We Americans were shocked by the tragic death of the astronauts of the Columbia space shuttle. On December 29, 1876, Americans were likewise shocked at the death of Philip Paul Bliss and his wife in the worst train accident at that time. Their bodies were never found.
If you will pick up a hymnal, the name of Philip P. Bliss will be found under various hymns such as “By and By,” “Hallelujah! What a Savior!,” “Wonderful Words of Life,” and the music of “It Is Well with My Soul.”
Bliss was born on July 9, 1836, to farmers near the town of Rome, Pennsylvania. His house there today is the P. P. Bliss Gospel Songwriters Museum. He had minimal schooling and music training. Yet for twelve years he wrote hymns from 1864-1876.
While in Chicago in 1869, Bliss and his wife attended an open-air evangelistic service of D. L. Moody. Afterward, Moody invited all to go inside Wood’s Museum Theater to sing. The music director was absent. Perhaps God directed Moody’s ears to Bliss who sang with a rich strong voice. As Moody greeted people as they left, he made Bliss promise to help with the singing when he was in Chicago area.
Moody was quoted to have said to his music friends, “Where in the world have you kept such a man . . . that he hasn't become known in Chicago?”
Bliss became associated with the Moody evangelical team and traveled around the country with them. He also worked with the evangelist Major D. W. Whittle. The Blisses had planned to travel to Britain with Moody and another evangelist, Sankey, in the new year of 1877.
Bliss and his wife Lucy returned to Rome, PA, to be with their family for the holidays, agreeing to meet Whittle in Chicago on December 31, 1876, and to sing at Moody’s Tabernacle.
After “the happiest Christmas he had ever known,” Bliss and Lucy checked their luggage through to Chicago and boarded the train at Waverly, NY. At 7 p.m. the train pulled out in the snowy silence on December 29. Bliss had gone to the parlor car to work on a music piece he titled, “I’ve Passed the Cross of Calvary.”
As the train near Ashtabula, Ohio, the passengers heard a large cracking boom as the train crossed a trestle. The trestle collapsed, and the train fell seventy feet and caught fire because of its kerosene-heated stoves. The first engine and a few other cars made it across but eleven railcars were lost. Ninety-two people were killed or severely injured. That railroad tragedy was the worst at that time in the American history, shocking the nation. The bodies of Bliss and Lucy were never found. Some suggested he was taken up “in a chariot of fire.”
Bliss’ trunk was on the baggage car, which had crossed the trestle. It contained the last song he had written, which he set to Mary G. Brainard’s words, “I Know Not What Awaits Me.” Friends found music fragments in his trunk and finished his work. One example was James McGranahan writing the music to Bliss’ words:
“I will sing of my redeemer and his wondrous love to me; On the cruel cross he suffered from the curse to set me free.”
School children in Rome, PA, saved pennies for a monument to him and his wife. Memorial services were held in Chicago, Rome, Louisville, Nashville, Kalamazoo, St. Paul, South Bend, and Peoria. A monument was also erected in Ashtabula’s Chestnut Grove Cemetery for “those unidentified” who perished in the railroad disaster.
"It Is Well with My Soul"