About this book

Jingle Bells is one of the best-known and most commonly sung American songs in the world. It was written in

1850 by James Lord Pierpont (1822–1893) at Simpson Tavern in Medford, Massachusetts. It was published under

the title “The One Horse Open Sleigh” in September 1857. It has been claimed that it was originally written to

be sung by a Sunday school choir for Thanksgiving, or as a drinking song. Although it has no original connection

to Christmas, it became associated with winter and Christmas music in the 1860s and 1870s, and it was featured

in a variety of parlor song and college anthologies in the 1880s. It was first recorded in 1889 on an Edison

cylinder; this recording, believed to be the first Christmas record, is lost, but an 1898 recording also from Edison Records survives.

Forther Information

James Lord Pierpont, who was the uncle of J. P. Morgan, originally copyrighted the song with the name “The One Horse Open Sleigh” on September 16, 1857. The songwriting credit given was “Song and Chorus written and

composed by J. Pierpont.” Possibly intended as a drinking song, it didn’t become a Christmas song until decades

after it was first performed. Pierpont, a supporter of the Confederacy, dedicated the song to “John P. Ordway,

Esq.”, an organizer of a blackface minstrel troupe called “Ordway’s Aeolians”.

It is an unsettled question where and when Pierpont originally composed the song that would become known as

“Jingle Bells”. A plaque at 19 High Street in the center of Medford Square in Medford, Massachusetts,

commemorates the “birthplace” of “Jingle Bells”, and claims that Pierpont wrote the song there in 1850, at what

was then the Simpson Tavern. Previous local history narratives claim the song was inspired by the town’s popular sleigh races during the 19th century.

this song was republished in 1859 by Oliver Ditson and Company, 277 Washington Street, Boston, with the new

title “Jingle Bells; or, The One Horse Open Sleigh”. The sheet music cover featured a drawing of sleigh bells

around the title. Sleigh bells were strapped across the horse to make the jingle, jangle sound.