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[American Songbook] Eighteenth-Century American Manuscript Songbook
[American Songbook] Eighteenth-Century American Manuscript Songbook
[American Songbook] Eighteenth-Century American Manuscript Songbook
[American Songbook] Eighteenth-Century American Manuscript Songbook
[American Songbook] Eighteenth-Century American Manuscript Songbook
[American Songbook] Eighteenth-Century American Manuscript Songbook
[American Songbook] Eighteenth-Century American Manuscript Songbook
[American Songbook] Eighteenth-Century American Manuscript Songbook
[American Songbook] Eighteenth-Century American Manuscript Songbook
[American Songbook] Eighteenth-Century American Manuscript Songbook
[American Songbook] Eighteenth-Century American Manuscript Songbook
[American Songbook] Eighteenth-Century American Manuscript Songbook
[American Songbook] Eighteenth-Century American Manuscript Songbook
[American Songbook] Eighteenth-Century American Manuscript Songbook
[American Songbook] Eighteenth-Century American Manuscript Songbook
[American Songbook] Eighteenth-Century American Manuscript Songbook
[American Songbook]. Eighteenth-Century American Manuscript Songbook.
An intriguing manuscript songbook of psalms, hymns, anthems, dating from the final years of the 18th century, most likely from New England.

On hand-ruled manuscript paper, neatly penned and legible throughout.  Pages 149–58 and [168]–[169] use shape-notes and are in a different hand; other entries may be in a third hand.  The hymns included are mostly in four parts, but some have only the melodic line.  All are identified by title, most also by text incipit, sometimes with references to psalms.  A few hymns include the complete text as underlay.  Composers or poets are not identified.  Ownership signature "Abram Ford / 1798" to the rear pastedown and with other signatures including "Warren Ford" dated 1808 and 1809 to the upper board inside pastedown.

The volume is not completely preserved. The first extant page is "page 24" in the original pagination.  The pagination skips page 55 (to allow for odd numbering of recto pages thereafter) and goes to page 167; two more unnumbered pages with music, 17 blank pages, and a partly torn-off leaf with fragmentary register to verso (page [188]) follow.  Pages 1–23, 135–38, and 145–48 are lacking; there are stubs of three removed leaves preceding page 24.  Original boards, full calf, heavily chipped; most of the blank pages at the end detached; some leaves torn.  7.5 x 4 inches (19 x 10.5 cm).  

As in William Billings's New England Psalm-Singer (1770), hymn titles are often the names of towns in and around the Connecticut and Massachusetts area, such as Plymouth, Danbury, Bridg[e]water, Williamstown, Newburgh, Westford, Greenwich, and Newport, while others refer to the content of the text (e.g. "Friendship," "Farewell," and "Mortality").  These names continue to be used in American hymnody.  One hymn is titled "Russia" (p. 51); composed by Daniel Read, it was first published in The Columbian Harmony (1793).

Complete list of titles: Williamstown, Pilgrims Farewell [sic], All Saints New [fragment], Flanders, Lisbon, Branford, Ocean, Newport, Ward, Bristol, Columbia, Wantage, Mear, Bridg-water [sic], Russia, Danbury, Dover, Aberdeen, Dauphin, Exhortation, Temple, Repentance, Greenwich, Friendship, Plymouth, Bethel, Granby, Amanda, Zion, Despair, Farewell, Adams, Troy, Balloon, Mortality, Westford, Sharon, Sharon [other tune], Roslin Castle, Sutton, Emanuel, Newburgh, Delight, Jerusalem, Mortality, [lost: Calvary], Mirando, Gilmore, Torrington, Exhortation [title only, no music], Poland, Plymouth [incomplete]; the following in shape notes: Old Hundred, Watchman, Plymouth, St. Helens, Green's, Dalston, Brookfield, Judgment; in regular notation: Coronation, Greenfield, Concord, Wellington, Philadelphia, Northfield, Windsor; in shape notes: Schenectady.

[American Songbook] Eighteenth-Century American Manuscript Songbook

Schubertiade Music and Arts
SKU: 23297
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[American Songbook]. Eighteenth-Century American Manuscript Songbook.
An intriguing manuscript songbook of psalms, hymns, anthems, dating from the final years of the 18th century, most likely from New England.

On hand-ruled manuscript paper, neatly penned and legible throughout.  Pages 149–58 and [168]–[169] use shape-notes and are in a different hand; other entries may be in a third hand.  The hymns included are mostly in four parts, but some have only the melodic line.  All are identified by title, most also by text incipit, sometimes with references to psalms.  A few hymns include the complete text as underlay.  Composers or poets are not identified.  Ownership signature "Abram Ford / 1798" to the rear pastedown and with other signatures including "Warren Ford" dated 1808 and 1809 to the upper board inside pastedown.

The volume is not completely preserved. The first extant page is "page 24" in the original pagination.  The pagination skips page 55 (to allow for odd numbering of recto pages thereafter) and goes to page 167; two more unnumbered pages with music, 17 blank pages, and a partly torn-off leaf with fragmentary register to verso (page [188]) follow.  Pages 1–23, 135–38, and 145–48 are lacking; there are stubs of three removed leaves preceding page 24.  Original boards, full calf, heavily chipped; most of the blank pages at the end detached; some leaves torn.  7.5 x 4 inches (19 x 10.5 cm).  

As in William Billings's New England Psalm-Singer (1770), hymn titles are often the names of towns in and around the Connecticut and Massachusetts area, such as Plymouth, Danbury, Bridg[e]water, Williamstown, Newburgh, Westford, Greenwich, and Newport, while others refer to the content of the text (e.g. "Friendship," "Farewell," and "Mortality").  These names continue to be used in American hymnody.  One hymn is titled "Russia" (p. 51); composed by Daniel Read, it was first published in The Columbian Harmony (1793).

Complete list of titles: Williamstown, Pilgrims Farewell [sic], All Saints New [fragment], Flanders, Lisbon, Branford, Ocean, Newport, Ward, Bristol, Columbia, Wantage, Mear, Bridg-water [sic], Russia, Danbury, Dover, Aberdeen, Dauphin, Exhortation, Temple, Repentance, Greenwich, Friendship, Plymouth, Bethel, Granby, Amanda, Zion, Despair, Farewell, Adams, Troy, Balloon, Mortality, Westford, Sharon, Sharon [other tune], Roslin Castle, Sutton, Emanuel, Newburgh, Delight, Jerusalem, Mortality, [lost: Calvary], Mirando, Gilmore, Torrington, Exhortation [title only, no music], Poland, Plymouth [incomplete]; the following in shape notes: Old Hundred, Watchman, Plymouth, St. Helens, Green's, Dalston, Brookfield, Judgment; in regular notation: Coronation, Greenfield, Concord, Wellington, Philadelphia, Northfield, Windsor; in shape notes: Schenectady.

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