504. There’s a land that is fairer than day
S. F. Bennett, 1836-98
“It’ll be all right by and by.” This trivial remark by Webster, when one morning, seemingly depressed, he was asked by his partner, Bennett, what was wrong with him, was the occasion for the writing of this hymn. The author and composer were friends and partners in the music publishing business in the village of Elkhorn, Wis. Webster, the musician of the firm, was inclined to be nervous and subject to periods of depression. His partner understood this and often effected a cure, as on this occasion, by putting him to work on a new song. Upon Bennett’s suggestion, the two agreed that morning to make a hymn out of the idea, “The sweet by and by.” Bennett penned the words and handed them to Webster, who promptly wrote the music. Words and music were thus produced in the incredibly short time of about thirty minutes. The song was published soon afterward in a Sunday school song book, The Signet Ring, which the two men were compiling. From there it found its way into numerous collections of songs until today “it is translated into various foreign languages and sung in every land under the sun.”
Sanford Filmore Bennett was a native of the West. He settled in Elkhorn, Wis., in 1861, to devote himself to music but later studied medicine and practiced in Richmond, Ill.
MUSIC. SWEET BY AND BY. Joseph Philbrick Webster, 1819-75, composer of this tune, was born in New Hampshire. He was an active member of the Handel and Haydn Society and various other musical organizations. He lived in Madison, Indiana, and Racine, Wisconsin, before finally moving to Elkhorn, in 1857.