Horatio Spafford

Horatio Gates Spafford (October 20, 1828, Troy, New York – September 25, 1888, Jerusalem, Ottoman Empire) was an American lawyer and Presbyterian church elder. He is best known for penning the Christian hymn "It Is Well With My Soul" following the Great Chicago Fire (1871), and the deaths of his four daughters on a transatlantic voyage aboard the S.S. Ville du Havre.