Elisa Iweins d'Hennin: songstress par excellence

 

IWEINS D’HENNIN, Elisa [née d’ HENNIN, Elisa Amélie Mélanie] (b Lille 28 March 1814; d Passy 5 December 1886)

 

Elisa d’Hennin was one of the most praised and prized concert vocalists of mid-nineteenth century France. She, along with Madame Gaveaux-Sabatier, reigned over the popular era of the French ‘romance’ and she made herself a name, therein, second to none.

 ‘Madame Iweins d'Hennin et Madame Sabatier règnent toujours dans nos salons et dans les concerts comme deux souveraines adorées, l'une par sa voix puissante et dramatique, sa manière large et accentuée, l'autre par son ravissant gosier et sa vocalisation merveilleuse, font tous les frais et ont tous les honneurs des réunions musicales’.

 

As far as I know, Elisa never appeared on the stage – although she sang all kinds of operatic music in concert – and there never seems to have been any question of her doing so. Yet, apparently, her voice, variously referred to as a mezzo-soprano and a contralto, yet perhaps – given what she sometimes sang – more of a dramatic soprano, was both powerful and passionate. 

 

Another remembering writer explained ‘Elle était douée surtout d’un talent de diction de premier ordre; l’accent était superbe et l’expression portée au plus haut point. Il était difficile de retenir les larmes quand elle chantait le ‘Plaisir d’amour’ de Martini ou ‘La Plainte du mousse’ d’Abadie. Madame Iweins was quite simply an outstanding performer in her own genre – part way between ballad and art-song – and she made that genre her own.

 Mlle d’Hennin was born in Lille, the daughter of Séraphin d’Hennin and his wife Adelaide née Desreumaux, and she studied music at the local Conservatoire, from where graduated with the first prize for 1836 (‘nous avons été enchantés, ravis du goût parfait et de l'expression touchante avec lesquels Mlle D'Hennin a chanté deux romances, l'une de Bruguière, ‘l'Isolement du coeur’, l'autre de Panseron , ‘Volez au pays’). 

 From Lille, she continued to the Paris Conservatoire, where , in 1836, she joined the class of Nicolas Martin. She was awarded a second prize that year (the first prize went to Anaïs Castellan), and the following year shared the first prize with Esther Kliza Julian and Minette Potier. The press was not pleased. ‘Parmi les trois personnes qui ont partagé le premier prix, il en est une bien supérieure aux deux autres, c'est Mlle d'Hennin. Cette jeune personne possède une voix dans le genre de Mlle Falcon, voix étendue, sonore et vibrante. Elle a chanté son morceau avec une extrême passion et tout le monde lui a donné la palme…’.   The young Mlle Julian went on to a good career in opera, Mme Potier went to the Opéra-Comique, but Mlle d’Hennin ‘eut son heure de célébrité au temps heureux où florissait la romance’. 

 

At 22, Elisa, who at some stage put herself into the hands of the former tenor, now teacher, Antoine Ponchard, had already begun singing in public. I spot her first at the Salle St-Jean in December 1836 (‘la voix si douce et si pure’), at the Salle Chantereine the following month, alongside the young tenor, Hüner, on 25 February 1837, giving a concert in her home town, and 11 March teaming with Henri Lanza in another. She wasn’t quite the seasoned professional yet. She gave them ‘Robert, toi que j’aime’ and, when a top note didn’t come out quite as she wished, a gentle tear glistened on her cheek. They wouldn’t glisten often over the years to come.

 

Ponchard

Her studies completed, she launched herself upon the concert scene: at the Salle St-Jean (‘Vaccai … avec une énergie dramatique qui a electrisé l’auditoire’), at the Cercle du Faubourg St-Germain, at the concert of the Athenée Musicale (Mariano Faliero ‘un talent éminemment dramatique’), at the Théâtre des Menus-Plaisirs (‘Mlle d'Hennin, qui a chanté un air de Mozart, est une jeune artiste de mérite dont la voix ne manque ni de charme, ni d'énergie’) or, with Hüner, singing more romances (‘Mlle d'Hennin, comme de coutume, a déployé une puissance et une expression admirables’, ‘MlIe d'Hennin, comme de coutume, a fait admirer sa voix si pleine de nerf et de puissance dramatique’, ‘Mlle d'Hennin a pris une part active à la dernière matinée, et sa belle voix, comme partout, a provoqué les plus vifs applaudissements’.) One of her earliest notable song successes was with Amédée de Beauplan’s ‘Le Pardon’, and she also featured Vogel’s ‘Ne me regarde plus’ and Elwart’s ‘Le Chalumeau’ and ‘Les trois anges gardiens’.

