[Putnam, John] compiler. Revival Melodies, or Songs of Zion: dedicated to Elder Jacob Knapp. Boston: John Putnam, 1843. Twenty-fourth edition. [11000]
Cloth spine, green printed paper over thin card, 5 1/2 x 4 5/8 inches, front free end paper torn with loss, pencil signatures on same. 62 pp., a few pencil marks in the text; rear end papers with advert for T. Gilbert & Co., Piano-Forte Manufacturers, with date of June 20, 1843. Good. Paperback.
This "24th Edition" is the 24th printing of this hymnal, making 41,000 copies printed within the first year of publication. Copyright : "Entered ... 1842, by John Putnam ..." title page verso; "Stereotyped by Kidder and Wright, Congress St." title page verso; edition statement and date from front cover. Title page dated: 1842. Rear cover is printed adverts and positive reviews for this song book.
"This collection of Social Songs and Melodies, has been made at the repeated solicitations of the friends of Zion. It embraces in addition to others, not before published, those popular and favorite hymns as they were originally sung at the meetings of the Rev. Mr. Knapp, in this city..." - Note.
Words and music; the music is in three parts with round notes.
Jacob Knapp's Autobiography is no. 3138 in Roberts, Revival Literature : An Annotated Bibliography with Biographical and Historical Notices. "Although brought up in the Episcopal Church, Jacob Knapp gladly forsook it for the Baptists at the time of his conversion. Following graduation from Hamilton College he served pastorates at both Springfield and Watertown, New York. Elder Knapp commenced his full-time itinerant work in 1833. He traveled widely, preached strongly, gained many enemies and not a few friends, claimed many converts, and provoked much suspicion and distrust, especially in the realm of finances. Being narrow in his denominational views, he restricted most of his work to Baptist causes. Knapp was one of the few Baptists engaged in revival ministry in his day. He records several significant movements which occurred under his preaching including the Boston revivals of 1842 and 1860.
"Elder Jacob Knapp (1799-1874), "a famous and sometimes controversial Baptist evangelist devoted to revivalism and religious reform. According to Smith, Knapp's ministry in the 1830s was principally to rural and small-town communities in New York, where he became known as a chief supporter of Madison University at Hamilton. His first urban success, in union campaigns sponsored by the Baptist churches of Rochester, Baltimore, and Boston, were cut short in 1842 when anti-revival clergymen charged that he wore old clothes in the pulpit to secure a more sympathetic response in the offerings. His supporters hotly contested the accusation, and he was officially cleared. " - Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown, written by Himself, p. 100 of the Introduction by John Ernest.
With a signed provenance card from the music collection of A. Merril Smoak, Jr., DWS.
