James Henry Bancroft

Bancroft, James Henry, born at Boston, 1819, graduated at Amherst College, 1839, and Andover, 1812. Ill health prevented his ordination as a Congregational minister. He died in Boston, Aug. 25,1844. His hymn—
Brother, though from yonder sky. [Burial], was written in 1842, for the funeral of Dudley Leavitt, a classmate at Andover, who died there suddenly Jan., 7, 1842. It was given in The Psalmist: a New Collection of Hymns for the Use of Baptist Churches, Boston, 1843, No. 1098, and has won considerable acceptance in America, but is unknown in England. [Rev. F. M. Bird, M. A.]

-- John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)