Katharine Lee Bates was born in Falmouth on August 12, 1859, to the Reverend and Mrs. William Bates in the parsonage of First Congregational Church on the village green, spent formative years there, moved with her family to Wellesley Hills at age 12, entered Wellesley College, became president of its second graduating class, and returned to teach English literature there for 40 years. In the summer of 1893, while lecturing at Colorado College in Colorado Springs, she visited the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, crossed the grain fields of the Midwest, and on a faculty outing to the summit of Pike's Peak in Colorado, the opening lines of "America the Beautiful" came to her, reshaping the spectacular view into an inspired poetic vision of America. The author of 32 books, she was well traveled, gracious, witty, popular, and scholarly; Falmouth remained her hometown and she revisited it nearly every year. She died in Wellesley on March 28, 1929, and was buried beside her parents in Falmouth's Oak Grove Cemetery.

Photo: Darren Jefferson Clay

Photo: Darren Jefferson Clay

Teaticket, Massachusetts · USA