DUANE STREET and BILLY BROKE LOCKS (aka OLD JOHN WEBB etc.)

[Wade Kotter]

In doing some work on a different but related topic, I can't help to notice what I believe to be a pretty close resemblance between DUANE STREE (164) and what is often described as an American folk song known variously as BILLY BROOK LOCKS, OLD JOHN WEBB, JOHN WEBBER, etc. I've found three printed sources for this folk tune, the earliest being the the first tune collected for the ballad known as John Webber and included in British Ballads from Maine, 1929:

https://archive.org/details/bwb_S0-EII-978/page/393/mode/1up

What does everyone think? Am I on the right track? It would seem that George Coles adapted a folk tune for his DUANE STREET, presumably named after the Duane-street Methodist Episcopal Church in New York where he is know to have preached.

The brings up a second point. About a week ago I posted a query requesting any information people might have regarding the widely referenced 1835 date for DUANE STREET, but no one responded. The earliest printing I've found is My Little Singing Book by Asa Fitz (Boston, 1840), where it is unattributed:

https://archive.org/details/mylittlesingingb00fitz/page/24/mode/2up

Thanks in advance for any response!

Wade

Dr. Wade Kotter

Retired Librarian

Independent Hymnologist and Unrestrained Loud Treble

South Ogden, UT

"Make a Joyful Noise Unto the Lord" 

[Peter Schinske]

Hi Wade,

I've done some searching, and I couldn't find a satisfying answer but did find some interesting details.

J. S. James' 1909 Union Harp attributes Duane Street to "Rev. George Coles, about 1835." https://hymnary.org/hymn/UHHS1909/page/51

James' 1911 Sacred Harp copies this attribution, but forgets the S in Coles.

I searched through hymnary.org and found a few interesting uses of Duane Street:

- The 1905 hymnal "Waves of Glory" gives the year as 1837: https://hymnary.org/hymn/WoG1905/page/241
- The imaginatively titled 1899 "Sacred Hymnal" gives the year as 1835: https://hymnary.org/hymn/SHCP1899/page/78
- The 1890 "Good-Will Songs" says the copyright holder is "Oliver Ditson & Co.": https://hymnary.org/hymn/GWSC1890/page/91

Oliver Ditson & Co seems to have been headquartered on Duane Street in New York, but this might a coincidence - they didn't get that location until 1856: https://tribecacitizen.com/the-history-of-tribeca-buildings/the-history-of-108-110-duane/

hymnary.org's earliest attribution of this tune to George Coles is in the 1842 revival hymnal "Songs of Canaan", so the attribution to him is at least from within his lifetime: https://hymnary.org/hymn/SCMH1842/page/63

This doesn't help answer your question, but I got sidetracked into looking up the Mormon history of this hymn. In 1844 the tune is published in the first edition of the Sacred Harp, but that same year it also entered the Little and Gardner LDS hymnal (with a different text): https://hymnary.org/hymn/CSHL1844/page/16

I found a BYU article talking about that hymnal, which talks about the Little and Gardner hymnal's significant Methodist influence: https://byustudies.byu.edu/article/the-little-gardner-hymnal-1844-a-study-of-its-origin-and-contribution-to-the-lds-musical-canon
Coles was a Methodist preacher, and Gardner grew up a Methodist, so it seems pretty clear to me that the tune migrated from the Methodists to the Mormons and not the other way round. A variant is still in the LDS hymnal, with the familiar "poor wayfaring man of grief" words: https://hymnary.org/hymn/LDS1985/page/30

So the Sacred Harp gives the year as 1835 because Col. James said it was written in "about 1835". I don't know where he got that info, but there are at least a couple other hymnals that give a similar year.

