Ohio History Journal
FOLK MUSIC ON THE MIDWESTERN FRONTIER
1788-1825
by HARRY R. STEVENS
Duke University
Since the days when Frederic L. Ritter
and Oscar G. T. Sonneck
established modern musicology in the
United States between 1883
and 1910, two simple but rigid
traditions have dominated the writ-
ing of American musical history. One is
made up of the lives of
composers and performers, and
descriptions of their work. The
second and more important one is the
chronicle of musical or-
ganizations, performances, and
publishing. In few countries, how-
ever, has the work of the outstanding
musicians been of so little
relative importance in shaping the
course of musical history; and
the musical organizations that have
figured most prominently in
the chronicles often stood apart from
the main trend of musical
development-they were peripheral, even
exotic, rather than funda-
mental musical activities.
The broader currents of musical history
are scarcely mentioned
in most accounts of American music.
There are few descriptions
of the social and musical environment in
which composers, per-
formers, and audiences passed their
lives. Perhaps this is because
such matters seemed so obvious to those
who wrote the chronicles
that they thought it unnecessary to
explain them, assuming the
reader's familiarity; and subsequent
historians have simply copied
their material. The result in any case
has been that as personal
knowledge of that fundamental background
of social, cultural, and
musical life has died out with the
passing of successive generations,
the annals have tended to break into
detached fragments and to
lose much of their meaning.1 The
bricks were laid without mortar,
and the structure of musical
historiography is in danger now of
crumbling.
In order to repair this and to
understand contemporary Amer-
1 Frederic Louis Ritter, Music in
America (New York, 1883); Oscar George
Theodore Sonneck, Early Concert-life
in America (1731-1800) (Leipzig, 1907); Glen
Haydon, Introduction to Musicology (New
York, 1941), 247-265, 289-299.
126
FOLK Music 127
ican musical life historically, it is
essential to recover some knowl-
edge of the value of music to its former
listeners and performers
and its social role, as well as some
knowledge of the popular and
educated tastes and the musical idioms
of former times. Among
those matters the ever changing
relationship between popular idiom
and the work of creative artists has
seldom been explored, perhaps
chiefly because the general character of
American musical life in
any region a century or two ago is
largely unknown today. Until
that element has been established, it
will be difficult to under-
stand the significance of the facts so
carefully set down in tradi-
tional music histories. But before that
general character can be
described, its components must first be
reconstructed, among them
--perhaps the most basic-the story of
American folk song.
Generally speaking, the study of folk
music has followed the
narrow paths trod out by Cecil J. Sharp
and his followers thirty
years ago.2 It has been largely ethnological and
folkloristic: one
may discover, for example, that a
certain old woman in the moun-
tains learned some ballad as a child
from her grandmother, or
that a famous historic
"love-murder" was the basis for another
anonymous tragic song. There has been
scarcely any attempt to
represent the scope and nature of folk
music as a whole for any
time earlier than the present century.3
Perhaps the deficiency is explained by
the point of view that
Ralph L. Rusk expressed twenty years
ago. In Rusk's opinion
the history of folk song could scarcely
be written because the sub-
stance was ephemeral. Documentary
evidence was lacking in most
cases, and at best extended only to the
words, not to the tune.4 A
few musicologists have already shown
that such a dark view is no
longer necessary, and important
pioneering work has been done
by Percy Scholes, Phillips Barry, R. W.
Gordon, and George P.
2 Cecil J. Sharp and Olive Dame Campbell, English Folk Songs from the
Southern
Appalachians (New York, 1917).
3 Mellinger E. Henry, ed., Folk-Songs
from the Southern Highlands (New York,
1938); Emelyn E. Gardner and Geraldine
J. Chickering, Ballads and Songs of Southern
Michigan (Ann Arbor, 1939); Mary O. Eddy, Ballads and Songs
from Ohio (New York,
1939); Eloise H. Linscott, Folk Songs
of Old New England (New York, 1939); Paul
G. Brewster, Ballads and Songs of
Indiana (Indiana University, Publications, Folklore
Series No. 1, Bloomington, 1940); Ira W. Ford, Traditional Music
of America (New
York, 1940); Frank Luther, Americans
and Their Songs (New York, 1942).
4 Ralph Leslie Rusk, Literature of
the Middle Western Frontier (2 vols., New
York, 1926), I, 303-310.
128 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND
HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
Jackson.5 But it is possible
to go still further and reconstruct, as
Edward J. Dent has recommended,6 an
entire folk-music culture,
in detail as well as in breadth, and
ultimately perhaps to recreate
that full story of public tastes and
attitudes which is basic to an
understanding of the course of American
musical history.
In starting such a task, it appears that
there has never been
any single focus of American musical
life concentrating or em-
bracing all its vital elements. To the
extent that a region or city
is outstanding, it is often different
and unrepresentative. How-
ever, a number of typical features may
be found in the cultural
area that has blended so many of the
traditions of American music
-the Middle West.
During the late eighteenth and early
nineteenth centuries Amer-
ican culture was highly homogeneous.
After 200 years of settle-
ment on the continent, before the great
tides of later European immi-
gration swept over the country with
their transforming impulses,
a clear pattern of life had come into
existence. During that period
the Middle West was passing through the
frontier stage. Elaborate
and exotic musical institutions were
lacking; but a remarkable
wealth of folk music was brought by the
people scattering westward
through the mountains; and a study of
the process and results
permits a comprehensive and balanced
survey that may answer
some of the problems of musical change.
One focus of the early westward
migration was at Cincinnati,
midway along the Ohio River. The
community was a typical fron-
tier village; and it was, in addition, a
gateway to the Middle West,
through which many thousands of pioneers
passed on their way to
the back country. It was not dominated
by any single cultural
group; and, as it was more stable than
towns like Lexington, Ken-
tucky, or New Harmony, Indiana, it was
also more representative
than they were. It has the added
significance of having been the
scene of Stephen C. Foster's work in the
1840's, when an enduring
and distinctively American music was
created.7
5 Phillips Barry, British Ballads
front Maine (New Haven, 1929); Percy Scholes,
The Puritans and Music in England and
New England (London, 1934); George
Pullen
Jackson, Spiritual Folk-Songs of
Early America (New York, 1937).
6 Edward J. Dent, "The Historical
Approach to Music," in Musical Quarterly,
XXIII, No. 1 (January, 1937), 13.
7 Raymond Walters, Stephen Foster:
Youth's Golden Gleam (Princeton, 1936).
