Biographical Sketch of Silas White Leonard


Text from Haynes, Nathaniel S. History of the Disciples of Christ in Illinois 1819-1914, Cincinnati: Standard Publishing Company, 1915. Pages 556 - 557. This online edition © 1997, James L. McMillan.

Born: Louisville, Kentucky, 1814.
Died: near Centralia, Illinois, 1870.

His parents dying when he was quite young, he was adopted by a Captain White, a Baptist, who reared and educated him in Ohio. He began to preach the primitive gospel at the age of twenty, but spent much time in teaching vocal music for the next eight years. About 1848 he, with A. D. Fillmore, published "The Christian Psalmist." It was in figure-faced notes and was the first hymnal having the music ever in use among the churches of Christ. It reached a circulation of 560,000 copies. In 1856 he moved from Jeffersonville, Ind., to his farm near Centralia, where he resided to the close of his life. From that point he went out and preached in many places. He was a sweet-spirited, but an aggressive and progressive, preacher.

Five days before his death he rode nine miles horseback and gave a temperance lecture. The cold thus contracted hastened his demise. He had just finished a new "Psalmist" in both kinds of notes, at a cost of $3,000, and had placed the material in the publisher's hand when his call came.


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