Civil War in Sumter County, Alabama

Topic: Early Versions
Sumter County, Alabama, had a very different Civil War than did Pamlico County, North Carolina; Beaufort, South Carolina, and Darien, Georgia. While the Atlantic coast areas were occupied or harassed by Union troops early in the war, Sumter County was far enough inland that farmers could safely grow crops to feed or finance Confederate soldiers.

Hostilities officially began when Beauregard fired on Fort Sumter in South Carolina on 13 April 1861. Three days later Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to quell the insurrection. [1]

Three weeks after Lincoln’s proclamation, John Dent organized a troop in Sumter County that was sent to Virginia where it became part of Alabama’s Fifth Infantry. [2] Six weeks later the North Sumter Rifles was organized. [3] The two units enrolled 164 of the 552 white men who were between the ages of 20 and 29 in the 1860 census. [4]

In July 1861, the United States navy captured Ship Island, effectively blocking the port of Mobile. [5] This made it difficult to move cotton south on the Tombigbee river, and harder still to ship imported goods north. On 28 November 1862, Alabama’s General Assembly passed legislation that let Sumter County commissioners borrow $10,000 to aid the poor. [6]

The initial result of the blockade may have been the merger of the Sumter Mounted Rifles, commanded by William Merk Stone, [7] into the Jeff Davis Calvary Legion on 24 October 1861. [8] Its 93 men [9] were sent to northern Virginia. They left 53% of the young male population in the county to superintend crops.

War came closer in February 1862 when forts Henry and Donelson fell, leaving the northern part of Alabama exposed to Federal troops. [10] The South Sumpter Guards was organized on March 4, [11] and the Sumter County Warriors on March 15. [12] They enlisted 233 men [13] from the 617 white men between the ages of 15 and 29 in 1860. More than 56% of the men between those age groups were gone from the farms and plantations. [14]

At least 8,000 Confederate soldiers were wounded at Shiloh during the first week of April. [15] Some were taken to Gainesville in northeastern Sumter County, the gray circle on the map below, where the American Hotel was converted into a hospital. More arrived after the Battle of Corinth [16] in October. [17]

There probably were some deserters from those battles, as disillusionment with war set in. [18] Many volunteers, who had signed for one year periods, returned home. The Confederacy responded with the Enrollment Act of April 26, which dictated all men between the ages of 18 and 35 were eligible for conscription. [19]

Robert Spratt’s father was one who didn’t return to Stone’s infantry unit after his term expired. He and several others in Livingston joined John Hunt Morgan’s calvary regiment [20] that had fought at Shiloh. [21]

Meantime, the Confederacy was rushing to complete a rail line from Selma (the black circle at the right) to Meridian (the black circle at the left) [22] to compensate for the loss of the railroad connecting Memphis with Charleston. [23] It crossed the Tombigbee at Demopolis in Marengo County to go through southern Sumter County.

In the fall, local "planters withdrew their negroes who were working on the road, and left the bridges half finished." [24] On November 15, Governor John Gill Shorter ordered Sumter County provide 150 slaves [25] to complete the work, which was done in December. [26]

Provisions were shipped from York Station to the Confederate hospital in Lauderdale, Mississippi. [27] Slaughterhouses near Cuba Station provided meat. [28] Ramsey Station to the north had corn storage facilities. [29] Life settled into a comfortable, though reduced, mode supported by slave labor.

War in the west intensified when Grant took Vicksburg on 4 July 1863. He paroled the men who surrendered. They were sent to a camp at Demopolis to await exchange for Union prisoners. [30] Many were from John Brown’s First Missouri Infantry Regiment. [31]

War drew close again in February 1864 when Union forces attacked Meridian, which was about 33 miles from Livingston, the dot in the middle of the word "Sumter." While the Confederacy technically won the battle, Sherman destroyed the city and its railroads. [32] One assumes people in the area scattered, with some seeking refuge in Sumter County.

Military action intensified in April 1865 when James Wilson destroyed the foundry and naval yard at Selma on April 2. [3] Nathan Bedford Forest escaped with some of his troops to Gainesville. [34]

Lee surrendered at Appomattox Courthouse on April 9, but news didn’t reach the area because telegraph communication had been severed [35] by the fall of Richmond on April 2. [36]

Hostilities continued in the west where Mobile was taken on April 12. Barry Wyatt learned John Henry Brigance, of the 32nd Texas Calvary, was "placed aboard a train to a hospital in Demopolis, Alabama. Soon after his evacuation, the ‘well to do’ citizens of Mobile were then evacuated by train to Demopolis, while many other residents fled north on a road out of Mobile." [37]

Lincoln was assassinated on April 15.

On May 4, Richard Taylor surrendered the bulk of the western Confederate forces at Citronelle, north of Mobile. [38] The men were ordered to Meridian where they would take an oath and be issued parole papers. [39] Forrest was the last under his command to yield in Gainesville on May 19. [40]

The parole papers were so valuable that many deserters and evaders showed up. Walter Fleming said that when Taylor surrendered "he had not more than 8000 real soldiers, or men

under arms. It is possible, though not probable, that many were absent with leave. Yet of the 42,293 soldiers paroled in the armies of the Southwest about 30,000 of them were at Meridian." [41]

Sumter County was surrounded by paroled and liberated soldiers in Demopolis to the east, in Gainesville in the northeast of the county, and in Meridian to the west. Taylor worked with railroads to ensure his men could use their parole papers as free passes to return home. [42]

Not all left. Spratt remembered "so many of these were from the State of Missouri that they were all known under the general name of "Missouri Soldiers." Some of the men he named fought with his father in Morgan’s unit. [43] One, W. B. McRae, [44] was in Forest’s Second Calvary unit. [45]

The effects of the war on Sumter Counter are hard to measure. A comparison of last names of the men in the five local military units with the names of slave holders in 1860 shows 70% of those who owned less than 40 or no slaves served in the military. [46]

Within the well-to-do population, the group who owned from 60 to 99 slaves sent the most sons to war: 43%. 32% of the last names of men who owned more appeared in the rosters, while 29% of those with 40 to 59 slaves contributed.

Graphics
Base map from Walter L. Fleming. Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama. New York: The Macmillan Company. 1905. 256, "Devastation by Invading Armies 1861–1865."

End Notes
1. "April 15, 1861: President Lincoln Calls for Volunteer Troops." West Virginia Encyclopedia website. 15 April 2020. The president was Abraham Lincoln. Pierre Gustave Toutant-Beauregard, most commonly known by his initials, was brigadier general of the Provisional Army of the Confederate States. [47]

2. Robert D. Spratt. A History of the Town of Livingston, Alabama. Edited by Nathaniel Reed. Livingston: University of West Alabama, 1997. 111. Spratt said his list was incomplete, but the best available. The Fifth Infantry was officially organized in Montgomery on 5 May 1861. [48]

3. B. B. Williamson. "The North Sumter Rifles." 75–76 in The Heritage of Sumter County, Alabama. Edited by Charles Walker. Clayton, Alabama: Heritage Publishing Consultants, 2005. 75.

4. Statistics on units from Spratt, 111–12, and Williamson, North Sumpter. Census data from Classified Population of the States and Territories by Counties on the First Day of June, 1860. Section on Alabama posted on United States Census website.

5. Wikipedia. "Ship Island (Mississippi)."
6. Act of Alabama General Assembly. 28 November 1862. Cited by Fleming. 197.
7. "Jeff. Davis Legion Mississippi Cavalry." Civil War Data website.
8. Wikipedia. "Jeff Davis Cavalry Legion."
9. Spratt. 113.
10. Wikipedia. "Battle of Fort Donelson."

11. Charles Walker. "South Sumter Guards." In Heritage. 75. His source was Samuel H. Sprott. Cush: A Civil War Memoir. Edited by Louis R. Smith, Jr., and Andrew Quist. Livingston, Alabama: Livingston Press, 1999.

12. B. B. Williamson. "The Sumter County Warriors." In Heritage. 75.
13. Sprott, and Williamson, Warriors.

14. These weren’t all the men who served. According to Spratt: "older men disposed of their business affairs and joined other organizations from the county or from other sections. Younger men coming to a suitable age did the same. So we find that many from the town served with organizations from other places." [49]

15. Wikipedia. "Battle of Shiloh."
16. Charles Walker. "Gainesville and the American Hotel." 109–100 in Heritage. 109.
17. Wikipedia. "Second Battle of Corinth."

