From: Richard Thomas
Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2014 1:56 AM
Subject: The Hymn They Sung Around the Grave of the Rev. Nathaniel Hawkins
Attachments: Attachment 1, Attachment 2, Attachment 3

I thought you might want to hear the hymn that was sung by the large group who assembled for the burial of Rev. Nathaniel Hawkins.

“At his interment, where a large congregation was assembled around his grave, was sung his favorite hymn, of the Lee Avenue Collection.”

The words are still very popular and are especially a favorite for college men’s choirs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmrsUMCYRBM “O Sing to Me of Heave, When I Am Called to Die” Wartburg College

http://youtu.be/ge0cBb2cTLo “O Sing to Me of Heaven, When I Am Called to Die” sung by Scunsulata at the Salhouse Church (Norfolk UK)

It isn’t clear where this large group of people assembled around Rev. Hawkins grave, as the records regarding his first place of burial are likely unreliable.

It does seem to be the case that he was first buried in one place then moved to another.

Whether the first burial was in the Barteau Cemetery or the Nathaniel Hawkins cemetery or somewhere else is unclear. He was then re-interred in the Yaphank village cemetery.

The “Lee Avenue Collection” was a collection of hymns and songs compiled by the superintendent of the Sabbath school of the Lee Avenue Reformed Dutch Church in New York City.

The “Lee Avenue Collection” doesn’t provide any tunes, but the hymn was traditionally sung to either of two tunes; one was by Charles R. Dunbar and the other was by Dr. William Miller.

The words are by Mary Stanley Bunce Shindler, but everyone knew her as Mrs. Dana.

She was also sometimes known as Mary Dana Shindler.

Shindler, Mary Stanley Bunce, née Palmer, better known as Mrs. Dana, was born in Beaufort, South Carolina, Feb. 15, 1810. In 1835 she was married to Charles E. Dana, of New York, and removed with him to Bloomington, now Muscatine, Iowa, in 1838. Mr. Dana died in 1839, and Mrs. Dana returned to South Carolina. Subsequently she was married to the Rev. Robert D. Shindler, who was Professor in Shelby College, Kentucky, in 1851, and afterwards in Texas. Mrs. Shindler, originally a Presbyterian, was for some time an Unitarian; but of late years she has been a member of the Protestant Episcopal Church. As Mary S. B. Dana she published the Southern Harp, 1840, and the Northern Harp, 1841. From these works her hymns have been taken, 8 of which are in T. O. Summers’s Songs of Zion, 1851.

With words like:

Then close my sightless eyes,
And lay me down to rest,
And clasp my cold and icy hands,
Upon my lifeless beast.

I’m surprised that it was such a popular hymn (and continues to be popular today, although I think no one sings that particular verse anymore).

Richard