William Bradbury: A Christian Tunesmith with a Musical Ministry to Children

Cowden Hall: 100 Years

Artistic Theologian
Volume 13
Spring 2026
Editor: Joshua A. Waggener

Download

In the 1840s, music teacher and director William B. Bradbury (1816– 1868) began shaping Christian hymnody in a most surprising way: by pouring into the musical and spiritual education of young children. It was then that Bradbury became known for his Juvenile Musical Festivals at the Broadway Tabernacle in New York City. There, he would organize and present concerts featuring choirs of hundreds of young voices. On the concert stage, girls wore white dresses with blue sashes and wreaths on their heads, boys were dressed in suit jackets with collars turned over, and these young voices would lead thousands in worship with their singing.¹

Bradbury was in his mid to late 20s when he had a front-row seat to the beginnings of children’s choir ministry in the United States—primarily, because he was there shaping these early moments in the Protestant church. Of the thousands who came to hear these children sing at the Juvenile Musical Festivals, many of the concert attendees were struck with amazement that young children could be trained with such musical excel-lence. The American poet Walt Whitman (1819–1892) attended several of Bradbury’s children’s festival concerts, including one on February 18, 1846, after which he noted: 

For our own part, we never witnessed a more agreeable spectacle, or listened to harmony which, taking all things into consideration, was more creditable to the performers or their leader . . . . At Mr. Bradbury’s concert on Wednesday evening, there were four hundred neatly dressed, fresh looking boys, and the same number of sweet, pleasant-face girls—a sight to make a man’s better nature swell within him, and banish the bad utterly away . . . . It was indeed a holy sight! . . . All of the songs were distinctly enunciated, and the time [rhythmic accuracy] would have done credit to an opera chorus . . . . We are strongly in favor of these children’s concerts, and hope they will continue to be given frequently. The universal diffusion of music among the young, who are to form the future men and women of America, will do incalculable good in the way of refinement and manners.²

The children at these singing festivals often received singing instruction through complimentary classes, a system developed by Bradbury to allow access to musical instruction. The church then charged admission to these concerts, and since thousands of people attended, that profit paid fully for the children’s music classes.³

Bradbury went on to compose numerous hymns for Sunday school worship, as well as to play a prominent role in bringing music education to New York City schools. He also made significant contributions to music publishing and piano manufacturing. In the midst of his industrious impact on music education and music business, Bradbury consistently modeled an approach to hymn tune composition that combined winsome melodies with clear biblical teaching in order to imprint truth on the minds of young children. Bradbury’s philosophy for hymnody therefore championed children’s worship and education, celebrating the value of children’s voices in the church. 

William Batchelder Bradbury (1816-1868)

Composer of well-known hymn tunes such as “Jesus loves me,” “Just as I am,” and “He leadeth me,” William Bradbury was born in Maine, the third of five children in a family that had a rich lineage of American church reformers. On his mother’s side, Bradbury could trace back to ancestors Rev. John Cotton (1584–1652) and Rev. John Tufts (1689–1752).⁴ Both of Bradbury’s parents were musical and known for their singing, and he himself showed musical aptitude at an early age by learning to play several musical instruments.⁵ After moving to Boston and completing music lessons at Lowell Mason’s Boston Academy, he taught lessons and singing classes in Machias, Maine (1836–1838); St. John’s, New Brunswick (1838–1840); and most notably in New York City (1840–1847), where he directed the Children’s Musical Festivals.⁶ Bradbury also encouraged New York City public schools to incorporate music in their curricula, just as Mason had advocated for the inclusion of music in Boston public schools.⁷

Lowell Mason’s Impact on Bradbury

Lowell Mason (1792–1872) and the Sunday school movement are significant for the story of William Bradbury because it was primarily Mason who introduced childhood music education in the church—work that Bradbury continued throughout his career. Mason is recognized throughout numerous historical accounts for his contribution to the reform movement in American sacred music, particularly in the evangelical movement.⁸ As a church musician passionate about music education in schools, he argued that church music could be revitalized only when efforts were made to teach music to children in schools.⁹

Mason, also originally from Maine, moved to Boston in 1827 and quickly began impacting the musical culture by serving as the president and music director of the Boston Handel and Haydn Society (1827–1832) and directing the choir at the Bowdoin Street Church (1831–1845).¹⁰ During his early years at that church, he worked with children in singing classes and concerts, likely using some of his own publications intended for children: The Juvenile Psalmist (1829) for Sunday school, and The Juvenile Lyre (1831) for school education.¹¹ 

