BIRD, FREDERIC MAYER, 1838-1908.
Scrapbook, ca. 1880-1890.

MANUSCRIPT NUMBER 055

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REPRODUCTION: All requests subject to limitations noted in departmental policies on reproduction.

COPYRIGHT: Information on copyright (literary rights) available from repository.

CITATION: Frederic Mayer Bird Scrapbook, MSS 055, Archives and Manuscripts Dept., Pitts Theology Library, Emory University. 

The son of Robert Montgomery and Mary Mayer Bird, Frederic Mayer Bird was born in Philadelphia on June 28, 1838.  He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1857, and from the Union Theological Seminary, New York in 1860.  He was ordained as a Lutheran minister on September 3, 1861 and served as a chaplain in the army between 1862 and 1863.  In 1868, Rev. Bird was ordained deacon of the Episcopal Church, and priest in 1869.  From 1870 to 1874, Rev. Bird was a rector in Spottswood, New Jersey.  Subsequently, he was rector in a few other towns before settling in South Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.  From 1881 to 1886, he held the professorship of psychology, Christian evidence, and rhetoric at Lehigh University. Rev. Bird collected a large hymnological library, numbering about 3,000 volumes, which was presented to the Union Theological Seminary in 1888.  He was the principal editor of the Lutheran Hymn Book (Baltimore, 1864), and a collaborator with Bishop Odenheimer in Hymns of the Spirit (New York, 1871). In addition, he contributed to a number of encyclopedias and published a series of articles on handwriting, which appeared in the New York Independent. Rev. Bird died in South Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in 1908.

A scrapbook of newspaper clippings, entitled "Hymn Notes" and "Hymn Notes and Queries," which appeared in the New York Independent. Most of the articles are in chronological order, dating from about 1880 to 1890, and concern hymn writing. The scrapbook does not appear to have all of the articles from the series on hymnology written by Rev. Bird. The scrapbook also includes an index.