USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > Farmington > An historical address delivered at the opening of the village library of Farmington, Conn., September 30th, 1890 > Part 2
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LIBRARIANS.
ELIJAH PORTER, -
elected
1795
LUTHER SEYMOUR,
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Dec. 28, 1812
ELIJAH PORTER,
Feb. 12, 1814
SELAH PORTER, -
April 2, 1826
SIMEON HART,
April 4, 1835
RUFUS COWLES,
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66 Sept. 26, 1853
CHAUNCEY D. COWLES, -
66
1855
JAMES R. CUMMING, -
66
Feb., 1856
JULIUS GAY, -
Jan. 2, 1860
WILLIAM E. HART, -
Jan. 6, 1868
THOMAS TREADWELL, -
Jan. 4, 1869
THOMAS L. PORTER,
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Jan. 2, 1882
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66
1836
WILLIAM S. PORTER, -
Feb. 18, 1839
ABNER BIDWELL, -
66
Jan. 5, 1840
SIMEON HART, - -
66
Feb. 7,1853
AUSTIN HART, - -
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66
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66
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EN.
THIS
BOOK BELONGS
TO THE
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In the first Society. in
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FARMINGTON
Two pence Pr Day for retaining a Book more than one Month.
One Penny for folding down a Leaf .. Three fhillings for lending a Book to a I Nonproprietor . No Memberto retain a Book after & o clock on drawing Evenings . hand The Youth who ted by wisdom's quiding Sedla Virtue' Temple ther Law reverw He,he alone in Honory Dome shallstan Crown'd with Rawads Vrai'd above his Peery
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This Book belongs
Monthly Library.
IN FARMINGTON
LAWS Two pence for day for retaining Of Book more than one Month 2 Onepenny forfolding down a Leaf. 3 3 for tending a book to a tonproprietor. + Colher Damages appraised by a Committee. No. Jewon allowed a Book. while indebted i. fora.fine.
The Mouth , who Led by WisDois guiding Hund. fucks VIRTUE'S Temple, and her Law Reviewcs: . He he alone in Howove's Dome shall Stand. Crown with Rewards Frais above his News.
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Church Music in farmington in the Offen Cime
AN
Historical Address
DELIVERED AT THE
ANNUAL MEETING
OF THE
VILLAGE LIBRARY COMPANY OF
FARMINGTON, CONN.
May 6, 1891
BY JULIUS GAY
Church Music in farmington in the Oloen Time
AN
Historical Address
DELIVERED AT THE
ANNUAL MEETING
OF THE
VILLAGE LIBRARY COMPANY OF
FARMINGTON, CONN.
May 6, 1891
BY JULIUS GAY
HARTFORD, CONN. PRESS OF THE CASE, LOCKWOOD & BRAINARD COMPANY
· IS9I
ADDRESS.
Ladies and Gentlemen of the Village Library Com- pany of Farmington : -
We have been called together this evening, in accordance with the articles under which we are as- sociated, to hear of the prosperity of our library, and to select those who for another year shall care for its well-being.
In bygone times, whenever the citizens of this state were called upon to exercise the elective fran- chise, it was customary to designate some learned divine to deliver for their guidance and encourage- ment an annual election sermon. Far be it from me to invade the sacred office or to assail your ears with lessons of such ponderous wisdom. Some, however, who heard the account of the library of a century ago have desired to go back with me another century and hear something of that still older time. A rude age it was, but rudeness seen through the mists of two centuries ceases to be repulsive. The petty discom- forts of life are forgotten, and even the uncouth becomes picturesque. There is a strange fascination in looking back on the deeds of your own ancestors ; and the very localities where they lived -- trivial to all others -- seem sacred in the sight of their descendants.
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You will hear of no libraries in their rude cabins. They deemed the Bible and the Psalm-Book sufficient for their wants. The one was for a time their only law book, and with the other their souls rose on the wings of song out of their gloomy surroundings to the God who had brought them hither, and who they believed would still sustain them.
What, then, was the music which was as dear to them as the breath of life ?
Rude it may seem to our ears; trivial it could not have been. The gay soldier of King Charles's court derided it. Tennyson tells how --
"The Roundhead rode, And hummed a surly hymn."
but when on Marston Moor the Ironsides of Crom- well raised their battle psalm and, roused to frenzy, rushed upon the Cavaliers, they learned full well the power of Puritan psalmody.
