Stories of people who sang shape-note music

 

Memory shared by Wayne Diehl:

My gr. gr. gr. grandfather Mathias Diehl, 1815-1876, was not a preacher, but he was a life-long Dunkard. He was born near Cross Keys and died at Diehl’s Ford on North River. Mathias Diehl was buried at Mill Creek Church of the Brethren. He married Sarah Elizabeth Hartman, and her nephew was Peter S. Hartman, 1847-1914, a well-known Mennonite Elder in the Harrisonburg area. My grandfather’s, Earl Cline Diehl, Sr. (1893-1958), first cousin was Ethel Diehl Bauserman, 1906-1990. I purchased the Mathias Diehl song book from Ethel in the 1980’s. She kept many old family artifacts, and had a lot of stories. I recorded several conversations with her. An excerpt from one of them follows.

Ethel: “Well you know at that time they had singing schools. And practically anybody that could sing at all went to singing school. But you know a good many of the Diehl’s were very musical. But I’m not so sure as they got that from the Diehl’s or the Hartmans. Now so many of them married the Hartmans, and the Hartmans are very musical people. … Well anyway, they had tunes, and they learned certain tunes. And they just had the words, and they didn’t have the tunes (in the hymn books). Now that was one they used at singing school.

“Well what I started to tell you about the Hartmans. Now most of the Hartmans were very good at singing. And then this George Hartman – he was the one that had all these brothers that died – George was one; I believe the youngest one in the family. He married, and he lived across from my great grandmother Showalter on the other side. And (great) Aunt Mattie used to tell the story about – they lived right across the river from them. Now they had six boys and three girls, I believe. They were all very musical, and Aunt Mattie (Martha Harshbarger Diehl, 1861-1950) used to say, ‘When Margaret (Margaret Harshbarger Bowman, 1866-1920) and I was young, we had something better than a graphaphone [sic] to listen to.’ They had graphaphones [sic] about that time.

‘We’d hurry up with our work every night and sit out on the front porch and listen to music that sounded like it was coming from heaven!

-Ethel Diehl Bauserman quoting Martha Harshbarger Diehl

‘We’d hurry up with our work every night and sit out on the front porch and listen to music that sounded like it was coming from heaven! Every evening in the summertime they would sit out in the yard and sing.’ She said, ‘I always thought it was the river and the water that made it sound like it was just coming down from heaven.'”

Wyant and Baugher families

Subscribers to the Southern Musical Advocate and Singer’s Friend and the Musical Million magazines listed in the ledger book records from the Joseph Funk and Sons and Ruebush-Kieffer companies correlate with subscriber lists which were published in the Southern Advocate, and the Musical Million. For example, Robert Harrison Wyant (1838-1910) is on the list of subscribers for the Southern Musical Advocate and Singer’s Friend in Conrad’s Store (later Elkton) Virginia in 1859 on page 21.¹

His second wife, Lucy Ann (Naylor) Wyant is listed as one of the new subscribers in 1880 which was printed in the Musical Million. His brother Jesse Wyant (1835-1931) is listed on the Musical Million subscribers ledger in 1885-1886 in Elkton, Virginia. Jesse Wyant’s son, Charles David Wyant (1861-1934) is listed as a subscriber in the Musical Million ledger for 1899-1900 living in Roadside, Virginia. (page 44 of 1899-1900)

This shape-note music book belonged to Jesse Wyant who lived in Beldore, Virginia.

Jesse Wyant’s daughter, Leannah (Betty) Wyant married George Scott Baugher. The Baugher family lived in Swift Run, Virginia and went to the church there that was torn down for the Shenandoah National Park. George Scott Baugher’s brother Joseph Wilson Baugher’s family is shown below in a photo taken near the church at Swift Run.

The United Brethren Church in Swift Run is an example of how the United Brethren church members used shape-note hymnals from multiple sources. They used hymnbooks published locally and from far away. They used hymnbooks published by the Ruebush-Kieffer Company in Dayton, from Showalter, Holsinger & Perry Bros. in Bridgewater Va, and from The Biglow & Main Co. and John Church Co. located in New York, Chicago, and Cincinnati.

Civil War music memory

Aldine Kieffer, Joseph Funk’s grandson,  recalled a significant memory about one of his experiences during the Civil War about music.²

During this most memorable year of the war, 1862, a most notable incident, musically speaking occurred. The opposing armies of the C. S. A. and the U.S. A. were encamped along the Rappahannock River, the U.S. A. on the north bank, and the C. S. A. on the south. A great battle was pending. I need not tell of that, as historians have described it in detail. But the incident I desire to relate was a purely musical one, and one which proves the power of music over the hearts, brains and souls of men endured even to the hardships of war.One of the bandmasters of our old division conceived the happy idea of giving the Yankees a serenade, not with shot and shell, but by blowing them up with brass horns.

One of the bandmasters of our old division conceived the happy idea of giving the Yankees a serenade, not with shot and shell, but by blowing them up with brass horns.

Accordingly, permission was asked of the general commanding for the bands to pass beyond the picket lines, which was granted. Our bands reached the water’s edge and began the serenade by playing “Hail Columbia” and “The Star-Spangled Banner”. This aroused a kindly feeling in the hearts of the Yankee bandmen, who were soon of the riverbank opposite us, and the tones of “Dixie’s Land” and “Bonnie Blue Flag” floated across the river to greet us. Officers in uniforms and men in the ranks forgot all laws of the military code to such an extent as to pass through the picket lines until both armies were facing each other, not with weapons of war, but with human hearts full of love and sympathy and filled with a desire for peace. This little serenade, however, attracted the attention of the high officials, and very suddenly an end was put to the kindly courtesies given by musicians of the contending armies to one another. The last strains played from brass bands on that night were “Home, Sweet Home”. How many a weary soldier lay down that night to dream of home and loved ones, eternity alone may tell. The incident recited speaks loudly of the influence of music upon our natures. The two great armies, then encamped and preparing for a death struggle, would have laid down their arms, shaken hands, and said in fervency, “Let us have peace”. This was the only musical incident of 1862 to which I shall refer.

 

African Americans singing in the United Brethren Church

Directly following the end of the Civil War, the United Brethren Church set up a Freedmen’s mission for the African Americans in the valley. Starting in 1883, Reverend Theodore K. Clifford was the pastor of the Freedmen’s mission in the Shenandoah Valley for twenty-five years. Upon the death of Clifford in 1908, A. P. Funkhouser wrote that Clifford “was a good preacher himself and enjoyed a gospel sermon and believed in experimental religion. He was a good singer and often led the soul-stirring singing of his people.”³⁴

Another African American reverend in Harrisonburg for the United Brethren Church was Rev. G.A. Newman. In 1965 his daughter Hattie Newman Rice recalled “going with her father to his several preaching appointments as a United Brethren, and of leading the singing for him.”⁵