Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1861-06-25
Moreester Daily Spy.
ORIGIN OF YANKEE DOODLE.

tithe vi SHtIiSS tHe rITSJ, when u nursery song
had these words: =
"Lucy Locket lost her pocket,
Kitty Fisher found IL;
Not bit of money in it,
Only binding round it,"
In the time of the ROundheads-th period
Of CrOmwell's protectorate-when Italian fash.
ions, being introduced into England, were rid
cued by the satirists and preached against by
the Puritan clergy, we find the following verse
10 the same tune. Here we have yankee
Doodle" in name for the first time -
"Yankee Doodle came to town
Upon a Kentish pony;
He stuck feather in his hat
And called him Maccoroni."
Maccaroni, at that time, signfed dandy
with Italian fashions Some have supposed
that it was written by royalist to satirize
Cromwell, who wore Feather in his hat. y
The "original song" SO far as Americans are
was written, it is supposed, in the
spring of l775, after the skirmishes at Licking
ton and Concord. subjoin a copy, as printed
by Isaiah Thomas, author of the History OF
Printing" in 1918. 1t is called
THE YANKEEs RETURN FROM CAMP.
Father and went down to camp,
Along with Captain Gooding,
And there we see the men and boys
AS thick as hasty pudding
Chorus-Yaukee Doodle keep it up
Yankee Doodle, dandy,
Mind the music and the step,
And with the girls be handy,
And there we see thousand men
AS rich as Squire David;
And what they wasted every day,
wish it could be saved
The 'lasses they eat every day,
Would keep it our house winter;
They have as much, that, Ell be bound
They eat it when they're mind ter.
And there we see swamping gun,
Large as a log of maple,
Upon deuced little cart,
A load for fathers cattle.
And every time they shoot it off,
1t takes horn of powder,
And makes a noise like fathers gun,
Only nation louder.
went as nigh to one myself
AS Siah's underpinning;
And father went as nigh again
/ thought the deuce was in him.
Cousin Simon grew so bold,
thought he would have cooked it;
1t scared me so shrink't IT off
And hung by fathers pocket
And Captain Davis had gun,
He kind of capt his hand ont
And stuck a crooked stabbing-ron
Upon the little end ont.
And there l see pumpkin shell
As big as mothers basin
And every time they touched it off
They scampered like the nation.
see little barrel, too,
The heads were made of leather;
They knock'd upOn't with little clubs,
And cal'd the folks together.
And there was Captain Washington,
And gentlefolks about HIM
They say he's grown so tarnal proud
He will not ride without 'em.
He got him in his meetin' clothes
Upon sapping stallion;
He set the world along in rows
In hundreds and in millions.
The flaming ribbons in his hat,
They looked so tearing fine, ah,
wanted pokily to get
To give to my Jemimah.
see another snarl of men
A digging graves they told me,
So tarnal long so tarnal deep,
They tended they should hold me.
1t scared me SO, hook'd it off,
Nor stoppd as remember,
Nor turned about till got home,
Lock'd up in mothers chamber.
In Farmer and Moore's COLLECTIONS, His
orica and Miscellaneous, and Monthly Liter
Try Journal" for April 1924, ] find new
version of this song, with some stanzas moi
ound III the original. They are evidently in.
erpolations. give specimen or two
And then they'd fife away like fun,
And play on cornstalk iiddles,
And some had ribbons, red as blood,
All round about their middles.
The troopers, too. would gallop up,
And fire right i'll our faces;
1t almost scared me half to death,
To see them run such races
Old Uncle Sam come there to change
Some OanCakeS and some onions.
For 'lasses cakes to carry home
To give his wife and young ones.
But can't tell you half see,
They kept up such smother;
So took my hat off, made bow,
And scampeIed home to mother.
A little while before the battle of Lexington
the British (who had used the tune as one OF
their military airs at Castle William, in Bos
ton harbor, as early as 1768. had song in
reference to the Americans near Boston, wht
were secretly procuring arms in that city, thei
by royal troops. The following
verse is preserved:
'Yankee Doodle came to town,
For to buy tiTe-lock;
We will tar and feather him,
And so we will John Hancock"
A writer in the New York Evening Post. 6
ew years ago, claimed for the Dutch the orr
gin Of "Yankee Doodle" He said that the
harvest laborers who, in summer, migrate
from Germany to the low countries, or Hol
land, where they receive as much buttermiG
as they can drink, and tenth of the trair
secured by their exertions, had song, will
the following chorus:
yankee didel, doodle down
Didel. dude lanter,
Yanke, viver, voover vown,
Botermilk and Tanther."
This account is apochryphal, to say the
least, for the words in the above verse are
neither German, Dutch, nor any other known
language on the face of the earth. Oul
Southern BRETHREN" who have a decidedly