Emma Frances Riggs Campbell (November 16, 1830 – February 25, 1919) was an American hymnwriter and author. She is best known for her hymn "Jesus of Nazareth Passeth By".[1]
Emma F. R. Campbell | |
|---|---|
| Born | Emma Frances Riggs Campbell November 16, 1830 Newark, New Jersey, U.S. |
| Died | February 25, 1919 (aged 88) Morristown, New Jersey, U.S. |
| Nationality | USA |
| Occupation(s) | Hymnwriter, author |
She was born on November 16, 1830 in Newark, New Jersey, one of eleven children of Abner Campbell, owner of a looking-glass and picture-framing business, and Deborah Conger. Her sister Catherine Smith Campbell married future Florida governor Ossian Bingley Hart.[1][2]
Campbell graduated from the Packer Institute for Girls in Brooklyn, New York in 1959. She and a sister opened a school in Morristown, New Jersey in the 1860s. She taught Sunday school for 37 years at the First Presbyterian Church in Morristown.[1]
"Jesus of Nazareth Passeth By" was inspired by an 1864 religious revival in Newark held by the Rev. Edward Payson Hammond, specifically a sermon mentioning Luke 18:37 and the story of Jesus healing the blind Bartimaeus. Campbell's hymn was first published using the Greek letter Eta as a pseudonym, which has led to Campbell being misidentified as Eta or Etta Campbell. The hymn was anthologized numerous times and was frequently performed by the gospel singer Ira D. Sankey.[1][3]
Campbell published several other hymns, a collection of verse, several children's novels, and a short biography of her brother-in-law Ossian Hart.[1][2]
Campbell died on February 25, 1919 in Morristown, New Jersey, aged 88.[4]
Bibliography
edit- Paul Preston; or, Who is the Hero? (1864)
- Green Pastures (1866)
- Better than Rubies; or, Mabel's Treasure (1869)
- Toward the Mark (1875)
- Biographical Sketch of Honorable Ossian B. Hart, Late Governor of Florida, 1873 (1901)
- The Hymn "Jesus of Nazareth passeth by" and Its History, and Other Verses (1909)
References
edit- ^ a b c d e Claghorn, Charles Eugene (1984). Women composers and hymnists: a concise biographical dictionary. Internet Archive. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press. p. 41. ISBN 978-0-8108-1680-0.
- ^ a b Brown, Canter Jr. (1997). Ossian Bingley Hart: Florida's loyalist Reconstruction governor. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. p. 44. ISBN 0-585-34095-1. OCLC 47010135.
- ^ Campbell, Emma F. R. (1909). "Introduction". The Hymn "Jesus of Nazareth passeth by": its history and other verses. Princeton Theological Seminary Library. New York : M.E. Munson. pp. v–xi.
- ^ "Miss Emma F.R. Campbell, Writer". The New York Times. 1919-02-27. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2022-08-23.