Alexander Johnson and the Tennessee Harmony* By David W Music One of the most interesting social and educational institutions of nine­ teenth-century rural America was the singing school. The product of an early eighteenth-century effort to bring order into the psalm singing of the church, the singing school was not only a training ground for musicians but was also a social event of some significance for the community in which it was held. The singing school was particularly popular with young people, for it gave them an opportunity to fraternize with other youth of the opposite sex in an approved social environment. Singing schools were usually held in churches, and the great bulk of the music used was sacred in text. Sometimes the school was sponsored by a church or group of churches, but more often it was an individual enterprise on the part of the teacher. The teacher was himself almost invariably the product ofa singing school. Although his training in music was often meager, the teacher was sometimes the compiler of a tunebook which he quite natu­ rally used in his own schools. Many of the nineteenth-century tunebooks used a system of "shape-note" notation which was invented late in the eighteenth century and first used in William Little and William Smith's The Easy Instructor (1801). In this system four shapes were used to represent the seven steps of the diatonic music scale. The method proved to be amazingly efficient and was widely adopted by rural tune book compilers, particularly in the South.' Four-shape shape-note singing was largely displaced by the advent of a seven-shape notation in the mid-nineteenth century, but the earlier practice still lives on in certain "singings" using one of three tunebooks: William Walker's The Southern Har­ mony (1835), The Sacred Harp by B. F. White and E. J. King (1844), or The Social Harp by John G. McCurry (1855). The nineteenth-century rural singing masters were a humble lot, the kind of men who seldom made headlines. For many of them the teaching of music was but a sideline to their real occupation. Thus, biographical data on them is scarce and their names and musical activities have largely been forgotten. Among these early singing masters was a Tennessean named Alexander Johnson, compiler of the tunebook Tennessee Harmony. As late as 1876, W.S. Fleming of Maury County wrote that, "Among the old singing-masters, Ma­ jor Samuel Rogers, and before him Alexander Dobbins and Alexander John­ son, will not soon be forgotten.'" Unfortunately, time has not dealt fairly with Fleming's prediction nor with the memories of the three men he named. Thus, when William J. Reynolds found opportunity to include Alexander Johnson's name in the biographical section of his Hymns oJOur Faith, he could accurately write that nothing was known of the compiler, "except that he was a singing school teacher in Tennessee in the early part of the nineteenth 59 century."3 However, more recent research has uncovered a fair amount of biographical data on Johnson, which can here be set forth. Alexander Johnson was born on February 25, 1791.' His father, JohnJohn­ son, was born in Maryland on January 5, 1753; his mother, Martha Allison Johnson, was born in 1758 in the same state. John and Martha were married in Baltimore during the summer of 1774.5 Shortly after their marriage the Johnsons moved to the York District of South Carolina. During the Revolu­ tion John served about twelve months as a sergeant in the South Carolina Regiment and participated in the battles of Hanging Rock and King's Mountain.6 Apparently, the Johnsons were still living in South Carolina when Alexander was born in 1791. By 1807 John Johnson and his family had moved to Davidson County, Tennessee. On August 22 of that year John and Martha signed a petition urging the Tennessee legislature to approve the formation of Maury County. According to the petition they lived on the "North Side of Duck River.'" Later, the family moved to the Hampshire area of Maury County." The first notice of Alexander Johnson appears in the records of the War of 1812, during which conflict he served as a private in Captain Samuel B. McKnight's company.9 In June, 1813, he was appointed to work on a road "from James FarissJunr to the top of the ridge west of Cathey's Creek."l0 On January 25, 1816, Alexander began his own home by marrying Nelly Craig in Maury County.!! Two major events in Alexander Johnson's life occurred during the year 1818. One was the death of his father on October 5/' the other was the publication of the Tennessee Harmony. The Maury County tax register for the same year listed him as a resident of the "South Side Duck River."!3 According to the 1820 census of Maury County, the Johnson family con­ sisted of Alexander (aged 26-45), Nelly (aged 16-26), one boy and one girl (both under 10 years), and one woman over 45 years (probably Alexander's mother). Alexander's occupation was listed as "Manufacture." Sometime between 1820 and 1823 another man named Alexander Johnson moved into Maury County. This man was born in North Carolina on April 15, 1782, and died in Maury County on February 7, 1857. He was quite a prominent man in the county, serving as a justice of the peace, and his name appears frequently in the county records. When the name "Alexander John­ son" occurs in Maury County sources after 1820 it is sometimes difficult to know which Alexander Johnson is meant. Thus, when the Columbia Review of July 27, 1822, listed Alexander Johnson as having three letters to be picked up at the post office it is not certain whether this was designed for the tune­ book compiler or the justice of the peace, though it was probably intended for the latter.!4 There is at least one court record which might be of interest in the story of the tunebook-compiling Alexander Johnson. In the court term of April, 1823, a report was given of an estate sale held on February 22, 1823, to dispose of the property of Allen H. Young, deceased. Alexander Johnson was 60 named as the administrator of the estate. In connection with the sale, John­ son noted that, "some papers belonging to the deceased [have] fallen into my hands, purporting to be accounts for tuition of musick and for musick books on persons said to reside in the state of Alabama."l5 It is not certain which Alexander Johnson served as administrator of Young's estate. However, it is quite possible that the tunebook compiler performed this task. The "musick books" might well have been copies of Johnson's Tennessee Harmony which Allen H. Young had been authorized to sell at his singing schools in Alabama. On May 3, 1829, Alexander Johnson married Lottie Stockard Mitchell (b. 1808) in Maury County, his first wife having apparently died." Only one Alexander Johnson was listed in the 1830 census of Maury County, despite the fact that two are known to have been living there at the time. The man listed in the 1830 census was evidently the justice of the peace. The exact date of the tune book compiler's death is not known, but it oc­ curred sometime during the month of December, 1832. Johnson was still alive on December 7, for his will was drawn up on that date. 17 According to Maury County Court records he was dead by December 19.!8 The place of Johnson's burial is not known. Perhaps he was buried in the cemetery at Pisgah Methodist Church in Maury County, since he is said to have been a Methodist and his father was reportedly buried there.!9 However, no tomb­ stone or other record of his burial has yet been found. Alexander is known to have had at least six children. His widow, Lottie, married again in 1838 to William Craig.20 His mother survived him by at least nine years, for in 1841 she was allowed a government pension.2! Aside from his publication of the Tennessee Harmony, little is known of Alex­ ander Johnson's musical activities. It can be surmised that he taught singing schools in Maury County and probably in neighboring counties as well. Like Allen H. Young he might have also taught schools in Alabama. Johnson'S Tennessee Harmony is one of the rarest and least-known of the southern shape-note songsters. No mention was made of Alexander Johnson or the Tennessee Harmony in any of George Pullen Jackson's pioneering books on American folk hymnody until the publication of his fourth major work in the field, White and Negro Spirituals (New York: J.J. Augustin, 1943), when the second edition ofJohnson's book was merely listed in the bibliography. Even today, over thirty-five years after the publication of White and Negro Spirituals, only five copies of the book have been located. Despite its rarity, the Tennessee Harmony holds a significant place in the story of early American music, for it was one of the earliest shape-note books com­ piled in the South and was the first tunebook of any kind compiled in the Volunteer State. Johnson's book transmits a clear picture of the music that was popular in the early nineteenth-century churches and singing schools of Middle and West Tennessee. In addition, several original contributions to the tunebook were picked up by later compilers in Tennessee and other states and became part of the standard shape-note repertoire.