P. P. Bilhorn

Peter Philip Bilhorn, 1865-1936

Born: Ju­ly 22, 1865, Men­do­ta, Il­l­inois.
Died: De­cem­ber 13, 1936, Los An­ge­les, Cal­i­for­nia.
Buried: In­glewood Park Cem­e­te­ry, In­gle­wood, Cal­i­for­nia.

Bilhorn’s fam­i­ly name was orig­in­al­ly Pul­horn; it was changed by a judge in Ot­ta­wa, Il­linois, named Abra­ham Lin­coln. Peter and his bro­ther formed the Eu­re­ka Wa­gon and Carriage Works in Chi­ca­go, Il­linois. Lat­er, Pe­ter be­came in­volved in Gos­pel mu­sic, study­ing un­der George Root, George Steb­bins, and others. He wrote some 2,000 Go­spel songs in his life­time, and for a while, worked with evan­gel­ist Bil­ly Sun­day. He al­so invent­ed a folding pump or­gan used at re­viv­als in the late 19th Cen­tu­ry, and found­ed the Bil­horn Fold­ing Or­gan Com­pa­ny in Chi­ca­go, Il­li­nois.

One of the high points in Bil­horn’s ca­reer came in 1900, when he tra­veled to Lon­don. There he con­duct­ed a 4,000 strong choir in the Crys­tal Pal­ace, and Queen Vic­tor­ia in­vit­ed him to sing in Buck­ing­ham Palace.

Bilhorn’s works in­clude:
Crowning Glo­ry No. 1, 1888
Crowning Glo­ry No. 2
Soul-Win­ning Songs
Choice Songs: Hymns of Hea­ven­ly Har­mo­ny
Sunshine Songs
Songs of Peace and Pow­er
Century Gos­pel Hymns
Songs for Male Chor­us­es
Sac­red and Se­cu­lar Se­lect­ions for La­dies’ Voic­es, 1900
Songs and Sto­ries of Mo­ther, Child­hood and Home (Chi­ca­go, Il­li­nois: Bil­horn Bros., 1903)

Music--
Almost
Best Friend to Have Is Je­sus, The
I Will Sing the Won­drous Sto­ry
Living Where the Heal­ing Wa­ters Flow
My Name in Mo­ther’s Pray­er
Redemption
Sweet Peace, the Gift of God’s Love

--hymntime.com/tch