew from 
 the firm but remained at the corner of Water Street 
 and Cornhill. 
 
 View from Pemberton Hill in 1816, from the painting by Salmon 
 
 From time to time Parker advertises various book 
 publications, and October 18, 1817, he announces in 
 the Columbian Qentinel: "Three Sacred Songs by Moore 
 delightfully set to music by Oliver Shaw of Providence 
 and sung by him at late Oratorios. This World is all a 
 Fleeting Show, ifflary' s Tears, and Thou art, O Qod! the 
 Life and Light, for sale at Parker's Circulating Library, 
 4 Cornhill." The same advertisement tells the public 
 that he has "Just received a fresh supply of Vancouver's 
 Iron Cement for mending glass and crockery." 
 
 26 
 
The next year, 1 8 1 8, his circulating library and mu- 
 sic store were moved to i 2 Cornhill, one door south 
 of the shop formerly occupied by Henry Knox. Here, 
 in 1822, he advertises his "just published" edition of 
 the Waverley Novels. Concerts of the period advertise 
 "Tickets to be had at Mr. Parker's Music Store, No. 1 2 
 Cornhill, and at Mr. Graupner's Music Store, Franklin 
 Street." In 1825 Parker moved to 164 Washington 
 Street, between Milk and Franklin, where he remained 
 until fire destroyed the premises. 
 
 In the Boston 'Transcript of November 1, 1833, the 
 following item appeared: "Fire. About half past 3 
 o'clock this morning fire was discovered in the cellar 
 of building No. 1 64 Washington Street, owned by Mr. 
 Benj. Guild; insured for $7,500. The lower floor was 
 occupied by Mr. Samuel H. Parker for a library and 
 music store, and John Price, optician. The 2d story 
 was occupied by Mr. Benj. Bradley, bookbinder, and 
 Mr. Chas. Bradlee, music publisher, and the upper 
 stories by Mr. Parker as a printing office. Mr. Parker 
 was insured for $10,000 in book stock and $3,000 on 
 printing stock. A large portion of his library was de- 
 stroyed, together with two valuable pianos, two print- 
 ing presses, and a large amount in sheet stock. We are 
 happy to learn, however, that none of the valuable 
 stereotype plates of the Waverley Novels were lost, 
 excepting one or two works which were in the proc- 
 ess of being printed. The residue were stored in an- 
 other place. Still his loss is severe, and just at the time 
 
 27 
 
he was upon the point of realizing the fruit of eight 
 or ten years' hard labor in completing his edition of 
 Scott's Novels, which would have been finished and 
 come to market in December. Mr. Chas. Bradlee lost 
 a large portion of his sheet music and plates." 
 
 In the Transcript of January 4, 1834, Parker ad- 
 vertises "Piano-fortes just received and for sale," at 
 10 School Street, but in the issue of April 5 "Sam'l H. 
 Parker informs his friends that he has taken half of 
 the store occupied by Mr. L. C. Bowles, 141 Wash- 
 ington Street, where he will renew the sale of Music 
 and publishing the Waverley Novels which have been 
 so unfortunately discontinued by the loss of his stock 
 at the late fire," etc., etc. This location was three doors 
 south of School Street. On July 1 he advertises that 
 "He will have for sale all the Music published by 
 Mr. C. Bradlee, with a constant supply of the new 
 and fashionable Songs and Piano-forte pieces published 
 at the South." 
 
 Parker's store became more and more a musical 
 centre, and on December 11, 1834, the Transcript 
 states that "S. H. Parker has removed his music store 
 from 141 to 107 Washington Street." This shop, on 
 the south corner of Williams Court, was shortly after 
 occupied in part by the music store of Oliver Ditson, 
 who had some eight years earlier been in his employ. 
 
 At about the same time (January 20, 1835) the 
 building into which Parker had moved was purchased 
 by James A. Dickson who, as an actor, had come from 
 
 28 
 
England in 1796 to appear at the opening of the Hay- 
 market Theatre. Later he was manager of the Boston 
 Theatre on Federal Street up to 1 820, when he opened 
 a "music saloon" on Market Street (now Cornhill), 
 which had been recently made a thoroughfare. He 
 was located there at the corner of Franklin Avenue 
 for twenty years, but about 1835 Dickson turned his 
 activities more and more from selling music to mar- 
 keting Day and Martin's blacking and Crosse and 
 Blackwell's jam. 
 
 29 
 
THE NINETEENTH CEJ^TURT 
 
 State House and Common about 1820 
 
 In 1800 Boston was a town of about 25,000 inhabi- 
 tants, the earlier provincialism was passing, and evi- 
 dences of interest in music for its own sake were be- 
 coming manifest. Music teachers had been increasing 
 in numbers since the close of the Revolution, while 
 growing prosperity and population gradually made it 
 possible for shops for the sale of music and musical 
 instruments to exist without the 
 aid of other commodities. The 
 change, however, was slow and the 
 venturesome pioneers were asa rule 
 musicians of standing in the com- 
 munity. Such was Gottlieb Graup- 
 nerwho, about 1 800, began to pub- 
 lish music. This he engraved and 
 Gottlieb Graupner printed with his own hands and 
 sold at his "Musical Academy," No. 6 Franklin Street, 
 
 3° 
 
where he also sold pianos and other instruments until 
 February, 1820. According to The Euterpiad, his tal- 
 ented wife, Catherine, was "for many years the only 
 female vocalist in Boston." She died in 1821, and 
 Graupner in 1836. 
 
 Graupner was an all-round musician, at home on 
 many instruments, and thirty years of age when, in 
 1797, he settled in Boston, where from 1798 until 
 1815 he was "the musical oracle." In 1810 the few 
 instrumentalists of professional experience then living 
 in Boston, together with a few amateurs, were organ- 
 ized by Graupner into The Philharmonic Society.* He 
 had been oboist in Haydn's orchestra in London in 
 1 791-1792, and soon his little orchestra practiced 
 Haydn's symphonies for its own gratification and gave 
 concerts of which that on November 24, 1824, was 
 the last. 
 
 Graupner's pioneer work helped to prepare the way 
 for larger things. The publisher in a national sense was 
 yet to come, and there is little doubt that Graupner 
 influenced his early career. 
 
 Oliver Ditson was of a family of Scotch descent 
 living in Billerica, Massachusetts, in the last years of 
 the seventeenth century. His grandfather, Samuel 
 Ditson, was a Revolutionary soldier, living in Burling- 
 ton, Massachusetts. Oliver's father, Joseph Ditson, born 
 there in 1772, married in 1 797, Lucy, the daughter of 
 
 This name is also given as Phil- according to a notice in the Colum- 
 harmonio and Philo Harmonic. A bian Centinel of April 6, 1799. Pos- 
 Philharmonic Society existed in 1799, sibly it was the same society. 
 
 31 
 
Solomon Pierce of Lexington, who was wounded on 
 the morning of April 19, 1775, an( * ^ ater to °^ P art m 
 the battle of Bennington. 
 
 Upon his marriage Joseph Ditson came to Boston. 
 At that time property on the north side of Beacon 
 Hill was being developed. Harrison Gray Otis had 
 just finished his house, still standing on the corner of 
 Lynde and Cambridge Streets. The Suffolk Registry 
 of Deeds records that Joseph Ditson purchased of 
 Appleton Prentiss a lot 40 x 70 feet on the newly 
 laid out street between Russell and Irving Streets. 
 Here he built a house in which he lived until 18 10 
 when he moved to 74 Prince Street, near Copp's Hill, 
 where on October 20, 181 1, his fifth child, Oliver, 
 was born. This house, now numbered 114, is on the 
 west side of Prince Street. 
 
 The year 1 8 1 1 was notable for the birth of Liszt 
 and Thackeray, Charles Sumner and Harriet Beecher 
 Stowe. The year before Chopin, Schumann, and Ole 
 Bull were born. Of men destined to be significant in 
 Boston's life, Emerson was then a lad of eight attend- 
 ing the public grammar school, Hawthorne was seven 
 years old, Garrison six, Longfellow and Whittier four, 
 and Oliver Wendell Holmes a baby of two. The year 
 following, 1 8 1 2, saw the outbreak of war with Eng- 
 land as well as Napoleon's retreat from Moscow. 
 
 On Washington's Birthday, 1 8 1 5, a musical jubilee 
 was held in King's Chapel to celebrate the Peace of 
 Ghent which concluded the war of 1 8 1 2. Out of this 
 
 32 
 
originated, a few weeks later, The Handel and Haydn 
 Society. One of the organizers and a member of the 
 first board of trustees was Samuel H. Parker, then a 
 member of Trinity choir. Another of the founders 
 was G. Graupner, at whose Music Hall, 6 Franklin 
 Street, the first meetings to organize the Society were 
 held. It gave its first public concert in King's Chapel 
 on Christmas Eve, 1815, and in 18 18 gave the first 
 complete performance of an oratorio in this country 
 when it presented The 
 
 zJACessiah. It was this 
 society that in 1821 
 (dated 1822) published 
 Lowell Mason's first 
 collection of music 
 after the publishers of 
 Philadelphia and Bos- 
 ton had declined it. 
 This was the very suc- 
 
 King's Chapel 
 
 cessful Handel and Haydn Society Collection of Church 
 <JtCusic. 
 
 It was in 1823 that young Oliver Ditson having 
 finished his school life in the Eliot School on North 
 Bennett Street, entered the employ of Colonel Parker, 
 then at 12 Cornhill (Washington Street). 
 
 In 1824 the Public Garden was created on what 
 had been an unsightly batch of mud on the west side 
 of Charles Street. Boston was at this time a veritable 
 garden city, and Summer Street with its overshadow- 
 
 33 
 
ing trees, lovely gardens and fine mansions, well 
 merited its name. 
 
 In 1826 Lowell Mason settled in Boston, was next 
 year made president and conductor of The Handel and 
 Haydn Society, and thus began his notable public ca- 
 reer not only as "The Father of American church 
 music," but as the pioneer in inaugurating and develop- 
 ing the teaching of music in the public schools, for- 
 mally introduced in 1 8 3 8 as a regular branch of study 
 in the Boston schools after two years of experimental 
 work by Mason and his associate, Wm. C. Woodbridge. 
 
 In was in 1 826 that young Ditson left S. H. Parker 
 to apprentice himself to Isaac R. Butts, then printing 
 The th^orth ^American Review. Later he was with Al- 
 fred Mudge, and while there had charge of the print- 
 ing for Colonel Parker, his former employer. At this 
 time Ditson lived at 10 Province House Court, across 
 the way from the prominent musician, Gottlieb Graup- 
 ner, who then lived at No. 1. His son, John Henry 
 Howard Graupner, and Oliver Ditson had been boys 
 together, and the daughter of the former records the 
 fact that her father carried for life a scar resulting 
 from a wound given him by Oliver in some boyish 
 rough and tumble play. 
 
 Mr. Ditson' s innate fondness for music, his three 
 years' training with Colonel Parker in the book and 
 music business, his seven years' training as a printer, 
 and possibly, also, his friendly relationship with the 
 Graupner family, led him in 1 8 3 5 to start in the music 
 
 34 
 
business at 107 Washington Street, just south of 
 Williams Court. 
 
 He was at this time organist and choirmaster of the 
 Bulfinch Street Church. The Transcript of October 
 13, 1834, advertises "Sacred Concert. The Singing 
 Choir attached to Rev. Mr. Deane's Church in Bul- 
 finch Street will perform a Concert of Sacred Music 
 on Sunday Evening next, Oct. 19th at 6 1-2 o'clock. 
 Tickets at 25 cents each, may be procured at S. H. 
 Parker's Music Store, 141 Washington st; J. M. 
 Smith's, Druggist, corner of School and Tremont sts. ; 
 and at the door on the evening of performance. 
 Oliver Ditson, Sec'ry." 
 
 In December, 1834, as mentioned above, Colonel 
 Parker moved from 141 Washington Street to No. 
 107. This brought him and his former employee 
 together again under the same roof. Boston's popula- 
 tion was then about 75,000. Postal rates were high, for 
 it cost 183-4 cents to send a letter of a single sheet 
 from Boston to New York. These were the days of 
 the stage-coach, although they were soon to decline 
 through the advent of railroads. It is recorded that in 
 1832 there were ninety-three stage lines running out 
 of Boston. 
 
 What is, perhaps, the first mention of Oliver Ditson 
 as a publisher appears in the Saturday Evening Qazette 
 of June 6, 1835, which states in a reading notice: 
 "Mr. Oliver Ditson has just published a new song en- 
 titled There's not a Leaf within the 'Bower. It was com- 
 
 35 
 
posed by F. Valentine, and arranged as a duet by Ch. 
 Zeuner. It is for sale at Parker's Music Store." This 
 was copyrighted June 5th by Oliver Ditson. The 
 Transcript of June 20, 1835 says: "Ditson has in press 
 The City Quards Quick-step, composed by Walsh, and 
 arranged as a duett for two flutes by Zeuner," and on 
 July 9th advertises the same number as "Just published 
 and for sale by S. H. Parker." This number was also 
 copyrighted in the name of Oliver Ditson. 
 
