Over the River and Through the Woods – A New England Boy’s Song for Thanksgiving Day
Over the river and through the woods
To Grandfather’s house we go.
The horse knows the way to carry the sleigh
O’er the white and glist’ning snow.
Over the river and through the woods
Til Grandmother’s house I spy.
Hurrah for the fun! Is the pudding done?
Hurrah for the pumpkin pie.
— Lyrics by Lydia Maria Child, first published in Flowers for Children (Vol. 2), 1844
In 1802, a little girl was born in Medford, MA. Her parents died when she was very young, and she ended up living with her brother, Convers Francis, a Unitarian minister on the faculty of Harvard University. Even as a child, she believed that enslaved people from Africa should be freed, so they could be integrated into American life, through education and intermarriage. As she grew older, she joined William Ellery Channing, and Transcendentalists such as Theodore Parker, as abolitionists. She became a poet, a novelist, and a journalist, and wrote the lyrics to “Over the River and Through the Woods” when she was 42 years old. In response to an editorial on the subject of slavery, she wrote, “. . .here in the North, after we have helped the mothers, we do not sell the babies.” She died in 1880, and is buried in Wayland, MA.
During the holidays, this is probably one of the songs we’ll sing as we gather around our festive tables. We have much to think about in terms of how our nation has dealt with the question of the chattel slavery on which the economies of all parts of the United States were based. Some people sing “to Grandfather’s house,” and others sing “to Grandmother’s house.” Whichever version we use, what better way than to sing and talk about the life of Lydia Maria Child?