Bacon, Thomas (1700?–26 May 1768), clergyman and musician, is traditionally said to have been born on the Isle of Man, but his earliest records come from Whitehaven, Cumberland County, England. His parents are unknown. His brother Anthony Bacon, M.P., may have been the same Anthony Bacon who graduated from Trinity College in 1739. Thomas Bacon was in charge of a coal depot in Dublin early in the 1730s. Since his son John Bacon was a lieutenant in the Independent Maryland Foot Company in 1754, he must have been at least eighteen then. Therefore, Thomas Bacon was probably married by 1735. Nothing is known of his wife except a statement by Rev. ...
Article
Bacon, Thomas (1700?–26 May 1768), clergyman and musician
J. A. Leo Lemay
Article
Bliss, Philip Paul (1838-1876), hymnodist and musical evangelist
Daniel W. Stowell
Bliss, Philip Paul (09 July 1838–29 December 1876), hymnodist and musical evangelist, was born in Clearfield County, Pennsylvania, the son of Isaac Bliss and Lydia Doolittle, farmers. As an adolescent, he worked on farms and in lumber camps. Bliss proclaimed his personal conversion to Christ in 1850 and joined a Baptist church. After attending a select school in East Troy, Pennsylvania, in 1855 and working on a farm during the summer, he taught school in Hartsville, New York, during the winter of 1856. The following year he received his first formal instruction in music at J. G. Towner’s music school in Towanda, Pennsylvania. During 1858 Bliss taught school in Rome, Pennsylvania, where he boarded with the Young family. In 1859 he married Lucy Young, the oldest daughter of his hosts; the couple had two children. In the early 1860s Bliss taught music at Pennsylvania schools during the winter months, worked on his father-in-law’s farm during the summer, and attended occasional normal academies of music in Geneseo, New York....
Article
Bradbury, William Batchelder (1816-1868), music teacher, composer, and publisher
Mel R. Wilhoit
Bradbury, William Batchelder (06 October 1816–07 January 1868), music teacher, composer, and publisher, was born in York County, Maine, the son of David Bradbury and Sophia Chase. When Bradbury was fourteen years old the family moved to Boston, where William began the study of harmony and decided to become a professional musician. He attended the Boston Academy of Music, sang in ...
Article
Campbell, Lucie E. (1885-1963), gospel composer and teacher
Kip Lornell
Campbell, Lucie E. (1885–03 January 1963), gospel composer and teacher, was born in Duck Hill, Mississippi, the daughter of Burrell Campbell, a railroad worker, and Isabella Wilkerson. Her mother was widowed several months after Lucie’s birth, and the family soon moved from Carroll County to Memphis, the nearest major city. Lucie and her many siblings struggled to survive on their mother’s meager wages, which she earned by washing and ironing clothing. Given the family’s insubstantial income, it could afford a musical education for only one child: Lucie’s older sister Lora. Lucie eventually learned to play piano, however, through her own persistence, a gifted ear for music, and a little help from Lora....
Article
Davis, Gary D. (1896-1972), guitarist and religious singer
Bill McCulloch and Barry Lee Pearson
Davis, Gary D. (30 April 1896–05 May 1972), guitarist and religious singer, was born in Laurens County, South Carolina, south of Spartanburg, the son of John Davis and Evelina (maiden name unknown), farmers. One of eight children, he grew up on a farm he later described as being so far out in the country “you couldn’t hear a train whistle blow unless it was on a cloudy day.” Partially blinded as a baby, Davis was placed in the care of his grandmother. He showed an aptitude for music as a boy, first playing harmonica and later, with his grandmother’s help, constructing a guitar. When he was between the ages of seven and ten his mother gave him a guitar, and over the next several years he became proficient, possibly learning from a local musician, Craig Fowler, and an uncle. By age ten he was singing in a Baptist church and playing for local dances. In his teens Davis began adding blues to a repertoire that already included country dance tunes and religious songs....
Article
Gates, James M. (February 1884–18 August 1945), preacher and recording artist
Lerone A. Martin
Gates, James M. (? February 1884–18 August 1945), preacher and recording artist, was born in the rural black belt community of Hogansville, Georgia. The names of his parents are not known. Around 1913, following the death of their daughter Zadie, Gates and his wife Nellie (marriage date unknown) left sharecropping and joined the masses of black Americans who left rural America in search of the promises of urbanization. They moved to Atlanta and joined the Mount Calvary Baptist Church in the city’s Rockdale Park neighborhood, a migrant church founded in ...
