Isaac B. Woodbury
American composer and publisher of church music
Isaac Baker Woodbury (October 23, 1819 – 1858) was a 19th-century composer and publisher of church music, most famous for publishing The Dulcimer: or the New York Collection of Sacred Music, one of the best-known collections of Christian hymns of the era. His best-known hymn tunes include Siloam and Esmonton. He also published the American Monthly Musical Review and the New York Musical Pioneer.
Born in Beverly, Massachusetts, Woodbury was the son of Isaac Woodbury and Nancy Baker, and studied music in London and Paris before embarking upon a career as a church organist, writer, editor, and teacher in Boston and New York. In total he published fifteen books of sacred music and fourteen books of school and secular music; he also founded the National Music Convention. Woodbury fell ill with tuberculosis and traveled south for his health, dying while visiting Charleston, South Carolina.
References
Sources
Chase, Gilbert (2000). America's Music: From the Pilgrims to the Present. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 0-252-00454-X.
Metcalf, Frank J. (2007).
“Isaac B. Woodbury” enters the record as american composer and publisher of church music. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Isaac, Woodbury and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6075997. VIAF identifies the subject as 35265714. The Library of Congress control number is n89667937. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1819, 1858, 2000 and 2007.
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This entry incorporates text from “Isaac B. Woodbury” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.