Thomas Prince

Prince, Thomas. An American versifier, b. in 1686, educated at Harvard College, and for some time Minister of South Church, Boston. He died in Oct., 1758.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

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Prince, Rev. Thomas, D.D. (Sandwich, Massachusetts, May 15, 1687--October 22, 1758, Boston, Mass.). He graduated from Harvard in 1707. After voyages to Barbados and a stay of several years in England he returned to Boston and in 1717 was ordained as colleague of Rev. Joseph Sewall, minister of the Old South Church. His career was marked by frequent controversies and by his Chronological History of New England, based on his great collection of rare documents dating from the early years of the Colony. This priceless collection was unfortunately dispersed and much of it lost after his death. During his ministry the Tate and Brady version of the Psalms was gradually replacing the Bay Psalm Book in New England, but his parishioners clung to the old book. He persuaded them to let him revise it, which he did, improving or modernizing the verse and printing after the Psalms "an addition of Fifty other Hymns on the most important subjects of Christianity." It included one hymn by himself beginning "With Christ and all his shining Train Of Saints and Angels, we shall rise." His collection was published in 1758 and was first used in the Old South Meeting House on the Sunday following his death. Its use there continued there for another 30 years, but it was not adopted elsewhere, the Bay Psalm Book being by that time generally superseded by collections of Watts and Select.

--Henry Wilder Foote, DNAH Archives