18. Fleming. 98. For instance, Spratt said Eph Henagan of Stone’s Company "was slightly ill on the retreat from Yorktown and got on a steamboat to go to Richmond. He was never heard of again." [50]

19. Wikipedia. "Confederate Conscription Acts 1862–1864."
20. Spratt. 115.
21. Wikipedia. "John Hunt Morgan."
22. Fleming. 155.

23. Winston Smith. The People’s City. Demopolis, Alabama: Marengo County Historical Society, 2003. 185.

24. Fleming. 156.

25. Gainesville [Alabama] Independent. 15 November 1862. Cited by Robert D. Reid. "The Negro in Alabama During the Civil War." The Journal of Negro History 35:265–288:1950. 266.

26. Fleming. 156.

27. Jud K. Arrington. "The History of York." Arrington collection, Julia Tutwiler Library, University of West Alabama. 39–40 in Heritage. 39.

28. Jack Vaughan. "History of Cuba." 26–28 in Heritage. 27.

29. Nelle Morris Jenkins. Pioneer Families of Sumter County, Alabama. Tuscaloosa, Alabama: Willo Publishing Company, 1961. Reprinted by Bloutsville, Alabama: The Yarbrough National Genealogical and Historical Association, 14 June 2015. 128.

30. Roger Pickenpaugh. "Prisoner Exchange and Parole." Essential Civil War Curriculum website. Ulysses S. Grant was major general in the Union Army of the Tennessee. [51]

31. Smith. 174.

32. Wikipedia. "History of Meridian, Mississippi." William Tecumseh Sherman succeeded Grant as major general of the Union Army of the Tennessee. [52]

33. Wikipedia. "Battle of Selma."

34. Arlin Turner. "George W. Cable’s Recollections of General Forrest." The Journal of Southern History 21:224–228:1955. 224.

35. Smith. 210. Robert E. Lee became General-in-Chief of the Armies of the Confederate States on 6 February 1865. [53]

36. Wikipedia. "Richmond in the American Civil War."

37. Barry N. Wyatt. Response to "Demopolis Civil War Parole Camp & Hospital." 8 August 2004. Original query posted on History Sites website by Brandon Ellis on 7 August 2004.

38. Smith. 214–215. Richard Taylor, son of President Zachary Taylor, was lieutenant general of the Department of Alabama, Mississippi, and East Louisiana. [54]

39. Robert M. Dunkerly. To the Bitter End. El Dorado Hills, California: Savas Beatie, 2015. 93.

40. Chuck Hamilton. "Surrenders After Appomattox." Essential Civil War Curriculum website.

41. Fleming. 128. Spratt alluded to evaders when he noted "some went to distant parts seeking adventure." [55] John Lomax’s uncle, Tillman Lomax, was described in the post for 27 January 2019 as one of the deserters in Mississippi who spent the war preying on their neighbors.

42. Dunkerly. 94.

43. Spratt. 111. Smith said that after the loss at Vicksburg, many men returned to their home states, but the ones in Brown’s division "could not have returned to their home state anyway as it was fully under Union control." He added, "The people of Demopolis were especially cordial to the Missourians" [56] and identified one "who returned to live in Marengo County after the war." [57] These events may have led to Spratt to believe "after the Civil War a number of those who lived in border states and fought for the Confederacy found it unpleasant to go home, so they remained in the lower South." [58]

44. Spratt said McRae served as town marshal and was "in much demand as a fiddler at the dances." [59] His name and unit appeared in the list of "Arkansas Confederates" on the Arkansas Genealogy website.

45. Michael R. Bradley. They Rode with Forest. Gretna, Louisiana: Pelican Publishing Company, 2012. 81.

46. The source for the slave holders was Tom Blake. "Sumter County, Alabama: Largest Slaveholders from 1860 Slave Census Schedules and Surname Matches for African Americans on 1870 Census." Ancestry website. I reduced both his list and the lists of the military units to last names, then compared the two.

The total for men with few or no slaves was calculated by subtracting the number in Blake’s list from the total in the two eligible age groups in the 1860 census.

This was not a precise method; as Spratt said, men served in other units, which would have increased participation, and men older than 30 served, which would have expanded the base population total. At best, the chart provides a rough approximation of the impact of the war in Sumter County by economic class.

47. Wikipedia. "P. G. T. Beauregard."
48. "Fifth Alabama Infantry Regiment." Alabama state archives website. 22 November 1996.
49. Spratt. 111.
50. Spratt. 114.
51. Wikipedia. "Vicksburg Campaign."
52. Wikipedia. "William Tecumseh Sherman."
53. Wikipedia. "Robert E. Lee."
54. Wikipedia. "Richard Taylor (General)."
55. Spratt. 111.
56. Smith. 174.
57. Smith. 179.
58. Spratt. 180.
59. Spratt. 95.

Antebellum Sumter County, Alabama

Topic: Early Versions
Sumter County, Alabama, where Ruby Pickens Tartt collected a version of "Come by Here" in 1938, was still a frontier town a hundred years earlier. The river port of Gainesville, at the northern end of the county’s fertile black soils along the Tombigbee river, was its economic hub.

The panic of 1837 had had some effect on land and cotton speculators, but small land owners still were dominant. Slaves comprised only 30% of the population in 1840. [1]

When depression arrived in 1839, the state of Alabama passed a law making it illegal to imprison individuals for debt. [2] It was probably between then and 1845 that Jeremiah Brown was able to buy out his neighbors and amass his "immense holdings." [3]

By 1850, wealth was concentrated in the hands of a few cotton planters. The number of slaves had more than doubled, to 14,881, while the number of whites dropped by more than 46%, from 13,901 in 1840 to 7,369 in 1850. [4]

On the eve of the Civil War, in 1860, 121 individuals living in Sumter County or their estates [5] owned more than half the 18,116 slaves in the county. [6] Three were women. [ 7] The others, who reported forty or more slaves, represented less than 8% of the white, adult, male population over age twenty. [8]

Brown was the largest owner, with 540 slaves [9] spread over six plantations. [10] Others, who probably were absentee owners, were men who had spent time in Gainesville when money was easy, and then migrated into politics. Reuben Chapman, who served as governor from 1847 to 1849, owned 106 slaves in Sumter County. [11] His sister, Mary, married Edmund Pettus in 1844. [12]

Pettus had practiced law, which meant land speculation, in Gainesville between 1842 and 1847. [13] He was a cousin of John A. Winston, [14] who served as Alabama’s governor in the 1850s. [15] Winston still had 110 slaves in Sumter County in 1860. [16] Turner Reavus, Pettus’ law partner, [17] had 98 slaves in the county. [18] The man who took Pettus’ place as Circuit Judge, Augustus Coleman, [19] owned 53 slaves in 1860. [20]

The 1860 census indicated 81 people in the county had been born outside the United States. Robert Spratt’s memoir suggested they were harassed, and that tales of those incidents lived on in the county’s collective memory. He mentioned a Swede named Olsen who was forced to go by the name George Wilson. When he persisted and named his son Olsen Wilson, people promptly changed it to Anson Wilson. [21]

Social control before the Civil War took different forms for whites and slaves. As mentioned in the post for 15 September 2019 and 22 September 2019, former slaves recalled the use of violence and the threat of violence by patrollers who rode by plantations at night and challenged all Black individuals they met. If there were 913 mulattos in the county in 1860, [22] one can estimate the number of rapes that had occurred.

Ostracism and intimidation were the preferred tools for managing whites. Spratt recalled a group of young men donned masks and rose horses in parades. The official view is the Indomnitables were organized in 1857. [23] However, Spratt claimed:

"During the Mexican War the horseback parade went to Gainesville and greatly alarmed the Gainesville people, who took them to be Mexicans." [24]

The war with Mexico occurred between 1846 and 1848, just before Irish and German immigrants were arriving in this country. The port of Gainesville used slaves to push cotton bales down a ramp to the landing where steamboats docked. The actual loading was done by Irishmen, because the work was too dangerous to give to valuable slaves. [25] Robert Mellown didn’t indicate when Irishmen began to be used or if they were local, or came with the boats. One suspects the latter, and that the parade was meant to ensure none stayed in the area.

