Frances Jane van Alstyne (née Crosby; March 24, 1820 – February 12, 1915), more commonly known as Fanny J. Crosby, was an American mission worker, poet, lyricist, and composer. A prolific hymnist, she wrote more than 8,000 hymns and gospel songs, with more than 100 million copies printed. She is also known for her teaching and rescue mission work. By the end of the 19th century, she had become a household name.
Crosby was known as the "Queen of Gospel Song Writers" and the "Mother of modern congregational singing in America", with most American hymnals containing her work. Her gospel songs were "paradigmatic of all revival music", and Ira Sankey attributed the success of the Moody and Sankey evangelical campaigns largely to Crosby's hymns. Some of Crosby's best-known works include "Pass Me Not, O Gentle Saviour", "Blessed Assurance", "Jesus Is Tenderly Calling You Home", "Praise Him, Praise Him", "Rescue the Perishing", and "To God Be the Glory". Some publishers were hesitant to have so many hymns by one person in their hymnals, so Crosby used nearly 200 different pseudonyms during her career.
Crosby also wrote more than 1,000 secular poems and had four books of poetry published, as well as two best-selling autobiographies. Additionally, she co-wrote popular secular songs, political and patriotic songs, and at least five cantatas on biblical and patriotic themes, including The Flower Queen, the first secular cantata by an American composer. She was committed to Christian rescue missions and was known for her public speaking.
Early life and education
Frances Jane Crosby was born on March 24, 1820, in the village of Brewster, about north of New York City. She was the only child of John Crosby and his second wife Mercy Crosby, both of whom were relatives of Revolutionary War spy Enoch Crosby. He was a widower who had a daughter from his first marriage. According to C. Bernard Ruffin, John and Mercy were possibly first cousins; however, "by the time Fanny Crosby came to write her memoirs [in 1906], the fact that her mother and father were related... had become a source of embarrassment, and she maintained that she did not know anything about his lineage".
Crosby was proud of her Puritan heritage. She traced her ancestry from Anna Brigham and Simon Crosby who arrived in Boston in 1635 (and were among the founders of Harvard College); their descendants married into Mayflower families, making Crosby a descendant of Elder William Brewster, Edward Winslow, and Thomas Prence, and a member of the exclusive Daughters of the Mayflower.
She was also a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution in Bridgeport, Connecticut, writing the verses of the state song of the Connecticut branch. Through Simon Crosby, Fanny was also a relative of Presbyterian minister Howard Crosby and his neoabolitionist son Ernest Howard Crosby, as well as singers Bing and Bob Crosby.
At six weeks old, Crosby caught a cold and developed inflammation of the eyes. Mustard poultices were applied to treat the discharges. According to Crosby, this procedure damaged her optic nerves and blinded her, but modern physicians think that her blindness was more likely congenital and, given her age, may simply not have been noticed by her parents.
Her father died in November 1820 when Fanny was only six months old, so she was raised by her mother and maternal grandmother Eunice Paddock Crosby (born about 1778; died about 1831). These women grounded her in Christian principles, helping her memorize long passages from the Bible, and she became an active member of the John Street Methodist Episcopal Church in Manhattan.
When Crosby was three, the family moved to North Salem, New York, where Eunice had been raised. In April 1825, she was examined by the surgeon Valentine Mott, who concluded that her condition was inoperable and that her blindness was permanent.
At age eight, Crosby wrote her first poem which described her condition. She later stated: "It seemed intended by the blessed providence of God that I should be blind all my life, and I thank him for the dispensation. If perfect earthly sight were offered me tomorrow I would not accept it. I might not have sung hymns to the praise of God if I had been distracted by the beautiful and interesting things about me." She also once said, "when I get to heaven, the first face that shall ever gladden my sight will be that of my Savior". According to biographer Annie Willis, "had it not been for her affliction she might not have so good an education or have so great an influence, and certainly not so fine a memory".Annie Isabel Willis, "A Blind Hymn Writer", Daily True American, August 1, 1889, p. 2.
In 1828, Mercy and Fanny moved to the home of a Mrs. Hawley in Ridgefield, Connecticut. While residing in Ridgefield, they attended the Presbyterian church on the village green. Historian Edith L. Blumhofer described the Crosby home environment as sustained by "an abiding Christian faith". Crosby memorized five chapters of the Bible each week from age 10, with the encouragement of her grandmother and later Mrs. Hawley; by age 15, she had memorized the four gospels, the Pentateuch, the Book of Proverbs, the Song of Solomon, and many of the Psalms. From 1832, a music teacher came to Ridgefield twice a week to give singing lessons to her and some of the other children. Around the same time, she attended her first Methodist church services at the Methodist Episcopal Church, and she was delighted by their hymns.
Crosby enrolled at the New York Institution for the Blind (NYIB) in 1835, just before her 15th birthday. She remained there for eight years as a student, and another two years as a graduate pupil, during which time she learned to play the piano, organ, harp, and guitar, and became a good soprano singer. While she was studying at NYIB in 1838, her mother Mercy remarried and the couple had three children together. Mercy's husband abandoned her in 1844.