 The G-azette of November 14, 1835, advertises a 
 concert of the Handel and Haydn Society — "Tickets 
 at Oliver Ditson's," and the Transcript of December 
 22, 1835, advertises a performance of The zJtiCessiah by 
 the same society — "Tickets at Ditson's Music Store." 
 The same paper in its 
 issue of March 30, 1836, 
 advertises the Oratorio of 
 
 OKATUHIU OF DAVID. NEUKOIWM'S 
 celebrated Sacred Drarrarlc Oratorio 01 David, now 
 p rforrtiinr Willi unprecedented success by the Handel 
 & H >ydn Society, has been pu .ilshe.1 by them, and may 
 be obtained at DITVON'S Music Store. 107 W ashinc'on 
 street, by the dozen or slnftlc. IS2W march 30 
 
 T)avid, just published, as for sale at "Ditson's Music 
 Store, 1 07 Washington Street," and that tickets for its 
 approaching performance by the Handel and Haydn 
 Society are to be had "at the Music Store of O. Ditson." 
 Tickets for a concert by the Boston Academy were 
 advertised in the "Boston Courier of April 3d, "for sale 
 at O. Ditson's." 
 
 On April 6th, the song, zffly Heart's in the High- 
 lands, is advertised in the Transcript as for sale at 
 "Ditson's Music Store." Apparently the younger man, 
 by his energy and enthusiasm, was gaining precedence 
 over his senior, who solved the problem by making 
 
 36 
 
Oliver his partner. The Transcript of April 5, 1836, 
 
 rnntQtnp^ trip nntire nf ^tnPARTNKRSHiP notice, s.h.par- 
 
 flOPAUTNKRSHIP NOTICE. S. H.PAR- 
 j KER h-tvlne .-issocinted MR OLIVER D1TS0N with 
 him tn ihe Music and Piano Fonc business, thai depart- 
 ment will be conducted "l l"7 w^hmpfn street. In fu- 
 ture, under the firm of PARKER & DIT80N— who have 
 now oh hand a Inrge collerilon of Music, and are con- 
 stantly pubHshlne and receiving 'rmni^e ol h«r prbhsh- 
 
 Muslc of tbe time. 
 Boston, Arril 5, 1638. 
 
 OJJVEKD1T60N. 
 
 S. H. P continues to ■ ubllsh the Waverty Novels, as 
 usual, from his stereotyped c-JIMon. and orders wit] be 
 received for them at the above store, either In wholesale 
 numbers from the trade, or hy single copy, folded or 
 bound. is3t aprilfi 
 
 TO THE MUSICAL PUBLIC. 
 
 REMOVAL. PARKER &. DITSON, Dealers in Piano 
 Fortes and Sheet Music, have removed to 135 Wash- 
 ington st, corner of School si. where may be found all the 
 fashionable Music of the day. 
 
 N. B.— Connected with thesloce, P. & D. have an exten- 
 sive Wardroom for the sale of new and second hand Piano 
 Fortes. Pianos to let. is4 L inay 5 
 
 contained the notice of 
 copartnership. 
 
 The growing business 
 of the new firm led them 
 to seek better quarters 
 and in 18-38 they had the paaheb & ditsow, 
 
 *J * Dealers in 
 
 good fortune to locate Piano Fortes & Sheet Music, 
 
 O J 07 Washington Street, Boston. 
 
 in the old gambrel- J212. £= 
 
 roofed building that since 171 2 had stood on the site 
 of the home of Anne Hutchinson, the first woman 
 
 champion of intellec- 
 tual freedom in Amer- 
 ica. In this old shop at 
 the corner of Wash- 
 ington and School Streets books were sold continuously 
 
 from 1828 to July, 1903. 
 In 1837 the bookseller 
 was Wm. D. Ticknor, 
 but it was in the days of 
 James T. Fields that The 
 Old £orner ^Bookstore be- 
 came a gathering place 
 for "the New England 
 circle which compelled 
 the world to acknowl- 
 edge that there was an 
 The Old Comer Bookstore American literature." 
 
 This location was then No. 135 Washington Street. 
 
 37 
 
In 1 840 Mr. Ditson married Miss Catherine Delano, 
 a descendant of William Bradford, second Governor of 
 Plymouth Colony. It was in this year that Boston was 
 chosen as the terminus of the Cunard Line and the 
 first regular trans-Atlantic steamer service began. Rail- 
 way connection with Worcester, Lowell and Provi- 
 dence had been made in 1835, but with Albany not un- 
 til 1 84 1. There was not then a telegraph line in the 
 world; Boston had a population of 93,383, New York 
 312,710, Philadelphia 93,665; Chicago was a frontier 
 village of 4479, while Kansas City, St. Paul, Minne- 
 apolis and San Francisco had not been heard of. 
 
 Intersection of the Providence and Worcester railroads, 1838 
 
 It was just at this time that Henry Russell, the Eng- 
 lish ballad singer, visited Boston, and his songs, The Ship 
 on Fire, The <^Maniac, The Q ambler s Wife, and others, 
 were being sung with fervor in drawing rooms; while, 
 on the other hand, Margaret Fuller was holding her 
 famous "Conversations" at Miss Peabody's rooms on 
 
 38 
 
(No. 135) West side of Washington Street in 1845 (No. 107) 
 
 West Street, and the Transcendentalists were making 
 their Brook Farm experiment, with John S. Dwight 
 as teacher of music and Latin. 
 
 In 1842 Mr. Ditson acquired the interests of his 
 senior partner as appears in the Dissolution of Co- 
 partnership 'ffi fplE 
 notice, dated [ fflggggggy 
 March 17, 
 and printed in 
 the Transcript 
 the same day. 
 
 In need of 
 larger quar- 
 ters, Oliver 
 Ditson moved 
 in 1 844 from 
 the Old Cor- 
 ner Bookstore 
 
 to a neighbor- No. 1 15 to No. 107 Washington Street in 1845 
 
 39 
 
ing location at 1 1 5 Washington Street, four doors south 
 of Williams Court. In the previous view of the west 
 side of Washington St reet the building at the right is 
 ^ No. 107, where Parker and Dit- 
 son were first located; the build- 
 ing at the left is No. 135, the 
 Old Corner Bookstore location; 
 while the sign to the right of 
 the lamp post is that of Oliver 
 DitsonatNo.115. In 1 845 Mr. 
 Ditson took into his employ a 
 lad of fifteen, John C. Haynes, 
 at the weekly stipend of $ 1 . 5 o . 
 Eight years later, in 1853, the 
 
 No. 277 Washington Street value of the young man Was 
 
 recognized by giving him an interest in the business, 
 and on January 1, 1 857, he was admitted to copartner- 
 ship and the house name changed to Oliver Ditson & 
 Co. In this year Mr. Ditson erected for his firm a 
 building at 277, now 451 Washington Street. 
 
 It should be noted that Oliver Ditson's early friend 
 and neighbor, John Henry Howard Graupner, had 
 charge of his music printing and engraving depart- 
 ment from 1 850, or earlier, until 1 880. He was a good 
 pianist and trained musician and son of the pioneer, 
 Gottlieb Graupner, who taught him music engraving. 
 
 The year 1841 is notable in that Beethoven's sym- 
 phonies the First and Fifth were then first heard in Bos- 
 
 40 
 
ton. They were performed by the Academy of Music 
 Orchestra, of from twenty-five to forty players, which 
 for seven winters gave a series of six to eight concerts, 
 the last in the spring of 1 847. It was at one of its con- 
 certs, March 7, 1846, that Wm. Mason, then seven- 
 teen, made his first appearance as a pianist. 
 
 ■ — ■'" .- - ^: .-.^tV-.--- "(.■:*.■■'■'>!_ ■ *- 
 
 - ^EirtgE, 
 
 
 
 
 
 Bird's-eye view of the Public Garden and Common, about 1850 
 
 These concerts were succeeded by those of the Mu- 
 sical Fund Society, which for eight seasons gave or- 
 chestral concerts in the old Tremont Temple, its last 
 concert being given April, 1855, in the then new Bos- 
 ton Music Hall. 
 
 A still better organization, rich in soloists, was the 
 Germania Orchestra, which from 1848 to 1854, trav- 
 elled, but gave from eighty to ninety of its concerts in 
 Boston, where they made their first appearance April 
 14, 1849, and gave twenty-two concerts in six weeks. 
 This little orchestra of twenty-three was sometimes 
 doubled by the addition of local musicians. The pre- 
 cision, delicacy and beauty of their performances of the 
 best music left a lasting influence. 
 
 41 
 
Carl Zerrahn 
 
 It was this orchestra that brought Carl Zerrahn to 
 Boston as its first flute. In 1 854 
 he became conductor of the 
 Handel and Haydn Society, 
 and in 1855 he organized 
 the Philharmonic Orchestra, 
 which gave regular concerts 
 until 1863. In 1865 Zerrahn 
 was made conductor of the or- 
 chestra of the Harvard Musi- 
 cal Association, which for 
 seventeen years maintained 
 symphony concerts of a high standard. 
 
 In the musical life of America for many years no 
 single man wielded so potent an influence for musical 
 righteousness as Theodore Thomas. He had a whole- 
 souled belief in the power of good music and devoted 
 
 his life to making it known. 
 The frequent visits of his or- 
 chestra to Boston overshad- 
 owed the less disciplined and 
 imperfect local body, sharp- 
 ened musical perception, and 
 'wakened concert-goers to the 
 need of an orchestra of like 
 technical refinement and mas- 
 terly leadership. This need was 
 Henry Lee Higginson gener0 usly met by Mr. Henry 
 
 Lee Higginson when he founded the Boston Symphony 
 
 42 
 
Orchestra, which gave its first concert under Georg 
 Henschel, October 22, 1881, and under Gericke, 
 Nikisch, and their successors, has developed into the 
 present unique organization. 
 
 It was the Harvard Musical Association, organized 
 in 1837 by John S. Dwight, Henry K. Oliver, William 
 Wetmore Story, Christopher P. Cranch, and others, 
 that by its regular soirees from 1844 to 1850 initiated 
 Boston into the beauties of chamber music. Stimu- 
 lated by these affairs the Mendelssohn Quintette Club 
 was organized with Thomas Ryan as its leading spirit. 
 It was the first chamber music organization of its type 
 in the country and gave its first concert December 14, 
 1849. For nearly fifty years this club travelled over 
 the United States, making classical music known to 
 multitudes for the first time. 
 
 It was also the moral back- 
 ing of the Harvard Musical 
 Association that led John S. 
 Dwight to establishDw^/z/'j- 
 Journal of Music in 1 8 5 2 . For 
 six years he was editor, pub- 
 lisher, and proprietor, when, 
 in 1858, the magazine was 
 taken over by Oliver Ditson 
 & Co., who published it until John s ' Dwight 
 
 the end of 1 878, Mr. Dwight continuing as editor. It 
 was carried on by other publishers until 1 8 8 1 , when it 
 
 43 
 
ceased to exist. Its first number 
 was issued April 10,1852; its last, 
 September 3,1881. This pioneer 
 magazine was a notable factor in 
 moulding musical opinion and 
 its pages are the history of music 
 in the United States during 
 the twenty-nine years of its 
 existence. 
 
 Jenny Lind in 1850 
 
 host of lesser singers. 
 It was in February, 
 1853, that Jenny Lind 
 was married to Otto 
 Goldschmidt, her ac- 
 companist, in the house 
 in quaint Louisburg 
 Square, at the left in the 
 illustration. It stands 
 
 ■ „ y -u-^-z. X E -I& ^ 
 
 Giulia Grisi 
 
 While foreign artists had 
 come and gone, the year 
 1850 ushered in a notable 
 galaxy, beginning with 
 Jenny Lind and her memo- 
 rable concerts, the lovely 
 Sontag, and the great Alboni, 
 followed by Patti, Grisi and 
 Mario, Adelaide Phillips, 
 Brignoli, Parepa Rosa, and a 
 
 44 
 
Urso at 11 
 
 Teresa Carreno, Anna 
 Mehlig, Rubinstein, 
 von Biilow, Essipoff, 
 and others. 
 
 Of violinists, Vieux- 
 temps, Ole Bull, Sivori, 
 and Camilla Urso, "the 
 girl violinist," were 
 early comers, followed 
 
 almost on the site of the 
 apple orchard of Boston's first 
 inhabitant. 
 
 Of pianists, Thalberg, who 
 came in i 8 57, was perhaps the 
 first of great rank. The early 
 sixties brought home from 
 Europe, Gottschalk; then 
 came the war and a lull, fol- 
 lowed by the girl wonder, 
 
 Ph 1 HI '■ I III ■ jtlnH 
 
 '^■' 1. Jlllil KIe' 'alll'lilHB. 
 
 Carreno at 10 
 
 Great Organ in Music Hall 
 
 by Wieniawski, Wilhelmj, 
 Remenyi, Sauret, and others. 
 
 Organ playing in the country 
 was given a stimulus when the 
 great organ in Boston Music 
 Hall was opened November 2, 
 1863. This large instrument was 
 
 45 
 
B. J. Lang 
 
 the first thorough concert organ in the country. A 
 
 notable group of organists, B. J. 
 Lang, John K. Paine, Eugene 
 Thayer, S. P. Tuckerman, John 
 H. Wilcox, and George W. 
 Morgan were the first to play 
 upon it. 
 
 The sensational event of 1 869 
 was the monster Peace Jubilee, 
 organized by P. S.Gilmore; Carl 
 Zerrahn was general director; 
 John K. Paine and Dudley Buck 
 conducted compositions of their own; Julius Eichberg 
 wrote for the occasion his To Thee, O Country, now 
 sung in the schools everywhere, and Ole Bull and Carl 
 Rosa played in the big orchestra, while Parepa Rosa 
 and Adelaide Phillips were the chief singers. A festi- 
 val building large enough to 
 seat thirty thousand persons was 
 erected near the site of the pres- 
 ent Copley Plaza Hotel; the or- 
 chestra numbered one thousand, 
 and the chorus ten thousand. 
 The sensitive John S. Dwight 
 refused to endorse the Jubilee in 
 his Journal of^hCusic and fled to 
 Nahant to escape the cannons, 
 anvils, bells, big organ, eighty- 
 four trombones, eighty-three tubas, as many cornets, and 
 
 46 
 
 Julius Eichbefg 
 
seventy-five drums, which with three hundred and thirty 
 strings and one hundred and nineteen wood-wind, made 
 "an ensemble of fearful and wonderful sonority." 
 
