The Music of John Hill Hewitt
(1801-1890)

John Hill Hewitt was born in Maiden Lane, NY on 11 July 1801 and died in Baltimore, MD at the age of 89 on 7 October 1890. He was married to Estelle Mangin in 1827 until her death in 1860. They had seven children. He remarried in 1863 to Mary Alethea Smith and they had 4 children. One of his son's name was Horatio Dawes Hewitt. His father's first name, as was his brother's, was James. His brother, James Lang Hewitt (1807-1853), was the owner of a prominent music publishing firm under his own name.

His most popular songs were Minstrel's Return From the War (1825), Hark, Brothers, Hark (1837), Aunt Harriet Betcha Stowe (1853), The Young Volunteer (1863), All Quiet on the Potomac To-night (1863), You Are Going to the Wars, Willie Boy! (1863), Somebody's Darling (1864), and Dreaming Forever of Thee (1875).

NOTE: the Source* columns below refer either to: (1) The Lester S. Levy Collection by Box/Item number; (2) the Library of Congress' LCCN or CALL numbers in brackets (which can be used to request copies from the Photoduplication Services Division there); (3) if just labeled "LoC" then it is available at the American Memories webpages at the Library of Congress; (4) Duke University; or, (5) UNC-CH refers to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Music Library. For further info about Hewitt, I recommned two dissertaions: The Life and Music Theater Works of John Hill Hewitt (1972) [#7219959] by William Craig Winden; and John Hill Hewitt: Bard of the Condeferacy [#6410586] (1964) by Coy Elliot Huggins. The latter includes a very definitive Catalog of Musical Works in its Appendix B (pp. 141-172). Both disserations are available from UMI of Ann Arbor, MI. A collection of five of his works (Rip Van Winkle, The Artist's Wife, The Vivandiere, Taken In, and The Musical Enthusiast) are published in The Collected Works of John Hill Hewitt (1994) edited by N. Lee Orr and Lyn Wood Bertrand, published by Garland Publishing (ISBN 0-8153-1370-5). A large collection of Hewitt's works, in manuscript only, are available in the Special Collections Department of the Robert W. Woodruff Library at Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia. Most of his published works are available at the Maryland Historical Society in Baltimore, Maryland.

SPECIAL THANKS: to Noami Lynn Nelson, Director, Special Collections Digital Archive, Robert W. Woodruff Library, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia 30322-2870, for her invaluable support of photocopies of unpublished manuscript scores.