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On 2 December 1873, a woman in Cardiff sent her husband in Chicago a telegram of two words: “Saved alone.”
Anna Spafford had boarded the steamship Ville du Havre with their four daughters. The ship was struck by another vessel in the Atlantic and went down in about twelve minutes. Anna was pulled from the water. Annie, Maggie, Bessie and Tanetta were not.
The hymn below is what her husband wrote afterwards. It is worth knowing that before you read a single line of it.
Listen: It Is Well With My Soul
It Is Well With My Soul — Full Lyrics
Verse 1
When peace like a river attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well with my soul.
Chorus
It is well with my soul,
It is well, it is well with my soul.
Verse 2
Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ hath regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.
Verse 3
My sin, O the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!
The two words that came first
Horatio Spafford was a Chicago lawyer. He had already lost a great deal — a young son to scarlet fever, and much of his property in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. In 1873 he arranged to take the family to Europe, then stayed behind at the last minute on business and sent Anna and the girls ahead.
The Ville du Havre was rammed by the Loch Earn in the early hours of 22 November. Of the 313 people aboard, 226 died. Anna was found unconscious on a floating spar.
Spafford sailed to meet her. The long-told account is that the captain called him to the bridge to say they were passing near the place where the ship went down, and that he wrote the hymn there. Some historians think it was written a little later. Either way, the words were composed by a man crossing the ocean that had taken his children, on his way to a wife who had survived alone.
What the hymn is actually claiming
It is easy to hear this hymn as serenity. It is not. Read the first verse again: when peace like a river attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll. Both. The claim is not that the sorrow is absent, or smaller than it looks, or secretly a blessing. The sea billows are real and they are rolling.
What the hymn says is narrower and much harder: whatever my lot. Not “my lot is fine.” Whatever it is. And notice the line is not “I feel that it is well” — it is “Thou hast taught me to say.” Spafford is describing something learned under instruction, not something felt. A man who has just buried four daughters at sea is not reporting an emotion. He is making a decision about what is true regardless of the emotion.
That is also why verse three pivots so sharply away from the shipwreck and onto sin nailed to the cross. Spafford grounds the claim somewhere the Atlantic cannot reach.
About this recording
The recording above is our own traditional gospel arrangement of Spafford’s public-domain text, produced with AI-assisted music generation. The words are unchanged. The setting is new, so if you grew up singing the Bliss tune, this will sound like the hymn you know in different clothes.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the story behind It Is Well With My Soul?
Horatio Spafford wrote it after the steamship Ville du Havre sank in the Atlantic in November 1873, drowning his four daughters. His wife Anna survived and cabled him two words: “Saved alone.” Spafford wrote the hymn while crossing the ocean to reach her, near the place where the ship went down.
Who wrote It Is Well With My Soul?
The words were written by Horatio Gates Spafford, a Chicago lawyer, in 1873. The tune, named VILLE DU HAVRE after the ship that sank, was composed by Philip P. Bliss in 1876. Bliss himself died months later in the Ashtabula train disaster.
Is It Is Well With My Soul in the public domain?
Yes. Spafford’s text dates from 1873 and Bliss’s VILLE DU HAVRE tune from 1876, both far earlier than the 1930 US public-domain cutoff, so both may be printed, projected, sung and recorded freely. One caution: a modern choral arrangement of a public-domain hymn can carry its own copyright. Licence the arrangement you are using, not the hymn. You can hear our public-domain arrangement here.
How many children did Horatio Spafford lose?
Four daughters died in the Ville du Havre sinking — Annie, Maggie, Bessie and Tanetta. The Spaffords had already lost a young son, Horatio Jr., to scarlet fever before the shipwreck.
What does “when sorrows like sea billows roll” mean?
A billow is a large swelling wave. The line sets two conditions side by side — peace flowing like a river, and grief arriving in waves — and says the same thing holds in both. Given that Spafford wrote it crossing the sea that drowned his children, the image is literal as well as poetic.
What does “whatever my lot” mean?
A lot is a portion assigned to you, as in casting lots — what you have been given rather than what you chose. “Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say” is not a claim that the portion is good. It is a claim that the singer has been taught to say “it is well” about it either way.
Can I sing It Is Well With My Soul at a funeral?
Yes, and it is one of the most frequently chosen funeral hymns in English. It is public domain, so there is no licensing obstacle, and it was written out of bereavement — which is part of why it carries weight at a graveside that gentler hymns do not.
What happened to the Spaffords afterwards?
Horatio and Anna had three more children, one of whom also died young. In 1881 they moved to Jerusalem and founded a community that became known as the American Colony, which did relief work in the city for decades. Horatio died there in 1888.
