The tune Anhalt

Mosher, W. H. B. Of Mosher, J. S. James wrote that “He was for a long time connected with, and a member of the Southern Musical Convention, but nothing has been known of him since the War.” There is a good possibility that this is William H. B. Mosher of Barbour County, Alabama. He was born in Rhode Island circa 1823, and was living in Barbour County by 1850, when he was counted in the U. S. census. On February 16, 1854, he married Mariah A. Hill in Barbour County. His whereabouts after that time are unknown. A person with these same initials shows up in some Detriot, Michigan documents in the late 1850s. Some genealogists identify Mosher of Barbour County as William Henry Bradley Mosher (1826–after 1846) of Bristol, Rhode Island, the son of William H. Mosher and Susan Bradford. This William Mosher graduated from Brown University in 1846. The tune Anhalt is labeled (by James) as written in 1859 but was not added to The Sacred Harp until 1870.

206b     Anhalt (originally 345b)

References

Historical Catalogue of Brown University, 1764-1904, Mary Drew Vaughan, Providence, RI: By the University, 1905. p. 618

Original Sacred Harp, J. S. James, 1911 p. 345

U.S. Federal Census, Barbour County, Alabama, 1850

Alabama marriages, www.ancestry.com

* J. S. James's "1859" dating of this song most likely is an editorial or printing error. The printing in the 1870 book does not give a date that the song was written.