Welcome to another week!
I want to share some amazing information. How I’ve lived in the Atlantic Community for more than 30 years and never heard of a famous former Adamsville resident, I’ll never know. I refer to songwriter and singer James McGranahan, who traveled with evangelist D.L. Moody to the United Kingdom in 1883. He wrote the music to at least 75 hymns and lyrics for at least six.
Among McGranahan’s most famous hymns are “I Know Whom I Have Believed” “There Shall Be Showers of Blessing,” and “Fix Your Eyes Upon Jesus.”
McGranahan wrote the music to these songs; Major Daniel W. Whittle wrote the lyrics. One of his friends’ most beloved compositions was “Sometime We’ll Understand,” with lyrics by Maxwell N. Cornelius.
According to the obituaries I read in a small, rare book simply titled “James McGranahan” at Kinsman Free Public Library, McGranahan was a gentle, friendly man who made everyone feel like beloved friends.
McGranahan was born in Adamsville on July 4, 1840, and raised on his father’s farm in West Fallowfield Township. He attended a singing school, which was very popular in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Singing school teachers taught students to sight read vocal music so that they could sing confidently in church services. These school sessions usually lasted a few weeks. While there, McGranahan began training what friends called his “rare tenor voice.”
His father wanted him to work on his farm, but McGranahan saved enough money to pay for his schooling and even hired a farmhand to take his place. McGranahan attended Normal Music School at Geneseo, New York, from 1861-62. There he met his wife, Miss Addie Vickery.
McGranahan was a good friend of hymn writer Philip P. Bliss. His music teachers encouraged McGranahan to seek a career in opera, but Bliss urged him to dedicate his musical talents to Christ. Bliss wrote McGranahan a compelling letter in December 1876 that urged him to “Stop whetting the scythe and strike into the grain to reap for the Master!” Bliss read the letter to Major Daniel W. Whittle, a friend and fellow hymn writer.
One week later, on December 29, 1876, Bliss died in what is known as The Ashtabula Train Disaster. A bridge just 1,000 feet from the Ashtabula Railroad Station collapsed under the weight of the train’s two locomotives, plunging into the freezing water below. Ninety-two people, including Bliss and his wife, died.
While searching for Bliss’s body in the wreckage, McGranahan met Major Whittle. Whittle then realized McGranahan was meant to take Bliss’s place as Whittle’s evangelistic singer. For 11 years they shared the gospel through music in the United States, Great Britain, Scotland, and Ireland.
In 188, McGranahan and Whittle traveled to the United Kingdom with hymn writer Ira Sankey and evangelist D.L. Moody. Yep, I mean the D.L. Moody of Moody Bible Institute.
McGranahan’s failing health for-ced him to retire from active evangelism in 1887. He and his wife moved to Kinsman, Ohio, where he wrote many hymns.
McGranahan died July 9, 1907. His home, Maplehurst, is on Route 5 on the outskirts of town. It is now Baumgardner Funeral Home. I encourage you to take the short drive to Kinsman and see Adamsville’s famous son’s beautiful home.
Have a wonderful week. Blessings!