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Richard Willis

Birth: February 10, 1819, Boston, Massachusetts
Death: May 7, 1900, Detroit, Michigan

Also listed as a translator of "Fairest Lord Jesus," Richard Storrs Willis nevertheless claims that he does not remember how the hymn came into his hands. He printed the first three verses, with the melody, as we know them today in his Church Chorals and Choir Studies (New York, 1850).

Willis was born in Boston in 1819 and educated at Yale, where he later taught German. In 1841 he went to Germany, where he studied for six years under Zavier Schnyder and Moritz Hauptmann. While he was there, he developed a friendship with Felix Mendelssohn. When he returned to America, he became music critic for the New York Tribune, The Albion, and The Musical Times.

Beside his Church Chorals and Choir Studies, Willis also published Our Church Music, 1856; Waif of Song, 1876; and Pen and Lute, 1883. He edited important works such as an American edition of a biography of Mendelssohn. He also composed the hymn tune "Carol," to which we sing "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear."

Willis came from a family of writers. His father, Nathaniel Parker Willis was the founder of Youth’s Companion. One of his brothers, Nathan Parker Willis, was a poet and editor of note. One of his sisters, Mrs. James Parton, was the then popular writer "Fanny Fern."