 The ambitious Gilmore found another opportunity 
 at the close of the Franco-Prussian War when he or- 
 ganized on a still larger scale the International Peace 
 Jubilee of June, 1 872. This time the auditorium seated 
 fifty thousand; the chorus, collected from over the 
 country as far west as Omaha, numbered twenty 
 thousand and the orchestra two 
 thousand. Johann Strauss and 
 Franz Abt led their own com- 
 positions. Mme. RudersdorfF 
 was the chief singer, and famous 
 bands from London, Dublin, 
 Paris, Berlin, Washington, and 
 New York were features. 
 Though the first Jubilee cost 
 $283,000, it left a balance of 
 nearly $10,000 in the treasury; 
 the second "colossal musical picnic" left a deficit ol 
 $100,000 to be made up by the guarantors, among 
 them Oliver Ditson. 
 
 In contrast to these monster festivals were the smaller 
 and musically more important triennial festivals of the 
 Handel and Haydn Society. It was at the festival of 
 1 871 that about half of Bach's St. zMatthew Passion 
 zJKCusic was given for the first time in America, still 
 more was given in 1 874, and on Good Friday, 1 879, 
 
 47 
 
 Hermine Rudersdorff 
 
the entire work had a notable performance in a two- 
 session concert. 
 
 How recent serious com- 
 position in the larger forms 
 is in America, is indicated by 
 the fact that our pioneer sym- 
 phonist, John K. Paine, left 
 us as recently as 1 906. It was 
 in the year of MacDowell's 
 birth, 1 86 1 , that he returned 
 to Cambridge from study 
 
 ^ tt r. John K. Paine 
 
 in Germany. His first sym- J 
 
 phony was played in 1876, and when those in charge 
 of the Centennial Exposition sought the two native 
 composers of greatest prominence to write the music for 
 the opening ceremonies they selected John K. Paine 
 
 and Dudley Buck. 
 
 Since then a notable group 
 have enriched American com- 
 position with symphonies, or- 
 chestral works, chamber music 
 and choral works, while a host 
 have written in small forms; but 
 to speak of men until recently 
 with us or of the many now active 
 in creative work, interpretation 
 
 Dudley Buck , , . . , , , 
 
 and education, is beyond the scope 
 of this brief sketch of a bygone day. 
 
 48 
 
From Bonner's Map of Boston, 1722 
 (The arrow points to the site of the Hay-Market Theatre) 
 
SITE OF THE 
 HAY-MAR1{ET THEATRE 
 
 
 Sj£_ "ft.-.i >'■* . J^.4_@L. Ift£ 
 
 Common Street from West Street to Frog Lane (Boylston Street) in 1800 
 
 Among the most prominent and wealthy citizens of 
 Boston, in its early days as a town, was Henry Webb, a 
 merchant, who came from Salisbury, England, in 1637. 
 
 He had an only daughter, Margaret, who, in 1642, 
 married Jacob Sheafe, and on the death of her father 
 in 1 660 his large estate of nearly ^8000 came to her 
 and her daughters, Elizabeth and Mehitable Sheafe. 
 Her husband, Jacob Sheafe, had died in the previous 
 year, 1659. His tomb in King's Chapel Burial 
 Ground states that "Sheafe fometime lived in Cran- 
 brook in Kent in Ould England." Sheafe's estate in- 
 ventoried over ^8000. With this double inheritance 
 the widow, wealthy and still young (forty) was mar- 
 ried about 1 665 to Thomas Thacher, son of Rev. Peter 
 Thacher, rector of St. Edmund's, Salisbury, England. 
 This son was also a minister, first at Weymouth and 
 later, in 1669, he became the first pastor of the Old 
 South Church, Boston. 
 
 Mrs. Thacher invested much of her wealth in real 
 
 5° 
 
estate, and in 1 674 took a mortgage on a house facing 
 the Common from Eneas Salter, a mason. Salter had 
 previously purchased from Martin Saunders and at the 
 time of purchase Salter resided in the house. The 
 house, situated on the lower end of the Common, on 
 its east side, had but a cart path running in front along 
 the unfenced Common used for the pasturing of the 
 cattle of the freemen of the town. On the north side 
 of the lot this path, known today as Mason Street, 
 branched off and led to a lane running eastward to 
 the high-road. The pasturage of cows on the Common 
 must have needed restriction at an early date, for on 
 May 18, 1646, "It is ordered, y l ther shalbe kept on 
 the Common bye y e Inhabitants of y e towne but 70 
 milch kine." "It is ordered, y* if any deiire to kep 
 fheep, hee may kep foure fheep in liew of a cow." 
 
 Rev. Thomas Thacher died in 1 678 and his widow 
 Margaret, in 1 694. In 1 697 a partition of her prop- 
 erty was made between her two daughters by her first 
 husband, Jacob Sheafe: Elizabeth, who married Jona- 
 than Corwin, and Mehitable, who married her second 
 cousin, Sampson Sheafe, of London. He came to Boston 
 about 1670, marrying Mehitable about 1673. The 
 young people resided in the house on the Common at 
 the time of the partition, but a few years later Sampson 
 Sheafe was made deputy collector of customs and went 
 to Newcastle, New Hampshire, to reside. They had 
 several children born in Boston, one of them was Jacob 
 Sheafe, born in 1682. The map of 1 722 and the illus- 
 
 5i 
 
trations show how lonely the Common must have 
 been even at a much later date. It is not surprising, 
 therefore, to read in the diary of Mr. Lawrence Ham- 
 mond, June 9, 1688: "This Evening Mr. Sampfon 
 Sheafe was fet upon in Bofton Common & knockt 
 downe & robbed by two Ruffins, One Humbleton being 
 prefent, who it is judged, hyred them to do it." On 
 returning to Boston Sampson Sheafe held the office 
 of clerk in the Inferior Court of Common Pleas and 
 died in Boston in 1726. In 1728, the year when the 
 first row of trees was planted along the Common, 
 his widow, Mehitable Sheafe, transferred to her son 
 Jacob the house on the Common, he to pay her ^50 
 a year during her life. In 1 7 1 2 Jacob Sheafe had been 
 approved by the selectmen to teach the school in Queen 
 Street which stood where the exit from the East Boston 
 Tunnel was located a few years ago. Later he taught 
 the school on the Common near his father's house. 
 Proficient with his quill pen as were schoolmasters in 
 those days he was called fcrivener as well as school- 
 master. When the day's work was done the young 
 schoolmaster could in a few moments reach the water's 
 edge at the foot of the Common, where, according to 
 Justice Sewall's diary, there was a beach which was the 
 favorite landing place for persons coming by boat from 
 Roxbury or Cambridge. Under date of July 6, 1720, 
 he wrote: "Rode to Comraencem 1 . . . Had a pleafant 
 paffage home by water with Mr. Wendell and his 
 Family. Landed at the bottom of the Common." 
 
 5 2 
 
On the death of his father, young Jacob improved 
 the brew house which stood in the southeast portion of 
 the land, back of his house. The frontage of his land 
 on the Common was one hundred and thirty-seven feet; 
 the lot had a depth of one hundred and forty-nine feet. 
 He was also a collector of taxes from 1738 to 1746. 
 On February 23,1 744, a fire broke out on his premises 
 which the Hojion Evening -Toft of Monday the 27 th 
 reports as follows: 
 
 "Laft Thurfday, between two and three o' Clock in 
 the Afternoon, a Fire broke out in Mr. Sheafe's Malt- 
 Houfe near the Common, which in a very little Time 
 entirely confumed the fame, with his Brew-Houfe, and 
 feveral other Buildings, alfo all his Stock, (which was 
 very large) and Utenfils; and 'twas with great Difficulty 
 that his Dwelling Houfe was preferved from the Flames. 
 'Tis faid Mr. Sheafe's Lois is at leaft Two Thoufand 
 Tounds. The Wind blowing exceflive high at Weft when 
 the Accident happened, a large Barn full of Hay, and 
 another Building at a coniiderable Diftance from the 
 Fire, were consumed; and the White Horfe Tavern be- 
 ing fet on Fire, very narrowly efcaped being deftroyed." 
 
 This loss, with the difficulty of finding a sale for his 
 strong beer, forced Sheafe to petition in 1746 for a 
 license to keep a tavern. His health failing and be- 
 coming blind in 1753 he sold the property to Abiah 
 Holbrook, schoolmaster. In 1761 Jacob Sheafe's life 
 ended. During the eighteenth century the recently 
 widened Avery Street was known as Sheafe's Lane, 
 
 53 
 
and the White Horse tavern was a little south of its 
 junction with Newbury (Washington) Street. 
 
 Holbrook, the writing master, born in Boston in 
 1 71 8, was son of Abiah Holbrook, a kegmaker by- 
 trade, but for many years a member of the town watch 
 and later a sexton and grave digger. The younger Abiah 
 petitioned in 1741 to open a school to teach writing 
 and arithmetic. In 1 742 he was chosen usher of Mr. 
 Proctor's North Writing School and in 1 743 was made 
 Master of the South Writing School* on the Common 
 where he had more than one hundred and fifty scholars. 
 
 /'■? 'X/ M**«rccB.fty ; I hn Skinner, Pewterer, T Do hereby forbid all Perrons 
 
 A T .Seffionof ihe Cren ,„d General J • ,,",,'."' 1>.iJ,.u„ „!,),„,» 
 
 ite WWiw Refol™ paired d>e . Je MAKES and Sells by Wholelile ,,.«.. , ? .b..„n,, f». ,b. o«. w.„c , ..a. 
 
 Coilrr -/? o. Reull, .e.ytherpfor Olhor old Pewre « f foe ,ht I«d6/««I«J will -cum aid liri pe*ei,bli> 
 
 B /, J tl r i. c U- L.» TJUieiof diflcreot dtw, hammer d ihe f,me u *"b me, *« **" be Ltd., ..coed, md K«wd j 
 
 Krplvrd. Tbat Inch Soldiers as. hate J-* Li ,, 1 /„ # .tryoeat Unn, Qjart and PiniFow, »odldohe/eby (Jb feiiwrn ill re. font frombtr- 
 
 'jCCn in (he SeiVlCC oflhc Government dur- Qjan jnd Pioi Hifoni. Porr.ngeii of </*e different bomm; or enleruioiitg ll* fud £l,ntnt,1or I wilt 
 
 tup ihe late *-Var, and hove any Demands on f'">. pe-ier Bciken, fcc ill *j named the btfl of ■«< »«T thtm iheiefor, bin will proIrcnie ihem «*> 
 
 th^Prownce, byRcaU of faidScrricc. 6n < Pe *'" ■ 1 ' , '?* ,m ■*"*"«• ''«Qs»< ,« J'" lhe /■'"■''» rf lb « L '' -.»■*, 
 
 «. ,< I, • ... , r Po'» ; — »"° W» Tei-Ktuki. the bell Ltnden E afisn. Jam ia. i ?6j M»'k K'iti. 
 
 Inal not /have any Allowance therefor, up- „ . _ s.-bil a. u— j — rrL ' etJ r — l " ' i / > *" 
 
 , . / r ' ' Pewter . Men. tod BoYt EogliQi Shoe. ; Mco» ipd To />/ ie/d 1 cr txcbo*?fd for a tarter. 
 
 lets (hey apply lor the lame, on or belore foment Hofe, Linnen., DowlaX.. Ac . , i i A - K , «. 
 
 ilicSeTCoo oMlic General Court in May & Gatlm***T**i*t ,- v t, f, Pf lU4 «/ tbt A "IWjf active INegrO Boy, a- 
 
 ifext ; except fucli as are out of the Pro* «*«* W** «< «*»•••» fom&Rml*. boui ., V«n ol A e r. good umpa'd, uri 
 
 Tioce. and have not had an Opportunity of _^ *?tobAe Eoyfcol .ha fru.tc.1. 
 
 laying their CemanJs before fau! Court. The following BOOKS to be Sold cheap, enquire at Mr Holirwk's Houfe 
 
 Atteji. A. Oli-veb, AVf'ry. in the Common. 
 
