History Time: Salem's connection to 'Jingle Bells'

James Lord Pierpont, taken from the website of The Harvard Square Library.

By Maggi Smith-Dalton and Jim Dalton, Globe Correspondents

How were a musical M.D., born in Salem, and the rebellious, wandering son of a fierce Massachusetts abolitionist (a son who wrote songs for and served in the Confederate cause) connected to "the" quintessentially joyful Christmastime song–a song which, by most accounts, was inspired by memories of a New England winter?

Words and music to the tune we now know as “Jingle Bells” were written by music director James Lord Pierpont (1822-1893) for a Savannah, Georgia Thanksgiving church service in 1857. It was a hit; so, according to church lore, children sang it again that Christmas.

With Christmas it has ever after been associated.

The original sheet music in our collection, from which we perform this song, carried the title Pierpont gave it. However, when “The One Horse Open Sleigh,” was reissued two years later, by common usage and popular demand it was renamed “Jingle Bells.” The original sheet music cover bears the dedication: "To John. P. Ordway, Esq."

A Salem native, John P. Ordway (1824-1880) was, at various times, a music store owner, theater manager, pianist, organist, song writer, physician, founder of the Massachusetts Anglers Association (later “Fish and Game”) and a member of the Massachusetts Legislature. He was born in Salem but by the late 1840s had established himself in Boston. He opened a music store, and, most importantly, was the leader of Ordway’s Aeolians, a minstrel show troupe that was one of the first to maintain a permanent residence in a city.

In performance, Ordway positioned himself at the piano, behind the other members of the troupe and eschewed the traditional blackface makeup that was ubiquitous in the minstrel era. Several important performers in the genre were members of the Aeolians throughout the '50s. Another famous Salem personality, Patrick S. Gilmore, later to establish himself as a leader in his own right as director of the Salem Brass Band, became a member of Ordway’s Aeolians in 1851, playing the tambourine.

Salem had an interesting role in the early history of minstrelsy. In 1844, the seminal Virginia Minstrels disbanded despite two years packed with performances in New York, Boston and Great Britain. Two members of that group, Frank Brower and Dan Emmet (the composer of Dixie) formed a new group and launched their American tour at Salem’s Lyceum Hall on October 23, 1844.

During his adventurous lifetime, James Pierpont managed to write and publish quite a few popular songs besides "The One Horse Open Sleigh."

James Lord Pierpont was born in Boston, Massachusetts. His father, Rev. John Pierpont (1785-1866), was pastor of the Hollis Street Unitarian Church. Often described as "an ardent abolitionist," John gave sermons which disturbed his Hollis Street congregants mightily, preaching on such "agitating subjects as temperance and slavery." This, and some of his other actions, caused upheaval in his career. "Voted; That the members of this society have viewed with deep regret the zeal of their reverend pastor in those exciting topics which divide and disturb the harmony of the community…."

After serving a church in Troy, NY, from 1849 to 1856 he served as minister of the First Parish in Medford, Mass. At the outbreak of the Civil War, the zealous minister was appointed Chaplain in the Twenty-second Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers. He was 76 years old at the time.

It must have been a challenging experience to be the son of such a strong-willed father. Sent to boarding school when quite young, his son James ran away to sea for a short time. As an adult, he had his "Gold Rush" adventure, as did so many Easterners, Salemites included. He returned to the East and, in 1852, published the song "The Returned Californian," which referred to his experiences in the California Gold Rush. It was written expressly for Ordway's Aeolians.  

According to the Unitarian Universalist Church of Savannah (known as the "Jingle Bells Church"): "The last Unitarian minister of our church before the Civil War was the Rev. John Pierpont Jr., (1819-1879) a native of Boston and son of the noted Abolitionist minister and social reformer the Rev. John Pierpont.

John Jr.'s brother, James Lord Pierpont, (1822-1893) was the organist….  After the death of his first wife, Millicent Cowee of Troy, NY, he married Eliza Jane Purse, daughter of Thomas Purse, a Civil War mayor of Savannah."

By the time the Civil War started, his brother John left for the North, but James stayed in his adopted home with his family. James served with the Isle of Hope Volunteers of the First Georgia Cavalry (5th Georgia) during the Civil War as company clerk for the regiment, and wrote music for the Confederacy.

As with so many important American songwriters, Pierpont never made much money from "Jingle Bells." However, his work earned him a posthumous place in the Songwriter's Hall of Fame, which tells us on its website, "In the period of 1890 through 1954,“Jingle Bells” was in the top 25 most recorded songs in history."

Musician, educator and lecturer, Maggi Smith-Dalton is the president of the Salem History Society. Author of “Stories and Shadows from Salem’s Past: Naumkeag Notations” (The History Press, 2010), she is working on her second book of Salem history for 2012. Jim Dalton is a composer and professor of music theory and music education at The Boston Conservatory. He is a founding board member of the SHS. The Daltons are co-authoring a book on music in Salem's history and have released two new albums of 19th-century music. Reach them at http://singingstring.org. For information on joining the Salem History Society, go to http://salemhistorysociety.org.

The Cover of "The One Horse Open Sleigh"–note the dedication to Salem's John P. Ordway.