USA > Massachusetts > Hampshire County > Northampton > The Northampton book; chapters from 300 years in the life of a New England town, 1654-1954 > Part 15
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Library. Years later, Harding bought a home in Springfield, where he lived until his death at the age of 74.
Not all of the early paintings made in Northampton were portraits. The 1830's in America saw the development of land- scape art. Our poets and writers of tales were describing the beauty of our rivers and mountains, and these "picturesque" scenes became at the same time a favorite theme for the painters, who sought, as William Cullen Bryant said, to record the wild grandeur or the pastoral calm peculiar to our country. North- ampton was then a charming town: its wide main street was lined with elms, and the noble white church that Isaac Damons built stood facing the green common; there were "Grecian" porticos on several houses, and from the top of Round Hill a famous school looked down over the village to the rich meadow- land, the bending river, and the range of hills beyond. The painter Thomas Cole, already famous for his dramatic landscapes of the Hudson River and the Catskills, came here in 1836 to create one of his best pictures, the Oxbow seen from Mount Holyoke. In the same year an Englishman named William Henry Bartlett paid the first of his four visits to America to make views of unusually interesting places for publication in England; and when Ameri- can Scenery began to appear, with more than 100 steel engrav- ings based on Bartlett's water colors, four illustrations were given to Northampton and its surroundings. One of them represented the village itself, and three pictured the wide and fertile Con- necticut Valley seen from various local points of vantage.
Cole and Bartlett were brief visitors, but in this period both Erastus Salisbury Field and Joseph Goodhue Chandler lived and worked in this neighborhood. Field was a Leverett man who was 95 years old when he died at Sunderland in 1900, leaving many portraits, done in a stiff and primitive style, and a few such imaginative efforts as his well-known "Garden of Eden." Chan- dler, a native of South Hadley, may be called a semi-primitive, and among his works are the portraits of Mr. and Mrs. Luther Bod- man in the Northampton Historical Society.
At the time the Bodmans were painted in 1855, a young man named Elbridge Kingsley was about to become an apprentice at the Hampshire Gazette. As a child he had come from Ohio to live in Hatfield; after a few years working for the local newspaper he journeyed to New York in order to study art, and there learned
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the difficult technique of engraving. Within a few years Kings- ley won a national reputation in Scribner's, The Century, and St. Nicholas for his superb engravings on wood from the work of such American masters as George Inness and Albert Ryder. For a time in the early 1870's he worked in Northampton with the Star Printing Company, designing and engraving letter heads, labels, and various other forms of advertising. When he turned from commercial drawing to more creative work with brush and pencil, he received encouragement and instruction from Charles C. Burleigh of Florence.
Burleigh's father was a noted preacher and abolitionist, and the son's portrait of the impressive old man with his noble fore- head and snow-white beard is one of Northampton's treasured possessions. Many other local portraits were done by him, in ad- dition to the decorations for Cosmian Hall and a good deal of scenery painted for local theatres. Burleigh and Kingsley col- laborated to make several lithographic views, one of which showed Main Street with the "Old Church" as its dominant fea- ture, and another, the Nonotuck Silk Mills.
Burleigh's fine portrait of President Seelye, done in 1876, re- minds us that, after the founding of Smith College, the art life of Northampton was enriched by the presence of many painters who not only taught young women to draw and paint, but found in- spiring subjects here for their own art. When James Wells Champ- ney became the first Professor of Drawing and Painting at the College, he had received a thorough training in Europe, had married Elizabeth Williams of Deerfield, and had established a home in that ancient village. In later years he was well known for the paintings he made to be reproduced in chromo-lithography by the Prang Company. Like that other and more gifted artist George Fuller, he sketched the country around Deerfield; and in the early 1870's many young people of Northampton attended an art class which he opened here.
Since Burleigh left America in the 1880's and Champney pre- ferred to paint portraits and figure pieces, it was Kingsley who left the most complete pictorial record of the local landscape. After reproducing the work of others in various magazines, he decided to make pictures of his own, and found time for many sketching trips along the river in an odd-looking "painting car" which his brother, a blacksmith, built for him. It was a horse-
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drawn studio, and from its windows Kingsley made innumerable engravings, cut directly in the wood from nature, which were printed on very thin paper in order to reproduce the delicacy of his fine lines. There is scarcely a glen, a hillside, or a stream near Northampton which does not appear among the Kingsley prints in the Forbes Library or in the Mount Holyoke College collec- tion; and there are also dozens of water colors in which he showed the cycle of the seasons, from the soft greens of spring to the blaze of autumn and the blue and white of winter.
