Biography:Charles P.F. O'Hara

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Charles P.F. O'Hara


     
 Given name:     Charles
 Middle name:     P.F.
 Family name:     O'Hara
 Place of birth:     
 Place of death:     
 Year of birth:     
 Year of death:     
 Profile:     Editor, Composer, Musician, Publisher
 Source of information:     
     

Biographical notes


CHARLES P.F. O'HARA was a multi-instrumentalist (including the uilleann pipes) who published The Gentleman's Musical Repository; being a selection from the ancient and modern music of Erin, and several original pieces by the compiler; adapted to the violin, flute, flageolet, hautboy and union pipes in New York in Janurary, 1813. Included in the volume were eleven of his own tunes honoring American victories of the War of 1812 and politicians of the era, in his collection of mainly traditional Irish and Scotch tunes, sold from "his new music store" at No. 70 William Street, New York, "where may be had a great variety of the most ancient and modern single songs. Also a general assortment of flutes, violins, tambarines, drums, and all other musical instruments." Geoff Hore [1] (2009) remarks:

Little is known about O’Hara; he does not feature in Captain Francis O’Neill’s Irish Minstrels and Musicians published by The Regan Printing House, Chicago, 1913. It appears that he migrated to USA from Ireland in 1812, aged 31, and his occupation is given as a ‘teacher of music’. This information came from the book British Aliens in the United States during the War of 1812 by Kenneth Scott, published by Genealogical Publishing Co 1979 Baltimore. He married Phebe Elam CARLTON, daughter of Martin L and Frances Elam Carlton at Powhatan County, Virginia on 22 AUG 1816. See brideindex.info.

Researcher Nicholas Carolan [2] finds mention of O'Hara in the New York paper Columbian of January 2nd, 1813, which says that Charles P.F. O’Hara was a multiinstrumentalist who had ‘resided many years in the west of Ireland’. His name appears on a list of subscribers to a volume called A New System of Mythology, in Three Volumes; Giving a Full Account of the Idolatry of the Pagan World (by Robert Mayo M.D., 1816), that indicates O'Hara was living in Baltimore at the time.