In 1833, while Mason was still directing the choir at Bowdoin Street Church, he and George James Webb (1803–1887) founded the Boston Academy of Music to teach music fundamentals to children and adults, with the aim of improving musicianship in the church.¹² That same year, Mason met 17-year-old William Bradbury, who with his family had moved from Maine to Boston three years earlier.¹³ The teenager enrolled in both Mason’s singing school and the Boston Academy of Music, and through his connection with Mason, Bradbury joined the choir at Bowdoin Street Church, eventually serving as its organist.¹⁴ During these years, Mason positively influenced young Bradbury, who had begun to develop his own career in sacred music.¹⁵ 

Life and Works

Following his years in Boston with Mason (1830s) and his time in New York as a music educator and director of the Juvenile Singing Festivals (1840s), Bradbury traveled to Europe with his wife and daughter between 1847 and 1849. There he sought to satisfy his curiosity about how music was taught in schools in England, Germany, and Switzerland, all the while writing copious notes and observations about his experiences, many of which appeared in installments of the New York Evangelist.¹⁶

While in London, he met the famous Swedish opera singer Jenny Lind, and he arrived in Leipzig just weeks after Felix Mendelssohn’s death. While disappointed that he could not meet the revered Mendelssohn, Bradbury did attend his funeral and interacted with Mendelssohn’s close friends. He studied at the Leipzig Conservatory for several months, engaging in piano and organ lessons with Ernst Ferdinand Wenzel (1808–1880), voice with Ferdinand Böhme, and harmony with Moritz Hauptmann (1792–1868).¹⁷ Many of these Leipzig Conservatory professors not only signed Bradbury’s album book, but in it wrote small hymns featuring English hymn texts by Issac Watts and others. During his European travels Bradbury also interacted with Leipzig pianists and composers Robert and Clara Schumann, and the great opera composer, Giacomo Meyerbeer.¹⁸ 

Returning to the United States in 1849, Bradbury began integrating into his teaching many of the methods and techniques he observed in Europe, thus openly advertising his European training.¹⁹ One of the European pedagogical strategies that impressed him the most was teaching children to sing before encumbering them with the fundamentals of reading music; in other words, he advocated for a practice of action-based learning before explanations and exercises.²⁰ 

Several years after returning to the United States, Bradbury demonstrated his passion not only for children, but also for music teachers. Sharing a common vision, in 1853 he teamed with his former teacher Mason and George Frederick Root (1820–1895) to open the New York Normal Musical Institute, a music-teacher training school.²¹ Later, more normal musical institutes were opened in other cities.²² In addition, Bradbury wrote and published numerous hymns for instructing children and adults both in sound theology and basic musicianship. In 1854, he also became involved in piano manufacturing with his brother Edward G. Bradbury and F. C. Lighte.²³ 

Driven by his continual compilation of sacred music books and hymns for children, Bradbury in 1861 opened his own publishing firm in New York, allowing him to publish his own tune books as well as the works of others.²⁴ The hymnbooks he published during this time were quite popular; some were referred to as “Sunday school hymnals,” helping meet a grow-ing need for instructional music in the church.²⁵ Table 1 lists Bradbury’s numerous publications, most published in his lifetime, but a few appearing posthumously.²⁶ 

Table 1. Bradbury Collections Listed Chronologically²⁷

Bradbury’s Theology and Contribution to Hymnody

Although a tunesmith’s theology is not as easily discernible in his compositions as are a poet’s words that become a hymn, Bradbury made it abundantly clear that he relied heavily upon his personal faith in Christ to set rich biblical texts to appropriate tunes. He often explained his text-setting ideas in the prefaces of his hymn collections. In Bradbury’s Fresh Laurels for the Sabbath School: A New and Extensive Collection of Music and Hymns Prepared Expressly for Sabbath Schools, etc. (1867), he wrote specifically about his passion and perspective in selecting appropriate music and texts: 

While the hymn is the text, containing often the essence of the Gospel that we wish to fasten upon the mind or the child, much depends upon the manner and medium through which such text is presented. How many of us have heard a beautiful hymn so miserably read as to lose all its beauty and attractiveness. How much worse then must it be to set a sprightly life-like “whole souled” hymn to a dull, low, stiff, slow, tame and sleepy tune; and how often this is done we need not remind our readers. The tune, while adapted to the hymn, should be so attractive, so musical, as to win the love of the child. Then, when thoroughly learned, it is never forgotten. Thus, through the medium of this tune, the hymn will be stereotyped upon the memory.²⁸ 

