Timothy Swan

Timothy Swan (1758–1842) was a composer and hatmaker born in Worcester, Massachusetts. The son of goldsmith William Swan, Swan lived in small towns along the Connecticut River in Connecticut and Massachusetts for most of his life. Swan's compositional output consisted mostly of psalm and hymn settings, referred to as psalmody. These tunes and settings were produced for choirs and singing schools located in Congregationalist communities of New England. Swan is unique as an early American composer in that he composed secular vocal duets and songs in addition to sacred tunebook music. The tunebook, New England Harmony is a collection of his sacred music compositions, while The Songster's Assistant is a collection of his secular music. Swan was also a poet and teacher of singing.

Born July 23, 1758, Timothy Swan was the eighth child of goldsmith William and Lavinia Swan of Worcester, Massachusetts. Not much is known of Swan's early years other than he resided in Worcester until his father's death in 1774. After the death of his father, Swan was apprenticed to a "Mr. Barnes" of Marlborough, Massachusetts. Barnes, an "importer of foreign goods" was a loyalist who eventually left the colonies to return to England as relations between the two became increasingly strained. This caused an end to Swan's brief apprenticeship in Marlborough.

After leaving Barnes' employ, Swan moved to Groton, Massachusetts to live with his older brother William. Timothy's elder brother had an active interest in music and may have influenced his brother. Shortly after arriving in Groton, Swan enrolled in a singing school that was taught by a "Mr. Gross". This experience is probably the only formal musical education that Swan ever had.

In 1774 Swan left Groton to enlist in the Continental Army located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was here that he learned to play fife under the tutelage of a British Fifer. In 1775 a little less than a year after enlisting at Cambridge, Swan moved to Northfield, Massachusetts. It was here that Swan became apprenticed as a hatter with his brother-in-law Caleb Lyman. It is here in Northfield that Swan's attention focused on musical composition. His first composition "Montague" can be placed around 1774 when Swan was sixteen years old.

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