Before Kingsley died in 1918, Alfred Vance Churchill had chosen similar themes for many of his best paintings. Before com- ing to Northampton in 1906 as a teacher of art at Smith College he had studied in Berlin and Paris, and in his local landscapes he worked with the directness of the Barbizon artists and the fresh colors of the Impressionists to catch the vibrancy of outdoor light on the meadows behind Northampton at sunset, or springtime along the Mill River, or cornstalks on a frosty morning in a farm at the edge of town.
Professor Churchill's colleague for many years was the painter and teacher Dwight W. Tryon whose legacy to Smith College and to the community was a new art gallery. On its walls and in other public places during the past quarter of a century have been shown works by local artists who carry forward the tradition of Ralph Earl, of Chester Harding, and of Elbridge Kingsley. Space does not permit the enumeration of all these contemporary tal- ents. Suffice it to recall the drawings of Joseph Presser, the flower studies of Marion Freeman Wakeman, the sensitive sketches which Cyrus Stimson made of our farmhouses and of the vege- table gardens beyond the dykes, a reconstruction of Northamp- ton's main street in 1786 by Maitland de Gogorza which appeared in the Gazette, the silk-screen color prints of Margaret Sanders, the pastel portraits by Eleanor Dow Green, and most recently of all, the lively murals in which James Waldron has recorded the history of our town.
Looking back over that history, we realize that the art life of Northampton has been rich indeed.
Chapter Nineteen
Music and Musicians
By HENRIETTA B. SCHMITTER
A CCORDING to all accounts musical activity in Northamp- ton for the past 300 years has been one of the most im- portant factors in the life of the community. In writing of the olden time music we look back to the early psalm tunes first brought to New England by our forefathers. In the contro- versy that developed at the beginning of the 18th century, when ministers and congregations debated the advisability of permitting a more enlivening form of worship by the introduction of hymns into the church music, Jonathan Edwards then pastor (1727- 1750) of Northampton, took the part of the "moderns." Through his influence and the revivals that followed, the service of public worship was broadened and not only were hymns added to pub- lic worship but singing in the homes was adopted. At this period one can picture the prayer meetings and social gatherings where psalm and hymn tunes were sung and enjoyed in the homes of the early settlers, the Edwards, Clarks and Bakers.
Northampton was a center for the publication of music books. Psalm and hymn books were published as early as 1797. The Northampton Collection of Sacred Harmony by Elias Mann is one of a number of tune books published at Northampton by Daniel Wright & Co. This same Daniel Wright once occupied the oldest house in town, 58 Bridge Street, now the home of the Northampton Historical Society. Elias Mann lived for many years in Northampton. He was a man of many accomplishments. In addition to printing books he was also employed by the town to teach music in the singing schools. The singing school provided trained young men and women for the choir and was also re- garded as a social factor in the town. For teaching three evenings a week, in addition to leading the singing on the Sabbath during the months of December and January, he received $26. Later he was again hired to conduct the singing school for two days a week
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during the months of November to May, receiving a salary of $50. Mann was one of the members who organized the Massa- chusetts Musical Society from which sprang the Handel & Haydn Society.
Jacob French, compiler of Harmony of Harmony, printed in 1802, by Andrew Wright, is thought to have lived in Northamp- ton when his last book was issued. Solomon Howe's The Wor- shipper's Assistant, designed to serve in the singing school as well as the choir bears the date of 1799. New England Harmony, by Timothy Swan published in 1801, The American Musical Maga- zine, published for the Hampshire Musical Society in 1800, and the American Musical Miscellany, published in 1798 are other important books all bearing early Northampton imprints.
A native of Northampton, George Kingsley's name as a com- poser, instructor, and editor of musical works is associated with the musical life of the early 19th century. Like Lowell Mason with whom he had been associated, he gave his efforts to introduc- ing better music for congregational singing. At an early age he showed signs of a musical talent that was to make his name famous and his influence wide spread.