A Fanny Crosby (1820–1915) text serves as the opening hymn in this collection, sharing the same title as the collection itself: “Fresh laurels for the Sunday school.” The hymns in this collection are set in four-part harmony with basic rhythms and diatonic melodies. Bradbury’s thoughts on the musical content and the need for attractive melodies to accompany the text reveal his deliberate commitment to creating melodies and harmonies that would be simple to learn yet enjoyable for a child to sing. These tunes and Sunday School hymnals became exceedingly popular during the latter half of the nineteenth century. During this time hymns found a wider market than even popular secular songs of the day; in essence, hymns were the popular music of this time.²⁹

In his hymnbook The Jubilee: An Extensive Collection of Church Music for the Choir, the Congregation, and the Singing-School, published in 1858, Bradbury emphasizes the role that the tune plays in the worship experience for the congregation: 

A tune, to become a favorite either with choir or congregation, and hence useful, must be attractive to the popular ear. It must be a thing of life, possessing a character of its own; and if happily wed to poetry of a congenial temper (to continue the simile), it may stand the test. It must please, not merely upon its introduction, but also upon a more familiar acquaintance. Some tunes, like some persons, make a favorable impression at first, but soon become insipid; they have no depth—they are all surface. Like sight-friends, such tunes are not to be trusted. Others, apparently less prepossessing, improve on acquaintance, and you soon become fast friends.³⁰

Here, Bradbury likens an attractive tune to that of a friend—not a “sight-friend” who can only give a good first impression, but a lasting friend, who remains in the hard times. He also writes of pairing the poetry to the music, with symbolism of a marriage, emphasizing the importance of writing music for a specific text. 

In The Golden Censer: A Musical Offering to the Sabbath Schools, of Children’s Hosannas to the Son of David, published in 1864 by his own publishing firm, Bradbury reveals part of his text-selection process and the intention behind why he chose certain poetry to set to music: 

An ardent love for the employment, and a pretty extensive acquaintance with leading Sabbath School friends throughout the country, has brought to the author’s aid a host of valuable assistants—writers of some of the sweetest hymns in our language, and many of these, ladies, whose devotion to the cause has inspired their pens with heavenly ardor. These hymns are brimful of the Gospel, and if they do not sing themselves right into the hearts of both teachers and children, the fault must be in the music, and not in the hymn.³¹ 

He notes that the poetic texts he has chosen are “brimful of the Gospel,” underlining his intent to set texts that ultimately point to Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. Once again, Bradbury reiterates his aim to impress these gospel truths on the hearts of children, this time including their teachers as well. His vehicle for impressing the truths on their hearts is the music—the attractive and playful musical tune. He takes full responsibility for writing a tune that will allow the text to move from their tongues to their hearts—showing his special understanding of music’s role in teaching children the gospel. 

Bradbury and Baptist Hymnody

As a tunesmith and publisher, Bradbury’s contribution to Baptist hymnody is significant. Church music historians David Music and Paul Richardson call him the “most important Baptist contributor to the writing and publishing of Sunday school songs.”³² Bradbury’s impact on Baptist hymnody is therefore not limited to his playful and winsome tunes alone, but also to his role in publishing the works of many other Christian poets and composers through his Sunday school collections. 

Bradbury championed the work of others through his publications, but his own hymn tunes also played a direct role in shaping Baptist hymnody. For example, Bradbury’s hymn tunes are found in every Baptist-associated hymnal from 1872 (4 years after his death) to the present. Table 2 lists various Baptist-associated hymnbooks—beginning with the 1872 Baptist Praise Book and continuing through all the major Baptist Hymnals, and finally, to the Celebrating Grace hymnal published in 2010—showing the number of Bradbury hymn tunes in each one. 

Table 2. Bradbury Hymn Tunes in Baptist Hymnals

In nineteenth-century hymnbooks, there were often multiple texts associated with a single tune, causing certain Bradbury tunes to appear more than once in the same hymnal or to be associated with several texts on a single page. The former situation likely accounts for the higher volume count of Bradbury tunes in !e Baptist Praise Book (1872) and The Baptist Hymnal (1883). Even though Bradbury was adamant in his writings that a tune be appropriately “wed” to a text, the idea of hymn tunes belonging specifically to a single text was not common in the nineteenth century. Hymn tunes and texts were frequently interchanged if they had the same meter scheme. As the practice to wed hymn tunes to specific texts became more common, a lesser number of Bradbury hymn iterations appear in the Baptist hymnals. 

