Edward Farmar was one connection away from George Whitefield who popularized the beloved Christmas carol “Hark the Herald Angels.”
On 18 December 1739, Edward in a letter to his cousin Nicholas Scull writes…
“…I was in hopes since this Gentleman Mr. Whitefield had preached up the Doctrine you yourself applauded so much that it might have had that Impression on you as to Convert you from that Damnable Doctrine of free thinkers…”[1]
Edward’s reference to “Mr. Whitefield” is undoubtedly Reverend George Whitefield (also Whitfield, 1714-1770), an evangelist and one of the founders of Methodism. Four months after Edward’s letter was written, Whitefield visited Whitemarsh Township. Whitefield traveled from Philadelphia with a company of forty horses and arrived at about nine o’clock on the morning of 18 April 1740. For a community of about fifty households, a crowd of two thousand from the surrounding townships awaited. With his theater, rhetoric, and patriotism, Whitefield loudly called upon the crowd to repent, in a revival movement that would be termed the “First Great Awakening.”[2]
Benjamin Franklin, having first heard Whitefield in London and again during his 1739 visit to Philadelphia, remarked how he had a “loud and clear voice.” While Whitefield was preaching at the court house steps at Market Street and Second Street, Franklin walked away to conduct an experiment. Franklin concluded that if audience members took up two square feet, more than 30,000 could hear Whitefield’s open-air sermon.
In the same year Edward’s letter was written, a contemporary of Whitefield, Charles Wesley (1707-1788), in a collection titled Hymns and Sacred Poems published “Hymn for Christmas-Day.” The 1739 poem began with “Hark how all the Welkin rings / ‘Glory to the King of Kings’ “
What’s a welkin? By definition, the song would have translated to “hark how all the heavens ring.” It is plausible that Edward may have sung the hymn about welkins while attending St. Thomas Episcopal Church.
It wasn’t until 1753 when Whitefield published A Collection of Hymns for Social Worship that he changed the lyrics to “Hark! the Herald Angels sing / Glory to the new-born King!” The subtle changes do give the carol more of a Christmas message.
The hymn would go through a few more lyrical and composition changes to the beloved Christmas carol today, with Whitefield’s changes remaining largely intact.
Philip Farmer is the author and publisher of “Edward Farmar and the Sons of Whitemarsh,” a 500-page, 155-year biographical history of the family immigration from Ireland into Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, and Harlan County, Kentucky. A sequel is currently in work.
[1] The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, vol.40, p.120. Edited to remove modern misspellings.
[2] “A Bit of Local History,” The North Wales Record (25 February 1893).