Date of "The Southern Harmony" edition

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The Southern Harmony as listed here shows a publication date of 1835. I understand that was the date of the first edition, but there were a few revisions until 1854. I can't find the copyright page, or any page showing dates, in the page scans of the edition shown here. The reason why I question the date 1835 is because the index here includes Happy Land, which is asserted to be written by Andrew Young in 1838. And at least one other source asserts the tune was arranged by Breedlove in 1850.

The earliest source I found elsewhere claims to be 1847 in the metadata, but the preface shows it to be the 1854 edition.


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Some of the Southern Harmony pages also show multiple page scans that are not identical for the same page. The whole thing seems to be an amalgam of different sources. Not clear if any of it is actually from the 1835 edition.

The Breedlove 1850 note probably refers to the arrangement of the tune in an 1860 or later edition of the Sacred Harp. (Just a guess. But a number of tunes in the 1991 Sacred Harp (Denson) say they're by, or arranged by, Breedlove in 1850.)

The "Southern Harmony" on Hymnary came from the Christian Classic Ethereal Library. I think it was the first hymnal added to Hymnary. The pioneers who added it followed different procedures than our current procedures which have evolved over the years. It looks from the Title page and the Preface that it is actually a new enlarge edition dated 1854. I've changed the 1835 date to 1854.

Yes, I think it was scanned from a modern reprint of the 1854 edition.

The Southern Harmony was not only the first hymnal added to Hymnary, but also the first hymnal added to CCEL.org and, in fact, the first hymnal anywhere on the Internet as far as I know. It dates back to about 1997 or so.

There is also an 1845 edition now available on IMSLP -- a little closer to 1835, but regrettably the first edition is still not available, as far as I can see.