Bessy Bell and Mary Gray- (NY) 1869 Miller/Barry A
[Following Halliwell's inclusion of two verses of Bessy Bell and Mary Gray in his 1842 book, The Nursery Rhymes of England, the nursery rhyme verses appeared in the US in Mother Goose's Melodies (James Miller, N.Y., 1869) which was reprinted in Mother Goose's Melodies, or, Songs for the Nursery - Page 21, 1878; No. 24. See also BBM, 1929 where it is the A version.
The nursery rhyme was collected in Virgina (see: Davis A) in 1916.
According to Kittredge: (See notes below) Major Barry's date of 1666 should be put back twenty years. Perth and the neighborhood (Lednock is seven miles distant) were fearfully ravaged by the plague in 1645 and a year or two following. Three thousand people are said to have perished. Scotland escaped the pestilence of 1665-66.
R. Matteson 2013]
Bessy Bell and Mary Gray- From: Mother Goose's Melodies (James Miller, N.Y., 1869); Reprinted in Mother Goose's Melodies, or, Songs for the Nursery - Page 21; 1878; No. 24
Bessy Bell and Mary Gray,
They were two bonny lasses;
They built their house upon the lea,
And covered it with rashes.
Bessy kept the garden gate,
And Mary kept the pantry;
Bessy always had to wait,
While Mary lived in plenty.
NOTES: No. 24, p. 21. — Bessy Bell and Mary Gray. These were two celebrated beauties, daughters of two country gentlemen who resided in the neighborhood of Perth. When the plague of 1666 broke out in that vicinity, they retired into solitude, to avoid infection, and built themselves a bower in a secluded spot called Burn Brae, on a small streamlet tributary to the Almond. There they lived together, being supplied with food and other necessaries by a young man whom they both tenderly loved. After a time he unwittingly caught and communicated to them the fatal contagion, of which they all three soon died.