The Mystery of Francis Drake’s Prayer Solved!

10 years ago I wrote about Sir Francis’ Drake’s prayer, questioning whether it was actually written by Drake. I ended the post asking for folks to send in any more information. Callid Keefe-Perry, has just written in with the answer to the question of who really wrote the prayer. You can read his post here.

The truth is that the prayer was not written by Drake. It was composed in 1945 by Rev. Addison H. Groff, an Episcopalian priest. It was attributed to him in a book called The Minister’s Manual in 1962. In 1967 Groff’s grandson wrote into a magazine which had misattributed the prayer to correct the record. Strangely enough, it had not been credited to Drake, but to someone else entirely.

And with that, one small battle has been won in the never-ending battle against historical misinformation. Thanks to Keefe-Perry for his research.