Of the Bradbury hymn tunes that occur among these Baptist-associated hymnbooks, eight hymns paired with Bradbury tunes recur four times or more across the selected hymnals. Table 3 features these eight hymns, showing the hymn’s number in each hymnal. Interestingly, hymns such as “Just as I am,” “Savior, like a shepherd lead us,” and “Sweet hour of prayer” appear in all eight hymnals. Other best-known hymns using Bradbury tunes, such as “Jesus loves me,” “He leadeth me,” and “The solid rock,” occur in the majority of the Baptist hymnbooks surveyed, yet are often missing in the nineteenth-century hymnals. His lesser-known tunes, such as those associated with “Holy Bible, book divine” and “There is no name so sweet,” still have a strong presence in many of the hymnals, even one of the twenty-first-century hymnals represented.

Table 3. Most Recurrent Hymns with Bradbury Tunes in Baptist Hymnals

Table 4 provides more information on these eight texts, their poets, and the distinct tunes written for them by Bradbury. These texts were written by a diverse group of poets, nearly all contemporaries of Bradbury, although he often chose their texts without knowing them personally.³³ This underlines the notion that while Bradbury had many collaborators, he was more concerned with finding a text with a biblical message, rather than solely perpetuating a partnership with a particular person. One remarkable aspect of these eight hymns that have lasted for more than 150 years in Christian hymnody is that several are in long meter (8.8.8.8), and none are in short meter (6.6.8.6) or common meter (8.6.8.6). !is may also illustrate Bradbury’s penchant for rich biblical expressions with many words per line. 

Moreover, many of these texts contain personal pronouns, such as “me,” “I,” and “my,” emphasizing the personal relationship a Christian enjoys with Jesus Christ. This is indicative of the language used in the Second Great Awakening in the United States (ca. 1795–1835). Many of these texts were likely inspired by the emphasis on personal salvation and a personal relationship with God, given their importance in such nineteenth century revivals. On the other hand, texts such as “Holy Bible, book divine” and “The solid rock” are more instructional texts. Bradbury chose each of these texts with great care and with a purpose to impart biblical truth to those who sang his melodies. These hymns still have a prominent place in many Baptist churches today and have left an enduring mark on Baptist hymnody. 

Table 4. Details of Most Recurrent Bradbury Tunes in Baptist Hymnals

Most of Bradbury’s hymn tunes have standard and uninventive harmonization, since the melodies were of greater importance to Bradbury. Since Bradbury wrote so much concerning the concept of playful and imaginative melodies, how were his melodies constructed? Table 5 summarizes a melodic analysis of the eight most common Bradbury tunes. He seems comfortable in a variety of time signatures and tends to write with standard four-bar phrases. Many of the climaxes of his melodies occur three-quarters of the way through the hymn, during the second part of the chorus. An exception occurs in “He leadeth me,” in which the climax occurs towards the end of the verse, instead of during the chorus. Bradbury achieves this with an upward leap of a fifth (for example, on the last two words of “Whate’er I do, where’er I be” in verse 1) and a fermata, which appears in Bradbury’s early printings and is now often added in practice. 

Frequently using multiple leaps of fourths and fifths in his melodies, Bradbury often follows these leaps with stepwise motion in the opposite direction, but some of these leaps are followed with stepwise motion in the same direction as the leap. Many of his melodic ranges span an octave with a few wider reaches of a ninth in “He leadeth me” and “There is no name so sweet.” The more didactic “Holy Bible, book divine” only spans the range of a fifth. Most of his melodies are authentic, with the range occurring above the final, or tonic note, with the exceptions of “The solid rock” and “There is no name so sweet,” which are both plagal melodies.³⁴ 

Table 5. Melodic Analysis of Most Recurrent Bradbury Tunes in Baptist Hymnals

Bradbury begins many of his melodies on sol or mi, allowing for leaps to the tonic or some sense of movement or melodic interest from the start. In many of these cases, the first note begins as an anacrusis. All hymns end on the tonic except “Just as I am,” which ends on mi, suggesting an openness as the child of God calls out to the Lamb of God, “I come!” This particular open melodic construction at the end may have been why this hymn is often selected as an invitational hymn. Through multiple wave-like melodic contours, these melodies are indeed playful and sometimes dance-like (i.e., several are in triple or compound meter), inviting the child at heart to “dance” through the melody as it is sung. “Sweet hour of prayer” is an example of a hymn tune having a dance-like melody, using 6/8 time with a recurring long-short rhythm. 