 John Zllill """ A b . n OI.D.TANSUR.KMAP Geuko.«ftUd«Cril 1 .| N«. Uoi.nfJ Hifbr, J An, «i 
 
 JU1111 i,Ulll ii i.D...r.porl.Sr n gi,jb*k. of lf.6 ThM|fcll 6eleH(M | Vol *M 
 
 hunting to Uavt ibis Place in a few WttU % ** A ™".' A " M of ■™t-4»- CwwiH, iVd, N=w Diff«DV-ory 
 
 ID, .« defcid i com* .ad fc.Je the,, A« 000 U. £11 Ivo?" t fSdJ! r'^ T ^ 5"TE * ^ ^*" E-P^iw >* tbl R.*di.lM 
 
 O- Hdaot-pw *«■«,«» -f goods- ; r SUm6n O -.o lP 0lh?!S G^^Kr^nfe™. 0,dmi " ' H *-T ,-T E^d, 
 
 ported .a iht 1,(1 Shipi, which be Will fell rery rei- A qWB(BRf> 4 yd. I tieer Cert»ra'. thrtttuu Suppoii undo «f Refoiroittoi. pat, 
 
 rouble fo' Carti o» (hon Credit, of Birier ihem for A'Jwr.Un Or.ele. « Vol. Affiiftwn Oldfu: d'. Impio-fmeni of Retfba 
 
 »7 Mattriill fit f or i nto Ship. Arfon'j Vuyije niud (he WwLJ Grtrltmn i Libnry 0|iUi< iPoemi Owcn'iMidiuiiou 
 
 TAKF?N nn in Chnrbftmuti Ar.Liio Nighr.Eow-uininew.6Vol HiH'* t AiMB ) Wwlw, * Vet. Preceptor, i Vol PwiiImLuim. 
 
 rtr^tlN Up in VOarie/Itrwrr, Av , ppt - t v . L1 , r ri An.eV kiwci HtttwrorthvEirthttuikcalLlM Poci . P-c.ch.r-, plu 
 
 OcuBoJJt* lift Week. I Pi'cel or Bone AdMtli'.New) or fe-crctMe«isir».,V Hir»«x o» ' h « SnuilPoi Pnfliej] Mcifuter 
 
 Ljcc. ioJ by ihe Owner - . N*nie on ihe Piper n be- Adve'urei of-»Gu1oe*, a Vol ' Art of curmj Dif"ftt Popefy unm.li.e4 Pmer 
 
 lonji io Albtn, : Thcf ouy hj.e u » jn.i paying Biognphii Biiuooici, e Vtl Pel. H'0'7 on the B.ble. b VoL pel. Pila>im'i Prtitli. l»o. tte . mi 
 
 Chirjci. iod tcllioG ibe Mirk* Entire of ibe Bicthun » Mufifil Bute <!*•*>. Pol. — on ^(OldTdlameoi, «V*1. Fol Prefent Sun of GrtK-Briitia 
 
 Pri aicra. (finepliu* Hod[« Eliho Pic Hon on the Covuuil 
 
 L' /^ot c» i ; — Tl iTTTTTrTm BnrretVHiBorf of bit owa Titan. iinw» oi Sori Bid. Fro(odia(.bjiorcji 
 
 OST orbtolenintheLvening B r U .(hMo«.ebV til ioCopptrt 1 l«i h.mcU"Za^. »voi pi^ofE^roTcm^ce 
 
 of ibe 3 7<h of Juoe, ocir (be Held of Long- BrKcr't Life rf.f«ith, ftr> UiHarf ol tht ?ofa Pneni'i & Guirdi.n'. Di'tAory 
 
 Line. * Pccchbcek WATCH, (he Cafe look, tttj Buij'i on j jflifitmo* tiollidu't Ariihmni* Pot mi on fccr.l Occtnsiu, ^ro 
 
 br.JT/, bid a Sil'er Seal : Whoc.cr hu found ihe Vin,i'zLnia Horneffc'. e icai L.* ofCo. Mention Rawiciih'. Hidoi, of ihe WoridJ 
 
 fa.d Witch, and w.n fend it to ihe Prime" hereof, BnciOi Apollo, j Vol. Hume"tTre»iifecf humioNatnie.iV md Life. Bol. 
 
 IhiM hJ« a Reward of TEM DoIImi. and oo Ouef- Breni on Lying HirveV> Medit.tioni. i Vol. R.uonil ArDUiemoil 
 
 tioo»»flced Ifofferedfor s.tc nit dcGrcd n miTDc Be*uiiei of EnjUod Life and Letiet., . Vol. Keligi-o.PhaijIc.phe/ j VeJ. 
 
 (loppd, and tloucc gi.cD. . BjIIod on ih« LcxeuM — ■ — MuOli] on Siin.ficiiion Ro.alM.ner 
 
 In 1744 he opened a school to teach the rules of 
 psalmody. In 1 746 he married and lived in the Sheafe 
 house, which he bought in 1753. 
 
 ♦Marked i on the old map of the Common, page 49. 
 54 
 
In 1762 and 1763 Abiah Holbrook engaged in the 
 book business quite extensively to judge by his large 
 advertisement in the zJtCassachusetts (gazette of July 21, 
 1763, reproduced in part on the preceding page. It 
 should be noted that music books head his list. 
 
 He died in 1769, leaving his estate to his widow 
 during her widowhood and to support his parents dur- 
 ing their lives, and then the estate was to be divided 
 among his brothers and sisters. "Af to the curious al- 
 phabet containing the Ten Commandments and other 
 Scripture pieces wrote in all the hands of Great Britain 
 in feveral different colors with neat borders round the 
 fame which I did only for my amufement, though 
 feven years in compleating them, I referve unto my 
 wife to difpofe of them to the Curious, for her fole ad- 
 vantage." At the lowest estimation he put the price at 
 j[ioo lawful money and desired that John Hancock 
 have the first offer of them to purchafe for Harvard Col- 
 lege "always to remain there to be feen by the curious." 
 
 Abiah Holbrook, junior, had a younger brother 
 Samuel, born in 1729, who was evidently his pupil, 
 and became a schoolmaster in 1745, and the next year 
 Abiah, whose scholars numbered two hundred and 
 twenty, had him as an assistant. 
 
 In 1749 Samuel had a salary of j£$o as usher of his 
 brother's school and in 1750 was chosen master of the 
 Writing School in Queen (Court) Street. In 1754 he 
 resigned and opened a private school for writing and 
 arithmetic which he carried on to 1769 when he suc- 
 
 55 
 
ceeded his brother Abiah, just deceased, as master of 
 the South Writing School in the Common. Here he 
 continued up to March, 1780, when the school was 
 destroyed by fire and he received burns. His brother's 
 widow having a room in her house (the Sheafe man- 
 sion) that would accommodate seventy or eighty 
 scholars the town desired its use but she refused. 
 Samuel Holbrook being in poor health opened a pri- 
 vate school near by and boarded some of the scholars. 
 
 His health still poor in 178 1 "he would wait on Ladies 
 and Gentlemen at their abode, or could be feen at his 
 School in Court Square or his dwelling at New Bofton" 
 (West End). In 1782 he removed his school to oppo- 
 site the Quaker Meeting House in Congress Street. By 
 this we see he had no benefit from his brother's house 
 after Abiah's death. Abiah's widow by right of dower 
 and by purchase acquired title to the Sheafe-Holbrook 
 
 56 
 
house to the great disadvantage of her husband's other 
 heirs. Dying in 1794 she left Abiah's "alphabetical 
 piece of penmanship called Knotwork" to Harvard 
 College where it may still be seen "by the curious." 
 Her executors that year sold the estate to Israel Hatch, 
 stage owner and tavern keeper, who kept the house as 
 a tavern, for which purpose it was used until torn down 
 in the first part of the next century. 
 
 Joshua Eaton, of Charlestown, who had been a 
 drummer in Bond's Middlesex Regiment in 1775, and 
 Drum Major of Col. Bullard's regiment in 1777, lo- 
 cated in Boston in 1780 as a trader. He sold tea, depre- 
 ciated Continental money, state notes and loan certifi- 
 cates. In 1785, the war being over, he conceived the 
 idea of interesting the inhabitants of the town in a 
 musical project and in June his Mufick Gallery, called 
 also "The Orcheftra," a building of some size, was 
 begun "at the bottom of the Common" near the Mall. 
 In August he advertised it as "The Pantheon where 
 Vocal and Inftrumental Mufick will be performed." 
 Concerts were to be given every Thursday evening 
 until the hall was completed. Mr. Eaton's "young 
 attempt to promote innocent amufement" as he called 
 it, was not a success, and ended in September with an 
 attachment served by the deputy sheriff. He continued 
 in business as an auctioneer until 1 8 1 1 . 
 
 In the eighteenth century, prior to the Revolution 
 and after, the Common was the popular recreation 
 ground of the townspeople and its neighborhood, then 
 
 57 
 
as now, was the natural site for places of public enter- 
 tainment. Mr. Pool, the first American exhibitor of 
 equestrian feats, located in 1786 "near the Mall where 
 he erected a Menage at very confiderable expenfe, with 
 feats for ladies and gentlemen." The performance com- 
 menced at five in the afternoon, tickets were sold at 
 the principal taverns, and no dogs were allowed. 
 
 The failure of Eaton's Pantheon was due in great 
 part to the controversy as to allowing dramatic exhibi- 
 tions, for in March, 1 750, the General Court had passed 
 an act "For preventing and avoiding the many and great 
 mifchiefs which arife from public ftage-plays, inter- 
 ludes, and other theatrical entertainments" and in spite 
 of several efforts this had not yet been repealed. This 
 prohibition was reenacted in 1 784, and a vigorous effort 
 in 1792 to repeal it having failed, the friends of the 
 drama built the New Exhibition Room in Board Alley 
 (now Hawley Street). This was a theatre, except in 
 name, held five hundred persons, and was open from 
 August 1 o, 1 792, until the middle of June, 1 793, when 
 the building was taken down. Plays, including T^omeo 
 and Juliet, Hamlet, Othello, and Otway's "Venice 'Pre- 
 served, were given as "Moral Lectures" though not 
 without indignant protest from the anti-theatre party. 
 The success of the Board Alley Theatre led to the 
 erection in 1793 of the Boston Theatre in Federal 
 Street, a substantial brick building designed by Bul- 
 finch, who was one of the trustees. Boston's theatrical 
 history began with its opening, February 3, 1794. Its 
 
 58 
 
success and the party politics of the day resulted in 
 the project of a rival theatre. 
 
 As early as 1792 Charles Stuart Powell had been 
 giving dramatic entertainments at Concert Hall. He 
 was connected with the Board Alley enterprise and had 
 been the first manager of the Federal Street theatre. 
 Encouraged by his friends he issued early in 1796 pro- 
 posals for building a new theatre to be called the Hay- 
 Market, possibly because it was to be located just beyond 
 the hay-market of the day, or after London's famous 
 theatre, or in reference to one and deference to the 
 other. It was advertised on its opening as Hay-i!Market 
 Theatre. The land on the southerly part of the Sheafe- 
 Holbrook lot (now 178 and 179 Tremont Street) at 
 the back of which the Sheafe brew house and stable 
 had stood, was purchased of Israel Hatch, one of the 
 projectors, and the erection of the theatre begun. 
 
 Hatch Tavern Hay-Market Theatre Head Place and House 
 
 In the Columbian Sentinel of November 20, 1 796, 
 is a reference to the Sheafe mansion : Mr. J. B. Baker 
 advertises the Hay-zM'arket Hotel and "Informs his 
 Friends and the Public, that he has taken that large 
 
 59 
 
and convenient Houfe lately occupied by Col. Israel 
 Hatch, at the bottom of the Mall, for the purpose of 
 improving it as a 'Public Hotel and Tavern" etc., etc., 
 "in the vicinity of the New Theatre." 
 
 The Hay-Market, larger than its Federal Street 
 rival, was a great wooden pile which proudly over- 
 topped every other building in Boston, and had three 
 tiers of boxes, gallery, pit, and drawing-rooms. In the 
 summer Mr. Powell visited England to secure attrac- 
 tions and on December 26, 1796, the Hay-Market 
 opened with a strong company in Mrs. Cowley's play 
 The 'Belle 's Strategem. The play was a success, others 
 followed and the prosperity of the Hay-Market stimu- 
 lated the manager and actors of the rival Federal Street 
 to their utmost endeavors. The most intense jealousy 
 existed between all connected with the two theatres. 
 The stockholders of the older theatre being men of 
 wealth spared no expense, reduced their scale of prices, 
 bought out or papered the performances and sought to 
 injure the new theatre in every way. This rivalry was 
 so bitter that the Hay-Market proprietors took extra 
 precautions against any attempt to set fire to their big 
 wooden building, for a conflagration would menace the 
 south end of the town. The public were warned that 
 after 9 p.m., besides a night watch, there were on the 
 north, south, and east of the building two spring-guns 
 and four man-traps. 
 
 When Archibald Robertson, the Scotch artist and 
 drawing-master of Washington Allston, was in Boston 
 
 60 
 
he painted on September 28, 1798, a water-color 
 showing the Hay-Market Theatre. This became the 
 property of John Howard Payne, the homeless author 
 of Home, Sweet Home, who in his youth had acted 
 with success on the Boston stage. After Payne's death 
 it was bought in the sale of his effects by Mr. Foster 
 of New Jersey from whom it passed to the Boston 
 
 Robertson's view of Common Street (Tremont Street) in 1798 
 
 Public Library. It is here reproduced from the origi- 
 nal. The arch on the right is the gate to the Common 
 opposite West Street. To the left is the old hay- 
 market and scales. Behind the nearest load of hay is 
 the tavern known as the Hay-Market Hotel, formerly 
 the house and inn of Col. Israel Hatch, and beyond is 
 the Hay-Market Theatre. The smaller building oppo- 
 site is Billy Foster's house, now the site of the Little 
 
 61 
 
Building. Under the trees to the right are the waters 
 of the Back Bay. 
 
 On Monday Evening, June 4, 1798, Mr. Barrett, 
 the actor-manager, at his benefit at the Hay-Market 
 Theatre sang Robert Treat Paine's song, ^Adams and 
 J^iberty, which had been published in Boston three days 
 before. It was then advertised and afterward widely 
 known as "The Boston Patriotic Song." Mr. Barrett 
 
 195 
 
 ADAMS AffD LCBERTT. 
 
 L wmrriB »r a. t. pacts, n«. za 1798. 
 
 196 
 
 ^PS^§^§ 
 
 •cended, *MM the reign of mild peace, M-y yoor 
 
 Ipi ateaad 
 
 ■£>.:« fc^=t=y = 
 
 "-f-T- 
 
 §fe : — «=£: 
 
 hr-ie^FB 
 
 Ye sons of Columbia, who bra-rely have 
 
 nation increase, With the glory of 
 
 H 
 
 it, For those rights which anstainM from yoa 
 
 I 
 
 Borne, 
 Csoxtn. 
 
 the wisdom of Greece. 
 
