Jasper County Democrat, Volume 6, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 February 1904 — YANKEE DOODLE. [ARTICLE]

YANKEE DOODLE.

The Orlarinal Vera lon Oates From the Time of Oliver Cromwell. The lively straius of “Yankee Doodle” are beard at every patriotic celebration, says a writer in Collier’s Weekly, yet perhaps few of those whose pulses stir at the sound of the familiar notes are aware that it dates from the time of Oliver Cromwell and crossed the seas with the Puritans. •’Nankee Doodle” was one of the nicknames bestowed by the Cavaliers on the hated Roundhead, and a verse written upon Cromwell’s entry into Oxford, riding on a small horse witb a plume twisted Into a sort of knot called a “macaroni,” runs as follows: Nankee Doodle came to town Upon a little pony. With a feather In his hat Upon a macaroni. The transition from Nankee to Yankee—which came from Yengee, the Indian word for English— was very easy, and the Royalists used it as a jeer at all New Englanders. When the Colonials in Boston,'* preparing for the coming war, smuggled muskets into the country, concealing them in toads of manure, the Tories sang to the old tone of “Lucy Fisher:” Yankee Doodle came to town For to buy a firelock; We will tar and feather him. And so we will John Hancock. When the British forces marched to tike battles of Concord and Lexington

their approach was heralded by “Tsod Save the King,” but when the “Yankee farmers" saw the foe In full retreat the strains of "Yankee Doodle” accompanied their flight, and from that hour, wherever the stars and stripes have floated, the once despised tune has been beard.