 

She returned to Lille (25-26 June 1838) to take the soprano solos, alongside Mlle Janssens, Alexis Dupont, Géraldy and Lanza in the 2nd Festival du Nord. The hometown girl was welcomed with acclaim: ‘Au moment où Mlle d'Hennin a paru, des applaudissements ont retenti dans toute la salle … brillant avenir … voix si vibrante si passionnée ..’, She sang the Queen of the Night’s vengeance aria from Les Mystères d’Isis (Der Zauberflöte), Cherubini’s Ave Maria, and joined in ensembles from The Creation, Bianca e Faliero, Les Huguenots and Anna Bolena. Thereafter, the young singer moved on to Boulogne, Valenciennes, Arras, St Omer, and the like, until the Paris season leaped into life, and she returned to town.

 

She was seen in several concerts with Ponchard, including one where they created a cantata by the young César-Franck, but she was in great demand in the provinces, and so she was soon off to Marseille and Bordeaux in a plethora of concert dates. At several concerts in January 1840, she performed Giuseppe Concone’s scena Elizabeth and Amy Robsart with Mlle Lavoye, and on one of these occasions the critic gave us perhaps the most comprehensible description of her voice: ‘Mademoiselle d’Hennin avec une voix d’une vaste étendue qui réunit l’éclat du soprano aux larges et belles intonations du contralto …’. 

 

During the months of the season, Elisa appeared regularly at the Salle Herz, the Concerts de l’Athénée, and at the matinees and soirees of the city’s musicians (Trinquart, Huerta, Alard, Lacome et al) and songwriters. On the occasion of one of these, given by Loïsa Puget, she shared the bill with Julie Dorus-Gras who delivered the showy Cheval de bronze ‘Veuvage’ aria. ‘Mais la voix puissante et dramatique de Mlle d'Hennin a dignement lutté avec Mme Dorus, et, pour bien des convictions, la victoire est restée indécise …’.

The autumn was, as usual, spent in Lille, Roubaix and centres of the ilk, with the year’s popular romances – Bérat’s ‘A la Frontière’, Charles Haas’s ‘L’Echo du châlet’ – to the usual welcome – ‘Mlle d'Hennin, l'ornement de nos concerts, a imprimé son cachet dramatique à toutes les mélodies dont elle a bien voulu se charger, et le public lui a prouvé sa vive satisfaction par des bravos réitérés’. The winter saw her back in her habitat at the Salle Herz, where in March she presented a concert of her own with the violinist Dubois, which was something of a novelty: ‘Pour faire contraste à tous ces talens italiens ou italianisés, une demoiselle Korn, pianiste, et notre charmante cantatrice française, Mlle d'Hennin, nous ont fourni deux programmes tout français’. 

 

At the concert hosted by the newspaper La Sylphide she again appeared alongside Dorus-Gras and the third vocalist was none other than Esther Julian, now a successful operatic singer. At the concert of Le Ménestral, Rosine Stoltz and Duprez were billed, and Elisa still sang her Queen of the Night. 

 

On 5 April 1841 she gave another concert of her own: ‘Adressons des éloges sans restriction à Mlle d'Hennin, pour la façon dont elle a chanté la romance de Mlle Puget, ‘Le Val béni’. Mlle d'Hennin a fait de cette goutte de rosée, un diamant…’. And then it was off to Bordeaux, Lille and to the Festival at Roubaix: ‘Mlle Elisa d'Hennin a chanté, au concert de la fête de Roubaix, une nouvelle mélodie de M Frédéric Bérat, intitulée: ‘C'est demain qu'il arrive les larmes’, les applaudissements et les honneurs du bis,’

The new songs and the concerts arrived in afresh 1842. Loïsa Puget’s new album ‘a encore trouvé un digne interprête en Mlle d'Hennin, qui a très-bien dit le véritable amour’, Frédéric Bérat’s ‘C’est demain qu’il arrive’ proved popular, although one critic found it a bit cheap, Dessauer’s ‘Les deux cerceuils’ was rather more tear-jerking. But, like Charlotte Dolby, in English later years, Elisa didn’t just give her ballads and songs – Flotow’s ‘Maria’, Joseph Vimeux’s ‘Par pitié, rest encore’, ‘La Montagnarde au départ’… On March 19, she sang Rossini’s Stabat Mater – premiered only weeks before in Paris -- at Beauvais, with Alexis Dupont, Oller and Lia Duport, and in May repeated it, with the same colleagues, at the Le Mans Festival. In between, at Ponchard’s concert, she delivered an aria from La Reine de Chypre (alongside a piece by Guitarrero).  Mlle d’Hennin was nothing if not versatile.

