Dundor and Blixem! Early reprinting of "A Visit from St. Nicholas" in the Missouri REPUBLICAN

Ho ho ho! 🎅🎅🎅 After renewing my subscription to newspapers.com I was immediately rewarded when my search for the phrase "settled our brains" in 19th century papers before 1860 yielded a very early appearance of "A Visit from St. Nicholas" in the Missouri Republican for February 2, 1824. 🎁 

Reprinted "From the Troy Sentinel" (December 23, 1823) under the major heading "Selected Poetry," this previously unrecorded western version includes the original preface by Sentinel editor Orville Holley and generally follows the Sentinel text, more closely than the earlier reprinting in the Charleston Mercury (January 16, 1824) that introduced variant forms such as a singular "hope" (instead of "hopes") in the fourth line and "nested" (instead of "nestled") in the fifth. One change unique to the Missouri version (compared with other early reprintings) has the children's stockings "hanging" instead of "hung" by the chimney with care. Another noteworthy departure from the Sentinel base-text in the Missouri version occurs in the roll of reindeer names. Instead of "Dunder and Blixem" the Republican gives "Dundor and Blixem." Probably a typesetting error, unless they liked the ring of "Dundor" better than "Dunder" in old St. Louis. 

Both forms, hanging and Dundor, occur in one other version I have found, the "Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas" in the Little Rock, Arkansas Gazette for December 25, 1827. Like the 1824 Missouri version, the 1827 Arkansas version also reprints the editorial preface, "From the Troy Sentinel." Evidently the Arkansas version was not copied directly from the Troy original, but from the Missouri Republican or similar text with stockings "hanging" rather than "hung," and "Dundor" (not "Dunder") flying with Blixem.

A Merry Christmas. 1909 postcard via NYPL Digital Collections

Along with earlier reprintings from the Troy Sentinel in Philadelphia, Salem, Hartford, Cooperstown, Norwich, and Charleston, and the later reprinting in Arkansas, the St. Louis version transcribed below is not listed in the glorious compendium by Nancy H. Marshall, The Night Before Christmas: A Descriptive Bibliography of Clement Clarke Moore's Immortal Poem (New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll Press, 2002). 

• https://www.oakknoll.com/pages/books/69264/nancy-h-marshall/night-before-christmas-a-descriptive-bibliography-of-clement-clarke-moores-immortal-poem-the

Let's don't forget to pencil in the following items, somewhere near the start of Marshall's indispensable BIBLIOGRAPHIC ENTRIES on page 3:

• Poulson's American Daily Advertiser (Philadelphia, PA). Tuesday, December 30, 1823, p. 2, col. 6. 

• Essex Register (Salem, MA). Monday, January 5, 1824, p. 4, col. 1. 

• Connecticut Mirror (Hartford, CT). Monday, January 5, 1824, p. 3, col. 1.

• The Watch-Tower (Coooperstown, NY). Monday, January 12, 1824, p. 3, col. 3.

• Norwich Courier (Norwich, CT). Wednesday, January 14, 1824, p. 4, col. 1.

• Charleston Mercury (Charleston, SC). Friday, January 16, 1824, p. 2, col. 5.

• Missouri Republican (St. Louis, MO). Monday, February 2, 1824, p. 4, col. 1. 

• Arkansas Gazette (Little Rock, AR). Tuesday, December 25, 1827, p. 4, col. 1.

In 1824 the Missouri Republican was still a weekly newspaper, published in St. Louis by Edward Charless and edited by Josiah Spalding (1793-1852), a Yale grad and lawyer in St. Louis.  

Missouri Republican - April 9, 1823

Newly made a stepfather through his marriage (in April of the previous year) to the widow Mrs. Agnes P. Gay, a local schoolteacher with two children, Spalding now had the best of reasons to like and promote the delightful rhymes about Santa Claus, as well as the family oriented preface by Orville L. Holley that accompanied the first printing of "A Visit from St. Nicholas." 

Who wrote it was still a mystery. The Christmas poet's identity would not formally be revealed to the public at large until 1837, when four poems by a highly respected professor of Hebrew named Clement C. Moore including "A Visit From St. Nicholas" appeared under Moore's name in the New-York Book of Poetry, edited by Charles Fenno Hoffman (New York: George Dearborn, 1837). A few years later, responding to a false claim of authorship (quickly retracted) in the Washington, D.C. National Intelligencer, Dr. Moore explained in a letter to the editor of the New York American (there published on March 1, 1844) that he had composed "some lines, describing a visit from St. Nicholas" many years before, intended "not for publication, but to amuse my children." 

