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Sun, 07/05/2026 - 13:05 — Lifeboat
I'm trying to figure out who actually wrote this hymn. The only online mention of it I can find is here at hymnary.org, which credits J. D. Shephard, but the sheet music here credits “Melody by W.J.H.; published by E. O. Excell, 1904.” I suspect that W.J.H. is James W. Henry, who wrote hundreds of hymns. But the only mention of a J. D. Shephard here is as writer of this hymn and nothing else. The Library of Congress music copyrights book for 1904 mentions this title under a list of hymns copyrighted by the publisher E. O. Excell, but there's no separate listing of it under any composer's name, something I've never seen in those copyright books before. Excell published many large books of the hymns in his catalog--does anyone out there have one with this title in it that might throw more light on the composer?
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Let Me in the Life Boat
I am not sure where “J. D. Shephard” came from. Neither edition of “Triumphant Songs” has Shephard as the lyricist. The melody is by “W. J. H.” The lyrics are pretty much the same as https://hymnary.org/text/come_brother_sailor_and_dont_fall_asleep which appear in “A Collection of Revival Hymns and Plantation Melodies” published in 1883. The hymnal credits J. Courtney but it is not really clear if Courtney is the author or the composer, or both; but, most likely the author.
I bounced your note off my
I bounced your note off my musical consultant (alas, I don't read music), who replied:
I see that now Hymnary.org has removed the Shephard reference and replaced the W.J.H. hymnal page up top with the Courtney hymnal page, though the W.J.H. page appears at the bottom. Looking at each hymnal referenced for these lyrics at Hymnal.org in chronological order, we have:
1) 1883 A Collection of Revival Hymns and Plantation Melodies, “The Life-boat” credited to J. Courtney, but also “P.M."
2) 1883 A Collection of Sacred Songs page not scanned credited to to J. Courtney
3) 1887 Die Deutsche Ausgabe —no hymn title, lyrics only, uncredited
4) 1888 Trumpet Notes for the Temperance Battlefield, “The Lifeboat at Sea" page not scanned credited to J. J. Courtney
5) 1894 Triumphant Songs No. 4, “Let Me in the Life-boat” melody W.J.H., no lyricist credited
6) 1910 Little Light for a Dime, “The Lifeboat” page not scanned credited to J. J. Courtney
The lyrics appear consistent throughout, verse and chorus. But the melodies in the 1883 and 1894 scans are different. Strangely, the 1883 verse and chorus melodies don’t fit the words and the chorus melody makes no sense; it’s an odd number of measures (11), ending in four quarter notes, which sounds ridiculous. No wonder W.J.H. (apparently William J. Henry) rewrote it (except for the first two measures of the chorus)! But then there’s that 1910 reference, which credits Courtney; wish I could see which melody line got printed in that one.
Do you by any chance have that 1910 collection or know where it can be found?
Life Boat
In 1883 “A Collection of Revial Hymns…” the “P. M.” is the meter (Peculiar Meter). J. Courtney is the person the indexers who indexed these hymnals on our behalf attributed this text to, probably based on the 1883 “A Collection of Revival Hymns and Plantation Melodies” We have edited the 1883 “A Collection of Revival Hymns…” the 1887 “Die Deutsche Ausgabe” and the 1894 “Triumphant Songs No. 4," but not the others. A lot of the music in “A Collection of Revival Hymns and Plantation Melodies” is spiritual/plantation melodies which were passed down orally. The music was listened to and notated. It is sometimes hard to know how some of the songs were actually sung by the slaves; some phrases or words might have been repeated, for example. Some of the lyrics in the verses might have been rewritten to make better sense.
I was not able to find Tillman's “Little Light for a Dime” in a search of WorldCat. If you let me know I can try to get more information about the indexer and where the book was located.