'H' Hymnal History Lesson

The Church In the Wildwood

Veering off the highway to take a country road with the promise of an old cemetery at the end is a given when traveling the back roads of Texas.

Cemeteries often prove to be a lesson in history, sometimes dating back to the mid 1800's.  I'm always searching for ancestor names or familiar Texas families names on headstones.

It's a bonus to find a country church as part of a cemetery...a photo shoot in the making.  I never pass up looking through windows.  You never know what is waiting for you through broken windows with a shaft of sunlight illuminating what was once a place of voices singing hymns.

Strains of Rock of Ages and The Old Rugged Cross immediately came to mind as I looked through the broken glass and the sunlight streaming through the window. 

 It was as if the church pianist had just finished playing 'Abide With Me' as the congregation filed out the front door. 

 I had to get a better look at the open song book...expecting to see a familiar closing hymn...I was surprised when from the sunlit window the pages revealed....
 

"Open your hymnal to page 114 and stand as we sing Still, Still With Thee".

My mind was filled with memories of standing beside my mother and sharing a song book.  She had a lovely singing voice. 

 Did you know Still, Still With Thee was written by Harriet Beecher Stowe?  I did not, until I looked it up.  She was the daughter of Rev. Lyman Beecher, President of Lane Seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio.  

She was married to Rev. Calvin E. Stowe a professor of Languages and Biblical Literature.  She authored several other hymns as well as the classic book Uncle Tom's Cabin. 

The other two hymns showing were not ones I remembered, and could only make out the title of the one on the right...The Church In The Wildwood. 

It was composed in 1857 by a young music teacher named William S. Pitts on a visit to Bradford, Iowa.  

Although the song was not published for many years after it was written and set to music, it was the inspiration for the 'Little Brown Church' built in the exact spot that had inspired it's author to compose the song.

After the church closed in 1888 due to an economic downturn in Bradford, the Society for the Preservation of the Little Brown Church was founded.  In the 1890's the song was popularized by two evangelists as well as groups of traveling singers throughout the country in the 1920's and 30's.  As the song grew in popularity, the church has become a popular tourist spot, and remains so today.  Every year it attracts thousands of visitors to see or be married in the little brown church in the vale.

Although this little church is not brown...not in Iowa...it certainly is

 a Church in the Wildwoods of Texas.

Click HERE for The Church In the Wildwood sung by Dolly Parton.

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All photos by Sue McPeak ©reserved