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Lowell Mason

1792 - 1872 Composer of "MERIBAH" in The Cyber Hymnal Dr. Lowell Mason (the degree was conferred by the University of New York) is justly called the father of American church music; and by his labors were founded the germinating principles of national musical intelligence and knowledge, which afforded a soil upon which all higher musical culture has been founded. To him we owe some of our best ideas in religious church music, elementary musical education, music in the schools, the popularization of classical chorus singing, and the art of teaching music upon the Inductive or Pestalozzian plan. More than that, we owe him no small share of the respect which the profession of music enjoys at the present time as contrasted with the contempt in which it was held a century or more ago. In fact, the entire art of music, as now understood and practiced in America, has derived advantage from the work of this great man. Lowell Mason was born in Medfield, Mass., January 8, 1792. From childhood he had manifested an intense love for music, and had devoted all his spare time and effort to improving himself according to such opportunities as were available to him. At the age of twenty he found himself filling a clerkship in a banking house in Savannah, Ga. Here he lost no opportunity of gratifying his passion for musical advancement, and was fortunate to meet for the first time a thoroughly qualified instructor, in the person of F. L. Abel. Applying his spare hours assiduously to the cultivation of the pursuit to which his passion inclined him, he soon acquired a proficiency that enabled him to enter the field of original composition, and his first work of this kind was embodied in the compilation of a collection of church music, which contained many of his own compositions. The manuscript was offered unavailingly to publishers in Philadelphia and in Boston. Fortunately for our musical advancement it finally secured the attention of the Boston Handel and Haydn Society, and by its committee was submitted to Dr. G. K. Jackson, the severest critic in Boston. Dr. Jackson approved most heartily of the work, and added a few of his own compositions to it. Thus enlarged, it was finally published in 1822 as The Handel and Haydn Society Collection of Church Music. Mason's name was omitted from the publication at his own request, which he thus explains, "I was then a bank officer in Savannah, and did not wish to be known as a musical man, as I had not the least thought of ever making music a profession." President Winchester, of the Handel and Haydn Society, sold the copyright for the young man. Mr. Mason went back to Savannah with probably $500 in his pocket as the preliminary result of his Boston visit. The book soon sprang into universal popularity, being at once adopted by the singing schools of New England, and through this means entering into the church choirs, to whom it opened up a higher field of harmonic beauty. Its career of success ran through some seventeen editions. On realizing this success, Mason determined to accept an invitation to come to Boston and enter upon a musical career. This was in 1826. He was made an honorary member of the Handel and Haydn Society, but declined to accept this, and entered the ranks as an active member. He had been invited to come to Boston by President Winchester and other musical friends and was guaranteed an income of $2,000 a year. He was also appointed, by the influence of these friends, director of music at the Hanover, Green, and Park Street churches, to alternate six months with each congregation. Finally he made a permanent arrangement with the Bowdoin Street Church, and gave up the guarantee, but again friendly influence stepped in and procured for him the position of teller at the American Bank. In 1827 Lowell Mason became president and conductor of the Handel and Haydn Society. It was the beginning of a career that was to win for him as has been already stated the title of "The Father of American Church Music." Although this may seem rather a bold claim it is not too much under the circumstances. Mr. Mason might have been in the average ranks of musicianship had he lived in Europe; in America he was well in advance of his surroundings. It was not too high praise (in spite of Mason's very simple style) when Dr. Jackson wrote of his song collection: "It is much the best book I have seen published in this country, and I do not hesitate to give it my most decided approbation," or that the great contrapuntist, Hauptmann, should say the harmonies of the tunes were dignified and churchlike and that the counterpoint was good, plain, singable and melodious. Charles C. Perkins gives a few of the reasons why Lowell Mason was the very man to lead American music as it then existed. He says, "First and foremost, he was not so very much superior to the members as to be unreasonably impatient at their shortcomings. Second, he was a born teacher, who, by hard work, had fitted himself to give instruction in singing. Third, he was one of themselves, a plain, self-made man, who could understand them and be understood of them." The personality of Dr. Mason was of great use to the art and appreciation of music in this country. He was of strong mind, dignified manners, sensitive, yet sweet and engaging. Prof. Horace Mann, one of the great educators of that day, said he would walk fifty miles to see and hear Mr. Mason teach if he could not otherwise have that advantage. Dr. Mason visited a number of the music schools in Europe, studied their methods, and incorporated the best things in his own work. He founded the Boston Academy of Music. The aim of this institution was to reach the masses and introduce music into the public schools. Dr. Mason resided in Boston from 1826 to 1851, when he removed to New York. Not only Boston benefited directly by this enthusiastic teacher's instruction, but he was constantly traveling to other societies in distant cities and helping their work. He had a notable class at North Reading, Mass., and he went in his later years as far as Rochester, where he trained a chorus of five hundred voices, many of them teachers, and some of them coming long distances to study under him. Before 1810 he had developed his idea of "Teachers' Conventions," and, as in these he had representatives from different states, he made musical missionaries for almost the entire country. He left behind him no less than fifty volumes of musical collections, instruction books, and manuals. As a composer of solid, enduring church music. Dr. Mason was one of the most successful this country has introduced. He was a deeply pious man, and was a communicant of the Presbyterian Church. Dr. Mason in 1817 married Miss Abigail Gregory, of Leesborough, Mass. The family consisted of four sons, Daniel Gregory, Lowell, William and Henry. The two former founded the publishing house of Mason Bros., dissolved by the death of the former in 1869. Lowell and Henry were the founders of the great organ manufacturer of Mason & Hamlin. Dr. William Mason was one of the most eminent musicians that America has yet produced. Dr. Lowell Mason died at "Silverspring," a beautiful residence on the side of Orange Mountain, New Jersey, August 11, 1872, bequeathing his great musical library, much of which had been collected abroad, to Yale College. --Hall, J. H. (c1914). Biography of Gospel Song and Hymn Writers. New York: Fleming H. Revell Company.