No doubt many of you say, " Have we not heard this old music over and over again, and, dressed in the very apparel of our ancestors, ourselves helped to sing it? By no means. The music of the Old Folks' Concert is all comparatively modern. This town had been settled more than a century when William Bil- lings was born in Boston, in 1746, and in due time gave to the world those strange tunes which suited the taste of a former generation, and have not yet wholly lost their charm: Majesty, in which the vis- ion of Ezekiel is portrayed, David's Lamentation, The Anthem for Easter, and numerous other pieces, well known to you all. Still later was it when Timothy
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Swan, born in Worcester in 1758, and living now in Northfield and now in Stamford, inheriting a tinge of insanity from his mother, wrote that wild, weird tune, Ocean, in which he strives to picture how, while -
"The winds arise, And swell the towering waves, The men astonished mount the skies And sink in gaping graves."
Daniel Read who sang -
"O may my heart in tune be found, Like David's harp of solemn sound."
or again, in the plaintive minor strains of Russia, com- pares man, whether of high degree or of the baser sort, to "a puff of empty air," or in triumphant notes re- joices -
"While shepherds watch their flocks by night, All seated on the ground ; "
or shrinks with horror at the dreadful end of the wicked as he sees them stand on slippery rocks while "fiery billows roll below," died in New Haven so lately as 1841.
What, then, was the music of our forefathers in their first sanctuary ?
It was simply the music they had been accus- tomed to sing in the churches of Old England. The settlers of this town came from Hartford, and were, for the most part, members of the so-called Braintree Company, which came from the County of Essex in England. They did not, therefore, like the Plymouth Colony, spend twelve years on their way in Holland
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until, as Winslow said, they were like to lose their language and the name of English, but brought straight from the village churches of England the songs they had learned in their youth. Cotton Mather tells of their neighbors of the Salem church, that the Rev. Mr. Higginson, calling up his children and other passengers into the stern of the ship, to take their last sight of England, said, " We will not say, as the Separatists were wont to say at their leaving of England, 'Farewell, Babylon ! Farewell, Rome!' but we will say, ' Farewell, dear England ! Farewell, the Church of God in England, and all the Christian friends there. We do not go to New England as Separatists from the Church of England, though we cannot but separate from the corruptions in it.'"
They brought with them two metrical versions of the Psalms; that of Henry Ainsworth which was used mostly in Massachusetts, and that of Sternehold and Hopkins which found favor in this State. I have my. self a copy brought over by one of the first settlers of this town. Its quaint old title is worth repeating.
" The Booke of Psalmes: Collected into English Meeter, by Thomas Sternehold, John Hopkins, and others : conferred with the Hebrew; with apt Notes to sing them withall. Set forth and allowed to be sung in all Churches, of the people together, before and after Morning and Evening Prayer: As also be- fore and after Sermon: and moreover. in private houses, for their godly solace and comfort, laying apart all ungodly Songs and Ballads, which tend onely to the nourishment of vice, and corrupting of youth."
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It has, besides the metrical version of the Psalms, several pieces of Old English Church Music, a few of which I name because they form part of a book actually in use in this town nearly, if not quite, 250 years ago. The following certainly do not sound much like the mu- sic of the conventicle as the author of Waverly loved to describe it: The Benedictus or Song of Zacharias, The Magnificat or Song of the Blessed ' Mary, The Nunc Dimittis or Song of Simeon, The Athanasian Creed, The Pater Noster or Lord's Prayer, The Ten
Commandments, and many other set pieces. The music, of which there was a considerable variety, was printed with the old-fashioned square-headed notes and without bars except at the end of each line of the words, the C clef being invariably used, a sore puzzle to modern performers. Only the melody was given which was to be sung by the whole congregation in unison. Some few of the more rigid Puritans objected to congregational singing, and argued that, as one man prayed and preached, so only one should sing; a re- finement of solo music which did not prevail. That these men looked upon singing simply as an act of de- votion, without the slightest thought of anything æs- thetic in it, appears when they proposed to exclude female voices, and argued further : " Because it is not permitted to a woman to speak in church, how then shall they sing? Much less is it permitted them to prophesy in the church. And singing of Psalms is a kind of prophesying." These objections, though not sustained by the great body of the worshipers, were nevertheless answered at length by the Rev. John
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Cotton, in a tract published to help the introduction of the famous Bay Psalm Book, which was compiled by about thirty New England divines, and was printed at Cambridge in 1640, the year in which this town was settled. It was the first book printed in- the United States, and has become so rare that a copy was sold in 1879 for $1,200. It lacked the musical notes in the early editions, a most disastrous omission, as will soon appear.
