Topic: Origins - Ring Shout
I just came across another description of a ring shout. This one was written by James Weldon Johnson in 1925, and reprinted with slight changes in 1933.
The preface to his Book of Spirituals drew upon both his boyhood experiences in a suburb of Jacksonville, Florida, and later research. [1] The hard part is isolating those sections which represent his first-hand experience in the 1880s in LaVilla.
In his 1933 autobiography, [2] he mentioned three churches: one he attended that was a mile from his home, one a block away from his house, and the ones his father served as a minister.
As a child, he walked two blocks to his maternal grandmother’s house. In his autobiography he mentioned the perils a small boy faced who knew things more by hearsay, than experience. He said he did not cross the street until he passed the house of Mr. Cole who “everybody said was crazy.” [3]
Next he passed the houses of two older women. He remembered: “we were a little bit afraid of Aunt Venie, too; for she was said to have fits.” [4] He added she was “the champion of all ‘ring shouters’ at the “colored church on the corner.” [5]
He gives no evidence he ever went into the church. Saint Paul was an African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), founded in 1869. [6] The AME denomination was introduced into Jacksonville by Charles Pearce in 1866, with the permission of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. [7]
Johnson’s grandmother joined Mount Zion Methodist Church. [8] It was organized by the Northern Methodist Episcopal Church in 1864. The Methodists had split over slavery in 1844. [9] The Southern branch was the one that proselytized slaves in South Carolina and Georgia, then shucked them off into the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church in 1870. [10]
The northern church sent its first missionary south to Beaufort. South Carolina, in 1862. [11] During the war, the hierarchy began recruiting “disabled clergy” to send to the “warmer climates” to serve soldiers. Sanford Swain went to Jacksonville in 1864 [12] where he began with Black soldiers. [13] He organized Mount Zion in May of 1866 with both Black and white members. [14]
The difference between Saint Paul’s and Mount Zion was more than the difference between the Northern and Southern branches of the Methodist Church. Neither of Johnson’s parents were ever slaves on plantations in this country. His mother was raised in the Bahamas after England abolished slavery in 1833. [15] Both her father and her grandfather were white. [16]
His father, James Johnson, was born free in Richmond, Virginia, and ran away to New York City when he was a teen. [17] Less information exists about him. Johnson admits he never heard his father “speak of his childhood and what lay back and beyond it.” [18] He learned about his father’s religious conversion from his maternal grandmother. [19]
The elder Johnson was in his fifties when he became a Baptist minister. His first assignment was in Fernandina, an old settlement thirty miles northeast of Jacksonville. [20] Johnson remembered he and his brother went to visit him for “a few days at a time” [21] and that the church was “large.” [22]
By 1886, his father had found a pulpit in Jacksonville, and returned home. Johnson described it as “little” [23]. In fact, it had some prestige in LaVilla. Shiloh Baptist was built in 1875 by several prominent Blacks. [24] When Johnson’s father was an alderman in 1872, the tax collector for the town was Samuel Spearing. [25] Spearing supervised the Sunday School. [26]
Later, Johnson’s brother, Rosamond, was the choir director and organist for Bethel Baptist church. [27]
I am not sure that Johnson saw a ring shout when he was young, despite asserting in Spirituals that he remembered “remember seeing this dance many times when I was a boy.” [28] His description matches that of many others, and include details someone who did not participate would not notice.
In his autobiography, he says something different. There he wrote:
“When there was a ‘ring shout’ the weird music and the sound of thudding feet set the silences of the night vibrating and throbbing with a vague terror. Many a time I woke suddenly and lay a long while strangely troubled by these sounds.” [29]
What is true in this statement is his reaction to the music. It may not have been a “ring shout” but an emotional religious service. He may not have known the difference as a child. The only experience he mentions is a revival he attended when he was nine years old. He contrasted the “decorum of the regular Sunday services” with “overlaid emotions” that came “to the surface.” [30]
I trust him on music because it was something he was attuned to as a child. His mother had a good voice, [31] and both he and Rosamund took piano lessons. [32] Drums were the one instrument he mentioned several times. They may be all he recalled about his visit to the Bahamas with his mother when he was four years old. [33]
Later, he said he wanted to be a drummer in a brass band, and recalled the skills of Martin who “could beat a continuous and unbroken roll on his muffled drum all the way from the church to the cemetery.” He added “I lost my ambition to be a drummer, but drums have never lost their tumultuous effect on me.” [34]
The question is why would Johnson write beyond his experience. By 1925, he had become politically active with the NAACP, while his brother wrote popular music. Rosamund created the piano arrangements for the Spirituals collection. No doubt the two compared notes when James was writing the “Preface” where he took on the persona of an expert. He broaches the ring shouts at the end of his discussion to distinguish them from spirituals.
“This term ‘shout songs’ has no reference to the loud, jubilant Spirituals, which are often so termed by writers on Negro music; it has reference to the songs or, better, the chants used to accompany the ‘ring shout’.” [35]
This led to a description of ring shouts. In his autobiography, he introduces part of his 1925 descriptions to explain the word “shout” after he said Aunt Vinnie was a “shouter.” Again, he may have felt a need to define a term for his less-informed readers.
If Johnson did see ring shouts when he was young, it was in one of the churches were his father was pastor. Rosamond was more likely to have seen them after James left for school in Atlanta in 1887.
End Notes
1. James Weldon Johnson. The Book of American Negro Spirituals. New York: The Viking Press, 1925.
2. James Weldon Johnson. Along This Way. New York: The Viking Press, 1933. 129–604 in James Weldon Johnson, edited by William L. Andrews. New York: Library Classics of the United States, 2004.
3. Johnson, autobiography. 157.
4. Johnson, autobiography. 157.
5. Johnson, autobiography. 158.
6. Teresa Stepzinski. “St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church celebrates 150 years of serving God and Jacksonville.” Jacksonville website, 15 September 2019.
7. John R. Scott. “Introduction of African Methodism into East Florida.” 168-174 in Proceedings of the Quatro-Centennial Conference of the African M. E. Church of South Carolina, edited by Benjamin W. Arnett. Xenia, Ohio: Aldine Printing. House, 1890. 173.
8. Johnson, autobiography. 143. Mount Zion is now Ebenezer United Methodist Church.
9. John T. Foster Jr. and Sarah Whitmer Foster. “The Last Shall Be First: Northern Methodists in Reconstruction Jacksonville.” The Florida Historical Quarterly 70(3):265–280:January 1992. 269.
10. The Colored Methodist Episcopal Church is discussed in the post for 15 November 2020.
11. Foster. 269.
12. Foster. 268.
13. Foster. 270-271.
14. Foster. 272.
15. Johnson, autobiography. 135.
16. Johnson, autobiography. 136.
17. Johnson, autobiography. 137.
18. Johnson, autobiography. 137.
19. Johnson, autobiography. 163.
20. Johnson, autobiography. 190.
21. Johnson, autobiography. 193.
22. Johnson, autobiography. 190.
23. Johnson, autobiography. 198-199.
24. Patricia Drozd Kenney. “LaVilla, Florida, 1866-1887: Reconstruction Dreams and the Formation of a Black Community.” MA thesis. University of Florida, 1990. 57.
25. Kenney. 34.
26. Kenney. 57.
27. Charlie Patton. Jacksonville Native Left a Huge Legacy, But Nothing Marks It.” The Florida Times-Union, Jacksonville, Florida, 15 June 2012. He said Johnson was the organist in the 1890s.
28. Johnson, Spirituals. 33.
29. Johnson, autobiography. 158.
30. Johnson, autobiography. 161.
31. Johnson, autobiography. 137.
32. Johnson, autobiography. 147.
33. Johnson, autobiography. 179.
34. Johnson, autobiography. 197.
35. Johnson, Spirituals. 33. Rosamond added to the confusion. His version of “Dry Bones” was advertised as a shout song in 1938. [36]
36. J. Rosamond Johnson. “Dry Bones: Descriptive, Characteristic Shout Song.” New York: Handy Brothers, 1938.
Sunday, February 12, 2023
James Weldon Johnson - Ring Shout
Sunday, February 5, 2023
Walter Anderson - Come By Here (Part 2)
Topic: Kumbaya 1955-1961
Continued from previous post dated 29 January 2023
Notes on Performance
Cover: “Nobody Knows.” Linoleum cut on tanwove paper [1] of Negro head by William Smith.
Color Scheme: The cover uses dark brown ink on beige stock. Inside, the pages employ brown ink on beige paper.
Reissue as 50 Negro Folk Songs: Same cover design, but with a light brown cover and cream pages. The version of “Come by Here” is the one used in Max Exner’s The Bridge of Song. It used the plate made by Jane Keen for Indianola Sings with a revised title and no reference to Angola.
Reissue as 56 Negro Folk Songs: Same cover design, but with a goldenrod cover and white pages. The plate for “Kum Ba Yah” is the one from that period.
Notes on Audience
The songbook Look Away seems to have had wide distribution: several libraries have recorded owning copies with WorldCat. The publication dates are contradictory because Lynn Rohrbough, the owner of the company that issued Look Away, was not consistent in how he labeled his songbooks.
