John Adam Granade

GRANADE, John Adam. b. Jones County, North Carolina, 9 May 1763; d. Lebanon, Tennessee, 6 December 1807. Nothing of substance is known of Granade’s youth, nor of his education, though he had some; by 1799 he was a private schoolmaster on Barton’s Creek in rural Wilson County, Tennessee. He experienced conversion at one of the first camp meetings, in nearby Sumner County, in August 1800; and he began to compose his popular ‘Pilgrim’s’ songs that same day. Some of these were immediately circulated in manuscript, and very soon on broadsides; several of the latter are extant. These texts were being incorporated into printed camp-meeting songsters at least as early as the third edition of Hymns...