Fanny Crosby - Bridgeport Library

Although Fanny Crosby spent the majority of her life in Manhattan (growing up at the New York Institution for the Blind, working with the Bowery Rescue Mission, etc.), she did spend the last 11 years of her life in Bridgeport.

Using Darlene Neptune’s Fanny Crosby Still Lives as our guide, we took the train into Bridgeport, Connecticut to see if the sites were still around.

The Bridgeport Public Library is a great place to begin – the librarians were most helpful, and provided us with access to a scrapbook of newspaper stories about Fanny Crosby and her legacy. They also had a nice collection of her books – including at least one autographed copy. It turns out that Fanny, having been born blind, had no need to learn to write, but she had to do so to autograph her books.

Hymns by Fanny Crosby in Great Hymns of the Faith:

#106 – Tell Me the Story of Jesus
#148 – Will Jesus Find Us Watching?
#157 – What a Gathering!
#235 – Pass Me Not
#247 – Jesus Is Calling
#255 – Blessed Assurance
#258 – He Hideth My Soul
#296 – All the Way My Savior Leads Me
#304 – Savior, More Than Life to Me
#314 – I Am Thine, O Lord
#328 – Close to Thee
#345 – ‘Tis the Blessed Hour of Prayer
#351 – Near the Cross
#385 – Take the World, but Give Me Jesus
#411 – Victory Through Grace
#428 – To the Work!
#432 – Rescue the Perishing
#442 – Praise Him! Praise Him!
#449 – To God Be the Glory
#475 – Redeemed
#495 – Unsearchable Riches
#502 – My Savior First of All
#512 – Saved By Grace

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Image Source/Credit (in order):

• “Miss Fanny Crosby, Hymn Writer, and Miss Alice Holmes, ‘Blind Poetess of Jersey City,’ Have Been Friends Since Childhood—Both Are Nearing Century Mark.” The Jersey Journal, 31 Oct. 1911. Newspapers.com, www.newspapers.com/article/the-jersey-journal/191991521/.
• Picture of Crosby’s books available at the Bridgeport Public Library
• Autographed copy of Fanny Crosby’s Life-Story (Every Where Publishing Company, Brooklyn Borough, New York, 1903)
• Newspapers.com, The Jersey Journal, October 31, 1911, https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-jersey-journal/191991521/