Narrowing the range of acceptable occupants of the county wasn’t limited to immigrants. In 1847, the Indomnitables, or other young men of the same ilk, described as a "few of the young men of the place," [26] bullied a school teacher who had just moved from Connecticut. She was not attractive, and had offended local mores by expecting "the little girls, who had been petted by their fathers and mothers like doll-babies," to learn. [27]

They sent Sam Hele to scare her off. He began by disparaging the morals of the local population. When he was met with polite responses, he began describing ways they abused their slaves. When she maintained her poise, he change from tall tales to direct threats:

"They mobbed a Yankee school-mistress here, some time ago, for saying something against slavery: but I believe they only tarred and feathered her, and rode her on a rail for a few squares. Indeed, I heard some of the boys at the grocery, the other night, talk of trying the same experiment on another; but who it was, I did not hear them say." [28]

The war with Mexico had reopened the slavery question. In 1846, when the war began, David Wilmot introduced a bill to prohibit slavery in any conquered territory, thereby abandoning the Missouri Compromise of 1820. [29] People in Sumter County already were expecting to expand into Texas and saw this as a direct threat to their livelihoods.

Southerners lost faith in the Whig party. One of its politicians, Joseph Baldwin, had moved to Gainesville in 1837. [30] In 1846, just before the Hele incident, he lost an election to Congress to Democrat Samuel Williams Inge, who had moved to Livingston in 1844. [31]

In 1852, Baldwin begin publishing comic sketches about life in Mississippi and Alabama in the Southern Literary Messenger. [32] They appeared in book form the next year as The Flush Times of Alabama and Mississippi. [33] He included a description of the 1847 event.

Sam Hell was a pun on the name of Samuel Hale, who had moved from New Hampshire to Tuscaloosa to edit a Democratic newspaper in 1837. [34] He was not partisan enough during the Wilmot controversy, when Baldwin was sitting in the state legislature as a Whig, and lost his job. He moved to Livingston in 1846, [35]

As events unfolded in the 1850s, he became a suspicious character. In 1852, a New Orleans newspaper reprinted a rumor that John Parker Hale, who was running for President for the Free Soil Party, [36] "has a brother who is a practicing lawyer in Livingston." It then confirmed the fact that "Senator Hale has a brother named Samuel Hale in Alabama who was at one time a prominent politician and editor, and was esteemed as a gentleman of ability and integrity." [37]

The use of the past tense in the last sentence indicated that he had lost his social position.

The conflict between Baldwin and Hale was about more than politics and ethnicity. They represented different economic classes.

Hale married Mary Ann Bolling, [38] the daughter of William Ransom Boling [39] by his first wife. [40] He died in March 1860, and his estate of 47 slaves was administered by I. James Lee, [41] who had married Bolling’s daughter by his second wife, [42] Ellen Belle Lee. [43] After Hale’s first wife died, he married "Ellen Lee, widow, reckoned the richest woman in the county." [44]

Baldwin had to buy his thee slaves: Jacob, purchased in the 1830s; Malinda, bought in New Orleans in 1844; and James, acquired in 1846. [45] This placed him among the small-time slave owners who had been squeezed by wealthy planters in the 1840s.

Adam Tate suggested Flush Times celebrated that period when " the traditional social order, with its hierarchies, castes, and long-established conventions, had not yet taken hold" and "individuals who would have been trapped in the lower ranks of society in established communities to rise to prominence." [46]

Baldwin left Livingston in 1854 for California [47] before people realized he wasn’t just making fun of Charity Woody and Sam Hele. The tales Hele conjured of slave abuse, like the master who killed a man because he had blinded a dog that bit him, [48] were probably as rooted in the life of the county, as much as was Hale.

End Notes
1. Willis Brewer. "The County of Sumter." 525–533 in Alabama: Her History, Resources, War Record, and Public Men from 1540 to 1872. Montgomery, Alabama: Barrett and Brown, 1872. Pages 526–527 containing the census data are missing from the online copy. Jeanne Kalkwarf transcribed them for Genealogy Trails’ Sumter County website.

Brewer listed a total population of 19,923 in 1840, while Wikipedia’s entry for "Sumter County Alabama" had 29,923. I’m using this one because it’s based on the racial breakdown of the population.

2. "Alabama History in February." Landmarks of DeKalb County, Alabama website.

3. Jud K. Arrington. "Sumterville." Arrington collection, Julia Tutwiler Library, University of West Alabama. 38 in The Heritage of Sumter County, Alabama. Edited by Charles Walker. Clayton, Alabama: Heritage Publishing Consultants, 2005. Brown was mentioned in the posts for 1 September 2019 and 22 September 2019.

4. Brewer.

5. Tom Blake. "Sumter County, Alabama: Largest Slaveholders from 1860 Slave Census Schedules and Surname Matches for African Americans on 1870 Census." Ancestry website.

6. Brewer.
7. Susan Lee had 83 slaves, Anna Travis had 54, and Mary Williams had 54.

8. My calculation from the 1860 census of white men aged 20 or more. Classified Population of the States and Territories by Counties on the First Day of June, 1860. Section on Alabama posted on United States Census website.

9. Blake transcribed "Jeremiah" as "Jerrett." He also was called Jerre. The two t’s in "Jerrett" were probably a badly written h.

10. Arlington. He claimed Brown had a thousand slaves. That may be a metaphorical number, or may hint that Brown, and others, undercounted their chattel to avoid taxes, or that some of the plantations and slaves were in a neighboring county.

11. Blake. Chapman was mentioned in the posts for 1 September 2019, 8 September 2019, and 15 September 2019. He owned more land and slaves around Huntsville. [49]

12. Wikipedia. "Edmund Pettus." The bridge in Selma, Alabama, was named for him.

jdc. "Mary Lucinda Chapman Pettus." Find a Grave website. 12 December 2012.

13. Wikipedia, Pettus.
14. Wikipedia. "John A. Winston."

15. William L. Barney. "John A. Winston (1853-57)." Encyclopedia of Alabama website. 4 August 2008; last updated 30 September 2014. In 1844, he became involved with a commission firm in Mobile that generated the money he used to buy additional plantations in Mississippi, Arkansas, and Texas.

16. Blake.

17. Elbert L. Watson. "Edmund Pettus." Encyclopedia of Alabama website. 9 November 2010; last updated 5 January 2015. Reavis served in the state senate in 1861. [50]

18. Blake.

19. Robert D. Spratt. A History of the Town of Livingston, Alabama. Edited by Nathaniel Reed. Livingston: University of West Alabama, 1997. 85.

20. Blake.

21. Spratt. 93–94. Spratt rarely gave dates. However, he said Anson served in the Confederate army.

22. 1860 census. By my calculation there were 1,168 slave women between the ages of 15 and 40 in the county.

23. "DUD Parade." City of Livingston, Alabama, website. It cites Spratt as its source. The detail may be in the manuscript, but it’s not in the published version.

24. Spratt. 12.

25. Robert O. Mellown. "Steamboats in Alabama." Encyclopedia of Alabama website. 30 September 2008; last updated 16 August 2019.

26. Joseph G. Baldwin. "Samuel Hele, Esq." 284–303 in The Flush Times of Alabama and Mississippi. New York: D. Appleton, 1853; 1858 edition. 293.

27. Baldwin. 291–292.
28. Baldwin. 302–303.
29. Wikipedia. "Wilmot Proviso."

30. Adam L. Tate. "Joseph Glover Baldwin and The Flush Times of Alabama and Mississippi." Encyclopedia of Alabama website. 6 June 2008; last updated 11 July 2013.

31. Roy Parker, Jr. "Inge, Samuel Williams." NC Pedia website. 1988.
32. "Joseph Glover Baldwin." Know Southern History website.
33. Baldwin.

34. Hunter Dickinson Farish. "An Overlooked Personality in Southern Life." The North Carolina Historical Review 12:341–353:1935. 343.

35. Farish. 344.
36. Farish. 342.

37. The [New Orleans] Times-Picayune. 27 April 1852. 1. Posted by gblount59. 9 February 2016.

38. Farish. 345.
39. "William Ransom Bowling." Ancestors website. It’s also spelled "Bolling."
40. Spratt. 83.
41. Blake. He listed J. J. Lee as "exr" for the W. Boling "est."
42. Spratt. 83.
43. Ancestors.

