Timeline of Music in The United States To 1819 - 1735

1735

• Charleston, South Carolina, hosts the first performance of a ballad opera, Flora: Or Hob in the Well, in the United States on February 18, at the New World Theatre. The city also hosts a production of The Adventures of Harlequin and Scaramouch, the first pantomime ballet in the United States.
• Georgia's Governor James Oglethorpe invites minister John Wesley to come with him to Georgia, on a ship with Moravian missionaries whose hymn-singing had a profound effect on Wesley, who would go on to lead the Great Awakening of Christianity, often expressed through music. ted in the colonies. Music historian David W. Stowe has called this the most profound event in the history of American sacred music.
• John Peter Zenger is imprisoned in New York after publishing ballads about the political opposition. His lawyer, Andrew Hamilton, successfully argues that the jury should judge the law – whether or not the ballads were justly considered libelous – rather than simply the fact of publication. The not guilty verdict is a precedent for freedom of speech, freedom of the press and jury rights.