Francis P. Lee on Clement C. Moore's authorship of The Night Before Christmas

Link below for update with new info posted 02/07/2025

• https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2025/02/santa-claus-in-morristown-new-jersey.html

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Another reason to love footnotes--not that we need one here at Melvilliana. As documented in a footnote to chapter 4 of Stephen Nissenbaum's The Battle for Christmas, Sandra D. Hayslette found an early reference to Clement C. Moore's authorship of "A Visit from St. Nicholas," aka "The Night Before Christmas," in the manuscript diary of Francis Prioleau Lee (1814-1847). While a student at General Theological Seminary in New York, Francis P. Lee described a holiday fair in Morristown, New Jersey on New Year's Eve, 1833 1834! that

"was held...under the auspices of a figure called St. Nicholas who was robed in fur, and dressed according to the description of Prof. Moore in his poem."  --quoted by Stephen Nissenbaum in The Battle For Christmas, fn 85, page 345.

The footnote by Nissenbaum locates the diary of Francis P. Lee "in the archives of the General Theological Seminary."

• http://library.gts.edu/special-collections/

However, the online finding aid for the Francis P. Lee Papers, 1727-1930 (Mss. 65 L51 and Acc. 2011.285) at the Special Collections Research Center, Swem Library, College of William and Mary. indicates that the William & Mary library now holds both the private journal and a transcription. Specifically, these items are held with Series 2: Acc. 2011.285 Addition, 1827-1933 in Box 11, Folders 2 and 3.

Preferred Citation

Francis P. Lee Papers, Manuscripts and Rare Books Department, Swem Library, College of William and Mary. 

[http://ead.lib.virginia.edu/vivaxtf/view?docId=wm/viw00064.xml]

Unless there are two diaries, this here looks like the one referenced in The Battle for Christmas:

Folder 2: Francis P. Lee Diary, 1833-1835

Rev. Lee died young in Mobile, Alabama during the epidemic of yellow fever there on September 11, 1847. Below, the obituary of Francis Prioleau Lee that appeared in the Protestant Churchman on November 27, 1847: 

One of the victims of the recent epidemic at Mobile, was the REV. FRANCIS PRIOLEAU LEE, rector of Christ Church, in that city. We had hoped that, ere this, a proper obituary notice would have appeared in our columns, from the hand of one more competent than ourselves to sketch his character, and record those Christian virtues which shed peculiar brightness over the closing years of his life and ministry. It was our lot to be intimately associated with Mr. Lee, during the whole course of study and preparation for the sacred ministry, in the General Theological Seminary. His talents commanded the respect and admiration of his instructors and fellow-students, and gave high promise of usefulness to the Church, while his frank, manly, generous disposition, sanctified by deep but unaffected piety, won and retained for him the unqualified confidence and warm affection of his friends. Although, through the whole course of his ministry, he had approved himself an active and zealous servant of Christ, in the great work which His Church has been commissioned to perform, his faithfulness and self-devotion were most conspicuous in the last years of his life. On his removal to Mobile, the influence of his piety, energy, and eloquence, were distinctly felt in a larger sphere of labor than any to which he had hitherto been called. He was appointed, we believe, as one of the delegates from the Diocese of Alabama to the late General Convention, and was only prevented from attending it by the determination not to desert his post during the fatal epidemic which prevailed in his parish, and to which he fell a victim on the 11th of September, at the age of thirty-three. "He died," says a contemporary journal, quoted in the Churchman, "as he had lived, faithfully discharging the duties of a zealous and devoted pastor. While visiting the sick, and imparting the consolations of religion to the dying, he himself contracted the fatal disease, which terminated his useful life; thus, in the midst of his pious and self-sacrificing labors, he fell a martyr, as did his divine Master, to the good of others. 'Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his.'"

Faith lifts the tearful eye from the grave that contains his dust, to those heavenly regions where the faithful rest in glory. "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord."

"Listen! it is no dream: th' apostle's trump

Gives earnest of th' Archangel's--calmly now

Our hearts yet beating high

To that victorious lay;

Most like a warrior to the martial dirge

Of a true comrade, in the grave we trust

Our treasure for a while;

And if a tear steal down,

If human anguish o'er the shaded brow

Pass shuddering, and at our brother's name

Once and again the thought

Comes sadly, "He is gone;

THOU who canst change the heart and raise the dead,

As thou art by to soothe our parting hour,

Prepare us all to meet

With him before thy throne."

-- Protestant Churchman, November 27, 1847.

Related post

• Santa Claus in the Morristown New Jersey Court House
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2025/02/santa-claus-in-morristown-new-jersey.html