Annotation:Maid in the Pump Room (1)
X:1 T:Maid in the Pump Room [1] M:2/4 L:1/8 R:Hornpipe S:Ryan's Mammoth Collection (1883) Z:AK/Fiddler's Companion K:G (3D/E/F/ | GD/D/ DB | c/B/A/c/ B>A | G/F/G/A/ GB | A/G/A/B/ A(3D/E/F/ | GD/D/ DB | c/B/A/c/ B>A | G/F/G/A/ B/A/G/F/ | GGG :| |: D | G/B/d/B/ G/B/d/B/ | c/B/A/c/ B>A | .GG/G/ GB | A/G/A/B/ cA | G/B/d/B/ G/B/d/B/ | c/B/A/c/ B>D | DGBd | d/c/B/A/ G :|]
MAID IN THE PUMP-ROOM [1]. New England, Hornpipe or Reel. G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. The melody was entered into the 1801-c. 182?music manuscript copybook of musician Abel Shattuck (1759-1816) of Colrain, Mass., although the parts are reversed from the tune printed in Ryan's Mammoth Collection (1883). Dance instructions for "Maid in Pump Room" were printed in Boston in Saltator's (a pseudonyn) A Treatise on Dancing (1802, p. 90), which may or may not be the same ones printed with the tune in Elizabeth Burchenal's 1918 American dance manual.
"In England the room or building at a spa or mineral spring where water was dispensed for drinking was called a pump room. In the New England home, the pump room was the 'cool pantry', later known as the 'butt'ry', and was often used for dairy purposes. It was not uncommon on the New England farm to have the water conveniently brought to the shelter of the house ell, where the well or spring water could be pumped for general use" (Linscott, 1939). The title could still be a double-entendre.
