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There are two accounts of how Samuel Ward came to write the hymn tune MATURNA. Ward’s son in-law claimed it was written in honor of Ward’s eldest daughter. Other people claim it was written while Ward crossed the New York harbor after spending the day at Coney Island. According the reports, while he wandered the paddle-wheel steamship, he heard the musicians play an unfamiliar tune. Immediately a melody based on this tune came to him. The notes came so fast that he convinced his friend to give him his removable cuff, on which he wrote the notes.
When he was back home, Ward coupled the new tune with an old hymn "O Mother Dear, Jerusalem" and he named it MATURNA.
It was first published in the Parish Choir, a religious music periodical. From there, it was published in several hymnals. In 1904, Charles A. Barbour, a Baptist preacher, determined that it was the inspired hymn tune he was seeking for, to put Katharine A. Bates poem "America, the Beautiful" to music.