She was also no longer Mlle d’Hennin. The papers reported, in the reviews of the Ponchard concert, that she had married, the previous day, Mons Alexis Iweins. Henceforth, she would be, in the cumbrous fashion of the day, Mme Iweins-d’Hennin.

 

Mons Iweins (d Passy 12 November 1873) – who henceforth called himself Iweins-d’Hennin – seems to have been a sort of journalist at Le Ménestral. But he was also a useful tenor singer (tenor jeune et grand par la taille, et assez flatteur par la voix’) and for a decade he would have a pleasant career, touring and performing with his wife, without shaking the earth. The couple presented their first concert in July 1842: ‘M et Mme Iweins d'Hennin faisaient les honneurs. M Iweins possède une voix de ténor de la plus grande fraîcheur: rien d'aussi joli à entendre qu'un nocturne de Gabussy ou de Carully, par M et Mme Iweins d'Hennin’. And the songs kept coming. ‘Le Mal d’amour’ by Monpou, songs from the pen of Charles Dancla, Loïsa Puget’s ‘Fleurette’ and ‘La Fiancée de Chambéry’ (‘qu'elle dit à ravir’) as the couple took to the road (‘M et Mme Iweins d'Hennin sont actuellement à Cauterets, où ils viennent de donner un très beau concert’ … ‘M et Mme Iweins-d'Hennin viennent d'obtenir le plus brillant succès dans leur concert du 31 août, salle de Frascati’, ‘M et Mlle Iweins-d'Hennin essaient, en province, tous les jolis duos du repertoire, et les concerts de Paris en profiteront à la prochaine saison’, ‘M et Mme Iweins d'Hennin, ces deux artistes viennent d'y donner plusieurs nouveaux concerts, dans lesquels ‘Fleurette’ et ‘Les Yeux d'une Mère ou Huit ans d'absence’, ont obtenu un immense succès.’

 I was not at all surprised to see, at this time, the Iweins repertoire focussing rather more on the romances and chansonnettes, in line with Monsieur’s talents, but I was a little surprised to read, at the start of 1843: ‘M et Mme Iweins-d'Hennin sont de retour à Paris. Nous nous empressons d'apprendre cette bonne nouvelle aux nombreux élèves de Mme d'Hennin’. Elisa was already a teacher. I don’t know how she fitted it in. 

 

Strange, of those three ex-aequo first prize-winners it was only the youngest, Mlle Julian, who went for an international opera career. Mlle d’Hennin had a grand concert career at home, and Mme Potier. Well, hers is another story. Flung on for a debut at the Opéra-Comique when Castellan walked, she did surprisingly well. But soon devolved into teaching.

 

But the teaching part of her life did not impinge on Elisa (and conjointly Alexis’s) performing and, above all, travelling life. 

That performing and travelling life was not something of which stories are made. It was uniformly successful, and only rarely left France for Belgium or Holland or Baden-Baden, as well as taking in festivals such as those at Reims or Roubaix: ‘M et Mme Iweins d'Hennin continuent leur brillante tournée en Hollande. Le 6 de ce mois [December 1843], ils ont eu l'honneur de chanter à La Haye devant le roi et la reine, le prince et la princesse d'Orange et toute la cour. La cantatrice a d'abord chanté le grand air de La Reine de Chypre, et ensuite …’ Romances, chansonnettes and duets. On to Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht ... and then Laval, Arras, and back to the Salle Herz, to start the round again.

This year, alongside the latest romances (Henrion’s ‘Le Mouchoir de Therèse’, 'La Fortune du Pâtre’, ‘Notre Dame des Paquerettes’, Monpou’s ‘L’Enfant perdu’, Aristide Latour’s ‘Sur l’eau’ et al), the couple featured a selection from Donizetti’s recent Dom Sebastian, Iweins singing the music created by Duprez and Elisa that which had been the lot of Rosine Stolz (‘Sol adoré’) as they set out to Orleans, Le Mans, Vincennes, Tours (where Elisa popped in her Queen of the Night), Courtrai, the Roubaix Festival … And the reception and notices were as grand as ever ‘[elle a] arraché les applaudissements et les larmes’, ‘powerful voice, dramatic and passionate’.

