Note Yankee Doodle — Chapter III

Page 159. Yankee Doodle. Accounts of the origin of "Yankee Doodle" are many and various. The air is very old, and nearly every country in Europe claims it. It probably reached England from Holland, and in the days of Charles I was used for some verses about Lydia Lockett and Kittie Fisher, gay ladies of the town. Afterwards, when Cromwell rode into Oxford on a pony, with his single plume fastened into a sort of knot called a "macaroni," the Cavaliers used the same air for their derisive verses. The story goes that this fact was recalled by Dr. Richard Shuckburg, of the Seventeenth Foot, when the queerly garbed provincial levies presented themselves, in June, 1755, at the camp at Albany, to take part in the campaign against the French. He wrote down the notes of the air and got the regimental band to play it. It was taken up by the Americans and became instantly popular. Verses innumerable have been attached to the air, the best known of which are "The Yankee's Return from Camp" and "The Battle of the Kegs."