Mrs. L. C. S. Dougherty

Dougherty, Lucy Simond (Hill). (Boston, Massachusetts, June 17, 1822--May 21, 1847). Baptist. Educated at home and at Bowdoin school in Boston, as well as pursuing a course of self study in preparation for a teaching career. Accepted a position in 1842 as private teacher on a plantation in Mississippi but did not arrive until 1845. Soon after, she married Captain William D. Dougherty of St. Louis. Wrote numerous hymns many of which were published in newspapers and magazines. Among them are:

There are moments, peaceful moments
Evening's hallowed minstrelsy
There is a land of pleasure
They come when fearful thoughts oppress
I thank thee, Father, source of bliss

However, her most widely used hymn, "When floating on life's troubled sea," was first published anonymously in the Christian Watchman, October 31, 1839, and thus appeared without an author in S.F. Smith's The Psalmist (1843). After the first edition, the authorship was made known and in all subsequent editions, the name L. S. Hill was added.

--Deborah Carlton Loftis, DNAH Archives