And so it continued. Madame Iweins (and sometimes Monsieur, until he faded from the scene) delivered her mixture of operatic arias (Le Prophète) and the romances of Puget, Clapisson, Haas and the other ‘albumnistes’, to town and country, to undiminished delight and applause, through the 1840s and into the 1850s (still 'Plaisir d’amour’, ‘Huit ans d’absence’, ‘Les Chèvres d’Argos’, ‘Ce que femme veut’, Puget’s ‘Roses et Quenouilles’, Abadie’s ‘La Plainte du mousse’) before, at the last, devoting herself almost wholly to teaching, with only the odd, usually charitable, return to the concert platform, as late as the 1860s.

Latterly, the couple retired to Passy, where he died in 1873 and she in 1886.

"Published by the composer". Hopeful Victorian Ballads.

 

I have a 'damaged' right hand. A legacy of my ancient stroke. Happily, I can still type -- though I'm down to two fingers -- but I make lots of typos and various other 'erreurs de frappe'. Trying to undo accidental instructions to my computer is occasionally nightmarish. But occasionally, just occasionally, a mis-hit leads me somewhere interesting and useful. Like today.

As you know, I scan e-bay, quasi-daily, for fascinating historical fragments. Same keywords every day. Which is a bit dumb, because keywords on e-bay can be erroneous, misspelled or just plain fakes. I always check out the photos, programmes, music ...

Well, yesterday I mis-hit whatever my target was, and I came upon some super shops carrying C19th sheet music. All sorts. Lots of Waltzes, Quadrilles, Polkas and other dance arrangements, which ar'n't really my scene, but a decidedly interesting heap of songs of the Entertaiment and Music Hall varieties. Many, bearing credits which meant nothing to me. So, I put aside my D'Oyly Cartesians for the nonce, and have begun to investigate.

This one caught my eye, and it had quite a tale behind it.

It dates, I discover, from 1854, and it was sung in a Scottish Entertainment given by 'the Misses Bennett and Angus Fairbairn', an act which had a decade of career around the British provinces, before eloping to America ...

Well, the Misses Bennett (who were apparently not Bennett at all) were the originals. But Mr Fairbairn became the 'front man' as time went on. Who was he?

James Angus FAIRBAIRN (b Kirknewton 31 May 1823; d Dorchester, Mass 1887) son of Thomas and Elizabeth, married Margaret née Waters, was a railway signalman in Perth. But a signalman with artistic yearnings. In 1850, his muse went public ..

And the following year he burst into public songs, assisting the 'Misses Bennett' in their Entertainment.

The Misses Bennett, billed as such (Miss E and Miss M H), had been seen in 1850 at the Glasgow City Hall concerts, sharing a bill with the Alban Crofts. Elizabeth was apparently Elizabeth ROBERTS. Miss? Mrs? Mary was allegedly her sister. But the whole lot of them told fibs, over the years, so that it is impossible to sort them out. However, I may have spotted them -- Elizabeth 35, Mary 30 -- as Bennett, born England, vocalist -- in the 1851 census for Anstruther Easter in Fife. Oh. With the 'Robertson' family ... 

Elizabeth played piano, both girls sang, and originally not just Scottish songs. I see them duetting 'Deh conte'. Anyway, once Mr Fairbairn became attached to the act they seem, for all that they were not Scots, to have become almost wholly Hibernian. Suitably attired in overtly 'Highland' costume.

This is 1854, and it is seen that Angus has pushed himself to the front.

He had, after the birth of his fourth child, also begun an affair with the younger Miss Bennett. Whether they ever became legally married I have no idea, but Margaret 'late of Melrose Abbey and Bowhill' died at Dunnington, Yorks on 13 January 1905 as Mrs Fairbairn.

Of course, in the fruition of time, Mary, too, bore children to her paramour. Usefully, she bore two daughters, who in the goodness of time were able to replace the 'sisters Bennett' in the Family Fairbairn act. But the Family Fairbairn operated now not in Britain, but in America. They seem to have emigrated in 1869, and I see them performing in Chicago in 1871. Angus, Mrs Roberts and Miss Katie Roberts. Who? Later, more predictably, it is Angus, Mary, Bessie (b 1857) and Polly (b 1858).