44. Farish. 345. Spratt indicated there were several Lee families in Sumter County. Bolling’s wife, Ellen Belle Lee, was related to the Lees of Lilita. [51] I. James Lee came from Tuscaloosa and "married into this other Lee family." [52] Hale’s wife Ellen Lee is not identified farther.

45. Michael H. Hoffheimer. "Race and Terror in Joseph Baldwin’s The Flush Times of Alabama and Mississippi (1853)." Seton Hall Law Review 39:725–:2009. 729–778. His source was Samuel Boyd Stewart. "Joseph Baldwin." PhD dissertation. Vanderbilt University, 31 August 1941. 155.

46. Tate.
47. Tate.
48. Baldwin. 298–299.

49. Micky Maroney. "The Withers-Chapman-Johnson House: A Plantation Cottage." The Historic Huntsville Quarterly of Local Architecture and Preservation 15:33–23: Spring 1989.

50. Brewer. 533.
51. Spratt. 83.
52. Spratt. 86.

Johannine Hymnal - Cum-ba-Ya

Topic: Religious Folk Music Revival
The introduction of guitars, group harmonies, and songs from the commercial folk-music revival into religious music was suggested by Vatican II. [1] It became a reality in the United States when Ray Repp recorded his Mass For Young Americans in 1966. [2] While the album contained all the elements of a traditional mass—the Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei—it also contained a group of Psalms and Refrains. It was the latter, especially "Here We Are" and "Clap Your Hands," that entered the summer, resident camp repertoire. [3]

If singers expected to find Repp’s songs when they bought the Roman Catholic’s Johannine Hymnal in 1970, they were disappointed. [4] Michael Gilligan’s idea of post-Vatican II music was to write new texts to old melodies that could be accompanied by guitar. There was no expectation that congregations would actually sing. The editors said:

"one voice alone cannot be an effective support for the people. Instead, we suggest a small group of trained singers (a schola) be used for this purpose. Occasionally a larger group, singing in parts (a choir), may alternate verses for hymn with the people." [5]

In contrast, Thomas Blackburn watched Repp tell an audience in Kansas

"he was going to sing some of his new songs and invited the people to join in. Although almost no one in the crowd had heard the songs before--the record album was released that day - almost everyone sang along." [6]

Both Repp and Gilligan were seminary students during the Vatican conference, but Repp’s school was founded by Vincentians, [7] while Gilligan’s University of Saint Mary of the Lake was influenced by Jesuits. [8] Just as important, Repp was from the Saint Louis area, [9] where German singing traditions persisted, [10] while Gilligan was studying in urban Chicago where Italians, Poles, and other Catholic groups predominated.

Only one song was borrowed from popular music, the Youngblood’s "Get Together," and one came from the commercial folk-music revival, "We Shall Overcome." Eight were identified as Black spirituals, but the original words were used for only four: "He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands," "Amen," "Let Us Break Bread Together," and "Come by Here."

Like the Lutherans, Chicago Catholics did not grow up with African-American music. This was partly because the two denominations conferred membership to individuals soon after birth. They had no need for the revivals and camp meetings of Protestants descended from the Anglo-Scots Reformation.

After the Civil War, Methodists and Baptists were in the South educating newly liberated slaves. Roman Catholics were dealing with an influx of new immigrants from Europe.

Lutherans and Catholics used a standard liturgy with music selected to fit the ritual year. Anglo-Scots denominations had a general order of service that allowed singing between segments. While these originally were psalms, and then hymns that explicated the Bible, after Charles Wesley the gospel songs were more focused on the feeling of religious salvation. It was easier for them to bring popular songs into the service.

The differences were clear in the two versions of "Kumbaya." "Come by Here" and its West Indian equivalent, "Cum-by-Yah," shared five verses with the standard song: come by here, someone’s crying, praying, singing, and shouting.

Beginning seminary students at Saint Mary of the Lake’s Niles campus wrote an additional eight verses to "Cum-ba-Yah" that revealed they had no genuine understanding of the repetitive formulas used in African-American spirituals and white camp-meeting songs. They maintained the AAAB format, but ignored the use of a constant refrain within lines.

They converted the song into a prayer with lines like "Fill our hearts, O Lord, with your peace" and "For your Church, O Lord, intercede." The term "O Lord" was used when the first part of the line had fewer syllables than the melody. It did not occur to them to use some form of portamento to cover the difference. They already had changed the two-note "Lord" in the final phrase to "Lord Jesus" and added an extra note to handle the third syllable.

The sixth and final verses showed the ways Gilligan revised songs. In one of the few instances in the collection, he identified the two versions with a specific part of the Bible, Revelation 20. He set part of verse 17 to the melody.

Douay-Rheims Bible: And the spirit and the bride say: Come.

"Come by Here"
Let the spirit say: Come by here.
Let the bride say: Come by here.

Instead of following this with a reference to the congregation ("he that heareth, let him say: Come"), he only allowed it to affirm the actions of the church ("God’s own people, Lord, shout Amen!")

African Americans would have maintained the AAAB formula and made that verse into three. At least, verse six used "Come by here" or "Cum-ba-ya!" as a refrain. Verse fifteen repeated verse six, but with "make us one" as the refrain.

"Cum-by-Yah" was placed in the Advent section. This altered the meaning of the word "come" from the request for contact with the Holy Spirit found in early versions of "Come by Here" to anticipation for Christ’s birth. Revelation includes references to the promised second coming, but with none of the immediacy of Premillennialists. It was all sometime in the distant future.

Performers
Vocal Soloist: single melodic line
Vocal Group: none
Instrumental Accompaniment: guitar chords
Rhythm Accompaniment: none

Credits
Come by Here
Music: Black Spiritual
Text: "Come by here" is the original version

Cum-ba-Ya
Music: Black Spiritual
Text: "Cum-ba-ya" is a West Indian adaptation
Text of extra verses ©copyright 1966 by the NILES CAMPUS

Notes on Lyrics
Come by Here
Language: English
Pronunciation: not provided
Verses: come by here, crying, praying, singing, shouting, 1 other

Vocabulary
Pronoun: someone
Term for Deity: Lord, Lord Jesus, God
Special Terms: none

Cum-ba-Ya
Language: English
Pronunciation: not provided
Verses: cum-ba-ya, crying, praying, singing, shouting, 10 others

Vocabulary
Pronoun: someone, us
Term for Deity: Lord, Lord Jesus, God
Special Terms: none

Both
Basic Form: 6-verse song
Verse Repetition Pattern: none
Ending: none
Unique Features: verses that connect it with Revelation 22

Notes on Music
Come by Here
Opening Phrase: 1-3-5
Time Signature: not provided, but 4/4
Tempo: not provided
Key Signature: two sharps
Guitar Chords: D G F#^m A⁷

Basic Structure: strophic repetition

Singing Style: one syllable to one note; final "Oh Lord" changed to "Lord Jesus"

Vocal-Accompaniment Dynamics: guitar chords change on "come" and "here"

Ending: guitar chords change on first and third beats

Cum-ba-Yah
Same music as "Come by Here"

Notes on Performance
Joseph Chirou, the music editor, did not indicate time signatures. Lawrence Heiman was told this was because "they would not be understood by the people in the pews and that their implications could best be provided for through the efforts of the organist and/or song leader." [11]

This wasn’t necessarily a return to the free meter of Gregorian chants, although the anthology set four texts to chants. Heiman complained it relied upon an 1854 transcription that used standard quarter notes. [12]

Time signature is nothing more than an indicator of rhythm. Many people who attended Roman Catholic churches in Chicago may not have listened to Elvis Presley when they were young. But, big band music was played for dancing, and anyone who was young in the 1930s or 1940s would understand an indicator of rhythm.

Notes on Performers
Gilligan’s biography begins when he was a student at Saint Mary of the Lake in 1963. [13] He may be the same Michel Gilligan who won a scholarship from Loyola College High School in Montréal in 1961 to the local Loyola College. [14] He did mention studying French at Laval University in the summer of 1962. [15]

Cirou was raised in the Byzantine-Belarusian Catholic Church in Chicago, but studied at Saint Mary of the Lake. [16] The Belarusian church is the only Eastern Orthodox denomination "in full union with the Catholic Church." [17] Three of the tunes used in The Johannine Hymnal were Ukranian.

