I. H. Meredith (1872–1962)

Meredith’s fa­ther played the vi­o­lin, and his mo­ther sang in the church choir.

By age 10, Is­aac was tak­ing or­gan les­sons. By age 12, he was sing­ing al­to in the choir at the Oak Street Me­thod­ist Church in Nor­ris­town.

At 13, he was con­vert­ed by the per­son­al in­vi­ta­tion of his bro­ther. For a num­ber of years, he sang to pri­son­ers in the coun­ty jail each Sun­day morn­ing. In the sum­mer of 1891, while va­ca­tion­ing in Ocean Grove, New Jer­sey, a Dr. Mun­hall in­vit­ed him to sing in ev­an­gel­is­tic meet­ings.

Shortly there­af­ter, he en­tered ev­an­gel­ism & be­gan writ­ing Gos­pel songs. In 1893, he and Grant Tul­lar found­ed the Tul­lar-Mer­e­dith mu­sic pub­lish­ing house. Mer­e­dith him­self com­posed ov­er 1,000 songs.

During World War I, he served in France with the Young Men Chris­tian’s As­so­ci­a­tion. Af­ter the war, in ad­di­tion to his mu­sic bus­i­ness, he served as mu­sic di­rect­or for (at var­i­ous times) the Bush­wick Av­e­nue Me­thod­ist Church, Brook­lyn, New York; and the Ped­die Mem­or­i­al Bap­tist Church and Cen­ten­a­ry Me­thod­ist Church, New­ark, New Jer­sey.

Pseudonyms

Charles C. Ack­ley (tak­en from his wife’s name, Cla­ris­sa Ack­ley Cow­an)

Broughton Ed­wards

Floyd En­gle (from his ad­dress on Floyd Street in En­gle­wood Cliffs, New Jer­sey)

Arthur Grant­ley

Bruce Ken­ne­dy


See also Ackley, Chas. C. 1872-1962

See also Edwards, Broughton