Appalachian Dulcimer Traditions

by Ralph Lee Smith

  The Germans tended to settle near each other, forming communities. One of these was in the Cripple Creek area of Wythe County, where some 75 German families settled prior to the American Revolution. Burnette-Dean found five dulcimer-owning families in this area, with John Stanger (1775–1848) being the connection among all of them.

  Burnette-Dean observed that, of the owners of the 39 dulcimers, 24 came from the British Isles and 15 from the various German-speaking kingdoms and states (Germany did not become a nation until 1870). However, there was a notable difference in the ownership patterns in the eastern and western counties. Of 11 dulcimers found in counties along the eastern side of the Blue Ridge, all but two were owned by families whose ancestors came from the British Isles. West of the Blue Ridge, the numbers were evenly split, with 13 owned by British Isles families and 13 by German families.

  I have to confess that this substantial early German ownership of dulcimers surprised me, and it raises many questions that the reader can ponder. A few of the instruments may have been scheitholt/zitters, but the total absence of the word zitter in the records of German owners raises lots of doubt. The evidence strongly suggests that true dulcimers existed by 1818, the year of their earliest appearance in the courthouse records that Burnette-Dean examined.

  However, what her findings render uncertain is whether the scenario I had envisioned—that English, Scottish, or Irish settlers were the ones who changed the scheitholt into the dulcimer—is accurate. Maybe some ingenious Germans made the change, and then those famous borrowers, the Scotch-Irish, up to their usual thing, helped themselves! What is clear, however, is that the German presence faded away as the 19th century progressed, and the instrument domiciled itself in the English-speaking world.

  After the two 1818 instruments, the number of instruments that Bur-nette-Dean found, by decade, was as follows: 1820–1829, 9; 1830–1839, 7; 1840–1849, 13; 1850–1859, 8. Prices for the instruments in sales records ran from 12½ cents to $2.50, in the same general range as the Kentucky dulcimers cited by Gifford, thus reinforcing his conclusion that the instruments were not hammered dulcimers. Few owners of the dulcimers had significant assets and none were rich. Of the 39 owners, 26 had estates with a total value of less than $1,000. The dulcimer’s home was among people of modest, sometimes very modest, means.

  A fascinating question is whether any of the family names of dulcimer owners that Burnette-Dean found in the 1780–1860 estate records, or of purchasers of dulcimers at estate sales, appear among later 19th-century or early 20th-century makers, owners, or players. Was the interest, and perhaps even an instrument or two, passed down?

  For example, one of the entries in Burnette-Dean’s listing of owners, from Wythe County, reads:

  One dulcimer was found in the 1848 estate of Jacob SPANGLER. He was born in Wythe County in 1789 in the Cripple Creek area. His family came from Germany to Pennsylvania to Wythe. He was married to Sally Stanger. His estate was valued at $763.76. His dulcimer was valued at $1.00 and was spelled “dulcimer.”

  Another Wythe County record reads:

  One dulcimer was found in the 1853 estate of John SPANGLER. He was born in Wythe County, VA. He was the son of Jacob Spangler. He was married to Catherine Harner. His family was from Germany. His estate was valued at $510.72. His dulcimer was valued at $1.95 and was spelled “dulcimore.”

  The name Spangler also turns up in connection with Cecil Sharp’s and Maud Karpeles’s 1916–1918 field collecting trip to Appalachia. In 2004, the English Folk Dance and Song Society published Dear Companion: Appalachian Traditional Singers from the Cecil Sharp Collection. Describing their work in Virginia in 1918, the book says:

  Sharp and Karpeles stayed at Meadows of Dan with members of the Span-gler family, one of whom, James Watts “Babe” Spangler, was a fine and influential local fiddler, although, as he was away from the area at the time, Sharp was unable to note any tunes from him. (p. 20)

  Meadows of Dan is in Patrick County, to the east of Wythe County, but the reference and musical association are intriguing. If all the leads were followed up and some genealogical research were done, one or more very old and very important dulcimers might be found at the end of the trail.

