Bet you didn't know that this poem was written by a prolific female feminist abolitionist!
The poem was originally published as "The New-England Boy's Song about Thanksgiving Day" in Lydia Maria Child's Flowers for Children. It celebrates the author's childhood memories of visiting her Grandfather's House. (*see below)
Lydia Maria Child was a novelist, journalist, teacher, and poet who wrote extensively about the need to eliminate slavery.
The poem was eventually set to a tune by an unknown composer. The song version is sometimes presented with lines about Christmas, rather than Thanksgiving. For instance, the line "Hurrah for Thanksgiving Day!" becomes "Hurrah for Christmas Day!". As a Christmas song, it has been recorded as "A Merry Christmas at Grandmother's".
Although the modern Thanksgiving holiday is not always associated with snow (snow in late November occasionally occurs in the northern states and is rare at best elsewhere in the United States), New England in the early 19th century was enduring the Little Ice Age, a colder era with earlier winters.
* Grandfather's house, also known as the Paul Curtis House, is a historic house at 114 South Street in Medford, Massachusetts. (Still standing today) It is claimed to be the original house named in the American poem "Over the River and through the Wood" by Lydia Maria Child. Although many people sing "to grandmother's house we go," the original edition shows that the author's words were "to grandfather's house."
The house, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975, is also the best preserved example of Greek Revival architecture in Medford, and is noted for its association with Paul Curtis, a prominent local shipbuilder.[3]
The rear portion of the modern house was built as a small farmhouse in the early 19th century. Lydia Maria Child (1802–1880) recalled the farmhouse when she wrote of her childhood visits to her grandfather's house in the poem "Over the River and through the Woods", published in 1844.[2] The house is located near the Mystic River, which is believed to be the river referred to in the poem. The referenced woods have long since been replaced by residential housing.
The New-England Boy's Song
about Thanksgiving Day
Related Poem Content Details
Over the river, and through the wood,
To grandfather's house we go;
The horse knows the way,
To carry the sleigh,
Through the white and drifted snow.
Over the river, and through the wood,
To grandfather's house away!
We would not stop
For doll or top,
For 't is Thanksgiving day.
Over the river, and through the wood,
Oh, how the wind does blow!
It stings the toes,
And bites the nose,
As over the ground we go.
Over the river, and through the wood,
With a clear blue winter sky,
The dogs do bark,
And children hark,
As we go jingling by.
Over the river, and through the wood,
To have a first-rate play —
Hear the bells ring
Ting a ling ding,
Hurra for Thanksgiving day!
Over the river, and through the wood —
No matter for winds that blow;
Or if we get
The sleigh upset,
Into a bank of snow.
Over the river, and through the wood,
To see little John and Ann;
We will kiss them all,
And play snow-ball,
And stay as long as we can.
Over the river, and through the wood,
Trot fast, my dapple grey!
Spring over the ground,
Like a hunting hound,
For 't is Thanksgiving day!
Over the river, and through the wood,
And straight through the barn-yard gate;
We seem to go
Extremely slow,
It is so hard to wait.
Over the river, and through the wood,
Old Jowler hears our bells;
He shakes his pow,
With a loud bow wow,
And thus the news he tells.
Over the river, and through the wood —
When grandmother sees us come,
She will say, Oh dear,
The children are here,
Bring a pie for every one.
Over the river, and through the wood —
Now grandmother's cap I spy!
Hurra for the fun!
Is the pudding done?
Hurra for the pumpkin pie!
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