A few years later, in 1718, Cotton Mather, best known by his famous Magnalia, published the Psalter- ium Americanum, which also lacked the printed notes. It was a very exact translation of the Hebrew, written in smooth and elegant English blank verse, but people missed the rhymes and the rude vigor of the old version, and would have none of it. It possessed one remark- able provision, said to have been invented by Richard Baxter, by which a number of the Psalms could be sung to any of the meters then in use, Long, Short, or Common,-a device which would commend itself to any luckless leader of a prayer meeting, who has come to grief in attempting to sing a Long meter hymn to a Short meter tune.
The metrical version of the Psalms was usually bound up with the great family Bible, and was too heavy and costly a book for common use in the churches. It was the custom, therefore, in this scarc- ity of singing books, for one of the deacons to read the Psalm a line at a time, and when the singers had finished that line, to read the next, and so on until the Psalm was concluded. There were no hymns in use
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and no favorite Psalms which the congregation, becom- ing familiar with, could in time sing without the book. They deemed it their solemn duty to sing all the Psalms in course, just as they read their Bibles through from Genesis to Revelation, and then began again; and it worried their consciences not a little that in the early editions, Sternehold and Hopkins had not rendered all of the one hundred and fifty Psalms into meter. Still, as several had more than one hundred lines, and one over seven hundred, " deaconing out the Psalm," in this lack of books, was an evident necessity.
Let us now spend a Sabbath in the first meeting- house which stood on our village green, and, so far as may be, learn how our fathers worshiped within its walls. As all days are alike open to our choice, we select the year 1676 for our visit. You need not listen for the signal of the bell; you will have to wait 44 years for that sound; but the drum will be beaten at the time of divine service, and also an hour before.
Let us join the train of worshipers as they ap- proach the sanctuary from all parts of the little village. They are, for the most part, on foot; but some from the outlying farms are on horseback - the good wife on a pillion behind the good man, with the youngest child in her arms, while the rest of the family --- the sturdy sons and daughters -follow on foot, family in- termingled with family, and much paired according to the law of a natural selection older than Darwin. The meeting-house stands where the second and third house were afterward built. Doors open to the
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east and south, and very likely to the west. Within stands the lofty pulpit, directly beneath and in front of which is the. deacons' seat, where the two deacons of the church - Deacon Stephen Hart and Deacon Thomas Judd -are already sitting. Above, running part way around the house, is a gallery, where the , youth of both sexes are divided off from the rest of the assembly, - a most ingenious device for setting their high animal spirits and inherent love of mischief at constant war with the solemn decorum demanded by the tithing-man. The rest of the people are seated according to the custom of Puritan churches soon afterward formulated on our records, with "respect to age, office, and estate, so far as it tendeth to make a man respectable, and to everything else which hath the same tendency." Prominent we shall see the civil magistrate, in the person of his Honor John Wadsworth, Commissioner of the General Court, and next in rank that majestic personage, the captain of the train-band, whose office every boy looks forward to as the goal of his youthful ambition. Behind them sit the lesser dignitaries, the Lieutenant, the Sergeant, the Ensign, the Corporal. I must humbly beg their pardon if I have not set them down in the proper order, for you might as well address one of them with- out his exact title as to salute the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, by her family name, simply as Mrs. Guelph. It is well that you have entered among the first comers, for the house is filled to its utmost capacity. Every available nook and corner is made to yield a seat for some devout
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worshiper. Soon after this, to relieve somewhat the pressure, "the town gave unto Ebenezer Steele, Jo- seph Judd, Thomas Lee, Nathaniel Lewis, and Samuel Judd, a liberty to build them a seat over the short girt at the easterly end of the gallery, on the condition that they do not damnify the other seats in the meet- ing house." This was but a temporary relief. There was no longer room for the youth in the gallery, and to let them sit with their parents in the Holy of Holies below was not to be thought of. It would interfere with the etiquette of precedence in the seating of the house, and no European court ever was more rigid in this than were the worshipers in the old Puritan meeting-house. Nevertheless something must be done to accommodate the patriarchal families of our ancestors. The problem of how Noah stowed away all the animals in the ark, proposed by Dr. Johnson to little Miss Thrale as a pretty question in arithme- tic, was as nothing compared to it. At length a com- promise was effected by which some of the older and more sedate of the young women were admitted below, and "the town by vote gave liberty to Lieutenant Judd's two daughters, and the Widow Judd's two daughters, and the two eldest daughters of John Steele to erect, or cause to be erected, a seat for their proper use at the south end of the meeting-house at the left hand as they go in at the door, provided it be not prejudicial to the passage and doors."
