Samuel Longfellow was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 clergyman and hymn

Hymn

A hymn is a type of song, usually religious, specifically written for the purpose of praise, adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a deity or deities, or to a prominent figure or personification...

 writer.

Biography

Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine

Portland, Maine

Portland is the largest city in Maine and is the county seat of Cumberland County. The 2010 city population was 66,194, growing 3 percent since the census of 2000...

 to Stephen

Stephen Longfellow

Stephen Longfellow was a U.S. Representative from Maine.-Biography:Born in Gorham, Maine to Stephen Longfellow and Patience Young Longfellow , Longfellow graduated from Harvard University in 1798. He studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1801 and commenced practice in Portland, Maine...

 and Zilpah (Wadsworth) Longfellow; he is the younger brother of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet and educator whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline...

. He attended Harvard College

Harvard College

Harvard College, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is one of two schools within Harvard University granting undergraduate degrees...

 and Harvard Divinity School, where his classmates included Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Thomas Wentworth Higginson was an American Unitarian minister, author, abolitionist, and soldier. He was active in the American Abolitionism movement during the 1840s and 1850s, identifying himself with disunion and militant abolitionism...

 and Samuel Johnson, with whom he would later collaborate in his hymn-writing. He is considered part of the second-generation of transcendentalists; after becoming a Unitarian

Unitarianism

Unitarianism is a Christian theological movement, named for its understanding of God as one person, in direct contrast to Trinitarianism which defines God as three persons coexisting consubstantially as one in being....

 pastor, he adapted the Transcendental

Transcendence (philosophy)

In philosophy, the adjective transcendental and the noun transcendence convey the basic ground concept from the word's literal meaning , of climbing or going beyond, albeit with varying connotations in its different historical and cultural stages...

 philosophy he had encountered in divinity school into his hymns and sermons. He served as a pastor in Fall River, Massachusetts

Fall River, Massachusetts

Fall River is a city in Bristol County, Massachusetts, in the United States. It is located about south of Boston, southeast of Providence, Rhode Island, and west of New Bedford and south of Taunton. The city's population was 88,857 during the 2010 census, making it the tenth largest city in...

 (1848), Second Unitarian Church (Brooklyn, New York)  (1853), and Germantown, Pennsylvania

Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Germantown is a neighborhood in the northwest section of the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, about 7–8 miles northwest from the center of the city...

 (1860).

Selected bibliography

• A Book of Hymns for Public and Private Devotion, 1846, jointly edited with Samuel Johnson. This collection was enlarged and revised in 1860.
• Thalatta: a Book for the Seaside, with Thomas W. Higginson, 1853
• Vespers, 1859
• The Poem of Niagata, 1861
• Hymns of the Spirit, 1864 (jointly edited with Samuel Johnson)
• The Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1886
• Memoir and Letters, 1894

External links

• Longfellow's Memoir and Letters at Google Books (full-text, public domain)
• http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/l/o/n/longfellow_s.htm
• http://www.alcott.net/alcott/home/champions/Longfellow.html
• http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-E-LongfellS.html