Thomas Hastings

Thomas Hastings was an American composer, hymn writer, singing teacher, editor, and advocate for the reform of church music. Born in Washington, Connecticut, in 1784 and raised in Clinton, New York, he had limited formal schooling but pursued music intensively and began teaching singing in 1806. His 1822 “Dissertation on Musical Taste” was an influential early American treatise arguing for disciplined, text-sensitive sacred music.

Hastings moved through Troy, Albany, and Utica, where he edited the religious newspaper “Western Recorder” and promoted his ideas about congregational and choral music. In 1832 a committee representing several New York City churches invited him to develop church music there. He spent the remainder of his career training choirs, composing, editing tunebooks, and serving congregations, including work with Presbyterian churches. Among his later publications was “The Presbyterian Psalmodist” of 1852.

His tune for “Rock of Ages” was probably printed in a now-lost 1831 booklet and is securely documented in “Spiritual Songs for Social Worship” in 1832, where it was called ROCK OF AGES. The name TOPLADY, honoring the hymn’s author, appeared later in the “Sabbath Hymn and Tune Book” of 1859. The tune became the dominant American setting of Toplady’s text.