"A Rebus on the Name of Nancy Crooke" by Henry Livingston, 1786, music is "Fair Hebe."

YouTube ^ | Henry Livingston

[mairdie]

"A Rebus on the Name of Nancy Crooke" was written by Henry Livingston, Jr, author of "Night Before Christmas," and appears in his poetry manuscript book dated 1786. A rebus is a puzzle, a set of questions whose first initials spell out the solution. The form is one Henry frequently created for the young people around him. "Fair Hebe," appears in Henry's music manuscript. Illustrated with vintage postcards.

[mairdie]

None of Henry's rebuses include solutions, which has driven the academics crazy who study his work. Both Don and Mac were absolutely convinced that they had the background to solve them and Mac, eventually, did believe that he solved one. The solution to this rebus did not appear in Henry's manuscript, but did appear in New York Dutchess County historian Helen Wilkinson Reynolds' 1931 book, "Doorways of Dutchess County." Nancy Crooke (1768-1856) was the sister of John Crooke, who married Henry Livingston's first cousin, Cornelia Livingston.

p.204
"Nancy Crooke married when she was nineteen and the event was recorded in the Country Journal, published at Poughkeepsie on April 25, 1787, in these words:"

"On the 17th inst. was married at New York Colonel William Barber, Commissioner of Army Accounts for this State, to the amiable Miss Nancy Crooke of this place, a young lady possest of every accomplishment to render the bands of matrimony agreeable."

Colonel Barber ... "distinguished himself at Yorktown under LaFayette".

For a short description of the Night Before Christmas authorship attribution controversy, see a previous poem announcement.

[mairdie]

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