1872 - 1960 Meter: 8.6.8.6.8.6 with refrain Translator of "Huron Carol" in Songs for Life Middleton, Jesse Edgar. (Wellington County, Ontario, November 3, 1872--May 27, 1960, Toronto, Ont.). United Church. Although he trained as a teacher, he turned to journalism in 1895. After learning his new trade, he became the Montreal Herald's correspondent in Quebec, and was there when Ernest Myrand brough out Noels anciens de la Nouvelle-France (1899), containing a French version of the carol which Father Brebeuf, S.J., had written in 1641 for the Huron, whose descendents had handed it on by oral tradition.
He then came to Toronto as a special writer for The Mail and Empire, and from 1942 onward, for Saturday Night as well; meanwhile, he served Centennial Church as choirmaster for about 40 years. With all this, he managed to produce several books on the history of Toronto and Ontario; though not an academic, neither was he a dilettante, and the leading scholars of the province were glad to work with him. His pamphlet on The First Canadian Carol came out in 1927, simultaneously with the first volume of his History of Ontario, in which Brebeuf's mission forms the earliest fully-documented episode; hence we may believe that Middleton knew what he was about in preparing "'Twas in the moon of winter-time."
--Hugh D. McKellar, DNAH Archives
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Jesse Edgar Middleton, 1872-196
Born: November 3, 1872, Pilkington, Ontario, Canada.
Died: May 27, 1960, Toronto, Canada.
Buried: Fort Macleod, Alberta, Canada.
Son of a Methodist minister, Middleton attended Dutton High School and the Strathroy Collegiate Institute, then taught school for three years. He then worked for three years as a proofreader for a publisher in Cleveland, Ohio, and later became music critic for the Mail and Empire. In 1904, he joined The News. He also led the choir at the Centennial Methodist Church, and sang in the Mendelssohn Choir.
Sources: Stulken, p. 175
Translations "’Twas in the Moon of Wintertime"
--www.hymntime.com/tch
Jesse Edgar Middleton
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