Article
Grierson, Francis (1848-1927), musician, writer, and mystic
Lynn Altenbernd
Grierson, Francis (18 September 1848–29 May 1927), musician, writer, and mystic, was born Benjamin Henry Jesse Francis Shepard in Birkenhead, England, the son of Joseph Shepard and Emily Grierson. When Grierson was less than a year old, the Shepards migrated to central Illinois, where they took up frontier farming and became active in local abolitionist activities. The boy’s parents taught him to read, using the Anglican catechism as a text. In 1858, when the family lived in Alton, Illinois, and during their first residence in St. Louis from 1859 to 1863, he may have had—the record is not clear—a little more than five years of formal schooling....
Article
Mason, Lowell (1792-1872), music educator and composer
Carol A. Pemberton
Mason, Lowell (08 January 1792–11 August 1872), music educator and composer, was born in Medfield, Massachusetts, the son of Johnson Mason, a businessman, and Catherine Hartshorn. Mason was educated in Medfield schools and singing schools, where he learned to read music. He took an active interest in music and at age sixteen conducted his church choir. Largely self-taught, he played many instruments and as a teenager led a local band. Nonetheless, he intended to become a businessman and not a musician, as he saw no future for himself in music, which offered little opportunity for a livelihood....
Article
Oatman, Johnson, Jr. (1856-1922), gospel hymn writer
Mary De Jong
Oatman, Johnson, Jr. (21 April 1856–25 September 1922), gospel hymn writer, was born near Medford, New Jersey, the son of Johnson Oatman, a merchant, and Rachel Ann Cline. Educated at Herbert’s Academy, Vincetown, and the New Jersey Collegiate Institute, Bordentown, he was licensed and ordained as a local preacher in the Methodist Episcopal church but never held a pastorate. He married Wilhelmina Ried in 1878; they had three children. After working for many years with his father in Lumberton, New Jersey, he became associated with a life-insurance company in Mount Holly, New Jersey. In failing health in 1893, he retired to the seaside resort community of Ocean Grove, New Jersey. A “stronghold of Methodist Victorianism,” Ocean Grove was a permanent site of carefully-regulated summer camp meetings patronized by urban middle-class evangelical Protestants in search of rest, wholesome recreation, and spiritual renewal (Jones, p. 33)....
Article
Peter, John Frederick (1746-1813), minister of the Moravian church (Unitas Fratrum), composer, and church record keeper
Karl Kroeger
Peter, John Frederick (19 May 1746–13 July 1813), minister of the Moravian church (Unitas Fratrum), composer, and church record keeper, minister of the Moravian church (Unitas Fratrum), composer, and church record keeper, was born Johann Friedrich Peter in the Moravian settlement of Herrndijk, Holland, the son of Johann Friedrich Peter, the Moravian minister there, and Susanna Jacksch. Following Moravian custom, young Johann was sent to Moravian boarding schools in Haarlem and Zeist, Holland; Niesky and Gross Hennersdorf, Saxony; and the Moravian Seminary at Barby, Saxony, between the years 1750 and 1769. The school at Gross Hennersdorf and the seminary at Barby were well known for their excellent music programs. It is likely that Peter received his musical training there under composer Johann Daniel Grimm. Meanwhile, in 1760 his father was transferred by the church to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania....
Article
Rodeheaver, Homer Alvin (1880-1955), evangelist, musician, and music publisher
Charles K. Wolfe
Rodeheaver, Homer Alvin (04 October 1880–18 December 1955), evangelist, musician, and music publisher, was born in Cinco Hollow, Ohio, the son of Thurman Hall Rodeheaver, who was in the lumber mill business, and Francis “Fannie” Armstrong. As a young man growing up in the mountain logging village of Jellico, in East Tennessee, he was exposed to rural singing school music and fiddle dance music from the Scots-Irish settlers in the area. As a boy he also learned to play the cornet. He attended Ohio Wesleyan College in 1896; there he switched to trombone, played in the college band, took music courses, and served as a cheerleader. He interrupted college to serve in the Fourth Tennessee Band in the Spanish-American War, and after the war, though initially drawn to the law, in about 1904 he joined evangelist ...
Article
Sankey, Ira David (1840-1908), singing evangelist and gospel songwriter
Edith L. Blumhofer
Sankey, Ira David (28 August 1840–14 August 1908), singing evangelist and gospel songwriter, was born in Edinburg, Lawrence County, Pennsylvania, the son of David Sankey and Mary Leeper. Sankey’s father was a Pennsylvania state representative, collector of internal revenue, member of the State Board of Equalization, and newspaper editor. During Sankey’s childhood his father also farmed in West Central Pennsylvania, near the Ohio border. The family attended King’s Chapel near Western Reserve Harbor, where Sankey was converted during revival meetings in 1856. In 1857, when Sankey’s father accepted the presidency of a local bank, the family moved to New Castle, Pennsylvania, where Sankey joined the New Castle Methodist Church. By 1860 he was Sunday school superintendent and choir director....
Image
Sankey, Ira David (1840-1908)
In
Ira D. Sankey. Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LC-USZ62-108534).
