The Brave Old Duke of York

The colony of New Jersey was controlled first by the Duke of York who granted the land to Sir John Berkeley and Sir George Carteret. It was called Nova Caesarea ater the island where Carteret had protected the Duke from Puritan forces in England.

As time passed, New Jersey developed into a rich agricultural area growing apples, peaches, beans, wheat and flax. Consequently, New Jersey's nickname today is the Garden State, and its goddess of the earth is shown holding a cornucopia.

But it was the cranberry bogs of the colony that really brought life to the land. Now, once in the early days of New Jersey one old gramfer, John I. Webb, better known as Peg Leg John, was hailed near and far as the best of the best cranberry growers. He stored his berries in the loft of his barn since old Peg Leg was unable to carry them down. To solve the problem of getting the berries to where they had to go, he simply poured them down the steps. Bounce, bounce, bounce they jumped one by one, two by two, three by three. Being an astute old salt, he soon noticed that only the firm berries bounced to the bottom and the bruised berries remained on the steps. It was because of this that he never sold bad berries. His bounce berries, according to some accounts, led him to pen the following nursery rhyme spoofing James, the Duke of York who seems to have been a bounce berry in the eyes of Peg Leg:

The Brave Old Duke Of York

Oh, the brave old Duke of York,
He had ten thousand men;
He marched them up to the top of the hill,
And he marched them down again.

And when they were up, they were up,
And when they were down, they were down,
And when they were only half-way down,
They were neither up nor down.

At one time, it was thought that the Duke of York was a satirical reference to the Battle of Bunker Hill during the American Revolution. If this were true the Duke would refer to Frederick Augustus, the Duke of York and second oldest son of King George III--but Frederick was only a child during this war, so it was probably not he.

Others say it refers to an event which occurred in Belgium in the 1790's. But...

It does, in fact, refer to King James II, the previous Duke of York when William of Orange landed in the West

The copyright of the article The Brave Old Duke of York in Folklore is owned by Virginia Marin. Permission to republish The Brave Old Duke of York in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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