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474 OUR FAMILIAR SONGS.
popular; he also composed " Hard Times," and " Martin's Lament." Those who figured hi that day will remember the chorus:
" Oh, dear! what will become of me? Oh, dear! what shall I do? I am certainly doomed to be beaten By the heroes of Tippecanoe."
This song was well received, but there seemed something lacking. The wild outburst of feeling demanded by the meetings had not yet been provided for. Tom Launder suggested to Koss that the tune of " Little Pigs " would furnish a chorus just adapted for the meetings. Koss seized upon the suggestion, and on the succeeding Sunday, while he was singing as a member of a church choir, his head was full of " Little Pigs," and efforts to make a song fitting the time and the circumstances. Oblivious to all else he had, before the sermon was finished, blocked out the song of " Tippecanoe and Tyler too." The line, as originally composed by him, of
" Van, Van, you're a nice little man,"
did not suit him, and when Saturday night came round he was cudgelling his brains to amend it. He was absent from the meeting, and was sent for. He came, and informed the glee club that he had a new song to sing, but that there was one line in it he did not like, and that his delay was occasioned by the desire to correct it.
" Let me hear the line," said Culbertson. Ross repeated it to him.
"Thunder!" said he, "make it—Van's a used-up man\"—and there and then the song was completed.
•The meeting in the Court House was a monster, the old Senate Chamber was crowded full to hear McKibbon's new song " Martin's Lament," which was loudly applauded and encored. When the first speech was over, Ross led off with " Tippecanoe and Tyler too," having furnished each member of the glee club with the chorus. That was the song at last. Cheers, yells, and encores greeted it. The next day, men and boys were singing the chorus in the street, in the work-shops, and at the table. Olcot White came near to starting a hymn to the tune in the radical church on South street. What the Marseilles Hymn was to Frenchmen, "Tippecanoe and Tyler too" was to the Whigs of 1840.
In September, Mr. Ross went to New York City to purchase goods. He attended a meeting in Lafayette Hall. Prentiss of Mississippi, Tallmadge of New York, and Otis of Boston were to speak. Ross found the hall full of enthusiastic people, and was compelled to stand near the entrance. The speakers had not arrived, and several songs were sung to keep the crowd together. The stock of songs was soon exhausted, and the chairman (Charley Delavan, I think) arose and requested any one present who could sing, to come forward and do so. Ross said, " If I could get on the stand, I would sing a song," and hardly had the words out, before he found himself passing rapidly over the heads of the crowd, to be landed at length on the platform. Questions of " Who are you?" "What's your name?" came from every hand.
"I am a Buckeye from the Buckeye State," was the answer. "Three cheers for the Buckeye State!" cried out the president, and they were given with a will. Ross requested the meeting to keep quiet until he had suug three or four verses, and it did. But the enthusiasm swelled up to an uncontrollable pitch, and at last the whole meeting joined in the chorus, with a vim and vigor indescribable. The song was encored and sung again and again, but the same verses were not repeated, as he had many in mind, and could make them to suit the occasion. WTule he was singing in response to the third encore,, the speakers Otis and Tallmadge arrived, and Ross improvised:
" We'll now stop singing, for Tallmadge is here, here, here, A nd Otis too, We'll have a speech from each of them, For Tippecanoe and Tyler, etc.''' |
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