Ananias Davisson

DAVISSON, Ananias. b. Shenandoah County, Virginia, 2 February 1780; d. Rockingham County Virginia, 21 October 1857.  Davisson is best known as the compiler of the fasola tunebooks Kentucky Harmony (Harrisonburg, Virginia, five editions), and A Supplement to the Kentucky Harmony (Harrisonburg, Virginia, three editions).  Little is known about Davisson prior to 1816.  His successes beginning that year as a printer of tunebooks suggest that he may have been apprenticed to a printer.  Only slightly more can be said about his training as a musician, for he wrote in the preface to the second edition of Kentucky Harmony, and Supplement* (1817), that ‘the gentleman from whom I received my...