As a boy in Medford, Massachusetts James Lord Pierpont watched sleigh races between Medford and Malden.
Contestants drove one horse sleighs, open to the elements. Pierpont went on to a checkered career that included abandoning his family for the California gold rush, and settling in Savannah, Georgia where he published the song “Jingle Bells” in 1857. A simple tune it has inspired many inventive arrangements (see Frank Sinatra, Barbara Streissand.) Pierpont later fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War.