The Craighill Herd : An Agrarian Hymn

Sunday, July 1, 2012

An Agrarian Hymn

We are having a dry year, though nothing like what the midwest is seeing. "Oh that this dry and barren ground in springs of water may abound........." The musician, Tim Eriksen, captures the feel of what I imagine much early American music sounded like, and I love the agrarian imagery of this hymn. I hope it inspires your Sunday too.

2 comments:

Bonnets and BootsJuly 2, 2012 at 5:00 PM
What a beautiful hymn. It holds special meaning for us as we received an inch of rain today after being in a severe drought here in our part of the midwest. The Lord be praised. Thankyou for posting it.
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Kerry CowmanJuly 2, 2012 at 7:49 PM
I am glad you found it inspiring. We prayed for rain in church yesterday and got about a tenth of an inch that night. Just enough to keep the pasture grass growing a bit.
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About our Farm and Herd Name

In the 1840's, several families of Northern Irish immigrants came to western Pennsylvania to join their cousins who had settled here in the previous generation. Two of them were my great great great grandparents, John and Nancy Craig. They emigrated from the area of County Down between Ballygowan and Dromore. Here in Butler County they became active in agricultural promotion and breeding shorthorn cattle. Their son bought our farm in 1876 and built our house in 1892. In 1904 my great grandfather Hugh H. Grossman bought the farm from the Craig family, and his son, William Sheridan Grossman, married their granddaughter. Locally, this will always be Grossman farm, but since our cows came from Ireland and we live on a rocky hillside, we named the herd Craighill after my Craig ancestors who lived here. There is a Craigyhill in Antrim and a bittersweet song about emigration from there that you can listen to here.