FOLK Music 129
Cincinnati was established in 1788 by a
group of pioneers who
lived at first in caves along the river
bank. A log fort was soon
constructed in the wilderness there, and
a few rude cabins huddled
in its protecting shadow during the
early Indian wars. After the
Indian defeat at Fallen Timbers in 1794
a bucolic period lasted
until 1811. New homes were scattered
over the broad hill-rimmed
plain that now forms the basin of the city. Frame stores and
churches were built. While the
population increased about 2,000,
life moved at an easy pace.8
The War of 1812 interrupted the placid
existence of the town;
and after 1815 the renewal of westward
migration brought a flood
of settlers. The forests vanished from
the basin; the spires of
churches and the domes of the courthouse
and the college made
an urban silhouette. Steamboats crowded
to the public landing,
and an optimistic, energetic atmosphere
prevailed. By 1825 Cin-
cinnati numbered 15,000 inhabitants. It
had become the foremost
city of the Northwest, and had emerged
from the frontier stage.9
Here, then, in Cincinnati between 1788
and 1825 was a community
and a period the study of which may
disclose the possibilities of
this new inquiry.
Early settlers of the western country
came by boat, and were
largely dependent on the Ohio River for
association with the out-
side world.10 The boatmen
themselves were a unique and adventur-
ous group of men, who afford the
earliest accounts of local pioneer
music.11 One of them, who had been a
rope maker in New Jersey,
entertained his passengers by singing to
them "half a day to-
8 Jacob Burnet, "Letters," in
Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio, Trans-
actions, II, Part 2 (Cincinnati, 1839), 151-152; Beverley W.
Bond, Jr., The Civilization
of the Old Northwest (New York, 1934), 351-386, 424-464; Beverley W. Bond,
Jr.,
The Foundations of Ohio, Carl Wittke, ed., The History of the State of Ohio (6
vols.,
Columbus, 1941-44), I (1941), 295-300;
William T. Utter, The Frontier State 1803-
1825, Carl Wittke, ed., The History of the State of Ohio, II
(1942).
9 Jacob
Burnet, Notes on the Early Settlement of the North-Western Territory
(Cincinnati. 1847), 35-37; Edward D. Mansfield,
Memoirs of the Life and Services of
Daniel Drake (Cincinnati, 1855), 16-53, 130-137. Daniel Drake, Natural
and Statis-
tical View or Picture of Cincinnati
and the Miami Country (Cincinnati,
1815), 26-33,
129-168; Benjamin Drake and Edward D.
Mansfield, Cincinnati in 1826 (Cincinnati,
1827), 25-33, 88-91.
10 Western Spy (Cincinnati), June 2, 1815; Emerson Bennett, Mike
Fink: A
Legend of the Ohio (Cincinnati, 1848). All newspapers to which references
are made
hereafter were published in Cincinnati unless
otherwise indicated.
11 Morgan Neville, "The Last of the
Boatmen," in James Hall, ed., The Western
Souvenir a Christmas and New Year's
Gift for 1829 (Cincinnati, n. d.),
107-122;
Hiram Kaine, "Mike Fink," in
Charles Cist, comp., Cincinnati Miscellany; or Antiqui-
ties of the West (2 vols., Cincinnati, 1845-46), I, 31-32; Walter Blair
and Franklin J.
Meine, Mike Fink: King of Mississippi
Keelboatmen (New York, 1933), 39, 45, 64,
79, 99.
130 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
gether."12 A visitor from New England remarked that "almost
every boat, while it lies in the harbour, has one or more fiddlers
scraping continually aboard, to which you often see the boatmen
dancing."13
Another early traveler observed:
As the boats were laid to for the night in an eddy, a part of the crew
could give them headway on starting in the morning, while the others struck up
a tune on their fiddles, and commenced their day's work with music to scare
the devil away and secure good luck. The boatmen, as a class, were masters of
the fiddle, and the music, heard through the distance from these boats, was
more sweet and animating than any I have ever heard since. When the boats
stopped for the night at or near a settlement, a dance was got up, if possible,
which all the boatmen would attend.14
The music of the boatmen is not entirely unknown. One
pioneer mentioned "Blue Bells of Scotland" and Virginia reels;15
and another, describing his visit with Thomas Kennedy, the Cin-
cinnati ferryman, wrote: "Before we had finished our breakfast,
Mr. Kennedy drew a fiddle from a box and struck up Rothemurchie's
Rant. He played in the true Highland style and I could not stop
to finish my breakfast, but started up and danced Shantrews."16
The mellow boat horn was a pleasant and familiar sound; but after
thirty years the steamboat sounded the knell of the boatmen, and
the colorful group drifted away from the Ohio Valley.17
Ballads were known and sung by the pioneers, and western
soldiers made their own ballads on St. Clair's defeat in 1791 and
other incidents.18 Mothers sang to their children, who in turn
played counting, clapping, skipping, and dancing games with an-
cient music. James Finley, a pioneer western preacher, recollected
that in the 1780's or 1790's his mother had sung to him the war
songs of the century, including "Erin go bragh," "Hail to the
12 Benjamin Van Cleve, "Memoirs" entry for August 1, 1792, in Historical and
Philosophical Society of Ohio, Quarterly Publications, XVII, Nos. 1-2 (January-June,
1922), 40.
13 Timothy Flint Recollections of the Last Ten Years (Boston, 1826), 15.
14 "Western Keelboatmen," in American Pioneer, II (1843), 272-273.
15 Noah Miller Ludlow, Dramatic Life as I Found It (St. Louis, 1880), 35-38, 58,
84-85.
16 John Melish, Travels in the United States of America (2 vols., Philadelphia,
1812), II, 285-288.
17 Morgan Neville, op. cit., 120-122.
18 John B. Dillon, Oddities of Colonial Legislation in America (Indianapolis,
1879), 502-503, 547; Rusk, op. cit., I, 308; Matthew Bunn, The Life and Adven-
tures of Matthew Bunn (Buffalo Historical Society, Publications, VII, Buffalo, 1904),
434-436.
FOLK MUSIC 131
Chief," "Rule Britannia,"
and the "Marseillaise."19
Even the In-
dian music known in Cincinnati has been
described by pioneers,
one of whom mentioned two songs, "A
yaw whano heigh, how-wa-
yow-wa," and "Ha yaw
ki-you-wan-nie, hi yaw nit-ta-koo-pee."20
But the savage melodies can scarcely
have had much influence on
the songs of white settlers.
