1843–1901

Introduction

portrait

Born: Ju­ly 12, 1843, Na­po­le­on, Ohio.

Died: June 14, 1901, Cleve­land, Ohio.

Buried: Al­li­ance Ci­ty Ce­me­te­ry, Al­li­ance, Ohio.

portrait

Biography

Ralph was the son of Hen­ry and Sar­ah Hud­son.

The fa­mi­ly moved to Penn­syl­van­ia when Ralph was a boy. Soon af­ter the out­break of the Am­er­ican ci­vil war, he en­list­ed in the 10th Penn­syl­van­ia Vol­un­teers, and served ov­er three years.

After dis­charge from the ar­my, he be­came a suc­cess­ful mu­sic teach­er. From 1872–74, he was Pro­fess­or of Vo­cal Mu­sic at Mount Un­ion Col­lege, and for the next quar­ter cen­tu­ry lived in the Mt. Un­ion-Al­li­ance, Ohio, area.

For a while, he was in a real es­tate part­ner­ship with Rev. D. D. Waugh. How­ev­er, he was best known as a hymn writ­er and mu­sic pub­lish­er, and for ev­an­gel­ism and tem­per­ance work. He was a lay preach­er and mem­ber of the Mt. Un­ion Me­tho­dist Epis­co­pal Church, and was one of the few sup­port­ers of the Sal­va­tion Ar­my when it strug­gled to gain a foot­hold in Al­li­ance in the mid-1880’s.

In 1897, Hud­son moved to Cleve­land, Ohio, where he con­tinued to pub­lish mu­sic, and to tra­vel as an ev­an­gel­ist and tem­per­ance work­er.

In late May, 1901, he left Cleve­land for an ex­ten­sive trip to pro­mote his lat­est song book. He stopped in Up­land, In­di­ana, to at­tend com­mence­ment ex­er­cis­es at Tay­lor Uni­ver­si­ty, where he was a trust­ee. He stayed there se­ver­al days and de­liv­ered a lec­ture.

Shortly af­ter, he fell ill and died. At the time of his death, he was a mem­ber of the Lo­cal Preach­ers As­so­cia­tion, the Ep­worth Me­mor­ial Church in Cleve­land, and the Pro­tected Home Ci­rcle.

Works

Sources

Lyrics

Music

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