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James Rowe

1865 - 1933 Author of "Closer with the cords" Pseudonym: James S. Apple. James Rowe was born in England in 1865. He served four years in the Government Survey Office, Dublin Ireland as a young man. He came to America in 1890 where he worked for ten years for the New York Central & Hudson R.R. Co., then served for twelve years as superintendent of the Mohawk and Hudson River Humane Society. He began writing songs and hymns about 1896 and was a prolific writer of gospel verse with more than 9,000 published hymns, poems, recitations, and other works. Dianne Shapiro, from "The Singers and Their Songs: sketches of living gospel hymn writers" by Charles Hutchinson Gabriel (Chicago: The Rodeheaver Company, 1916)

E. A. Hoffman

1839 - 1929 Person Name: Elisha Albright Hoffman Author of "Draw Me Closer, Lord, To Thee" in The Cyber Hymnal Elisha Hoffman (1839-1929) after graduating from Union Seminary in Pennsylvania was ordained in 1868. As a minister he was appointed to the circuit in Napoleon, Ohio in 1872. He worked with the Evangelical Association's publishing arm in Cleveland for eleven years. He served in many chapels and churches in Cleveland and in Grafton in the 1880s, among them Bethel Home for Sailors and Seamen, Chestnut Ridge Union Chapel, Grace Congregational Church and Rockport Congregational Church. In his lifetime he wrote more than 2,000 gospel songs including"Leaning on the everlasting arms" (1894). The fifty song books he edited include Pentecostal Hymns No. 1 and The Evergreen, 1873. Mary Louise VanDyke ============ Hoffman, Elisha Albright, author of "Have you been to Jesus for the cleansing power?" (Holiness desired), in I. D. Sankey's Sacred Songs and Solos, 1881, was born in Pennsylvania, May 7, 1839. --John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, Appendix, Part II (1907) ==============

A. J. Showalter

1858 - 1924 Person Name: Anthony Johnson Showalter Composer of "[Draw me closer, Lord, to Thee]" in The Cyber Hymnal Anthony Johnson Showalter USA 1858-1924/ Born in Cherry Grove, VA, he became an organist, gospel music composer, author, teacher, editor, and publisher. He was taught by his father and in 1876 received training at the Ruebush-Kieffer School of Music, Dayton, VA. He also attended George Root’s National Normal school at Erie, PA, and Dr Palmer’s International Normal at Meadville, PA. He was teaching music in shape note singing schools by age 14. He taught literary school at age 19, and normal music schools at age 22, when he also published his first book. In 1881 he married Lucy Carolyn (Callie) Walser of TX, and they had seven children: Tennie, Karl, Essie, Jennie, Lena, Margaret, and Nellie. At age 23 he published his “Harmony & composition” book, and years later his “Theory of music”. In 1884 he moved to Dalton, GA, and in 1890 formed the Showalter Music Company of Dalton. His company printed and published hymnals, songbooks, schoolbooks, magazines, and newspapers, and had offices in Texarkana, AR, and Chattanooga, TN. In 1888 he became a member of the M T N A (Music Teachers National Association) and was vice-president for his state for several years. In 1895 he went abroad to study methods of teachers and conductors in Europe. He held sessions of his Southern Normal Music Institute in a dozen or more states. He edited “The music teacher & home magazine” for 20 years. In 1895 he issued his “New harmony & composition” book. He authored 60+ books on music theory, harmony, and song. He published 130+ music books that sold over a million copies. Not only was he president of the A J Showalter Music Company of Dalton, GA, but also of the Showalter-Patton Company of Dallas, TX, two of the largest music publishing houses in the American south. He was a choir leader and an elder in the First Presbyterian Church in Dalton (and his daughter, Essie, played the organ there). He managed his fruit farm, looking after nearly 20,000 trees , of which 15,000 are the famous Georgia Elberta peaches, the rest being apples, plums, pecans, and a dozen other varieties of peaches. He was also a stockholder and director of the Cherokee Lumber Company of Dalton, GA, furnishing building materials to a large trade in many southern, central and eastern states. He died in Chattanooga, TN, and is buried in Dalton, GA. He loved hymns, and kept up with many of his students over the years, writing them letters of counsel and encouragement. In 2000 Showalter was inducted into the Southern Gospel Music Hall of Fame. Note: Showalter received two letters one evening from former music students, both of who were grieving over the death of their wives. He had heard a sermon about the arms of Moses being held up during battle, and managed to form a tune and refrain for a hymn, but struggled to find words for the verses that fit. He wrote to his friend in OH, Rev Elisha Hoffman, who had already composed many hymns and asked if he could write some lyrics, which he gladly did. John Perry

