"Scholars do not agree about the identity of the original Mother Goose, the legendary creator of nursery rhymes that have endured though the centuries. But the real American Mother Goose was a Boston grandmother named Elizabeth Foster Goose, whose son-in-law, Thomas Fleet, 'was almost driven distracted' by her singing, rhyming and storytelling until, in 1719, he turned her creations into a profit by publishing them in a pamphlet, Mother Goose Melodies. This launched his mother-in-law into immortality.
"Mother Goose" was born Elizabeth Foster in Charleston, Massachusetts, in 1655. When she was 27 she married Isaac Goose (originally Vergoose) and took over the mothering of the 55-year-old widower's ten children. She bore Goose six additional children.
One of her daughters, also named Elizabeth, married Thomas Fleet, an exiled printed from England who had a shop on Boston's Pudding Lane. Grandmother Elizabeth often minded the couples' seven children and entertained them endlessly with her stories in rhyme.
"Mother Goose" died in Boston in 1757 at the age of 92 and was buried in the Old Granary Burying Ground.
I'm sure you recognize this: "Old mother Hubbard went to her cupboard to give her poor dog a bone. When she got there, the cupboard was bare and so the poor dog had none."
(Big thanks to the July 1981 issue of American History Illustrated for this editorial bit penned by Peggy Robbins.)
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