Samuel Longfellow

LONGFELLOW, Samuel. b. Portland, Maine, 18 June 1819; d. Portland, 3 October 1892. He was educated at Harvard College (BA, 1839) and Harvard Divinity School (BDiv, 1846). He served Unitarian congregations in Fall River, Massachusetts (1848-51); Brooklyn, New York (1853-60); and Germantown, Pennsylvania (1860-83). His first venture into hymnody was A Book of Hymns and Tunes for the Sunday-school, the Congregation, and the Home (New York, 1860, Boston, 1861). With his close friend Samuel Johnson* he compiled two important Unitarian hymnals: A Book of Hymns for Public and Private Devotion (Boston, 1846), and Hymns of the Spirit (Boston, 1864). In them he revised some of the traditional...