As mentioned in the post for 18 July 2021, Rohrbough or Walter Anderson, the editor of Look Away, may have sent copies to civil rights groups in Alabama in 1963. Carlotta Scott King had been a student of Anderson’s at Antioch College, [2] and contributed a song to the 1963 revision. [3]
Anderson himself apparently carried copies to distribute. In 1980, he gave a copy to John Paul II when he was invited to meet him at a United Nations conference held at the pope’s summer palace. John Paul responded: “I love spirituals. I like to sing them.” [4]
The anthology seems to have encouraged others to submit collections of spirituals to Rohrbough. In 1961, CRS published Great Day. The editor, Joseph Jones, was the son of a Black Presbyterian pastor who organized Sunday Schools in the south for the denomination. He “frequently sang and led singing on his travels.” [5] The artwork for Great Day was done by B. D. Roberts, the principal of a Black elementary school in Charlotte, North Carolina. [6]
The 1963 revision of Look Away had Jones’ version of “Rock My Soul.” It was illustrated with Roberts’ illustration for “Great Day.” [7] Jones’ page for “Kum Ba Yah” had the drawing of a man sitting on the ground with a mule by Roberts. [8]
Notes on Performers
Walter Franklin Anderson was born in Zanesville, Ohio, in 1915 to children of slaves. His mother’s family had been owned by an Irishman near Asheville, North Carolina, who fathered Anderson’s grandmother. [10] His father was born in Spartanburg, South Carolina, to slaves who had been purchased by Swedes. [11]
James Rosemond Anderson could read music and play piano. [12] He sent all nine of his children to music classes. [13] Leila Henrietta Weaver had attended Berea College for one year before Kentucky passed a law that prevented African Americans from sharing classes with whites. [14] She made sure all the children could go to college. Most went to Hampton Institute in Virginia. One boy attended Wilberforce in Xenia, Ohio. [15]
Walter studied piano and organ at Oberlin College. He spent his summers working at a summer residential camp run [16] by Karamu House, a Cleveland community center modeled on settlement houses. [17]
His first teaching job, after graduation, was at Wilberforce where he led a chorus that emphasized “gospel music, spirituals, and related sorts of ethnic music.” [18] The Black college founded by Methodists was in the throes of reorganization, [19] and Anderson left after a year. [20]
In 1938, Anderson embarked on a career as a concert pianist. [21] After a year on the road, he accepted a position at Kentucky State College. [22] This time he had to direct the band [23] and a jazz orchestra. [24] During February, he was able to book concerts. [25] He also continued to work at the Karamu camp in summers. [26] It hired him full-time in 1942. [27]
While he was working in Cleveland, he took classes at the Cleveland Institute of Music. [28] A piece he wrote for his composition class, “Variations on the Negro Spiritual, Lord, Lord, Lord,” was played by the Cleveland Symphony in 1946. [29] The arrangement of “Lord, Lord, Lord” in Look Away must have been based on that work.
In 1946, he found a home as chairman of the Antioch College music department. He was then thirty years old. [30] In addition to teaching, he continued to play concerts, and edited the songbooks issued by Lynn Rohrbough. His next projects are discussed in the post for 4 June 2023.
The names listed on the Advisory Editorial Committee [31] suggest he asked for help from people he already knew. Clarice Jones Michaels had been his department chairman at Kentucky State, [32] and Harry Baker later held that position. [33] Anderson’s brother continued to live near Wilberforce, [34] and that probably is how Anna Terry became involved.
Other members of the committee were on the faculties at Southern University, [35] University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, [36] the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, [37] and Clark, [38] Howard, [39] Spellman, [40] Morgan State, [41] and North Carolina colleges. [42] Anderson may have met people when he touring or at academic meetings.
Anderson was responsible for the aesthetic design of Look Away. Karamu House had become an arts center. The man whose artwork is on the cover, William Elijah Smith, moved from Chattanooga, Tennessee, to Cleveland in 1927 where he was taken in by the center’s owners, Russell and Rowena Jelliffe. His training in the 1930s included classes at the John Huntington Polytechnic Institute. During the 1950s he ran a gallery in Los Angeles devoted to art by African Americans. He may have done the print used by Anderson for the WPA in the Depression. [43]
Rohrbough obviously had stayed in contact with Marion Downs and Olive Williams, and probably had met Welch at sometime when she was in Ohio. [44] He, or Anderson, may have known Thomas Harrison who ran a private music school in Tallahassee, Florida. [45]. I could not find any information on line about E. Anderson of Langston, Oklahoma, [46] or Fred Hall of Montgomery, Alabama.
One of the most famous members of the committee was Charles Harris. He had accompanied the concert tenor Roland Hayes. [47] The other noted contributor was Bayard Rustin. He then was with the Fellowship for Reconciliation, and later helped Martin Luther King organize the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. [48] FOR was the organization that sponsored the songbook for Conscientious Objectors edited by Olcutt Sanders.
Sanders’ role may have been a silent one. As mentioned in the post for 22 January 2023, the 1940s songbook was the first to include a number of spirituals. All ten he selected were in Look Away. In 1963, was hired to direct Karamu House. [49]
Availability
Songbook: Look Away: 50 Negro Folk Songs, edited by Walter F. Anderson. Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service, Cooperative Song Service. Undated, but before Olive Williams moved from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, to Baltimore, Maryland in the mid-1950s. [50] Does not contain “Kumbaya.”
Songbook: “Come By Here (Kum Ba Yah).” 27 in Look Away: 50 Negro Folk Songs, edited by Walter F. Anderson. Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service, Cooperative Song Service. Undated revision; dated to late 1957 or early 1958 by the plate.
Songbook: “Kum Ba Yah.” 27 in in Look Away: 56 Negro Folk Songs, edited by Walter F. Anderson. Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service, Cooperative Song Service, 1963.
Songbook: “Kum Ba Yah.” 13 in J. T. Jones. Great Day: Negro Spirituals as Sung and Directed by J. T. Jones. Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service, Cooperative Song Service, 1961.
Songbook: Rosa Page Welch. Fifteen Negro Spirituals. Delaware, Ohio: Informal Music Service, 1960s. It came up in my search for “Come by Here,” but the WorldCat entry did not provide any details to support the selection. It probably was “Kum Ba Yah.”
Album: Rosa Page Welch. “Kum Bah Yah.” Sings Of God’s World And “His Wondrous Love. MRC LP 11-28. The liner notes mention a 1963 event. [Discogs entry.]
End Notes
1. “William E. Smith (1913 - 1997 ) Nobody Knows.” Item offered by Swann Auction Galleries, New York, 7 October 2008. Invaluable website.
2. Joan Horn. Playing on All the Keys: The Life of Walter F. Anderson. Yellow Springs, Ohio: Yellow Springs Historical Society, 2007. 178-180.
3. “Walk Together Children” as sung by Carlotta Scott King. 39 in Look Away, 1963.
4. Horn. 178.
5. LindaJo J. McKim. The Presbyterian Hymnal Companion. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993. 125.
6. Roberts was principal of the Myers Street School in Durham. [51] “It was the largest elementary school in North Carolina for black children” in the “late 1940s.” [52]
7. Jones. 1.
8. Jones. 13.
9. John Major ran MRC Records from the 1960s through the 1980s. [53]
10. Horn. 2.
11. Horn. 7.
12. Horn. 24.
13. Horn. 10.
14. Horn. 3.
15. Horn. 17.
16. Horn. 39.
17. “Karamu House.” Wikipedia website, accessed 4 January 2023.
18. Horn. 49.
19. Horn. 50-52.
20. Horn. 54.
21. Horn. 53.
22. Horn. 59.
23. Horn. 60.
24. Horn. 61.
25. Horn. 59.
26. Horn. 40.
27. Horn. 72.
28. Horn. 80.
29. Horn. 87.
30. Horn. 96.
31. Look Away, early 1950s. 2.
32. Horn. 60.
33. Thorobred, Kentucky State College yearbook, 1969, dedicated to Baker.
34. Horn. 17.
35. DeBose Tourgee should be Albion Tourgee DeBose. He taught at Howard, Talladega College, and Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, according to the Debose Foundation website.
36. Ariel M. Lovelace directed the Vesper Choir, according to the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff website.
37. The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga awards the Edmonia J. Simmons Endowed Scholarship in Music according to its website.
38. J. DeKoven Killingsworth was chairman of the music department at Clark College in Atlanta, Georgia. [54]
39. Walter Lawson was dean of Howard’s College of Fine Arts. “He developed the art of choral singing among Negroes to perhaps its highest point. He is credited with demonstrating that the Negro choir, while retaining its folk music, also could interpret the choral literature of the world.” [55]
40. Kemper Harrold was a violinist [56] and head of the music department at Spellman in Atlanta. [57]
41. Orville Moseley was head of the music department at Southern University in the 1940s [58] and directed the choir at Morgan State in the 1950s. [59] Morgan State is in Baltimore where Williams later had close relations with it.
