July 17. 1852.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



57 



can there be found any authority for a belief that 

 the custom spoken of ever existed among the 

 aborigines of America. Equally wide of the mark 

 is the attempt to trace Yankee Doodle from Yenghi 

 Donnia, which is said to be very good Persian for 

 America, — though how such an insular and sta- 

 tionary people as the Persians should ever hear of 

 America, and coin a word specially to express the 

 Tiame of the country, and to suit their vocabulary, 

 xloes not seem to have been considered by those 

 who suggested that fanciful derivation. The word 

 Yankee undoubtedly had the Yenghees origin re- 

 ferred to above, but it does not seem to have been 

 very common until the time of the Kevolutionary 

 war. I have not met with it in any writings pre- 

 vious to that time; and in letters in which the 

 word occurs, written in 1775, it is refen-ed to in a 

 juanner which shows that the writer considered it 

 something new, and intended to be contemptuous, 

 used as it was by their then enemies, the British 

 soldiers. Noah AVebster, in his Dictionary, gives the 

 Yenghees origin of the word, upon the authority of 

 Pleckewelder ; and that fact may account for its 

 being looked upon in New England as something 

 novel. Ileckewelder is excellent authority upon 

 Indian subjects ; but he spent his time principally 

 among the Delawares and the Six Nations, and was 

 not likely to be well acquainted with the Massa- 

 chusetts Indians, who spoke a different dialect. 

 Several of the regiments of British regulars who 

 ■were transferred to Boston after the beginning of 

 the troubles, had been stationed in the middle 

 •colonies, and had considerable experience in Indian 

 warfare, and may have thus acquired a knowledge 

 ■of the word. Tlie 18th, or Royal Irish, for instance, 

 liad been engaged in nearly all the battles which 

 liad taken place in the colonies during two French 

 "wars, and they had acquired much fiimiliarity with 

 American affairs. Tliat the word was rather un- 

 common in New England, is shown by various 

 letters written from them. One from the Rev. 

 Wm. Gordon, published in the Penna Gazette, 

 iMay 10, 1775, giving an account of the skirmishes 

 at Concord and Lexington, says, " They (the 

 British troops) were roughly handled by the 

 Yankees, a term of reproach for the New Eng- 

 landers, when applied by the regulars." Another 

 letter, published in the same paper a few weeks 

 .afterwards, dated " Hartford, Connecticut," gives 

 an account of the capture of several letters from 

 English officers in Boston, to their friends in 

 England, and says, " some of them are full of in- 

 ■vectives against the poor Yankees, as they call us." 

 From these facts it seems probable that the word 

 was so unusual in New England that the writers 

 thought themselves obliged to explain it. It was 

 soon adopted, however. In a few months there- 

 after the citizens of Newbury fitted out a privateer 

 called the Yankee Hero ; and the name was used 

 when speaking of the New Englanders, being spelt 



at times Yankie, Yanko, Yankoo, Yanht,'an(\ Yankee, 

 as if its orthography was not settled. At this day 

 it is only applied in the United States to the in- 

 habitants of New England ; but foreigners use it 

 to designate all Americans. 



The origin of Yankee Doodle is by no means as 

 clear as American antiquaries desire. The reply 

 given by Mr. Mackenzie Walcott (Vol. iv., 

 p. 393.), which states that the air was composed 

 hy Dr. Shuckburg, in 1755, when the Colonial 

 ti'oops united with the British regulars near Al- 

 bany for the conquest of Canada, and that it was 

 produced in derision of the old-fashioned manners 

 of the provincial soldiers, when contrasted with 

 the neat and dandified appearance of the regulars, 

 was published some years ago in a musical maga- 

 zine printed in Boston. The authority for Mr. 

 Walcott's statement is not given ; and if it is any 

 other than that in the periodical referred to, he 

 would much oblige American readers by stating 

 it. Mr. Sampson Walker asks (Vol. iv., p. 344.) 

 for " the origin of the song, or if the tune is older 

 than the song;" and in giving him another version 

 of the history of the air than Dr. Shuckburg's 

 account, I shall have to refer him to authority 

 which he and all your readers have better means 

 of consulting than the citizens of the United States'. 

 Mr. Walker asks " for the words of the song." 

 There is no song : the tune in the United States 

 is a march ; there are no words to It of a national 

 character. The only words ever affixed to the air 

 in this country is the following doggerel quatrain: 



" Yankee Doodle came to town 

 Upon a little pony, 

 He stuck a feather in his hat 

 And called it macaroni." 



It has been asserted by writers in this country, 

 that the air and words of these lines are as old as 

 Cromwell's time. The only alteration is in making 

 Yankee Doodle of what Avas Nankee Doodle. It is 

 asserted that the tune will be found In the Musical 

 Antiquities of England, and that Nankee Doodle 

 was intended to apply to Cromwell, and the other 

 lines were designed to " allude to his going inta 

 Oxford with a single plume, fastened in a knot 

 called a macaroni." The tune was known in New- 

 England before the Revolution as Lydia Fishers 

 Jig, and there were verses to it commencing : 



" Lucy Locket lost her pocket, 

 Lydia Fisher found it. 

 Not a bit of money in it, 

 Only binding round it." 



The regulars In Boston in 1775 and 1776 ai'e 

 said to have sung verses to the same air : 



" Yankee Doodle came to town, 

 For to buy a firelock ; 

 We will tar and feather him, 

 And so we will John Hanccck," &c. 