John Chandler

1806 - 1876 Person Name: Rev. John Chandler (1806-1876) Composer of "GANGES" in Hymns of the Ages John Chandler, one of the most successful translators of hymns, was born at Witley in Surrey, June 16, 1806. He was educated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, B.A. 1827, M.A. 1830. Ordained deacon in 1831 and priest in 1832, he succeeded his father as the patron and vicar of Whitley, in 1837. His first volume, entitled The Hymns of the Primitive Church, now first Collected, Translated and Arranged, 1837, contained 100 hymns, for the most part ancient, with a few additions from the Paris Breviary of 1736. Four years later, he republished this volume under the title of hymns of the Church, mostly primitive, collected, translated and arranged for public use, 1841. Other publications include a Life of William of Wykeham, 1842, and Horae sacrae: prayers and meditations from the writings of the divines of the Anglican Church, 1854, as well as numerous sermons and tracts. Chandler died at Putney on July 1, 1876. --The Hymnal 1940 Companion =============== Chandler, John, M.A.,one of the earliest and most successful of modern translators of Latin hymns, son of the Rev. John F. Chandler, was born at Witley, Godalming, Surrey, June 16, 1806, and educated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he graduated in 1827. He took Holy Orders in 1831, and became Vicar of Witley in 1837. He died at Putney, July 1, 1876. Besides numerous Sermons and Tracts, his prose works include Life of William of Wykeham, 1842; and Horae Sacrae; Prayers and Meditations from the writings of the Divines of the Anglican Church, with an Introduction, 1844. His translations, he says, arose out of his desire to see the ancient prayers of the Anglican Liturgy accompanied by hymns of a corresponding date of composition, and his inability to find these hymns until he says, "My attention was a short time ago directed to some translations [by Isaac Williams] which appeared from time to time in the British Magazine, very beautifully executed, of some hymns extracted from the Parisian Breviary,with originals annexed. Some, indeed, of the Sapphic and Alcaic and other Horatian metres, seem to be of little value; but the rest, of the peculiar hymn-metre, Dimeter Iambics, appear ancient, simple, striking, and devotional—in a word in every way likely to answer our purpose. So I got a copy of the Parisian Breviary [1736], and one or two other old books of Latin Hymns, especially one compiled by Georgius Cassander, printed at Cologne, in the year 1556, and regularly applied myself to the work of selection and translation. The result is the collection I now lay before the public." Preface, Hymns of the Primitive Church, viii., ix. This collection is:— (1) The Hymns of the Primitive Church, now first Collected, Translated, and Arranged, by the Rev. J. Chandler. London, John W. Parker, 1837. These translations were accompanied by the Latin texts. The trsanslations rearranged, with additional translations, original hymns by Chandler and a few taken from other sources, were republished as (2) The Hymns of the Church, mostly Primitive, Collected, Translated, and Arranged/or Public Use, by the Rev. J. Chandler, M.A. London, John W. Parker, 1841. From these works from 30 to 40 translations have come gradually into common use, some of which hold a foremost place in modern hymnals, "Alleluia, best and sweetest;" "Christ is our Corner Stone;" "On Jordan's bank the Baptist's cry;" "Jesus, our Hope, our hearts' Desire;" "Now, my soul, thy voice upraising;" "Once more the solemn season calls;" and, "O Jesu, Lord of heavenly grace;" being those which are most widely used. Although Chandler's translations are somewhat free, and, in a few instances, doctrinal difficulties are either evaded or softened down, yet their popularity is unquestionably greater than the translations of several others whose renderings are more massive in style and more literal in execution. --John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

