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The Colonial Records Project
Historical Publications Section 4622 Mail Service Center Raleigh, NC 27699-4622 Phone: (919) 733-7442 Fax: (919) 733-1439 |
Out of Print Bookshelf |
Last Updated 7/24/01 |
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Songs of the Carolina Charter Colonists, 1663-1763 Chapter V Religious Songs
[62] The religious songs that the Charter Colonists “sung, or would, or could, or should have sung” are represented in oral tradition today 1) by some texts and tunes of carols and hymns which had their origin in the Middle Ages, 2) by hymns connected with the Reformation, and 3) by hymns growing out of the Methodist and other religious movements of the first half of the eighteenth century. The history of the first three is pretty well indicated by various folksong collections made in America and Britain. There was, however, a development in church and revival singing (camp meetings, etc.) which was not generally known until George Pullen Jackson, of Vanderbilt University, began publication of his researches with White and Negro Spirituals in the Southern Uplands (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1933). This work he continued in several other substantial volumes with texts and music and extensive historical and critical notes. One significant fact demonstrated by Professor Jackson was that the hymn writers of the first half of the nineteenth century, unwilling for “the devil to have all the pretty tunes,” turned to folk tunes— the old ballad and dance tunes, such as “Barbara Allan”— for their hymns. Thus it is that many of the hymns sung in North Carolina churches today go back, sometimes in patterns and poetry, but often in music, to songs known to the Carolina Charter Colonists, 1663-1763. A few instances will be noted.
Two old hymns in shaped notes from The Sacred Harp, first published in Hamilton, Harris County, Georgia, in 1844, and many times revised and reprinted. The photographed page (36) is from Original Sacred Harp (Denson Revision), etc. (Haleyville, Alabama: Sacred Harp Publishing Company, Inc., c. 1936), which the author of the present booklet purchased from participants in a special Sacred Harp [64] convention organized by Dr. George Pullen Jackson which met and sang at the Brown County State Park near Bloomington, Indiana, in the summer of 1950, in honor of the International Conference on Folklore held at Indiana University. Both hymns, it will be noted, are by the famous hymn writer Isaac Watts, and are dated 1719 and 1707, respectively. It is possible, even probable, that the music to “America” is that of the dance mentioned by James Boswell to which inhabitants of the Isle of Skye, in the Western Island (Scotland), were dancing while they were working up spirit to emigrate to America (North Carolina in particular). (See p. 26, supra). Professor Jackson, in the works cited, has shown that many hymns got their tunes from old dances or ballads, and vice versa. It would seem probable that a tune called “America” would have been so called from some special occasion or event, and no such event connected with America was more important in Scotland between 1732 and 1763 than emigration to America. The tune, then, may well have got its title from the dance. THE DILLY SONG (traceable in English as far back as the 17th c.): BCNCF II. 199-205, IV. 126-128 (music). Sometimes called “The Ten Commandments,” it sings of various heroes, sacred and secular. I SAW THREE SHIPS COME SAILING IN (probably of 15th c. origin): BCNCF II. 210, IV. 131 (music). THE LITTLE FAMILY: BCNCF III. 648-652, V. 378-379 (music). “A biblical narrative of a type that goes back at least to the seventeenth century. Circulation confined almost entirely to the South. The story of Jesus, Mary and Martha, and the raising of Lazarus.” THE ROMISH LADY: BCNCF II. 211-215 (quoted in the early 17th c.). A Reformation story of a girl who because she wished to be a Protestant was tortured to death by her family and the Romish clergy. [65] THE TWELVE BLESSINGS OF MARY (traceable in one form or another to the 13th c.): BCNCF II. 206-208, IV. 128-129 (music). One of the most impressive and beautiful of the old Christmas carols. THE TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS (of uncertain date, but certainly very old) : BCNCF II. 208-210, IV. 129-131. |
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