J. 423 Revised by H.W.F.

Gilman, Rev. Samuel, D.D., Gloucester, Massachusetts, February 16, 1791—February 9, 1858, Kingston, Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard College in 1811, served the College as tutor in mathematics for two years, and studied in the Harvard Divinity School. On December 1, 1819, he was ordained minister of the Unitarian Church in Charleston, South Carolina, which he served with great distinction until his death, which occurred while on a visit to Massachusetts. His wife, [Caroline Howard Gilman], q.v., was a writer noted in her day. He wrote a good many poems and essays, published in magazines; a book, “Memoirs of a New England Village Choir,” 1829, which ran to three editions; and in 1856 a volume of his miscellaneous essays, entitled “Contributions to Literature, Descriptive, Critical, Humorous, Biographical, Philosophical and Poetical.” His two best known songs were The Union Ode, composed for the Union party of South Carolina and sung there on July 4, 1831, during the Nullification excitement, and later in the North during the Civil War; and the college hymn Fair Harvard, which he wrote in 1836. He had come to Cambridge for the twenty-fifth anniversary of his graduation and the 200th anniversary of the founding of the College. On the eve of the celebration, having already an established reputation as a poet, he was asked to write a song for the occasion and it was sung at the meeting on September 8, 1836, to a tune popular at the time, composed for the song “Believe me, if all those endearing young charms.” Harvard gave him the honorary degree of D.D. in 1837.

He wrote a number of hymns of minor importance.

1. O God, accept this sacred hour (Communion)

was contributed to Rev. Thaddeus Mason Harris’s Hymns for the Lord’s Supper, 1820, and was republished in Sewall’s New York Collection of the same year, in Hedge and Huntington’s Hymns for the Church of Christ, 1853, and other collections.

2. This child we dedicate to Thee (Christening)

In Hedge and Huntington’s Hymns for the Church of Christ the author’s name is not given and the piece is attributed to the West Boston Collection, 1823. Putnam, in Singers and Songs, etc., p. 73, gives four of its original stanzas, and says that it is a translation from the German, but the original has not been traced.

3. We sing Thy mercy, God of love, (Communion)

Contributed to Hymns of the Lord’s Supper and included in Sewall’s New York Collection.

4. Who would sever freedom’s shrine?

A song supporting the Union cause, of which Gilman was a strong advocate, written at the time of the Nullification agitation. Several stanzas from it, beginning as above, were included in The Soldier’s Companion, 1861.

5. Yes, to the [that] last command (Communion)

Like no. 1 and 3 included in Hymns for the Lord’s Supper and in Sewall’s Collection.

All these hymns have long since passed out of use.

Gilman (with C. M. Taggart) edited the Charleston Collection in 1854, under the title Services and Hymns for the use of the Unitarian Church of Charleston, S.C., a second and enlarged edition of which appeared in 1867. It included three of his hymns, nos. 1, 3 and 5, listed above, and the two by his wife, [Caroline Gilman], q.v., listed under her name.

J. 423, 1592 revised—H.W.F.

Goldsmith, Rev. Peter Hair, D.D. (1865-1926) was born in Greenville, South Carolina. He was educated at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky, and served several Baptist churches before transferring his membership to the Unitarian denomination, after which he served as minister to the First Church in Salem, Massachusetts, 1903-1910, and to the church in Yonkers, New York, 1910-1917.

In 1912 he wrote a hymn beginning,

Holy, holy Lord,