GOLDEN HILL

Composer (attributed to): Lucius Chapin

Lucius Chapin, 1760-1842 Born: Ap­ril 25, 1760, Long­mea­dow (near Spring­field), Mass­a­chu­setts. Died: De­cem­ber 24, 1842, Ham­il­ton Coun­ty, Ohio. Buried: Orig­in­al­ly at Wal­nut Hills Cem­e­te­ry, Cin­cin­na­ti, Ohio in 1842. Re­in­terred at Spring Grove Cem­e­te­ry, Cin­cin­na­ti, Ohio, Jan­u­ary 26, 1858. Lucius’ bro­ther was Am­zi Cha­pin. In 1775, Lu­ci­us joined the Con­ti­nent­al Ar­my in Bos­ton as a fi­fer; re-en­list­ing in 1776, he served at the Bat­tles of Ti­con­der­o­ga and Still­wa­ter, and en­dured the in­fa­mous win­ter of 1777-8 at Val­ley Forge, Penn­syl­van­ia, with George Wash­ing­ton. Af­ter the war, he con­duct­ed sing­ing schools in Ve… Go to person page >

Composer (attributed to): Ananias Davisson

Ananias Davisson (February 2, 1780 – October 21, 1857) was a singing school teacher, printer and compiler of shape note tunebooks. Davisson was born February 2, 1780 in Shenandoah County, Virginia. He spent his last years living on a farm at Weyer's Cave, about 14 miles from Dayton, Virginia, and died October 21, 1857. He is buried in the Massanutten-Cross Keys Cemetery, Rockingham County, Virginia. Davisson was a member and ruling elder of the Presbyterian Church. He is best known for his 1816 compilation the Kentucky Harmony (Harrisonburg, Virginia), which is generally considered the first Southern shape-note tunebook. Composer and publisher William B. Blake said it was "a book characteristic of that period, abounding in minor tu… Go to person page >

Composer (attributed to): Amzi Chapin

Amzi Chapin USA 1768-1835. Born in Springfield. MA, into a family of cabinetmakers, jewelers, and watchmakers, he followed in the same trade in Hartford, CT. for several years, then moved to New Haven, CT. He embarked on a career as an itinerant singing teacher, composer, and cabinetmaker in the South and Midwest. He married Hannah Power and they had eight children. They lived in Mount Pleasant, PA, where he taught singing and farmed for the next 30 years. He also founded a mill. He co-founded the Presbyterian congregation in Northfield Township. Chapin taught singing schools in VA, NC, KY, and PA. In 1831, he and his family moved to Northfield, OH. His older brother, Lucius, was also a singing teacher, and they were among the fi… Go to person page >

Tune Information

Title: GOLDEN HILL
Composer (attributed to): Amzi Chapin (1832)
Composer (attributed to): Ananias Davisson
Composer (attributed to): Lucius Chapin
Meter: 6.6.8.6
Incipit: 13262 15651 65565
Key: D Major
Copyright: Public Domain

Notes

Hymn Tune Index No. 15646. Earliest source is Ananias Davisson, Kentucky Harmony, 2nd ed. (Harrisonburg: Ananias Davisson, 1817), credited to Davisson there, but in the 3rd ed. (1819) it was unattributed.

HTI notes the similarity between this tune and No. 4077b, WORCESTER, which traces to Andrew Law, Select Harmony (Cheshire, 1778), where it was credited to "Wood," although the resemblance is only in the first two phrases.

See also No. 14590, THIRTIETH PSALM, first printed in Robert Patterson, Patterson's Church Music (Cincinnati: Browne and Looker, 1813), and credited to "Chapin" in John Armstrong, The Pittsburgh Selection of Psalm Tunes (Pittsburgh: Cramer, Spear & Eichbaum, 1816).

Another variant is No. 11003, THE GENERAL DOOM, from Jeremiah Ingalls, The Christian Harmony (1805).

For further reading, see James W. Scholten, "Frontier Singing Master and Folk Hymn Composer," Journal of Research in Music Education, Vol. 23, No. 2 (Summer 1975), pp. 109-119, https://www.jstor.org/stable/3345284; also David Warren Steel & Richard H. Hulan, The Makers of the Sacred Harp (Urbana: University of Illinois, 2010), p. 181.

—Chris Fenner & David W. Music

Timeline

Media

The Cyber Hymnal #3071
Text: Is This the Kind Return?
  • Adobe Acrobat image (PDF)
  • Noteworthy Composer score (NWC)
  • XML score (XML)
The Cyber Hymnal #16203
Text: My Savior, I Am Thine (Dear Savior, I Am Thine0
  • PDF (PDF)
  • Noteworthy Composer Score (NWC)

Instances

Instances (1 - 8 of 8)
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African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal #38

TextPage Scan

African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal #154

Hymnal #560

Hymns from the Four Winds #69

TextScoreAudio

The Cyber Hymnal #3071

TextScoreAudio

The Cyber Hymnal #16203

Voices Together #589

Voices United #666

Include 59 pre-1979 instances
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