This book, “adopted while in manuscript, by the Third Congregational Society in Hingham,” had little use beyond that parish. It contains 518 hymns, and 7 chants, the latter being a feature not met with in any earlier book in this series. Tunes are indicated for each hymn, but the editor had some peculiar theories about the “reconciliation” of words and music. The editor, Rev. Samuel Willard (1776-1859), had been minister at Deerfield but had retired on account of blindness and was temporarily resident in Hingham when this book was published.
13. A Collection of Psalms and Hymns for Christian Worship—Boston: Carter and Hendee, 1830.
Edited by Rev. Francis William Pitt Greenwood (1797-1843), minister of King’s Chapel, Boston. Greenwood’s Collection, as it was generally called, containing 560 psalms and hymns, superseded Belknap’s [(3)] as the hymn-book most widely used in Unitarian churches in the first half of the 19th century. It ran to fifty editions and was used in King’s Chapel, for which it was prepared, until superseded there by Hymns of the Church Universal, 1890, [(39)]. Based upon Watts, the book contains the then very recent hymns by James Montgomery, Harriet Auber, Bowring and Heber, and practically introduced Charles Wesley to American Unitarians. In Young Emerson Speaks, edited by A. C. McGiffert, 1937, pages 145-150, will be found a sermon on “Hymn Books” preached by R. W. Emerson in 1831, while still minister of the Second Church in Boston, in which he recommends the church to adopt Greenwood’s Collection in place of Belknap’s. Emerson, in his Journal for 1847, noted that Greenwood’s Collection was “still the best.”
14. The Springfield Collection of Hymns for sacred worship, by William B. O. Peabody—Springfield: Samuel Bowles, 1835.
Rev. William Oliver Bourne Peabody (1799-1847) was minister at Springfield, Mass. His collection contains 509 hymns, admirably chosen from the accepted classics of the period, Watts and Doddridge predominant, but with an increasing number of the recent compositions by Unitarian hymn-writers of the first third of the 19th century. No musical instructions beyond indication of metres. On its merits the Springfield Collection rightly shared with Greenwood’s Collection [(13)] and The Cheshire Collection [(20)] the largest measure of popularity and use among Unitarians in the middle of the 19th century.
15. The Christian Psalter: A Collection of Psalms and Hymns for social and private worship—Boston, 1841.
Edited by Rev. William Parsons Lunt (1805-1857), for use in the First Church in Quincy, Mass. It contains 702 hymns and psalms and represents a reversion to the older type of hymnody, “but, if old-fashioned, it was excellent and serviceable.” Lunt included 22 pieces by his parishioner, ex-President John Quincy Adams, whose wife had put into his hands a complete metrical psalter which Adams had composed. At least one of Adams’ psalms is still to be found in some hymn-books.
16. A Manual of Prayer for public and private worship, with a collection of hymns—Boston, 1842.
Edited by Rev. William Greenleaf Eliot (1811-1887). Although printed in Boston, this book was prepared for The First Congregational Society of St. Louis, Missouri, of which the editor had become minister in 1834. The Society was the earliest Unitarian church in the Mississippi Valley, excepting that at New Orleans. The book is primarily a collection of service materials followed by 272 well-selected hymns from standard sources. It was the earliest volume of the sort to be prepared for Unitarian use in the Middle West.
17. A Collection of Hymns, for the Christian Church and Home—Boston, 1843.