History of the Hutchinson Family
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[A brief history of Story of the Hutchinsons follows this table of contents.]
> Volume 1
Introduction by Frederick Douglass
Chapter 1: The Tribe of JesseChapter 2: Beginnings of Song
Chapter 3: Singing for Freedom
Chapter 4: In England
Chapter 5: In Scotland
Chapter 6: A Good Time Coming
Chapter 7: Lights and Shadows
Chapter 8: In the Great West
Chapter 9: The Swarming
Chapter 10: In War Time
Chapter 11: Moral Reform Work
> Volume 2
Chapter 1: Crusading for TemperanceChapter 2: Across the Continent
Chapter 3: Looking Toward Sunset
Chapter 4: An Old-Time Yankee Family
- Part One: Jesse, David, Noah, Mary, Andrew, Zephaniah, Caleb, Joshua, Jesse Jr.
- Part Two: Jesse Jr. (continued), Benjamin, Judson, Rhoda, Asa
- Part Three: Asa (continued), Elizabeth Maryann, Abby
Chapter 5: American Songs and Their Interpretation
Appendix
It seems doubtful that a lot of people read the back matter in Vol. 2 of Story of the Hutchinsons. Yet, that section includes some very useful information. My solution to this problem is to quote or paraphrase key passages, from the appendix, in footnotes in the main chapters of this book. In addition, I am in the process of posting the "Sister Abby's Letters" section of the Appendix right now. I may add other sections at some later time. To do so would be ideal. But most likely after I finish posting Abby's letters, I'll concentrate on the footnotes in the main chapters. To tell the truth, I have reprinted Story of the Hutchinsons on the Web in large part as a practice run for similarly publishing my own Hutchinson Family biography. It's not at all out of the question that I'll get started on that project next. It is complete and in self-edited form. I have gone so far as to make copies of two chapters, both of which I have revised slightly. Anyway, time will tell what comes next. At the moment, these are just random notions.
John W. Hutchinson started work on writing and compiling a "Hutchinson Family memorial" by the early 1870s. It was finally published under the name, Story of the Hutchinsons, in 1896. The quarter of a century - or close to it - that this work took is a story unto itself.
It is implied that John Hutchinson maintained an extensive set of diaries for decades, toward the goal of using them as an aid in writing a major family history. His daughter Viola - in her own memoir, without making specific reference to diaries - said that Story of the Hutchinsons "necessitated the keeping of many records." [Viola Hutchinson Campbell, Memories of a Busy Life (Plymouth, Mass.: privately printed [The Rogers Print], 1926), 5.] Then near the back of his brother Joshua's 1874 Brief Narrative, John announced that his own book was forthcoming. Apparently not a lot happened with this project until the late winter or spring of 1876, when John began working with
By the late 1880s, John's sister Abby Hutchinson Patton became heavily involved in work on the Hutchinson family memorial. Available evidence points to the pace picking up - a lot. But sometime in the first half of 1891, hundreds of manuscript pages came up missing; and as far as is known, they have never been recovered. By the following year, Sister Abby's health was failing fast. She died in late 1892. At that point, John had to start pretty much all over. Late in 1893, he began working with an assistant - Mrs. Mary E. McDonald, a very attractive widow in her twenties; but the writing didn't go well, and in mid-1894 McDonald sued John for breach of promise to marry. "She didn't suit me, but she sued me," he said, no doubt with a chuckle. That collaboration came to an abrupt close.
Sister Abby said something about her own work on the Hutchinson family memorial that could just as well speak for her brother. In a July 17, 1892 letter to John, she said, "I wish I could get some work done on the history. Have the notes, but want some one to put them together in right form." In the second half of 1894 or, more likely, in 1895, John found just such a person. Charles E. Mann was the editor of the Lynn Daily Press, which operated from 1889 to early 1895. Mann's newspaper stopped publishing on or not long after January 26, 1895. My best guess, then, is that it was around this time that Mann started working with John on this book. He and John worked out an arrangement that may have been similar to the approach John had in mind to start with. John for the most part used his diaries as a chronological outline for this story of the Hutchinsons. As he read through their pages, he dictated the family history largely from memory, while Charles Mann took dictation. Finally, Mann edited the work with a light hand - too light for many readers, but not this one. The result is John's Story of the Hutchinsons in two volumes. An interesting side note is that, while many think that Story of the Hutchinsons should have been edited for length, in the early 20th century John told a reporter that at one point he had actually started work on a third volume.
John Hutchinson has been criticized for concentrating too much, in his writing, on himself and his own branch of the family; and it would have been great if he had given us more details about the other Hutchinsons, particularly Asa who was so long in the concert and social reform fields. It is readily apparent from a couple letters written by Oliver Dennett Hutchinson late in life that, if brought into this collaboration, say, by way of correspondence, Dennett could have added much important information regarding his father, Asa B. Hutchinson, and their family. But it's also true that what John knew best was his own story and that of the various members of the Tribe of John. And it must be said that, in most cases, John gave us more information about the other Hutchinsons than they gave us about themselves. So while John is certainly open to this reasonable criticism, it's probably valid less so than one might first think. He tried to tell the story of the Hutchinsons as best he could, and he was remarkably successful. No one else of his generation did better.
John's younger brother Asa was the original Hutchinson family historian. He wrote by far the most extensive early journal entries, compiled the original vocal group's songsters, and served as something like the executive editor for the first biography, the Book of Brothers. He also gathered and preserved an outstanding collection of papers. Perley Derby researched and published an amazing Hutchinson family genealogy, covering a period well up into the 1860s. And Sister Abby's husband, Ludlow Patton, pulled together his masterful Hutchinson Family Scrapbook, which pretty much defines the phrase, wealth of knowledge. These three, along with Brother John, were the Hutchinson family historians of the nineteenth century. They made life a great deal easier for those who followed.
John W. Hutchinson's Story of the Hutchinsons is a classic memoir of lives in music.
Though I'm adding a lot of notes to John W. Hutchinson's text, I'm trying to avoid straying too far from the parts of the tale he chose to tell. Where there are sizeable holes in John's account, I'll probably fill those holes elsewhere, in various articles or in another book. It would be a mistake to assume that, because Story of the Hutchinsons is so long, it's complete. It is nothing of the kind. The total amount of available information about members of the Hutchinson Family, their friends, co-workers, and kin is staggering. These notes do little more than scratch the surface. If you have specific questions or information to share, please use the contact link toward the bottom of the page to e-mails us.
Copyright © 2005 by Alan Lewis. All rights reserved. Used with permission.