As indicated on Newspapers.com, files of the Missouri Republican are made available courtesy of the State Historical Society of Missouri. 

A Visit from St. Nicholas Feb 2, 1824 The Missouri Republican (St. Louis, Missouri) Newspapers.com

ACCOUNT OF A VISIT FROM ST. NICHOLAS

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all thro' the house,

Not a creature was stirring not even a mouse; 

The stockings were hanging by the chimney with care

In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;

The children were nestled all snug in their beds

While visions of sugar plums danc'd at their heads,

And Mama in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap

Had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap--

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter.

I sprung from the bed to see what was the matter,

Away to the window I flew like a flash.

Tore open the shutters, and threw up the sash

The moon on the breast of the new fallen snow,

Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below;

When, what to my wondering eyes should appear, 

But a miniature sleigh, and eight timy rein deer,

With a little old driver, so lively and quick,

I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick,

More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,

And he whistled, and shouted, and call'd them by name

"Now Dasher now! Dancer, now Prancer and Vixen

"On Comet on! Cupid, on! Dundor and Blixem;

"To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!

"Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!"

As dry leaves before the wild hurricane fly,

When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky

So up to the house top the coursers they flew,

With the sleigh full of Toys--and St. Nicholas too

And then in a twinkling I heard on the roof

The prancing and pawing of each little hoof, 

As I drew in my head and was turning around,

Down the chimney St Nicholas came with a bound. 

He was dress'd all in fur, from his head to his foot

And his cloaths were all tarnish'd with ashes and soot;

A bundle of toys was flung on his back,

And he look'd like a pedlar just opening his pack

His eyes--how they twinkled! his dimples how merry,

His cheeks were like roses his nose like a cherry,

His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow

And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow;

The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth

And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath

He had a broad face and a little round belly

That shook when he laughed like a bowl full of jelly;

He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,

And I laughed when I saw him inspite of myself

A wink of his eye and a twist of his head

Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread,

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work;

And fill'd all the stockings, then turn'd with a jirk,

And laying his finger aside of his nose

And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose.

He sprung to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,

And away they all flew like the down [dawn?] of a thistle

But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight--

Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night

Related posts

• First printing of A Visit from St. Nicholas in the Troy, New York Sentinel 
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2019/04/first-printing-of-visit-from-st-nicholas.html

• 1823 reprinting in Poulson's American Daily Advertiser
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2022/12/1823-version-of-visit-from-st-nicholas.html 

• Charleston Mercury, early versions of A Visit from St. Nicholas 
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2022/12/1823-version-of-visit-from-st-nicholas.html 

First printing of A Visit from St Nicholas

Now accessible online courtesy of Troy Public Library and New York State Historic Newspapers, the first printing of "A Visit from St. Nicholas," anonymously published in the Troy Sentinel on December 23, 1823:

• https://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/?a=d&d=tts18231223-01.1.3&e=23-12-1823

Troy Sentinel - December 23, 1823
Troy Public Library via NYS Historic Newspapers

We know not to whom we are indebted for the following description of that unwearied patron of children—that homely, but delightful personification of parental kindness—SANTE CLAUS, his costume and his equipage, as he goes about visiting the fire-sides of this happy land, laden with Christmas bounties; but, from whomsoever it may have come, we give thanks for it. There is, to our apprehension, a spirit of cordial goodness in it, a playfulness of fancy, and a benevolent alacrity to enter into the feelings and promote the simple pleasures of children, which are altogether charming. We hope our little patrons, both lads and lasses, will accept it as proof of our unfeigned good will toward them—as a token of our warmest wish that they may have many a merry Christmas; that they may long retain their beautiful relish for those unbought, homebred joys, which derive their flavor from filial piety and fraternal love, and which they may be assured are the least alloyed that time can furnish them; and that they may never part with that simplicity of character, which is their own fairest ornament, and for the sake of which they have been pronounced, by authority which none can gainsay, the types of such as shall inherit the kingdom of heaven. 

For the Sentinel.

