During the last few years of the eighteenth and the first decades of the nineteenth centuries musical societies began to spring up in the smaller cities throughout the country. Very little information concerning them has come to light, but it is probable that research will finally disclose a surprising amount of serious musical activity in places which so far have escaped mention in our musical histories. The impression that musical culture in early America was confined to Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston has taken firm root and is confirmed by most of the evidence on the subject which has appeared. But research in American musical history has for the most part been extremely superficial and determined in its direction by preconceived impressions which are wholly one-sided. Such special studies in early American musical history as have been made--those of Mr. O. G. Sonneck, for example--have exploded many longstanding fallacies and misconceptions and undoubtedly further research will clear the field of other myths now generally accepted as incontestable. There was a St. Cæcilia Society at Newport, R. I., in 1793, and we find mention in 1797 of the anniversary meeting of the Concord Musical Society. What the nature of these societies was we can only guess. They were undoubtedly conscious attempts to organize all the music lovers of these towns into compact bodies for the better promotion and enjoyment of their favorite art. It is our conviction that dozens of such societies existed in the smaller towns throughout the country. In fact, it would seem that sometimes several societies co-existed within a very small area--at least in New England--and formed themselves into associations. We have an instance in the case of the Essex Musical Association of Massachusetts, which was founded in 1797. A copy of its constitution is preserved in the Roston Athenæum. In 1821 the 'Euterpeiad' woke up to the fact that there was a very large amount of musical activity throughout the country. 'During the last week,' it says, 'we noticed the following musical performances that were to take place in the present month of May: A concert of sacred music by the Beethoven Society at Portland (Me.), a grand concert at Augusta (Ga.), a select oratorio at Providence by the Psallion Society, a grand concert of music by the Philadelphia Musical Fund, the grand Oratorio the "Creation" by the Harmonic Society of Baltimore, a performance of sacred music by the New Hampshire Musical Society at Hanover, in Boston an instrumental and vocal concert for the benefit of Mr. Ostinelli, and a public oratorio by the Handel and Haydn Society.'