"The Cashaway Psalmody, created by Durham Hills in the late 18th century, is one of the oldest surviving sacred music manuscripts and the only professional tunebook preserved from the entire colonial South. Re-discovered in pristine condition by Marini almost a decade ago, this is an important new source for understanding the religious culture of the Lower South during late colonial and revolutionary times. It illuminates the practice of ritual song in that important region and embodies complex processes of transatlantic social, economic, cultural, and religious development in the eighteen-century Anglo-American world. Marini's project is a microhistory of the Psalmody, one that uncovers the lives of its creator and its patrons; its musical, literary, and religious origins in England; its contexts and communities of use in colonial Carolina; and its significance for understanding how transatlantic music, lyrics, and sacred singing created new religious identities in 18th c. America. The first part of the book treats Hills's early years in Newcastle-upon-Tyne: his urban environment, family, education, religious contexts, and exile in 1752. The second part moves to Carolina and Hills's career as a scrivener, militia clerk, tutor, and Anglican parish clerk intertwined with the stories of the Welsh Baptist congregations on the Great Pee Dee River, their ministers Evan Pugh and Nicholas Bedgegood, and Hills's singing school at Cashaway Neck Regular Baptist church. The third part examines The Cashaway Psalmody as a manuscript object, an example of the tunebook genre, an expression of Hills's musical theory and practice, and a repertory of tunes and texts shaped by his musical background and training, editorial principles, and theological agenda for psalmody in the Cheraws. The book concludes with an epilogue that narrates the destinies of the many characters in this braided story and offers a summary assessment of The Cashaway Psalmody and its meaning. Through this microhistory of meticulous precision, Marini forges a study of broad interdisciplinary scope-a rare synthesizing perspective on the musical, religious, commercial, and educational cultures of the 18th c. colonies"--