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The National Music of America. 141
mind that Doctor Shackbergh wrote the lines attributed to him. And the place and date have long been so fixed a fact in my family that I am equally convinced of the accuracy of the report of the last two generations. All that we claim for Fort Crailo is that it was the birthplace of the original composition. There was a verse in a harvest-song used in Holland, sung, it is said, to this tune, several hundred years ago [ ! ] where the words ' Yanker, didel, dudel' [so this lady was also caught by the weak newspaper rigmarole] may have given the text for later expansion."
After alluding to the supposed fact that the melody was used as a satire against Cromwell, the lady continues her interesting, but by no means convincing letter:
" We have a picture of the old house as it was before the Revolution, and in the rear is the old well, with the high stone curb and well-sweep which has always been associated with the lines written while the British surgeon sat upon the curb. We hope to restore the curb as it was."
Almost every investigation into the early American stages of "Yankee Doodle" leads us to similar reports of traditions. Yet where these traditions corroborate each other it may |
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