 F^F 
 
 &m 
 
 sires had descended, May you long taste the 
 
 And ne'er may the sons of Co- 
 
 blessings your valor has bought, And your 
 
 lambia be slaves. While the earth bears a 
 
 3E 
 
 * 
 
 ma 
 
 m 
 
 m 
 
 tons reap the toil, which four fetters,, de. pl»n*» or Die tea roll* iu (no. 
 
 From "Boston Musical Miscellany," 1815 
 
 also sang on this occasion "The Philadelphia Patriotic 
 Song" — Hail! Columbia; and Mrs. Catherine Graupner 
 sang, "accompanied on the Hautboy by Mr. Graup- 
 ner." When President Adams attended the Hay- 
 Market on June 5, 1799, John Hodgkinson, the emi- 
 
 62 
 
nent actor-vocalist and manager of the theatre, sang 
 zAdams and jQjberty. This patriotic use of John Stafford 
 Smith's music became so popular that when Key's 
 Star-Spangkd "Banner appeared in Baltimore in 1 8 1 4 
 it was labelled "to be sung to the tune oi^Adams and 
 jQjberty." 
 
 Theatre advertisements of the period and for years 
 afterward read T)oors to be opened at 5, and the Qurtain 
 to rife at 6 o'clock precifely. The receipts falling off, 
 Hodgkinson closed the theatre July 4, 1 799. The Hay- 
 Market was opened the next season and the two follow- 
 ing for occasional performances by strolling companies, 
 but it paid the proprietors so poorly (for Boston could 
 not then support two theatres) that in February, 1803, 
 it was offered for sale at auction under the condition 
 that it be torn down and the materials removed within 
 sixty days. The land was also sold at auction on June 1 . 
 This was the year when Charles Street at the foot of the 
 Common was laid out. 
 
 The purchasers of the theatre site were John Amory, 
 the owner of Concert Hall, and his sister, Rebecca 
 Lowell, children and heirs of John Amory of New- 
 bury Street (now Washington). Rebecca was the wife 
 of John Lowell, prominent as a lawyer and writer and 
 noted for his benevolence. Four brick houses were 
 erected in 1803, the two southerly being Mrs. Lowell's 
 portion. Just to the south was a ten-foot passage (now 
 Head Place) which turned at right angles and divided 
 her lot in the rear. John Amory, her brother, had the 
 
 63 
 
two northern houses. The total frontage on Common 
 Street was one hundred and twenty feet with a depth 
 of one hundred and sixty-two feet. To secure a clear 
 title it was necessary to obtain deeds from all owning 
 proprietors' shares in thevanished Hay-Market Theatre, 
 each conveying i/4oth for $150. The list shows not 
 only the business standing but also the political leaning 
 of each grantor, for the Hay-Market proprietors were 
 for the most part Jacobins while those of the surviving 
 theatre were Federalists. These four brick houses were 
 pioneers in antedating any group of houses facing the 
 Common on either Beacon, Park, or Common Streets. 
 
 In 1 806 the most southerly of the four houses, now 
 1 79 Tremont Street, was purchased by Mary Langdon, 
 daughter of Thomas Walley, a wealthy Boston mer- 
 chant. Her husband, John Langdon, born in 1747, had 
 in his youth been apprenticed with Henry Knox to the 
 booksellers, Wharton & Bowes. Like Knox he became 
 an artillery officer in the Revolution and resigned in 
 1 778 when a captain in Colonel Henry Jackson's regi- 
 ment, and like Knox he had, previous to the war, started 
 a book and stationer's shop in Cornhill. His fourth child, 
 Abigail Langdon, married Giles Lodge in 1799. They 
 were the grandparents of Henry Cabot Lodge, the pres- 
 ent senior senator from Massachusetts. 
 
 As Mrs. Langdon passed to and fro from her shop- 
 ping "down town" she must have watched in 1 809 the 
 erection of the Park Street church with its graceful 
 spire, and seen in 1 8 1 1 and thereafter the building of 
 
 64 
 
the continuous row of brick dwellings that continued 
 northward from the Amory-Lowell block to West 
 Street. Charles Bulfinch was the architect of these 
 aristocratic houses long known as Colonnade Row, 
 though dubbed by the less favored as "Cape Cod Row." 
 Mrs. Langdon's house is listed in the directories of the 
 time as No. 28 Colonnade Row. During the war of 
 1 8 1 2 the corner of the Common opposite her house 
 was used as a parking place for artillery. The street 
 in front of her house, long called Common Street, 
 became Tremont Street in 1829, although after the 
 jubilation at the visit of General Lafayette in 1824 it 
 had been unofficially known as Fayette Place. 
 
 On the death of Mrs. Langdon in 1835 the house, 
 then numbered 116 
 Tremont Street, was 
 purchased by Josiah 
 Stickney , a man of large 
 business interests and an 
 enthusiast in horticul- 
 ture, for he purchased 
 the old Latin School 
 House in School Street, 
 the present lower end 
 
 of the Parker House, Colonnade Row in 1860 
 
 and offered it as a site for the Horticultural Hall that 
 was in 1 845 built on it. In this year he sold his house 
 to Eliphalet Baker, a dry goods merchant, from whom 
 it passed in 1853 to William Shattuck Lincoln, a well 
 
 65 
 
Colonnade Row in 18S8. Spire of Hollis Street Church Hotel Pelham 
 
 known merchant who resided in the house, then re- 
 numbered 179, until his death in 1855, when his heirs 
 sold it to William D. Sohier of Cohasset, a prominent 
 Boston lawyer. In 1858 Mr. Sohier bought the adjoin- 
 ing house on the north, No. 178, and joined it to No. 
 1 79, making a double house, which he occupied as a 
 residence. The next house to the north in the Amory- 
 Lowell group, No. 177, was long owned by the 
 Codman family, and in 1861 was the residence of 
 J. Amory Codman. 
 
 After the death of William D. Sohier in 1868 his 
 widow lived in the double house until 1 872. The great 
 
 66 
 
fire of that year, with 
 the consequent scarcity 
 of buildings, drove busi- 
 ness into what had 
 previously been an aris- 
 tocratic residential sec- 
 tion, and one by one 
 the houses of Colonnade 
 Row became shops, 
 while their former occupants moved into the fast de- 
 veloping Back Bay section or elsewhere. In 1877 the 
 Sohier houses were torn down and a six-story business 
 block, known as The Knickerbocker ^Building was built 
 on the site. This block was in turn demolished in June, 
 1 916, to be replaced by the ten-story building erected 
 by Mr. Charles H. Ditson for the Oliver Ditson Com- 
 pany and occupied by it since September, 1 9 1 7. 
 
 NewWinthrop House, 1852 
 (No. 179 Tremont Street at the left). 
 
 
 BMg^MB TOjtfL;' 
 
 
 lira ifltXi; 
 
 HhViIH h Mi"- 
 
 S 
 
 i H 1 1 UIFll IIwri^i : wflBI 
 
 
 3][Pn .' IV 
 
 K ; ■ ■ V.'-.: , ..j- 
 
 
 
 fe^TO^^^Ki^^^fl^^^ffP*??'**^^^ 
 
 .■■.^■:>_ J ^ J »u».ilLi.«',. ' ' ■""■ ■ 
 
 Colonnade Row in 1844 
 
FIFTY YEARS <MORE 
 
 In i860, Mr. Ditson established in Cincinnati, Mr 
 John Church, a young man who 
 had been with him from boy- 
 hood. The business successfully 
 launched was in 1 87 1 sold to Mr. 
 Church, and is now well known 
 as The John Church Company. 
 In 1864, two young men, 
 Mr. P. J. Healy and Mr. George 
 W. Lyon, were established in 
 Chicago by the capital of Oliver 
 Ditson & Co 
 
 John Church 
 
 under the now honored name of 
 
 Lyon & Healy. 
 
 On March 4, 1867, the firm 
 purchased the music plates, stock 
 and good-will of Firth, Son & 
 Co. of New York City. This led 
 at once to the establishment of a 
 branch house in the metropolis, 
 under the management of Oliver 
 Ditson's eldest son, Charles, 
 with the firm name of Chas. H. 
 
 P. J. Healy DitSOn & Co. 
 
 After remaining a few months at 563 Broadway, 
 
 70 
 
where Firth, Son & Co. had been located, more spa- 
 cious quarters were taken at 71 1 Broadway. The pur- 
 chase by the parent house of the music catalog and 
 business of Wm. Hall & Son of New York, in 1875, 
 and of J. L. Peters of New York, in 1 877, necessitated 
 the taking of more spacious quarters, in 1878, at 843 
 Broadway. 
 
 In 1883, the property at the southwest corner of 
 Broadway and Eighteenth Street was purchased and 
 the Ditson Building erected. Here 
 at 867 Broadway the firm remained 
 until the constant uptown trend 01 
 retail trade led to the erection of a 
 new Ditson Building at 8-1 0-12 
 East 34th Street. Into these hand- 
 some quarters the firm moved in 
 1907, just forty years after its 
 establishment. 
 
 In 1875, the purchase of the 
 catalog of Lee & Walker of Phila- 8 _ ]2 East 34th street 
 delphia, led to the opening of a branch house in that city 
 under the management of another son, James Edward 
 Ditson, under the firm name of J. E. Ditson & Co. 
 
 In 1 879, the stock and music plates of G. Andre & 
 Co. of Philadelphia, were purchased. 
 
 In 1 881, the uptown trend of business led to the 
 removal from 922 to 1228 Chestnut Street. In the 
 same year occurred the death of Mr. J. E. Ditson. 
 
 7i 
 
 

 In i 890, the entire catalog, stock and music plates of 
 F. A. North & Co. of Philadelphia, were purchased. 
 
 In 1 9 1 o, changed conditions of business led to the 
 discontinuance of the Philadelphia branch house. 
 
 In 1 877, the purchase of the catalog and good-will 
 of G. D. Russell & Co. of Boston, and the constantly 
 
 expanding business of the par- 
 ent Boston house compelled 
 the taking of the adjoining 
 store at No. 449 Washington 
 Street, which had been erected 
 expressly as an addition to 
 No. 451. 
 
 With the issue of December 
 21, 1 878, Oliver Ditson & Co. 
 ceased to publish IDwight's 
 Journal of \M~usic and estab- 
 lished the zJxConthly zJxCusical 
 T^ecord, which in 1 898 was suc- 
 ceeded by the ?3xCusical l^ecord, a high-class magazine 
 under the brilliant editorship of Philip Hale. 
 
 In October, 1 898, the issue was begun of a pocket- 
 size monthly magazine to bulletin the publications of 
 the house, under the name <^hCusic T^eview. 
 
 In January, 1 901 , this magazine was combined with 
 the zJxCusicalT^ecord under the name zJ)(Cusical T^ecord & 
 Ttjiyiew, with Thomas Tapper as editor. After more 
 than two years' issue in its enlarged form another com- 
 
 72 
 
 449-451 Washington Street 
 
bination was made by the purchase from the Hatch 
 Music Co. of Philadelphia of The ^Musician. The 
 smaller magazine was dropped and the new magazine 
 in its present form issued under Mr. Tapper's editor- 
 ship from November, 1903, to August, 1907, when 
 he was succeeded by Mr. W. J. Baltzell, who has con- 
 ducted the magazine ever 
 since. 
 
 On December 21,1888, 
 Oliver Ditson passed away 
 at the ripe age of seventy- 
 seven. He had been not 
 only a great music pub- 
 lisher, but for twenty years 
 President of the Conti- 
 nental Bank, director in 
 various institutions, a con- 
 stant though unostenta- 
 tious promotor of good 
 works in others, and the quiet helper of many a strug- 
 gling musician. On Sunday Afternoon, December 23, 
 he was buried from Trinity Church, the Rev. Phillips 
 Brooks officiating. Mr. J. C. D. Parker, the son of his 
 early employer, presided at the organ. The surviving 
 partners, John C. Haynes, Charles H. Ditson, and the 
 executors of Oliver Ditson's estate, then organized the 
 corporation, Oliver Ditson Company, with Mr. Haynes 
 as President. 
 
 In 1 89 1 , larger quarters being needed, the extensive 
 
 73 
 
 Oliver Ditson 
 
453-463 Washington Street 
 
 property at 453-463 Wash- 
 ington Street, known as the 
 Dexter Building, was leased 
 and occupied until 1901. 
 
 Mr. Charles H. Ditson 
 having erected a modern 
 ten-story building at 451 
 Washington Street, on the 
 site of the five-story building 
 erected by his father in 1857 
 for Oliver Ditson & Co., the 
 business was in 1901 moved 
 into it. Changing conditions 
 and the necessity of still larger quarters caused the re- 
 moval on January 25, 1904, to the new building con- 
 structed for its special needs at 150 Tremont Street, 
 
 facing Boston Common. Upon the 
 
 death May 3, 1907, of Mr. John 
 
 C. Haynes, 
 
 after sixty- 
 two years 
 
 connection 
 
 with the 
 
 house, the 
 
 Presidency 
 
 of the cor- 
 
 451^Washington St. 
 
 poration 
 and the di- 
 rection of 
 
 John C. Haynes 
 
 74 
 
its great interests devolved 
 naturally and fittingly upon 
 the son of the founder, Mr. 
 Charles Healy Ditson. 
 
 The eight-story building at 
 150 Tremont Street, prov- 
 ing too cramped, Mr. Ditson 
 erected a larger and thor- 
 oughly modern ten-story 
 building at 178- 179 Tremont 
 Street, where not only the 
 specific requirements of the 
 various departments were well 
 cared for, but provision was made for inevitable growth 
 and expansion. Into this permanent home the business 
 was moved in September, 191 7. 
 
