Among the patriotic anthems sung during the American Revolutionary War, only Yankee Doodle was more popular than William Billings's Chester. Billings wrote the first version of the song for his 1770 songbook The New England Psalm Singer, and made improvements for the version in his The Singing Master's Assistant (1778). It is the latter version that is best known today.

The curious title of the song reflects a common practice of Billings's day, in which tunes were labeled with (often arbitrarily chosen) place names. Billings's song evidently has little more to do with any particular town named Chester than his famous hymn "Africa" has to do with Africa. The idea behind this practice was that by labeling the tunes independently, one could sing them to different words without creating confusion (indeed, this later did happen; see below).

Tune

Version of 1778.

(Note: if no image is visible, you may be reading a defective copy of this article. The image and sound files are available in the original Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chester_(song)) version.)

Click to hear piano reduction (Ogg format, 234K)

Words

Although this cannot be established with certainty, it appears that the words are by Billings himself.

Let tyrants shake their iron rod,

And Slav'ry clank her galling chains,

We fear them not, we trust in God,

New england's God forever reigns.

Howe and Burgoyne and Clinton too,

With Prescot (http://newportvisions.com/home/july_9_77_1.html) and Cornwallis join'd,

Together plow our Overthrow,

In one Infernal league combin'd.

When God inspir'd us for the fight,

Their ranks were broke, their lines were forc'd,

Their ships were Shatter'd in our sight,

Or swiftly driven from our Coast.

The Foe comes on with haughty Stride;

Our troops advance with martial noise,

Their Vet'rans flee before our Youth,

And Gen'rals yield to beardless Boys.

What grateful Off'ring shall we bring?

What shall we render to the Lord?

Loud Halleluiahs let us Sing,

And praise his name on ev'ry Chord.

Later uses

The song was later provided with religious (as opposed to patriotic) words by Philip Doddridge, and in this form is a favorite of Sacred Harp singers. The Doddridge words are as follows:

Let the high heav'ns your songs invite,

These spacious fields of brilliant light,

Where sun and moon and planets roll,

And stars that glow from pole to pole.

Sun, moon, and stars convey Thy praise,

'Round the whole earth and never stand,

So when Thy truth began its race,

It touched and glanced on ev'ry hand.

The modern American composer William Schuman employed the tune of Chester in his New England Triptych.

Book

The Singing Master's Assistant, in which the final version of Chester was published, is in print today in a scholarly edition by Hans Nathan (University Press of Virginia, 1977, ISBN 0813908396).