The act, alas, seems to have had a limited showing and a very limited success on the left hand side of the Atlantic, and a little para about Angus's death, in 1887 of intestinal cancer, tells us was a disgruntled man.

I am always fascinated by songs which are 'published by the composer'. Or 'for the composer'. It's like a vanity publication. One assumes that a regular publisher, or a recognised singer, didn't want it. Which is fair enough. I have self-published in my time. My reason was that my publishers wanted cuts, and I didn't. Not a reason likely to affect a song.

I've investigated the writer of several such pieces in the past, but today ...

First, I came on this.

A three-shilling song, with a nice cover, published by a well-known firm of piano dealers .. but Mr Bevan has paid for the publication. I wonder why. To get his name connected with that of the bashful Earl (who must surely be Shaftesbury, or maybe Stradbroke)?

Well, there are a few Sam Bevans around in the 'sixties. A farmer, a Reverend, servants ... but I'm plumping for Sam who was 'secretary to the English and foreign Library' at 15 Bond Street. I see that the Library had to purge its lists of 'impure literature of the 'Anonyma' type' in 1864. Sam seems to have shifted to the Douro Silver Lead Mining Co.  Was it this Sam?

I don't see the song getting a professional outing, but it does turn up in amateur provincial concerts.

Now, to pay for one song to be published is OK. But what do we say of a man who does it over and over and over. This next one led me off on a really amusing chase ...

John d'Este, eh? Published by the composer. d'Este? It is, of course, a pseudonym, even though he decided to deed poll latterly. Dr John d'Este MA (Cantab). One of the gentleman's lesser peculiarities and peccadillos in a doggedly determined 'career' in music ...

John EASTES was born in Canterbury, Kent, 3 December 1823, the son of pawnbroker George Eastes and his wife, Elizabeth, and in his teens became a chorister at the local Cathedral. I maybe doing George a disservice, for there was one of the same name 'deputy organist of All Saints' Church Maidstone in the 40s ... anyway, I see 'Master Eastes' singing soprano in 1834, alongside Master Longhurst, and as late as 1837-8 ('an anthem from The Creation').

In 1843, he married Harriott Newport, billed himself as 'of the London concerts' and in 1845 had a son (John Newport Eastes, 26 August 1845) and was appointed a Lay Vicar at Trinity and King's College Cambridge. He would later say 'principal tenor'. He taught singing in Cambridge and turned out some music ('The Royal Naval Polka', 'The Arabian Polka') with picturesque titles. 'The Soldier's Bride' (1847) was self-published, so I imagine the Polkas were too.

He was now advertising 'pupil of Crivelli' and 'member of the University Choir' and was up to four children, and being 'of Sidney Sussex College', his servant girl committed suicide and he started giving a lecture 'Musical Sketches of Italy' at home and away .. 'artist, composer, poet and orator'.  And the string of publications continue ('Only for thee, this heart will throb for thee', 'The Harp of Jacob', 'The Song of the British Navy') as 'An Excursion to Alexandria replaced his Italian lecture.

And in 1859 he graduated BA. 1864, it was MA. The doctorate seems to have come from his fertile imagination.

And aureoled with his newfound 'glory' he walked out on Hariott, and moved to London with his new companion, Caroline Crow. Or Caroline d'Este. For as he pompously announced in the press (and Cambridge took it for a hoax), his lofty Dutch ancestry gave him the right ...

In his new guise, he published a Practical Hints on Singing, churned out the music sheets ('easy but commonplace'), billed himself voluminously as 'MA Cantab, Lay Vicar of King's, Trinity and St John's College Cambridge, formerl of Canterbury Cathedral, Principal of the London College of Vocal Music' -- the College of WHAT?  and in between times laid seven more children with some extraordinarily fancy names, on Miss Crow. By which time he was 'Doc Litt MA' ... 

He died in 1891 ... leaving a bundle of descendants, and a larger bundle of sheet music of which I have found the following (in no particular order) ... nearly all 'published by the composer' ...

I don't know whether to feel sorry for Mr Eastes, or to laugh at his pretensions. Perhaps both.

To which may be added Beautiful Night (1872), a set of musical valentines (1 shilling for five), 'Give Honour to the Brave' (Oswald Allen 1881), 'When Tom Comes Home' (G H Ryan 1881), 'Britons Rally Round Your Flag' (C W Rooke 1886) ..