Richard Wojcik was teaching music at Saint Mary of the Lake when Gilligan and Cirou were students. He was the first to incorporate the changes introduced by the Vatican Council in a demonstration mass, and was "very influential nationally after Vatican II." [18] Gilligan included five of his texts in The Johannine Hymnal.

Availability
Book: "Come by Here." The Johannine Hymnal. Edited by Michael Gilligan and Joseph Cirou. Chicago: American Catholic Press, 1970. 12.

Book: "Cum-ba-Yah." The Johannine Hymnal. Edited by Michael Gilligan and Joseph Cirou. Chicago: American Catholic Press, 1970. 13.

End Notes
1. Pope John XXIII called a conference of Roman Catholic leaders to "reformulate" the "certain and immutable doctrine, to which the faithful owe obedience," in "contemporary terms." [19] It met from 1962 to 1965. Among its recommendations was the use vernacular languages and music forms for the mass. The Johannine Hymnal was published "in memory of John F. Kennedy and John XXIII." [20]

2. Ray Repp. Mass For Young Americans. F. E. L. Records 810F-6403. 1966. [Discogs entry.]

3. Thirteen individuals or camps who responded to my 1976 survey of songs sung in summer resident camps mentioned "Here We Are" and five listed "Clap Your Hands." "Allelu, Allelu, Everybody Sing Allelu" from Repp’s next album [21] was known by six. For more on the survey, see Camp Songs, Folk Songs.

4. One reason none of the folk-mass materials was used may have been royalties. The publisher of Ray Repp’s material sued the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago in 1976 over royalty payments. [22] One assumes the issue had been simmering for some time. There was an earlier edition of The Johannine Hymnal [23] that I have not seen, that may have contained some of those songs.

Nearly everything in the 1970 edition was copyrighted before 1924, and was in the public domain. The exceptions were songs by men like Jack Miffleton, who were associated with the World Library of Sacred Music. [24] Omer Westendorf had founded the company after World War II to make available liturgical music he had found in the Netherlands. [25] He may have had an interpretation of Vatican II that was closer to that of Gilligan or he may have been more cooperative in allowing his music to be reproduced.

With the exception of "Kumbaya," almost everything in The Johannine Hymnal was copyrighted in 1970 by the American Catholic Press. The backside of the title page reminded individuals "it is a violation of the moral law (as well as U.S. copyright law) for any individual or organization, whether charitable, religious, or ‘not for proft,’ to reproduce in any form, including mimeograph, any portion of the copyrighted material in this book without written permission."

5. The Editors. "How To Use This Book." The Johannine Hymnal. Unpaged section.

6. Thomas E. Blackburn. "Ray Repp: He Knows Four Chords and How to Make People Sing ." National Catholic Reporter. 6 September 1967.

7. Wikipedia. "Ray Repp." He attended Kenrick Seminary, which was founded by followers of Saint Vincent de Paul. [26]

8. Wikipedia. "University of Saint Mary of the Lake."
9. His parents were Walter and Rita Kempf Repp. [27]
10. German singing traditions were discussed in the post for 21 April 2019.
11. Lawrence Heiman. Review of the hymnal for The Hymn 29:180–181:July 1978. 181.

12. Heiman. 181. It transcribed "traditional Gregorian chant melodies (‘Veni, Veni, Emmanuel’; Creator Alme Siderum) in quarter notes!" The credits for "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel" indicated Thomas Helmore adapted the chant in 1854.

13. "Michael Gilligan." LinkedIn website.
14. Item. Loyola [Montréal] Alumnus 5:21:Summer 1961.
15. Gilligan, LinkedIn.
16. "Joseph Philip Cirou." Prabook website.
17. Wikipedia. "Belarusian Greek Catholic Church."

18. Linda Cerabona. Quoted by Michelle Martin. "Music Was His Prayer. Father Wojcik Taught Generations of Seminarians." Chicago Catholic website. 17 February 2013. This is the same Wojcik who was aboard the Andria Doria when in sank in 1956. He was returning from studying sacred music at Gregorian University of Rome. [28]

19. John XXIII. "Gaudet Mater Ecclesia." 11 October 1962. Quoted by Wikipedia. "Second Vatican Council."

20. The Johannine Hymnal. Title page.
21. Ray Repp. Allelu. F. E. L. Records S-032. 1966. [Discogs entry.]

22. William Grady. "Publisher Won’t End Battle over Hymns." Chicago Tribune website. 13 June 1990.

23. Michael Gilligan and Joseph Cirou. The Johannine Hymnal. Oak Park, Illinois: American Catholic Press, 1967. [WorldCat entry]

24. Discogs listed five albums produced by Miffleton with World Library Publications. He later became associated with the Oregon Catholic Press.

25. "Omer Westendorf." Pastoral Music 22:8:December-January 1998. Hymnary website brought this to my attention.

26. "History of the Kenrick-Glennon Seminary." Its website.
27. Wikipedia, Repp.

28. Pierette Domenica Simpson. Alive on the Andrea Doria! Garden City, New York: Morgan James, 2008. No page numbers in on-line edition.

Hope - Kum Ba Yah (Come by Here)

Topic: Religious Folk Music Revival
Methodists were the first to laud "a new generation," and the last to recognize the Now Generation. Like with the Baptists, [1] Lutherans, [2] and Nazarenes, [3] it wasn’t the denomination that acted, but an independent publisher with informal ties to the church hierarchy. [4]

Hope Publishing was founded in 1892 by Henry Date. [5] He had attended the 1889 meeting that organized the Epworth League, [6] and needed material for his Methodist youth group meetings. He began with a 64 page pamphlet of songs that attracted the interest of Holiness song writers like Elisha Hoffman, who had written "Are You Washed in the Blood?" [7] and "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms." [8]

Sales of Date’s preliminary songbook financed the publication of Pentecostal Hymns in 1894. [9] By coincidence, that was the year the Southern Methodist church formally denied the legitimacy of the Holiness doctrine. [10] The music editors included a Presbyterian [11] and a Congregationalist. [12]

Hope continued to produce hymnals and Sunday school materials for evangelistic churches for generations. It changed its focus in 1964 when Dent’s partner’s son, Herbert Shorney, took over, and brought in his sons. [13] They made John Wilson the company’s first full-time music editor in 1966. [14] A year later Wilson produced a songbook with a guitar on the cover.

A Time To Sing was in the tradition of the Cooperative Recreation Service booklets created for youth groups and camps. It even used the same stapled 3.5" x 8.75" format. Lynn Rohrbough had sold his company in 1967, [15] and this may have been an attempt to fill the vacuum created by that transfer.

A quarter of the songs were identified as spirituals, and 18% were used in camps. One of the graces, "Hark to the Chimes," [16] was from a 1929 Girl Scout Song Book. The rest were religious songs, including a few hymns and psalms. Most were recently composed.

Date may have been a Methodist, but the Shorneys were Presbyterians. [17] That denomination began to hear about the "Now Generation" in January 1969 when the John Knox Press released a book by Dennis Benson that analyzed the lyrics of the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and Simon and Garfunkle within the theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. [18] He suggested ways congregations could find common ground between generations.

Hope responded in two ways. In 1970, it introduced a new division named agápe. [19] The word had been reintroduced in 1960 by C. S. Lewis [20] and become a way to comprehend the Hippies’ 1967 Summer of Love in San Francisco. [21] The term especially was popular in the coffee houses sponsored by churches near college campuses.

Carlton Young edited a Songbook for Saints and Sinners in 1971 for what he called the "young Christian" who "as he has always done, is singing a New Song." It was in the CRS format, but with a glossier cover.

Later that year, [22] Wilson issued A New Now under the Hope imprint. It promised to present "only the best of the standard favorites plus many carefully screened new offerings."

Wilson realized summer camps were passé. The CRS songster had been designed for hikers to put in their knapsacks. Backpacks had become the norm, and people sang around camp fires. They needed books that laid flat while they were playing their guitars. A New Now used the spiral binding introduced by Singspiration. [23]

The only camp songs were rounds with peace as a theme: "Dona Nobis Pacem" and "Shalom Chaverim." It also included "Jesus, Jesus," which was being sung in camps with the verse "Peace, Peace." It was based on a song introduced to Girl Scouts by Janet Tobitt in 1939. [24]

Both 1971 Hope songbooks were intended to accompany worship services. Saints had sections devoted to "Songs for the Liturgy" and "Quick Christian Year." Now was subtitled: "A Youth Folk Hymnal." Each contained "Kumbaya."