 150 Tremont Street 
 
 75 
 
CHRONOLOGY OF 
 THE OLIVET^ T>ITSO^C COMPANY 
 
 1783 Ebenezer Battelle opens the Boston Book-Store at 8 State Street 
 
 1785 Benjamin Guild purchases Battelle' s music and circulating library 
 
 1786 Guild moves to 59 Cornhill (Washington Street). 
 
 1792 Guild dies and William Pinson Blake continues the business. 
 
 1796 William Pelham succeeds Blake at 59 Cornhill. 
 
 1804 William Blagrove takes Pelham's business at 5 School Street. 
 
 1808 Blagrove moves to 61 Cornhill (Washington Street). 
 
 1809 Blagrove moves to 3 School Street. 
 
 1811 Samuel H. Parker succeeds Blagrove at 3 School Street. 
 
 1811 Oliver Ditson born in Boston on October 20. 
 
 1815 Parker moves to 4 Cornhill (Washington Street). 
 
 1818 Parker moves to 12 Cornhill (Washington Street). 
 
 1823 Oliver Ditson enters the employ of Colonel S. H. Parker. 
 
 1825 Parker moves to 164 Washington Street. 
 
 1826 Oliver Ditson becomes an apprentice to Isaac R. Butts. 
 
 1833 Fire destroys Parker's store, November 1. 
 
 1834 Parker reopens in January at 10 School Street. 
 1834 Parker moves in April to 141 Washington Street. 
 
 1834 Parker moves in December to 107 Washington Street. 
 
 1835 Oliver Ditson begins to publish and copyright 
 
 music at 107 Washington Street. 
 
 1836 Firm of Parker & Ditson formed on April 5. 
 
 ■ 3j : H.i M ,'r tm! 
 
 I I _B i. 
 
 I 
 
 1835-1838 
 
 1838-1844 
 
 1844-1857 
 
 1857-1877 
 
 76 
 
1838 Parker & Ditson move to 135 Washington Street. 
 
 1842 Oliver Ditson acquires the interests of Samuel H. Parker. 
 
 1844 Oliver Ditson moves to 115 Washington Street. 
 
 1845 John C. Haynes enters the employ of Oliver Ditson. 
 
 1857 Oliver Ditson & Co. formed by admitting John C. Haynes. 
 
 1857 Mr. Ditson erects building at 277 (now 451) Washington Street. 
 
 1858 Oliver Ditson & Co. take over Dwight's Journal of Music. 
 1860 Mr. Ditson establishes John Church in Cincinnati. 
 
 1864 Mr. Ditson establishes Lyon & Healy in Chicago. 
 
 1867 Chas. H. Ditson & Co. established in New York. 
 
 1875 J. E. Ditson & Co. established in Philadelphia. 
 
 1877 Store at 449 Washington Street taken as an addition to No. 451. 
 
 1881 Death of James Edward Ditson. 
 
 1888 Death of Oliver Ditson, December 21. 
 
 1889 Oliver Ditson Company incorporated, John C. Haynes, Pres. 
 1891 Removal to 453H-63 Washington Street. 
 
 1901 Removal to new ten-story building at 451 Washington Street. 
 1904 Removal to new and larger building at 150 Tremont Street. 
 1907 Death of John C. Haynes, 
 
 May 3. 
 1907 Charles H. Ditson becomes 
 
 President. 
 
 1916 Mr. Ditson begins erection of 
 
 building at 178-179 Tremont 
 Street. 
 
 1917 Removal to new building at 
 
 178-179 Tremont Street. 
 
 
 1877-1891 
 
 1891-1901 1901-1904 1904-1917 
 
 77 
 
Ditson Building, 178-179 Tremont Street 
 
THE <DITSO^{JBUILDING 
 
 1 h e focus of modern Boston's shopping activity is at 
 the corner of Tremontand Boylston Streets, where con- 
 verge the currents of vivid life from hotels, theatres 
 and subways. Facing the Common on Tremont Street, 
 within a stone's throw of this teeming corner, rises the 
 
 stately facade of the most recent among the city's not- 
 able structures; it is the splendid new home of the 
 Oliver Ditson Company. White marble was the ma- 
 
 19 
 
terial selected, as being worthy of the art to which the 
 building is devoted; and the style chosen was an adap- 
 tation of the Renaissance. As seems fitting, both be- 
 cause of proportions and of the purposes of the various 
 stories, the first and second indicate, by ornamentation, 
 their use for music, the carved decorations between the 
 windows in the third story being of musical instru- 
 ments surrounding panels that contain the names of 
 composers to whose work these instruments are appro- 
 priate, for instance: with the name of Gounod are the 
 drum and trumpets of the March in Faust; with Verdi, 
 the guitar, symbolic of Italian lyricism; with Wagner, 
 the horns and tragic mask; with Bizet, the tambour- 
 ines and castanets of Carmen's dance; with Beethoven, 
 the violin, and with Schubert, the lyre of song. The 
 columned upper stories dignify this portion of the 
 building, as it contains the Memorial Room to Oliver 
 Ditson, besides the various managerial offices. Notably 
 handsome is the bronze finish by Tiffany of the show 
 windows and entrances, as well as the verde antique 
 panels above. The elevator doors and grills are like- 
 wise of bronze, and the entrance vestibule is in an- 
 tique Siena marble. The interior of the building fully 
 bears out in beauty and convenience the promise of 
 the exterior. 
 
 Above the sub-basement, which contains the heat- 
 ing-plant and other vital mechanism of a great modern 
 building, is a high studded, airy basement, which houses 
 a complete working stock of books, both American 
 
 80 
 
and imported; and here are carried also the complete 
 octavo publications of the great Ditson catalogue, now 
 including more than i 3,000 numbers. 
 
 The street floor is given over entirely to the retail 
 music store, which is without question one of the largest 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Mm 
 
 s S _5 
 
 pL — ' -T -4l_ 
 
 1 jlKfffi 
 
 rife 
 
 1 
 
 
 ®^BSH^'jg 
 
 ■ : .;.■■■ 
 
 
 Bk 
 
 ■.'■■.'.:■..' 
 
 .l&b-l 
 
 
 
 b: !W v *W|a^ 
 
 
 Retail Music Department — Street floor 
 
 and most perfectly appointed in this or any other city. 
 It is remarkable for its spaciousness, its flood of light 
 and the elegant detail observed in all its fittings. A 
 mezzanine balcony, with ornamental railing, surrounds 
 three sides of the store, to afford accessible accommo- 
 dation for the large stock which must be carried to 
 serve retail needs. 
 
 The convenience of customers has been everywhere 
 
 81 
 
considered in arranging the various departments. On 
 the right as one enters, books in the field of musical 
 literature are displayed in handsome cases, and adjoining 
 is found the vocal department; on the same side but 
 farther towards the rear is the piano music. In the 
 centre of the store is a large elliptical counter given 
 over to the sale of octavo music, including choral works 
 from every publisher in the country. It may be safely 
 stated that organists and choirmasters of Boston have 
 never found so comfortable a place for the arduous task 
 of music selection as is offered them here. To the left 
 of the entrance is the important department devoted to 
 the sale of foreign music, and farther to the rear,beyond 
 
 Victor Department — Second floor 
 82 
 
the elevators, is a commodious section for the band and 
 orchestra department. The pneumatic cash system in- 
 sures prompt service. A desirable innovation is a sound- 
 proof room, where those who desire to try over music 
 at the piano can do so, undisturbed and undisturbing. 
 At the rear entrance of the store is a shipping-room for 
 light packages, the freight and express packages being 
 shipped from the basement. 
 
 On the second story, reached by two elevators, is the 
 department for the sale of Victor Talking Machines, 
 which occupies this entire floor. Numerous small 
 rooms in which customers may try out records sur- 
 round two sides of the main salesroom; they are as 
 
 Manager of the Victor Department 
 83 
 
nearly sound-proof as may be, airy, all open to the day- 
 light, and Persian rugs add to their comfort and beauty. 
 The third floor is devoted to the needs of the whole- 
 sale and jobbing departments. The large amount of 
 sheet music stock carried for this purpose is kept ac- 
 
 Wholesale Music Department— Third floor 
 
 cording to a convenient and dust-proof arrangement, 
 which is a successful application of the well-known 
 Tindale Music Cabinet system on an extensive scale. 
 This specially planned equipment makes it possible 
 to handle the large volume of orders in much less time 
 and with a fraction of the labor involved in the old 
 method. 
 
 On the fourth floor is the retail salesroom for musi- 
 cal instruments. Here can be found every instrument 
 
 84 
 
Retail Instrument Department — Fourth floor 
 
 Instrument Department — Fourth floor 
 85 
 
used in band or orchestra, from the most expensive 
 violin and harp down to the Chinese drum employed 
 by the percussion player, as well as all the small acces- 
 sories and devices which instrumental performers re- 
 quire. It is safe to say that no more admirable plan 
 for the display and sale of musicians' supplies is to be 
 found in this country. Falling in admirably with the 
 restful decorative scheme is the display of harps — the 
 most beautiful of instruments to the eye — ranging 
 from the quaint little Irish harp up to Lyon & Healy's 
 most superb modern production. The wholesale de- 
 
 
 
 T 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 --:■■ ■ 
 
 ■ __;■■//: ' .■"/■■■■' ;■■'■■- v:..r-/ f ; C; , 
 
 ■&£» ■ : — ; ; — ■■ ."Ll.: ■. ■ 
 
 1 ! ^**SR ■■'■■■-. 
 
 * 1 
 
 
 Repair Department — Fifth floor 
 
 partment for the sale of instruments is located on the 
 fifth floor; and here also, in a spacious, well-lighted 
 
 86 
 
workroom, expert masters of their delicate craft give 
 first aid and final cure to all musical instruments which 
 have fallen temporarily out of joint or out of tune. 
 
 The front of the sixth story is occupied by the large 
 force employed in the bookkeeping department, and 
 here also is the handsomely furnished and oak-panelled 
 office of the Treasurer. The rear of this floor gives 
 further space for the storage of musical merchandise. 
 
 The seventh, eighth and ninth stories are rented to 
 
 
 
 1 ; ■: 
 
 
 
 i '■ . - ; ' ' 
 
 1 : ■ 
 1 
 
 J 
 
 ♦-■"Sri 
 
 m*,uur" J ^a^.-L^Sl 
 
 
 1 j 
 
 JO&- ' 
 
 
 ■' ■" ■ 
 
 Office of the Treasurer — Sixth floor 
 87 
 
tenants, for whose convenience a separate entrance from 
 the street and two special elevators are provided. 
 
 The tenth and top story is certainly a fitting cul- 
 mination to this fine establishment. Here are housed 
 in luxury the various offices devoted to the managerial 
 and mechanical activities of a great publishing firm. 
 
 Central Office — Tenth floor 
 
 Stepping from the elevator one enters a large square 
 apartment, oak-panelled to the ceiling and lighted by 
 an ample skylight. This gives accommodation to 
 clerks connected with the various offices. Across the 
 front of the building is a suite of three rooms: to the 
 right on leaving the elevator is the private office of the 
 General Manager; the central office is the President's 
 
 88 . 
 
Office of the General Manager — Tenth floor 
 
 Room; and the one beyond is the private room of the 
 Musical Editor, wherein a handsome Steinway grand 
 piano is conspicuous among the professional attributes. 
 These rooms are as handsome in decoration and fur- 
 nishing as good taste can suggest and money can pro- 
 cure. Panelled to the ceiling in Jacobean quartered oak, 
 with furniture specially designed and made to match, 
 they certainly represent the last word in modern office 
 equipment. 
 
 89 
 
■11 I I i 
 
 Mm m 'f 
 
 Office of the Musical Editor and Publishing Manager 
 
 But without doubt the crowning feature of the en- 
 tire building is the room set apart for the use of the 
 President, for directors' meetings, and similar gather- 
 ings. Here, too, the woodwork is of dark quartered oak 
 and there is an ornamental English plaster ceiling. The 
 floor is of dull red Mercer tiles and the small-paned 
 casement windows, affording a beautiful view over the 
 Common, form a slightly rounded front to the room. 
 The two side walls are occupied by glassed-in book- 
 cases. The rear wall contains a fireplace of Botticino 
 marble, topped by a carved oak mantel, in the centre 
 of which, surrounded by a richly carved frame built in- 
 to the panelling, is a portrait of the late Oliver Ditson, 
 the founder of the house. The flanking pilasters of the 
 
 90 
 
President's Room and Library 
 
 frame are carved with pendants of flowers and fruit, 
 while above are two corbels representing respectively 
 medieval and classic music; this carving is by Mr. I. 
 Kirchmayer. Below the shelf of the mantel, partially 
 concealed in foliage, is a Greek motto ascribed to Soc- 
 rates, which may be translated as follows: "Make music 
 and work making it." No more appropriate motto for 
 this first of American music houses could be discovered. 
 In the centre of the ceiling is a silver Flemish chande- 
 lier. All the hardware throughout this story is of silver 
 finish, and the floors in all these rooms are adorned 
 with Oriental rugs. The remainder of the rooms are 
 other offices for the editorial staff, the office of the Edi- 
 
 9i 
 
tor of The ^hCusician, the private and general offices for 
 the manager of the printing department and his large 
 staff of workers, and the private office for the head of 
 the band and orchestra department. In pursuance of 
 the policy of the house to provide every comfort for 
 those in its employ, there is a fully equipped rest room 
 on this floor for the women employees. 
 
