J. W. Dadmun › Hymnals

Rv John William Dadmun USA 1819-1890. Born at Cambridge, MA, he completed his education at the Wesleyan Academy, Wilbraham, MA. At 22 he joined the New England Methodist Conference and pastored churches in the towns of Ludlow, Southhampton, South Hadley Falls, Enfield, Ware, Monson, Ipswich, and Lowell, the first Methodist Church and Grace Church, Boston and First Church, Boston Highlands. For a number of years he was also prison Chaplain and Superintendent of schools in the city institutions of Boston at Deer Island, off the coast of Maine. He married Lucy Ann Dutton, and they had seven children: Lucy, Wiletta, Francina, Charles,William and two others. He was initiated into Masonry at the Mt. Lebanon Lodge in Boston, MA, and served as Grand Chaplain and District Deputy Grand Master, which he immensely enjoyed. He rose in ranks within the organization and was instrumental in forming the Mt. Vernon Chapter in Roxbury, MA. He was elected Grand High Priest of the Grand Chapter of MA. He was Knighted into the De Molay Commandery in Boston, serving several years and rising to Grand Prelate of MA & RI, and attained to a number of other significant positions within the Masons. In later years, after Lucy died, he married Martha Jane Rogers. He collected songs and contributed lyrics to some, publishing a number of song books: “Army & Navy melodies” (1862), “The Melodian” (1862), “Revival melodies” , “The Eolian harp” (1860), “The sacred harmonium”, “new revival melodies”, “Musical string of pearls”, The Masonic choir” (1864), “The humming bird”, “Union league melodies”, “The new golden chain of Sabbath school melodies”, “The olive leaf”, “The timbrel” (1866), and others. Copies of these works have been sold around the world. He died at Boston, MA.

John Perry