42. Thomas Dorsey was chairman of the music department at North Carolina College in Durham. [60]
43. “William E. Smith (Artist).” Wikipedia website, accessed 4 January 2023.
44. Welch was often in Ohio, usually as a soloist for a Disciples of Christ or Christian Church gathering. Irma Voight said she was at Ohio University for its 1943 Brotherhood Week, in part because she taught spirituals to youth groups. [61]
45. “Students holding recital at the St. Michael & All Angels Episcopal Church in Tallahassee.” Florida Memory website.
46. He probably was associated with Langston University, but could I not confirm this.
47. “Harris Family Papers.” Durham County Library website, Durham, North Carolina.
48. Bayard Rustin. Wikipedia website, accessed 10 January 2023.
49. Sanders is discussed in the post for 13 February 2022.
50. Williams is discussed in the post for 22 January 2023.
51. Jones. 32.
52. Charlotte Mecklenburg Story website.
53. “MRC (2).” Discogs website.
54. “The Renowned Dr. J. DeKoven Killingsworth, conducting the Clark College Philharmonic Society.” National Museum of African American History and Culture website.
55. Death Notice for Warner Lawson, Sr. The Pittsburgh Courier, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 19 June 1971. 6. Item posted by internet judith_lawson on 5 June 2015.
56. Associated Negro Press. “Musicians Open Meet At Hampton Institute.” Published by Indianapolis Recorder, Indianapolis, Indiana, 29 August 1931.
57. Item. Indianapolis Recorder, Indianapolis, Indiana, 7 August 1943.
58. Item. Indianapolis Recorder, Indianapolis, Indiana, 10 February 1940.
59. Item. Baltimore Afro American Newspaper Archives website, 4 December 1951.
60. Johnny B. Hodge, Jr. A Biography of Phillmore Mallard Hall with Particular Emphasis on His Contribution to the Development of Black School Bands in North Carolina. PhD dissertation. American University, 1997. 155.
61. Irma Voight. “The Religious Foundations of Ohio University.” Ohio University website.
Sunday, January 29, 2023
Walter Anderson - Come By Here (Kum Ba Yah)
Topic: Kumbaya 1955-1961
Lynn Rohrbough implied the interest in Black spirituals was increasing when he told Clare Lovejoy Lennon on 15 November 1956:
“Some years ago we put out this little Look Away and are considering a revision. Can you think of any songs from your home community that should be included?” [1]
That is a modest description for what must have been a major project. He listed twenty people on the Advisory Editorial Committee, including Marion Downes, [2] Rosa Page Welch, [3] and Olive Williams. [4] Many others taught music in Black colleges.
The editor, Walter Anderson, built on the Williams collection discussed in the post for 22 January 2023. The only songs he dropped from the main book were not religious: “Li’l Liza Jane” and “Mr. Banjo.”
Beyond that, all but six appeared in academic or popular collections edited by Rosamund Johnson, [5] Nathaniel Dett at Hampton Institute, [6] James Work at Fisk Institute, [7] Edward Boatner for the African American’s National Baptist Convention, [8] and Nicholas Ballanta on Saint Helena Island. South Carolina. [9]
One was Marion Downs’ arrangement of “A-men,” and two were arranged by Anderson. [10] Three were more popular: “Children, Go Where I send Thee” was related to “Green Grow the Rushes.” [11] “O Won’t You Sit Down” had been popularized by the Norfolk Jubilee Quartet Singers in 1937. [12] “I Want To Die Easy” was recorded by Josh White. [13]
In addition to spirituals, the collection included some game and work songs. Of the 45 spirituals, 31 already were in the CRS repertoire and used by editors of songbooks for Methodist [14] and Evangelical and Reformed churches, [15] the Young Women’s Christian Association, [16] the Camp Fire Girls, [17] 4-H, [18] and the American Camping Association. [19] Only two new ones were accepted between 1955 and 1957 by Methodists. [20] Two of those were CRS versions of existing Girl Scout songs. [21]
Rohrbough reissued the collection with the same subtitle, 50 Negro Folk Songs, but it included 56. In most cases, Anderson had printed one song to a page. The reissue, eliminated empty space and dropped the names of the Advisory Committee. [22]
Two songs were dropped: “I Want Two Wings” and “Won’t You Sit Down.” Six of the eight new songs were in existing folk song collections, although one, “He’Got the Whole World in His Hands” had been recorded by Marian Anderson in 1952. [23] A version by Laurie London [24] rose to second place on Billboard’s popular music chart in April of 1958. [25]
“Oh, My Lovin’ Brother” has the fragmentary quality of songs collected by Newman Ivey white. [26]
The eighth song was “Come by Here.” The plate no longer said it was from Angola, but did not yet have a replacement credit. Anderson’s selection of the song for this collection may have cemented its heritage as a spiritual for CRS.
One of the new songs, “I’m Gonna Sing,” had been used earlier. [27] Two, beside “Kumbaya” and “He’ Got the Whole World” were used by editors before 1960. [28] Three were ignored by the songbooks I’ve seen. [29]
In 1963, the collection was revised. This time the cover said it had 56 Negro Folk Songs, but, in fact, had 57: “Rocka My Soul” was added on the back cover. It came from another spiritual collection Rohrbough published in 1961 for Joseph Jones. [30]
The last edition swapped six songs, and all met the same criteria as those removed. The plate for “Kum Ba Yah” was the one then current that described it as a “Spiritual.”
Performers
Vocal Soloist: single melodic line
Credits
None given
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: “Koom-bah-yah,” same as that published in Indianola Sings, which is reproduced in the post for 29 May 2022
Verses: kumbaya, crying, singing, praying; same verses and same order as those published in Indianola Sings
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
Opening Phrase: 1-3-5; the melody is the same as Indianola Sings
Time Signature: 3/4
Tempo: slowly
Key Signature: no sharps or flats
Basic Structure: strophic repetition
Singing Style: one syllable to one note except for final “Lord”
Ending: none
(Continued in post dated 5 February 2023.)
End Notes
Unless otherwise noted, songbooks were published by Cooperative Recreation Service of Delaware, Ohio.
1. Lynn Rohrbough. Letter to Mrs. Claire Lennon, 15 November 1956. Copy courtesy of Bruce Greene of World Around Songs.
2. Marion Downes is discussed in the post for 22 January 2023.
3. Rosa Page Welch is discussed in the posts for 31 January 2022 and 5 February 2023.
4. Olive Williams is discussed in the post for 22 January 2023.
5. J. Rosamund Johnson. Utica Jubilee Singers Spirituals. Philadelphia: Oliver Ditson Company, 1930. This is mentioned in the post for 2 August 2021.
CRS cited J. Rosamond Johnson. Rolling along in Song. New York: The Viking Press, 1937.
6. R. Nathaniel Dett. Religious Folk-Songs of the Negro. Hampton, Virginia: The Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, 1927.
CRS cited R. Nathaniel Dett. The Dett Collection of Negro Spirituals. Chicago: Hall and McCreary, 1936.
7. John W. Work. American Negro Songs. New York: Publishers, 1940. This is cited by CRS.
J. B. T. Marsh. The Story of the Jubilee Singers with Their Songs. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1875.
8. Edward Boatner. Spirituals Triumphant Old and New. Nashville, Tennessee: National Baptist Convention, Sunday School Publishing Board, 1927.
9. Nicholas George Julius Ballanta-(Taylor). Saint Helena Spirituals, for Penn Normal, Industrial and Agricultural School. New York: G. Schirmer, 1925.
10. “Lord, Lord, Lord” and “Sinner, You Know.” The first is discussed in the post for 5 February 2023.
11. “Children, Go Where I Send Thee.” Wikipedia website, accessed 4 January 2023.
12. Norfolk Jubilee Quartet Singers. “Sit Down, Sit Down, I Can’t Sit down.” Decca 62397. Recorded 15 July 1937. [31]
13. Joshua White. “Lord I Want To Die Easy.” Conqueror 8455. 24 November 1933. [Discogs entry.]
14. Joyful Singing, for The National Convocation of the Methodist Youth Fellowship. This is discussed in post for 20 February 2022.
Wisconsin Hymns and Folks Songs, order from Walter Eyster or Lowell Rekdal.
Sing It Again!, for Methodist Board of Education. This is discussed in the post for 9 February 2021.
World Fellowship through Song, edited by Eleanor Gough, E. O. Harbin, Ruth Carey, and F. A. Lindhorse for United Methodist Church, Clear Lake Recreation School in Des Moines, Iowa.
Melody in Michigan, for Detroit Area of the Methodist Youth Fellowship. This is discussed in the post for 20 February 2022.
Larry Eisenberg. Lift Every Voice. This is discussed in the post for 9 February 2020.
15. Songs of Many Nations, for Evangelical and Reformed Church, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 1944. This is discussed in the post for 20 February 2022.
16. Sing Along the Way, edited by Marie Oliver for the YWCA’s Woman’s Press. Editions from 1942, 1951, and 1956. This is discussed in the post for 20 March 2022.
