The Editor Daniel Partner

I first came across a mountain dulcimer in the summer of 1970 while visiting my friends Joanna and John Peterson at Lane's End Homestead in Brookville, Ohio. As it turned out, after John and I tore down that old barn and salvaged the lumber, I stayed at Lane's End longer than any of us expected.

Some things there are unforgettable to me: morning goats, haying day with the German Baptist neighbors, the wild grapes along the fence near the lane, dog Blue, the motorcycle accident, fireflies in the trees, playing Joanna's dulcimer, Jim's visits, and setting off for the coast on their wedding day.

Later, down and out in San Francisco, I sold my Martin for cash, bought a dulcimer, picked up a driveaway car, and headed back east. And so turns the earth and sky. Thirty years hence dog Blue is long gone with all the rest, but, for me the music of the mountain dulcimer is an enduring pleasure.

I work writing and editing books. But there is a surfeit of books in this world and not enough hand-made music. So I've begun to use music to tell antebellum and Civil War American history using a reproduction Sweeney-style 1840's banjo with period music and costumes. I tell stories like:

"Baseball and Banjo" -- which ties the story of the emerging nation with the new music and the new sport; or

"Willie Johnson's Drum" -- The true story of the twelve-year-old volunteer from St. Johnsbury, Vermont who was the only drummer of the Third Vermont Regiment to retain his drum through the disastrous week-long retreat called the Seven Days; and

"A Hard Road to Travel" -- They boasted it would take but ninety days, but the road to Richmond, Virginia was nearly four years long for the Army of the Potomac.

I now live in Peacham, Vermont with my wife and family. Click the image below to send e-mail to me.