Hart Pease Danks

Hart Pease Danks (6 April 1834 – 20 November 1903) was a musician who specialised in composing, singing and leading choral groups. Born in New Haven, Connecticut, he moved with his family to Saratoga Springs, New York when he was aged eight. He studied music with Dr. E. Whiting, later moving to Chicago, where he worked as a carpenter in his father's construction business before embarking on a full time music career. In 1864, he moved to New York City, where in 1892 he published his Superior Anthems for Church Choirs. The next year, he published his best known song, "Silver Threads Among the Gold" (words by Eben E. Rexford), which sold over three million copies. Having sold the rights to it, though, he died penniless in a boarding house in Philadelphia, his last written words: "It’s hard to die alone".

Pease Danks was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970.

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