Author: Northup, William
Biography:
NORTHUP, William (1760-1839: ancestry.com)
Divine Hymns, or Spiritual Songs was a hymnal compiled by Joshua Smith (1760-95) popular with Baptist congregations in the US as an alternative to Isaac Watts’s Hymns and Spiritual Songs. After his death, his contemporary William Northup (sometimes Northrup in the records) issued a revised, expanded edition that included some of his own original compositions. His edition first appeared from a Connecticut publisher in 1797 and was reprinted many times. We include as his only those that name him as the author on the title-page although it is quite possible that some of the later editions from different presses continued to include his poems. He identifies himself as V. D. M. (Verbi Dei Minister, Minister of the Word of God) and was in fact minister of the Baptist church in North Kingstown, Rhode Island; in some records, including the burial record, he is called “Rev.,” and in others “Elder Northup.” He was born on 23 July 1760 in North Kingstown, son of Susannah and Robert Northup, and was baptised on 12 Nov. 1782. His first wife, Mary, died on 4 May 1820 aged 56; her birth name and the date of the marriage have not been found, nor records of children, if there were any. In Oct. 1820 he married Miss Waity (or Waty or Waitey) Northup, who was presumably a relative, and who was baptised on 21 Oct. 1821. He died in North Kingstown on 31 May 1839 and was buried at the Elm Grove cemetery there. (ancestry.com 4 Aug. 2023; findmypast.com 4 Aug. 2023; Rhode Island American 12 May 1820; Religious Intelligencer 21 Oct. 1820)