17. Joyful Singing, Campfire Girls Edition. Two undated editions are discussed in the post for 20 March 2022.
18. Music of One World, edited by Max V. Exner for Iowa Extension Music Office. This is discussed in the post for 18 December 2022.
19. A. C. A. Song Book, for American Camping Association, Chicago, Illinois. This is discussed in the post for 28 May 2023.
20. “Ezekiel Saw the Wheel” and “Standing in the Need of Prayer.”
21. “All Night, All Day” and “Certainly Lord” are in Mary A. Sanders. Sing High, Sing Low. New York: 1946. The songbook is discussed in the post for 4 December 2022.
22. Rohrbough made similar changes when he reissued Anderson’s African Song Sampler. This is discussed in the post for 15 January 2023.
23. Marian Anderson. “He’s Got The Whole World In His Hands.” Marian Anderson Sings Eleven Great Spirituals. RCA Victor LRM 7006. 14 May 1952. [Discogs entry.] She performed it on a television special in 1953. [32]
24. Laurie London. “He’s Got The Whole World In His Hands.” Eric Records AR 208. 1957. [Discogs entry.]
25. “Laurie London.” Discogs website.
26. Newman I. White. American Negro Folk Songs. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1928. Unlike the other academic collections, this contains no music. It does contain citations to other works which they do not. It is the best place to look if one want to see texts of spirituals before they are polished and standardized.
27. “I’m Gonna Sing.” 41 in Lift Every Voice, edited by Larry Eisenberg for Methodist Church, Inter-Division Committee on Music and Education. As mentioned in the post for 9 February 2020, Eisenberg left the church’s employment in 1952.
28. “Let Us Break Bread Together” and “Wade in the Water.”
The collections I consulted were:
1956. Music Makers, for Camp Fire Girls.
1956. Wesley Woods Sings, The Methodist Church, Erie Conference Board of Education, Meadville, Pennsylvania.
1957. Chansons de Notre Chalet, edited by Marion A. Roberts for Our Chalet, Adelboden, Switzerland. This is discussed in posts for 27 November 2022 and 4 December 2022.
1957. Sing Along, edited by Mary Wheeler, Lura Mohrbacher, and Augustus D. Zanzig for the National Board of the YWCA in New York. This is discussed in the post for 11 December 2022.
1957. The Bridge of Song, edited by Max V. Exner for the Iowa State College Extension Music Program. This is discussed in the post for 18 December 2022.
1958. Sing It Again, for The Methodist Church, General Board of Education.
1958. Lake Poinsett Fellowship Songs.
1958. Let’s All Sing, edited by Walter Anderson, Annabeth Brandle, Larry Eisenberg, and Anna Woolf for The American Camping Association. This is discussed in the post for 4 June 2023.
1958. Rejoice and Sing, for a group of Presbyterian churches. Dated by plate.
1959. Guiana Sings, edited by Frederick Hilborn Talbot for 4-H Clubs of British Guiana. This is discussed in the post for 7 August 2022.
1959. Cache of Songs for Alaska.
29. “Oh, My Lovin’ Brother,” “We Shall Walk through the Valley,” and “Rise Up, Shepherds.” The last is a Christmas song; many songbooks do not include seasonal music.
30. “Rocka My Soul.” 30 in Great Day: Negro Spirituals as Sung and Directed by J. T. Jones. Jones was with the United Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, North Carolina.
31. Discography of American Historical Recordings on-line database. University of California, Santa Barbara website.
32. “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.” Wikipedia website, accessed in 13 January 2023.
Sunday, January 22, 2023
Olive Williams - Negro Folk Songs
Topic: Kumbaya 1955-1961
Lynn Rohrbough’s repertoire of spirituals may have begun with Olcutt Sanders. As mentioned in the post for 13 February 2022, Sanders edited a songbook for Conscientious Objectors sometime around 1942.
The Pocket Songster included ten. All but one were well-known from recordings by Jubilee Quartets, Marian Anderson, and Paul Robeson. [1] One carried a note that it came from a popular collection edited by Nathaniel Dett at the Hampton Institute. [2] Perhaps Rohrbough had a copy, but Sanders was just as likely. He had become interested in area of folklore while he was a student at the University of Texas in Austin.
One was an arrangement by Marion Downs. [3] The African American was a trained singer who gave concerts in Austin. Her husband was then president of the local Samuel Huston College. [4] The Black school was associated with the Methodist church. [5]
Once the spirituals were available from CRS, other editors selected them for their songbooks. In 1944, E. O. Harbin chose seven for a Methodist songster, and listed the title “Mary and Martha,” but did not provide a version. [6] Edward Schliming used seven for the Evangelical and Reformed Church, and added “I’ve Got Shoes.” [7] Marie Oliver picked six for the YWCA and added “Han’ Me Down.” [8]
Then, in 1945, Rohrbough published an extraordinary collection. It’s a bit difficult to know exactly what he was doing, from the copy I have. The first page says it was published in 1945 by Cooperative Recreation Service.
Negro Folk Songs introduced 14 spirituals, of which 12 were selected by editors of later songbooks. [12] It also included some children’s game songs.
During the rest of the 1940s and early 1950s, editors selected spirituals but added few. Then, in 1953, Larry Eisenberg contributed six new songs for Lift Every Voice. [A] Although three were familiar, [14] none were picked up by the songbooks I’ve examined. Some of the others, especially those with named authors, may not have been traditional. [15]
Notes on Performers
Marion Jackson was born in Arkansas in 1916, but raised in Baltimore, Maryland. She studied at Juilliard and earned a masters in music from Columbia. She continued performing after her husband, Karl Downs, died in 1948. She later made albums with an Austin company. She died in 1990. [16]
Olive J. Williams was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in 1906, and graduated from Howard. She then taught at several Black schools, including the Lincoln School and Dorchester Academy in Tennessee. She returned to Harrisburg in 1946, where she had a private studio in the YMCA building. In the mid-1950s, she was hired by the Baltimore schools, where she lived the rest of her life. She died in 1990, and her funeral was held in an Episcopalian church. [17]
Like Jackson, Williams studied at Juilliard and earned a music masters from Columbia. [18] The dates for neither woman have been given, and one wonders if they knew one another. They did not need to be in classes together. There must have been few female, African Americans who went to either school during the years of segregation. Alumnae and other groups may have provided links.
The unanswered question is how Williams heard about Cooperative Recreation Service.
Availability
Songbook: Negro Folk Songs. Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service, 1945.
End Notes
Unless otherwise noted, the source for recording history is the Discography of American Historical Recordings on-line database. University of California, Santa Barbara website.
1. The spirituals included by Sanders are:
“Ev’ry Time I Feel the Spirit” - Paul Robeson (1925), Fisk University Jubilee Singers (1926)
“Go Down Moses” - Tuskegee Institute Singers (1914), Marian Anderson (1924, 1936), Tuskegee Institute Quartet (1926), Hampton Institute Quartet (1941)
“I Ain’t Gwine Study War” - Fisk University Jubilee Singers (1920)
“I Want To Be Ready” - Tuskegee Institute Singers (1916), Fisk University Jubilee Singers (1919, 1920), Tuskegee Institute Quartet (1926)
“O Nobody Knows” - Marian Anderson (1924), Paul Robeson (1926), Fisk University Jubilee Singers (1926), Tuskegee Institute Singers (1927), Hampton Institute Quartet (1941)
“Steal Away” - Tuskegee Institute Singers (1914), Fisk University Jubilee Singers (1915, 1926), Paul Robeson (1925), Tuskegee Institute Quartet (1927), Hampton Institute Quartet (1941)
“Swing Low Sweet Chariot” - Fisk University Jubilee Singers (1909, 1915, 1926), Fisk Quartette (1911), Tuskegee Institute Singers (1915), Paul Robeson (1925, 1933), Hampton Institute Quartet (1941)
“Jacob’s Ladder” and “Lord, I Want To Be a Christian” were recorded by the Bethel Jubilee Quartet for Homer Rodeheaver’s Rainbow Records in 1923. The first was called “Do You Think I’ll Make a Soldier?” They are discussed in the posts for 25 July 2021 and 22 August 2021.
“Let Us Cheer the Weary Traveler” was recorded by the Kentucky Jubilee Four (1937), the Memphis Pullman Porters Chorus (1930), the Heavenly Gospel Singers (1938), the Golden Gate Quartet (1938). By 1944, CRS was giving credit to R. Nathaniel Dett. Religious Folk Songs of the Negro. Hampton, Virginia: The Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, 1927. 30.
2. “I Want To Be Ready.” R. Nathaniel Dett. The Dett Collection of Negro Spirituals. Chicago: Hall and McCreary Company, 1936. Volume 1.
3. “Ev’ry Time I Feel the Spirit.”
4. Philip J. Merrill. “Get On Board: The Life & Legacy of Marion Jackson Downs.” Old West Baltimore website, 27 June 2019. Her photograph appears with her biographical entry on the Discogs website.
5. “Huston–Tillotson University.” Wikipedia website, accessed 24 December 2022.
6. Joyful Singing. This songbook is discussed in the posts for 20 February 2022 and 27 February 2022. “Mary and Martha” was recorded by the Tuskegee Institute Singers in 1914.