William J. Kirkpatrick

1838 - 1921 Person Name: Wm. J. Kirkpatrick Composer of "[Draw me near to thee]" in Praise in Song William J. Kirkpatrick (b. Duncannon, PA, 1838; d. Philadelphia, PA, 1921) received his musical training from his father and several other private teachers. A carpenter by trade, he engaged in the furniture business from 1862 to 1878. He left that profession to dedicate his life to music, serving as music director at Grace Methodist Church in Philadelphia. Kirkpatrick compiled some one hundred gospel song collections; his first, Devotional Melodies (1859), was published when he was only twenty-one years old. Many of these collections were first published by the John Hood Company and later by Kirkpatrick's own Praise Publishing Company, both in Philadelphia. Bert Polman

Chas. H. Gabriel

1856 - 1932 Person Name: C. H. Gabriel Author of "Closer to Thee" in Tried and True Pseudonyms: C. D. Emerson, Charlotte G. Homer, S. B. Jackson, A. W. Lawrence, Jennie Ree ============= For the first seventeen years of his life Charles Hutchinson Gabriel (b. Wilton, IA, 1856; d. Los Angeles, CA, 1932) lived on an Iowa farm, where friends and neighbors often gathered to sing. Gabriel accompanied them on the family reed organ he had taught himself to play. At the age of sixteen he began teaching singing in schools (following in his father's footsteps) and soon was acclaimed as a fine teacher and composer. He moved to California in 1887 and served as Sunday school music director at the Grace Methodist Church in San Francisco. After moving to Chicago in 1892, Gabriel edited numerous collections of anthems, cantatas, and a large number of songbooks for the Homer Rodeheaver, Hope, and E. O. Excell publishing companies. He composed hundreds of tunes and texts, at times using pseudonyms such as Charlotte G. Homer. The total number of his compositions is estimated at about seven thousand. Gabriel's gospel songs became widely circulated through the Billy Sunday-Homer Rodeheaver urban crusades. Bert Polman

Edmund S. Lorenz

1854 - 1942 Person Name: E. S. Lorenz Composer of "[Draw me, dear Saviour, still closer to thee]" in Tried and True Pseudonymns: John D. Cresswell, L. S. Edwards, E. D. Mund, ==================== Lorenz, Edmund Simon. (North Lawrence, Stark County, Ohio, July 13, 1854--July 10, 1942, Dayton, Ohio). Son of Edward Lorenz, a German-born shoemaker who turned preacher, served German immigrants in northwestern Ohio, and was editor of the church paper, Froehliche Botschafter, 1894-1900. Edmund graduated from Toledo High School in 1870, taught German, and was made a school principal at a salary of $20 per week. At age 19, he moved to Dayton to become the music editor for the United Brethren Publishing House. He graduated from Otterbein College (B.A.) in 1880, studied at Union Biblical Seminary, 1878-1881, then went to Yale Divinity School where he graduated (B.D.) in 1883. He then spent a year studying theology in Leipzig, Germany. He was ordained by the Miami [Ohio] Conference of the United Brethren in Christ in 1877. The following year, he married Florence Kumler, with whom he had five children. Upon his return to the United States, he served as pastor of the High Street United Brethren Church in Dayton, 1884-1886, and then as president of Lebanon Valley College, 1887-1889. Ill health led him to resign his presidency. In 1890 he founded the Lorenz Publishing Company of Dayton, to which he devoted the remainder of his life. For their catalog, he wrote hymns, and composed many gospel songs, anthems, and cantatas, occasionally using pseudonyms such as E.D. Mund, Anna Chichester, and G.M. Dodge. He edited three of the Lorenz choir magazines, The Choir Leader, The Choir Herald, and Kirchenchor. Prominent among the many song-books and hymnals which he compiled and edited were those for his church: Hymns for the Sanctuary and Social Worship (1874), Pilgerlieder (1878), Songs of Grace (1879), The Otterbein Hymnal (1890), and The Church Hymnal (1934). For pastors and church musicians, he wrote several books stressing hymnody: Practical Church Music (1909), Church Music (1923), Music in Work and Worship (1925), and The Singing Church (1938). In 1936, Otterbein College awarded him the honorary D.Mus. degree and Lebanon Valley College the honorary LL.D. degree. --Information from granddaughter Ellen Jane Lorenz Porter, DNAH Archives

