Annotation:New Harmony
X:1 T:New Harmony Hornpipe M:2/4 L:1/8 R:Hornpipe B:Original Dances, Waltzes & Hornpipes for the Violin (1829, p. 6) B:Composed by Michael Higgins. New York. Published by Firth & Hall, 1 Franklin Sq. Z:AK/Fiddler’s Companion K:D A/F/|D/F/A/d/ ff/e/|d/c/B/A/ G/F/E/D/|C/E/A/c/ ee/d/|c/A/e/c/ d/A/F/A/| D/F/A/d/ ff/e/|d/c/B/A/ G/F/E/D/|C/E/A/c/ ee/d/|c/A/e/c/ d:| |:e/d/|c/A/e/c/ d/A/f/d/|e/A/g/e/ f/d/a/f/|g/e/b/a/ g/f/e/d/|c/d/e/c/ d/A/F/d/| c/A/e/c/ d/A/f/d/|e/A/g/e/ f/d/a/f/|g/f/e/d/ c/e/a/c/|1 d/e/c/e/ d:|2 d/e/c/e/ d/B/A/F/||
NEW HARMONY. American, Hornpipe (2/4 time). D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB'. M. Higgins' 1829 collection, consisting of some forty-one dance melodies, appears to have been originally published in New York. Every tune has an American place-name or the name of a public figure, including "Van Beuren's [sic] Hornpipe,"--Martin Van Buren was governor of New York in 1829, the year Higgins published his collection. New York region titles seem to predominate: "Bushwick Reel," "Middletown Hornpipe," "Hackensack Reel," "Yorkville Waltz" (Yorkville is an area on the upper East Side, Manhattan). "Jackson's Hornpipe" and "Hickory Hornpipe" probably refer Tennessee soldier and politician Andrew Jackson, who held office as seventh President of the United States (1829–1837).
If, as I suspect, the title refers to a place name and not a musical event, it may honor community of New Harmony, Indiana, located on the Wabash River in southwestern Indiana. According to the town's website,
During the early part of the 19th century, New Harmony was the site of two attempts to establish Utopian communities. The first, Harmonie (1814-1825), was founded by the Harmonie Society, a group of Separatists from the German Lutheran Church. Led by their charismatic leader Johann Georg Rapp, they left their first American home in Harmonie, Pennsylvania, and established a second community on the western frontier of Indiana, where they acquired a much larger tract of land. During the 10 years in which they cultivated the new town of Harmonie, the Harmonists, with their strong German work ethic and devout religious rule, achieved unheard of economic success and the community became recognized as "the wonder of the west." Slightly more than a decade later, however, they sold the town and surrounding lands to Robert Owen, a Welsh-born industrialist and philosopher, for his communitarian experiment. The Harmonists then returned to Pennsylvania to build a third town, Economy, near Pittsburgh.
Robert Owen's ambition was to create a perfect society through free education and the abolition of social classes and personal wealth. He encouraged world-renowned scientists and educators to settle in "New" Harmony. With the help of his partner, William Maclure of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, the Owen/Maclure community introduced educational and social reforms to America.
