Cherryvale’s Claim: The forgotten author of the Pledge of Allegiance
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
CHERRYVALE, Kan. — For more than a century, Americans have said the Pledge of Allegiance, from the newest citizens, to presidents, to school children.
But for one southeast Kansas community, it’s more than an oath. It’s part of the story of their town.
“We claim that Frank Bellamy, who lived back at the turn of the century, as in 1890’s to 1900, we think that he wrote the Pledge of Allegiance,” said Mike Wood, Cherryvale Historical Museum.
Frank Bellamy was born in 1876 in Indiana, the anniversary of our nation’s independence. His father, a prominent judge, moved the family first to Girard, and then to Cherryvale.
The story of the Pledge of Allegiance begins with an 1890 writing competition in a magazine distributed in classrooms nationwide, called the Youth’s Companion.
“His teachers encouraged him to submit what he’d written as a Pledge of Allegiance to a competition, and he did that. He submitted it, and he didn’t hear anything back,” said Wood.
Frank had all but forgotten about the competition.
“Until, nationally, there was a new Pledge of Allegiance that was being endorsed.”
Giving birth to a century-old question: who wrote the Pledge of Allegiance?
“The controversy comes in that years later the Pledge of Allegiance was attributed to a Francis Bellamy,” said Wood.
Francis Bellamy, no relation to Frank, was a minister in New York, and had ties to the Youth’s Companion.
“I guess the New York Society has a little more influence than Cherryvale, Kansas so, ultimately, New York, and even the Smithsonian Institute, they landed with Francis Bellamy as being the author of the Pledge of Allegiance.”
Frank would go on to serve in the Spanish-American War, as a soldier in the Philippines, where he contracted tuberculosis, a disease that ultimately claimed his life.
But Cherryvale never gave up on him, and his claim to authorship of the pledge. And in recent years, that loyalty has paid off, with the discovery that in 1896, at a high school graduation in Ellis County, Kansas, the Pledge of Allegiance was said.
“Very, very similar to what our Frank Bellamy said he wrote in 1890,” said Wood.
The Pledge of Allegiance was formally adopted by Congress in 1942, when it was included in the U.S. Flag Code.
The last change to the pledge came in 1954, when Congress added the words “Under God” after “One nation.”
Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