 The building was planned by Edward W. Briggs 
 and Clarence A. Woodman, of the Oliver Ditson 
 Company, and financed by its President, Charles H. 
 Ditson, son of Oliver Ditson. The architects were 
 Townsend, Steinle, and Haskell, of New York, and 
 C. Howard Walker and Son, of Boston. To the latter 
 firm should be given credit for the facade and the 
 unique interior fittings and decorations. 
 
 The "tall and solitary bachelors' apartment house," 
 
 Beacon Street from the roof of the Ditson Building 
 
 9 2 
 
referred to on page i, as standing almost on the site 
 of William Blaxton's hut, is conspicuous in the view 
 of Beacon Street taken from the roof of the Ditson 
 Building, looking northwest across the Common. The 
 snowy heights of Medford are beyond. The "Soldiers 
 Monument" spoken of in the Prefatory Note appears 
 in this picture and in the one that follows, which was 
 taken from the roof of the bachelors' apartment house 
 at No. 48 Beacon Street. 
 
 Tremont Street from West Street to Boylston 
 
 This view of Tremont Street shows the transforma- 
 tion of Colonnade Row from West Street and the 
 Lawrence Building at the left to the Ditson Building 
 at the right, directly over the Army and Navy Monu- 
 ment. Next to the Lawrence Building is the one pre- 
 viously erected in 1903 -1904 for the Oliver Ditson 
 Company at 1 50 Tremont Street. Since their removal 
 in 1917 two additional floors have been added. A few 
 
 93 
 
of the dwelling houses of the once fashionable Row- 
 appear in this picture little changed. A bit of the 
 historic "Frog Pond" fills the lower left-hand corner 
 of the picture. 
 
 The view of the Back Bay district taken from the 
 
 •-< ■-."•■ ■■-■/...-. 
 
 ».-...-, -.iftflitJL 
 
 ifeu^ jj|iigy : :k^wir'?g 
 
 
 
 »•«, -'-t»m*«'*» J '- " / .-.gjaMrTfe 
 
 mam 
 
 :, -^.2»iar. e . 
 
 -. 
 
 
 
 i/i^ dJFl 
 
 
 
 ■^— 35HlG£i H 
 
 Back Bay district from tenth floor of Ditson Building 
 
 central upper windows of the Ditson Building shows 
 in the foreground the southwest corner of the Com- 
 mon, the Public Garden beyond it, and a group of 
 church spires — massive Trinity at the left, near it the 
 New Old South, Arlington Street nearer by, a little 
 to the right that of Central Church and the Florentine 
 tower of the First Baptist Church, with the spire of the 
 First Church in Boston farther to the right. Across 
 the Charles River the buildings of the Institute of 
 Technology show white in the sunshine. 
 
 The view of the recently enlarged State House was 
 
 94 
 
taken from the roof of the Ditson Building. The 
 obelisk of Bunker Hill Monument shows faintly over 
 the right wing. The building on the right with two 
 new upper stories in process of construction is that 
 recently vacated by the Oliver Ditson Company. 
 
 State House from the roof of the Ditson Building 
 
 The view of Tremont Street taken in March, 1 9 1 8, 
 may be contrasted with the drawing on page 50, show- 
 ing the same section in 1 800. It shows again the trans- 
 formation of the once quiet and exclusive Colonnade 
 Row to a busy shopping district. On the site of the 
 Ditson Building in the foreground the first group of 
 brick houses facing the Common was erected in 1 803, 
 and Park Street Church, seen at the left, was built in 
 1 809. The section of the Common in the foreground 
 
 95 
 
was, in 1 8 1 2, a parking place for artillery. Beneath 
 it and the once quiet Central Burying Ground adja- 
 cent now rumbles the ceaseless traffic of the Subway. 
 
 Tremont Street in March, 1918 
 
 Other changes as radical will doubtless follow, and 
 some years hence the irregular sky line between the 
 old and new Ditson buildings, the first to rise above 
 their neighbors, will doubtless be filled by an even 
 row of structures worthy of their unique position. 
 
 96 
 
OFFICERS zAND DIRECTORS OF THE 
 OLIVER DITSO^ COMPANY 
 
 President Secretary and Treasurer 
 
 Charles H. Ditson Edward W. Briggs 
 
 Directors 
 Charles H. Ditson 
 . Edward S. Cragin 
 
 Clarence A. Woodman 
 
 Stockholders 
 
 Charles H. Ditson and Estate of Oliver Ditson 
 
 Edward W. Briggs Charles F. Manney 
 
 Clifford C. Chapman William J. O'Meara 
 
 Edward S. Cragin William J. Reilly 
 
 William A. Fisher Thomas H. Rollinson 
 
 John B. Hauswirth James A. Smith 
 
 Harry L. Hunt Henry A. Winkelman 
 
 Henry MacLaren Clarence A. Woodman 
 
 HONORABLE MENTION 
 
 The appreciation of the house for its employees and the esteem in 
 which it is held by them is shown by the names of those given below, 
 who have been connected with the business for five years and upwards. 
 
 ^hCore than Fifty Tears 
 
 Charles H. Ditson Arthur B. Flint 
 
 *Edward S. Cragin *Frank H. Gould 
 
 William Holmes 
 
 <-JMore than Forty-five Tears 
 
 Charles B. Donovan Miss Josephine L. Rossiter 
 
 Charles B. Hollis Windsor C. Wright 
 
 97 
 
zJtCore than Forty Years 
 
 Edward Kirk *Joseph M. Priaulx 
 
 *J. Fred Olfers Roland B. Winterton 
 
 Clarence A. Woodman 
 
 zJfyCore than Thirty-five Tears 
 
 Clifford C. Chapman *John K. Morehouse 
 
 Gus Enders Henry Schlimper 
 
 *Edward Moisson Henry A. Winkelman 
 
 cJtCore than Thirty Years 
 
 Robert P. Anderson 
 Henry Beach 
 John H. Burke 
 John J. Connell 
 James L. Fitzgerald 
 George W. Furniss 
 *Joseph Glassmacher 
 John B. Hauswirth 
 William S. Hollis 
 
 Henry MacLaren 
 
 John Miller 
 
 Frank Oeffenger 
 * William J. O'Meara 
 
 William J. Reilly 
 
 Thomas H. Rollinson 
 *Floyd Schoonmacher 
 
 Jacob Wronker 
 *Miss Mary E. Woodward 
 
 ojjffore than Twenty-five Years 
 
 Edward W. Briggs 
 
 
 *Charles Rumsby 
 
 *Louis R. Dressier 
 
 
 George H. Shirley 
 
 Harry Fisher 
 
 
 James A. Smith 
 
 *Henry Harris 
 
 
 John Stromberg 
 
 *Fred Morlock 
 
 
 Elmer J. Swett 
 
 August Piesendel 
 
 
 *Miss Clara Thomas 
 
 Max Pulverman 
 
 
 *Miss Elizabeth Ward 
 
 
 <JWore than Twenty 
 
 Years 
 
 JohnW. Chandler 
 
 
 Benjamin K. Little 
 
 *Louis H. Fichten 
 
 
 Charles F. Manney 
 
 William A. Fisher 
 
 
 John O. Martin 
 
 Harry Haney 
 
 
 *William J. Moore 
 
 James Hermitage 
 
 
 Fred W. Schmidt 
 
 *Harry L. Hunt 
 
 
 *Frank Sinclair 
 
 
 Henry T. Travi 
 
 is 
 
 
 98 
 
 
zJbfore than Fifteen Years 
 
 Mrs. Mabel Bean 
 *Miss Amelia Bishop 
 
 Charles E. Durgin 
 *William Froese 
 
 John Frey 
 
 Charles Hellman 
 
 Frank Huxley 
 *Miss Mary C. Jennings 
 
 Herman Knauber 
 Henry O. Ladd 
 Otto A. Piesendel 
 Miss V. Clyde Robbins 
 Miss Annie E. Rose 
 Frank Sala 
 *John F. Scott 
 Louis Wilmot 
 
 <^More than Ten Years 
 
 William Adams 
 Winton J. Baltzell 
 Charles E. Beagley 
 Walter F. Blaser 
 Stephen S. Bruen 
 John C. Canavan 
 *Paul E. W. Carlson 
 *Harry J. Eaton 
 James H. Fernald 
 Miss Inez Hall 
 William R. Hawes 
 *Alfred C. Hippman 
 *William Juneman 
 
 Miss Olga Jansen 
 
 *Charles Kindt 
 Leslie A. Martell 
 
 *Charles Morlock 
 Miss Lillian Neal 
 J. La Motte Osgood 
 Charles F. Pidgeon 
 F. Wendell Pierce 
 James Reardon 
 Carl Sander 
 
 *Fred Spingler 
 Frank Welch 
 Miss Eva E. White 
 
 ^hCore than Five Years 
 
 Edward F. Andrews 
 Miss May Beck 
 Miss Carrie Bowers 
 Walter C. Brice 
 
 *Carl Davider 
 
 *John Davidson 
 Miss Anna E. Drew 
 Charles Farley 
 Frank W. Fernald 
 
 *Miss Anna Ford 
 
 *Leon Gardner 
 
 *Thomas Gray 
 
 Oscar C. Henning 
 *Miss Ruth Keller 
 
 Miss Mary F. Kennedy 
 *William Kidd 
 *William Lind 
 *Joseph May 
 *Miss Camille Michaelis 
 
 Miss Eleanor Murray 
 
 Frederick Newall 
 *Miss Johanna Nordheim 
 
 99 
 
Joseph Rafalee Miss Honora Sheriden 
 
 *Charles T. Rouss *James Sockwell 
 
 *Grover Rouss *Harry Van Wagenen 
 
 *Miss Julia E. Salvatore *Miss Elizabeth Werschmidt 
 Miss Annabelle Scott Miss May White 
 
 John Secord Miss Louise Wilkinson 
 
 Ernest Wurlitzer 
 
 WITH THE COLORS 
 
 Robert B. Beers — Army 
 
 David S. Blandon — Navy 
 
 Walter Blaser — Army 
 
 Benni Busoni — Army 
 
 John W. Canavan — Navy 
 
 Joseph O. N. Carlson — Army 
 
 Clifford L. Carter — Army 
 
 Alden Clark — Army (Died in service) 
 
 Warren Coleman — Navy 
 *Carl Davider — Army 
 *George De Martins — Laboratory Dept. 
 *Harry J. Eaton — Army 
 
 Herman Flick — Army 
 *Leon Gardner — Army 
 
 Paul Kachele — Army 
 
 George Kerr — Navy 
 
 Thomas Killduff — Navy 
 *William Lind — Army 
 
 James Loughlin — Army 
 *George Parker — Army 
 
 Wilfred F. Pierpont — Army 
 *Grover Rouss — Army 
 
 Carl Sander — Army 
 *Gustav Stultz — Army 
 
 Charles Sullivan — Navy 
 
 Joseph Sweeney — Army 
 
 Edwin W. Staniland — Army 
 
 •With Chas. H. Ditson & Co. 
 
 IOO 
 
INDEX 
 
 Page 
 
 A.BT, Franz 47 
 
 Academy of Music Orchestra 41 
 
 Adams and Liberty 62, 63 
 
 Adams, President 62 
 
 Alboni 44 
 
 Allston, Washington 60 
 American Harmony, The 
 
 Holden 14 
 
 Amory, John 63 
 
 Andre, G., & Co. 71 
 
 Arlington xiv 
 
 Athenaeum Press 3 
 Autocrat of the Breakfast Table xiv 
 
 Bach, J. S. 8, 47 
 
 Back Bay xiv, xv, 62, 67, 94 
 
 Baltzell, W. J. 73 
 
 Battelle's Boston Bookstore 14, 22, 23 
 Battelle, Col. Ebenezer 22, 23, 76 
 Bay Psalm Book, The 3, 4 
 
 Beacon Street xiv, 64, 92, 93 
 
 Beethoven 
 Billings, William 
 Blagrove, William 
 Blake, William Pinson 
 Blaxton, Rev. William 
 Board Alley Theatre 
 Booksellers and Bookshops 
 
 1, 14, 19, 20-29,64 
 Boston 
 
 
 11, 
 
 40 
 
 XV, 
 
 11 
 
 -13 
 
 24, 
 
 25, 
 
 76 
 
 
 23, 
 
 76 
 
 XV, 1, 
 
 93 
 
 
 58, 
 
 59 
 
 Settlement of 
 
 1 
 
 Naming of 
 
 1 
 
 Purchase of 
 
 XV 
 
 Population of 
 
 6, 30, 35, 38 
 
 Early Book and Music Shops in 
 
 19-30, 35 
 Early Music Publishing in 
 
 17-20, 26-28, 30, 35-37 
 Early Theatres 29, 58-63 
 
 First Railway Connections 38 
 
 First Trans-Atlantic Steamers 38 
 
 Page 
 Boston Common xiii-xvi, 49, 51-54 
 56, 57, 61 , 64-67, 74, 90, 92-96 
 Boston Symphony Orchestra 42 
 
 Bradford, Gov. William 38 
 
 Bradlee, Charles 27, 28 
 
 Brattle Square Church 4, 8, 9 
 
 Brattle, Thomas 8 
 
 Briggs, Edward W. 92 
 
 Brignoli 44 
 
 Buck, Dudley 46, 48 
 
 Bulfinch, Charles 58, 65 
 
 Bulow, von 45 
 
 Bull, Ole 32, 45, 46 
 
 Bunker Hill xv 
 
 ambridge xiv, xv, 2, 3, 48, 52 
 
 4 
 45 
 32 
 14, 17,35 
 xv 
 70,77 
 66 
 
 c 
 
 Cambridge Short Tune 
 
 Carreno, Teresa 
 
 Chopin 
 
 Choirs 1 1 
 
 Christ Church, Cambridge 
 
 Church, John 
 
 Codman, J. Amory 
 
 Collection of 'the Best Psalm Tunes 
 
 Flagg 10 
 
 Colonial Literature 5 
 
 Colonnade Row 65-67, 93, 95 
 
 Columbian Songster, The 14 
 
 Concert Hall 16, 59, 63 
 
 Concerts of Music 15-17 
 
 25, 27, 32, 33, 35, 36, 40-47, 57 
 Continental Harmony, The 
 
 Billings 12 
 
 Copley, John Singleton 24 
 
 Copley, Mary 24 
 
 Coronation, Holden 13, 14 
 
 Cotton, Rev. John 2, 3 
 
 Dancing School 
 David, Oratorio of 
 Deblois, Gilbert 
 
 9 
 36 
 15 
 
Page 
 Dedham 18 
 
 Dibdin, Charles 18 
 
 Dickson, James A. 28, 29 
 
 Ditson Buildings 71, 72, 74-% 
 
 Ditson, Charles H. 
 
