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.
Source: KSNF/KODE