And now the guard of eight men with muskets at shoulder march in at the door, and, stacking their arms within reach, take the seats assigned them on
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either side. Why this armed invasion of the house of God? Simply because the noble savage is on the war path. News has just reached the town that Hezekiah Willet, brother of the pastor's wife, has been slain by the savages over at Swansea. Only a few months since Jobanna Smith of this town was killed at Hatfield, and Roger Orvis wounded. Nor have people forgotten the murder in their midst a few years before of a woman and her maid, and the burning of several houses. True, the murderer had been duly executed at Hartford in a manner too brutal to relate, and, if tradition be correct, his head had been set up on a pole, - an object-lesson for the instruction of the untutored savage. Just now they are unmindful of the lesson, and any moment King Phillip and his warriors may fall upon the village. Now that the last roll of the drum has sounded, and all are in their places, with stately step and reverend demeanor the pastor, Samuel Hooker, walks up the aisle and ascends the lofty pulpit. He comes fresh from the honors of Harvard, where for his graduating thesis he has argued in the affirmative one of those subtle metaphysical questions so delightful to the early New England mind, " Whether an all-perfect being can be perfectly defined." More recently a fellow of that college, he declined a call by the church in Springfield, and was here installed as the successor of his brother-in-law, the Rev. Roger Newton.
The service begins with a prayer continuing about a quarter of an hour. The pastor then reads and ex- pounds a chapter and announces the forenoon psalm.
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One of the deacons, or some devout man of sufficient musical gift, arises and reads, in a sonorous voice, the first line of the psalm -
" The man is blest that hath not bent,"
and, sounding the first note as near D as his skill ad- mits, launches out bravely in the old choral. One by one the assembly join their voices until the line is finished, when the leader reads again the second line -
" To wicked reade his eare,"
and the whole congregation having now caught the melody, join in the tune, only resting their voices for a mightier shout, while the deacon reads the third line -
"Nor led his life' as sinners do ; "
and so alternately reading and making the forest echo with their song, they conclude with -
" And eke the way of wicked men Shall quite be overthrown; "
and sitting down, with their souls, if not their voices, attuned to the praise of God, await the discourse of the beloved Hooker as he turns the hour-glass and announces his text. I cannot describe his sermon. Twice he preached the annual election sermon, and twice the General Court ordered it printed, but no copies are known to have ever existed. After a con- cluding prayer and a blessing the people retire for a little time to their homes to eat their frugal Sabbath meal and talk over the lessons of the day.
The afternoon service is like the morning, cx- cept, after the concluding prayer, all children born
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since the last Sabbath are presented for baptism, no matter what the weather, no one daring to incur, what seemed to them, the terrible responsibility of deferring this solemn rite. One of the deacons now rises and announces " Brethren of the Congregation, now there is time left for contribution, wherefore as God has prospered you, so freely offer." The magistrates first, and others in the order of their rank, now come for- ward and bring their offerings to the deacon at his seat. Then new members, if there are any, are admit- ted, a concluding psalm is sung, if time permits, and with a blessing the congregation is dismissed.
I have said that the first editions of the Bay Psalm Book were printed without the music. As a result the people sang by rote, forgot in time all but three or four of the tunes, and sang these in as many ways as there were singers. To remedy the evil the publishers of the Bay Psalm Book began about 1690 to add the notes of the only twelve tunes then in use, viz. : Litchfield, Canterbury, York, Windsor, Cam- bridge, the 100th Psalm Tune, and six others, the names of which have ceased to be familiar.
So little was known of musical notation that such directions to the leader as these were printed :
" First observe . . . the place of your first note, and how many notes above and below that, so as you may begin the tune of your first note, as the rest may be sung in the compass of your and the people's voices, without Squeaking above or Grumbling below."
