Career
As a young man, B. Doctorate. had already learned several instruments, including the melodeon, piano, cornet, clarinet and piccolo. After moving to New York City in 1888, he began playing the organ in churches. He was born on September 27, 1872 in Spring Hill, Pennsylvania.
In 1907, he joined Billy Sunday and Homer Rodeheaver, an evangelist team, as secretary-pianist, and traveled with them for eight years.
As a composer and editor with the Rodeheaver Company, he wrote over 3,000 Gospel tunes. "I met B. Doctorate. Ackley", fellow evangelist, Doctor Oswald J. Smith recalled, "in Buffalo, New York, where he was minister of music in the Churchill Tabernacle when I was preaching there one time.
The first hymn I wrote with B. Doctorate. Ackley was Joy In Serving Jesus in 1931. They could write so much better."
He died on September 3, 1958 in Winona Lake, Indiana, aged 85.
He was interred in the Oakwood Cemetery in Warsaw, Indiana.