Saints still was influenced by the folk masses of the Roman Catholic church. It included six songs by Ray Repp. It also included eleven by Richard Avery and Donald March. They were leading workshops on alternative forms of worship for Presbyterians, and were publishing their songs through Hope.

Now had fewer songs from either source. Its definition of folk was like that of Bob MacKenzie. The number of spirituals increased by 15%. They included songs from both Black and white traditions. In addition, the hymnal included old songs rediscovered by folk revival artists like "I Know Where I’m Going" [25] and "Wayfaring Stranger." [26]

Both were more ecumenical than the collections published by companies located in the South. In addition to Catholic and Presbyterian songs, Saints included ones from Baptist [27] and American Lutheran Church sources. [28]

Now reflected the changes in contemporary Christian music. Instead of Baptist songs, it included some published by Word Record’s Sacred Songs, [29] and by the Premillennialist Singspiration. [30]

William G. Shorney had worked as a banker before joining his father and brother in Hope in 1964. [31] The company became more conscious of the importance of copyrights as a source of income. [32] Now had 23% more songs copyrighted by Hope than did Saints, 12% less from the Presbyterians, 11% less from Roman Catholic sources, and 18% less from other contemporary music publishers.

Performers
A Time To Sing, Saints
Vocal Soloist: single melodic line
Vocal Group: none
Instrumental Accompaniment: guitar chords
Rhythm Accompaniment: none

A New Now
Vocal Soloist: single melodic line
vVocal Group: none
Instrumental Accompaniment: piano, guitar chords
Rhythm Accompaniment: none

Credits
African (Angola)

Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: no comment
Verses: kumbaya, crying, singing, praying

Vocabulary
Pronoun: someone
Term for Deity: Lord
Special Terms: none

Basic Form: four-verse song
Verse Repetition Pattern: none
Ending: none
Unique Features: none

Notes on Music
A Time To Sing, Saints
Opening Phrase: 1-3-5
Time Signature: 3/4

A New Now
Opening Phrase: 1-3-5
Time Signature: 4/4

All three
Tempo: not provided
Key Signature: no sharps or flats
Guitar Chords: C F G

Basic Structure: strophic repetition
Singing Style: one syllable to one note, except for final "Lord"

A New Now
Vocal-Accompaniment Dynamics: Piano chords struck at beginnings of measures and "kumbaya" phrases. Guitar chords on first and last notes of "kumbaya."

All Three
Ending: guitar chords on every note of final line

Notes on Performance
A Time To Sing
"The key to the effectiveness of what is often called ‘sacred folk music’ is its simplicity. It can be sung informally, understood clearly and accompanied easily, perhaps with guitar, banjo, ukelele or autoharp."

A New Now
"We encourage you to improvise from these basic settings. Choirs or small combos with various rhythm styles may be used—folk, folk rock, jazz, straight or whatever."

Notes on Audience
Hope said A Time to Sing "sold over one million copies." [33]

Notes on Performers
Wilson was featured in the posts for 16 December 2018 and 19 December 2018. Young was mentioned in the post for 14 February 2019.

Availability
Book: "Kum Ba Yah." A Time to Sing. Carol Stream, Illinois: Hope Publishing Company, 1967. 37.

Book: "Kum Ba Yah (Come by Here)." Songbook for Saints and Sinners. Edited by Carlton R. Young. Carol Stream, Illinois: agápe, 1971. 19.

Book: "Kum Ba Yah (Com by Here)." A New Now. Carol Stream, Illinois: Hope Publishing Company, 1971. 38.

End Notes
1. Baptists were discussed in the posts for 5 July 2020 and 12 July 2020.
2. Lutherans were discussed in the posts for 21 June 2020 and 28 June 2020.
3. Nazarenes were discussed in the posts for 19 July 2020 and 26 July 2020

4. George Shorney said: "Methodists, I think, in their most recent hymnbook must have said, ‘We’re tired of having Hope sell books to our people’." [34]

5. "Hope Publishing Company History." Company website.

6. "Founders of the Epworth League." 8–9 in The Epworth League Year-Book. Cincinnati: Jennings and Pye, 1903 edition. 8.

7. E. A. Hoffman. "Are You Washed in the Blood?" In Spiritual Songs for Gospel Meetings and the Sunday School. Edited by Elisha A. Hoffman and J. H. Tenney. Cleveland, Ohio: Barker and Smellie, 1878. [35]

8. Anthony J. Showalter and Elisha Hoffman. "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms." In The Glad Evangel. Edited by A. J. Showalter, L. M. Evilsizer, and S. J. Perry. Dalton, Georgia: A. J. Showalter Company, 1887. [37]

9. The earliest citation by WorldCat is: Henry Date, Elisha A. Hoffman and J. H. Tenney. Pentecostal Hymns: For Evangelistic Services, Young People’s Societies and Sunday Schools. Chicago: Hope Publishing Company.

10. For more on the reaction of Methodist hierarchies to Phoebe Palmer’s theory of Holiness, see the post for 9 February 2020.

11. Elisha Albright Hoffman was ordained as a Presbyterian minister in 1873. In addition to serving congregations, he worked for the Evangelical Association in Cleveland. [38]

12. John Harrison Tenney was a deacon in a Congregation church in Limebrook, Massachusetts. Before working with Date, he co-edited collections with Hoffman. [39]

13. Date worked with George Henry Shorney and Francis G. Kingsbury. Shorney, who was a childhood friend and distant relative, took over when Date died in 1915. Kingsbury was Date’s cousin. He became president with Shorney died in 1919. Kingsbury retired in 1926, and George’s son, Gordon D. Shorney rose. George Herbert Shorney was Gordon’s brother. [40]

14. "Hope Publishing Company History." The existing music editor was part-time. Donald P. Hustad had been with the company since 1950, and was getting more involved with the Billy Graham organization.

15. H. Smith. "Pocket Song Book Publishing Moved, Revitalized." [Yellow Springs, Ohio] Community Service Newsletter. January–February 1977. 1–2.

16. George Newell. Girl Scout Song Book. New York: Girl Scouts, 1929.

17. Bob Goldsborough. "George H. Shorney, 1931-2012." Chicago Tribune. 11 April 2012. His father, Gordon Shorney, had been a Baptist, [41] who sent his sons to Denison College, then associated with the Northern Baptist Convention. [42]

18. Dennis C. Benson. The Now Generation. Richmond: John Knox Press, 1969. He also looked at lyrics by Arlo Guthrie and Janis Ian.

19. "Hope Publishing Company History."

20. C. S. Lewis. The Four Loves. London: Geoffrey Bles, 1960. It was published the same year in Orlando, Florida by Harcourt.

21. Wikipedia. "Summer of Love."

22. Both songbooks carried the date 1971. Now contained David Wo’s "Sing, My People" that was introduced by Saints.

23. Singspiration’s spiral-bound Folk Hymnal was discussed in the post for 2 August 2020.

24. Janet Tobitt. "Rose, Rose." Yours for a Song. New York: 1939. Tobitt included Song in her anthology, The Ditty Bay, which she self-published in 1946. "Rose, Rose" was a case study in Camp Songs, 447–454.

25. "I Know Where I’m Going" was recorded in 1944 by Burl Ives, [46] and again by The Weavers in 1957. [47] The post for 2 August 2020 also mentioned this song.

26. Burl Ives recorded "Wayfaring Stranger" in 1944. [48] David Warren Steel and Richard Hulan [49] found a version in Joseph Bever’s The Christian Songster, which was published by the United Brethren in Christ of Dayton in 1858. Robert Waltz and David Engle [50] located an earlier, 1816, version in Kentucky Harmony that was published by Ananias Davisson in Lexington, Kentucky.

27. Five were published by the Southern Baptist Convention’s Broadman Press.

28. Ewald J. Bash. "Jonah." In Songs for Today. Edited by Bash and John Ylvisaker. Minneapolis, Minnesota: The American Lutheran Church, Youth Department, 1964. Hope identified the melody as a "sea chantey," rather than admitting the tune was "What Shall We Do with a Drunken Sailor." [51]

29. The four songs from Sacred Songs, included ones by Ralph Carmichael and Kurt Kaiser. They were discussed in the posts for 15 December 2017 and 5 July 2020. The most popular was Sonny Salsbury’s "Psalm 19."

