At eleven she became organist of the village church, and since that time she hits played some of the largest organs in this country and in Europe. Her mother was her instructor in the higher mathematics, literature, and Latin; and her father was her first teacher in music. It was the custom of the family to gather in the music room at evening time to sing, and on these occasions the old mansion would ring with the strains of anthem and oratorio, to the accompaniment of organ, piano, violin, and violoncello, performers upon each instrument being found in the family circle. To her familiarity with music of the best class in her childhood, Mrs. Morey attributes much of her success.
At eighteen years of age she commenced study with Junius W. Hill, of Boston, and remained with him until her marriage to Herbert E. Morey in 1874. Of this union there have been five children—Eleanor Stevens, Ernest Manuel (now deceased), Hilda Evangeline, David Beale, and Laura Carver.
David B. and Almira (Bailey) Morey, parents of Herbert E. Morey, were prominent among the abolitionists, contributing of their means to the support of the movement; and their house was a station on the underground railroad. David B. Morey was closely associated with William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Parker Pillsbury, and other prominent anti-slavery leaders. On one occasion he protected Parker Pillsbury from a mob, holding them off at the point of a pistol. When the war broke out, and troops were starting for the front, the town illuminated. He refused to illuminate his house until he knew whether the Union was to be with or without slavery. And in this he persisted, although notified by the town authorities, who were at that time pro-slavery in sentiment, that they could not promise him protection. At the time of John Brown's raid he with others hired Tremont Temple and persisted in occupying it in spite of the opposition of a pro-slavery mob encouraged by police assistance. He was a charter member of the Theodore Parker Fraternity.
David B. Morey was a cousin of Samuel Morey, from whom it is said that Fulton got his ideas of the steamboat. His wife, Almira Bailey, was daughter of Timothy Bailey, the first president of the First National Bank of Maiden.
In 1876 Mrs. Morey went abroad to pursue her studies in piano, organ, and theory with Reinecke and Paul, of Leipsic, and Dr. Theodore Kullak, of Berlin. Subsequent seasons were spent in Rome, Florence, Milan, and London, in the study of vocal music and instrumentation. Mrs. Morey in 1879 organized a chorus and orchestra, which she herself conducted, being the first woman, so far as is known, to use the conductor's baton. Her skill as a director and chorus leader is well known to the musical world; and, had it not been for her extreme modesty and disinclination for public life, her name and fame would have been world-wide. There are few men, it has been said, among those famous in the world to-day, who have the skill to teach, or the magnetic personality to control and get results from a body of singers, which she possesses. She has spent several seasons at Baireuth, and has been a close student of Wagner and his methods. Indeed, music has meant a life work to this remarkable woman. Through it she has striven to ennoble mankind by bringing to it a consciousness of those great thoughts which she conceives to be embodied in all art. As she says: "Music was never either an amusement or an aestheticism to me, but that solemn and ineffable voice in the soul which has been proclaiming its messages down through the ages in all true art, whether in form, color, or sound." This sentiment she brings out most emphatically in her lectures upon music, of which she has several.
Mrs. Morey has always kept herself in the background, but her pupils, who are scattered throughout the land, can testify, as did one who has achieved fame in a large city: "I was one of Mrs. Morey 's earliest pupils, and I have never forgotten either the impetus to work, the emulation of high ideals which she instilled into me, or the inspiration which made study with her a delight."
While she was director of music and organist of the First Church in Maiden, the musical critic of one of Boston's leading papers wrote the following in a report of one of the church ser-
