Eliakim Doolittle (August 29, 1772 – April 1850)[1] was an American composer, schoolteacher, and singing teacher, the younger brother of Amos Doolittle, first cousin of composers Reuben Munson and Amos Munson, and uncle of senator James R. Doolittle.[1][2]
His most well-known composition was the hymn tune "Exhortation",[3] a fuging tune that was first printed in The Musical Harmonist (Jenks 1800) and later included in The Sacred Harp.[4]
Born in Cheshire, Connecticut, the son of Ambrose Doolittle and Martha Munson, he attended Yale University (then Yale College), gaining the reputation as a composer, but did not graduate, and became a school- and singing- teacher.[3][5][1]
He married Hasadiah Fuller in 1811, with whom he had six children (one son and five daughters), and lived in Hampton, New York.[3]
His Psalm Singer's Companion (Doolittle 1806) was 41 compositions (covering 48 pages) of psalm music for four voices,[3][5] out of a total of 45 works that he composed.[6]
Such works included Solemnity, another hymn tune published in Asahel Benham's Social Harmony in 1798, and the war song The Hornet Stung The Peacock that celebrated the 1813 sinking of HMS Peacock.[7][8]
Later in life Doolittle suffered from what is now understood to be dementia; he was then living in Pawlet, Vermont,[3] where 19th-century chronicler of that village Hiel Hollister described him graphically as "nervous and sensitive, impulsive and excitable, in tattered garb, with untrimmed locks and beard, in a state bordering on insanity, [wandering] through our streets for many a year",[2][3] before entering the Washington County poorhouse in Argyle where he eventually died.[3]
Gleason, Harold; Becker, Warren (1981). Music Literature Outlines. Vol. 3 (2nd ed.). Frangipani Press.
Hatchett, Marion J. (2003). "Commentary on Tunes and Texts: Exhortation". A Companion to the New Harp of Columbia. University of Tennessee Press. ISBN9781572332034.
O'Brien, Donald C. (2008). Amos Doolittle: Engraver of the New Republic. Oak Knoll Press. ISBN9781584562061.
Steel, David Warren; Hulan, Richard H. (2010). "Biographical sketches of the composers". The Makers of the Sacred Harp. Music in American life. University of Illinois Press. ISBN9780252077609.
van Boer, Bertil (2012). "Doolittle, Eliakim". Historical Dictionary of Music of the Classical Period. Scarecrow Press. ISBN9780810873865.
Further reading
Fawcett-Yeske, Maxine; Kroeger, Karl, eds. (2011). "Introduction to this volume". Eliakim Doolittle (1772–1850) and Timothy Olmsted (1759–1848): The Collected Works. Music of the New American Nation: Sacred Music from 1780 to 1820. Vol. 15. Routledge. pp. xxi–xxiv. ISBN9781135623777.
Jenks, Stephen (1800). The Musical Harmonist, Containing Concise and Easy Rules of Music, Together with a Collection of the Most Approved Psalm and Hymn Tunes, Fitted to the Various Meters; Most of Which were Never Before Published. New Haven, Connecticut: Amos Doolittle.
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