7. Songs of Many Nations. 46. This songbook is discussed in the posts for 20 February 2022 and 27 February 2022. “Shoes” was recorded by Marian Anderson in 1924 and 1928 as “Heav’n, Heav’n.”
8. Sing Along the Way. 54-55. This songbook is discussed in the post for 13 March 2022. “Han’ Me Down” was credited to J. Rosamund Johnson. Rolling Along in Song. New York: The Viking Press, 1937. “Hand Me Down My Silver Trumpet” was recorded by the Bethel Jubilee Quartet in 1923.
9. “Roll, Jordan, Roll” was recorded by the Fisk University Jubilee Singers (1909, 1919, 1920) and the Tuskegee Institute Singers (1915).
10. “Lincoln Normal School.” Wikipedia website, accessed 24 December 2022.
11. Marengo County is discussed in the post for 24 January 2021.
12. The songs that were not selected by later editors were Williams’ arrangement of “Go Tell It on the Mountain” and Francis Ames’ “Good News in the Kingdom.” The latter is described as a West Indian spiritual. Ames wrote lyrics or songs published by C. C. Birchard. Some examples include “Columbus” in 1926, [19] “Sailor’s Home Song” in 1936, [20] and “The Patteran” in 1943. [21]
13. This songbook is discussed in the post for 9 February 2020.
14. “Good News” was recorded by the Fisk University Jubilee Singers (1911, 1916, 1920), the Tuskegee Institute Singers (1914), and the Tuskegee Institute Quartet (1926).
“I Know the Lord” was recorded by the Fisk University Jubilee Singers (1911, 1919, 1920, 1924) and was included Dett’s popular collection.
“I’m Gonna Sing” was included in Dett’s larger collection.
15. “Come Out the Wilderness” was from Helen and Larry Eisenberg. The Pleasure Chest. Nashville, Tennessee: Parthenon Press, 1949.
16. Merrill.
17. “Olive J. Williams dies; music teacher was 84.” The Baltimore Sun, 26 May 1990. 1. Copy posted on the web by rachaelkeriwilliams on 1 November 2019. It has her photograph.
18. Baltimore Sun.
19. Francis Ames. “Columbus.” In Senior Laurel Songs, edited by M. Teresa Armitage. Boston: C. C. Birchard Publishing Company, 1926. [WorldCat entry.] Her song books competed with those of the Concord Institute mentioned in the posts for 5 September 2021 and 5 December 2021. This one also has “Ain’t Gwine Study War No More.”
20. Francis Ames. “Sailor’s Home Song.” In Laurel Glee Book, edited by M. Teresa Armitage. Boston: C. C. Birchard, 1936. [WorldCat entry]. This also has “The Climate” and “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.”
21. Francis Ames. “The Patteran.” In Music Everywhere, edited by M. Teresa Armitage and Peter W. Dykema. Boston: C. C. Birchard and Company, 1943. [WorldCat entry.] This also has “Every time I feel the Spirit” and “Chick-a-hank-a.” The second is included in Look Away which is discussed in the post for 5 February 2023.
Sunday, January 15, 2023
Van Richards - Come By Here
Topic: Kumbaya 1955-1961
Lynn Rohrbough’s Cooperative had been publishing specialized songbooks since the 1940s that were put together by others. Olcutt Sanders’ collection of Spanish-language songs [1] and Flora McDowell’s anthology from eastern Tennessee [2] have been mentioned in previous posts.
He also had been collecting games from international students since that period. [3] At some point, probably after tape recorders became affordable and reliable, Rohrbough began requesting songs. By the 1950s, he was well aware of the associated ethical issues. In 1959, he said he paid Van Richards “for the transcriptions and recordings of twenty songs.” [4]
Rohrbough’s initial impulse, when he was given money to create a series of small songsters for publicity, was to collect some familiar songs. The first was the Song Sampler that included “Kum Ba Yah.” [5] After that, he began organizing his released around themes or nations. In 1958, he was advertising Hungarian Songs, Songs of Asia, and Songs of Japan. He even claimed he had accompanying tape recordings that teachers would rent. [6]
CRS brought the three streams together in 1958 when it produced an African Song Sampler. This may have been the idea of the editor, Walter Anderson. It was double the size of a regular booklet, with a piece of original art on the cover.
The ambitions of the collection were trimmed by the realities of CRS’s resources. Most of the ones from southern Africa came from whites who had spent time there. [8] Anderson also included some songs from published collections. [9]
The best, according to a critic writing for the journal of the African Music Society, were the “rather epigrammic West African ones.” [10] At least some of these were collected by Bliss Wiant [11] at the Student Volunteer Movement convention discussed in the post for 31 July 2022. [12] These probably were the songs from Kenya and Ghana. [13]
Then, there were the five songs from Richards. Four were dance songs, with the drum part notated for three. [14] The other was “Come by Here.” Although it is presented as if it were sung in Liberia, I suspect this particular variant was produced when Richards was asked if he knew the song. He obviously did, and obliged his patron. However, I suspect he had learned it in Columbus where he was a student at Ohio State University.
His version had two of the verses known by Thora Dudley in Alabama in 1956. [15] The melody was in 4/4 which accommodated the pronoun “somebody.” The opening was a 1-1-3-5 adaptation of the CRS tune, rather than the 1-1-1-5-5-5 then in tradition in the South. [16]
While it is possible a Columbus version was the one Kathryn Thompson Good heard at a Buckeye Recreation Workshop in 1954, it is as likely the CRS version was in circulation in the university town. It did show people were repeating “kumbaya”—or “come by here” in this case—after every verse, rather than treating the text as a four-verse song.
Vocal Soloist: single melodic line
Credits
As sung in Liberia. Sung by R. Van Richards.
Songbook inside front cover, © 1958, Lynn Rohrbough, Delaware, Ohio, U.S.A. All rights reserved.
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: no notes
Verses: come by here, dying, needs you, praying
Pronoun: somebody
Term for Deity: Lord
Basic Form: verse-chorus
Ending: none
Unique Features: none
Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: 1-1-3-5-5
Time Signature: 2/4
Tempo: allegretto
Key Signature: two sharps
Basic Structure: strophic repetition
Singing Style: one note to one syllable
Ending: none
Notes on Audience
The critic for the African Music Society complained that the songster was “obviously intended for people brought up in a Western musical tradition, many of the songs have been ‘adapted’ both in the rhythm, and, I suspect in the melodies also.” [17]
That was the nature of Rohrbough’s business. He needed to find materials people would sing. To this end, Anderson held an evening workshop at Antioch in which “75 students from Africa, Europe, and America” gathered. [18] They may have had a draft of the songbook, and their responses may have helped define the final edit. [19]
Max Exner used one song, “Johnny’s My Boy,” in his collection for Iowa 4-H groups. [20] It may only have been “of town origin” and “just the kind of songs sung by most educated Africans who visit the United States.” [21] However, this song is representative of the period when Africans were beginning to publicly criticize colonialism. The key lines are “I sent him to school, to learn how to spell John Bull.” [22]
Notes on Performance
Anderson’s booklet usually had one song on a page, with drawings filling the extra spaces.
Rohrbough reissued the collection in his usual format as African Songs. The map was moved from the back to the center, and was redone in 1961. It has 32, rather than 36 pages. He omitted Anderson’s introduction and Richards’ drawing. “Tina Singu,” mentioned in the post for 4 December 2022, was moved to a more prominent position opposite the index. [23]
Notes on Performers
The coast of Liberia was settled by freed American slaves sent by the American Colonization Society. Its efforts began in 1820. [24] The Kentucky chapter purchased land upriver from Monrovia in 1846 for what became Clay-Ashland. [25]
Ranclieff Vanjah Richards’ first known ancestor was a slave in Rockbridge County in Virginia’s Shenandoah valley. In 1849 and 1850, Othello Richards, bought freedom for himself, his wife, her child, and four others. [26] They settled in Clay-Ashland in 1850. Othello had more children in Liberia where he became a Methodist preacher. [27]
At some time, members of the family became Baptists. By 1882, Carl Burrowes said Methodists and Baptists were about equal in their numbers of members. [28] In 1887, Baptists established a boarding school, Ricks Institute, with money from a Clay-Ashland settler. [29]
Richards grew up in Clay-Ashland, and came to the United States in 1957 to attend Ohio State. He left there for the Chicago Art Institute. [30] CRS used one of his drawings, shown above, to introduce the section of songs from Liberia.
In 1978, Richards was back in this country for the African-American Fulbright Exchange program. He then was the most important sculptor in Liberia and chairman of the Department of Arts and Crafts at the University of Liberia. In a visit to the Ormand Beach Elementary School in Florida, he carved a mask and told the children that, in Liberia,
“death is a cause for celebration because the people believe a person’s troubles are over when he dies.”