Before the end of the eighteenth century
at least fifteen tunes
were commonly known in Cincinnati. They
were airs to which local
poets set their verses, tunes proposed
for toasts, and other songs
heard in the village, or mentioned in
some way to indicate general
familiarity: "Jack the Brisk Young
Drummer," "The Vicar of
Bray," "Yankee Doodle,"
"Hark to the Midnight, Hark, Away,"
"Ca ira,"
"Gilderoy," "God Save the King," "He Comes! He
Comes!," "Banks of the
Dee," "Rose Tree," "Rule Britannia," "O
Dear What Can the Matter Be,"
" Done Over Taylor," "Here's to
Our Noble Selves, Boys," and
"Roslin Castle."21
During the next dozen years, until the
outbreak of the War of
1812, a total of eleven commonly known
tunes comprised all that
may certainly be included in the folk
music of Cincinnati. Two of
them have been mentioned in the
preceding list, "Yankee Doodle'
and "God Save the King," and
there were nine others not previously
identified in the town: "Bill Bobstay," "Wherever
She Goes,"
"Sweet Solitude," "Maggy
Lauder," "Mary's Dream," "Humors of
Glen," "Erin go bragh,"
"Jolly Mortals," and "Death's Cradle
Hymn."22
In the dozen years after the
commencement of the war 38
more tunes may be identified in
Cincinnati. In part this greater
number results from the growing size and
diversity of the popula-
tion; in part it is the consequence of
more abundant records. These
19 W. P. Strickland, ed., Autobiography
of Reverend James B. Finley (Cincin-
nati, 1854), 19-20.
20 Oliver M. Spencer, Indian
Captivity: A True Narrative of the Capture of Rev.
O. M. Spencer by the Indians, in the
Neighbourhood of Cincinnati (New York,
1834),
103, 105.
21 Centinel of the North-Western Territory, August 23, November 22,
1794, July
11, August 22, 1795; Western Spy, July
2, 9, August 27, October 1, November 5, 1799,
January 29, July 30, 1800; Claude M.
Newlin, Life and Writings of Hugh Henry
Brackenridge (Princeton, 1932), 256-257.
22 Western Spy, September
23, October 17, 1801, May 22, 1802, June 15, 1803,
May 15, 1805, August 26, October 14,
1806, April 13, August 24, 1807, November
16, 1811.
132 OHIO
ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
tunes, not all
properly folk music, more than double the number
previously known in
the village:
Bandy O! Portuguese
Hymn
Lord Lennox Home
Sweet Home
Evelyn's Bower Anacreon
in Heaven
Mrs. Casey Geh
heim, mein Herz
John Gilpin Scots
O'er the Border
Paddy Snap Battle
of the Baltic
Crazy Jane Lafayette's
Grand March
Louis Gordon Ye
Mariners of England
Fly Not Yet Woo'd
and Married and A'
Hail Columbia Let
Fame Sound the Trumpet
Daintie Davie How
to Gain a Woman's Favor
McDonald's Reel Oh, 'Tis
Sweet to Think
Jackson's March March
to the Battle Field
Auld Lang Syne Malbrook
s'en va t'en guerre
Patriotic Diggers O Fie,
Let's A' to the Wedding
Begone, Dull Care I Have
Loved Thee, Dearly Loved Thee
Old Oaken Bucket My
Lodging's on the Cold Ground
Bright Chanticleer Ye Banks
an' Braes o' Bonny Doon
Hail to the Chief When I
Was a Boy in My Father's
[House?]23
The total number of
tunes identified in this way is 62.
Many problems of
folk-music history are apparent in this list.
About half the songs
are recognized today as folk music. "Gilderoy"
and "Banks of the
Dee," for example, were old folk songs known in
several versions under
various names. But others are of known
authorship.
"Patriotic Diggers" was written by Samuel Wood-
worth; "Hail
Columbia" was almost certainly written by Philip
Phile, and
"Anacreon in Heaven" by John Stafford Smith. Between
those two extremes
most of the tunes are of uncertain status. The
tune of "Rose
Tree" was taken with its title from an opera by Wil-
liam Shield, but seems
to have been known previously in Ireland
as a popular song,
"Maureen O'Cullenan."
"Oh, 'Tis Sweet to
Think" seems from
its name to be a sentimental drawing-room bal-
23 Western Spy, August 1, October 2, 1812, June 5, September 11, 1813,
October
4, December 13, 1816,
April 11, 1817, December 28, 1820; Liberty Hall, December
6, 1814, July 1, 1816,
June 14, 1825; Advertiser, June 23, July 28, 1818, October 26,
1819, September 3,
1822, April 7, July 19, 30, September 13, November 19, 1823,
January 17, February
21, March 13, June 23, July 7, 1824, January 29, May 4, 25,
1825; Gazette, April
27, 1819; Literary Cadet, January 20, 1820; Olio, I, No. 14
(November 24, 1821),
58; I, No. 21 (March 2, 1822), 84; Independent Press, August
8, 1822, September 11,
1823; Emporium, October 28, November 4, 1824.
FOLK
Music 133
lad. "Bandy O!" and
"Paddy Snap" in contrast are recognizably
popular Irish. But all three tunes
appeared in Moore's Irish Melo-
dies and were mentioned as "very fashionable"
among ladies of the
Atlantic cities, while another from the
same source, "Evelyn's
Bower," is identified in Grove's Dictionary
of Music as a popular
comic song in Dublin, "The Pretty
Girl of Darby, O!," a tune also
known later in Cincinnati as
"Landlady of France."24 The closeness
of this intermixture of tunes from
"folk" origins with those from
other sources is emphasized by the
manner in which they appeared
in Cincinnati. They were all marked by a
lack of association with
any individual composer or version,
assumptions of a general pub-
lic familiarity with the tunes, and an
implication that they were
common property.
Balls, dancing schools, and singing
schools provide further
clues to the exploration of folk music.