30. The three songs from Singspiration included Jack and Don Wyrtzen’s "Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow." Grand Rapids, Michigan: Singspiration, 1966. Pat Zondervan was a strong Premillennialist, and determined the publishing company would also support that view. [52]

31. Music and "Hope Publishing Company History."

32. Nancy Luebke. "Hymn Publisher’s 110-year History Started with Hope." Arlington Heights [Illinois] Daily Herald. 16 March 2002. 169. George Shorney told her: "As a publisher, there’s value in owning copyrights, and the owners of the company recognized that acquiring copyrights would be a good way to position the company. Today the strategy of publishers in the music industry is to own copyrights to generate income."

33. "Hope Publishing Company History."

34. David W. Music. "An Interview with George Shorney." The Hymn 44:6-10:January 1992. 7.

35. Diana Leagh Matthews. "Behind the Hymn: Are you washed in the Blood." Her website. 9 April 2017. She said it was republished by Ira Sankey in an 1881 edition of Sacred Songs and Solos. This went through many editions (and, no doubt, revisions); the Library of Congress lists one from 1877. [36]

36. "Sacred Songs and Solos." Library of Congress website. Ira D. Sankey. London: Morgan and Scott, 1877.

37. Tiffany Shomsky. "Leaning on the everlasting arms." Hymnary website.
38. Wikipedia. "Elisha Hoffman."

39. J. H. Hall. "J. H. Tenney." 219–222 in Biography of Gospel Song and Hymn Writers. New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1914.

40. "Hope Publishing Company History."
41. Gordon D. Shorney. Obituary. Chicago Tribune. 22 October 1964. 69.

432. Denison was founded by the Ohio Baptist Education Society in 1831. [44] At the time the Shorneys began attending, it was associated with the Ohio Baptist Convention, which, in turn, was affiliated with the Northern Baptist Convention. [45] Denison became a "non-sectarian institution independent of any denominational affiliation" in the 1960s. [46]

43. "Denison University." Ohio History Central website.

44. Richard Hunter Clossman. "A History of the Organization and Development of the Baptist Churches in Ohio from 1789 to 1907, With Particular Reference to the Ohio Baptist Convention." PhD dissertation. The Ohio State University, 1971.

45. "Our History." Denison University website

46. Burl Ives. "I Know Where I’m Going." The Wayfaring Stranger. Columbia C-103. 1944. [Discogs entry]

47. The Weavers. The Weavers At Carnegie Hall. Vanguard VRS-9010. 1957. [Discogs entry]
48. Burl Ives. The Wayfaring Stranger. Stinson Records A 345. 1944. [Discogs entry]

49. David Warren Steel and Richard H. Hulan. The Makers of the Sacred Harp. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2010. 234. Cited by Wikipedia. "The Wayfaring Stranger (Song)."

50. "Wayfaring Stranger." The Traditional Ballad Index. California State University-Fresno website. Version 4.5.

51. Bsondahl. "Jonah song/Drunken Sailor tune." Mudcat Café website. 9 March 2002.
52. James E. Ruark. The House of Zondervan. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006. 27.

John Peterson and Norman Johnson - Kum Ba Yah (Come by Here)

Topic: Religious Folk Music Revival
The emergence of contemporary Christian music was facilitated by the development of an infrastructure that made recordings profitable. As mentioned in earlier posts, Kurt Kaiser [1] and Bob MacKenzie [2] improved the quality of recordings, both aesthetically and technically, so radio stations were willing to air them. The publishing houses of Word [3] and Benson worked to get paid royalties for their copyrights, and then instituted accounting procedures that ensured their writers actually got their money. [4]

Distribution remained a problem until Pat and Bernie Zondervan opened their first religious book store in a strip mall in 1960. [5] Songbooks no longer were crammed into the small section on the back wall of a general book store with Bibles and inspirational tomes. They had a section unto themselves.

Records no longer were dumped into a single bin near the discounted ones in record stores that were playing the current hit records over their in-house speakers. They were given an area devoted to them, separated by types.

The Zondervan brothers began as sellers, then publishers of religious books to Calvinists who had migrated to the Grand Rapids, Michigan, area from the Netherlands. [6] They had no particular proclivity for music. The Christian Reformed Church had separated from the Dutch Reformed Church when the latter began singing hymns, not just psalms.[7]

In 1941, Bernie went to a revival meeting held near Grand Rapids by Billy Graham. [8] The mother of Graham’s song leader had immigrated to New Jersey with her father from the Netherlands. [9] Al Smith had a collection of choruses that he asked Zondervan to distribute. [10] Two years later, Smith founded Singspiration. [11]

The market for religious music grew in the early 1950s. Zondervan’s changed the name of its newsletter from Book News to Book and Record News in 1952. [12] Its relationship with Smith expanded, when it began distributing recordings by Singspiration artists. [3]

Smith became less reliable in 1954, when he hinted he might move his business to Wheaton, Illinois. The Zondervans responded by forming their own music publishing company in 1955. [14]

Smith’s wife had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1947, [15] and one suspects the burden of her care was draining him both physically and financially. He had moved back to this native New Jersey in 1953, [16] where his parents still lived. [17] In 1955, he hired John Peterson as an editor. [18]

The financial health of Singspiration deteriorated, and in 1957 Peterson alerted the Zondervans. [19] The next year, they entered a partnership with Smith to incorporate Singspiration. [20] In 1960, Smith’s wife died, [21] and the following year, Smith sold his remaining interest in the company to the Zondervans and Peterson. [22]

About this time, Peterson hired Norman Johnson as his assistant. Peterson had been born in the Swedish community of Lindsborg, Kansas, [23] where members of the Evangelical Covenant Church lived. They had left their homeland because they were being persecuted for meeting privately to sing gospel songs with secular instruments. [24]

Peterson’s family had left Lindsborg [25] by the time Johnson was born in nearby Smolan, Kansas, in 1928. [26] When Johnson entered the Covenant church seminary in Chicago in 1949, [27] he sent Peterson a note of introduction. Peterson then was working for the Moody Bible Institute radio station. They remained friends. [28]

Peterson acknowledged the emergence of the Now Generation in 1970 when he hired Don Wyrtzen as his youth director. [29] Wyrtzen had written the popular "Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow" in 1966. [30]

That same year, 1970, Peterson and Johnson published a Folk Hymnal that was marketed to "the Now Generation." Half the material was copyrighted by Singspiration. It included a few songs from the Roman Catholic folk-mass composers, [31] and one each from Ralph Carmichael [32] and Kurt Kaiser. [33]

Its claim to "folk" lay in the use of "old historic folk melodies" like "I Know Where I’m Going." Unlike versions reported from tradition, including one recorded by Weavers, it was not a love song. [34] Instead, the chorus included the line: "the love for which He died Is all I need to guide me."

Four songs in the Folk Hymnal were from African-American traditions: the recently popularized "He’s Got the Whole World in His Hand" and "Go Tell It on the Mountain," the older "Jacob’s Ladder," and "Kumbaya." The last, however, was identified as Angolan.

One reason so few Black religious songs were used was Peterson applied a very strict definition of scriptural accuracy. When he reviewed Singspiration’s copyrights in the early 1960s, he discarded many songs because, while they may have had "nice tunes," the lyrics "didn’t measure up." [35]

"Kumbaya" was unchanged. It was placed between Charles A. Buffham’s "Feed My Lambs" and Peterson’s "Shepherd of Love." The index suggested it was appropriate as a prayer.

The Folk Hymnal’s most important innovation was not its rather conventional leavening of new religious songs with a few well-known contemporary ones, but its format. The spiral binding allowed it to lay flat on a piano music stand or a table beside a guitar player. Both piano and guitar chords were provided.

Performers
Vocal Soloist: single melodic line
Vocal Group: none
Instrumental Accompaniment: piano, guitar chords
Rhythm Accompaniment: none

Credits
From Angola, Africa

Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: kum is pronounced "koom"
Verses: kumbaya, cryin’, singin’, prayin’

Vocabulary
Pronoun: someone
Term for Deity: Lord
Special Terms: none

Basic Form: verse-burden
Verse Repetition Pattern: repeat Chorus after each stanza
Ending: none
Unique Features: none

Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: 1-3-5
Time Signature: 3/4
Tempo: very slowly
Key Signature: two sharps
Guitar Chords: D G A A⁷

Basic Structure: strophic repetition
Singing Style: one syllable to one note except for final "Lord"

Vocal-Accompaniment Dynamics: piano chords struck at the beginning of each measure and the beginning of each "kumbaya" phrase

Ending: none

Notes on Performance
The cover was black, cerise and tangerine. It featured a photograph of two young men wearing fisherman-knit sweaters and a woman with bangs. One man was holding a guitar.

