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Philip Spiess
SOME NEW YEAR’S CUSTOMS IN REVIEW
The Time Ball: Before the Time Ball, there was the cannon. No, not on Times Square, but in the many harbors of the British Navy around the world, where a cannon was fired in order to synchronize the naval ships’ chronometers. This synchronization was important for the accurate calculation of Longitude for purposes of navigation. (John Harrison’s invention of the naval chronometer in 1761 had finally settled the problem of how to determine longitude.) For many years, one could still witness this official ceremony on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Canada, where a 9-pound naval cannon from the Crimean War was fired daily as the Noon Day Cannon from 1869 to 1991. (Not only did it mark official time, but it also signaled to the members of Parliament that they could take lunch.) Originally, the time signal for this firing came by telegraph from the observatory at McGill University (as accurate time is calculated from the fixed star positions), but later it was signaled from the National Research Council.
But the system itself was crude: as we all know, light waves travel faster than sound waves, so a method was sought that used sight rather than sound to note a point of time which could be used for calibration of naval timepieces. So, in 1829, an early “time ball” system was adopted in the port of Portsmouth, England; it was the brainchild of British Navy Captain Robert Wauchope. Proving to be useful, Wauchope recommended it to John Pond, the Astronomer Royal at the Royal Naval Observatory at Greenwich, England, on the Thames just downriver from the London docks; in 1833 Pond created a bright red metal ball that rose on a staff above Flamsteed House at the Royal Observatory at 12:55 p.m., then dropped precisely at 1:00 p.m. Greenwich Mean Time daily (the Prime Meridian passing through Greenwich), signaling the accurate time to all the ships in harbor and along the Thames, so that all of their chronometric clocks could be set simultaneously. The system (with the dropping ball) is still in operation today.
The Greenwich system was adopted by the U. S. Naval Observatory (1844-1893, now called the “Old Naval Observatory”) at 23rd Street and E Street, Northwest, in Washington, D. C., in 1845 (the Washington meridian, established in 1850, passes through the observatory). The Washington Time Ball, a rubber ball made by Charles Goodyear, was placed on a staff on top of the Observatory’s dome, down which it descended at 12:00 noon precisely. In 1869, telegraph lines connected the Observatory time system with the U. S. Navy, most railway lines (particularly in the south), and the Mutual Life Insurance Co. in New York City, which dropped its own noontime time ball, regulated by the Naval Observatory in Washington; this was the first Time Ball in New York. (The Old Naval Observatory building still exists in Washington on 23rd Street, Northwest, across from the State Department, of which it is now a part, but it no longer has a time ball. The U. S. Naval Observatory moved north on Massachusetts Avenue, Northwest, in 1894; its grounds include the official residence of the Vice President of the United States, and it has a Time Ball on display, but it no longer drops.)
In 1885, the official Navy Time Ball (by now a metal ball) moved from the (Old) Naval Observatory to the roof of the Navy wing of the State, War and Navy Building (now called the “Old Executive Office Building,” or officially the Eisenhower Executive Office Building), just west of the White House, where it would drop each day at noon (except Sundays), Eastern Standard Time, marking Mean Solar Time in official Washington. This practice continued until 1936, when the Time Ball system was deemed to be no longer needed. However, the Washington Time Ball was revived for one last time on December 31,1999, when it was dropped that night at midnight to mark the passage to the millenium year of 2000.
Meanwhile, in December, 1908, the publisher of the The New York Times, Adolph Ochs, decided to drop a Time Ball on New Year’s Eve from the flagstaff of the Times Building (later called the Allied Chemical Building, and god knows what it’s called today!) at the south end of Times Square in New York City, to mark the passage to the new year. As you know, it’s been happening every year since, the event growing more crowded and garish with each passing decade.
Auld Lang Syne: This is a Scottish traditional folk song, which, by the way, never mentions the New Year. The somewhat vague origins of the song (typical of folk songs) trace back to Sir Robert Ayton (died 1638), whose version of the song was first published as a ballad in 1711, and to Allan Ramsay, who wrote a song beginning “For auld acquaintance be forgot” in 1720; thereafter, his song is quite different. The Scottish phrase, “auld lang syne,” translates into English literally as “old long since”; phrased more commonly, it is “[for] old times’ sake.”
The song, however, really got its impetus when it was taken up by Scotland’s national poet, Robert Burns, who not only wrote poetry himself but also was an avid collector of Scottish folk songs and ballads. He claimed that he collected “Auld Lang Syne” from an old man, but he adapted it slightly by rewriting it in its five-verse version in 1788, using a somewhat more poetic mode. It was published in 1796 after Burns’ death by James Johnson in his Scots Musical Museum. The tune is a traditional Scottish melody, similar to an English melody written by William Shield for his 1782 comic opera Rosina. Although earlier versions of the words (including Burns’) were set to different music, the words and music as we all know them today were first put together by George Thomson, editor of a 1799 collection of Scottish traditional melodies.
So how did the song become connected with New Year’s? The words look both backward into the past to old friendships and into the future as one maintains friendship; it is indeed a reflection on communal unity. As such, it became increasingly connected with the Scots celebration of the New Year, Hogmanay, the Scottish word for the last day of the old year; its celebration usually extended into the first day or two of the new year. For centuries, it had been customary in many European countries to recognize the New Year (not always on January 1; sometimes it was November 1 or another date) by renewing the oaths of fealty between lord and vassal, between squire and peasant; it was also the occasion (connected somewhat with the Winter Solstice) for hopefully promoting the fertility of the coming Spring’s new growth by watering tree roots or the like with offerings of wine or blood. So the new year was a big deal.
As the song’s use at Hogmanay grew, a tradition developed of holding hands in a circle while singing it, concluding with singing the last verse holding hands crossed with one another. The Scottish diaspora, particularly from Scotland into England, Canada [cf. Nova Scotia], and the new United States, at the very end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th, spread the celebration’s traditions, including its particular song, into these new areas.
In 1924, John Philip Sousa wrote his “Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company March”; it commemorates the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Boston, the United States’ oldest military organization. The march’s Trio (3rd section) is the tune of “Auld Lang Syne” set to a march rhythm, for it is the Artillery Company’s marching song. And in 1929, Guy Lombardo and his orchestra, the “Royal Canadians” (which included his brothers) played “Auld Lang Syne” over the radio on New Year’s Eve; it was broadcast from the Roosevelt Grille in the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City. Broadcast every year thereafter, it became a New Year’s tradition as Lombardo counted down the seconds to midnight; in 1959, the broadcast moved to the Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, where it remained until 1976 (Guy Lombardo died in 1977). In 1956, Lombardo’s New Year’s Eve show was first broadcast on television; carried by CBS, the show included live segments from Times Square [see the “Ball Drop” above] – and thus another New Year’s Eve tradition was born.
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