Hope at least some of this helps,

--Peter Schinske

[Wade Kotter]

Thanks, Peter. I'm familiar with pretty much all you say. Nick Pappas provided me with the entries for DUANE STREET from his database. The earliest source for the tune he lists is the 1st ed. of The Valley Harmonist, compiled by W. J. Steffy of New-Market, Shenandoah County, VA and printed in nearby Harrisonburg, VA. I'm quite sure that Steffy was not a Methodist. Interestingly, Nick gives a date of ca. 1840 for the 1st ed. of this collection, but many other sources date it to 1836. If the 1836 date is correct, that would support the "about 1835" date given in many sources. Perhaps Nick can elaborate on why he thinks "ca. 1840" is more appropriate for the 1st ed. of Steffy's collection. Regarding the attribution to Coles, the earliest source I've found where the tune is attributed to a "Rev. G. Coles" is The Young Choir, compiled by William B. Bradbury and Charles W. Sanders and published in New York in 1841. Bradbury was Baptist, I believe, and I can't find any information on the religious affiliation of Charles W. Sanders.

Regarding the attribution in the 2025 ed. of The Sacred Harp, which is "George Coles, 1835. Treble J. T. White 1844. Alto Anna Blackshear, 1902" (notice there is no "about"), it is my understanding that the 2025 Music Attributions committee, consisting of Rachel Hall, Robert Kelley, and Warren Steel, spent a lot of time reviewing the attributions and did not simply accept the attributions in early editions, especially those of James, many of which are problematic at best. So I'm not convinced that your following statement is correct: "So the Sacred Harp gives the year as 1835 because Col. James said it was written in 'about 1835.'" I sincerely doubt that this is the reason why the attribution in the 2025 ed. (and the 1991 ed.) says "George Coles, 1835." I'm hoping that Rachel and/or Robert and/or Warren will tell us more about why they accepted the 1835 date. I note that the 2012 Cooper book does not attribute DUANE STREE to Coles.

Wade

Dr. Wade Kotter

Retired Librarian

Independent Hymnologist and Unrestrained Loud Treble

South Ogden, UT

"Make a Joyful Noise Unto the Lord" 

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[David Warren Steel]

Wade writes:
>>Thanks, Peter. I'm familiar with pretty much all you say. Nick Pappas provided me with the entries for DUANE STREET from his database. The earliest source for the tune he lists is the 1st ed. of The Valley Harmonist, compiled by W. J. Steffy of New-Market, Shenandoah County, VA and printed in nearby Harrisonburg, VA. I'm quite sure that Steffy was not a Methodist. Interestingly, Nick gives a date of ca. 1840 for the 1st ed. of this collection, but many other sources date it to 1836. If the 1836 date is correct, that would support the "about 1835" date given in many sources. Perhaps Nick can elaborate on why he thinks "ca. 1840" is more appropriate for the 1st ed. of Steffy's collection.

As for the date of Steffy's collection, I have
The Valley Harmonist, 1836-1845

The Valley Harmonist, containing a collection of tunes & hymns, from approved authors--adapted to the worship of religious denominations. By J. W. Steffy, Newmarket, Va. [verse] Winchester: printed by Robinson & Hollis. 1836.
167, [1] pp.
Copyright entered 1836, Western District of Virginia, by J. W. Steffy. Preface signed Newmarket, Va. Oct. 1836, The Publisher. P. [1], t-p.; p. [2], copyright notice; pp. [3]-4, preface; pp. [5]-12, rudiments; pp. 13-162, music; pp. [163]-165, appendix (hymn texts); pp. [166]-167, index; p. [168], errata.
C 40326; *MWA NcWsM

[first edition with appendix]
The Valley Harmonist, . . . 1836.
167, [1], 72, [1] pp.
Copyright entered 1836, Western District of Virginia, by J. W. Steffy. Preface signed Newmarket, Va. Oct. 1836, The Publisher. pp. [1]-72, music; p. [73], index to the appendix. 2nd p. [1], caption title, 'Appendix to the Valley Harmonist.' *RPB *ViHarEM

