Newport’s Lost Music
A.M. Schacht’s Dance Album, courtesy of the Library of Congress Digital Archives.
Every week we discover more music with ties to Newport diverse past. To date we have over 1000 titles (both digital and physical copies) in our collection, including:
Over 600 works for Piano.
Over 150 works for Voice and Piano.
Over 100 works for Band or Orchestra.
Even though we find the name of a composition, we are not always able to find the music. We continue to search for this music and hope to make it so that none of Newport’s historical music is lost.
Even when we find music it may not be complete. That is the case with A.M. Schacht’s Dance Album, pictured above. We only have 5 of the 6 parts in the 6-instrument arrangement and we have been unable to find the 10-instrument version. We want to hear Daniel Weigand’s “Fort Adams” March.
Here is just a small sample of the music we are looking for, and almost every day we add more titles to the “temporarily lost” files.
Occramer Marycoo
Occramer Marycoo, also known by his enslaved name Newport Gardner, was an early composer and teacher in Newport. You can read more about his life here. He is credited with composing a work titled Crooked Shanks which still exists today. The researcher who credited him had some second thoughts, and we will never be 100% certain he composed the piece. But we do know that he composed Promise Anthem based on articles like the one below from 1874. The music for Promise Anthem is thought to be gone, but we continue our work to find it and his other possible compositions.
Stella Moran
We are very familiar with Newport composer John E. Mullaly. When we posted a photo of his song Down in Dear Old Newport Town, we received a message from the family of Stella Moran, who was, for a time, married to Mullaly. They gave us some information on a work they composed together, and we were able to find mentions of the music in a newspaper and in a catalogue of copyright entries from 1910. But where is the music? As of know it remains unfound, but we are still searching for it.
Sgt. Richard Donovan
Sgt. Richard Donovan served at Fort Adams. We were sent a digital copy of this letter by his family with the hope that we could hunt down the music John Philip Sousa is describing. We sent out inquiries to libraries, professional bands, and musical institutions all over the country and have yet to find the Reverie.
Letter from John Philip Sousa to Richard Donovan, courtesy of Donovan’s family.
Bandmaster John T. Freeman, U.S.A.
John T. Freeman, of the Band of the 7th Coastal Artillery Corps. at Fort Adams, was one of the most respected Army band leaders of his time. We know a lot of information about his time serving in the Amry at Fort Adams and before in New Mexico. We also know he is a composer, based on this advertisement which appears in a number of music journals in 1897. The Dominant was a monthly music publication which included a supplement of band music. The July supplement contains a march by J.T. Freeman. Every library with The Dominant on microfilm is missing that supplement.
Advertisement for “The Dominant” music supplement, 1897
Musician 1st Class Joseph Peckham, U.S.N.
Thanks to the Library of Congress, we have many scores and parts by Joseph S. Peckham. But even in the music at the Library of Congress, there are incomplete sets. The “President’s Own” United States Marine Corps Band and the Band of the United States Naval Academy were generous enough to get us additional copies of his music. More of his compositions appear in concert programs across the country, giving us more titles to search for.
Our hopes are to find these works and the many other titles we have been unable to find music for. All of this music is important to not just our history, but to the families of those musicians who want to know more about those who came before them.
How can you support our work? Our 2024 Summer Drive for Music History is in full swing and your donations will help give us the resources to find more music important to Newport’s history. Thank you for your support!