When I was a kid, Jingle Bells was probably my favourite song to sing. It was certainly my most boisterous. By the end of the song, my friends and I practically screamed the chorus. I had no idea it was originally written as a drinking song in a tavern.
Here’s the story.
James Lord Pierpont (1822-1893)
James Lord Pierpont wrote Jingle Bells in 1850 in a tavern in Medford, Massachusetts, near Boston. He wrote it for Thanksgiving, not Christmas. By the late 1850s, the song started gaining in popularity.
The story of its composition does indeed begin with a one-horse open sleigh. In the middle of the 19th century, Medford was home to a series of sleigh races that used to occur on a street in the town.
Unlike his father who was a reverend and abolitionist, Pierpont was a free spirit and adventurer. He spent several years on a merchant ship and later left his wife and children with his parents to become a propspector in San Francisco during the 1849 Gold Rush.
Kyna Hamill, professor of literature at Boston University and vice-president of the Medford Historical Society, said to Daybreak South’s Chris Walker, “Some of the words are actually associated with the idea that this is a song you sing while you’re drunk, talking about an event that happened while they were drunk.”
The professor further analyzed the meaning of the lyrics. “If you want to go psychological about this, he’s a guy who was under the shadow of this very rigid father, who was totally against drinking, and was in the temperance movement, and was part of the abolitionist movement and took himself very seriously.
“It’s kind of a song about a young guy breaking away from his father’s shadow.
Exactly where Jingle Bells was composed remains somewhat controversial. In Medford, there is a plaque that marks the spot where the tavern once stood and where Pierpont wrote the song “in the presence of Mrs. Otis Waterman.” There is, however, a similar plaque in Savannah, Georgia. It seems the folks in Savannah believe Jingle Bells originated there. What we do know is that Pierpont had the song copyrighted in 1857 in Savannah.
No matter where it was written, I’d like to think some of my ancestors sang Jingle Bells with as much enthusiasm as I did — and still do.
To learn more about the story of Jingle Bells, read this CBC report or Google it for several references.