Thoro Harris

1874 - 1955 Person Name: T. H. Author of "Close, Close to Thee" in Echoes of Paradise Born: March 31, 1874, Washington, DC. Died: March 27, 1955, Eureka Springs, Arkansas. Buried: International Order of Odd Fellows Cemetery, Eureka Springs, Arkansas. After attending college in Battle Creek, Michigan, Harris produced his first hymnal in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1902. He then moved to Chicago, Illinois at the invitation of Peter Bilhorn, and in 1932, to Eureka Springs, Arkansas. He composed and compiled a number of works, and was well known locally as he walked around with a canvas bag full of handbooks for sale. His works include: Light and Life Songs, with William Olmstead & William Kirkpatrick (Chicago, Illinois: S. K. J. Chesbro, 1904) Little Branches, with George J. Meyer & Howard E. Smith (Chicago, Illinois: Meyer & Brother, 1906) Best Temperance Songs (Chicago, Illinois: The Glad Tidings Publishing Company, 1913) (music editor) Hymns of Hope (Chicago, Illinois: Thoro Harris, undated, circa 1922) --www.hymntime.com/tch

J. H. Tenney

1840 - 1918 Composer of "[Closer to thee, my Father, draw me]" in The Christian Sunday School Hymnal John Harrison Tenney, 1840-1918 Born: November 22, 1840, Rowley, Massachusetts. Born just after the presidential campaign of "Tippecanoe and Tyler, too," Tenney was named after American president William Henry Harrison. A deacon in the Congregational Church in Linebrook, Massachusetts, he edited or was associate editor of over 30 books, and contributed to hundreds more. His works include: American Male Choir Temperance Jewels, with Elisha Hoffman (Boston, Massachusetts: Oliver Ditson & Company, 1879) Bells of Victory, with Elisha Hoffman (Boston, Massachusetts: Oliver Ditson & Company, 1888) Gems of Gospel Song Golden Sunbeams Sharon’s Dewy Rose Songs of Faith Shining Light Songs of Joy Sparkling and Bright Spiritual Songs, Nos. 1 and 2 Sweet Fields of Eden The Beacon Light The Singing School Banner The Anthem Offering The American Anthem Book The Crown of Praise Sources-- Hall, pp. 219-22 Music-- Asilomar Bogotá Beyond the Swelling Flood Cancún Come to Jesus Ever Will I Pray Hallowed Hour of Prayer Jesus Is Passing This Way Jubilate! My Anchor Is Holding Nothing Between Onward Christian Soldiers Sabbath Bell San Francisco We’ll Never Say Goodbye Where Will You Spend Eternity? --www.hymntime.com/tch

B. B. Edmiaston

1881 - 1955 Author of "Draw thou me" Benard Bates Edmiaston Born: July 16, 1881, Bennetts, Baxter County, Arkansas. Died: December 2, 1964, Bronte, Texas. Buried: Fairview Cemetery, Bronte, Texas. Bernard was the son of David W. Edmiaston and Georgia Ann Fluty, and husband of Ella Allen. He studied music under Rufus Turner, Franklin Eiland, W. H. Lawson, Berry McGee, Emmett Dean, G. W. Fields, John Herbert, and many others, and taught singing schools for at least 38 years. He wrote and published songs through the Trio Music Company, Waco, Texas, and was director of the Southern Development Normal School of Music in Waco. © The Cyber Hymnal™ (www.hymntime.com/tch)

I. Baltzell

1832 - 1893 Composer of "[Draw me, dear Savior, still closer to thee]" in Bright Light Baltzell, Isaiah. (near Frederick, Maryland, November 26, 1832--January 16, 1893, Frederick). He was educated in the common schools, and at New Windsor Academy, Carroll County, Maryland. In 1859 he married Cecilia Caroline James at Mountain Jackson, Virginia. Originally a Lutheran, he joined the United Brethren Church in 1847, was licensed to preach by the Virginia Conference in 1854, and ordained in 1856. In 1862 he joined the Pennsylvania Conference. He was presiding elder from 1875 to 1880, and from 1883 to 1889. He was a delegate to three General Conferences, and was a trustee of Otterbein University. In 1873 he was appointed by the General Conference a member of the committee to superintend the publication of Hymns for the Sanctuary. His first compilation was Revival Songster (Baltimore, 1859). He was joint editor, with G.W.M. Rigor, or Choral Gems (1871); joint editor, with E.S. Lorenz, of Heavenly Carols, Songs of Grace, Gates of Praise, Songs of Cheer, Songs of the Kingdom, Holy Voices, Songs of Refreshing, Notes of Triumph, Garnered Sheaves, Songs of the Morning, and The Master's Praise. He was also author of music and services for special occasions, and the editor and publisher of Carols of Praise. See: Shuey, W.A. (1892). Manual of the United Brethren Publishing House; Historical and Descriptive: 243-244. Some of his hymns bear the pseudonym Amicus. --Harry Eskew, DNAH Archives