Johnson Oatman, Jr.

OATMAN, Johnson, Jr. b. Medford, New Jersey, 21 April 1856; d. Norman, Oklahoma, 25 September 1922. Oatman attended Herbert’s Academy in Vincentown, New Jersey, and the New Jersey Collegiate Institute in Bordentown. Ordained a minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church, his pastoral work was limited, owing to his employment in his father’s mercantile business, and later as an insurance agent in Mount Holly, New Jersey, until ill health caused his retirement in 1892-93. In the years that followed he wrote some 7000 texts, a number of which were set as gospel songs by composers such as John R. Sweney, Edwin O. Excell*, Charles Hutchinson Gabriel* and William J. Kirkpatrick*. His best-known...