Asahel Nettleton

1783 - 1844 Person Name: Rev. Asabel Nettleton (1782-1844) Author of "Awaked by Sinai's awful sound" in Hymns of the Ages Nettleton, Asahel, D.D., a well-known Connecticut evangelist, was born at North Killingworth, Connecticut, April 21, 1783, and educated at Yale College, graduating in 1809. In 1811 he was licenced to preach, receiving ordination in 1817. He never settled as a pastor with any congregation, but preached in Western Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York; in Virginia, 1827-28; and also in Great Britain in 1831. He died in 1843. His Memoirs, Sermons and Remains were published in 1844. Dr. Hatfield ascribes to him a hymn:— "Come, Holy Ghost, my soul inspire— This one great gift impart;" apparently on no other ground than that it appeared anonymously (as did many others) in his Village Hymns, in 1824, and has been traced no further. Nettleton's hymnological work centred in the compiling of his Village Hymns, from which more hymns of the older American writers have passed into English collections than from any other source. He knew and could appreciate a good hymn, but it is doubtful if he ever did or ever could have written one. [Rev. F. M. Bird, M.A.] --John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

Samson Occom

1723 - 1792 Author of "Awaked by Sinai's Awful Sound" in The Cyber Hymnal Occom, Samson (sometimes given as Ockum, and again as Occum), a Mohican Indian, was born at Norwich, Connecticut, in 1723. He was converted from Paganism under G. Whitefield, in 1739-40, and educated by the Revs. E. Wheelock and Benjamin Pomeroy. In 1748 he removed to Long Island and laboured amongst a remnant of his people. In 1759 he received Presbyterian orders, visited England, 1766-67, where he preached often (once for J. Newton at Olney), and with acceptance, and raised about ten thousand pounds for Dartmouth College, and for Indian education. His later life was spent first among his own race on Long Island, and, from 1786, in Oneida County, N.Y. He died in July, 1792. Occom's Choice Collection of Hymns and Spiritual Songs was published at New London, Connecticut, in 1774 (2nd ed. 1785). He is credited as the author of several hymns, but none of those hymns are found in his own collection. They are:— 1. Now the shades of night are gone. Morning. The date of 1770 is given to this hymn, but on insufficient authority. No evidence connects it with Occom, though it has not, on the other hand, been claimed for another. It is first found in the Hartford Congregational Collection, 1799, and was brought into general use by the Prayer-Book Collection, 1826. It is in several modern hymn-books. 2. Awaked by Sinai's awful sound. Peace with God. By this hymn, from its extensive use, Occom is chiefly known. We are satisfied, however, that in this form it is not his. It is first found in the Connecticut Evangelical Magazine, July, 1802, p. 39, "communicated as original." It is however altered from "Waked by the gospel's powerful sound," which is No. 285 in Josiah Goddard's Collection, Walpole, N. H.,1801, and possibly earlier, This older text is probably Occom's own composition. 3. When shall we three meet again? Parting. This once popular hymn has been ascribed to Occom, but the claim is doubtful. We find it in no collection earlier than Leavitt's Christian Lyre, 1830, although it is known to have been sung at an earlier date. It is sometimes given as, "When shall we all meet again?" as in H. W. Beecher's Plymouth Collection, 1855. [Rev. F. M. Bird, M.A.] --John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