Even in the frontier wilder-
ness, dancing was not forgotten. There
was a ball at the log fort
on Washington's birthday, 1791; and the
same occasion was cele-
brated by the troops at Greenville,
Ohio, with "jocund song" on
February 22, 1796; while "a ball at
Head quarters, which the
Ladies of the village honored with their
presence, closed the joy-
ous scenes of this day."25 There
were many other such events. On
one further occasion Dr. Richard
Allison, an army surgeon from
New York, announced a Christmas ball in
December 1795 with the
dignity of "a Card" and
tickets of admission, thus evidently for the
first time locally placing dances on a
pecuniary basis.26
Dancing schools appeared a few years
later. Richard Haugh-
ton, a dancing instructor from
Pennsylvania and Virginia, informed
the villagers at Cincinnati in November
1799 that he would open a
school to teach "the minuet,
cotillion, French and English sets in
all their ornamental branches . . . the
most fashionable country
dances, and the city cotillions taught
in New York, Philadelphia and
24 Many of these tunes may be identified
by reference to Grigg's Southern and
Western Songster (Philadelphia, 1840) where titles and texts are
printed, and to the
works of Mary O. Eddy, Ira W. Ford, and
George P. Jackson cited in note 3, above.
25 Centinel, March 12, 1796;
Spencer, Indian Captivity, 29, 35.
26 Centinel, December 26, 1795.
Further details of Allison's obscure life may
be found in Burnet, Notes, 34;
Emil Klauprecht, Deutsche Chronik in der Geschichte
des Ohio-thales und seiner Hauptstadt
Cincinnati (Cincinnati, 1864), 138; Western
Spy,
November 19, December 3, 24, 1799, June
25, 1800, June 13, 1817; Liberty Hall,
November 15, December 6, 1814, March 25,
1816; Otto Juettner, 1785-1909. Daniel
Drake and his Followers; Historical
and Biographical Sketches (Cincinnati,
1909).
134
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL
QUARTERLY
Baltimore," and added, "N.B.
Mr. Haughton also teaches some
favorite Scotch reels."27 Haughton
reopened his school in the fall
of 1800; but in April 1801 a local
resident mourned, "It is melan-
choly to observe the prevailing rage for
dancing schools; the nur-
series of idleness, frippery and
folly."28
It was five years before another dancing
teacher ventured to
advertise locally; but dancing persisted
in spite of objections.29
The "infamous" English
traveler Thomas Ashe reported in 1806
that "the amusements consist of
balls and amateur plays,"30 and in
the same year Garrett Lane opened a
dancing school, followed in
1808 by Mr. Coleman.3l Henry
G. Pies gave instruction on the
piano forte and violin in addition to
"the polite accomplishment"
of dancing in 1811; and two French
dancing masters, Colome and
Dusouchet, came in 1812 and 1813 to
teach the "Art of Dancing,
according to the rules of the most
approved seminaries of Europe."32
A crowd of dancing masters followed
those pioneers, but they pro-
vide little additional evidence of folk
music.
In less fashionable circles dancing was
more picturesque and
affords a better view of popular music.
Ashe described his experi-
ence of it as he stayed at an inn across
the Ohio River in 1806:
I entered the ball-room, which was
filled with persons at cards, drinking,
smoking, dancing &c. The music consisted
of two bangies, played by negroes
nearly in a state of nudity, and a lute,
through which a Chickasaw breathed
with much occasional exertion and
violent gesticulations. The dancing ac-
corded with the harmony of these
instruments. The clamour of the card
tables was so great, that it almost
drowned every other; and the music of
Ethiopa was with difficulty heard.33
On the north bank of the Ohio, a visitor
to Cincinnati denounced
the sleighing parties he saw in 1817,
which would proceed, unat-
tended by matrons, to some tavern three
or four miles from town,
27 Western Spy, November 19, December 3, 8, 1799.
28 Western Spy, October 29, 1800,
April 22, 1801.
29 Stephen S. L'Hommedieu,
"Inaugural Address," in Cincinnati Pioneer, No. 3
(April, 1874), 9-14; Daniel Drake, Notices
Concerning Cincinnati (Cincinnati, 1810),
Part II, 31; Daniel Drake, Natural
and Statistical View or Picture of Cincinnati and
the Miami Country (Cincinnati, 1815), 167; Liberty Hall, April 1, 1816 (an amusing
review of Drake's book), December 2,
1816; Western Spy, February 11, 25, March
4, 1815.
30 Travels in America Performed in
the Year 1806 (London, 1809), 182.
31 Western Spy, August
26, 1806, March 23, April 13, 1807, May 28, 1808.
32 Western Spy, August 3, 1811, March 18, April 4, 1812, September 17,
1813,
March 11, 1815; Liberty Hall, August
14, 1811.
33 Travels in America, 90-91.
FOLK MUSIC 135
where they would get out, set the
fiddlers to scraping, the girls to
dancing, and the boys to drinking.34 A native wrote a little differ-
ent account of a pirogue-sleigh ride
about 1810, "the American flag
flying, two fiddlers, two flute players,
and Dr. Stall as captain. They
did not forget to pass the 'old black
betty,' filled with good old
peach brandy, among the old pioneers,
and wine for the lady pion-
eers.... When the riding ended, both
young and old ... wound up
the sport with a ball."35
The singing school, an institution often
regarded as an im-
portant feature of frontier life,36
seems to have had a minor place
in Cincinnati. The first one was held in
1796, and there were others
in 1800, 1801, and 1806; but there were
apparently no more until
four were held between 1815 and 1822.
They were all inconspic-
uous, and provide little information of
folk music.37
A major place in the development of folk
music was taken by
religion, and its importance was
recognized more than a century
ago. A writer in the North American
Review in 1840 observed that
"music in America must be
surrendered to the people, must be
domiciled among them, must grow up among
them, or it cannot
exist at all.. .. There is more
hope, far more hope, that a national
music will grow out of the rude but
fervent hymns, with which the
overflowing congregations of Wesleyan
Methodists rend the heavens,
than that it will ever be reared by the
opera, or the costly concerts
of the nobility."38
There is little evidence of church
singing in Cincinnati until
1813, when a band of choristers sang at
the First Presbyterian
Church,39 and choirs were not
outstanding until after 1819.40 But
34 Liberty Hall,
February 3, 10, 1817.
35 Joseph Coppin,
"Cincinnati Pioneer Association Inaugural Address" (1880),
quoted in Charles T. Greve, Centennial
History of Cincinnati and Representative Citi-
zens (4 vols.,
Chicago, 1904), I, 463.
36 Catharine C. Cleveland, The Great
Revival in the West, 1797-1805 (Chicago,
1916), 11.
37 Freeman's Journal, December 17, 1796, cited in Bond, Civilization of
the Old
Northwest, 456; Western Spy, December 17, 1800, October 31,
1801, October 14, 21,
1806, October 25 November 1, 1816; Liberty
Hall, October 2, 1815, September 1, 4,
1817; Solomon Franklin Smith, Theatrical
Management in the West and South for
Thirty Years (New
York, 1868), 24-26; Samuel Stitt, "Recollections of Cincinnati Fifty
Years Since," in Cist's Weekly
Advertiser, October 5, 1847; "Early Jails, &c.," in Cist,
comp., Cincinnati Miscellany, I, 50-51.
