Appalachian Dulcimer Traditions (10 page)

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

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 to 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.

After my phone conversation with Mary, she and Rella teamed together to buy the instrument. They subsequently donated it to the Appalachian Cultural Museum at Appalachian State University, where it is proudly displayed.

The sound holes of their purchase closely resemble those of the Beck-with instruments. The top of the “triangle” is made of tiger maple. A notable difference between this instrument and the other four above is the simple decoration, which is confined to handsome stripes painted on the top.

The name “Bennett” is stenciled on the bottom of the box, and the initials TLB are scratched in script in the center of the bottom. There is no way to know whether this person was the maker or an owner.

The triangular-shaped instrument body of the scheitholts-in-boxes thus far discovered indicates that they have a common prototype. At one time, the basic design was known to more than one maker. The quality of the workmanship of all the instruments signifies that they were made in small shops and were intended for commercial sale. Perhaps the original idea, and some of the instruments, emanated from the shop of a skilled German-American zither maker as a relatively simple, easy-to-play variant of his main line of products. But that's guesswork. As with so many features of scheitholt and dulcimer history, we have barely started down the path of discovery.

It seems likely that, in making his 1832 dulcimer, John Scales of Floyd County, Virginia, was following or adapting a design that existed in the early dulcimer world of southern and southwestern Virginia. Features of the design were perpetuated in traditional Virginian dulcimer-making throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.

These features can be seen in a 19th-century dulcimer owned by Polly Sumner of Pulaski, Virginia, illustrated in figure 4.1. Her instrument was on loan to the Jeff Matthews Memorial Museum in Galax when I saw and photographed it. All Sumner knew about it was that it had been in her barn for a very long time! The instrument came with a bow, not unusual for 19th-century Virginia dulcimers, although bowing had largely passed away by the 20th century. The dulcimer owned by Jacob Connoy, found by Kimberly Burnette-Dean in 1849 Grayson County estate records (see chapter 3), also came with a bow.

As with the Scales dulcimer, Sumner's instrument has four equidistant strings. Wire staple frets pass under two of the four strings. The player fretted the two strings that pass over the frets with a stick or piece of goose quill, while the other two sounded as drones.

Traditional single-bout Virginia dulcimers do not have heart-shaped sound holes. Instead, the sound holes are
f
-shaped or
S
-shaped or consist of various patterns of small holes. In Sumner's instrument, the upper pair of sound holes consists of a pattern of small diamonds, and the lower pair of small drilled holes in an
S
-shaped pattern.

As with the Scales dulcimer, two sound holes are drilled into the fret-board, which is hollowed out. This feature makes the fretboard part of the soundbox. Hollowed-out fretboards into which two, three, or four holes are drilled are a standard feature of traditional single-bout dulcimers. Drilled fretboards do not appear on traditional hourglass dulcimers.

    

Figure 4.1. Dulcimer owned by Polly Sumner of Pulaski, Virginia, from the second half of the 19th century.

Hourglass-shaped dulcimers have a depression or “strum hollow” at the foot of the fretboard, which provides clearance for the action of the strummer. This practical feature, cut into the solid rather than hollowed-out fretboards that are usually found on hourglass dulcimers, is not found on single-bout dulcimers. The makers apparently never thought of shortening the inside hollow to accommodate it.

The absence of a strum hollow often results in damage to the bottom of the fretboard by the action of the strummer. Such damage, consisting of grooves worn in the wood, can be seen on Sumner's instrument. Many old Virginia instruments show plenty of strumming damage. In a few cases, the wood has been worn all the way through.

Sumner's instrument has three small feet, a feature that it shares with many old dulcimers of both the single-bout and hourglass traditions. In addition, a pattern of sound holes is drilled into the bottom, a characteristic that is found in old Virginia dulcimers but does not appear in hourglass dulcimers.

Like the Scales dulcimer, Virginia dulcimers often have semicircular tailpieces, which may be solid, pierced with one to three holes, or open in the shape of the letter
D
. Sumner's dulcimer has an open-D tailpiece with a horizontal strut in the middle.

As noted in chapter 1, the usual vibrating string length (VSL) of traditional single-bout dulcimers, 24 to 26 inches, is shorter than the typical 28-inch VSL of hourglass dulcimers. Scales's dulcimer, at 23b inches, is slightly shorter than even the usual minimum. The VSL of Sumner's dulcimer is 25¼ inches.

The tradition represented by both Scales's and Sumner's dulcimers was followed in the early 20th century by Samuel F. (Sam) Russell of Marion, Virginia. (A wonderful photo of Russell with one of his dulcimers on his lap, taken by famous photographer Doris Ullman, faces page 138 in Allen H. Eaton's 1937 book
Handicrafts of the Southern Highlands
.) Russell made dulcimers in the 1920s and 1930s, and perhaps sooner; he was 60 years old in 1920.

Russell was a contemporary of the great Kentucky makers of hourglass dulcimers, James Edward “Uncle Ed” Thomas and Jethro Amburgey (discussed in chapter 6). He sold instruments as they did and was the only person who produced a significant number of Virginia-style dulcimers for sale prior to the post–World War II folk revival. Russell made and sold fewer than were sold by Thomas and Amburgey, who produced more than a thousand each over their lifetimes, and consequently he was less well known. In 1975, Allen Smith, author of the
Catalogue of Pre-Revival Appalachian Dulcimers
, interviewed Russell's son Woodrow, who said that his father had made “several hundred” instruments. Woodrow said that Sam's father also made dulcimers, although Woodrow had never seen one of his grandfather's instruments.