Charles Crozat Converse

United States attorney and composer

Charles Crozat Converse

Born	October 7, 1832 Warren, Massachusetts, US
Died	October 18, 1918 Englewood, New Jersey, US
Notable work	"What a Friend We Have in Jesus"

Charles Crozat Converse (October 7, 1832 – October 18, 1918) was an American attorney who also worked as a composer of church songs. He is notable for setting to music the words of Joseph Scriven to become the hymn "What a Friend We Have in Jesus".^[1] Converse published an arrangement of "The Death of Minnehaha", with words by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.^[2]

Life

Charles Crozat Converse was born in Warren, Massachusetts on October 7, 1832.^[3] He studied law and music in Leipzig, Germany, returned home in 1857, and was graduated at the Albany Law School in 1861.

Many of his musical compositions appeared under the anagrammatic pen-names "C. O. Nevers", "Karl Reden", "E. C. Revons", and "Lesta Vesé".^[4] He published a cantata (1855), New Method for the Guitar (1855), Musical Bouquet (1859), The One Hundred and Twenty-sixth Psalm (1860), Sweet Singer (1863), Church Singer (1863) and Sayings of Sages (1863).^[5]

Converse proposed the use of the gender-neutral pronoun "thon".^[6]

He died at his home in Englewood, New Jersey on October 18, 1918.^[7]

References

^ "Charles Crozat Converse". The Cyber Hymnnal. Archived from the original on May 27, 2012. Retrieved July 25, 2009.
^ Cornelius, pg. 9
^ The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography. Vol. VIII. James T. White & Company. 1924. pp. 449–450. Retrieved January 27, 2021 – via Google Books.
^ Silver wings : a collection of entirely new Sunday school music. Princeton Theological Seminary Library. Boston : Oliver Ditson & Co. [etc.] 1870.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
^ Wilson, J. G.; Fiske, J., eds. (1900). "Converse, Charles Crozat" . Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton.
^ Grammar and Gender by Dennis Baron (ISBN 0-300-03883-6), chapter 10.
^ "Hymn Composer Dead". The Modesto Herald. New York. October 19, 1918. p. 2. Retrieved January 27, 2021 – via Newspapers.com.

Sources

Cornelius, Steven (2004). Music of the Civil War Era. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 0-313-32081-0.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Charles Crozat Converse.

Wikisource has original works by or about:
Charles Crozat Converse

Sheet music for "The Rock Beside the Sea", by Charles C. Converse, Lee & Walker, 1857.
http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/c/o/n/converse_cc.htm
http://imslp.org/wiki/Category:Converse,_Charles_Crozat