History of Loudon, (Merrimack County) New Hampshire United States of America

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William Smythe Babcock Mathews, editor and composer, was born in Loudon, N.H., May 8, 1837; son of the Rev. S. S. and Elizabeth Smythe (Babcock) Mathews; grandson of the Rev. William Smythe Babcock and great2-grandson of Dr. Joshua Babcock of Westerly, R.I., Yale, 1724, chief-justice of Rhode Island, fellow of Brown university, 1764-73. He acquired a classical and musical education and began teaching music at Appleton academy, Mt. Vernon, N.H., in 1852. He subsequently taught in western New York and Illinois and in 1860 became adjunct professor of music in Wesleyan Female college, Macon, Ga. He located in Chicago in 1867, where he taught, and was organist of Centenary M. E. church, 1867-93. He began writing for Dwight's Journal of Music in 1859; edited the Musical Independent, 1868-71; was musical critic of the Chicago Herald, 1880-83; of the Chicago Morning News, 1883-86; and of the Chicago Tribune, 1887. In 1891 he founded and became editor-in-chief of Music, published in Chicago. He is the author of: How to Understand Music (1880, 2d vol., 1888); Primer of Musical Forms (1890); Music and Its Ideals (1897); Popular History of Music (1891); The Great in Music (1900); Dictionary of Musical Terms (1895); Primer of Music (1895); The Masters and Their Music (1898), and many collections of music for pedagogic purposes.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor

History of Loudon, (Merrimack County) New Hampshire

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