A Forgotten Hymn Book

Introduction

A recent find by Haaswurth Books has shined the light on a relatively unknown hymnbook and its compiler. In 1851-52, H. A. Griggs compiled and edited the first hymnbook of the General Baptists in the Midwestern United States.

This body of General Baptists is theologically dependent but historically independent of the General Baptists in England and early America.  The separation of Benoni Stinson (1798-1869) from the United Baptists originated this distinct body. Stinson professed faith in 1820 and joined a United Baptist Church in Wayne County, Kentucky. He was ordained a minister in November 1821. He moved to Indiana around 1822, where he pastored and organized churches. He leaned toward an Arminian theology, holding “that Christ tasted death for every man.” In October 1824, Stinson led churches in Vanderburgh County, Indiana to organize the Liberty Association of General Baptists. Stinson held free or open communion in addition to free will, both of which put him at odds with the Baptists with whom he was previously connected. [i]

The First Hymnbook of the U.S. General Baptists

Cover page of Grigg’s hymnbook, from the collection of Alfred Merril Smoak, Jr., DWS
Used by permission of Haaswurth Books

At the 28th meeting of the Liberty Association of General Baptists in 1851, “Elder H. A. Greggs (sic) presented a plan for the compilation of a General Baptist Hymn Book, which was approved. This was the first Hymn Book published by the General Baptists in the United States.” [ii] The hymnbook itself, published in 1852, identifies the compiler as “Griggs” rather than “Greggs.” [iii] The Liberty Association approved the work, and Griggs’s effort became the first hymnbook among this body of General Baptists. Griggs probably bore the brunt and expense of the work, it being “Published by the Compiler.”[iv] Morton & Griswold on Main Street in Louisville, Kentucky set the type and printed the book, which was available in 1852.

The full title of Griggs’s book is The General Baptist Hymn Book: containing a Selection of Hymns and Spiritual Songs for Christian Worship, with several Original Pieces by the Compiler. According to Haaswurth Books, Griggs published The General Baptist Hymn Book in the common 3" x 5" hymnbook size of the day. It contained 651 words-only hymns on 550 pages, followed by an index on pages 551-565. It contained an endorsement by “the Committee appointed by Liberty, Union, and Cumberland Associations of General Baptists.” Having examined The General Baptist Hymn Book, the committee stated they “do hereby cheerfully recommend the Book to the public, and to our own denomination in particular.” [v]

The General Baptist History suggests Griggs’s hymnbook obtained a level of popularity such that it still remained a preference among older church members in 1882. However, another General Baptist hymnbook compiled by George P. Cavanah circa 1858-59 superseded it. In 1880, “Elder H. A. Gregg (sic), author of the first Hymn Book” served on the committee of the General Association of General Baptists that recommended J. E. Cox’s Manual of Praise as “a standard Hymn book for General Baptists...” [vi]

Griggs’s hymnbook seems to have soon passed out of the memory of the general public and General Baptists themselves. Henry Sweetser Burrage does not refer to it in Baptist Hymn Writers and Their Hymns. Starr’s 26-volume A Baptist Bibliography does not list it; neither does I Will Sing the Wondrous Story by Music and Richardson take notice of it.[vii]

A. D. Williams did not mention The General Baptist Hymn Book in 1892 when he wrote Benoni Stinson and the General Baptists (Owensville, IN: General Baptist Publishing House) – suggesting it had been largely forgotten by then. Laslie’s History of the General Baptists of 1938 mentions neither Griggs nor his hymnbook.[viii] History of Union Association of General Baptists does not mention it either (though it briefly mentions Griggs).[ix] The next year (1954) in History of the General Baptists, Ollie Latch mentioned a hymnbook authorized in 1851, but without any other mention of its author or other details.[x]

H. A. Griggs, the Hymnbook Compiler

The compiler of the hymnbook suffered much the same fate as the book itself. He has dropped out of the memory of both the general public and General Baptists. When Montgomery wrote in 1882, he described H. A. Griggs as “now very old and is well known by all the Associations in Indiana, Illinois and Kentucky. He now belongs to Union Association and was a delegate to the General Association in 1881.”[xi] By the time the history of the Union Association was written in 1953, he only received two passing mentions (pp. 128, 135). His name does not appear in the History of the General Baptists by Latch.

