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56 The National Music of America.
citterns, spinets, harpsichords, flutes or viols are mentioned. This would seem to show that the early settlers did not possess these instruments, or that at least they must have been rarely seen here."
Although we have called the organ described above the earliest of New England, there evidently was a more primitive instrument in existence in Boston, in Mr. Brattle's house, in 1711, for in the Diary of the Rev. Joseph Green, published by the Essex Institute (collection of 1869, May), we read, under date of May 29, 1711 : "I was at Mr. Thomas Brattle's; heard ye organs." But the information is very vague.1
1 Mr. Brattle seems to have been a man of more than ordinary culture, certainly far in advance of his surroundings. It would be delightful to ascertain what kind of an organ he .had at his house, but the Rev. Doctor Green is tantalisingly brief in all his notes. He visited Boston in May, 1711, as the following note indicates :
" May 28th. I went to Boston with my daughter Ann; log'd at Brother Gerrish."
This is immediately followed by the important note:
" May 29th. I was at Thomas Brattle's, heard ye organs and saw strange things in a microscope."
This unsatisfactory notice is the first mention of the instrument in the colony- |
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