George Kingsley was born on July 7, 1811, and spent his early childhood in the Enos Kingsley house then standing near the corner of Old and New South Streets. When a school boy at- tending the Grammar School he frequently disregarded play- time recesses, seeking out a quiet spot where he could practice undisturbed on his own beloved flute. This instrument, self- taught, he mastered at an early age, playing in the First Church when a mere boy. His father had other plans than a musical career for him and apprenticed him to a chair maker, Lewis B. Edwards, in Amherst, but his son's desire to continue with a musi- cal education led him to take French leave. He departed for Hartford and, taking up his residence there for a number of years, furthered his music education by becoming efficient in playing the violin, organ, and piano with the aim of becoming a teacher of music. While still a youth he returned to Northampton where his name appears as an instructor in the old singing schools where choral singing flourished. He likewise gave private lessons and was associated with teaching music in Miss Dwight's Select Ladies' Seminary, an early private boarding school for girls. The following years he spent in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia
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where he officiated in many prominent churches as organist and continued teaching. He returned to Northampton in 1856 and supervised the building of the organ at the old First Church where he was organist for the next ten years. He was frequently called upon to pass judgment on new organs and to supervise their installation.
As a composer he became widely known for the hymn tunes that were often written and named for friends with whom he had been associated: Seelye, Warner, Johnson, Hallett, etc. He like- wise named some of his hymns for familiar places: Ware, North- ampton, Pine Grove. Gottschalk, the famous American pianist, was represented by a tune of that name, and a hymn entitled "Lambie" was named for a member in his church choir in East- hampton, Mrs. J. E. Lambie, prominent in Northampton music circles and the wife of a well-known merchant. He did not hesi- tate to adapt operatic arrangements and to use the works of famous composers in his compilations of sacred music. He agreed with the dictum of Rowland Hill, that there is no reason why the devil should be allowed to have all the good music. Templi Car- mina, published in Northampton in 1853 not only contains his own hymn tunes but also his adaptations of compositions of the well-known European composers. He it was who changed the style of music in the congregational singing and with his arrange- ments enlivened the old hymn tunes. As a teacher he was beloved and Henshaw Dana's tribute to him shows the esteem in which he was held by his onetime pupil who wrote, "He was a true musician and never wrote anything that was not worth knowing."
Henshaw Dana, grandson of the Honorable Isaac C. Bates, is known as a composer of songs and music for church choirs. His early boyhood was spent in Northampton and his musical edu- cation began with the distinguished musician, George Kingsley, his teacher and friend. He became a brilliant organist and his short career is associated with Worcester and Boston, following his stu- dent life abroad. He frequently returned to Northampton and often played the organ at the First Church during the summer months. His untimely death, at the age of 37, cut short a notable career.
Music flourished in the homes during the early and middle peri- ods of the 19th century. On many an evening young men and women gathered around the piano to sing ballads and sentimental
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songs. Children, before being sent to bed, listened to piano com- positions, such as the Copenhagen Waltz and the Battle of Prague. Dance music was featured in the Fourth of July picnics on Round Hill. We note the Round Hill Quick Step, dedicated to the ladies of Northampton by officers of the New England Guards, the Round Hill Waltz, and the Florence Water Cure Quadrilles, composed and dedicated to Dr. Charles Munde, the proprietor. Among visiting artists at this period were the Hutchinson family in a concert at an anti-slavery meeting in April 1844 and Jenny Lind in two notable concerts in 1851 and 1852.
The name of Dr. Thomas Meekins frequently appears in the early programs of public performances of the singing classes which he conducted. With his vocation as a dentist he combined many musical activities. He was a director of musical clubs (among them the Apollo Club of 50 male voices), a director of old folks' concerts for public occasions, a leader of church choirs, and a soloist on numerous occasions. In 1859 the Northampton Amateur Opera Company under his leadership gave a notable performance of Il Trovatore with all home talent.
