James Lord Pierpont, the man who wrote “Jingle Bells” lived in Valdosta. Pierpont was born in Boston in 1822. His father, John Pierpont, was a minister. His mother was Mary Lord Pierpont. James did not want to be a minister and enjoyed travel. He spent time as a sailor and as a prospector for gold in California. In the 1850s he moved to Georgia—first Savannah, and later to Valdosta. In 1886, James and Eliza moved to Winter Haven, Florida where Eliza died in 1889, and James in 1893. They are both buried in the Purse-Pierpont plot in Savannah’s Laurel Grove Cemetery. After the Civil War, Pierpont and his wife moved to Valdosta, where he was a church organist and taught music. They later moved to Quitman.

No one knows where Pierpont wrote Jingle Bells. Some think he wrote it while living in Massachusetts, however the song was copyrighted in 1857, while Pierpont was living in Savannah.