One of Benjamin Hanby’s “Other” Christmas Songs
“Up on the Housetop” is an internationally famous, world-renowned Christmas song by our own Benjamin R. Hanby. We know that Hanby wrote words and music for the song. Early printings titled it, “Santa Claus.” Like many of us, I grew up singing the song, without knowing or caring who wrote it, and being flustered because, in those earliest days, I had trouble snapping my fingers at the appropriate times.
A Christmas song that Hanby did not write was “Jolly Old St. Nicholas.” It was sometimes attributed to Benjamin, but most if not all scholars now attribute it to Emily Huntington Miller, words, and John Piersol McCaskey, music. One can see why; the lyrics are very similar, and both date to Civil War America. Some diehard Hanby fans still credit “Jolly Old” to him, but the vast majority gives Miller the credit without taking anything from Hanby.
Instead, let us take a quick look at another, mostly forgotten Christmas song titled, “The Shepherds of Bethlehem.” Appearing in one of the Root & Cady “Our Song Birds” collections, The Dove, “The Shepherds of Bethlehem” was an 1866 joint production with music by Hanby but words by William O. Cushing (1823-1902). Cushing was born in Hingham, Massachusetts, but spent most of his working life in upstate New York. After ordination, he went to Searsburg, then other pastorates including Brooklyn, Buffalo, and Auburn. In 1870, his wife died, coincidentally followed by Cushing’s suffering from a “creeping paralysis” that robbed him of his speaking voice. Retired from ministry, he prayed “for something to occupy his time.” Already a dabbler in hymn writing, Cushing turned his silent work to this. He wrote over 300 song lyrics, even while donating freely to charities.[i]
It is unfortunate that we know little about Hanby and Cushing’s working relationship, or whether they even had one. If we match the dates correctly, the two men worked together on “The Shepherds of Bethlehem” near the end of Hanby’s life but before Cushing started working full time on song lyrics. We also know that they were both working as “talented amateurs,” the period before America industrialized, and replaced the autodidact working in his barn with scientific research and development.
Hanby and Cushing, like Gilbert and Sullivan or Rogers and Hammerstein, both brought great talent in differing fields, to create something greater than the sum of their parts. “The Shepherds of Bethlehem” is a straightforward retelling of Luke’s Infancy Narrative. Whether it is a conjoined product of enormous genius is for the individual reader/musician to decide. I think at the very least it is suitable for a Westerville Christmas! Searsburg, New York, too.
