Joseph Scriven - Bewdley, Ontario Canada - Dead Poets' Society Memorials on Waymarking.com

While Joseph Scriven is best known for writing the lyrics to the hymn "What a friend we have in Jesus", those words were actually penned as a poem:

While on a pilgrimage to Damascus, Syria, he wrote to his ailing Mother, a two verse poem, which he titled, ’Pray Without Ceasing’. We know this poem as the start his famous hymn.
Source: www.josephscriven.org/scriven-bio.html

"What a Friend We Have in Jesus" is a Christian hymn originally written by Joseph M. Scriven as a poem in 1855 to comfort his mother who was living in Ireland while he was in Canada. Scriven originally published the poem anonymously, and only received full credit for it in the 1880s. The tune to the hymn was composed by Charles Crozat Converse in 1868. William Bolcom composed a setting of the hymn.
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_M._Scriven

The hymn was first written as a poem and published in the Port Hope Guide in 1870. Someone in New York City received a package wrapped in that edition of the paper. They found the poem so moving they took it to a New York newspaper and had it published. Music was added to the words in another interesting turn of events. A traveling music salesman kept a copy of the poem with him because the words had touched him deeply. He lost his copy of the poem while he was visiting the Converse organ factory in Pennsylvania. Owner Charles Converse was also taken with the poem. He composed the music for it on the spot. The hymn continues to comfort all who hear it.
Source: visitporthope.ca/joseph-scriven

The monument, somewhat weathered and growing over with lichen, bears the following inscription:

3 MILES NORTH PENGELLY'S CEMETERY LIES THE PHILANTHROPIST AND AUTHOR OF THE GREAT MASTERPIECE WRITTEN AT PORT HOPE. 1857 _________________ WHAT A FRIEND WE HAVE IN JESUS, ALL OUR SINS AND GRIEFS TO BEAR WHAT A PRIVILEGE TO CARRY EVERYTHING TO GOD IN PRAYER OH WHAT PEACE WE OFTEN FORFEIT O WHAT NEEDLESS PAIN WE BEAR ALL BECAUSE WE DO NOT CARRY EVERYTHING TO GOD IN PRAYER! _________________ HAVE WE TRIALS AND TEMPTATIONS IS THERE TROUBLE ANYWHERE WE SHOULD NEVER BE DISCOURAGED, TAKE IT TO THE LORD IN PRAYER CAN WE FIND A FRIEND SO FAITHFUL, WHO WILL ALL OUR SORROWS SHARE JESUS KNOWS OUR EVERY WEAKNESS TAKE IT TO THE LORD IN PRAYER _________________ ARE WE WEAK AND HEAVY LADEN CUMBERED WITH A LOAD OF CARE PRECIOUS SAVIOR STILL OUR REFUGE TAKE IT TO THE LORD IN PRAYER DO THEY FRIENDS DESPISE, FORSAKE THEE? TAKE IT TO THE LORD IN PRAYER, IN HIS ARMS HE'LL TAKE AND SHIELD THEE THOU WILT FIND A SOLACE THERE. _____________________________ MEMORIAL TO JOSEPH SCRIVEN B.A. BORN SEP. 10. 1819 - DIED AUG. 10. 1886

About Joseph Scriven:

Joseph attended Trinity College in Dublin at age 16, and although a good student, was of poor health. He found work as a tutor and in 1843 planned to take a wife, but his fiance fell from her horse while crossing a bridge, as Joseph stood waiting on the other side, and drowned in the river Bann, the day before they were to marry.
In 1846, during a trip to the Middle East, as a tutor in the Bartley family, like Saul of Tarsus (called Paul), Joseph found inspiration on the street called Straight, in Damascus. There he is said to have written the first line, 'What a Friend we have in Jesus,' and the rough draft of a poem, later to be called, Pray Without Ceasing.
On his return to the British Isles, he went to England where he stayed in Plymouth and fell in love with a Miss Falconer, only to have a rival take the young lady away from him. They remained friends however and the three travelled together when Joseph came back to Canada in 1847.
Scriven worked as a tutor and lay preacher in the Woodstock and Clinton area, where a Plymouth Brethren group had been formed.
While teaching school in Clinton in 1850 he was offered a position as tutor to Theodore Robert Pengelley, the ten-year-old son of Robert Lamport Pengelley and Lydia Eliza Emily Roche, whose property, Brockland, was near Bailieboro, Ontario. He lived with the Pengelleys for the next five years.
It was here he met Eliza Catherine Roche, Mrs Pengelley's niece, who, in 1850, was 13 years old. About 1855 Joseph left the Pengelleys and became part of the James Sackville Sr. (1806-1879) household in Bewdley. They were brought together by their similar religious beliefs. He was a friend who became, in effect, a member of the family.
Joseph paid his board by doing chores, such as cutting wood.
It became Joseph's usual practice to spend the winter months in Bewdley and the summers in Port Hope, where he boarded for 22 years with Margaret, nee Brumfitt, the widow of Patrick Gibson, a milkman, in her house on Thomas Street at the corner of Merritt Street, which later became a part of Strachan Street. Mrs Gibson kept at least one cow in a shed on the property, and Joseph helped her carry on her husband's modest dairy business.
In 1859 he and Catherine Roche became engaged. Emily Pengelley was a member of the Church of England, but her faith had already turned in the direction of the Plymouth Brethren. She was converted when Joseph Scriven and Eliza Roche became engaged. He was 39 and Catherine was 22. Prior to the marriage, a baptismal service, including full immersion, was necessary. It was conducted in Rice Lake in April 1860, with the ice barely gone. Eliza, who was already seriously ill with consumption, was thoroughly chilled by the experience, developed pneumonia, weakened over a four-month period and died on the 6th of August 1860. She was buried in the little cemetery beside the Pengelley chapel.
Scriven became a familiar sight around Port Hope, a big man with bushy white hair and full white beard, carrying a buck and a bucksaw, offering to cut wood for anyone who was unable to cut his own, or pay someone to do it for him.
Joseph might preach wherever he found people gathered, in the country or on the street corners of Port Hope, Millbrook or Bewdley, sometimes to their express annoyance. Pelting with fruits and vegetables did not stop him. Arrest didn't deter him.
He gave away his money and most of his possessions and worked to help the poor and the destitute. In 1884 Joseph Scriven returned to the Pengelleys at the request of Theodore, to tutor the first four of his sons.
The uncertain circumstances of his death add to the myth of Joseph Scriven. I have read that he was murdered, some believe he was a suicide, but it is generally believed, and it seems likely, that he accidentally drowned in the mill-pond, August 10, 1886, age 66.
Dr Corbett, the coroner, did not think it necessary to hold an inquest. No one knows what actually happened.
Joseph Scriven was buried next to Eliza Roche, in the Pengelley family cemetery. The grave was unmarked for many years, until a Scriven Memorial Committee was set up, resulting in a lavish ceremony on the 24th of May 1920, with the unveiling of a tall memorial stone.
Adapted from http://porthopehistory.com/jmscriven/