As pioneers established themselves in Marion County in the first half of the nineteenth century, their first priority was survival. There were forests to clear, homes to build, and land to plow. Hunting and farming to obtain food and clothing were essential activities. Neighbors were few and often lived a distance away. It is little wonder, then, that we rarely think about how they spent their leisure time, since they had so little of it! But there is evidence that Marion County pioneers loved entertainment and music and tried to make it part of their lives.
The Marion County Historical Society Museum has in its collections an autoharp, estimated to be about two hundred years old, that Jenny B. Bowser Haines brought to Caledonia by covered wagon when she and her family settled there in the 1820s. Clearly, the instrument was important to her. We can speculate that her family enjoyed many an evening singing to the accompaniment of Jenny’s autoharp.
Itinerant musicians traveled through the area, presenting concerts and teaching music. They established temporary “singing schools” where beginning singers learned the rudiments of music reading and singing. Isaac Brown was an early singing school instructor in the Claridon area. Later, the Lawrence brothers, George, Richard, and James, conducted another singing school.
Philip Phillips, a native of Chautauqua County, New York, first came to Marion County in the late 1850s at the invitation of E. B. Olmstead, Superintendent of Public Schools in Marion. He presented a vocal concert at the Baptist Church. The 1883 History of Marion County continues: “At the close a large class was organized, which Mr. Phillips taught every week for two consecutive terms . . . After making another tour in Western New York, he returned to Marion and brought out the cantata of Esther and gave it several times with eminent satisfaction to the public.”
During this visit he met Ollie M. Clark of Marion, whom he married on September 27, 1860. The couple purchased a home in Marion, where they lived for two years. In order to make a living, Phillips sold Wheeler and Wilson sewing machines; he also continued to present sacred concerts and teach singing schools. Claridon Methodist Church (now the township hall) was the site of some of Phillips’s musical offerings. At that time it was lighted by candles set in sticks at the ends of the pews.
Philip Phillips’s talents took him far from western New York and Marion. In 1860, he published Early Blossoms, his first music book, which sold 20,000 copies. The next year he relocated to Cincinnati, where he operated a music store and published more books of hymns. His American Sacred Songster (1868) sold more than 1,000,000 copies. “The Singing Pilgrim,” as he was known, traveled the country, and later the world, holding song services.
During the Civil War, Phillips used his talents to raise support for the United States Christian Commission, which provided Bibles, religious tracts, food, clothing, medicine, and bandages for soldiers from both sides. At the request of President Abraham Lincoln, he sang “Your Mission” at the Christian Commission meeting in Washington, D. C. in January, 1865. Lincoln was so moved by Phillips’s performance that tears streamed down his face.
From 1875 to 1877 Phillips toured the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii), Australia, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, India, Japan, Jerusalem, Egypt, Europe, and England.
Although Phillips wrote many hymns that were popular during his lifetime, few of them are commonly used in churches today. He was, however, a singular talent whose work influenced the development of hymn writing in the United States.
