Samuel Wolcott

Samuel Wolcott was an American Congregational minister, missionary, home-mission administrator, and hymn writer. Born in South Windsor, Connecticut, on July 2, 1813, he graduated from Yale College in 1833 and Andover Theological Seminary in 1837. After ordination he served as a missionary in Syria from 1840 to 1842 under the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Ill health brought him back to the United States, where he served Congregational churches in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Illinois, and Ohio.

In Cleveland Wolcott served as secretary and treasurer of the Ohio Congregational Home Missionary Society and was also a trustee of Oberlin College from 1868 to 1881. His hymn writing began comparatively late in life. John Julian's Dictionary of Hymnology records that he wrote more than two hundred hymns, many of which remained in manuscript, and identifies several texts on mission, trust, worship, and Christian service.

Representative works include Christ for the World We Sing, Tell Me Whom My Soul Doth Love, Goodly Were Thy Tents, O Israel, and All Thy Realms in Midnight Shrouded. Wolcott died on February 24, 1886. His surviving hymns reflect the missionary and congregational concerns that shaped much of his ministry.