"Spirituals"

Latest update: 14 September 2023

Enslaved Africans of Beaufort District (and other parts of the South, of course) contributed the "spiritual" musical form to the our canon.   The Spiritual was, is, and will remain, a monumental African-American contribution to the world's musical heritage.  Thus, during Black History Month 2012, we have put some  "Spirituals" related materials from our holdings on display in the Research Room. 

The formal collection of spirituals for publication began with William Francis Allen and his Slave Songs of the United States printed in 1867.  In his introduction to the book, Allen wrote: “It will be noticed that we have spoken chiefly of the negroes [sic] of the Port Royal islands, where most of our observations were made, and most of our materials collected.”  (Dr. Rowland says "All American history begins in Beaufort."  Is it too much to write that "All African -American musical history begins in Beaufort," too?)

According to Saddler Taylor, "One of the primary features of spirituals … [is] an emphasis on group participation and improvisation…. An improvisational form of music, call and response involves one person ‘calling’ a verse, with the remainder of the choir repeating the line in unison.” (South Carolina Encyclopedia, 2006)

 

Since 1867, a number of composers have used spiritual melodies to create their versions of the songs that they have heard.  Among the best known are H. T. Burleigh, John Rosamund Johnson (who composed the music to "Lift Every Voice and Sing,") and Thomas Andrew Dorsey.  However, you may not know about a native daughter who transcribed the spirituals she heard sung on the Sea Islands into written music by combining melody with African rhythm as James Weldon Johnson defined the "spiritual" music form. (Aside: James Weldon Johnson was John Rosamund Johnson's brother). 

Marguerite Crofut, "Rita" for short, was born in Beaufort to Capt. George A. Crofut and his wife, Elizabeth Onthank. She died at age 90 on December 28, 1974, precisely 50 years to the day after her father.  According to the Clover Club Memorial Page dedicated to her (Clover Club album #1, BDC Archives):

From the Gray/Broz Collection in the BDC

It is not often that a personality like that of Miss Marguerite Crofut spans for almost a century of life of a community. ... 

She had a Bachelor of Music Degree, American Conservatory of Music, Chicago; was a student at the New England Conservatory of Music, Boston; a graduate of the Institute of Music Pedagogy, Skidmore College, New York; had a certificate in Conducting, Julliard Institute.  She studied violin under Felix Winternitz, Daniel Kuntz, Reber Johnson and Jacques Gordon.  She was awarded the Paganini Gold Medal, American Conservatory in 1928.  

For many years she was a successful teacher of violin and conductor of college orchestras in the South and in Chicago, Illinois.  For over 50 years she taught violin and piano in Beaufort; her records show that she had taught over 1200 individual pupils.

... In Clover minutes her first program was January 10, 1899.  Numerous programs are listed in which she participated.  In one of these she rendered "Sea Island Lullaby" which she had composed.  In the early twenties she arranged two Sea Island Spirituals: "Sometime Muh Trubble Mek Me Trimble, Trimble, Trimble," and "Study War No Mo'." (Pictured above; donated to the Beaufort District Collection by her niece Marguerite Crofut Broz and grandniece, Molly Hoyler Gray).

Crofut's obituary in the Beaufort Gazette issue of December 30, 1974 states that "Six of her former violin students served as pallbearers at her funeral services today.  They were Charles Webb, Reeves Sams, W. Brantley Harvey, Jr., William Scheper III, Marion Jones and Charles Aimar." 

You can check out Slave Songs of the United States compiled by William Francis Allen, Charles Pickard Ware, and Lucy McKim Garrison and Gullah Spirituals: The Sound of Freedom and Protest in the South Carolina Sea Islands by musicologist and historian, Eric Crawford from our Local History sections at the branch libraries.