Eugene Monroe Bartlett Sr. Grave

Author: Victory in Jesus

Eugene Monroe Bartlett, Sr., was laid to rest at the Oak Hill Cemetery in Siloam Springs, Arkansas, only two years after suffering a debilitating stroke at the age of fifty-four. Bartlett was quite the musician, having composed several hundred hymns during his lifetime and founding the Hartford Music Institute in 1921. The Institute was driven to “train aspiring musicians in vocal technique, sight reading, and conducting …” (The Daily Hatch) so that ultimately the student could return to the local chuch ministry better equipped to carry on the Lord’s work. Bartlett himself was trained formally at the Hall-Moody Institute in Martin, Tennessee (now part of the University of Tennessee’s network of colleges and universities) and William Jewell College, in Liberty, Missouri.

Bartlett’s style of music followed the Ruebush-Kieffer Company’s School of Music in Virginia; it was famous for its affinity for shape-note singing. According to the Mississippi Encyclopedia, “Shape-note singing is a musical tradition and practice of community gatherings singing sacred music using a system of musical notation in which the noteheads are printed in distinct shapes that indicate their scale degree and musical syllable (fa, sol, la, etc.).” In other words, each note on the musical scale is given a “shape” other than the traditional “oval.” The “shaping” was done to facilitate a musical literacy based on recognition of a “shape” rather than the note’s position on a scale or musical staff. The “shape-note singing” proliferated in the southern United States, and it had a profound effect on what would later become Southern Gospel music.

Among Bartlett’s students at the Institute was the famous musician Albert Brumley (1926-1931), considered by many as the father of the Southern Gospel genre. Brumley composed over 800 hymns and songs, the most notable fan favorites being “I’ll Fly Away” and “Turn Your Radio On.” In 1969 he founded the Albert E. Brumley Sundown to Sunup Gospel Sing (now Albert E. Brumley Gospel Sing); as you might expect, he was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame (1970), the Gospel Music Hall of Fame (1973), and the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame (1998). Bartlett mentored Brumley and published many of his first songs.

Bartlett was also an astute businessman. Along with his friends John McClung and David Moore, Bartlett created the Hartford Music Company in 1918.

“Bartlett’s mission was to publish hymns and teach singers to sight read. He hired instructors to teach voice, piano, piano tuning, rudiments, harmony and stringed instruments. He also was editor of the music magazine, Herald of Song.” (“Where Did That Song Come From?”, Sylvia Clemons, https://originofsongs.blogspot.com/2013)

From 1918-1935, Bartlett served as the Music Company’s President, expanding the business into two other cities – Nacogdoches, Texas and Hartshorne, Oklahoma.

Tragedy struck Bartlett in 1939. A debilitating stroke rendered him unable to speak or walk, and for the last two years of his life he was bedridden. A lot of people would allow such a calamity to abruptly end their ministry, but not Bartlett. Over a number of months while lying in a bed, he penned his most enduring hymn, “Victory in Jesus.” Many of his previous works faded into oblivion, but this hymn (his last) has stood the test of time and has been enjoyed by hundreds of congregations all over the world, some from varied and diverse theological backgrounds.

“It is perhaps a fluke that ‘Victory in Jesus’ appears in the United Methodist Hymnal (1989). The hymnal’s editor, the Rev. Carlton R. Young, notes that a majority of the Hymnal Revision Committee was not at first familiar with the hymn. Then one of the committee members, the Rev. Charles M. Smith, a district superintendent from North Carolina, introduced it to the others saying, ‘This is the most requested recent gospel hymn from my district.’” (The United Methodist Church, Discipleship Ministries)

The song first appeared in “Gospel Choruses,” a paperback songbook published by James Vaughan in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee. It has also been recorded by some of Gospel Music’s most famous performers.

Bartlett was inducted posthumously into the Gospel Music Association’s Hall of Fame in 1973.