ACCOUNT OF A VISIT FROM ST. NICHOLAS.

’Twas the night before Christmas, when all thro’ the house,
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar plums danc’d in their heads,
And Mama in her ’kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap—
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprung from the bed to see what was the matter,
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters, and threw up the sash.
The moon on the breast of the new fallen snow,
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below;
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny rein-deer,
With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and call’d them by name:
“Now! Dasher, now! Dancer, now! Prancer, and Vixen,
“On! Comet, on! Cupid, on! Dunder and Blixem;
“To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
“Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!”
As dry leaves before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of Toys—and St. Nicholas too:
And then in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound:
He was dress’d all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnish’d with ashes and soot;
A bundle of toys was flung on his back,
And he look’d like a peddler just opening his pack:
His eyes—how they twinkled! his dimples how merry,
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry;
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow;
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.
He had a broad face, and a little round belly
That shook when he laugh’d, like a bowl full of jelly:
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laugh’d when I saw him in spite of myself;
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And fill’d all the stockings; then turn’d with a jirk,
And laying his finger aside of his nose
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose.
He sprung to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle:
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight—
Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

When the Sentinel reprinted the Christmas piece in 1829, editor Orville L. Holley knew who wrote it. Holley described its previously unidentified author as a modest "scholar" and "writer" who was a native and resident of New York City. Holley's 1829 remarks, also accessible now via NYS Historic Newspapers, allude to the poet and seminary professor Clement C. Moore. Playfully emphasizing the word more, Holley puns on the surname of the unnamed but not unknown author:

Troy Sentinel - January 20, 1829
Troy Public Library via NYS Historic Newspapers

Santa Claus.--A few days since, the Editors of the N. Y. Courier, at the request of a lady, inserted some lines descriptive of one of the Christmas visits of that good old Dutch saint, St. Nicholas, and at the same time applied to our Albany neighbors for information as to the author. That information, we apprehend, the Albany editors cannot give. The lines were first published in this paper. They came to us from a manuscript copy in possession of a lady in this city. We have been given to understand that the author of them belongs, by birth and residence, to the city of New York, and that he is a gentleman of more merit as a scholar and a writer than many of more noisy pretensions. We republish the lines in a preceding column, just as they originally appeared, because we still think of them as at first, and for the satisfaction of our brethren of the Courier, one of whom, at least, is an Arcadian.

In the Troy Library copy, the printed text of "A Visit from St. Nicholas" on page 2 is gone; somebody carefully clipped the poem from this issue (January 20, 1829) of the Troy Sentinel.

As Holley later revealed in print, he actually learned who wrote "The Night Before Christmas" only a few months (not years) after its first publication in the Troy Sentinel. Holley's 1836 comments are transcribed below from the Ontario Repository and Freeman which he then edited in Canandaigua, New York:

SANTA CLAUS, WITH HIS CHRISTMAS GIFTS.

The following lines appeared in print for the first time—though very often copied since—in the Troy Sentinel of December 23, 1823, which paper we then conducted. They were introduced, on that occasion, with the following remarks; which, as they continue to be a true expression of our opinion of the charming simplicity and cordiality of the lines, as well as of our unchanged feelings toward the little people to whom they are addressed, we repeat them, only observing that although when we first published them, we did not know who wrote them, yet, not many months afterwards we learnt that they came from the pen of a most accomplished scholar and and estimable man, a professor in one of our colleges.... 

--found at NYS Historic Newspapers. This item was reprinted the following week in the Auburn Journal and Advertiser on Wednesday, January 4, 1837.

In 1837, Moore submitted four poems for publication in The New-York Book of Poetry, including "A Visit from St. Nicholas." Two 1840 anthologies of American poetry also credit Moore as the author of "A Visit from St. Nicholas":

• The Poets of America, edited by John Keese, credits "C. C. Moore" with authorship of "A Visit form St. Nicholas."

•  Selections from the American Poets, edited by William Cullen Bryant, reprints "A Visit from St Nicholas" under the name of "Clement C. Moore."

