In November 1873, Horatio Spafford received news that would change his life forever. His wife, Anna, had survived a terrible shipwreck in the Atlantic, but their four young daughters had not.
What followed was not a story of a man who simply stopped grieving. It was the story of a father who experienced unimaginable loss and expressed his faith in the middle of it. From that painful chapter came the words of one of Christianity’s most enduring hymns: “It Is Well with My Soul.”
The journey that ended in tragedy
Horatio and Anna Spafford lived in Chicago with their four daughters: Annie, Maggie, Bessie and Tanetta. Horatio was a lawyer and had also invested in real estate. The family had already experienced serious financial losses following the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.
In 1873, they planned a trip to Europe. Horatio was delayed in Chicago because of business, so Anna and their four daughters travelled ahead aboard the French steamship Ville du Havre.
On November 22, 1873, the ship collided with the British vessel Loch Earn in the Atlantic. The Ville du Havre sank rapidly. More than 200 people died, including all four of the Spafford children.
Anna survived. She was rescued from the water and eventually reached Cardiff, Wales. But she had no children with her.
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“Saved alone. What shall I do?”
After reaching Wales, Anna sent Horatio a telegram informing him of the disaster. The message contained the words, “Saved alone. What shall I do…” It also identified the four children as lost.
For Horatio, those few words carried the weight of an unbearable reality. His four daughters, whom he had expected to see again after their journey to Europe, were gone.
He immediately travelled across the Atlantic to join Anna.
“It Is Well with My Soul”
During the journey to meet his wife, Horatio was informed by the ship’s captain that they were passing near the place where the Ville du Havre had gone down.
He later wrote to his wife’s half-sister about passing over the location. In the letter, he referred to his daughters as being safe and said that he did not think of them as lost in the way one might normally think of those who had died.
It was in the aftermath of this tragedy that Spafford wrote the words that became “It Is Well with My Soul.” The hymn begins with the image of peace like a river and then moves into the reality of sorrow, before arriving at its central declaration: “It is well with my soul.”
The words are striking because they do not pretend that suffering does not exist. The hymn acknowledges sorrow while expressing confidence in God in the midst of it.
The hymn became a lasting Christian song
Horatio Spafford wrote the lyrics, while the music was composed by Philip P. Bliss, a well-known gospel musician and friend of the Spafford family.
The hymn was published in 1876 and was first performed in Chicago that same year. What began in the aftermath of one family’s devastating loss eventually became a hymn sung by Christians around the world.
Its enduring appeal comes partly from the honesty of its message. Spafford did not write about suffering from a distance. The words came after the death of his four children and during a period of profound personal grief.
His story did not end with the hymn
The shipwreck was not the last tragedy the Spafford family would experience. Horatio and Anna later had more children, but their son Horatio died of scarlet fever in 1880 at the age of four.
In 1881, the family moved to Jerusalem with a group of fellow believers. Their religious community eventually became known as the American Colony. The group became involved in charitable and humanitarian work in Jerusalem and among the wider local population.
Horatio Spafford died in Jerusalem in 1888.
A faith expressed in the middle of grief
The story behind “It Is Well with My Soul” is sometimes reduced to a simple lesson: Spafford lost his children and immediately declared that everything was fine. The historical story is more human than that.
There was loss. There was grief. There was a husband travelling across the ocean to reunite with a wife who had survived while their children had died. And there was a faith that Spafford chose to express in the middle of that suffering.
That is what makes the hymn so powerful. “It is well with my soul” does not have to mean that everything around a person is well. It can express a deeper conviction: that pain does not have the final word and that faith can remain even when circumstances are devastating.
More than 150 years after the Ville du Havre sank, the words born from that tragedy are still being sung. The story of Horatio and Anna Spafford remains a reminder that some of the most enduring expressions of faith are written not when life is easy, but when holding on to faith is hardest.