38 "National Music in
America," in North American Review, L (1840), 13-15.
39 Liberty Hall, July 6, 1813.
40 Advertiser, January 27, 1823; Liberty Hall, April 2,
1824; Harry R. Stevens,
"The Haydn Society of Cincinnati,
1819-1824," in Ohio State Archaeological and
Historical Quarterly, LII (1943), 118-119.
136
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL
QUARTERLY
from an early date there was a vigorous
controversy over the char-
acter of music to be used in the western
churches.
One side was represented in the
celebrated and popular Easy
Instructor of William Smith and William Little.41 The
hymn book
was sold in Cincinnati in 1811 and for
many years afterward,42 and
its popularity was admitted by
subsequent rivals.43 The Easy In-
structor represented the fuguing school and other late
eighteenth
century New England, New York, and
Pennsylvania composers,
particularly Daniel Read (1757-1836),
Elijah Griswold (fl. 1800-
1807), William Billings (1746-1800),
Timothy Swan (1758-1842),
Oliver Holden (1765-1834?), Oliver
Brownson (fl. 1783-97),
Morgan, Ward, Edson, Williams, Henry
Little, and Nehemiah Shum-
way (fl. 1793).
On the other side were Robert Patterson
in Pittsburgh and
Timothy Flint in Cincinnati. Patterson
in his Church Music wrote
of his alarm over "the levity and
ostentation" of the "light, rapid,
difficult tunes."44 Timothy Flint deplored "our merry
American
airs," and regretted that
"flighty and fuging music became the com-
mon taste" while "books of
another stamp could not be sold. ...
The composuist, it would seem, must have
had in memory some
march, or merry air that guides the
dance." Flint determined "to
give no quarter to trifling or fuging
music," however, and recom-
mended the solemn music of
"York," "Quercy," "Old Hundred,"
and "Canterbury." He worked
for the restoration of "the great
masters of old time": Luther,
Pleyel, Handel, Arne, Boyce, Madan,
and Purcell. His collection, the Columbian
Harmonist, favored
particularly Handel, Pleyel, Madan, J.
Clark, Arne, and Giardini.45
But many other tunes in his hymn book
were the anonymous popu-
lar products of the Reformation, which
he praised so highly for its
musical achievement.
41 The Easy Instructor, or, a New
Method of Teaching Sacred Harmony (Albany,
1807, 1809, etc.).
42 Western Spy, April 27, May 4, 11, 25, 1811.
43 Western Spy, October 23, 1813.
44 Patterson's Church Music,
Containing the Plain Tunes Used in Divine Worship,
by the Churches of the Western
Country (Pittsburgh, 1813; 2d ed.,
Cincinnati, 1815).
45 Timothy Flint, The Columbian
Harmonist: in Two Parts. To Which is Pre-
fixed a Dissertation upon the True
Taste in Church Music (Cincinnati,
1816). This
volume, of which apparently only three
copies remain in existence, "contains about 120
tunes, adapted to the churches in the
Western country." See pages iii, vii-xi. The
"dissertation" includes a
remarkable essay on musical history.
FOLK MUSIC 137
A paradox is thus apparent in this
conflict between ancient
hymns based on sixteenth century French
or German folk songs,
and those "merry American
airs" that have seemed to later histor-
ians so important in the development of
American folk music.46
An old stream of European folk music was
being suppressed while
a new one came into being from the
compositions of a local school
of American composers.
Theatrical music throws still more light
on folk song, and
particularly on the means by which it
was spread in the early nine-
teenth century. The first theatrical
performance in Cincinnati was
a comic opera, The Poor Soldier, written
by John O'Keeffe with
music by William Shield. It had been
performed in Dublin and
London in 1783 and in New York in 1786.
It reached Cincinnati
October 1, 1801, and was repeated in
1802 and 1811.47 The first
local production included a musical
interlude, consisting of an
original song to the tune "Wherever
She Goes." Theatrical produc-
tions followed irregularly from 1802 to
1815, and annually from the
latter year, often including comic
operas, musical farces, or other
musical entertainments. The diversions
produced with music before
1812 included The Poor Soldier,
Peeping Tom of Coventry, The
Agreeable Surprise, The Mock Doctor,
The Mountaineers, The Pad-
lock, The Poor Gentleman, Wild Oats,
The Old Maid, Love a la
mode, Animal Magnetism, The Wag of
Windsor, The Birthday, The
Romp, or a Cure for the Spleen, The
Spoil'd Child, and The
Weathercock.
In addition to the music provided for
these performances by
the band, there were fancy dances and a
variety of sentimental, pa-
triotic, and comic songs and duets. On
the stage Mr. Cipriani,
from Sadler's Wells, London, danced
hornpipes, and was assisted by
Mrs. Turner in a Polish minuet from Cinderella.48
The songs men-
tioned by name in theatrical
performances before 1818 were com-
paratively few:
46 George Pullen Jackson, White
Spirituals from the Southern Uplands (Chapel
Hill, 1933); Henry W. Foote, Three
Centuries of American Hymnody (Cambridge,
1940), 171-175; Raymond Morin,
"William Billings, Pioneer in American Music," in
New England Quarterly, XIV (1941), 25-33.
47 Western Spy, September 30, October 10, 17, 1801; Cist's
Weekly Advertiser,
September 14, 1847.
48 Western Spy, May 25, June 1, 15, 22, 1811; Liberty Hall, May
29, June 5,
12, 1811.
138 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL
QUARTERLY
Madam Fig's Ball Country
Club, or the Quizzical Society
The Old Commodore Tid re I
[Bainbridge's Tedrei]
Father and I The
Way to Come Over
Decatur's Victory Lady
Camblin's Reel
Windsor Waltz How
to Please Woman
Turkish Hornpipe Marriage
of Miss Kitty Odonophon to
Yankee Doodle Mr.