After a mistaken attribution to Joseph Wood was printed in the Washington National Intelligencer, Moore contacted Norman Tuttle, former publisher of the defunct Troy Sentinel. Only Tuttle's reply is extant (because Moore and his family saved it). As Seth Kaller notes,

Tuttle's letter is written on the reverse of a broadside version of the poem containing Moore’s autograph corrections. --The Authorship of The Night Before Christmas

Moore, evidently prompted by the false attribution recently published in the influential National Intelligencer, must have asked Tuttle about the circumstances of the poem's first publication in Troy. Presumably Moore wondered if Wood or anyone else had ever claimed authorship. Norman Tuttle's reply to Clement Clarke Moore is dated February 26, 1844 (Museum of the City of New York. 54.331.17b). Tuttle states he eventually learned of Moore's authorship and does not mention any other claim. Possibly without waiting to hear back from Tuttle, Moore then directly and unambiguously asserted his claim to authorship in a published letter to the editor of The New York American. Re-asserted, rather, considering Moore's prior submission of "A Visit from St. Nicholas" aka The Night Before Christmas with three other poems for publication in the 1837 New-York Book of Poetry. Dated February 27, 1844, Moore's letter to Charles King appeared in the American on March 1, 1844.

Clement C. Moore on the authorship of "A Visit from St. Nicholas"
New York American, March 1, 1844

LINES TO ST. NICHOLAS.--The following note from our friend C. C. Moore, the author of those lines which every child among us delights to hear, about Christmas, and which parents with not less delight recite, brings to our notice, one of the boldest acts of plagiarism of which we have any recollection. We ask the National Intelligencer to have the goodness to insert Mr. Moore's note--and if possible to elucidate the mistake, if such it be, or fraud attempted in respect of such well known lines. 

New York, Feb. 27, 1844 

Dear Sir--My attention was, a few days ago, directed to the following communication, which appears in the National Intelligencer of the 25th of December last.

"Washington, Dec. 22d, 1843.

Gentlemen--
The enclosed lines were written by Joseph Wood, artist, for the National Intelligencer, and published in that paper in 1827 or 1828, as you may perceive from your files. By republishing them, as the composition of Mr. Wood you will gratify one who has now few sources of pleasure left. Perhaps you may comply with this request, if it be only for 'auld lang syne.'" 

The above is printed immediately over some lines, describing a visit from St. Nicholas, which I wrote many years ago, I think somewhere between 1823 and 1824, not for publication, but to amuse my children. They, however, found their way, to my great surprise, in the Troy Sentinel: nor did I know, until lately, how they got there. When "The New York Book" was about to be published, I was applied to for some contribution to the work. Accordingly, I gave the publisher several pieces, among which was the "Visit from St. Nicholas." It was printed under my name, and has frequently since been republished, in your paper among others, with my name attached to it.  

Under these circumstances, I feel it incumbent on me not to remain silent, while so bold a claim, as the above quoted, is laid to my literary property, however small the intrinsic value of that property may be. 

The New York Book was published in 1827 [1837]. 

Yours, truly and respectfully,   

CLEMENT C. MOORE

Chas. King, Esq.

"A Visit from St. Nicholas" appears on pages 124-127 in Clement C. Moore's 1844 volume, Poems. Digitized versions of these books are accessible online courtesy of HathiTrust Digital Library:

• https://hdl.handle.net/2027/loc.ark:/13960/t51g17050?urlappend=%3Bseq=6
• https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc2.ark:/13960/t5t727z07?urlappend=%3Bseq=140

and the Internet Archive:

•  https://archive.org/details/poems00moor/page/124
•  https://archive.org/details/poemsmoor00moorrich/page/124

Moore graciously made handwritten copies of the poem for admirers. Four "unquestionably authentic" copies of "A Visit from St. Nicholas" in Moore's distinctive hand are known to exist still, according to Seth Kaller. One surviving manuscript copy at The New-York Historical Society is accompanied by a key witness letter (from a cousin of Henry Livingston, Jr.) dated March 15, 1862, strongly affirming Clement C. Moore's authorship, and providing a brief explanation of how his poem got to Troy in the first place. Addressed to the Librarian of the Historical Society, the letter from T. W. C. Moore was first published in The New York Historical Society Quarterly Bulletin 2.4 (January 1919) pages 111-115. Digitized volumes, accessible online:

• https://books.google.com/books?id=pWtIAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA111&lpg#v=onepage&q&f=false
• https://archive.org/details/newyorkhistorica00newy/page/n239
• https://hdl.handle.net/2027/njp.32101076450293?urlappend=%3Bseq=120
• https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015039786853?urlappend=%3Bseq=216