He remembered watching “hundreds of people dancing at a traditional” funeral. When he asked where the body lay. He recalls his shock and surprise when told the body was sitting in a chair right next to him, observing the festivities. [31]
The power of the Americo-Liberian elite, of which Richards was a member, was challenged in 1980 when Samuel Doe overthrew the president, and established a military government. He was a member of the Krahn. [32]
Vanjah’s brother, Walter Dossen Richards, was a vocal critic of Doe. The Baptist preacher fled to Ghana in 1990, just before a death squad came looking for him in Clay-Ashland. They killed Vanjah instead. [33] He was buried in white satin. [34]
Availability
Songbook: R. Van Richards. “Come By Here.” 32 in African Song Sampler, edited by Walter F. Anderson. Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service, 1958.
Graphics
Cover: Thango. Abstract Fantasy. Thango was with the Poto Poto Group in Brazzaville; copy provided by African Music Society, Roodepoort, Transvaal, Union of South Africa.
Sketch: R. Van Richards. African Song Sampler. 19.
End Notes
1. The Sanders songbook is discussed in the post for 13 February 2022.
2. Flora McDowell’s songbook is discussed in the post for 12 December 2021.
3. Larry Nial Holcomb. A History of the Cooperative Recreation Service. PhD dissertation. University of Michigan, 1972. 206.
4. Lynn Rohrbough. Letter to Shawnee Press, 16 February 1959. Copy courtesy of Bruce Greene of World Around Songs.
5. Song Sampler, number 1, is discussed in the posts for 31 July 2022 and 7 August 2022.
6. African Song Sampler. 1.
7. Anderson discussed in the posts for 5 February 2023 and 4 June 2023.
8. At least two songs were contributed by C. Newton Beal, Director of Public School Music in Lancaster, Ohio. At least one came from John R. Lepke and his wife. They had spent “five years with the Zulus.” [35] The collection also reprinted “Tina Singu” from Chansons de Notre Chalet. [36]
9. “Crested Crane.” African Song Sampler. 27. From U. S. Committee for UNICEF. Hi Neighbor. New York: Hastings House, 1958, volume 1. Contributed by Akiki from Tora; attributed to Lutora Language, Western Uganda.
“Around the Cliff.” African Song Sampler. 31. From H. C. N. Williams and J. N. Maselwa. African Folk Songs. Keiskammahoek, South Africa: Saint Matthew’s College, 1947, book 1.
Described as a Xhosa Folk Song.
10. A. T. N. T. Review of African Song Sampler. African Music 2(1):86:1958. The society provided the cover art.
11. Wiant is discussed in the post for 2 October 2022.
12. Emanuel Fashade. “O Go!” 26 in African Song Sampler.
13. Lynn Rohrbough. Letter to Shawnee Press, 4 June 1959. “we have copies of tapes of the singing;and the Africans were from Kenya,Ghana.” Uncorrected carbon copy. Copy courtesy of Bruce Greene of World Around Songs.
14. “Nana Kru.” African Song Sampler. 20. Identified as from the Kou Tribe.
“Take Time in Life.” African Song Sampler. 21.
“I Goin’ Chop Crab.” African Song Sampler. 22.
The quadrille without drums is “Kokoleolo.” African Song Sampler. 33.
15. Dudley is discussed in the post for 23 October 2022.
16. The 1-5 melody is discussed in the post for 1 September 2022.
17. A. T. N. T.
18. African Song Sampler. 34.
19. Starting in the 1940s, Rohrbough passed out “broadleaf song sheets” at his square dances “so that the Rohrboughs could test the group response to each new acquisition.” [37]
20. Exner’s collection is discussed in the post for 18 December 2022.
21. A. T. N. T.
22. E. Areequaye Hyde, Accra, Ghana. “Johnny’s My Boy.” African Song Sampler. 13.
23. African Songs. Copyrighted 1958, Lynn Rohrbough, Delaware, Ohio. No current publication information provided, beyond the 1961 map.
24. Ayodeji Olukoju. Culture and Customs of Liberia. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2006. xv.
25. “Clay-Ashland.” Wikipedia website.
26. “Rockbridge County (Va.) Free Negro and Slave Records, 1836-1864.” The Library of Virginia website.
27. Laura Bixby. An Outline History of the Foreign Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Syracuse, New York: 1876. 42-43.
“Liberia Annual Conference.” The African Repository and Colonial Journal 50:240:August 1874.
28. Carl Patrick Burrowes. Power and Press Freedom in Liberia, 1830-1970. Trenton, New Jersey: Africa World Press, 2004. 77.
29. Jeff Brumley. “A Passion to Serve Liberian Baptists.” Baptist News, 4 December 2013.
30. Donna Blanton. “Liberian Entrances Kids With Tales Of Homeland.” Daytona Beach Morning Journal, Daytona Beach, Florida, 8 June 1978.
31. Blanton.
32. “Samuel Doe.” Wikipedia website.
33. Howard Witt. “Descendants Of American Slaves Are Among Liberian Casualties.” Chicago Tribune, 12 June 1990.
34. Terence Samuel. “U.S. Urged To Help End Liberian War.” The Philadelphia Inquirer website, 3 September 1990.
35. Biographical information on Beal and the Lepkes from African Song Sampler. 34.
36. Chansons is discussed in the posts for 27 November 2022 and 4 December 2022. The African Song Sampler has another song, “Ingonyama,” from the same source that is not included in Chansons.
37. Mary Tolbert. Interview by Larry Nial Holcomb, 4 March 1972. Cited by Holcomb. 92.
Sunday, January 8, 2023
Waccamaw Neck - Thomas Smith, Junior
Topic: Early Versions - Waccamaw Neck
The first man to treat the Waccamaw Neck as a land speculator was Thomas Smith, son of the governor discussed in the post for 11 September 2022. The younger Thomas Smith had been born in England before his father emigrated. [1]
The older Smith married the widow of Johan van Aerssen in 1688, and became a wealthy man when she died in 1689. The younger Smith wed Anna Cornelia VanMyddagh the next year [2] when he was twenty-one years old. She had been part of the group recruited by Aerssen. [3]
When the elder Smith died in 1694, his son inherited Medway plantation, but the landgrave title went to Joseph Blake. David Wallace believed Smith elevated Blake, so the man could follow him as governor. [4] Blake served until the Quaker proprietor, John Archdale, arrived in 1695. [5]
Archdale retained Blake as his deputy, and Blake resumed office in 1696 when Archdale returned to England. [6] This is the first time Smith was elected to the Commons House of Assembly. [7]
Two years later, the proprietors rewarded Blake with the share in the colony that they had taken from John Berkeley, because he had not paid his quota. [8] This is probably when Blake restored the landgrave title to the twenty-nine-year-old Smith, for this is when he begins to appear more often in the public record. That year, he and his younger brother George, were granted wharves in Charles Town adjacent to the lot George [9] had inherited from their father. [10]
When Blake died in 1700, the English Civil War was reignited. The differences in religion had subsided, while the political divisions between those who supported the proprietors and those who did not continued. Smith Senior and Blake were part of the first group. James Moore represented the second faction. Moore replaced Blake as governor. His primary interest was making money. [11]
Smith sold his ancestral plantation in 1701 to Edward Hyrne. It then contained 2,550 acres, of which 200 had been cleared and fenced. It showed signs of neglect because the fences needed repairing. Medway apparently still produced dried meat, for Hyrne said he received “150 Head of Cattle, 4 horses,” and one young native slave. [12]
At some time, Smith bought the plantation amassed by John Yeaman’s widow from Moore, [13] who had married Yeaman’s step-daughter. There’s no evidence it had begun growing rice, or was producing any other crop. It’s primary attraction may have been its proximity to Charles Town.