H. A. Griggs participated in the Liberty Association, the Cumberland Association, the Union Association, and the General Association of General Baptists. He was apparently in the Liberty Association in 1851 when they approved the hymnbook.[xii] Williams mentions Griggs (as “H. A. Gregg”) in a list of “several strong ministers” in the Cumberland Association circa 1856.[xiii] Griggs served on a General Association committee in 1880. “Little Zion church [in the Union Association] was organized May 1, 1884, by Elder A. Pearce, Eld. H. E. Todd, Eld. M. B. Covington and H. A. Griggs.”[xiv] At an unknown date, he pastored Mt. Gilead Church in Webster County, Kentucky, which was in the Union Association of General Baptists. [xv]

So, who was H. A. Griggs? What follows proposes his likely of identity, based on records accessible at Ancestry.com (U.S. and State Censuses, land records, etc.) – circumstantial evidence that corresponds to the scant biographical information in the General Baptist histories previously cited. Griggs may have been near Louisville, Kentucky in 1852, since he had his hymnbook printed there. He was at least in the same general area of the primary labors of Benoni Stinson and the General Baptists.

The H. A. Griggs who best suits the known information is Hubbard A. Griggs. He shows up in the censuses as follows: [xvi]

• Home in 1850: Curran, Saline County, Illinois; Hubbard A. Griggs, a shoemaker
• Home in 1855: Pope County, Illinois (state census, occupation not mentioned)
• Home in 1860: Luce, Spencer County, Indiana; Hubbard Gregg, teacher
• Home in 1870: Noble, Richland County, Illinois; H. A. Griggs, works in Shoe Shop
• Home in 1880: Dixon, Webster County, Kentucky; H. A. Griggs, Shoe and Boot Maker

These four counties are all in the Illinois–Indiana–Kentucky tri-state area where the states of Illinois, Indiana, and Kentucky intersect and thus reasonably coincides with where H. A. Griggs, the General Baptist minister, lived and labored.

If this is the correct identification, we can extrapolate the following biographical information concerning H. A. Griggs the compiler of the General Baptist hymnbook. Hubbard A. Griggs was born circa 1813 in the state of New York.[xvii] By 1837, he had moved westward and married Elizabeth “Betsey” Beadle (or Bedell) on January 12, 1837 at Troy, Athens County, Ohio. They had at least six children: John, James, Alonzo, Lorenzo D., Margaret A., and Sarah M. Griggs.[xviii] They must have moved from Ohio to Virginia for a short season, since son Lorenzo was born there around 1843. They were in Illinois by 1848. Griggs served as a Private in the Illinois infantry during the Mexican-American War, circa 1846-1848.[xix] On March 6, 1862 he enlisted in the United States Army and served as a Private in the Indiana 53rd Infantry Company C.

Elizabeth died before 1865, when H. A. Griggs married Sarah Reed on October 8, 1865, in Spencer County, Indiana. This marriage was brief, probably ended by Sarah’s death. On February 21, 1866, Griggs married Jerusha Oliver in Richland County, Illinois. They were both still living in 1880, in Webster County, Kentucky.[xx]

Card showing headstone order

Hubbard A. Griggs died circa 1887 in Corydon, Henderson County, Kentucky.[xxi] He is buried in the Corydon Cemetery.

Conclusion

This brief article greatly suffers from not having access to The General Baptist Hymn Book by H. A. Griggs. No analysis of his poetry or editorial work is possible. Instead, H. A. Griggs and The General Baptist Hymn Book reminds us to reflect on the transience of life. Berryman Hicks (1778-1839), a Baptist preacher in South Carolina poetically sighed,

The time is swiftly rolling on,
When I must faint and die;
My body to the dust return,
And there forgotten lie.

Let the nearly-forgotten story of H. A. Griggs and the first General Baptist hymnbook remind us that the vicissitudes of life bring us all to one end. It is appointed unto men once to die, and “the memory of them is forgotten.” As historians we memorialize; as Christian chroniclers we also admonish. The “house of mourning...is the end of all men,” and surely the living should lay it to heart. The believer finds hope in the sure promise of God, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” The Lord knoweth them that are his.

