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126 The National Music of America.
now known as Colby College, which conferred the degree of " D. D." upon him ; but it is by his patriotic poem that he is known throughout the country. This effusion was written while Mr. Smith was a theological student at Andover, in 1832. It was first sung at a children's celebration in Park Street Church, in Boston, July 4, 1832. It immediately became popular. Oliver Wendell Holmes was a classmate of Doctor Smith at Harvard, in the famous class of 1829, and at a reunion of the graduates, long after, summed up the clergyman's title to fame,
very neatly, as follows :
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" And there's a nice youngster of excellent pith, Fate tried to conceal him by naming him Smith ! But he chanted a song for the brave and the free, Just read on his medal —' My Country of Thee.'" |
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