Early career (1843–1858) After graduation from the NYIB in 1843, Crosby joined a group of lobbyists in Washington, D.C., arguing for support of education for the blind. She was the first woman to speak in the United States Senate when she read a poem there. She appeared before the joint houses of Congress and recited these lines:
Crosby was among the students from the NYIB who gave a concert for Congress on January 24, 1844. She recited an original composition calling for an institution for educating the blind in every stateFor words, see "An Address" (January 24, 1844), which was praised by John Quincy Adams, among others. Two days later, she was among a group of Blind Institution students who gave a presentation to notable people at Trenton, New Jersey, where she recited an original poem calling for the aid and education of the blind.For words, see "An Address", January 24, 1844, President James K. Polk visited the NYIB in 1845 and Crosby recited a poem that she composed for the occasion which praised "republican government". In 1851, she addressed the New York state legislature.Fanny Crosby, New York Institution for the Blind, An Address to the Legislature of New-York: On the Occasion of their Visit as Guests of the Common Council of the City, to the New-York Institution for the Blind (Lambert & Lane, Stationers, 69 Wall Street, New York, NY; 1851)
In April 1846, Crosby spoke before a joint session of the United States Congress, with delegations from the Boston and Philadelphia Institutions for the Blind, "to advocate support for the education of the blind in Boston, Philadelphia, and New York"."Congressional", The Hartford Times, May 9, 1846, p. 2. She testified before a special congressional subcommittee, and she performed in the music room at the White House for President Polk and his wife. Among the songs that she sang as she accompanied herself on the piano was her own composition:
In 1846, Crosby was an instructor at the NYIB and was listed as a "graduate pupil". She subsequently joined the school's faculty, teaching grammar, rhetoric, and history;Annie Isabel Willis, "A Blind Hymnwriter", Daily True American, August 1, 1889, p. 2. she remained there until three days before her wedding on March 5, 1858. While teaching at the NYIB, she befriended future US president Grover ClevelandFanny Crosby, "Cleveland as a Teacher in the Institution for the Blind", McClure's Magazine, March 1909, pp. 581–83. then aged 17. The two spent many hours together at the end of each day, and he often transcribed the poems that she dictated to him.George Frederick Parker, Recollections of Grover Cleveland, 2nd ed. (The Century Co., 1911): 22–25. He wrote for her a recommendation which was published in her 1906 autobiography. She wrote a poem that was read at the dedication of Cleveland's birthplace in Caldwell, New Jersey, in March 1913, being unable to attend due to her health."$18,000 Fund to Buy Cleveland's Home; His Birthplace at Caldwell, NJ, Will Be Dedicated as a National Memorial", The New York Times (February 22, 1913)
Christian faith Crosby was a longtime member of the Sixth Avenue Bible Baptist Church in Brooklyn, New York, which has been in existence continuously since 1867. She served as a consecrated Baptist missionary, deaconess, and lay preacher. She wrote hymns together with her minister Robert Lowry, such as "All the Way My Savior Leads Me" and many others.
There was a cholera epidemic in New York City from May to November 1849, and she remained at the NYIB to nurse the sick rather than leaving the city. Subsequently, according to Blumhofer, "Crosby seemed worn, languid, even depressed" when the Institution re-opened in November, forcing her to teach a lighter load. According to Bernard Ruffin:
In the Fall of 1850, after being troubled by a dream, Crosby went to revival meetings at the thirteenth Street Methodist Church in New York city where she twice vainly sought the peace with God she craved, but which she finally realized on November 30 during a congregational hymn of consecration while seeking God alone at the altar. Crosby stated that she then felt "flooded with celestial light."
Crosby attended churches of various denominations until spring 1887, including the Plymouth Church of the Pilgrims in Brooklyn Heights led by Congregationalist abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher who was an innovator with church music. She attended the Trinity Episcopal church, and liked to worship at the North West Dutch Reformed church and the Central Presbyterian Church (later known as the Brooklyn Tabernacle). In later life, she said that one of her favorite preachers was Theodore Ledyard Cuyler, minister of the North East Dutch Reformed Church.
Tradition insists that she was a member in good standing of the John Street Methodist Episcopal Church in Manhattan, but there are no contemporaneous records to confirm this. By 1869, she attended the Chelsea Methodist Episcopal Church.
Crosby was not identified publicly with the American holiness movement of the second half of the 19th century and left no record of an experience of entire sanctification. She was, however, a fellow traveler of the Wesleyan holiness movement, including prominent members of the American Holiness movement in her circle of friends and attending Wesleyan/Holiness camp meetings.. For example, she was a friend of Walter and Phoebe Palmer, "the mother of the holiness movement". and "arguably the most influential female theologian in Christian history", and their daughter Phoebe Knapp, with whom she wrote "Blessed Assurance"; she often visited the Methodist camp grounds at Ocean Grove, New Jersey, as their guest. She vacationed each summer at Ocean Grove between 1877 and 1897 (and possibly longer), where she would speak in the Great Auditorium and hold receptions in her cottage to meet her admirers.