Conclusion

As a musician, William Bradbury was keenly aware of the special relationship between a text and a tune, especially in the worship songs of the church. He knew his role as a Christian tunesmith and wrote extensively on crafting tunes for his songs. Yet rather than focusing solely on the notes and the rhythms of the tune, Bradbury carefully selected the texts he would set to music, all the while endeavoring to remember the smallest and weakest members of our culture: children.

Through both his music and writings, Bradbury consistently pointed to the importance of investing in children and wrote music with the intent of captivating their imaginative spirits. He purposed to draw them in with playful melodies carefully matched to spiritual truths in order to teach them biblical truths that they might carry with them throughout their lives. In this way, Bradbury serves as a model for how to approach both children’s ministry and the church’s intergenerational worship. Significantly, all but one of the tunes highlighted here transcended their original function as music intended for Sunday schools. The texts and the tunes were of such high quality that adults could sing and appreciate them as well.

Bradbury’s example and passion for investing in children spur on the following questions: How can worship ministry celebrate children in the church? How can music programs within a church recognize and foster a playful spirit that celebrates the child and his or her gifts, while simulta-neously teaching them the truth of the gospel—of God’s perfect creation, of our sin that separates us from God, of Christ’s love and redemption, and of God’s plan for restoration? As we humble ourselves in serving the youngest members of our community, we engage in sanctifying work that points our culture to Christ through worship and song with a purposeful ministry to the generations that come behind us. 

Bradbury’s thoughtful devotion as a composer and Christian tune-smith can also inspire us in our Christian vocation. Bradbury understood his role and his part in supporting gospel ministry in the church, even though he found himself a creator of tunes and a music teacher who possessed a love for children, rather than the poet or the author of the text. Regardless of whether we work directly in Christian ministry or in the secular workforce, our calling and vocation is to glorify God in all that we do (Col 3:23). Bradbury used his giftedness in music to help shape the worship traditions of the nineteenth-century Protestant church, and his hymns continue to shape us today. He provided an exemplary approach to Christian vocation, using his musical giftedness to spread the truths of the gospel. !ose who see Bradbury’s named etched on Cowden Hall at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary may thus be reminded of his example and find a desire to emulate him as they use their own gifts for kingdom work. 

