Author of THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS glimpsed at Newport, 1855

"That mild, delicate-looking, elderly gentleman, benevolently gazing from his rocking chair, has rejoiced more children than PETER PARLEY; it is the venerable and benign author of The Night before Christmas, &c."

-- Henry Theodore Tuckerman writing "From Newport" to the New York Daily Times (August 6, 1855) over the pseudonym, CANONICUS. 

06 Aug 1855, Mon The New York Times (New York, New York) Newspapers.com

Clement C. Moore had been a summer resident in Newport, Rhode Island since 1850 when he retired from teaching Hebrew at the General Theological Seminary in New York City. "Canonicus," the Newport correspondent who espied the "venerable and benign author of The Night before Christmas" on his rocker, was Herman Melville's friend Henry Theodore Tuckerman. As stated in the Cyclopædia of American Literature Volume 2, edited by Evert A. Duyckinck and George L. Duyckinck (New York: Charles Scribner, 1856), Tuckerman often summered in Newport. In 1854-1855 Tuckerman contributed letters with news and gossip "From Newport" to the New York Times, printed there over the pseudonym,"Canonicus." This was one of several aliases Tuckerman used when writing for newspapers and magazines. As shown previously on Melvilliana, Henry T. Tuckerman was also "KNICK," the New York correspondent of the Boston Evening Transcript. 

• https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2015/10/h-t-tuckerman-knick-in-boston-evening.html

Under another nom-de-plume, "Theodore Clarence," Tuckerman wrote for The Galaxy: A Magazine of Entertaining Reading, as he revealed in a letter to Evert A. Duyckinck dated May 12, 1868. The article on Essays and Essay Writing in the Galaxy for August 1866 is by Theodore Clarence =  Tuckerman.

Henry T. Tuckerman confided his secret identity as "Canonicus" to Evert A. Duyckinck in a letter from Newport dated August 13, 1855. 

"If you see the N. Y. Times you may have noticed some letters from here signed 'Canonicus'--by your humble servant--but this is strictly inter nos, remember."

Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library. "Letters to E.A. Duyckinck and G. Duyckinck" The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1845 - 1861. https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/d8454190-efa3-0133-7e83-00505686a51c 

Subsequently in the letter from Newport published in the New York Daily Times on August 15, 1855, the "old-fashioned courtesy" modeled by former newspaper editor Charles King (by then President of Columbia College) would prompt "Canonicus" to reminisce about

the palmy days of the New-York American, when CHARLIE HOFFMAN wrote letters from the West in its columns, and "Ianthe" impassioned poetry," and its editor was, indeed, a gentleman of the press.

Charles King was still editor when the New York American (March 1, 1844) published a letter from Clement C. Moore, affirming his already well-known authorship of "A Visit from St. Nicholas" aka "'Twas the Night Before Christmas." King was an old friend of Clement C. Moore, and also of Herman Melville's parents before 1830, when the family lived in New York City. 

Ianthe was the pseudonym of New York poet Emma C. Embury.

Charlie Hoffman is of course Charles Fenno Hoffman, another mutual friend (along with Dr. John Wakefield Francis) of Melville and Tuckerman. Hoffman edited the New-York Book of Poetry, the 1837 collection with the famous Christmas poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas" on pages 217-219, rightly attributed to Clement C. Moore. 

• https://archive.org/details/newyorkbookpoet00moorgoog/page/n232/mode/2up

Clement C. Moore
via The New York Public Library Digital Collections

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Related posts

• H. T. Tuckerman = KNICK in the Boston Evening Transcript
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2015/10/h-t-tuckerman-knick-in-boston-evening.html

• Tuckerman aka Knick on ISRAEL POTTER
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2019/07/tuckerman-aka-knick-on-israel-potter.html

• Tuckerman remembers the smiling face of dear old Clement Moore
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2017/06/henry-t-tuckerman-remembers-smiling.html

• Dr. Francis and Clement C. Moore
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2016/11/dr-francis-and-clement-c-moore.html