 67, 69, 70, 73-75, 77, 92 
 Ditson, Charles H., & Co. 70, 71, 77 
 Ditson, James Edward 71, 77 
 
 Ditson, J. E., & Co. 71,72,77 
 
 Ditson, Joseph 31, 32 
 
 Ditson, Oliver 28, 31^K) 
 
 47, 68, 70, 73, 76, 77, 80, 90 
 Ditson, Oliver, & Co. 
 
 40, 43, 70, 72, 74, 77 
 Ditson, Oliver, Company 
 
 67, 73, 76, 77, 79, 92, 93 
 Ditson, Samuel 31 
 
 Dorchester 2 
 
 Dunster, Rev. Henry 2 
 
 Dwight, John S. 39, 43, 46 
 
 Dwighf s Journal of Music 
 
 43, 44, 46, 72 
 Jj/ATON's Musick Gallery 57,58 
 
 Eichberg, Julius 46 
 
 Emerson, Ralph Waldo xiv, 32 
 
 Enstone, Edward 9 
 
 Essipoff, Annette 45 
 
 .Taneuil Hall 
 
 15 
 
 Faneuil, Peter 
 
 15 
 
 Federal Street Theatre 
 
 29, 58-60 
 
 Fields, James T. 
 
 37 
 
 Firth, Son & Co. 
 
 70, 71 
 
 Flagg, Josiah 
 
 10 
 
 Franklin, Benjamin 
 
 7 
 
 Franklin, J. 
 
 7 
 
 Fuller, Margaret 
 
 38 
 
 (jarrison, William Lloyd 32 
 
 Gericke, Wilhelm 43 
 
 Germania Orchestra 41 
 Gilmore, P. S. 46, 47 
 
 Gluck 18 
 
 Goldschmidt, Otto 44 
 
 Gottschalk, Louis M. 45 
 
 Page 
 Graupner, Catherine 31, 62 
 
 Graupner, Gottlieb 
 
 26,27,30,31,33,34,40,62 
 Graupner, John Henry Howard 
 
 34, 40 
 Grisi, Giulia 44 
 
 Grounds and Rules of Musick 
 
 Walter 7 
 
 Guild, Benjamin 23, 76 
 
 JTJ.AIL! Columbia 62 
 
 Hale, Philip 72 
 
 Hall, William, & Son 71 
 
 Handel 8,10,11,17,18,33,36 
 
 Handel and Haydn Society, The 
 
 26, 33, 34, 36, 42, 47 
 Handel and Haydn Society 
 
 Collection of Church Music 33 
 Harris, John 10, 11 
 
 Harvard College xiv, 2, 3, 22, 55 
 
 Harvard, Rev. John 3 
 
 Harvard Musical Association 42, 43 
 Hatch, Israel 57, 59-61 
 
 Hawthorne, Nathaniel 32 
 
 Haydn 18, 31 
 
 Hay-Market Theatre 29, 49, 50, 59-64 
 Haynes, John C. 40, 73, 74, 77 
 
 Healy, P. J. 70 
 
 Henschel, Georg 43 
 
 Hermit of Shawmut, The xv 
 
 Higginson, Henry Lee 42 
 
 Hodgkinson, John 62 
 
 Holbrook, Albiah 53-57 
 
 Holbrook, Samuel 55, 56 
 
 Holden, Oliver 13, 14 
 
 Hollis Street, Billings 12 
 
 Holmes, Oliver Wendell xiv, 32 
 
 Hook, James 18 
 
 Hutchinson, Anne 2, 37 
 
 Hutchinson, William 2 
 
 I 
 
 ndependent Musical Society 16 
 
 J OHNSON, Isaac 
 Joy Street 
 
 1,2 
 xiv 
 
Page 
 JVing's Chapel 8, 9, 15, 16, 32, 33, 50 
 Knotwork, Holbrook's 55-57 
 
 Knox, Henry 22, 27, 64 
 
 Lafayette, General xiv, 65 
 
 Lafayette Mall xiv 
 
 Lang, B. J. 46 
 
 Langdon, Mrs. Mary Walley 64,65 
 Larkin, E. 14 
 
 Lee & Walker 71 
 
 Liberty Song, The 17 
 
 Lind, Jenny 44 
 
 Lining out the Psalms 3, 4 
 
 Liszt 32 
 
 London Book-Store, The 17, 21, 22 
 Long Path xiv 
 
 Longfellow, Henry W. 32 
 
 Louisburg Square 44 
 
 Lowell, Mrs. Rebecca Amory 63 
 Lyon, George W. 70 
 
 70, 77, 86 
 11 
 
 Lyon & Healy 
 Lyon, James 
 
 JVLacDowell, Edward A. 48 
 
 MacMonnies 2 
 
 Mario, G. 44 
 
 Marseillaise, The xiv 
 
 Mason, Lowell 33, 34 
 
 Mason, William 41 
 
 Mather, Dr. Cotton 8 
 
 Medfield, Billings 12 
 
 Mehlig, Anna 45 
 
 Mein, John 21 
 
 Mendelssohn Quintette Club 43 
 
 Messiah, The 33, 36 
 
 Monthly Musical Record 72 
 
 Morgan, George W. 46 
 
 Mozart 11, 18 
 
 Munroe, Francis and Parker 25, 26 
 
 Music Hall, Boston 41 
 
 Music in Miniature, Billings 12 
 
 Music Review 72 
 Music- shops 
 
 18-20, 24, 26-30, 35-37, 39, 40 
 
 Musical Fund Society 41 
 
 Page 
 Musical Record 72 
 
 Musical Record and Review 72 
 
 Musician, The 73, 92 
 
 My Country, 'lis of thee xvi 
 
 JN EWBURYPORT 18 
 
 New England Psalm Singer, The 
 
 Billings 11 
 
 New Exhibition Room 58 
 
 New Towne (Cambridge) 2, 3 
 
 New Way of Singing, The 7 
 
 New York 18, 35, 38, 47, 70, 71 
 
 Nikisch, Arthur 43 
 
 North, F. A., & Co. 72 
 
 Northampton 18 
 
 Note Singing, Innovation of 6 
 
 Old Corner Bookstore 1, 37, 39, 40 
 
 Organ xv, 8, 9, 45 
 
 Organ, Great 45 
 
 Organ, Holden's 13 
 
 Paine, John K. 46, 48 
 
 Paine, Robert Treat 62 
 
 Pantheon, Eaton's 57,58 
 
 Park Street Church xvi, 9, 64, 95 
 Parker & Ditson 37, 39, 40, 76, 77 
 Parker, J. C. D. 73 
 
 Parker, Col. Samuel Hale 
 
 25-28, 33-35, 37, 76 
 Patriotic Music 17, 18, 62, 63 
 
 Patti, Adelina 44 
 
 Payne, John Howard 61 
 
 Peabody, Miss 38 
 
 Peace Jubilee of 1869 46 
 
 Peace Jubilee of 1872 47 
 
 Pelham, Peter 24 
 
 Pelham, Sarah 24 
 
 Pelham, William 23, 24, 76 
 
 Perkins, John 21 
 
 Peters, J. L. 71 
 
 Philadelphia 11,18,38,71-73 
 
 Philharmonic Orchestra 42 
 
 Philharmonic Society, The 31 
 
 Phillips, Adelaide 44, 46 
 

 Page 
 
 
 Page 
 
 Phillips, Wendell 
 
 xiv 
 
 Sivori, Ernesto 
 
 45 
 
 Plain and Easy Introduction 
 
 
 Smith, John Stafford 
 
 63 
 
 Tufts 
 
 6 
 
 Sohier, William D. 
 
 66 
 
 Pleyel 
 
 18 
 
 Soldiers and Sailors Monument 
 
 xiv 
 
 Powell, Charles Stuart 
 
 59,60 
 
 Sontag, Henrietta 
 
 44 
 
 Price, William 
 
 24 
 
 Stage Coach Days 
 
 35 
 
 Psalm-Singer 's Amusement, The 
 
 St. Matthew Passion Music 
 
 47 
 
 Billings 
 
 12 
 
 Star- Spangled Banner, The 
 
 63 
 
 Psalmody 
 
 
 Stickney, Josiah 
 
 65 
 
 3,4,6-8, 10-14,17,20-22,54 
 
 Stone Chapel, The 
 
 16 
 
 Public Garden, The 33, 
 
 , 41, 94 
 
 Storace, Stephen 
 
 18 
 
 Puritanism 
 
 2,5 
 
 Stoughton Musical Society 
 
 13 
 
 (Queen's Chapel 
 
 
 Stowe, Harriet Beecher 
 
 32 
 
 8 
 
 Strauss, Johann 
 
 47 
 
 
 
 Streeter, Father 
 
 9 
 
 Xvemenyi, Edward 
 
 45 
 
 Sumner, Charles 
 
 32 
 
 Revere, Paul 
 
 10 
 
 1 ansur's Royal Melody 
 
 
 Riverside Press 
 
 3 
 
 
 Rivington, James 
 
 21 
 
 Compleat 
 
 21 
 
 Robertson, Archibald 
 
 60 
 
 Tapper, Thomas 
 
 72 
 
 Rosa, Carl 
 
 46 
 
 Thacher, Rev. Thomas 50, 51 
 
 Rosa, Parepa 
 
 44, 46 
 
 Thacher, Mrs. 
 
 50 
 
 Rubinstein, Anton 
 
 45 
 
 Thackeray 
 
 32 
 
 Rudersdorff, Hermine 
 
 47 
 
 Thalberg 
 
 45 
 
 Russell, G. D., & Co. 
 
 72 
 
 Thayer, Eugene 
 
 46 
 
 Russell, Henry 
 
 38 
 
 Thomas, Isaiah 
 
 14 
 
 Ryan, Thomas 
 
 9, 43 
 
 Thomas, Theodore 
 
 42 
 
 
 
 Ticknor, William D. 
 
 37 
 
 OALEM 
 
 18 
 
 To Thee, Country, Eichberg 
 
 46 
 
 Sauret, Emile 
 
 45 
 
 Townsend, Steinle & Haskell 
 
 92 
 
 Schumann 
 
 32 
 
 Trimountaine 
 
 1 
 
 Secular Music, Early 4, 5, 14 
 
 , 15, 18 
 
 Tuckerman, S. P. 
 
 46 
 
 Selby, William 
 
 16 
 
 Tufts, Rev. John 
 
 6 
 
 Sewall, Judge '/ 
 
 ', 8, 52 
 
 U niversity Press 
 
 
 Shaw, Oliver 
 
 26 
 
 3 
 
 Sheaf e, Jacob 
 
 50-53 
 
 Urania, Lyon 
 
 11 
 
 Sheafe, Margaret 
 
 50,51 
 
 Urso, Camilla 
 
 45 
 
 Sheafe, Mehitable 
 
 50-52 
 
 Valentine, F. 
 
 
 Sheafe, Sampson 
 
 51, 52 
 
 36 
 
 Shield, William 
 
 18 
 
 Vane, Sir Henry 
 
 2 
 
 Singing of Psalms a Gospel 
 
 
 Vieuxtemps, Henri 
 
 45 
 
 Ordinance, Cotton 
 
 3 
 
 Vocal Collections 
 
 11 
 
 Singing Master's Assistant, The 
 
 Von Hagen, P. A. 
 
 19 
 
 Billings 
 
 12 
 
 Walter, Rev. Thomas 
 
 
 Singing Schools xvi, 7, 8, 
 
 13, 14 
 
 4,7 
 

 Pape 
 
 
 
 Pasre 
 
 Walker, C. Howard, & Sons 
 
 92 
 
 Winthrop, John 
 
 
 1, 2 
 
 Warville, Brissot de 
 
 17 
 
 Woodbridge, William C. 
 
 34 
 
 Washington, General 
 
 XV 
 
 Woodman, Clarence 
 
 A. 
 
 92 
 
 Watertown 
 
 2 
 
 Worcester 
 
 
 14, 18 
 
 Webb, Henry 
 
 50 
 
 Worcester Collection, 
 
 The 
 
 
 Webb, Margaret 
 
 50 
 
 Holden 
 
 
 14 
 
 White Horse Tavern 
 
 53,54 
 
 1 ankee Doodle 
 
 
 
 Whittier, John G. 
 
 32 
 
 
 XV 
 
 Wieniawski 
 
 45 
 
 York Tune 
 
 
 4,7 
 
 Wilcox, John H. 
 
 46 
 
 Z/ERRAHN, Carl 
 
 
 
 Wilhelmj, August 
 
 45 
 
 
 42,46 
 
 Windsor Tune 
 
 4,7 
 
 Zeuner, Ch. 
 
 
 36 
 
 cv