Charles William Everest

Charles William Everest was born at East Windsor, Connecticut, on May 27, 1814. While still a young man, he wrote the poem that became “Take Up Thy Cross.” The Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology identifies its first publication in The Episcopal Watchman on September 7, 1833, under the title “Vision of Death” and the signature “Omega”; the place and date of composition were given as Cheshire, Connecticut, September 3, 1833. The text appeared in a hymnbook by 1835.

Everest graduated from Washington College in Hartford, now Trinity College, in 1838 and took Holy Orders in the Episcopal Church in 1842. He served as rector in Hamden, Connecticut, from 1842 until 1873 and also worked for the Society for the Increase of the Ministry. His literary interests included poetry and editorial work; he was associated with collections such as The Poets of Connecticut.

“Take Up Thy Cross” became his enduring contribution to hymnody, though the form commonly sung today differs substantially from his original five-stanza poem. British hymnals altered the text during the nineteenth century, and Hymns Ancient and Modern in 1861 helped establish a revised form with an added doxological stanza. Everest died in Waterbury, Connecticut, on January 11, 1877.