Hail Columbia, happy land!
Hail, ye heroes, heav'n born band...

The music for "Hail Columbia" was composed by Philip Phile (Pfeil), believed to be one of a number of German musicians who immigrated to the United States in its earliest years of independence. Its words were composed nine years later by Joseph Hopkinson, a Philadelphia Judge.

Phile was a violinist who, by 1779, worked in a New York theater orchestra. His tune "Washington's March," or "President's March," was first played ceremonially in Trenton, New Jersy to honor George Washington. In April 1789, as president-elect of the new United States, Washington journeyed from Mount Vernon, Virginia, to New York city for his, and the nation's, first presidential inauguration. All along his path there were celebrations in his honor and on April 21 he reached Trenton, New Jersey. Harper's Magazine described Washington's entry into Trenton this way:

On the bridge which spanned the Assanpink Creek, over which, twelve years before, the Hessians fled in confusion, he passed under a great dome supported by thirteen columns, and adorned with a huge sunflower, inscribed "To thee alone." The women of Trenton had ordered this put up, and just beyond the bridge were waiting, with their daughters, who, as he passed under the dome, began singing...

-- "Washington's Inauguration" by John Bach McMaster in Harper's New Monthly Magazine April 1889.

We do not know the exact moment that the "President's March" was played during Washington's stop in Trenton. We do know the tune was published in 1793 and soon appeared in various instrumental tutors of the day.

Hail Columbia: the favorite new federal song (inset of top portion), [1798].
Music Division , Library of Congress.

Joseph Hopkinson, who wrote the poem that was eventually attached to Phile's music, was the son of the New Jersey patriot Francis Hopkinson. The Hopkinson family was close enough to Washington that in 1798, shortly after he added words to Philip Phile's tune, the young Hopkinson wrote to the retired Washington and sent him a copy of the re-invented "President's March."

Hopkinson composed words to go with Phile's march tune about nine years after its first debut. He wrote the words that eventually changed the song's title to "Hail Columbia" at the request of a singer-actor named Gilbert Fox. Fox was desperate to find rousing lyrics for the march, which he had chosen to include in a vastly undersold benefit concert scheduled to be held within days. On a Sunday afternoon Fox went to the talented Judge Hopkinson and, in Hopkinson's words:

His prospects were very disheartening; but he said that if he could get a patriotic song adapted to "The President's March" he did not doubt of a full house, that the poets of the theatrical corp had been trying to accomplish it, but had not succeeded. I told him I would try what I could do for him. He came the next afternoon and the song, such as it is, was ready for him.

-- Oscar G. T. Sonneck, Report on the 'Star Spangled Banner,' 'Hail Columbia,' 'America,' and 'Yankee Doodle', p.43.

The Fox concert opened at Philadelphia's New Theatre the following Wednesday, April 25, 1798. And "Hail Columbia" was a true show stopper. The audience called for repeated (some say twelve) encores and joined in the chorus. A few nights later President Adams and other members of the government, then resident in Philadelphia, caught the show.

Up until the 1890s "Hail Columbia" was played as the de facto national anthem of the United States. President Lincoln once mentioned he had to stand up and take off his hat when "Hail Columbia" was sung. Many Europeans actually took it to be the U.S. anthem and played it accordingly. In 1889 it was played in that fashion to honor Thomas Edison as he entered the Paris Opera House.

Learn More About It
View Joseph Hopkinson's letter to George Washington and Washington's reply View a letter from Thomas Jefferson to Joseph Hopkinson View Hail, Columbia! 1798-1887 (from An American Time Capsule: Three Centuries of Broadsides and Other Printed Ephemera) George Washington's First Inauguration: April 30, 1789 George Washington's Second Inauguration: March 4, 1793
Related Web Sites
Philadelphia Composers: Philip Phile (Keffer Collection of Sheet Music, University of Pennsylvania Library) House of Joseph Hopkinson (Independence Hall Association)
Print Bibliography
Browne, C. A. The story of our national ballads. Revised by Willard A. Heaps. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1960. Call number: ML3551 .B88 1960. Chase, Gilbert. America's music: from the pilgrims to the present, 3rd ed., revised. With a foreword by Richard Crawford and a discographical essay by William Brooks. Urbana and Chicago, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1987. Call number: ML200 .C5 1987. Hitchcock, H. Wiley. Music in the United States: a historical introduction, 4th ed. With Kyle Gann. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 2000. Call number: ML200 .H58 2000. Howard, John Tasker. Our American Music: A comprehensive history from 1620 to the present, 4th ed. New York: Thomas Y. Cromwell Company, 1965. Call number: ML200 .H8 1965. Indiana University at Bloomington. Lilly Library. American Patriotic Songs [exhibit catalogue]. Bloomington, 1968. Call number: ML141 .B55 L5.

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