Lewis Henry Redner

Who was Lewis Henry Redner?

Lewis Henry Redner was an American musician, best known as the composer of the popular Christmas carol "St. Louis", better known as "O Little Town of Bethlehem".

Redner worked in the real-estate business in Philadelphia, and played the organ at four different churches during his life. He spent 19 years as organist at the Church of the Holy Trinity, Philadelphia. While there, he set Pastor Phillips Brooks's poem of his recollection of a pilgrimage to Bethlehem to music on Christmas Eve, 1868, and the carol was first sung the next day.

Redner never married. He was buried at The Woodlands Cemetery in Philadelphia.