PS I have yet to find a report of any of these being sung in public. But I shall keep looking.

And I am sure I shall shortly be adding another gent or two this list! Ah! Here's one from America. New Bedford, Mass, to be precise. And this one claims that it did get sung! By the group pictured on its cover. The harmony group who called themselves The Village Four. Even when they added a soprano to the team. Floruit 1913-1918.

That was around the time when the writer, Thomas Herman Griffith (b Prospect, Ohio 26 October 1889; d Cincinnati 13 April 1967), son on Ohio carpenter,  floruitted too. Yes, he was, for the nonce a professional baseball player. Elmer B Griffith (b Prospect 12 March 1884; d Prospect 23 October 1923) was his elder brother.

I have no idea whether the brothers wrote anything else, but by 1920 Thomas was a clerk in a broker's office, by 1930 he was a dealer (radio)... but the pair seem to have got their piece of music sung. And at least one person bought it ...

Here's another. From Iowa. Not self-published (thought probably self-paid for) by its writer. Professor Edward CLAPHAM MD, was indeed a Professor and doubtless a Doctor of Medicine. He was Professor of Chemistry, Toxicology, Materia Medica and Microscopy at Iowa State University in the 1860s. And a musical hobbyist.

Clapham was born in Springfield Place, Leeds 25 October 1836, the son of a chemist and druggist, John Keighly Chapman, and his wife Charlotte née Peacock. He was educated in Pontefract, became (1859) an associate of the Phatmaceutical Society, and went to work as a chemist in Huddersfield. Or, at least, I think so. But a learned tome about all those -ologies was published in Edinburgh in 1850. An MD at 14 or wrong man?  

Our Edward emigrated to America in 1862, and was listed in 1867 as 'professor of anatomy'. He married, had a son .. but died 11 October 1879 in Astoria, Long Island. His wife, Kate (née Lewis), died the following July and the child was brought up by an uncle.

The sister to whom he dedicated the piece was Rosa née Clapham (1840-1892), who married David Bruce Peebles of Edinburgh. Engineer, inventor, gas engineer and (unless there were two of them) sometime piano and singing teacher! In they 1890s they lived at Tay House, Bonnington ...

I see the son, 'Charlie' Clapham (b 10 September 1875) has a large entry on Findagrave ...

Here's a beauty.  1850.

I am not insinuating that the splendid Signor Lanza was anything but a first-class professional. But Miss Purcell and Healey Esq were not at all of the same stature.

Miss Purcell was a striving young soprano, who put in an appearance on the minor concert platforms between 1846 and 1853. I see her in the 1841 census living in Friar's Road with her Scots mother. They assure us that they were both 'of independent means'. I don't see them again thereafter. She can't have been awful, because she did appears down the lists with such as Miss Graddon, Louisa Bassano, Sophia Messent, or Rebecca Isaacs, on occasion. However, she was definitely 'minor'. What her connection with the allegedly lofty George Healey Esq was, I cannot imagine. He was clearly into fairies. And well-off enought to indulge his passions for poetry and drawing (he has done the cover himself...). I imagine he paid Lanza to set his words ... if he really was an Esq.

This one doesn't say 'published by the composer' but it, effectively was. Mr William Dressler (b Nottingham, 31 August 1926; d Brooklyn 1 July 1914) was the publications manager of the firm of Hill. 

Mr Dresser was a modest musician, pianist, accompanist, music teacher, organist et al for some two decades, from the 1850s to the 1870s largely in Brooklyn. I see him just occasionally accompanying a singer at Irving Hall or Steinway Hall. His main achievement as a composer seems to have been the 1873 Fairy Voices, a singing book for schools. 

Addendum

Another from Connecticut. Salem to be precise.

Whittleseys flourish in Connecicut. This one, Or(r)amel (b Salem 7 November 1801; d Salem 9 September 1876) was the son of a preacher, and himself a music teacher -- founder and principal of the Music Vale Seminary -- who ventured into local politics. 

Mr Whittlesey had four daughters, and the eldest of these was Eliza (b Salem 8 October 1826; d Salem 9 September 1897) to whom he dedicated this piece of music, which he published ... when?  Eliza married Lieutenant John T McGinnis, (Company E, 18th CV) had two children, and saw her husband 'fall at Piedmont'.  Eliza ran the Seminary in succession to her father, followed by two of her sisters, but after Orramel's death the girls closed the school down .