Henry Lake Gilmour

Henry Lake Gilmour was born in Londonderry, Ireland, in 1836 and emigrated to the United States as a teenager. Although he had hoped to pursue navigation, he settled in Philadelphia, learned the painting trade, served in the Union army during the American Civil War, and endured imprisonment in Richmond's Libby Prison after his capture. He later became a dentist and moved to Wenonah, New Jersey. Gilmour helped establish Methodist work there, served for many years as a Sunday school superintendent, and directed music at the Pitman Grove Camp Meeting for roughly four decades. He also led music at other camp meetings and edited or helped compile about twenty-five gospel-song collections. His text for “The Haven of Rest” is conventionally dated 1885; its earliest located printing is the 1890 collection Sunlit Songs, which Gilmour co-edited with John R. Sweney and William J. Kirkpatrick. The documented facts of his seafaring ambition and camp-meeting ministry provide useful biographical context, but no located contemporary account proves that either supplied the immediate occasion for this hymn. Gilmour died in 1920 after injuries from a carriage accident.