Wolcott, Samuel, a Congregational clergyman, was born at South Windsor, Conn., July 2, 1813; graduated at Yale in 1833 and at Andover Theological Seminary in 1837; was missionary in Syria in 1840-42, after which time he served as pastor in various towns and cities, including Providence, R. I., Chicago, Ill., and Cleveland, Ohio, and later served for some time as Secretary of the Ohio Home Missionary Society. He then retired from active work, and died February 24, 1886. Although he did not begin writing hymns until late in life, he wrote altogether some two hundred hymns, about a dozen of which are found in modern Church hymnals.