Back to: The Twelve Days of Christmas Carols
The original author of the words Is unknown. The first two verses of “Away in a Manger” were probably written by an anonymous American sometime in the mid– 1800s. The song was probably passed down orally for years before it was picked up by the Lutheran editor. By the time it was first published, no one knew the identity of the composer. Methodist hymnologist Fred Gealy (1894-1976) noted the original two-stanza form probably originated among German Lutherans in Pennsylvania about 1885.
James R. Murray studied at the Musical Institute in North Reading, Massachusetts, under legendary teachers such as Lowell Mason, George Root, William Bradbury, and George Webb. His teachers marked him as one of the finest young musical minds they had ever encountered. Yet Murray didn’t stay the course in school. In 1862, in the midst of the American Civil War, Murray enlisted as an Army musician. During the darkest days of the war, he wrote his first song, “Daisy Deane.” Composed in a Virginia camp in 1863, the now-forgotten ditty established Murray as a songwriter.
After the war ended and armed with a wealth of new material, Murray joined the Root and Cady publishing house in Chicago, Illinois, as editor of the Song Messenger. In 1881, Murray moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, to work for the John Church Company, editing the Musical Visitor. He also took charge of the company’s publishing department. It was there that he happened upon “Away in a Manger.” In 1887, Murray published “Away in a Manger” in his children’s songbook,
An early appearance was on March 2, 1882, in the “Childrens’ Corner” section of the anti-masonic journal The Christian Cynosure. Under the heading “Luther’s Cradle Song”, an anonymous author contributed the first two verses
Two years before in 1885, the General Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in North America had published the song in their book Little Children’s Book: For School and Families. Printed in Philadelphia, Little Children’s Book listed no songwriter for the words to the song. The book stated that the tune—a much different one than that used by Murray—had been provided by J. E. Clark.
In 1892, a man named Charles Hutchinson Gabriel became the music director of Chicago’s Grace Methodist Episcopal Church. A poet, composer, and editor, it was in the Windy City that Gabriel wrote a legion of hymns—eventually more than seven hundred. The composer’s work included such standards as “Way of the Cross,” “My Savior’s Love,” “Higher Ground,” and “I Stand Amazed in the Presence.” It was while he was at Grace Church that Gabriel discovered not only the versions of “Away in a Manger” published by the Lutheran press and by James R. Murray, but also another, unknown version that contained a third verse. He published this new edition of the carol in Gabriel’s Vineyard Songs in 1892.
Throughout the next two decades, the popularity of “Away in a Manger” grew, as did the myth surrounding Martin Luther’s authorship of the piece. Illustrations were drawn and stories were told depicting Luther singing the song to German children. As the real author never came forward to dispute the growing legend, the facts of the carol’s origination became more and more diluted. This came from Murray – Murray wrote that the song was written by the German reformer Rev. Martin Luther (1483 – 1546),
Richard Hill, in a comprehensive study of the carol written in 1945, suggested that “Away in a Manger” might have originated in “a little play for children to act or a story about Luther celebrating Christmas with his children”, likely connected with the 400th anniversary of the reformer’s birth in 1883.
During World War I, while Germany battled the United States, many groups began to sing the words to “Away in a Manger” with the old Scottish tune “Flow Gently Sweet Afton.” This rendition might well have been a protest against any and all things German. Yet soon after the war, when most Americans had again embraced the original tune.
In 1945, as Americans again battled Germany in a world war, American writer Richard S. Hill sorted through the now seventy-year-old mystery concerning the carol’s origin. He determined that James R. Murray himself probably wrote the music long coupled with “Away in a Manger.” Yet as Murray always took credit when he composed a song, it is doubtful that he would have deflected the credit to Martin Luther. It’s more likely that Murray was given the song and simply adapted the existing German-influenced melody into four-part harmony for his book. It also seems likely that Murray received the story of Martin Luther writing the piece from the person who originally gave him the song.