Paddy O'Raffety
Battle of Tippecanoe
In 1813 a traveling
Irish musician, Mr. Webster, performed
"an
Entertainment, consisting of conversation, anecdote, and song,
called The Harp of
Erin at the Assembly Room in the Columbian
Inn," and
another entertainment called The Wandering Melodist a
few days later. He
presented an interesting mixture of Irish folk
music and popular
ballads of the day, and introduced several new
works to his
Cincinnati audience:
Fair Ellen The
Post Captain
Faithless Emma The
Glasses Sparkle
The Willow Honey
and Mustard
The Doldrum Why
Does Azure Deck the Sky
Far Far at Sea On
This Cold Flinty Rock
Sally Roy Come
Take the Harp
Exile of Erin Paddy
in a Pucker
Fly Not Yet Tell
Her I'll Love Her
Just Like Love Sweet
Lady Look Not Thus
Kathleen McChree Saint Senanus and the Lady
The Harp That Once
Through Tara's Halls49
A part of the process
of folk-music history emerged in the
sequence indicated by
Webster's concerts. Old English and Irish
folk songs and
favorite tunes by Irish minstrels were collected by
men like Edward
Bunting, provided with harmony by John Steven-
son and new words by
Tom Moore, lifted to another level of popu-
larity, and scattered
across Europe and America by traveling enter-
tainers, to gain new
vitality and still greater influence. The stage
seems to have been a
significant means of transmitting folk music
from one place to
another, and of prolonging its life. The very
process in operation
a few years later is confirmed and described
by Richard H. Dana in
Two Years before the Mast, under the date
April 24, 1836.
49 Western Spy, October
23, 30, 1813.
FOLK MUSIC 139
After 1818 the
information on theatrical music is so abundant
that only a selection
of representative songs can be listed:
The Tidy One Across the Downs This
Morning
Larry O'Gaff For Then I Had Not
Learnt to Love
Cherry Checked Patty The Soldier
Slumbering
William Tell The
Bewildered Maid
Bay of Biscay Who
Would Not Love
Sandy and Jenny Look,
Neighbors, Look
The Beggar Girl Scots
Wha Hae wi' Wallace Bled
Garland of Love Money
Is Your Friend
Jug, Jug, Jug Paddy's
Christening
The Bag of Nails Barney
Leave the Girls Alone
The Great Booby Megin O,
O Megin Ee
Pretty Deary Away
with This Pouting
All's Well Adieu
My Native Shore
Soldier's Bride And
Has She Then Failed
The Plough Boy Mr.
Peter Snout Was Invited Out
Eveleen's Bower You
Think No Doubt
London Fashions When First
I Left Sweet Dublin Town
Minute Gun At Sea Sir Jerry Go
Nimble, or Honey and
Mustard50
The titles once again
indicate a mixture of folk song and formal
composition, and the
problem of distinguishing them is complex.
Many composers
represented in this list, like Dibdin, Shield, and
Bishop, used a folk
song style, or simply adopted common tunes;
but their songs, even
those as popular as Shield's "Post Captain,"
usually did not
survive. The relation of ballad operas to folk
music, and especially
to the standardization of tonality and melodic
structure nevertheless
offers many clues to the history of folk song.
The process of
selection, rejection, and transmission of folk songs
seems to have been
strongly influenced by the education of taste in
the eighteenth
century. If it was not a creative period (which there
is some reason to
doubt), it was at any rate a time when many
earlier styles of
music were discarded.
Military music also
took an important role as an expression of
folk song and popular
taste on the frontier. Henry Brackenridge, a
western writer,
remembered General Wayne's camp near Cincinnati
in 1792 through
"the beating of drums, the clangor of trumpets"
50 Theatrical
advertisements in the local press, too numerous to cite in full, pro-
vide the source of
this information.
140
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
and the indistinct movements of horse
and foot amid the shadowy
forests.51 Fort Washington
was established at Cincinnati in 1789;
it remained there until 1808, but long
after its removal the influence
of military music was strong in the
pioneer village.
The army was provided with a drum and
bugle in each com-
pany of infantry and artillery, and a
cornet and trumpet in each
troop of cavalry.52 In 1806 a
troop of light dragoons met at Cin-
cinnati "to elect a Cornet in the
place of Mr. Stephen Ludlow, re-
tired."53 The old
records are full of details of music supplies, the
red uniforms faced with blue that the
musicians wore, and the pay
offered drummers and fifers, "$15
per month, and one ration per
day."54
But it was not until 1797, when General
Wilkinson arrived at
Cincinnati, that military music emerged
from obscurity. The new
commander brought an air of gaiety with
him, and apparently had a
band of musicians to enliven frontier
affairs.55 On July 4,
1799,
the toasts of the day were accompanied
by martial music and ar-
tillery;56 and at the memorial services
held for President Washing-
ton at the fort on February 1, 1800, the
music performed a solemn
dirge.57 The performances of the military band were described in
detail with the Independence Day
celebrations in 1801, 1802, and
1805, and a Republican victory dinner,
October 22, 1802.58 The
tunes played on such occasions were
often mentioned in reports of
the next twenty years. After the fort
was moved from Cincinnati
a band, possibly including some of the
former army musicians, was
active for many years. It played at
outings, in processions, at
51
Henry Marie Brackenridge, Recollections of Persons and Places in the West
(2d ed., Philadelphia, 1868), 17, 177,
184; Burnet, Notes, 157-158.
52 L. Belle Hamlin, ed.,
"Selections from the Torrence Papers, VIII," in Histor-
ical and Philosophical Society of Ohio, Quarterly
Publications, XIII, No. 3 (July-Sep-
tember, 1918), 83-85, 121, 130.
53 Western Spy, April 8, 1806.
54 Torrence Papers File, 48, fols. 57,
60, 65, in Historical and Philosophical
Society of Ohio, Cincinnati; Western
Spy, June 12, 1813, May 7, 1814; Liberty Hall,
March 18, 1816.
55 Lewis H. Garrard, Memoir of Charlotte
Chambers (Philadelphia, 1856), 35.
The local story that General Wilkinson's
band entertained dinner parties with the music
of Gluck and Haydn seems to have been
invented by Klauprecht, op. cit., 123, on
the basis of Brackenridge's recollections of Gallipolis,
Ohio. Frank E. Tunison, Prestol
(Cincinnati, 1888), 3-4; Heinrich A.
Rattermann, Early Music in Cincinnati, an essay
read before the Literary Club, November
9, 1879; Cincinnati Daily Gazette, May 15,
1880.
56 Western Spy, July 9, 1799.
57 Western Spy, February 5, 1800. This does not confirm the local
tradition that
the music was Phile's "President's
March." Tunison, Presto!, 3. It may have been
"Handel's Dirge," i.e., the
"Dead March" from Saul.
58 Western Spy, July 8, 1801, July 10, 1802, July 10, 1805, October 27,
1802.
