Samuel Wolcott

WOLCOTT, Samuel. b. South Windsor, Connecticut, 2 July 1813; d. Longmeadow, Massachusetts, 24 February 1886. Educated at Yale College (AB 1833) and Andover Theological Seminary (1837), he was ordained as a Congregational minister. He was a missionary in Syria (1840-42, terminated by ill health), followed by pastorates at Belchertown, Massachusetts; Providence, Rhode Island; Chicago, Illinois; and Cleveland, Ohio. It was during his time as minister of Plymouth Congregational Church, Cleveland, that he wrote the hymn by which he is remembered, ‘Christ for the world we sing’*. Duffield (1886) quotes Wolcott as saying that when it was first suggested that he should write a hymn in 1868: ‘I was...