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[i] General Baptist History, D. B. Montgomery and Jefferson Holeman, editors. Evansville, IN: Courier Company, 1882, pp. 179-199, 209-213. At the time Liberty Association was organized, they held that “the saints will finally persevere through grace to glory.” This was modified at a later date to, “he that shall endure to the end, the same shall be saved” (pp. 210-211). According to Montgomery & Holeman, Stinson did not believe in perseverance at the time Liberty Association was organized, but other members did.
[ii] General Baptist History, Montgomery & Holeman, p. 258.
[iii] The book includes the spellings Gregg, Greggs, and Griggs.
[iv] Of three 19th century hymn books General Baptist History (p. 400) states, “The different enterprises on Hymn books proved successful, except that none of them was very renumerative (sic) to the publishers. Each one met the demand of the church at the time of publication.”
[v] https://www.haaswurth.com/products/griggs-the-general-baptist-hymn-book-1852-rare-kentucky-book
[vi] General Baptist History, pp. 398-400.
[vii] https://www.haaswurth.com/blogs/news/griggs-the-general-baptist-hymn-book-kentucky-1852; Baptist Hymn Writers and Their Hymns, Henry Sweetser Burrage. Brown Thurston and Company, 1888; A Baptist Bibliography: Being a Register of Printed Material By and About Baptists; Including Works Written Against the Baptists, Edward Caryl Starr. Volume 9, 1964; “I Will Sing the Wondrous Story”: A History of Baptist Hymnody in North America, David W. Music, Paul Akers Richardson. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2008.
[viii] Laslie’s History of the General Baptists, Theophilus Alexander Hall Laslie (Revised by L. O. Roberts and E. Y. Laslie). Poplar Bluff, MO: General Baptist Publishing House, 1938.
[ix] History of Union Association of General Baptists, Home Mission Board of the Union Association. Poplar Bluff, MO: General Baptist Press, 1953.
[x] “In 1851, Liberty delegates authorized the publication of a Hymnbook. This matter was agitated and kept alive until the book was finished. It was one of the more important factors of a growing interest in publications, as we shall see.” History of the General Baptists, Ollie Latch. Poplar Bluff, MO: General Baptist Press, 1954, p. 157.
[xi] General Baptist History, Montgomery & Holeman, p. 398.
[xii] American Baptist Register for 1852 does not list H. A. Griggs as a pastor in the Liberty General Baptist Association (John Lansing Burrows, editor. Philadelphia, PA: American Baptist Publication Society, 1853). The “returns” in the list are from the 1851 minutes.
[xiii] Benoni Stinson and the General Baptists, Alvin Dighton Williams. Owensville, IN: General Baptist Publishing House, 1892, p. 356. A mention in Minutes and Journal of the Southern Illinois Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church (September 25-28, 1867, Alton, IL: N. V. Crossman Printer, 1867, p. 14; also mentioned on page 18) would seem to likely be this same person: “Rev. George Scawthon, of the Church of United Brethren in Christ, and Hubbard A. Griggs, of the Baptist Church, were recognized as Elders of the M. E. Church—they being required to take upon them the usual vows.”
[xiv] History of Union Association of General Baptists, p. 128.
[xv] History of Union Association of General Baptists, p. 135.
[xvi] Additionally, General Land Office records establish certain purchases or ownership of property, though they do not establish residency: Williamson County, Illinois (1851), Pope County, Illinois (1857).
[xvii] His recorded age in the 1850 census would put his birth in 1807. However, the other three censuses consistently suggest the 1813 birth.
[xviii] Ada V. Griggs is in the 1870 census, 8 years old. She probably was also the child of Hubbard and Elizabeth.
[xix] Illinois Database of Mexican-American War Veterans.
[xx] What happened to Jerusha Griggs after the death of Hubbard A. Griggs is unknown. The burial locations of Elizabeth, Sarah, and Jerusha are all unknown.
[xxi] Jerusha Griggs filed as a Civil War widow on December 19, 1887. A contract to supply a Union soldier headstone for H. A. Griggs was dated August 21, 1888.