Railroad music: The Carrollton March

I have always had an amateur interest in music, having played piano and violin as a youth. Therefore, I was delighted when I was researching my book on the social history of the American Transportation Revolution and discovered some contemporary music written about railroads. I kept digging, and ultimately collected 63 pieces of music written between 1825 and 1860 which either attempted to mimic railroads or steamboats, were written in honor of railroads or steamboats, or had pictures of railroads or steamboats printed on the front page. Most of this music was written for solo piano; as I discovered from reading performance reviews, there was also orchestral music that took inspiration from steam transit. Needless to say, I was delighted that music ended up forming a critical part of my book's third chapter, on the arts.

But what the music sound like? My piano skills aren't up to the task of recording this myself—and I don’t own a piano. Thankfully, technology stepped into the gap. Using the iPad program Staffpad, I was able to transcribe and generate a sound file for one of the earliest pieces: Arthur Clifton's "Carrollton March" of 1828.

You can find the sheet music here.

And here is the recording, generated by Staffpad:

According to a biography written by Nathan Bucker of the University of Nebraska at Kearney, Arthur Clifton was the pseudonym of Philip Antony Corri, born in Edinburgh in 1784. He moved to the United States in 1817 and settled in Baltimore where was baptized under the name Arthur Clifton and earned a living as a composer, performer, and church musician, among other things. He died in 1832.

“Carrollton March” was one of at least five pieces of music composed in Baltimore with respect to the groundbreaking of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad on July 4, 1828. “Carrollton” is a reference to Charles Carroll of Carrollton, signer of the Declaration of Independence, who was present at the groundbreaking. I hope you enjoy this as much as I did!