FOLK MUSIC 141
memorial services,
banquets, formal celebrations in the churches
and at the courthouse,
and for special events. Contemporary ac-
counts offer pleasant
pictures of the townsfolk retiring with the band
to a beechen shade,
where sports and rural pastimes filled the day
until dinner was
served, and numberless toasts and songs filled the
night.59
About 100 tunes played
by the band in Cincinnati have been
mentioned in surviving
records. By far the most popular were
"Hail
Columbia," "Yankee Doodle," and "Washington's March,"
with almost twenty
performances for each. Not far below them in
popularity were four
other tunes, "Anacreon in Heaven" (which
had not yet become the
national anthem, although it was played
here as "The Star
Spangled Banner" in 1819), "The President's
March" (perhaps a
composition of Philip Phile to which the words
of "Hail
Columbia" were later written), "Fair American," and
"Come Haste to
the Wedding."60
In addition to those
six or seven tunes there were nineteen
others mentioned with
three to five performances each:
Reveille Guardian
Angels
Marseillaise Rural
Felicity
Stoney Point (five
times each)
Ca ira Sprig
of Shillelah
Erin go bragh Madame
You Know My Trade Is War
Jove in His Chair God
Speed the Plough
Hail to the Chief French
Grenadier's March
Jefferson's March (four
times each)
Rogue's March General
Harrison's March
Jackson's March Money
in Both Pockets
Successful Campaign (three times
each)
The list may be
extended with nineteen tunes that were played at
least twice each by
the band during this period:
Dead March Love
in a Village
Friendship Flowers of
Edinburgh
Soldier's Joy Indian Philosopher
59 Western
Spy, July 10, 1805.
60 Western Spy, July 8, 1801, July 10, October 27,
1802, July 10, 1805 July
11, 1812, July 11,
1817; Inquisitor, July 7, 1818, July 13, 1819; Advertiser, July
13,
1819, March 19, 1822,
March 19, 1823, March 20, 1824, March 19, May 25, August
17, 1825; Independent
Press, July 10, 1823; Literary Cadet, July 8, 1824; Liberty
Hall, July 9, 1824.
142 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
Turk's March Volunteer's March
White Cockade On the Road to Boston
Roslin Castle Life Let Us Cherish
Columbian March Will You Come to the Bower
Exile of Erin America, Commerce
and Freedom
Liberty Tree Good Night an' Joy
Be With You A'
Soldier's Return
The last and most
numerous group of band tunes is made up
of the pieces with
only a single known performance:
Hill Tops Patriot's
Cotillion
Grand Spy Janissaries'
March
College Hornpipe Battle of Prague
The Jolly Tar New President's March
Hearts of Oak Soldier's March
Banks of the Dee Italian Waltz
Soldier's Adieu Masonic Dead March
Tippecanoe Lafayette's March
Tars of Columbia Sweet Harmony
Monroe's March Pleyel's Hymn
Hull's Victory Victory of Orleans
Adams and Liberty Liberty or Death
Haydn's Fancy March in Blue Beard
Echo Miss
Ware's March
Liberty March Harmonical Society's
March
Lawrence's Dirge Handel's Dirge
Mechanic's March Spanish Patriots
Ode on Science City Guards' March
Clinton's March Jefferson and Liberty
Hail Liberty Fire on the
Mountains
The Wounded Hussar Cincinnati Guards' March
The Dusty Miller Governor Tompkins' March
Cease Rude Boreas Away with Melancholy
Tune of '76 The Meeting of the
Waters
The General Malbrook s'en va
t'en guerre
Bunker's Hill Columbia, Columbia
to Glory Arise
Kentucky Reel Scots Wha Hae wi'
Wallace Bled
Blythe Sandy When Bidden to the
Wake or Fair
Assembly
Among the 100 band
tunes known in Cincinnati a considerable
number, including
"Hail Columbia," "Yankee Doodle," "Anacreon
in Heaven,"
"Ca ira," "Erin go bragh," and "Roslin Castle"
were
also familiar through
the theater or other institutions. Some of
FOLK MUSIC 143
them were repetitions under various
names: "Hail Columbia" seems
to have been "The President's
March"; "Anacreon in Heaven" was
also known as "The Star Spangled
Banner" and as "Adams and
Liberty"; "Haste to the
Wedding" was given the title of "Rural
Felicity" and was also renamed
"Perry's Victory" after the naval
triumph on Lake Erie; and the topical
names of other songs and
marches suggest old tunes with new
labels.
Some of them are certainly not folk
music. "America, Com-
merce and Freedom" was written by
Alexander Reinagle; "Dead
March" was possibly the march from
Handel's Saul; "The Wounded
Hussar" was written by James
Hewitt; and "Echo" may have been
Henry Rowley Bishop's "Celebrated Echo
Song." "The Battle of
Prague" was probably the
composition of Kotzwara mentioned in
a poem by Thomas Hardy. "Haydn's
Fancy," "Handel's Dirge,"
"Pleyel's Hymn," and the
"March" from Blue Beard are obviously
the works of individual composers. But
folk music cannot be re-
stricted to such familiar forms as
ballads and reels without exclud-
ing many works of similarly obscure
origin--for example, the an-
cient military bugle calls,
"Assembly" and "Reveille." The problem
of identifying tunes by name is a
difficult one, but not insoluble.
Questions of that sort may often be
settled by reference to song
books and to the elaborate tune
genealogies that recent folklorists
have established.61
One of the most interesting features is
the extent to which
national characteristics are
recognizable in the music or titles. The
"Marseillaise" and "Ca
ira" are clearly French, and "Geh heim,
mein Herz" German; Scotch tunes are
identifiable in "McDonald's
Reel," "Auld Lang Syne," "Ye
Banks and Braes," "Scots O'er the
Border," "Blue Bells of
Scotland," "Hail to the Chief," and "Rothe-
murchie's Rant."62
The Irish seem to have made the largest
distinctive contribu-
6l See Jackson, Spiritual Folk-Songs; Eddy, Ballads and Songs
from Ohio; Brewster,
Ballads and Songs of Indiana; Samuel Preston Bayard, Hill Country Tunes,
Instrumental
Folk Music of Southwestern
Pennsylvania (American Folklore
Society, Memoirs, XXXIX,
Philadelphia, 1944),
"Introduction," xi-xxvii.