[second edition, 1845]
The Valley Harmonist, containing a collection of tunes from approved authors. Adapted to a variety of metres. Also--a selection of set pieces and anthems. Second edition--revised, enlarged and improved. By J. W. Steffy, New-Market, Shenandoah Co., Va. [verse] Harrisonburg--Henry T. Wartmann, printer. 1845.
336 pp.
Copyright entered 1845, Western District of Virginia, by J. W. Steffy. P. [i], t-p.; p. [ii], copyright notice; pp. [iii]-iv, preface; pp. [v]-xi, address on music, note; pp. [xii]-xlix, rudiments; pp. [l]-li, musical terms; p. [lii] blank; pp. 53-333, music; pp. [334]-336, index; p. 336, errata.
*MWA NcWsM TU

I have not seen a date for the appendix. If the tune appears in the appendix, and Nikos dates the appendix to 1840 this would make sense. If it is in the body of the first edition, then 1836 would be correct. In either case, I would expect that Steffy, who did not provide an attribution, got it from some earlier source, but we may tentatively give this 1836 date the benefit of the doubt. The song was unattributed in early editions of the Sacred Harp, except for the treble by J. T. White. Maybe James's "about 1835" was a lucky guess.
-- 
Warren Steel                              mu...@olemiss.edu
Professor of Music Emeritus      University of Mississippi
              http://home.olemiss.edu/~mudws/

[Wade Kotter]

Thanks, Wayne. Perhaps it is in the appendix. Here's the entry for this instance in Nick's database:

Hymn SN: 26080

Book Title: SteffJ VHA 1 Source Date: 1840, ca. Source City: Newmarket Source State: VA Source Style: An Mod3

SocChor Source Notation: 4S LS

Printer Info: Winchester VA

Tune Name: DUANE STREET

Melody Incipit: 5u1331244 231d7u12d55

Music Source/Composer: Cole George Rev.

Text Incipit: A poor way-faring man of grief,

Meter: Verse: L.M. double

Key Signature: A major

Number of Parts: 2

Tune Type: Plain Tune

Form: AA’BA’’ or ABA’C DBA’C

- repeated melodic material

A colleague not on this list tells me that he found a newspaper article claiming that DUANE STREET was first published by Coles in The Christian Advocate and Journal (of which he was Assistant Editor) but no date was gives. This periodical is not available for free online that I can find, but it is covered in the ProQuest American Periodicals Database. I do not have access to this database (it was canceled by Weber State after I retired), but a colleague at BYU has access and has, so far, not found it in issues from 1835, although he did find articles by Coles. He will be looking at later issues when he gets time.

Any comments on the possible relationship between DUANE STREET and Billy Broke Locks?

Wade

Dr. Wade Kotter

Retired Librarian

Independent Hymnologist and Unrestrained Loud Treble

South Ogden, UT

"Make a Joyful Noise Unto the Lord" 

[Nikos Pappas]

Greetings all.

Wade, Warren is correct. The tune appears in the Appendix to the Valley Harmonist not included in the first edition of 1836. There is an "Appendix" in the first edition but its a few pages of alternate verses for tunes in the book. This Appendix follows a list of Errata in the first edition. This supplement includes a number of tunes taken from Walker's Southern Harmony, some English tunes, a few anthems like ROSE OF SHARON, original arrangements and compositions by Steffey, and some reformer evangelical favorites. DUANE STREET is preceded by OLIVET, and a small grouping of tunes related to Henkel the Lutheran frontier minister active in the Valley of Virginia and the Ohio River area at the beginning of the 19th century.

The tunes from Walker included in this Appendix parallel Jackson's Knoxville Harmony [ed. 1 from Madisonville (1838) and ed. 2 from Pumpkintown (1840)]. As it did not appear in 1836, I gave it a date of c. 1840 as a halfway point between it and the second edition of 1845. Also, the Walker tune HARMONY found on page 37 was dropped from later editions of The Southern Harmony, leading me to believe Steffey probably took the tunes in the Appendix from the 1838 stereotype edition. The tunes Steffey liked in this Appendix were incorporated into the main tunebook in the second edition.

I hope this clears things up.

Nick Pappas

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[Fulton, Erin]

DUANE STREET has long niggled at me. Here's some more thoughts/sources with no solid conclusion attached to 'em.

