Amzi Chapin: Frontier Singing Master and Folk Hymn Composer

Abstract

Amzi Chapin was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, in March 1768. From 1791 to 1795 he taught in Virginia and North Carolina. In 1795 Amzi moved to Kentucky where he resided and taught singing schools. The available evidence indicates that he and an older brother, Lucius, were among the first singing masters to teach sacred music west of the Alleghenies. In 1800 Amzi moved to western Pennsylvania where he farmed and taught singing schools periodically until 1831, when he and his family moved to Northfield, Ohio. Amzi resided there until his death on February 19, 1835. From the time of his death until 1969, Amzi Chapin remained a shadowy figure in the history of American music, although both his and his brother' s tunes were included in well-known collections of American sacred music during the nineteenth century. Although Mary O. Eddy did some research on Amzi Chapin in the 1940' s, her research has been relatively unknown to scholars in American music during the past twenty years.