Who Really Wrote The Night Before Christmas?

The origins of the poem remain steeped in controversy.

As the story goes,  Clement Clarke Moore wrote “A Visit from St. Nicholas” as a Christmas gift for his two daughters. He is said to have told the New-York Historical Society that his inspiration for St. Nicholas was “a portly, rubicund Dutchman in the neighborhood.

The family of Henry Livingston, Jr., a poet and farmer from a Poughkeepsie, N.Y.  who died in 1828, claimed he was the real author of “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” though they had no physical evidence. For decades, the debate has ebbed and flowed with most scholars believing Moore is the author.

What is known, is that an “Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas, as the poem was first called, was published anonymously in New York’s Troy Sentinel newspaper on December 23rd, 1823.

How the poem ended up in the Troy Sentinel is unclear. Some claim a family friend sent it to the paper without Moore’s knowledge.

The poem, however, was an instant success. According to the New-York Historical Society, its lively description of St. Nicholas “permanently connected St. Nicholas to Christmas and led to our idea of Santa Claus.” It also introduced Santa’s now-famous eight tiny reindeer—though not Rudolph, who came much later.

For 14 years, the poem’s author remained a mystery. Then, in 1837, Charles Fenno Hoffman, editor of The New-York Book of Poetry, revealed the author as his friend Clement Clarke Moore, a New York scholar and poet. Moore himself formally claimed credit in 1844 when he included the poem in his published collection, Poems.

Moore was no stranger to writing. A professor of Middle Eastern and Greek Literature, as well as theology, Moore authored works on diverse topics, including A Compendious Lexicon of the Hebrew Language, a two-volume publication.

On the other hand, the Poetry Foundation notes that Henry Livingston Jr. wrote “occasional and light verse in regional journals”, often publishing anonymously or under the pseudonym “R.” Yet, Livingston and Moore never crossed paths. Livingston died in 1828, years before Moore would publicly take credit for the poem.