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In September, the Hutchinson Family sang in New Hampshire and down to Boston.   At Milford, the hall rang with applause; and the notice in the Farmers' Cabinet was full of praise for John, Asa, Abby, and Nellie Gray.  "Joshua excelled especially in his favorite song, 'There's no time like the old time,' and Oliver Dennett in the song, 'Mother says I mustn't.'  Dennett appeared several times during the evening and received most complimentary favor from those present."

Evidently as soon as the reunion tour was over, Asa made a quick trip to Maine, possibly to attend the wedding of the daughter of a lady friend.  Then on Wednesday, September 20, 1876, he married that lady friend, Mrs. Joanna C. Powers, at Bangor.

The Hutchinsons returned to the Centennial Exhibition and gave more concerts.   Their singing company now consisted of Joshua and members of John's and Asa's families, and sometimes they were joined by their friends Bernard Covert and Walter Kittredge.

By this time, Asa had made a most important addition to his group  -  soprano Ella M. Ramsdell of Boston.  Described in one notice as tall and frank-looking, she had a fine voice which she managed quite well.

The Hutchinson Family gave a concert in the Exhibition's central building on November 1.  This large ensemble included John, Fanny, Henry, Viola  -  and old friend Charles Sohier  -  from the Tribe of John.  Asa's branch was represented by himself, Joanna, Abby, Dennett, and Ella Ramsdell.  Brother Joshua and Walter Kittredge were also prominent members of this expanded chorus.  The same lineup gave several concerts at Horticultural Hall.  On New Hampshire Day, a group consisting of John Hutchinson and Abby and Ludlow Patton sang "One Hundred Years Hence" and "The Old Granite State."

The Hutchinson Family continued singing, evidently until the great Exhibition closed  -  with Joshua in nearly all the groups.  But the Centennial was among the last major events in his long, distinguished career.  Not much later, he began showing symptoms of the dread disease, consumption.  John wrote that Joshua was practically deprived of his singing voice after this, because of illness.

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John and Asa each wanted to give a series of concerts around Philadelphia, but Asa got the jump on his older brother.  And no wonder  -  his company was almost evenly divided between singers and business people.  Samuel Anderson, Abby's husband, served as general manager.  Joanna Hutchinson was named secretary and treasurer, probably with an emphasis on the latter post.  And skilled agent John H. Pilley booked their engagements.

1876 was a big year for Brother Asa, and his good fortune was not about to run out now.  His fine quartet was made up of himself, his daughter Abby, Dennett, and Ella Ramsdell.  John Pilley was getting them many engagements.  And Asa had a number of popular new original songs, including  "Our Army of the Dead"  and  "The Stranger on the Sill."

Viola was invited to spend the winter with her father-in-law at Cherry Valley, New York.   Judge Campbell wanted to see the children again; and, in fact, he had never seen his granddaughter Kate.  So John lost Viola's voice, and neither could he count on Henry's services.  At the Centennial he had met two young Welshmen  -  David D. Hughes, tenor, and Evan G. Hughes, bass.  John needed singers; they had good voices and needed money.  Deal.  The new group made a tour through Baltimore to Washington.  This lineup seems to have been very popular, for they gave a string of thirty concerts in various halls and churches.  On March 14, 1877, John's party was given a social hour at the White House.  The Hayes family was celebrating, belatedly, the twenty-first birthday of their son Webb.  The singers included John, Fanny, Judson, and the Hughes brothers.

After their Washington engagements, the group  -  still including Fanny and Judson  -  made a trip to Chicago, where they spent several eventful weeks.  In Pennsylvania back in some prior year, the Hughes brothers had been impressed by the singing of a girl who had since moved to Chicago; and they suggested that John go to hear her.  Her name was Lillie C. Phillips; and she was now a young woman of twenty-three who, according to John, was a vocalist "with culture and experience, having appeared in concert with Annie Louise Cary and other celebrated people. . . .   Her voice and manner pleased me so much that with Fanny I called at her home, Millard Avenue.  She came after that by invitation and sang at one of our concerts.   I then began to consider the feasibility of securing her as a member of my company, and after our return from Chicago my wife kept in correspondence with her."

Meanwhile, Asa's company was completing a series of shows around Philadelphia that ran from September 1876 to May 1877.  His repertoire now included "The Hebrew Children" and Walter Kittredge's new song, "Goodbye, Uncle Caleb."  Among the group's most popular pieces were "A Thousand Leagues Away," with lyrics by W. C. Bennett and music by J. Barnby; "Under the Daisies," lyrics by George Cooper and music by Harrison Millard; and the spiritual, "Nobody Knows."

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A notice of a concert at Manayunk described Abby Anderson as wearing a  "dark dress, with sleeves of cardinal red, and possessing one of the thoughtful faces that suggest the stars above the stars, the sky behind the sky."  Dennett was well-dressed, with an immense turn-down collar, and was said to excel at the livelier pieces.  Asa looked like a bust of Shakespeare.  With a sandy beard and mustache, he had  "an omnipresent twinkle that illuminates the countenance, not to say the audience room."  Asa was said to announce the songs  "in a pleasant, conversational way that is very taking."  Ella M. Ramsdell's soprano was wonderful; and  "Hannah's at the Window Binding Shoes,"  her duet with Asa, was "skilfully put, and the scene on the coast of Marblehead became painfully real."  On the first song,  "Hear, Father, Hear Our Prayer,"  Asa played an overture on the organ, which merged  "insensibly into the strain now taken up by the full quartette."  The melody  -  "so imperceptibly it rises and with such melting harmony."   "Snow Bound,"  Asa's musical setting of John G. Whittier's well-loved verses, was new.

Asa's company gave around 145 or 150 concerts in this Philadelphia series.  The group sang to good houses, and their reviews were flattering.  For a man who had been entertaining for thirty-five years, Asa showed a surprising willingness to add a lot of new songs to his repertoire.  Ella M. Ramsdell proved to be a real find; and she, along with Abby and Dennett, brought youth and vitality to the Tribe of Asa.  This six-month stand was a spectacular achievement for the company.

Asa's group sang before an audience of nearly 3,000 at their farewell benefit concert.   "Snow Bound"  and  "The Creed of the Bells,"  said the Philadelphia Press,  "pleased exceedingly the audience in attendance."  "The success of the Hutchinson Family during their present stay in our city has been unprecedented in the annals of even this successful family."

In the summer of 1877,  James N. Buffum was negotiating to sell to the City of Lynn the real estate that both he and the Hutchinsons claimed to own.  John on at least one occasion referred to this dispute as a feud,  and it continued to simmer.  "The title to the property,"  he said,  "was so cloudy that there was no purchase."

This matter was probably of equal interest to Asa,  as he still owned half of what had been Jesse's land.  Asa and Joanna were in the area in July,  and they spent a day in Boston with Abby, Ludlow, and John's family.  Then in company with the Pattons,  Asa and his wife left for Bangor, Maine.  Abby became severely ill at Old Orchard Beach.  She and Ludlow returned to Milford,  where they spent part of the summer.  Abby wrote that she  "seemed to have risen from the grave"  to go there.