Benham, Asahel. Federal Harmony: containing, in a familiar manner. The rudiments of psalmody, together with a collection of church music; (most of which are entirely new). Middletown: Moses H. Woodward, 1794?. [9391]
Leather spine with plain paper boards, lacks about 2/3 of the board front and back, oblong 11 cm, (4 1/2 x 7 5/8 inches). 7-10, [9]-16, 15-58 (engraved plates). DEFECTIVE: lacking all free end papers, title page [1], blank [2], introductory note [3], and Index [4]. That is, it lacks the first 2 leaves and the free end papers. The correct paging is [4], 7-10, [9]-16, 15-58. Pages 15-58 are engraved music, and there is engraved music in columns on pp. 8-10. Poor.
Without the title page it is impossible to tell if this edition is the 4th (1794), the 5th (1795), or the 6th (1796), as all have the same pagination. All three were published in Middletown by Woodward. See nos. 92-94 in Britton, Lowens, & Crawford, American Sacred Music Imprints, 1698-1810.
The music is in four parts with round notes.
"All editions of Federal Harmony display garbled paging...in the second and all later editions of the work there is a gap between the first four pages and the rudiments (as if p. 5-6 were missing), and an overlap after the second typeset group, with pages 15 and 16 (left unnumbered in the second and third editions but numbered thereafter) being followed by pages 15 and 16 of the music." - ibid.
Asahel Benham (1754-1803), b. New Hartford, CT; buried at Wallingford, CT. Benahm was a composer and singing-master in New England and as far south as Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
With a signed provenance card from the collection of A. Merril Smoak, Jr., DWS.
