Written in only 30 minutes, song has lasting significance

“My country, ‘tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty,
Of thee I sing;
Land where my fathers died,
Land of the pilgrims’ pride,
From every mountainside
Let freedom ring!”

The first verse of “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee,” also known as “America,” which pays tribute to our country’s liberty and history, is one of the first patriotic songs children learn to sing.

The lyrics, written by Samuel Francis Smith in 1831, are a peaceful tribute to the beauty and majesty of America, and served in fact as the national anthem of the United States before the “The Star-Spangled Banner” was adopted as the official anthem.

It is reported that Smith was impressed that school children in  Germany began each day singing a hymn, so he wrote the song for American school children to recite in the same way.

Smith, born in 1808 in Boston, attended Boston Latin School from 1820-1825, graduated from Harvard University in 1829 and attended Andover Theological Seminary in 1832. He entered the Baptist ministry in 1832, and the same year became editor of Baptist Missionary Magazine. He also contributed to the Encycolpedia Americana.

From 1834 to 1842, he pastored at Waterville, Maine, and was Professor of Modern Languages at Waterville College. In 1842, he moved to Newton, Mass., where he stayed until 1854, when he became editor of the publications of the Baptist Missionary Union.

It was while at Andover in 1831 that Smith wrote the lyrics for “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee” after he ran across the tune in some German hymnals. Knowing the words were patriotic, Smith decided to write his own patriotic lyrics for the melody, completing it in 30 minutes.

“I instantly felt the impulse to write a patriotic hymn of my own, adapted to the tune,” Smith said. “Picking up a scrap of waste paper which lay near me, I wrote at once, probably within half an hour, the hymn America as it is now known everywhere.”

The tune itself, printed in England in 1744 as “God Save the King” was at the time controversial. It was considered “un-American” in later years, yet the tune had actually been used in America as early as 1761 as “God Save the President” and “God Save George Washington.”

The first performance in public of Smith’s song was July 4, 1832, at a children’s Sunday school celebration at the Park Street Church in Boston. The first publication of “America” was in 1832.

One of Smith’s classmates at Harvard was Oliver Wendell Holmes, who wrote of Smith for the 1829 class reunion:
“There’s a nice youngster of excellent pith,
Fate tried to conceal him by naming him Smith;
But he shouted a song for the brave and the free,
Just read on his medal, My country,   of thee.”

When Smith visited the Board of Trade in Chicago in May of 1887, he was sitting in the gallery and was pointed out to some of the members. All at once the trading on the floor ceased, and from the wheat-pit came the familiar words, “My country ‘tis of thee.”

After two stanzas had been sung,  Smith stood and bowed to a rousing cheer from the men on the floor. Escorted by the secretary of the Board to the front, the members flocked around Smith, grasped his hand, then  opened a passage through the crowd and led him to the wheat-pit, where they took off their hats and sang the rest of the hymn.

Among the numerous recordings of “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee” are versions by Mahalia Jackson and David Crosby. Marian Anderson performed the song at the Lincoln Memorial in 1939, and  Aretha Franklin also sang it for the inauguration of President Barack Obama on Jan. 20, 2009.

Others who have referenced the song include Martin Luther King Jr. during his “I Have a Dream” speech on Aug. 28, 1963, and singer Neil Diamond, who quoted this song in his song, “America.”

On Smith’s 80th birthday, Holmes sent him the following:
“Full many a poet’s labored lines
A century’s creeping waves shall hide
The verse a people’s love enshrines
Stands like a rock that breasts the tide.
Time wrecks the proudest piles we raise,
The towers, the domes, the temples fall.
The fortress crumbles and decays
One breath of song outlasts them all.”

Smith died in 1895 in Boston and is buried in Newton Cemetery in Newton, Mass., but his America lives on.