Charles C. Converse
Musician · 1832–1918 · Warren, Massachusetts
Best known for
Composer
Charles Crozat Converse was a Massachusetts-born American attorney and amateur composer whose 1868 tune for Joseph M. Scriven’s 1855 poem “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” produced one of the most-recorded hymns in the English-speaking world. He spent his working life practicing law in Erie, Pennsylvania while writing songs and Sunday-school music on the side under both his own name and several anagrammed pen names.
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- Born October 7, 1832, in Warren, Massachusetts.
- Studied law and music in Leipzig, Germany; returned to the United States in 1857.
- Graduated from Albany Law School in 1861 and set up a law practice in Erie, Pennsylvania.
- Composed Sunday-school music and compiled songbooks in collaboration with William B. Bradbury.
- Set Joseph M. Scriven’s “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” to its now-familiar tune in 1868.
- Published many of his songs under anagrammatic pen names — C. O. Nevers, Karl Reden, E. C. Revons, and Lesta Vesé.
- Issued a cantata (1855), the instructional New Method for the Guitar (1855), Musical Bouquet (1859), The One Hundred and Twenty-sixth Psalm (1860), Sweet Singer (1863), and Church Singer (1863).
- Published a setting of Longfellow’s “The Death of Minnehaha.”
- Died October 18, 1918, at age 86.
