Mar 10, 2020 - Sale 2533

Sale 2533 - Lot 162

Price Realized: $ 625
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 400 - $ 600
(MUSIC.) Volume of manuscript music compiled by Noahdiah Merritt. [106] manuscript pages. Oblong narrow 8vo, 3 x 7 1/2 inches, contemporary handmade calf with stiff yapp edges, worn, top leather detached; first leaf worn, 3 leaves with early stitched repairs, likely lacking some leaves, edges rounded, soiling and dampstaining to early leaves. [Massachusetts or Vermont?], circa 1800-10

Additional Details

Noahdiah Merritt (1782-1854) was born in Templeton, MA, and removed to Vermont by the time of his marriage in 1807. He later settled in upstate New York. Some of his family papers are at Cornell University. Most of the songs in this volume have only melodies, with no lyrics. An exception is "An Elegy on the Death of a Child 4 Years Old who was Kil'd by the Roling of a Cartwheal," which fills 15 pages. It may be an original composition; we are unable to trace any of the lyrics. Many of the other compositions in the book were part of the core repertory of American sacred music, and had previously been published. Oliver Holden's "Coronation," for example, had first appeared in 1793. See Britton, American Sacred Music Imprints, page 685. Also included near the end are the words only for "Mount Vernon Hymn" by Stephen Jenks, a tribute to the late President Washington, first published in 1802. Noahdiah's father Noah Merritt was a Revolutionary War veteran, claimed in a family history to have been personally acquainted with Washington (Edwin Atkins Merritt, Recollections, page 187). Provenance: The present volume is not inscribed, but an inserted card written by his granddaughter reads "Noahdiah Merritt's Song Book, about 130 years old, property of Mrs. Oliver A. Milner." Cornelia Eliza Merritt Milner (1866-1951) was daughter of Noahdiah's son William Wallace Merritt (1832-1922), who went west to Iowa. An added note on the card explains that the book was purchased in Lincoln, NE in 1993.