- Grandfather's House
Grandfather's house, at 114 South Street, Medford,
Massachusetts , ( [http://maps.google.com/maps?q=114+South+Street,+Medford,+Massachusetts&spn=0.029676,0.058545&hl=en Google maps link] ) is the original house named in the well known American song "Over the River and through the Woods ". Some versions of the song mention Grandmother's house. It is unclear which is the correct phrase.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 grandmother's house in the poem "Over the River and through the Woods", published in1844 . TheMystic River is the poem's river; most of the woods seem to have vanished long ago.About 1839, Paul Curtis greatly enlarged the house and gave it the two-story Ionic portico. In 1976,
Tufts University purchased and restored the house.External links
* [http://www.opendoorbooks.com/music/lyrics/overtheriver.htm "Over the River and through the Woods": Grandmother's House lyrics]
* [http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/473.html "Over the River and through the Wood": Grandfather's House lyrics]
* [http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977179413 Article about the house and song]Book references
* Grandmother: cite book | author=Lori J. Kenschaft | title=Lydia Maria Child: The Quest for Racial Justice | publisher = Oxford University Press | year=2002 | id=0195132572
* Grandfather: cite book | author=Carolyn L. Karcher (Ed.) | title= A Lydia Maria Child Reader | publisher= Duke University Press | year=1997 | id=0822319497
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