Before I got to be an entirely unintentional Asa Fitz person, I had presumed that the starting point for this tune was its sheet music publication, copyrighted 1841 by Coles in the southern NY district and published by Firth & Hall, 1 Franklin Square, NYC. There it is referred to as "The Stranger and His Friend," just as Montgomery's text usually was in isolation--without the name DUANE STREEET. This kind of titling convention, in my experience, is pretty typical of a "sacred song" as opposed to a hymn tune; however, the arrangement (for four-voice chorus with a small tenor solo in the middle, accompaniment and symphonies for organ) rings a bit more church-y than Sunday-evening-in-the-parlor-y. It is unambiguously credited "Words by James Montgomery Esqr. Music by Revd. George Coles." It's also dedicated to Augusta Browne, for which reason it pops up in Bonny Miller's recent monograph on  Browne (53, note typo "Episcopal" for "Methodist Episcopal"); Miller dedicated her own sacred song "Song of the Redeemed" back at Coles in '45. 

Coles left a nice account of an early performance of his GREENE-STREET—named for a different NYC church that, like Duane Street, he had at times pastored—in Incidents of My Later Years, 65-6. There's unfortunately nothing equivalent about DUANE STREET in his fairly extensive autobiographical writing, though Coles's fifty years worth of journals (at the Methodist archives at Drew, or at any rate they were ca. 2000!) may make some mention. Nonetheless, sources that would have good reason to be informed about his career attribute DUANE STREET to him under that name, such as Seaman's Annals of New York Methodism. 

The thing that really stumps me is that the earliest (?) printing in My Little Singing Book already gives the tune name DUANE STREET. Fitz is admittedly a slippery little guy, but I'm personally at a loss to connect him to NYC prior to 1841, even he seems to have been the introduction point for this clearly geographically significant tune name in '40. He was at that time still fairly freshly settled in Boston from Candia, NH and had not--I think--started traveling as extensively as he would later in the decade. I don't see any external reason, such as denominational affiliation, for him to have been aware of Duane Street Church and/or Coles from afar. I'm writing Linda Hansen at UNB, who's done more newspaper work on Fitz than I have, to see if she can "get him there" earlier. If I were seeing very early iterations of this tune under blah humbug names like JESUS or POOR WAY-FARING MAN, I would be more inclined to theorize multiple independent derivations from your "Old John Webb" group or similar. But I'm unaware of any such generic names coming into use before '42 DUANE STREET seems like such an intentional choice of moniker.  

Fitz (with sometime accomplice E.B. Dearborn) republished DUANE STREET in 1841 in Sabbath School Singing Book, 90. That year also gives us 1) the sheet music publication copyrighted by Coles, noted above and 2) the first two attributions of DUANE STREET to Coles in anthologies. Those attributions could, of course, have been taken from the sheet music—again, that publication does not use the name DUANE STREET—but did not necessarily need to be. The sources are Bradbury and Sanders, Young Choir, 44-5, and Brown, Wesleyan Harp, 88-9 (not, FYI, found in the earlier editions associated with A. D. Merrill). Although Brown was based in Boston at this point, he and Coles were almost certainly acquainted through MEC circles and had by this date both been involved in the revision and publication of The Harmonist. Meanwhile, Bradbury had recently been hired by the Baptist Tabernacle in NYC, where he was becoming intensively involved in sabbath school music/literature, of which Coles was one of the leading figures in NYC at this time. Even though the sheet music version is written for SATB with a readily separable organ part, I've not seen any tunebook/songster publications that actually use it (although everybody seems to agree we ought to be in A). 