Moore’s elected position as governor was supported by one proprietor, John Grenville, who died in 1701. His son, also John, was described by Alexander Hewat “as an inflexible bigot for the High-church.” [14] Anglicans in England had become disillusioned with William I because he tolerated Scotland’s Presbyterians. [15] They wanted to eliminate an exemption in the Corporation Act of 1661 that allowed dissenters to hold office if they took communion in the Church of England once a year. [16]
They realized the ascension of Anne to the throne in 1702 was their last opportunity before the Hanovers arrived. Charles II had removed Anne from her parents’ Roman Catholic home and had her raised by Anglicans. She supported the Occasional Conformity in 1703, [17] which would bar Dissenters from holding office. It passed the House of Commons, but was rejected by the Lords. [18]
That same year, 1703, the proprietors replaced Moore with Nathaniel Johnson. Eugene Sirmans concluded that “from the time he took office he aimed at the establishment of the Church of England.” [19] He immediately dissolved the Assembly. Anglicans in Berkeley County dominated the election. [20] Smith was not part of the Assembly again until 1706. [21]
In 1704, Johnson called an emergency meeting of the recessed Assembly, and before the Dissenters could arrive, the Anglicans present passed the Exclusion Act that disenfranchised them. Then Johnson pushed though another law that established the Church of England, and proposed dividing the colony into seven parishes. [22]
Smith led protests against Johnson’s action, and was arrested. [23] Many Dissenters considered leaving South Carolina for Pennsylvania, [24] and others agreed to send Joseph Boone to England to confront the proprietors. Grenville had seniority, and overrode Archdale and Anthony Ashley Cooper’s grandson, Maurice Ashley. [25]
Boone then talked to the House of Lords, who agreed Johnson’s act was antithetical to current laws, and recommend Anne intervene, which she did. [26] Johnson responded with a modified Establishment Act. [27]
Smith returned to the Assembly in 1707, where he was elected speaker. [28] He made his brother, George, the colony’s treasurer. [29] Grenville died in December, [30] and the more temperate William Craven became the senior Proprietor. [31]
Johnson retaliated by arresting the leader of the Dissenters, Thomas Nairne, and abolishing the Assembly again. He forced through the division of the colony into parishes, with most of them in the Anglican Berkeley County. [32]
The reorganized proprietors removed Johnson, and appointed Edward Tynte as governor. [33] He died in 1710, and was replaced by Robert Gibbes who secured his election with a bribe. [34] The South Carolina government ceased to function. [35]
In this unsettled period, Robert Daniel claimed 24,000 acres as landgrave along the Waccamaw river on 18 June 1711. [36] He had been a supporter of Moore [37] and Johnson. [38] Even so, he sold the entire claim to Smith the next day. [39] Smith then sold 1,490 acres to Percival Pawley on 10 September 1711. [40]
One may wonder why men who opposed each other over the exclusion of non-Anglicans from power would work together. The answer may be that religion was a proxy for other battles. Sirmans wrote that around 1700, South Carolina had 2,000 dissenters, 1,800 Anglicans, and 400 Huguenots. [41] While Dissenters cared about their faith, many of the Anglicans were indifferent and treated Sunday as a “day of rest and Pleasure.” [42] Their opposition was to having religious observation forced on them, and later paying taxes to support the church. [43]
Nairne was a dissident Anglican [44] whose primary interest was regulating the slave trade. [45] Moore, Daniel, and Smith wanted nothing to inhibit their pursuit of profit.
Soon after Smith purchased the swampy frontier lands on the Waccamaw, the local Indians sent men with John Barnwell against the Tuscaroras in North Carolina in December 1911. They returned with captives to sell. [46]
Meanwhile in Britain, Parliament finally passed the Occasional Conformity Act in December 1711. This kept Dissenters from holding public office in England, but allowed Presbyterians to serve in Scotland as required by the 1707 Act of Union. [47] The Proprietors sent the brother of William Craven over as governor, [48] and Nairne persuaded his followers to accept what could not be changed. [49]
Smith remained unreconciled with the colony. His wife had died in 1710, [50] and, in 1713, he married Hyne’s daughter. [51] The couple moved to his new land grant on the Cape Fear river just north of the border of South Carolina with North Carolina [52] where he defied the colony’s rules on trade with Native Americans. [53]
End Notes
1. John Britton Boney, David Parker, and Michelle Brooks. “Thomas Smith II (abt. 1664 - 1738).” Wiki Tree website, 7 February 2010, last updated 11 September 2022.
2. Boney, Smith.
3. John Britton Boney, Mary Carpenter, and Michelle Brooks. “Anna Cornelia (VanMyddagh) Smith (abt. 1670 - abt. 1710).” Wiki Tree website, 21 March 2011, last updated 4 October 2022. Nothing more has been uncovered about her. Andrew Johnson and Carolyn Arena discovered Aerssen was not a religious refugee, but from a well connected family that planned to invest in Suriname. [54] Aert Theuniszen Middagh of Utrecht was a founder of Brooklyn in New Amsterdam in 1660. [55]
4. David Duncan Wallace. The History of South Carolina. New York: American Historical Society, 1934. 1:129.
5. Archdale had purchased William Berkeley’s share from his widow. [56]
6. “Governors of South Carolina 1670–2021.” South Carolina State House website; original work by A. S. Salley, Jr.
7. Boney, Smith.
8. Edward McCrady. The History of South Carolina under the Proprietary Government, 1670-1719. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1897. 269.
9. George had gone to Scotland to study medicine, but had returned. He was elected to the Assembly for the first time in 1668. [57]
10. A. S. Salley, Jr. “The Introduction of Rice Culture into South Carolina.” Bulletin of the Historical Commission of South Carolina. Columbia, South Carolina: State Company, 1919. Bulletin 6. 22.
11. M. Eugene Sirmans. Colonial South Carolina: A Political History 1663–1764. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1966. 82.
12. Edward Hyrne. Letter to his brother-in-law, 1701. Quoted by Michael J. Heitzler. Goose Creek. Volume One: Planters, Politicians and Patriots. Charleston, South Carolina: The History Press, 2005. 239. His source was Virginia Christian Beach. Medway. Charleston, South Carolina: Wyrick and Company, 1996. 10.
13. Heitzler. 160. While a great-granddaughter believed the transfer occurred around 1693, [58] her knowledge of this period was much embroidered by tradition. Henry Smith found a possible document that suggests Smith owned the land by 1704, and left it that the transfer occurred sometime between 1693 and 1704. [60]
14. Alexander Hewatt. An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia. London: A. Donaldson, 1779. Volume 1, chapter 3, section “Lord Granville palatine.” The senior Grenville was made Earl of Bath by Charles II after the earl during the English Civil War died without leaving an heir. [62] The younger was Lord Granville.
15. Hewatt. Volume 1, chapter 3, section “Lord Granville palatine.”
16. “Occasional Conformity Act 1711.” Wikipedia website, accessed 25 October 2022.
17. “Anne, Queen of Great Britain.” Wikipedia website.
18. Wikipedia, Conformity.
19. Sirmans. 87.
20. Sirmans. 87.
21. Boney, Smith.
22. Sirmans. 87.
23. Wallace. 182.
24. Hewatt. Volume 1, chapter 3, section “The petition of Dissenters to the House of Lords.”
25. Sirmans. 88. Anthony Ashley Cooper included religious toleration in the constitution for the colony in wrote with his secretary, John Locke. [63]
26. Sirmans. 88-89.
27. Sirmans. 89.
28. Wallace. 186.
29. Ryan Matthew McRae. “Dr. George Smith.” Geni website, last updated 30 April 2022.
30. J. D. Lewis. “John Grenville, 1st Baron Granville of Potheridge.” Carolana website, accessed 29 October 2022.
31. Sirmans. 93.
32. Sirmans. 93.
33. Sirmans. 95.
34. Wallace. 188.
35. Sirmans. 96.
36. Henry A. M. Smith. “The Baronies of South Carolina: VI. Winyah Barony.” The South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine 13(1):3-20:January 1912. 5.
37. Smith, Winyah. 4.
38. Smith, Winyah. 5.
39. Smith, Winyah. 5.
40. Rowena Nyland. “Historical Analysis of the Willbrook, Oatland, and Turkey Hill Plantations.” 14-60 in Archaeological and Historical Examinations of Three Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Rice Plantations on the Waccamaw Neck, edited by Michael Trinkley. Columbia, South Carolina: Chicora Foundation, May 1993. 26.
41. Sirmans. 77.
42. Missionary for the Anglican’s Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. Quoted by Sirmans. 77.
43. Sirmans. 93.
44. Sirmans. 81.
45. Sirmans. 89-90.
46. George C. Rogers. The History of Georgetown County, South Carolina. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1970; reprinted by Georgetown County Historical Society, 2002. 10.
47. Wikipedia, Conformity.
48. Governors.
49. Sirmans. 93.
50. Boney, VanMyddagh.
51. Mabel L. Webber. “Hyrne Family.” The South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine 22(4):101-118:October 1921. 105.
52. J. D. Lewis. “A History of Brunswick Town, North Carolina.” Carolana website, accessed 31 October 2022. All of Hyrne’s children were born in Brunswick County, North Carolina, according to entries posted to the Wiki Tree website.
53. Alan Gallay. The Indian Slave Trade. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2002. 322-323.
54. D. Andrew Johnson and Carolyn Arena. “Building Dutch Suriname in English Carolina: Aristocratic Networks, Native Enslavement, and Plantation Provisioning in the Seventeenth-Century Americas.” Journal of Southern History 86:(1):37-74:February 2020.
55. “Aert Theuniszen Middagh.” Geni website, 26 April 2022.
56. McCrady. 270.
57. McRae.
58. Elizabeth Anne Poyas as the Octogenarian Lady, of Charleston, S. C. The Olden Time of Carolina. Charleston, South Carolina: Courtenay and Company, 1855. 19. She was descended from Smith’s son Henry by his second wife, and was buried at Yeaman’s Hall. [59]
59. Find a Grave entries for Elizabeth Ann Scott Poyas, her mother Harriett Smith Scott, her grandfather Henry Smith, and her great-grandfather.
60. Henry A. M. Smith. “Charleston and Charleston Neck: The Original Grantees and the Settlements along the Ashley and Cooper Rivers.” The South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine 19:(1):3-76:January 1918. 69-70. On the Smith side, he is descended from Robert Smith, who migrated as an Anglican minister in 1757. [61]
61. Find a Grave entries for “Henry Augustus Middleton Smith” < “John Julius Pringle Smith” < “Robert Smith Jr.” < “Rev Robert Smith.”
