Scituate High School - Chimes Yearbook (Scituate, MA)

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8 THE CHIMES LITERAPy OF THEE WE SING Rosemary Fortier For centuries poets have sung the praise of their native lands. For centuries their names have been placed side by side with those of the soldiers and statesmen who have made history. There is something about a poem in honor of the fatherland that strikes a re- sponsive chord in the hearts of the people. Every country has a favorite son who has immortalized his land. Every section of the United States has been so honored and most of the states. The town of Scituate is particularly fortunate in having its beauty and charm recorded in the unforgettable poem, ' ' The Old Oaken Bucket, by Samuel Woodworth. While Washington was still the man of the hour and hoop skirts and powdered wigs were still in vogue, Samuel Woodworth first saw the light of day, on January 13, 1785. He was born in that part of Scituate known as the Harbor. The site is now used as a gasoline filling station, the old home having been long since destroyed. While he was still a young lad, the family moved to the Greenbush section. Here the family resided in the Northey homestead, a house erected by John Northey in 1676. Mr. Woodworth, Samu- el ' s father) had married the widow of Joseph Northey. Samuel re- ceived a limited education in his native town. He began writing poetry at the early age of fourteen. He was first apprenticed to a Boston printer; later he went to New Haven, Connecticut and then to New York. Samuel oodworth was not happy in New York. He never seem- ed to attain any great literary success although he published a great number of dramatic pieces, poetry and also a romance of the War

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VOL. 11 MAY 1935 No. 1 Published by the Students of the Scituate High School Scituate, Massachusetts EDITORIAL STAFF Editor-in-chief Rosalie Creelman f Alice Stewart Assistant Editors Virg-inia Stevens -r . -r. , Betty Bartington Literary Editors J Bette Banner { Business Manager Jeanne Bresnahan Assistant Business Manager Richard MacDonald , , , . f Herbert Merritt Athletic Editors J [Evelyn Stonefield Art Editor William Sexton Alumni Editor Virginia Vines Dramatic Editor Raymond Zucker , f Alice LaVo ine Exchange Editors J LKathryn Flaherty Joke Editors Class Editors r Virginia Young [ Gilman Wilder Priscilla Jones William Hendrickson James Steverman Joan Breen

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THE CHIMES 9 of 1812 called Champions of Freedom. He was editor of a weekly during the War of 1812, and later he, with George Morris, founded The New York Mirror. His chief claim to recognition rested on one of his poems called ' ' The Old Oaken Bucket. Many stories have come to us concerning the occasion of the writing of the poem, but there is one that has the widest acceptance and is believed by descendants to be the true one. During the spring or summer of 1817 Samuel Woodworth, then in New York, writ- ing home remarked to his wife, What would I not give for a drink from the old well in Scituate. His wife suggested that it would be a good subject for a poem; and the poet, so the story goes, forth- with sat down and poured out all the longing of his soul in the now famous lyric. The poem received much popularity, and De Witt Clinton, who was then governor of New York, gave his patronage to the volume which contained The Old Oaken Bucket. Anyone who reads the poem cannot but be charmed by the simple, yet delightful description of the scenes surrounding the old well. For over a hundred years it has been sung and resung and it is in- cluded in almost every collection of familiar and famous songs. Mr. Woodworth died at the early age of fifty-seven. He had been an invalid for some time before his death. The old homestead in Greenbush is still preserved along with the famous well. The home is now owned and occupied by descendants of Samuel ' s half- brother. The mill and the pond and the rock so affectionately spok- en of in the poem are still to be seen, and each year hundreds of tourists passing by gaze, sometimes unknowingly, at the very spots that Woodworth wrote about so beautifully. Little did Samuel Woodworth realize on the day he composed the poem that over a century later a grateful people w ould adopt it for their town song. The song now belongs to everyone and is sung and loved by the whole country, and it is gratifying to feel, in this day and age of skyscrapers, stream-line locomotion and modernistic manners, that there are still people who think about and appreciate his offerings. When we hear and enjoy the folk songs of our country and listen to the loveliness and charm of an Old Kentucky Home and Swanee River or the beauty and grandeur of Old Man River. ' ' let us, the people of Scituate, not forget that we, too, have a song, a song as dear to the hearts of American people as any of these.