Although not among the "top hits" list given in Revival Melodies, DUANE STREET seems to have been extremely popular during the 1841-2 Boston revival. That revival is the first point at which I've seen it published under text-derived tune names, which at this early date is usually a sign that a particular tune-text combination is traveling in performance more rapidly than in print. Here are all the printings I know of in Boston during '42, in approximate chronological order throughout the year:

1. Revival Melodies (1842) as POOR WAY-FARING MAN, I:34.
2. Packard and Hubbard, Songs of Canaan (1842) as DUANE STREET, attr. Rev. Geo. Coles, 58
3. Neale and Day, Revival Hymns (1842) as THE POOR WAY-FARING MAN, 26-7
4. Whittemore, Conference Hymns and Tunes (1842) as JESUS or THE POOR WAY-FARING MAN, I:8-9.
5. Scudder, Wesleyan Psalmist (1842) as JESUS or THE POOR WAY-FARING MAN, 86

 

It seems highly unlikely that the tune would have appeared in Christian Advocate and Journal. The few instances of hymn-tune publication in non-specialist periodicals of which I am aware from this time period all plates prepared for publication in a songster/tunebook and incidentally used in an additional context, rather than being manufactured for one-off use in a the periodical itself. It's possible that the reference is instead to a printing of Montgomery's poem, which did indeed appear in the "Poet's Department" of the 28 April 1827 issue.

It's been a few years since I was helping with cheese notes work, but in my experience James does not generally guess at a date; he's usually getting them from a secondary source, often something like the Methodist Hymn and Tune Book or Butterworth's Story of the Hymns. In this instance, neither of those sources are useful. Perhaps the tentative date came from the same place he got Coles's biographical sketch--?

Best,

E. Fulton.

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From: fasola-di...@googlegroups.com <fasola-di...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Nikos Pappas <nikos.a...@gmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, June 20, 2026 3:29 PM
To: mu...@olemiss.edu <mu...@olemiss.edu>
Cc: Fasola Discussions <fasola-di...@googlegroups.com>; Peter Schinske <pjsch...@gmail.com>; wadek...@yahoo.com <wadek...@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [fasola-discussions] Re: DUANE STREET and BILLY BROKE LOCKS (aka OLD JOHN WEBB etc.)

 

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[Wade Kotter]

Thanks so much, Erin. I wasn't aware of the sheet music from 1841. Has is been digitized? If not, do you have a scan? I'd love to see it. I am aware of the mention of GREENE STREET in Cole's Incidents of My Later Years and I was hoping without any luck to find DUANE STREET mentioned there as well. I'm also familiar with the revival hymnals from Boston you list as well as the 1841 printings in The Young Choir and Brown's Wesleyan Harp.

Wade

Dr. Wade Kotter

Retired Librarian

Independent Hymnologist and Unrestrained Loud Treble

South Ogden, UT

"Make a Joyful Noise Unto the Lord" 

[Wade Kotter]

This is not really relevant to the question at hand, but I thought some people might be interested in the following printing of DUANE STREET with a altered version of the Montgomery text reflecting an abolitionist message:

https://archive.org/details/libertyminstrel00clara/page/170/mode/2up

Wade

Dr. Wade Kotter

Retired Librarian

Independent Hymnologist and Unrestrained Loud Treble

South Ogden, UT

"Make a Joyful Noise Unto the Lord" 

On Thursday, June 25, 2026 at 01:36:00 PM MDT, Fulton, Erin <erinf...@uky.edu> wrote:

[Fulton, Erin]

I can send you the sheet music, Wade, as well as a book chapter in which I discussed (briefly) the antislavery verses, which were written by Charles Wheeler Dennison of The Emancipator. In addition to various reprints in antislavery periodicals and songsters, they were included in S. A. Howland's Social Harmony with a nice note referring to them as "presenting aspects of the Savior's suffering in his members," no. 71.

We sang one of the Dennison verses  (and Lily Hammond sang the sheet music version as a solo) at a singalong in Sanbornton, NH at the beginning of this month. 

Best,

E. Fulton.

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From: Wade Kotter <wadek...@yahoo.com>
Sent: Thursday, June 25, 2026 4:39 PM
To: mu...@olemiss.edu <mu...@olemiss.edu>; nikos.a...@gmail.com <nikos.a...@gmail.com>; Fulton, Erin <erinf...@uky.edu>

Cc: Fasola Discussions <fasola-di...@googlegroups.com>; Peter Schinske <pjsch...@gmail.com>