This brief rebuttal of standard fare was submitted yesterday by Delilah Webb, continuing her popular column “Truth and the Tales We Tell.”
If you were to stand in front of the Granary Burying Ground for a few hours listening to the snippet of audible narrative from passing tour buses, you’d frequently hear a common untruth espoused: that the beloved children’s author Mother Goose is buried within. This is not the case! There are two women named Goose in this cemetery, both wives of an affluent landowner named Isaac Goose – but the stories attributed to MG, as well as the pseudonym, can be traced to a century prior to their lives in France!
In my experience discussing the matter with other tour guides, the canard referred to remains stubbornly embedded in Boston tour guide lore, and I suspect many tour guides will stick by their guns to defend the now-traditional conviction that Mother Goose is in the Granary. But the research of the current writer leads Bostontourguide.org to side with Delilah.
Dispute our position in the reply box below, or begin a new topic thread in the discussion forum.
A recent article in Improper Bostonian also debunks the great Mother Goose Boston myth: http://www.improper.com/features/whos-that-girl/
It might be worth substituting one of these other notables for poor old Mary Goose. Possibly;
Peter Faneuil (1700–1743), benefactor of Faneuil Hall
Samuel Sewall (1652–1730) Salem Witch trials judge
John Smibert (1688–1751) Scottish-American artist
Phillis Wheatley (May 8, 1753 – December 5, 1784), American slave and first African-American poet and first African-American woman to publish a book
Let’s not forget Alexander Graham Bellowski; he was the first telephone Pole.
I can just see it now, you’re gonna tell me there isn’t a Santa Claus.