Thomas Martin Towne
Life
Born: 1835
Died: 1912
Biography
Thomas Martin Towne was born in Coleraine, Massachusetts, where he grew up on a farm and attended the district school and the local singing school. He studied music at Willston Seminary and a convention in Shelburne. He moved to Hudson, New York, to study with W. F. Sherwin and then to Albany as a tenor in St. Peter’s Church. He moved west and taught in Ypsilanti, Michigan, and in the Detroit public schools. During this time, he also studied with Lowell Mason, George Frederick Root, and William B. Bradbury at a North Reading, MA, normal school. At the outbreak of the Civil War, he left teaching and sang with the Continental Vocalists, eventually settling in Janesville, Wisconsin. After teaching a year, he enlisted and became musician in the 40th Wisconsin Infantry. After the war, he went to Milwaukee and taught music at the Female College and sang in Plymouth Church. A few years later, he moved to Chicago, Illinois. He led choirs, composed, held music conventions, taught in many normal schools, and was musical editor for the David C. Cook publishing house. He died in Chicago. After his first wife died, he married Isabella Electa Kellogg, who wrote Sunday school books and edited several Sunday school papers besides writing lyrics for some of her husband’s songs using the pseudonyms Mrs. Thomas Martin Towne, Mrs. E. S. Kellogg, and Belle Kellogg. They were devout members of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He composed hundreds of sheet songs, duets, quartets, part-songs, gospel songs, Sunday school songs, hymns, and anthems.
View the Wikipedia article on Thomas Martin Towne.
List of choral works
Sacred works
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Secular works
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Publications
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