SAMUEL FRANCIS SMITH - AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED 01/23/1893 - HFSID 74916

SAMUEL F. SMITH
Samuel F. Smith sends an autograph letter explaining were to find the negative of his latest portrait.
Autograph Letter signed: "S. F. Smith/of Newton County, Mass.", 1p, 5x8 sheet.Davenport, Iowa, 1893 January 23. To Mr. Amos R. Wells. In full: "Dear Sir, My absence from home, 1000 miles leaves me only the necessity to inform you that you will find the negative of my latest photograph at Hardy's, Washington St., near Temple Place. I have no doubt he will be able to supply your need. Sincerely yours," After a visit to Germany in 1831, 23-year-old theological student Samuel Francis Smith (1808-1895), impressed that German children started their school day by singing a hymn, wrote a patriotic hymn using a simple German melody. Coincidentally, the melody was the same as that of the British national anthem, "God Save the King". Smith jotted down the complete hymn on a piece of scrap paper within half an hour, and the result, "America", was first sung at a children's celebration in Boston's Park Street Church on July 4, 1832. George Gershwin used Smith's phrase "Of Thee I Sing" as the title of his 1932 Pulitzer Prize-winning musical, and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. quoted the entire first stanza as he concluded his "I have a dream" speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963. Fold creases through top of signature. Jagged at left edge from removal of sheet. Otherwise, fine condition.