  A FINDING IN THE VALLEY

  In 2006, the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley in Winchester, Virginia, mounted an exhibit of scheitholts and dulcimers, principally from my collection. Heather Hembrey, the staff member in charge of the exhibit, read The Dulcimer in Southwestern Virginia and decided to see if any pre–Civil War dulcimers might be found in court records of the Shenandoah Valley. After three long days studying records in the Shenandoah County Courthouse, she found one.

  Hembrey photographed two entries for the instrument, one in the estate inventory and one in the subsequent record of sale. The photos were among the stars of the exhibit. The museum’s caption read:

  Photographs by Heather Hembrey. From Shenandoah County Will Book No. 2, August 1852–August 1853, Pages 373–374, 381. These documents show that dulcimers existed in the Shenandoah Valley before the Civil War. Jacob Clem of Fort Valley died on May 1, 1853. His estate inventory of July 21 listed “1 oil stone & 1 Dulcimore” valued at 30 cents. Five days later, Levi Coverstone bought the “Dulsimo” for 83 cents. He also bought Clem’s violin. He did not own these instruments for very long. Coverstone died of typhoid fever on September 10, 1855. He was 25 years and 10 days old.

  BEYOND THE MOUNTAINS

  The dulcimer traveled beyond the mountains at an early date. Indiana, located wholly west of the Appalachians, was organized as a territory in 1800 and entered the union as a state in 1816. At this time and for a number of years thereafter, Indiana was often called the nation’s “Far Western Frontier.”

  In 1820, the federal government negotiated a treaty with several Native American tribes that occupied a substantial area of Indiana. By the terms of the treaty, the Native Americans were paid for an immense tract of land within the state’s borders and were required to vacate and move west. The land was called the “New Purchase.” It was divided up into 37 counties and was offered to settlers for $2 per acre, later reduced to $1.25 per acre. From the Eastern Seaboard and from Virginia and Ohio, pioneering settlers arrived.

  In 2005, I exchanged several emails with Keith Collins, interpreter specialist for music at the Conner Prairie Living History Museum in Fishers, Indiana, east of Indianapolis. In the course of our exchange, he wrote: “It has come to my attention that a dulcimer is listed in an [estate] inventory from 1847 in Johnson County, Indiana. It belonged to a Lewis Hendricks and was valued at his death at $1.00.”

  Collins also told me about a book published in 1843 containing a description of a dulcimer owned by a resident of the pioneer community of Bloomington, Indiana, in the early 1820s. The book—a two-volume, 616-page work by “Robert Carlton” (a pseudonym for Baynard R. Hall) entitled The New Purchase; or, Seven and a Half Years in the Far West—provides an extensive account of daily life in Bloomington in the 1820s.

  In 1823, the state of Indiana launched the Indiana Seminary on land close to Bloomington. The seminary became Indiana University in 1838. Baynard R. Hall, a Presbyterian minister, was appointed the seminary’s first principal and first instructor. Hall remained at his post through the 1820s, then returned to Philadelphia. In The New Purchase, Hall fictionalized names (even his own), wrote in a highly flowery style, and no doubt added fictional touches. The book is nevertheless an immense repository of factual information and detail and a leading document of early Indiana history.

  Bloomington’s first blacksmith was a man named Austin W. Seward, whom Hall calls “Vulcanus Allheart.” Hall devoted several pages to Allheart, who was originally from Virginia. Allheart loved music and took flute lessons from Hall. More significantly, “Allheart also played the dulcimer, a monotone instrument shaped like an Aeolian harp, and done with a plectrum on wire strings.” Hall notes that Allheart’s hands “were nearly as hard as cast iron; but this, while no small advantage in fi
ngering the iron strings of the dulcimer, or in playing on the sonorous anvil, was a serious disadvantage in flute-playing.”

  To the best of my knowledge, this is the earliest printed reference to the dulcimer that we possess.

  WHAT DID EARLY DULCIMERS LOOK LIKE?

  These pre–Civil War records, while of immense value, do not tell us what the earliest dulcimers looked like. The instrument made by John Scales in 1832 is a fully developed dulcimer of the single-bout style, specimens of which can be seen at nearly any craft fair today. It seems most unlikely that Scales’s was the first one ever made. Its origins probably go back to the early years of the 19th century or possibly earlier.

