This archive report was first published on 21 December 2019.
Published on December 21, 2019, a surprising history of one of America's most beloved Christmas songs, 'Jingle Bells,' may be enough to draw your family in at the dinner table this holiday season.
Written by James Lord Pierpont in 1857, the song was actually first performed at a Thanksgiving church service and was never intended to be a Christmas staple. According to historian Christopher Klein, the song's lyrics do not mention Christmas, Thanksgiving, or any holiday.
The song became associated with Christmas only decades after its performance on September 15, 1857, on Washington Street in Boston. A researcher at Boston University, Kyna Hamill, found that Pierpont most likely wrote the song in a rooming house not far from where he lived in downtown Boston in 1857.
There's a dispute over the song's birthplace, with two historical plaques in Medford, Massachusetts, and Savannah, Georgia, each claiming to be the birthplace of Pierpont's 'Jingle Bells.' However, Hamill's research suggests that Pierpont couldn't have written the song in 1850, as he was chasing cash in California during the Gold Rush.
'Jingle Bells' was also the first song broadcast from space. Ten days before Christmas in 1965, astronauts Walter M 'Wally' Schirra Jr and Thomas P Stafford, orbiting aboard Gemini 6, met Gemini 7, piloted by Frank Borman and Jim Lovell. When it was time to reenter Earth's atmosphere, Schirra and Stafford playfully reported to Mission Control some sort of UFO, followed by the strains of 'Jingle Bells' being played on a harmonica backed by miniature sleigh bells.
Originally named 'One Horse Open Sleigh' when written in 1857, Pierpont later copyrighted it as 'Jingle Bells, or the One Horse Open Sleigh.'
