page_title: Horatio Spafford
section_title: Life
hierarchical_section_title: Horatio Spafford / Life
caption_attribution_description: English: Mrs Anna Spafford, wife of founder of the American Colony, Jerusalem
context_page_description: Horatio Gates Spafford was a prominent American lawyer and Presbyterian church elder. He is best known for penning the Christian hymn It Is Well With My Soul following a family tragedy in which his four daughters died aboard the S.S. Ville du Havre on a transatlantic voyage.
context_section_description: Spafford was the son of Gazetteer author Horatio Gates Spafford and Elizabeth Clark Hewitt Spafford.
  On September 5, 1861 he married Anna Larsen of Stavanger, Norway in Chicago. Spafford was a lawyer and a senior partner in a large law firm.
  The Spaffords were supporters and friends of evangelist Dwight L. Moody.
  Spafford invested in real estate north of Chicago in the spring of 1871. In October 1871, the Great Fire of Chicago reduced the city to ashes, destroying most of Spafford's investment.
caption: Anna Spafford
exif: {}