Hewitt, John Hill (EN)

Hewitt John Hill, *2 July 1801 New York, †7 October 1890 Baltimore, American composer, journalist and poet, son of James. In 1818, he enrolled at the military academy at West Point (New York), where he studied music under Wills, the conductor of the academy orchestra. In 1822, he left the academy and, having joined a theatre company led by his father, set off on a tour of the southern United States. After the troupe disbanded in Augusta, he moved to Columbia (South Carolina), where he worked as a music teacher and began studying law. He changed his place of residence several times, living, among other places, in Greenville, where he founded the magazine “Republican”, in Augusta and in Baltimore. During this period, around 1825, he composed his first song, The Minstrel’s Return’d from the War. In 1827, he worked briefly with the “Massachusetts Journal” in Boston. In 1828, he returned to Baltimore, where he took up a position as editor of the magazine “Visitor” and also began composing. In a poetry competition in 1833, he won against E.A. Poe. In 1840, he left Baltimore; during this time, he spent five years in Washington, D.C., where he founded and edited the magazine “Capitol”, and for nine years he was a music teacher at Chesapeake Female College in Hampton. During the American Civil War (1861), he lived in Richmond; it was during this time that he wrote the ballad All Quiet along the Potomac Tonight, which became a favourite song of the Confederate soldiers. In 1874, he returned to Baltimore, where he spent the rest of his turbulent life.

Hewitt’s major vocal-instrumental works and plays were performed in various American cities during his lifetime. However, he is remembered in the history of music primarily as the composer of sentimental songs, which enjoyed great popularity and earned him the title of ‘the father of the American ballad’.

Literature: J.H. Hewitt The Shadows on the Wall, Baltimore 1877 (memoirs); C. Huggins John Hill Hewitt. Bard of the Confederacy, thesis at Florida State University, 1964.