62. “Earl of Bath.” Wikipedia website, accessed 29 October 2022.
63. Sirmans. 14.
Sunday, January 1, 2023
Waccamaw Neck - Geography
Topic: Early Versions - Waccamaw Neck
Locals call the spit of land between the Waccamaw river and the Atlantic ocean a “neck.” That is more an American idiomatic term than a precise one. It also is used in New York. [1]
Merriam-Webster suggests its use with a “narrow stretch of land” is based on a metaphoric application of a “relatively narrow part” like the anatomical section that connects the head with the shoulders. [2]
Wikipedia describes a “neck” as a “narrow stretch of land with water on each side” like an isthmus. [3] Elsewhere it suggests “isthmus” comes from a Greek word meaning “neck.” [4] That term does not apply to Georgetown County because an isthmus connects two pieces of land, and this one terminates in Winyah Bay.
The area around Winyah Bay was official identified as an estuary in 1992, [5] and the mouth of the Santee River, just a few miles south is called a delta. [6] The first refers to the junction of a fresh water river with a saline ocean. [7] Wikipedia limits “delta” to triangular pieces of land, [8] and calls the Winyah Bay a “drowned coastline.” [9] It indicates freshwater deltas occur in subestuaries that include “drowned coastal river valleys that were inundated by rising sea levels during the late Pleistocene.” [10]
Genevieve Willcox Chandler’s brother, Clarke says the eastern shore of the Waccamaw river is “a peninsula varying in width from three to fourteen miles.” He added that, “while this area is a peninsula, it is never spoken of as such.” Instead, “to the tourist and developers it is ‘The Grand Strand’.” [11]
His reference to developers is a clear reminder that the label applied to an area is closely tied to the perceived uses of its real estate. Geographers, who had no particular preconceptions, simply saw it as an exposed part of the ocean floor. That may be the most correct, but is not a concept conducive to settlement.
Wythe Cooke suggests South Carolina’s coastal plain was formed after the Appalachians existed. [12] At the onset of the Miocene, when temperatures began to cool 23.03 million years ago, the coastal area was a nearly level plain. [13] The ocean invaded several times, leaving marine deposits that since have been eroded. The land was exposed during the Pliocene, which began 5.1 million years ago, and then was drowned again during much of the Pleistocene. [14]
The falls and rises of the ocean, which accompanied the ebbs and flows of the glaciers, created seven distinct terraces between the Piedmont and the modern shore. [15] When the ice melted, sea levels rose and covered the plain. When temperatures fell and ice reformed, the water retreated leaving the old shore as a rise in elevation.
Georgetown County is on the most recent terrace, the Pamlico, which reaches as far north as Pamlico Sound in North Carolina [16] where New Berne is located. Its inland boundary is 25' above sea level. [17] The land of Hezekiah Maham is at this boundary with the Talbot terrace. [18]
The Pee Dee is the nearest through-flowing. It enters the ocean at Winyah Bay. The Waccamaw, which joins with it in the bay, was created after the Pamlico terrace was formed. [19] The Waccamaw Neck rises between the river and the continental shelf that extends underwater. Cooke describes it as “a very impermanent boundary, that shifts a little with every change of tide and even with changes in the direction of the wind.” [20]
As part of the ocean floor it is subject to daily tides that spread salt water along the east coast. These rise “from six to eight feet at neap tides, and from eight to ten feet at spring tides; they are however much influenced by wind.” [21] The water has left deposits that have formed a sandy ridge [22] that stops the salty water. The action of the tides continue for another fifteen miles, that flood the western side of the neck with fresh water. [23]
The red highway on the United States Geological Survey map, which includes Murrells Inlet where Chandler lived, generally follows that ridge a little to the east. The gold lines are .91 miles apart, so settlement in 2016 began about two miles from the ocean. The area between it and sea would have been dominated by salt-water marshes. [24]
The curving dark brown line, most easily seen at the bottom left, indicates ground to the west of the sand ridge that is at least 20' above sea level. From its location near the Waccamaw on the above map, it moves inland, suggesting a stronger land core with later sedimentary deposits to the south. The land that formed the plantation where Hagar Doctor Brown lived, [27] The Oaks, is defined as an island by geologists.
The climate is semi-tropical with the Gulf Stream just fifty miles offshore. [28] Short winters and plentiful rainfall encourage the growth of palmettos on the coast, and cypress inland. [29] The top eight inches of silty clay sits over three or more feet of black mucky material created, in part, by rotting vegetation. [30] In 1809, David Ramsay noted:
“when we penetrate through river swamps, we frequently meet with the trunks of large trees which appear to have been buried for ages; and that as far as these swamps have been penetrated, they consist of a rich blue clay in a black soft mould.” [31]
When Englishmen arrived, much of the area would have been heavily timbered swamp land. [32] What land was exposed was sand. Ramsay believed “the swamps and low grounds were of forbidding aspect, thickly wooded and hard to clear; and when they were cleared were not adapted to any productions with which the inhabitants for the first twenty-four years of the settlement were acquainted.” [33]
No one mentioned the other deterrent to settlement: snakes and other dangerous animals that must have inhabited the virgin wetlands. Ben Horry told Chandler one tale about a runaway slave who hid in a hollow log where a snake crawled over him and another memorat about a bull killed by a rattlesnake. [A] Brown and John Simmons mentioned recent deadly snake bites. [35]
Graphics
United States, Department of the Interior. Geological Survey. Selections from “Brookgreen Quadrangle, South Carolina, 7.5 Minute Series.” 2014.
End Notes
1. “Neck: Long Island’s Favorite Geographical Term.” City-Data website, accessed 23 October 2022.
2. “Neck Noun.” Merriam-Webster website, accessed 23 October 2022.
3. “Glossary of Geography Terms.” Wikipedia website, accessed 23 October 2022.
4. “Isthmus.” Wikipedia website, accessed 23 October 2022.
5. “North Inlet-Winyah Bay NERR.” University of South Carolina website, accessed 24 October 2022.
6. T. Edward Nickens. “The Water Way.” South Carolina Wildlife Magazine, May–June 2012.
7. “Estuary.” National Geographic website, accessed 24 October 2022.
8. “River Delta.” Wikipedia website, accessed 24 October 2022.
9. “Winyah Bay.” Wikipedia website, accessed 24 October 2022.
10. Wikipedia, Delta.
11. Clarke Willcox. “Preface to Historical Sketches.” 1967. 105 in Clarke A. Willcox. Musings of a Hermit. Charleston, South Carolina: Walker, Evans and Cogswell Company, seventh edition, second printing, 1986. Genevieve is introduced in the post for 15 December 2022.
12. C. Wythe Cooke. Geology of the Coastal Plain of South Carolina. Washington, DC: United States Department of the Interior, Bulletin 867, 1938. 1.
13. Cooke. 5.
14. Cooke. 4.
15. Cooke. 6.
16. Cooke. 6. Minnie Lee, who knew a version of “O Lord. Won’t You Come by Here?” in Pamlico County, North Carolina, is mentioned in the post for 8 December 2019.
17. Cooke. 7.
18. Maham is discussed in the posts for 13 November 2022 and 20 November 2022.
19. Cooke. 12.
20. Cooke. 3.
21. David Ramsay. The History of South-Carolina. Charleston, South Carolina: David Longworth, 1809. Reprinted as Ramsay’s History of South Carolina. Newberry, South Carolina: W. J. Duffie, 1858. 2:166.
22. W. E. McLendon, G. A. Crabb, Earl Carr, and F. S. Welsh. “Soil Survey of Georgetown County, South Carolina.” 513-562 in Field Operations of the Bureau of Soils, 1911. Washington, DC: United States Department of Agriculture, 1914. 529-530.
23. McLendon. 3.
24. McLendon. 514.
25. McLendon. 538.
26. James L. Michie. “An Initial Archeological Survey of the Wachesaw/Richmond Plantation Property, Georgetown County, South Carolina.” Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina, The Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology, April 1984. 1.
27. Brown is introduced in the post for 15 December 2022.
28. McLendon. 517.
29. McLendon. 517-518.
30. McLendon. 554. Cooke classed the soils as Pamlico Formation and said they were “chiefly of fine sand and blue or gray clay.” [36]
31. Ramsay. 2:152.
32. McLendon. 520.
33. Ramsay. 2:112.
34. Ben Horry. “Uncle Ben Horry.” 2:219-225 in Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves – South Carolina Narratives. Compiled by The Library of Congress from interviews by the Works Projects Administration, Federal Writers’ Project. Washington: Library of Congress, 1941. 2:221-222.
Reprinted in Coming Through: Voices of a South Carolina Gullah Community from WPA Oral Histories Collected by Genevieve W. Chandler, edited by Kincaid Mills, Genevieve C. Peterkin, and Aaron McCollough. Columbia: The University of South Carolina Press, 2008. 92.
35. Hagar Doctor Brown. “Mom Hager.” Slave Narratives, volume 1. Reprinted in Coming Through. 17.
John Simmons. Quoted in Coming Through. 318.
36. Cooke. 149.