The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-12-19
TRACING MOTHER GOOSE.
She Lived i'm Boston, and Married MIR.
VergOOse, with Ten Children.

Boston Post.
Everybody in Boston-that is nearly ev-
bOdy-believeS Mother Goose the Verita-
BILE and only daughter of William Foster and
Ann Brackenbury his wife, born at Charles
town, in the year 1865. When Elizabeth Fos-
ter reached the age of tWenty-SeVen she
married Isaac VergOOSe, who was twice her
age, and thereby became stepmother to his
ten children Vergoose is a common name
in Boston memorial records, and not a few
defunct members of the family molder in
a corner of the Granary burial ground. The
was much sought during the recent visit
of the Knights Templars to Boston, when
the Granary ground was thrown open to
the public. The last descendant of the Yer
&c., ES3se family was inferred IN the 'rA'"fS IN
To her husbands brood of ten the second
Mrs Vergoose, or, as the name began to be
called. Goose, added six children of her own,
so she had unquestionably the practical in
SEPARATION to Groom rhymes of every degree
of nonsense to Tommy and Johnny and Bes-
sic and Jack Still turning to Boston rec
ords, we find that in 115 Cotton Mather
performed the ceremony joining in marriage
Thomas Fleet, printer, and Elizabeth, eldest
living daughter of Isaac and Elizabeth Ver-
goose. This couple took up their residence
where Fleet had his printing office in Pud-
ding lane, now DeVOnShire street, and here
also came to live with them the (by this
time) widowed Mrs. Goose. 1t was not long
before Thomas Fleet began to be conspicu-
GUS among Boston printers; indeed, his
dacity and independence had deported him
lin 1712) from Shropshire, England, where
he learned his trade. AT that period, bal
lads and sermons and pamphlets We're sold,
not through the intermediary of a publisher
but over the printers COUNTER therefore,
the tradition IS reasonable that Fleet con-
ceived the plan of gathering into pamphlet
form to be sold over his, own counter the
versatile 1ingleS crOOned by his mother-in-
law as she nursed the little Fleets. TO her
original rhymes he added several reme
bered from his own English nursery days,
the whole making a pamphlet of fifteen
pages That there is nothing new under the
sun is easy to prove when applied to aur-
sery rhymes, for many of the best known
have been the common property of the cen
turles. JACK and Jill, for instance, were
Scandinavian mythology.
There was an old woman tossd in a
blanket
Seventeen times as high as the moon
was quoted in the time of Henry V, while
Hey, diddle, diddle' traces it's nonsense to
1861 and the boast of Jack Homer to
1917.
A well-preserved copy of Fleets PAM
phlet it's title page adorned with a goose of
a very long neck and wide-open bill and at
the bottom the inscription, Printed by It.
Fleet at his printing house. Pudding lane
1ll9; price, coppers, would bring more
than its weight in gold to-day. Alas for the
fame of r. Fleet and his melodious mother
in-law as well as the patience of musty
ant1quarians, not a Fleet pamphlet is
known to exist. and, alas again, there are
authorities who declare that one never
did exist, except in unreliable tradi-
ton. However, volume of ten fairy tales
with the title, Histories on contes du TENS
passe avec des moralitez," published in 1897
began, about the period ascribed to Fleets
nursery rhymes, 1719. to invite the tongue
of English translators The immediate
model for the French fairy tales was adj
mittedly the Italian Pentamorena, a volume
of fifty legends and romances, published in
1872 but the French canaille having ia
vorite proverb. 1T is one of Queen GooSe's
tales with which to greet incredible tales.
and said to owe origin to Bertha, mother of
Charlemagne, born with goose-webbed
foot this fact gave conception to the pic
ture accompanying PerraultS fairy tales,
an old woman turning the distaH and sur
rounded by a man, a girl, boy and cat.
all enchanted with her chatter, while in the
background doomed derisive placard,
"COntes de ma mere POye.
Whether Thomas Fleet had ever heard or
these tales in England. through some un-
the English translation Of Perraults fairy
tales with the use of their equivalent syn
onyTn Mother Goose" was that of Robert
Sander in 1929. The first Mother Goose"
nursery melodies, If we except Fleets, were
published at London about 1860. 1t has rcVer
been claimed that Fleet had augnt to do
with the so-called Mother Goose fairy
tales, but it is surely credible that, II he
printed any portion OF the disputed nursery
rhymes he had strong provocation 70 be
original in his use of the title Mother
Goose"
Meanwhile becoming prosperous. Fleet,
1871. moved his business and family from
Pudding lane to Cornhill. near the corner
of our present Washington and Water
streets. and here his printers sign of a
heart and crown remained till 1775. (When
crowns became unpopular, the crown in