  Other instruments that look as if they are transitional between the scheitholt and the dulcimer exist, as well. Even the specimens of these that we possess probably do not date back to the beginning, but they may reflect early types.

  The dulcimer might be viewed as a “scheitholt mounted on a soundbox,” with the scheitholt becoming the fret-board of the new instrument. Figure 3.5 shows a “headless” scheitholt with damaged top, which came from Woodstock, Virginia, in the Shenandoah Valley along the path of the Wagon Road. It is listed and described as A20 in Allen Smith’s Catalogue of Pre-Revival Appalachian Dulcimers. The instrument has no scroll, but rather a rounded head block and a similar tail block. Four hand-forged vertical iron tuners were inserted into the head block, of which one survives.

  Figure 3.6 shows a headless dulcimer that Josie Wiseman purchased at an auction in Radford, Montgomery County, southwestern Virginia. As with the Woodstock scheitholt, this instrument has a rounded head block, rather than a scroll, and a tail block. Both blocks, however, are affixed to the ends of the soundbox rather than the ends of the fretboard. Four vertical iron tuning pins are inserted into the head block. The fretboard could be seen as the body of a narrow scheitholt, without a scroll.

  Wiseman, an indefatigable auction hound, had already made a spectacular find at an auction in Pewee Valley, Kentucky, on a summer day in 1986. That instrument is illustrated in figure 3.7. She knew exactly what she was seeing when she encountered it among the items being offered for sale.

  Another person bid against her and raised the price to more than Wiseman wanted to pay, but he was wasting his time. Wiseman rushed home with her prize and called me.

  “Ralph,” she said, “I’ve found one!”

  “What did you find?” I asked.

  Figure 3.5. “Headless” scheitholt with broken top, from Woodstock, Shenandoah Valley, Virginia. (Gary Putnam)

  Figure 3.6. “Headless” dulcimer purchased at auction in southwestern Virginia. (Josie Wiseman)

  “A scheitholt mounted on top of a sound box!”

  I was nearly speechless. I finally said, “Where is it?”

  “It’s here!” she cried. “I bought it at an auction. It’s mine!”

  A totally unexpected epilogue was added to this tale in 1992, when I visited Ken Kurtz, a college classmate who lives in Lexington, Kentucky, in connection with my search for information on “Uncle Ed” Thomas, the old-time Kentucky dulcimer maker who is discussed in chapter 6. At the Lexington Public Library, he showed me an old photograph of a dulcimer player that appears on page 243 of a book entitled Our Kentucky: A Study of the Bluegrass State, edited by James C. Klotter. The caption read, “The dulcimer is a mainstay of folk music.”

  I made a copy of the photo without really looking at it, but when I examined it later, I gasped. The dulcimer on the player’s lap appears to be a virtual duplicate of the one found by Wiseman. It may even be the identical instrument!

  A credit line that accompanies the photo in Our Kentucky states that it was provided by the Kentucky Historical Society. I called the society, where a records check found that the man in the picture was named F. M. Waits, that the picture was taken in Frankfort, Kentucky, in 1929, and that it is one of a number of photos taken by a now-defunct photo studio that found their way into the society’s collection. That is all that anyone knows.

  Figure 3.7. “Scheitholt on a soundbox.” (Gary Putnam)

  SCHEITHOLTS-IN-BOXES

  Before we leave the world of old scheitholts and early dulcimers, we can look at a type of instrument that could be called a “scheitholt-in-a-box,” whose origins probably predate 1850. In my “Dulcimer Tales and Traditions” column in the July–September 1993 issue of Dulcimer Players News, I described the only three specimens that were then known. One was illustrated in the “Queries” column of Antiques magazine in January 1932 and reproduced on page 32 of Smith’s Catalogue. Figure 3.8 shows a second instrument found and purchased by Randolph M. Case of Lawrenceville, Georgia. The third one was found and purchased by Don Koerber of Warren, Michigan.

