Joseph Yates Peek

Joseph Yates Peek was born in Schenectady, New York, in 1843. He had little formal musical education but played violin and piano and retained a lifelong love of music. His working life included carpentry, farming, horticulture, and the florist trade. After retiring from business in 1904, he gave increasing attention to ministry as a Methodist lay preacher.

Peek was ordained in 1911. According to the biographical research summarized in Lester Hostetler's 1949 Handbook to The Mennonite Hymnary, he died after suffering a heart attack while preaching that same year. The account presents him as an able amateur musician whose best-known melody emerged from devotional use rather than a professional composing career.

That account says Peek encountered Walter's poem on a New Year's card and spontaneously whistled a melody for it. His friend Grant Colfax Tullar, an experienced gospel-song composer and publisher, transcribed and harmonized the music. The resulting tune, PEEK, was paired with Walter's text in The Methodist Sunday School Hymnal of 1911 and subsequently circulated across many denominations. Some later hymnals date the melody to about 1909, which may indicate its creation before its earliest located hymnbook printing. Modern editions should distinguish Peek's melody from later harmonizations and arrangements.