Ralph Lyman Baldwin (1872-1942) is known as an American organist, composer, educator, and conductor of the Mendelssohn Glee Club of New York (1923-1934). As supervisor of music in the public schools of Northampton, 1899-1904, he adopted the sight singing method devised by Sterrie A. Weaver of Westfield. He was the leader of the Northampton Vocal Club from 1894- 1904; head of the Institute of Music Pedagogy, a summer school where musical supervisors were trained, and as organist of the First Congregational Church he introduced organ recitals as free entertainment. Many amateur performances of his opera Wanita, to which he devoted two years, were given. Hymn before Action for men's voices, which he returned to conduct when given in 1935 by the Hampshire Male Chorus, had already attained wide popularity. He left a heritage of high standards in public school music.
Charles Sanford Skilton, of New England parentage, was born in Northampton, August 16, 1868, and received his early educa- tion in the public schools. He was a merchant's son and his desire to make music his profession was not approved by his parents. In fact, his older sister was the favored one receiving instruction on the piano which, in turn, she passed on to her brother. Following
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his graduation from Yale University, a compromise was reached with his parents whereby he could postpone his decision to have a musical career until a trial of teaching languages had been made. He became a teacher of languages at a school for boys in New- burgh, New York, but after two years when parental objections had been removed he embarked upon his chosen career. He went abroad and became a pupil in the Berlin Hochschule studying piano, organ, and composition. Upon his return to America he studied with Harry Rowe Shelley and Dudley Buck. Following several teaching positions, he became a member of the faculty of the State University of Kansas where he taught music for 31 years until his death in 1941.
As a composer he is known chiefly for his Indian music. One of his first scores was the incidental music and choral odes for a performance of Sophocles' Electra given at Smith College. In- terest in an Indian pupil to whom he gave lessons in harmony in exchange for the singing of tribal songs, gave Skilton themes for many of his compositions. He is best known for the Bear Dance and War Dance for string quartet, also arranged for orchestra. His compositions, including scores for large orchestra and smaller combinations, have been played in theatres, on phonograph rec- ords, and over the radio. His one-act opera The Sun Bride, founded on an Indian legend, was given a radio production in the spring of 1930 by the National Broadcasting Company.
Andrew Hyde (1841-1905) represents a noted musical in- dustry. Handmade viols and violins were manufactured in his shop at 80 Pine Street, erected in 1896. He also dealt in violin makers' supplies of musical merchandise. His instruments, of high grade, were patterned after those of the great masters, Nicholas Amati, Antonius Stradivarius, Joseph Guarnerius, and were ad- vertised for $50, $75, and $100 each; $150 was the price for a violin constructed from the oldest and finest wood. It was his firm conviction that age is not the greatest factor in the secret of tone quality and in his published pamphlet entitled A Treatise on Ancient and Modern Violins he discusses the relative value of new instruments versus old. It is reported that in 23 years he turned out over 1800 instruments with some selling as high as $800.
Smith College has offered many advantages to the music lovers of Northampton. With the appointment of Dr. Benjamin C. Blodgett, recitals and lectures held in connection with the Smith
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College School of Music were opened to the public. This policy has continued and recitals and lectures by the faculty and stu- dents are available to all interested musical townspeople. The Smith College concert course has afforded its subscribers an op- portunity to hear some of the most famous artists and organiza- tions of the world, and many members of the department have achieved notable success as teachers and composers.
Chapter Twenty
The Theatre
By RANSOM WATERMAN
O UR New England ancestors were strongly opposed to the theatre. A law in Massachusetts against the perform- ance of stage plays remained in force until 1797. The statute enacted in 1750, began thus:
AN ACT TO PREVENT STAGE PLAYS AND OTHER THEATRICAL ENTERTAINMENT
For preventing and avoiding the many and great mischiefs which arise from public stage plays, interludes, and other theatrical enter- tainments which not only occasion great and unnecessary expense and discourage industry and frugality but likewise tend generally to increase immorality, impiety and a contempt for religion.
Similar legislation was in effect throughout New England, but in spite of the law and rather severe penalties, theatrical per- formances were occasionally attempted. The first on record took place in Newport, Rhode Island. David Douglass presented The Provoked Husband on September 7, 1761. Only one performance was given, the profits were donated to the poor, and the company retired to safer territory.
Boston, established in 1630, was without a theatre until 1794. On February 3 of that year the Boston Theatre on Federal Street opened with the tragedy, Gustavus Vasa, the Deliverer of his Country. With this performance Boston's professional theatre history began.