Related posts:

• More testimony from Orville Holley
  http://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2016/02/more-testimony-from-orville-l-holley.html 

• National Intelligencer requested to correct mistaken attribution http://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2016/10/national-intelligencer-requested-to.html

• Clement C. Moore's published letter http://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2017/01/clement-c-moores-published-letter-on.html

• Lines written after a snow-storm, 1824 and 1844 versions https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2019/04/lines-written-after-snow-storm-by.html

• How we know Clement C. Moore wrote The Night Before Christmas http://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2017/05/how-we-know-that-clement-c-moore-wrote.html

• Champ prevails! review of The Fight for "The Night"
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2023/12/champ-prevails-experts-foiled-truth.html 

• Livingston cousin T. W. C. Moore
  http://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2018/12/livingston-cousin-t-w-c-moore.html

• Pre-1844 attributions to Clement C. Moore
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2018/08/pre-1844-attributions-of-visit-from-st.html

• Dunder-Donder, Blixem-Blixen, Dunder Mifflin, Donder and Blitzen
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2017/03/dunder-donder-blixem-blixen-dunder.html

• Eight great favorite expressions
  http://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2017/04/eight-great-favorite-expressions-of.html

• Samuel Turner's 1850 dedication
  http://melvilliana.blogspot.com/search?q=moore+dedication+samuel

• Evert Duyckinck on Clement C. Moore http://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2017/02/evert-duyckinck-on-clement-c-moore-one.html

• New York Herald obituary
  http://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2017/10/new-york-herald-obit-of-clement-c-moore.html

More testimony from Orville L. Holley for Clement C. Moore's authorship of "A Visit from St. Nicholas," aka "The Night Before Christmas"

Ontario Repository and Freeman - December 28, 1836
via NYS Historic Newspapers

With only 327 shopping days left, of course I had to pre-order Who Wrote "the Night before Christmas"? by MacDonald P. Jackson. As I learned from a post by Julio Gianni Toro SanMartin to the Oxfraud facebook page, Professor Jackson's book is due out in Spring/Summer 2016.

"Published anonymously in 1823, "The Night Before Christmas" has traditionally been attributed to Clement Clarke Moore (1779-1863), who included it in his Poems (1844). But descendants of Henry Livingston (1748-1828) claim that he read it to his children as his own creation long before Moore is alleged to have composed it. This book evaluates the opposing arguments and for the first time uses the author-attribution techniques of modern computational stylistics to settle the long-standing controversy. Both writers left substantial bodies of verse, which are analyzed for distinguishing characteristics. Employing a range of tests and introducing a new one-statistical analysis of phonemes-this study identifies the true author and makes a significant contribution to the growing field of attribution studies." --Publisher's Blurb

Notwithstanding Don Foster's entertaining take in the Christmassy chapter 6 of Author Unknown: On the Trail of Anonymous (Henry Holt and Company, 2000), all the documentary and historical evidence remains on the side of Clement Clarke Moore. Well there's no glory left in taking down Professor Foster's practice of authorship attribution, not after Brian Vickers (and before Vickers, Richard J. Kennedy on Shaksper) heroically slammed it to the Devil in Counterfeiting Shakespeare.

About the renowned Christmas poem, excellent rebuttals of old and revived claims for Henry Livingston, Jr. may still be found online:

• by Seth Kaller of Seth Kaller, Inc. 
  https://www.sethkaller.com/about/educational/tnbc/
  
  
and by

• Stephen Nissenbaum, author of The Battle for Christmas, at Common Place 
  https://commonplace.online/article/there-arose-such-a-clatter

Poems / by Clement C. Moore, courtesy of HathiTrust Digital Library:

Livingston advocates have their own authorship site devoted to Livingston and Moore, also a valuable resource with texts by both men. But as Andrea Koczela rightly concluded in her December 2013 blog post,

Unless more evidence emerges, Moore will remain the acknowledged and celebrated author of “The Night before Christmas.”