Article
Shindler, Mary Dana (1810-1883), songwriter and advocate of reform
Mary De Jong
Shindler, Mary Dana (15 February 1810–08 February 1883), songwriter and advocate of reform, was born Mary Stanley Bunce Palmer in Beaufort, South Carolina, the daughter of Benjamin Morgan Palmer and Mary Stanley Bunce. In 1814 her father, a Princeton graduate, became co-pastor of Charleston’s Independent (Congregational) Church. Mary attended a prestigious school for girls in Charleston and received a lady’s education at seminaries conducted by clergymen in Connecticut and New Jersey. Some of her juvenile poems were published in a periodical that was edited locally. Through family connections she met many of antebellum America’s leading clergymen, foreign and domestic missionaries, and women involved in church work and charities....
Article
Smith, Samuel Francis (1808-1895), editor, Baptist clergyman, and author
P. Keith Gammons
Smith, Samuel Francis (21 October 1808–16 November 1895), editor, Baptist clergyman, and author, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Samuel Smith and Sarah Bryant. Young Smith was educated at both the Eliot School and the Boston Latin School, where he received the distinguished Franklin medal in 1825. At Harvard College, Smith became part of the famous class of 1829, which also included ...
Article
Swan, Timothy (1758-1842), hat maker and composer
Nym Cooke
Swan, Timothy (23 July 1758–23 July 1842), hat maker and composer, was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, the son of William Swan, a goldsmith, and Levina Keyes. By age eleven he was apprenticed to a merchant in nearby Marlborough then moved to Groton, Massachusetts, to assist his brother in the same business. There he attended a singing school for three weeks in 1774. This experience, some fife instruction during a brief army stint in Cambridge later that year, and an article on music that he read in the 1797 ...
Article
Thompson, Will Lamartine (1847-1909), composer and publisher
Richard D. Wetzel
Thompson, Will Lamartine (07 November 1847–20 September 1909), composer and publisher, was born in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, the son of Josiah Thompson and Sarah Jackman. His father was self-educated and worked for a time as a clerk on the wharf in Pittsburgh. He became a successful merchant and, about the time of Will’s birth, moved to East Liverpool, Ohio, where he established the mercantile firm of J. Thompson and Company. Three of his sons, including Will, were to be partners in the firm, and Will also served on the board of directors of the East Liverpool Bank, which his father established in 1873. The Thompson family was highly regarded in the East Liverpool area, and Josiah Thompson was elected to the fifty-eighth (1868), fifty-ninth (1870), and sixtieth (1872) sessions of the Ohio legislature....
Article
Webb, Thomas Smith (1771-1819), author of Masonic music and rituals and a founder of the Handel and Haydn Society
Geoffrey Gneuhs
Webb, Thomas Smith (30 October 1771–06 July 1819), author of Masonic music and rituals and a founder of the Handel and Haydn Society, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Samuel Webb and Margaret Smith. His parents had emigrated from England sometime in 1771. He studied at local grammar schools and then at the Boston Latin School. Known for his “sweetness of disposition,” he was a bright and precocious student. He wrote poetry, played the fife and flute, and became proficient in French. When he was sixteen he was apprenticed to a printer in Boston. A few years later he moved to Keene, New Hampshire, and set up his own printing shop. In Keene he became acquainted with Freemasonry and received the first three degrees of the Ancient Craft from the Rising Sun Lodge....
Article
White, Anna (1831-1910), Shaker eldress, author, and songwriter
Stephen J. Paterwic
White, Anna (21 January 1831–16 December 1910), Shaker eldress, author, and songwriter, was born in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Robert White, a businessman and farmer, and Hannah Gibbs, an almoner (a distributor of goods to the needy) for the Quakers. White was educated at Mansion Square Seminary, a Quaker school, in Poughkeepsie, New York. When she was seventeen she learned the tailoring trade and helped her mother distribute alms from the Quakers to the poor of New York City. Her father had become a Shaker and divided his time between living with his natural family and residing with the Shakers. His decision to become a Shaker angered his wife and alienated all his children except Anna who also became interested. Every effort was made to dissuade her from Shakerism, and an uncle even proposed to settle $40,000 on her if she would give up thinking about it....
Article
Woodbury, Isaac Baker (1819-1858), composer and music educator
Robert M. Copeland
Woodbury, Isaac Baker (23 October 1819–26 October 1858), composer and music educator, was born in Beverly, Massachusetts, the son of Isaac Woodberry, a merchant and justice of the peace, and Nancy Baker. From an early age Woodbury preferred this spelling of the family name. His forebears, in Massachusetts since 1624, were solidly yeoman and middle class. In 1828 his father died, and his mother managed the property and took in boarders to support her eight children. In 1832 Woodbury was sent to Boston where, contrary to his mother’s wishes, he studied music under ...