On the inside cover, Peterson wrote "a basic keyboard harmonization—upon which free improvisation is recommended—has been provided in most cases. However, the ideal accompaniment is guitar. Of course the addition of string bass and percussion, at your discretion, is appropriate too."

Audience Perceptions
An advertisement in a later songbook, claimed a Folk Hymnal was a "phenomenal best-seller" and "a must for all churches and coffee houses." [36]

Notes on Performers
John Willard Peterson spent World War II in the Air Force. He used his GI Benefits to study at Moody Bible Institute long enough to take all their music classes. [37] Then he transferred to the American Music Conservatory, where he graduated in 1952. [38]

He recalled his mother played piano, her sister the guitar, and her sister’s husband the mandolin. "At family reunions there were sure to be several stringed instruments and an accordion and the singing was something to hear." [39] He added, he loved the Covenant church. "The music was thrilling — great congregational singing, accompanied by a pump organ and piano, at which my sister Marie presided." [40]

His oldest brother Rudy became a choir director in Seattle, [41] while the intermediate boys had radio programs as the Norse Trio. Ken and Bill played guitars, and Bob the steel guitar. After Bob moved to Colorado, Peterson took his place. [42]

Despite the emphasis he placed on lyrics, Peterson found, with time, "the text may be fuzzy or lost to memory, the tune will still be fresh in my mind. The harmonies will fall into place and the orchestration will be as crystal clear as it was when I heard it this afternoon in rehearsal." [43]

Norman Eldon Johnson created the piano arrangement. He had graduated from Bethany College in Lindsborg in 1949, [44] then enrolled in the North Park Theological Seminary in Chicago. [45] While working as a youth pastor and minister of music in California, he earned a masters in church music from the University of California. [46] In Grand Rapids, Johnson served as music minister in the Evangelical Covenant Church. [47]

His sister remembered Johnson "was always known for his music. Whether playing the organ for chapel in Old Main, or his amazing ability at the piano, he was known for incredible chords and the ability to enhance the soloist or congregation in their performance." [48]

Availability
Book: "Kum Ba Yah (Come by Here)." Folk Hymnal. Edited by Norman Johnson and John W. Peterson. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Singspiration, 1970. 9.

End Notes
1. Kurt Kaiser was the subject of the post for 15 December 2017.
2. Bob MacKenzie was the subject of the post for 26 July 2020.
3. Word was the subject of the posts for 5 July 2020 and 12 July 2020.

4. John T. Benson. A History 1898-1915 of the Pentecostal Mission, Inc. Nashville: Trevecca Press, 1977. 209. "Among the good things coming out of the Company are the royalties paid to Christian writers, composers, arrangers, and artists. Accurately, the Company with its computerized bookkeeping honestly distributes royalties per year amounting to one and one-quarter million dollars. This makes it possible for those receiving royalties to continue their religious work."

5. James E. Ruark. The House of Zondervan. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006. 109–110. Willis Cook was responsible for the expansion. I bought collections containing camp songs in them in the early 1970s. It may have been the one in East Lansing, which was one of the first after the one in suburban Grand Rapids.

6. Ruark.
7. Wikipedia. "Christian Reformed Church in North America."
8. Ruark. 50. Graham was then a student at Wheaton College. Smith was his roommate.

9. VickiO. "Gerrigje ‘Carrie’ Junte Smith." Find a Grave website. 5 October 2010. Smith’s mother.

VickiO. "Aalt ‘Albert’ Junte." Find a Grave website. 21 March 2009. Smith’s mother’s father. He was a member of the Holland Reformed Church, according to the obituary reprinted by VickiO from The [Patterson, New Jersey] Sunday Chronicle. 11 July 1920. 12.

10. Ruark. 50. The collection was titled Singspiration.

11. Dr. Alfred B. Smith. Obituary. [Binghamton, New York] Press and Sun-Bulletin. 12 August 2001. One of Smith’s sons lived in Binghamton.

12. Ruark. 100.
13. Ruark. 101.
14. Ruark. 67.
15. "Mr. Singspiration." Living Hymns website.
16. Living Hymns website.

17. Carrie J. Smith. Obituary. The [Scranton, Pennsylvania] Times-Tribune. 12 March 1983. 9. Reprinted by VickiO. It said she was a member of the First Presbyterian Church in Montrose, Pennsylvania, where Al had moved.

18. John W. Peterson. The Miracle Goes On. With Richard Engquist. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1976. 162.

19. Peterson, autobiography. 180–181.
20. Ruark. 89.
21. Living Hymns website.
22. Peterson, autobiography. 182.
23. Peterson, autobiography. 33.

24. Wikipedia. "Evangelical Covenant Church." It was organized in Chicago in 1885 after Lindsborg was settled.

25. Peterson, autobiography. 37.

26. sister7a. "Norman E. Johnson." Find a Grave website. 4 June 2007. "Smolan was named after the Swedish province of Småland, the native home of a large share of the early settlers." [49]

27. The date deduced from the year he graduated from Bethany College. That was provided by Ruth Peterson. "Norman E. Johnson." Lindsborg150th website. 19 June 2019.

28. Peterson, autobiography. 184.
29. Ruark. 147.

30. Jack Wyrtzen and Don Wyrtzen. "Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow." Copyrighted by Singspiration in 1966. It was included in Word’s Sing In, [50] Benson’s Now Sing Now, [51] and Hope Publishing’s A Time to Sing and A New Now. [52]

31. It included Ray Repp’s "Allelu!" and James Thiem’s "Sons of God." Both were published be F. E. L. Publications in 1966. Repp is mentioned in the post for 16 August 2020.

32. Ralph Carmichael. "The Savior Is Waiting." Waco: Sacred Songs, 1958. He was mentioned in the post for 15 December 2017.

33. Kurt Kaiser. "That’s for Me." Waco: Sacred Songs, 1969. He was the subject of the post for 15 December 2017. Peterson admitted that he began to feel threatened by these songwriters, but overcame his jealously through admitting his envy was a sin. [53]

34. The Weavers. The Weavers At Carnegie Hall. Vanguard VRS-9010. 1957. [Discogs entry] Their version was 16 measures long. [54] One published by A New Now was 30 measures. It replaced "I know who I’ll marry" with "I know why there’s music" and added a section that began "where are you going?" Peterson’s version was 45 measures. The origins of the song are obscure. [55]

35. Peterson, autobiography. 195.

36. John W. Peterson. Singing Youth. Grand Rapids: Singspiration Music, 1966; 1973 edition. Inside back cover.

37. Peterson, autobiography. 148.
38. Peterson, autobiography. 154.
39. Peterson, autobiography. 34.
40. Peterson, autobiography. 40.
41. Peterson, autobiography. 76.
43. Peterson, autobiography. 11.
44. Ruth Peterson. Bethany College was founded by Lutherans from Sweden. [56]

45. Emily R. Brink and Bert Polman. Psalter Hymnal Handbook. Grand Rapids: CRC Publications, 1989. 470.

46. "Lois (Solie) Johnson." Heritage Life Story website. She was Johnson’s wife.
47. Brink. 470.
48. Ruth Peterson.

49. Wikipedia. "Smolan, Kansas." Its source was John Rydjord. Kansas Place-Names. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1972.

50. Sing In, 11, was the subject of the post for 12 July 2020.
51. Now Sing Now, 2, was discussed in the post for 26 July 2020.
52. A Time to Sing, 8, and A New Now, 45, which is described in the post for 9 August 2020.
53. Peterson, autobiography. 141.

54. "I Know Where I’m Going." The Weavers Song Book. Edited by Ronnie Gilbert with musical arrangements by Robert De Cormier. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1960. 16–17.

55. "Katie Cruel (The Leeboy’s Lassie; I Know Where I’m Going)." The Traditional Ballad Index. California State University-Fresno website.

56. Wikipedia. "Bethany College (Kansas)."