  All three instruments have a hinged lid. Opening the lid reveals a raised portion, shaped like a long right triangle with head and tuning pins at the truncated apex, which is set into the rectangular top surface of the box.

  The First One Discovered

  The photo in the January 1932 issue of Antiques was submitted by a reader identified only as “W. L. W.” The instrument has six strings, two of which pass over the frets. The top and the inside of the lid are stencil-painted with charming designs, including sailboats and five rocking horses, one of which appears beneath the strumming area. In publishing the picture, the magazine ventured that “the character of the stenciling points to a date somewhere in the first quarter of the 1800s.”

  Figure 3.8. Scheitholt in a box. (Randolph M. Case)

  Mr. R. P. Hummel, the authority to whom Antiques submitted the query, replied with impressive accuracy that the instrument “appears to be an elaboration of the primitive zither which was popular among the Pennsylvania Germans in the 18th century, and of which several are preserved in the Mercer Museum of Doylestown, Pennsylvania.”

  Two More Are Found

  When I attended the Great Black Swamp Dulcimer Festival as an instructor in the spring of 1983, Don Koerber told me that he had acquired a scheitholt-in-a-box (good views of the closed box and of the stenciling on the top of the instrument appear on pages 45 and 46 of my book The Story of the Dulcimer).

  Koerber’s instrument has a finely shaped, grain-painted box and lid, and it stands on small feet. The name “E. BECKWITH” is stenciled on the front of the lid. There is stenciled ornamentation on the top and the inside of the lid, including two lions, an eagle, and the words “Columbian Improved Harp.” As with the instrument illustrated in Antiques, there are six strings, two of which pass over the frets. Letters corresponding to notes of the musical scale are stenciled in the spaces, between the frets, beginning with D. The open string was obviously C.

  At the 1991 Appalachian Dulcimer Workshop at Appalachian State University, Randolph Case, a workshop attendee, told me that one had come into his possession, as well. As figure 3.8 shows, it is a beauty. It has seven strings, five of which pass over 15 frets. There is no stenciling on the inside of the lid, but the stenciling around the sound holes is finely executed. As with Koerber’s instrument, notes of the musical scale beginning with D are stenciled along the fretboard. The superb craftsmanship includes a well-shaped scheitholt head. The tuning pins are unlike any others that I have seen.

  Two More Beckwiths

  Shortly after the appearance of my column, Lee Vaccaro of Rochester, New York, wrote to me and said: “I received my DPN last midweek, and I was tickled to see your article on the dulcimer-in-a-box, or scheitholts. I’ve had one around for a year or so, that I bought at a flea market.” Vaccaro’s instrument, it turns out, like Koerber’s, was made by E. Beckwith. Here is her description:

  Mine is labeled in gold, as you described Don Koerber’s, ‘E. Beckwith Maker’, along the front panel of the right triangle, with lovely gold stenciling of red flowers in a pot, and lyres with wings inside the lid, and a wheat stalk down one sound hole, and a stylized daisy and leaves across the other.

  Early in 1996, Ray and Lorraine Steiner of Webster, New York, called t
o tell me that they too had acquired a Beckwith. Subsequently they sent me photos. In the accompanying letter, they said: “We haven’t been able to find much information about it, except that it was purchased originally in New York State by the dealer. The original owners had no information about it.” The town of Webster is not far from Rochester, where Vaccaro lives. This suggests the possibility that E. Beckwith made his instruments in New York State, perhaps in Rochester.

  News from South Carolina

  In February 1994, Mary Kick of Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, called me in a state of great excitement, and she followed up her call with a letter that read in part:

  Rella King and I play in a dulcimer group in this area. Also, we receive the Dulcimer Players News and read every word you write. A week and a half ago, I loaned her my notebook with all the class handouts and my notes from my week at the Dulcimer Workshop at Appalachian State. The next day, Rella’s neighbor told her of a strange instrument at a local shop. Rella called me, and we met on Monday to see the unusual instrument. As I told you, I think we were both a little disappointed to find the instrument quite so primitive, but we were thrilled at the same time.