Charles Walker Ray

1832 - 1917 Person Name: C. W. R. Arranger of "[Awaked by Sinai's awful sound]" in The Revival Helper Rv Charles Walker Ray DD USA 1832-1917. Born at Otselic, NY, he became a Baptist minister. He was educated at Hamlton College, Clinton, NY. He earned his doctorate from Monongahela College, Jefferson, PA. That school closed in 1894. He pastored at North Stonington, CT, for a number of years. He also served at Plymouth, NY. He married Julia Tracy Sheffield, and they had a son, Arthur. He wrote a number of books and song books: “Grace Vernon Bussell, the heroine of western Australia” (1878); “Spicy breezes” (1883); “The day school crown” (1892); “The revival helper: a collection of songs for Christian work and worship” (1893); “Bright blossoms of song” (1895); “Zion’s delight” (1901); “The song of songs of the King and his bride-an interpretation” (1913); “The fallacies and vagaries of misinterpretation” (1914). He died at Philadelphia, PA. John Perry

H. L. Hastings

1831 - 1899 Person Name: Horace L. Hastings Author of "Awaked by Sinai's awful sound" in The New Baptist Psalmist and Tune Book Hastings, Horace Lorenzo, was born at Blandford, Mass., Nov. 26, 1831; commenced writing hymns, and preaching, in his 17th year, and laboured as an evangelist in various parts of the U. S. In 1866 he established The Christian, a monthly paper, in which many of his hymns have appeared, and in 1865 the Scriptural Tract Repository in Boston. He published Social Hymns, Original and Selected, Boston, 1865; Songs of Pilgrimage, a Hymnal for the Churches of Christ, Part i., 1880; and in August, 1886, the same completed, to tho extent of 1533 hymns, 450 of which are original and signed "H." The best known of these is "Shall we meet beyond the river," written in N. Y. city, 1858, and lately published as a leaflet in 14 stanzas of 8 lines. The text in Gospel Hymns and elsewhere consists of the 1st half of stanzas i., iv., xi. and ix. The Hastings Birthday Book, extracts from his prose writings, appeared 1886. [Rev. F. M. Bird, M.A.] -- John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology

S. Chandler

b. 1760 Person Name: Chandler Composer of "GANGES" in Book of Hymns and Tunes, comprising the psalms and hymns for the worship of God, approved by the general assembly of 1866, arranged with appropriate tunes... by authority of the assembly of 1873

Anonymous

Person Name: Anon. Author of "Awaked by Sinai's awful sound" in Hymn-Book of the Evangelical Association In some hymnals, the editors noted that a hymn's author is unknown to them, and so this artificial "person" entry is used to reflect that fact. Obviously, the hymns attributed to "Author Unknown" "Unknown" or "Anonymous" could have been written by many people over a span of many centuries.

Jeremiah Ingalls

1764 - 1838 Person Name: J. Ingalls Composer of "GARDEN" in Primitive Baptist Hymn and Tune Book Jeremiah Ingalls USA 1764-1838. Born at Andover, MA, his father died of hardships from the American Revolutionary War when he was thirteen. In VT, he worked as a farmer, Cooper, Taverner, and choirmaster. He mastered the bass viol (similar to a cello) and became a composer. He moved to Newbury, VT, in 1787, and in 1791 he married Mary (Polly) Bigelow of Westminster, MA, and they had eleven children (nine living to adulthood): Smith, Jeremiah, Joshua, Jeremiah, Mary, Moses, Elizabeth, John, Almyra, Isaac, and Hannah. He taught singing and began leading the singing at the First Congregational Church there. The choir became well-known, and people came from miles around to hear them sing. In 1800 he built and operated a tavern. He also worked as a cooper. In 1803 he became a deacon, and in 1805 he published a song book, “Christian Harmony”, that contained folk and popular songs with tunes used in spiritual songs sung in early religious revivals and campmeetings, some becoming hymns in later song books. It was said that at times he would be so immersed in his music that his livelihood suffered as a result. He was removed and excommunicated from his church in 1810, having a falling out with the church due to marriage infidelity that he refused to repent of. He ran his tavern for a number of years, but finally sold it and moved to Rochester, VT, in 1819, where he became the first choirmaster of the Church of Christ. His tenure there was successful, and he was a signer of the document establishing construction of the first church building in Rochester (1812). Later, his son, John, succeeded him as choirmaster there. the family’s last move was to a farm near Hancock, VT. He was described as short, portly, good-humored, and absentminded, and having a high voice, but singing bass well. His family was musical, some noted for their musical abilities. A singing society in VT was named for him and promoted singing events. Some of his music became well-known around the world. He died at Hancock, VT. Note: It is said that he wrote a letter to the First Congregational Church in Westminster 18 years after departing repenting of his infidelity (allegedly after his illegitimate son, Thomas, was of age, but the letter was lost in church records, although the church said they had received it. John Perry