Welcome to five minutes in church history hosted by Dr Stephen Nichols, where we take a little

break from the present to go exploring the past. Travel back in time as we look at the people,

events, and even the places that have shaped the story of Christianity.

This is our story, our family history. Let's get started.

The Crosby family arrived in the Massachusetts Bay colony in 1635. A few centuries

later and many generations later, John and Mercy Crosby welcome their first child,

Francis Jane Crosby, into the world. The year was 1820, and this is the year of the birth of Fanny Crosby the most

prolific hymn writer ever to have lived. By the time she was done, Fanny Crosby would go on to write over,

are you ready for this, over 9,000 hymns. Well, when she was just a young child at six weeks old actually she

had an eye infection. She was treated or we should say she was mistreated by a doctor, she recovered from the eye infection, but the mistreatment

left her blind for the rest of her life.

Later that same year, her father died.

Her mother, Mercy, raised her alone.

She taught her young daughter not to turn to self-pity,

but she taught her to be self-sufficient.

The Crosby family lived throughout that area of upstate New York and into Massachusetts

where young Fanny was raised.

She spent time in many of these homes of her relatives. They all had

wonderful libraries with books of English literature and books of poetry and

much of her childhood was spent being read to and learning from these books.

She also spent a significant amount of time memorizing the Bible.

It was said of Fanny Crosby that she had committed whole books of the Bible to memory and she would

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