The smaller cities and towns had no theatres, of course, and were not visited by traveling companies until about the middle of the 19th century.
As for Northampton, a prominent citizen, Mr. Edward War- ner, writing reminiscences of his boyhood in the Centennial Hampshire Gazette, September 6, 1886, stated that "nothing in
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The Theatre
the way of theatrical performances, negro minstrelsy, and the hundred other modern appliances for spending money, were then in vogue." Mr. Warner was born in 1815 so this would pre- sumably be in the 1830's. Appearing in the Gazette of August 17, 1814, without benefit of editorial comment, was the following an- nouncement:
NEW THEATRE NORTHAMPTON Will open this evening with Cumberland's moral comedy
THE BENEVOLENT JEW Sheva (the Jew)-Mr. Bernard
After which will be presented an entertainment called
FORTUNE'S FROLICKS To begin at half past seven Boxes 75 cts. Pit 50 cts.
Days of performance, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays
John Bernard, a popular comedian from England, made a tour of the United States with his company beginning in 1810 and end- ing in Boston in 1817. Apparently he stayed in Northampton for a month giving three performances a week. On August 24, the program was announced to be The Birthday and Love Laughs at Locksmiths; August 31, Alsellino and The Irishman in London; September 7, The Vagaries of John Bull and Love Laughs at Locksmiths; September 14, Inkle and Yarico and Raising the Wind. The place where these performances were given is not stated.
Among the treasures in the Forbes Library is a poster announc- ing an entertainment in the year 1818. The spelling and punctua- tion follow the original.
Mr. and Mrs. Potter, Beg leave most respectfully to inform the Ladies and Gentlemen of Northampton that they will give an Eve- ning's Brush to sweep away care At the brik Ball Room over the Printing office, on Wednesday evening, Sept. 16th, 1818. In the course of the evening will be offered upwards of 100 Curious, but Mysterious
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Experiments. Mr. Potter will commence the Performance with the Atamaton Dance, to be followed by a number of Philosophical Ex- periments, a few of which are her detailed.
Mr. P. will fire from a gun, any lady's or gentleman's ring, and cause a Dove immediately to appear, in whose bill the ring will be found. He will allow any lady or gentleman to cut their gown or handkerchief and will unite it in such a manner that the most discriminating eye cannot discover the least blemish. He will break a number of gentle- man's Watches with a large hammer and restore them to their regular form again. He will allow any gentleman to draw a Card, and make the same apparently to have the appearance of life, and move across the room. Mr. P. flatters himself that his Performances have been so well known, in various parts of the Country, as not to require the aid of a pompous advertisement; but will only inform the ladies and gentlemen, that may wish to honor him with their company that his Bill can give but a faint idea of the Performance.
Then follows A Song, Ventriloquism, another song, The fourth scene of the Wag of Windsor written by Coleman, Jun., and the "pantomimical piece, called the Agreeable Surprise of the Wonderful Little Giant.
Mr. Potter will add to the diversion of the Entertainment in his representation of the Comic Scenes of the CLOWN and close with a favorite song in the Character of Timothy Norpost.
Tickets 25 cents to be had at the place of performance, and at Mr. Lyman's Inn. Performance to commence at early candle light. The public may rest assured that the room will be in ample order for the reception of visitors, handsomely illuminated, with good music dur- ing the Interludes. Ladies or gentlemen desirous of having seats re- served for them, are requested to send timely notice.
Mr. James Trumbull, historian of Northampton, wrote a jour- nal in 1843 while he was a young apprentice on the Hampshire Gazette. The following entry records an interesting event.
Wednesday, July 26. In the evening went to a performance called the Reformed Drunkards. It consists of a band of young fellows and one female, who go around the country exhibiting the different stages of the drunkard's character. It consisted of 10 scenes. In the first place a man came out below the stage, and told the audience the object of the exhibition &c. Then came the performance. First was the depar- ture of boon companions and pledging each other in the wine cup and carousing. Then the parting of the brother and sister, and so on. I cannot recollect the rest of the scenes, but we saw the moderate drinker, heard the pleadings of his wife and saw them rejected. Then
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