62 Just after the close of this period a
celebration of St. Andrew's Day by the
Scots Society of Cincinnati, December 1,
1828, included many other typical songs:
"Here's to the Land o' Bonnets
Blue," "The Kail Brose o' Auld Scotland," "Take Your
Auld Cloak About You," "Up an'
Waur Them A' Willie," "Bannockburn," "Thistle
So Green," "Burns'
Farewell," "Hail to the Chief," "Bonnets Blue,"
"Scots Wha
Hae," and "My Mither She
Mended My Breeks." Cincinnati Daily Gazette, December
3, 1828.
144 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL
QUARTERLY
tion of folk tunes.
Many Irish tunes were adopted by the com-
munity at large, among
them "Haste to the Wedding" and "Sprig of
Shillelah." In
addition to those there were over two dozen tunes
that were used in
Cincinnati exclusively by the Irish, in connection
with celebrations of
St. Patrick's Day before 1825. Four of them
were often
repeated: "St. Patrick's
Day," "Granu wale," "Vive
la," and
"Carolan's Receipt--for the Making of Whiskey." Twenty-
two other tunes are
known to have been used once each by the Irish,
and apparently by no
one else in Cincinnati during this period:
Merryman O
for the Sword of Other Times
Cincinnati Forget
Not the Field
Molly Astor Garry
onne [Garry Owen]
Coolin Remember
the Glories of Brian the
Brave
Paddy Carey The Harp That Once through
Tara's
Halls
The Farmer What
Makes the Ladies Like It So
Madison's March Willy Was
a Wanton Wag
The Philosopher Universal
Emancipation
The Galley Slave Constitution
and the Guerrierre
Jessy O'Dumblaine The Banks of
the Ohio
Tantararu Rogues All O Breathe Not His
Name63
It is impressive in
looking over the Irish tunes to notice the great
variety of style and
form represented by songs from Edward Bunt-
ing's General
Collection of Ancient Irish Music (1796), Thomas
Moore and John
Stevenson's Selection of Irish Melodies (1807-15),
and Turlogh
Carolan's Favorite Collection of Irish Melodies
(1747?).64
It is evident that in
the late eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries there were
at least five levels of folk music assimilation.
63 Advertiser, March 19, 1822, March 19, 1823,
March 20, 1824, March 19, 1825.
64 William H. Grattan
Flood, A History of Irish Music (Dublin, 1927), 227 et.
seq. See also Donal O'Sullivan, "The Petrie Collection
of Irish Folk Music," in
Journal of the English Folk
Dance and Song Society, V, No. 1
(December 1946), 1-12,
and John Parry,
"The Earlier Collections of Traditional Welsh Melodies," in Cylch-
grawn Cymdeithas
Alawon Gwerin Cymru, III (No. 9) Part
I (1930), 12-18, and III
(No. 10) Part II
(1934), 103-108.
Some of Moore's tunes
were ancient Irish folk songs; many others that were
equally popular and widespread
show evidence of highly individual authorship, such
as "Fly Not Yet,"
which was Carolan's "Planxty Kelly." The intricate history of Irish
folk music in the
eighteenth century has never been disentangled; until it is, little
can be said with
certainty about the history of Irish folk tunes in America. The same
is true of Scotch and
Welsh folk music. For example, "Roslin Castle," which might
seem from part of its
history to be a Scotch tune, was actually composed by the
eighteenth-century
Welsh musician Greg Wen, or Garry Owen, who was honored on
St. Patrick's Day by
the Irish.
FOLK Music 145
There were songs now accepted as folk
tunes, such as "Lord Lennox"
and "McDonald's Reel" and true
folk songs adapted or supplied
with fresh words; recently composed
ballads or theater songs based
on folk tunes, from "The Wounded
Hussar" and "The Post Cap-
tain" to "Rose Tree" and
"Eveleen's Bower"; songs of a definite
"folk" character but with a
putative authorship, among them many
Irish and Welsh tunes by Garry Owen and
Carolan, given new cir-
culation by Bunting or Moore; songs of
apparently recent origin
and individual although unknown
authorship, such as "Yankee
Doodle"; and songs whose composers
are known, such as "Rule
Britannia" (Thomas Arne),
"Anacreon in Heaven" (John Stafford
Smith), and "The President's
March" (Philip Phile), which were
as widely current as folk music but
markedly individual in style.
It is also apparent that there was by no
means a complete
fusion of tunes from various European
sources, but that the Eng-
lish and Scotch tunes provided a broad
foundation to which others
were added without at first making a
fundamental alteration. Words
as well as names were being modified to
fit American requirements,
however; English associations were being
shed, and a body of folk
music specifically associated with the
American scene was already
well established, while the folk
elements, especially from Irish
tunes, in the sentimental, comic, and
patriotic balladry, point toward
a fusion that was to evolve a new folk
style.65
A good bit of the nature of folk music
in America may be illu-
minated by this fragment of its history.
In origin, most of the tunes
current at Cincinnati from 1790 to 1825
bear the characteristics of
the middle eighteenth century. Earlier
elements such as the tune
"Coolin" appear incongruous,
and stand out in contrast to the other
folk tunes and similar compositions of
Arne, Shield, Storace, and
their contemporaries. There are hints
that folk music in the British
Isles passed through a revolutionary
development between 1640 and
1740, possibly under the influence of
obscure musicians of that
century.
It would be hard to distinguish between
some of the anonymous
65 Jackson, Spiritual Folk-Songs; "Stephen
Foster's Debt to American Folk-Song,"
in Musical Quarterly, XXII,
No. 2 (April 1936), 154-169; Foote, Three Centuries of
American Hymnody, 171-175. An excellent account of the background of Foster's work
is given in Walters, Stephen Foster, 59-68.
146
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
tunes of the eighteenth century and
others whose composers are
known. While there are clear differences
between some English,
Irish, Scotch, and Welsh tunes, there
are numerous others that can-
not be labeled with national origins.
It would seem from a review of popular
music on the Midwest-
ern frontier that folk song was passing
through a lively history,
obscure, but none the less real. Efforts
to trace tunes to an absolute
primitive germ in the same way that
efforts were once made to
isolate pure primitive races or
languages have a definite value; but
the representation of the full popular
background and the processes
of historic change promise even more
toward an understanding of
the nature of folk music and the
appreciation of all American mus-
ical history. Three things that seem
here to be most significant for
such understanding are the work of the
minor composers of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
the education of popular taste
through church, camp meeting, theater,
tavern, song book, military
bands, and other institutions, and the
influence of taste on the selec-
tion, transformation, and transmission
of folk songs.