William James Kirkpatrick

William James Kirkpatrick was born at Duncannon, Pennsylvania, on February 27, 1838, and died in Philadelphia on September 20, 1921. His father gave him early musical instruction, which he supplemented with private study. Kirkpatrick trained and worked as a carpenter, then spent 1862–1878 in the furniture business while remaining active in Philadelphia church music. His career was closely connected with the Methodist Episcopal Church, and he later served as music director at Grace Methodist Church.

Kirkpatrick published Devotional Melodies in 1859, when he was twenty-one. After leaving business for full-time music, he became a prolific composer and compiler of gospel and Sunday-school songbooks, many produced in partnership with John R. Sweney. Hymnary credits him with about one hundred collections, issued first through the John Hood Company and later through his Praise Publishing Company. For Stead’s text he composed the tune now called TRUST IN JESUS; text and tune appeared together in Songs of Triumph in 1882, establishing the pairing from its first located printing. Kirkpatrick also composed JESUS SAVES for Priscilla J. Owens’s gospel song and KIRKPATRICK for Fanny Crosby’s A Wonderful Savior Is Jesus My Lord, commonly known as He Hideth My Soul. His accessible melodies helped shape the congregational gospel-song repertory of late nineteenth-century American Protestantism.