For six of the twelve tunes "a cheerful high pitch" is recommended for the first note. For the
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One Hundredth Psalm Tune " a note indifferent high," and a low note for the remainder; and these direc- tions were as concise as would be understood.
By the year 1720 the singing in all the churches had become so desperately bad that ministers began to preach in earnest the need of reform. Cotton Mather published his " Accomplished Singer" in 1721 for the encouragement " of those who are learn- ing to sing by Rule and seeking to preserve a Regu- lar Singing in the Assemblies of the Faithful." The Rev. Thomas Walter of Roxbury the same year pub- lished a singing-book in the introduction to which he says, " At present we are confined to eight or ten tunes, and in some congregations to little more than half that number," and as for the ornamental notes intro- duced according to the individual taste of each singer, he says " much time is taken up in shaking out these turns and quavers; and besides, no two men in the congregation quaver alike or together, which sounds in the ear of a good judge like five hundred different tunes roared out at the same time." In our own State the Rev. Nathaniel Chauncey of Durham pub- lished a sermon in 1727 in defense of the new or reg- ular way of singing by note, in which he answers four objections. The fourth and no doubt the principal objection of the old people was, " It looks very unlikely to be the right way, because that young people fall in with it ; they are not wont to be so forward for any- thing that is good." His answer was introduced by a somewhat free rendering of Job 32: 9, namely, " As old men are not always wise, so young men are not
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always fools." The Rev. Timothy Woodbridge also preached a sermon at East Hartford the same year which was printed and largely circulated in aid of the Reform. Singing-schools began also to be established, and the war between the old way and the new way began in good earnest. It lasted until just before the breaking out of the Revolutionary War. Let us see how it fared with the old church in Farmington. A period of forty-eight years has passed since our last visit to the old meeting-house. The beloved Hooker sleeps beneath the sod of the old burying ground, though no stone marks the spot. There has been a long interruption of the pastoral relation. Ineffectual calls have been extended by the town to Mr. Joseph Parsons, to " the much esteemed Mr. Jabez Fitch," to " the much esteemed Eliphalet Adams," to "the worthy Mr. John Buckley," to " Mr. Daniel Hooker," to " Mr. Ephraim Woodbridge," and to "the worthy Mr. Nathaniel Eells." Finally a committee has been ordered to undertake the long and perilous journey through the wilderness to Nantasket near Boston in search of a minister. The town treasury being un- equal to supplying funds for so important an expedi- tion, a loan, to be repaid at the rate of two shillings for one, has been negotiated. The Rev. Samuel Whitman returns with the committee, and the town votes him thanks for "venturing the difficulties of such a journey to serve us." A new meeting-house has been erected during his pastorate, and now, on the 7th of April, 1724, the church votes "to delay the admission of regular singing into the church." Two
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months later, June 9th, they vote to "take a year's time to consider and look into the way of singing called regular," and "that if any person or persons shall for the future presume to sing contrary to the lead of the chorister appointed by the church to the disturbance of the assembly and the jarring of the melody, he or they shall be looked upon and dealt with as offenders." Nevertheless, this very thing hap- pened, and the testimony before the court which fol- lowed will throw more light upon the musical ways of the past than any words of mine. The parties con- cerned have been a century in their graves and cannot be harmed.
" February 19, 1724-5. The testimony of Jonathan Smith is as followeth, viz. : I being at the house of God or place of public worship in Farmington the 24th day of January, 1724-5, it being the Sabbath or Lord's Day, and after prayer our chorister, viz .: Deacon John Hart did fit or set a tune to the psalm that was offered to be sung, which tune is commonly called Bella tune, as well he might, it being as proper or more proper to that psalm than any other tune. And soon after said Chorister had set said tune, I heard an unwonted sound, something like hollowing or strong, strong singing to my disturbance and the jarring of the melody, which caused me to observe from whence it came, and perceiving that it came from Capt. Joseph Hawley, I took partic- ular notice of his ascents and descents, and according to my best judgment and observation, said Hawley (after his manner of sing- ing) sang the tune' commonly called Southwell, alias Cambridge Short Tune, and said Hawley continued said disturbance the greatest part of said singing."
John Hooker, Esq., promptly fined Capt. Hawley for a breach of the Sabbath, but as the captain was a member of the General Assembly, he brought the fol-
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