Stylometry results are always fun to look at. Hard style numbers are especially satisfying to have in conjunction with other kinds of evidence. In this case, if advanced stylometry or "computational stylistics" were to yield evidence for Livingston's authorship, an interesting problem might confront us in the imbalance between documentary evidence and style data.What happens when they don't agree? Can stylistics alone trump recorded history? Prove authorship? Not that I would expect such a dramatic turnaround here. The diction of "The Night Before Christmas" clearly belongs to Moore, as the online comparison of phraseology by Joe Nickell indicates. While we're eagerly waiting for Macdonald P. Jackson to tell us about function words and phonemes, here's another piece of historical evidence for Clement C. Moore. As long known, veteran newspaper editor Orville L. Holley tipped readers to the author's identity in 1829 when he introduced a holiday reprinting of the instant classic as follows:

Five years after the first publication of the legend in the Troy Sentinel, the name of the author was disclosed to the editor of that journal. With considerable delicacy of manner, he disguisedly confessed his knowledge of it on January 20th, 1829, by saying:

"A few days since the editors of the New York Courier, at the request of a lady, inserted some lines descriptive of one of the Christmas visits of that good old Dutch saint, St. Nicholas, and at the same time applied to our Albany neighbors for information as to the author. That information, we apprehend, the Albany editors cannot give. The lines were first published in this paper. They came to us from a manuscript in possession of a lady in this city. We have been given to understand that the author of them belongs by birth and residence to the city of New York, and that he is a gentleman of more merit as a scholar and a writer than many of more noisy pretensions. We republish the lines in a preceding column just as they originally appeared, because we still think of them as at first, and for the satisfaction of our brethren of the Courier, one of whom, at least, is an Arcadian." --Troy's One Hundred Years

In the 1836 item below, transcribed from the Ontario Repository and Freeman (Canandaigua, New York), the same editor Orville L. Holley states that he learned of the author's true identity only months, not years, after printing the poem in the Troy Sentinel.

SANTA CLAUS, WITH HIS CHRISTMAS GIFTS.

The following lines appeared in print for the first time—though very often copied since—in the Troy Sentinel of December 23, 1823, which paper we then conducted. They were introduced, on that occasion, with the following remarks; which, as they continue to be a true expression of our opinion of the charming simplicity and cordiality of the lines, as well as of our unchanged feelings toward the little people to whom they are addressed, we repeat them, only observing that although when we first published them, we did not know who wrote them, yet, not many months afterwards we learnt that they came from the pen of a most accomplished scholar and and estimable man, a professor in one of our colleges.... 

--found at NYS Historic Newspapers. This item was reprinted the following week in the Auburn Journal and Advertiser on Wednesday, January 4, 1837. 

Herman Melville's future friend Charles Fenno Hoffman identified Clement C. Moore by name as the author of "A Visit from St. Nicholas," when the poem appeared in the collection that Hoffman edited titled The New-York Book of Poetry. Hershel Parker has a good bit on Hoffman's later dealings with Gansevoort Melville and the author of Typee in Herman Melville: A Biography V1.471. The review of Hoffman's edition in the January 1837 American Monthly Magazine described the The New-York Book of Poetry as "a collection of fugitive poetry, selected from the annuals and periodicals, and other sources, intermingled with extracts from the poems of Drake, Sands, Paulding, Leggett, Nack, and others, whose poetical writings have been heretofore published in other forms; all the writers being native New-Yorkers." This review reprinted "A Visit from St. Nicholas" with a few words of introduction:

The lines which follow have been much admired, and have appeared in a variety of publications, but never, we believe, before under the name of the real author—CLEMENT C. MOORE.  --American Monthly Magazine, January 1837

For anyone craving more Melville, here you go--two fine Santa Claus poems for dessert:

• A Dutch Christmas Up the Hudson in the Time of Patroons

• Stockings in the Farm-House Chimney

 Related posts:

• Computer error, please try again

• First printing of A Visit from St Nicholas

• Livingston Cousin T. W. C. Moore

• Key witness letter by Livingston cousin TWC Moore

• How we know Clement C. Moore wrote The Night Before Christmas

• Clement C. Moore's published letter on his authorship of "A Visit from St. Nicholas"

• National Intelligencer requested to correct mistaken attribution  

• Dunder and Blixem to Donder and Blitzen

• Clement Moore's poem Lines Written after a Snow-storm in the Troy Sentine

• 1824 reprinting in the Geneva Palladium 

• High praise for Moore's Poems in the Literary World - review by William Alfred Jones