1. H. Augustine Smith, Lyric Religion: !e Romance of Immortal Hymns (New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1931), 142–43.  ↩︎
2. [Walt Whitman], “An Evening at a Children’s Concert,” Brooklyn Evening Star (February 20, 1846), 2, as cited in Juanita Karpf, From Biblical Book to Musical Megahit: William B. Bradbury’s Esther, the Beautiful Queen (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2023), 11.  ↩︎
3. Karpf, From Biblical Book to Musical Megahit, 10. ↩︎
4. Alan Burl Wingard, “The Life and Works of William Batchelder Bradbury, 1816–1868” (DMA diss., Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1973), 19, 21. Rev. Cotton was a Puritan leader in Boston, and Rev. Tufts was a Congregational minister in Newburyport, Massachusetts, the latter who is known in part for his developments in gathering music for printing. ↩︎
5. “The Late William B. Bradbury,” Watson’s Art Journal 8, no. 15 (1868): 209.  ↩︎
6. Harry Eskew, “Bradbury, William Batchelder,” Grove Music Online, 16 Oct. 2013; accessed 7 Sep. 2025.  ↩︎
7. Eskew, “Bradbury.”  ↩︎
8. Michael Broyles, “Music of the Highest Class”: Elitism and Populism in Antebellum Boston (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992), 62.  ↩︎
9. Carol A. Pemberton, “Critical Days for Music in American Schools,” Journal of Research in Music Education 36, no. 2 (1988): 70.  ↩︎
10. Harry Eskew, Carol A. Pemberton, William E. Boswell, Boris Schwarz, and Nicholas E. Tawa, “Mason family (ii),” Grove Music Online, 2001; accessed 7 Sep. 2025.  ↩︎
11. Eskew, et al., “Mason family.”  ↩︎
12. Eskew, et al., “Mason family.”  ↩︎
13. Wingard, “Life and Works,” 24.  ↩︎
14. Wingard, “Life and Works,” 24–26. Wingard relays an amusing story about Bradbury’s brief time as an organist at Bowdoin Street Church: Mason accepted Bradbury into his prestigious Bowdoin Street Church Choir, and within a few months, Bradbury was offered the position of church organist. Bradbury accepted despite his lack of extensive piano and harmony study. The Bowdoin organ was completely wooden and required double effort when playing, to both push the keys down and then pull them up again. Despite the difficult work, his wages were $25 a year. Bradbury argued that the double effort of pushing the keys down and pulling them up again demanded double pay, at $50 a year. This argument fell on deaf ears, however, and the trustees merely told him that his organ playing gave “the highest satisfaction” (27–28). Hence, Bradbury only lasted three months in this position before he found a better job.  ↩︎
15. Despite Bradbury being from a younger generation, biographer Alan Wingard groups him with Mason and another hymn reformer of the older generation, Thomas Hastings (1784–1872), describing these three men as forming a “triumvirate” within church music history through their collaboration and work. Wingard, “Life and Works,” 262.  ↩︎
16. Wingard, “Life and Works,” 48–49.  ↩︎
17. Jacob Henry Hall, Biography of Gospel Song and Hymn Writers (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1914), 26.  ↩︎
18. William B. Bradbury, Bradbury Album, Manuscript/Mixed Material (1847–1849), https://www. loc.gov.  ↩︎
19. Juanita Karpf, “‘Would that It Were so in America!’: William Bradbury’s Observations of European Music Educators, 1847–49,” Journal of Historical Research in Music Education 24, no. 1 (2002): 34.  ↩︎
20. Karpf, “‘Would that It Were so in America!’,” 31.  ↩︎
21. In the nineteenth century in the United States, the word “Normal” in an institution name referred to a teacher-training institution.  ↩︎
22. Karpf, “Would that It Were so in America!,” 36.  ↩︎
23. Eskew, “Bradbury.”  ↩︎
24. Eskew, “Bradbury.”  ↩︎
25. Edith L. Blumhofer, “Fanny Crosby and Protestant Hymnody,” in Music in American Religious Experience, ed. Philip V. Bohlman, Edith L. Blumhofer, and Maria M. Chow (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 220.  ↩︎
26. When Bradbury died in 1868, his publishing company, under Lucius Biglow and Sylvester Main, was renamed Biglow & Main. See Eskew, “Bradbury.”  ↩︎
27. The contents of this table are taken from Wingard, “Life and Works,” 488–92. Of the seven-tyone books in this collected list, forty-two of the publications were authored by Bradbury, nineteen co-authored by Bradbury and other hymn writers, three with Bradbury serving as editor, one with Bradbury and J. N. Stearns as co-editors, and one compiled by E. T. Baird from the contents of Bradbury’s The New Golden Trio. See Wingard, “Life and Works,” 266. Among these publications, many were published with the purpose for use in Sunday school, and others are general tune books.  ↩︎
28. William B. Bradbury, Bradbury’s Fresh Laurels for the Sabbath School: A New and Extensive Collection of Music and Hymns Prepared Expressly for Sabbath Schools, etc. (New York: William B. Bradbury, 1867), Preface.  ↩︎
29. Broyles, “Music of the Highest Class,” 62.  ↩︎
30. William B. Bradbury, The Jubilee: An Extensive Collection of Church Music for the Choir, the Congregation, and the Singing-School (New York: Mason Brothers, 1858), 2.  ↩︎
31. William B. Bradbury, The Golden Censer: A Musical Offering to the Sabbath Schools, of Children’s Hosannas to the Son of David (New York: William B. Bradbury, 1864), 2.  ↩︎
32. David W. Music and Paul A. Richardson, “I Will Sing the Wondrous Story”: A History of Baptist Hymnody in North America (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2008), 315.  ↩︎
33. Significantly, the group of poets featured in Table 4 includes three women poets out of eight total. John Burton Sr. is the only poet in the table who was not a contemporary of Bradbury, overlapping only six years with the composer.  ↩︎
34. In analyzing tunes and melodies, authentic refers to tunes in which the range of the melody occurs above the tonic, or final note. In other words, if the tonic/final is D4, the range would occur from D4 to D5. Plagal refers to tunes in which the range of the melody occurs both above and below the tonic/final. For example, if the tonic/final is D4, the range might be A3 to A4. For melodic shape, a wave contour denotes a melodic phrase shape that moves up and down continuously, and an arc contour describes a melodic phrase shape that rises up, peaks at a high note, and descends.  ↩︎