Clement Clarke Moore
Clement Clarke Moore was a prominent figure in early 19th-century America, best known for authoring the famous poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas," often referred to as "The Night Before Christmas." Born on July 15, 1779, in New York City, he was the son of a well-respected Episcopal priest and an accomplished scholar himself, graduating as valedictorian from Columbia College in 1798. Moore made significant contributions to literature and education, including teaching Oriental and Greek literature at a theological institute he founded.
In addition to his poetry, he published works on biblical scholarship and contributed to various periodicals. His legacy includes not only his literary achievements but also his real estate development efforts that shaped parts of New York City. While Moore's authorship of "A Visit from St. Nicholas" was long celebrated, claims emerged in the late 1850s from the family of Henry Livingston, Jr., asserting that he had recited the poem as early as 1808, leading to ongoing debates about the true authorship. Moore's impact on the cultural landscape, particularly regarding the modern image of Santa Claus, remains significant to this day. He passed away on July 10, 1863, in Newport, Rhode Island.
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Clement Clarke Moore
Author
- Born: July 15, 1779
- Birthplace: New York, New York
- Died: July 10, 1863
- Place of death: Newport, Rhode Island
Biography
Clement Clarke Moore was born on July 15, 1779, in New York City, the only child of Charity Clark Moore and Benjamin Moore. His father was an ordained Episcopal priest who served as rector of Trinity Church and later as bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in New York; he also was a professor and, from 1801 until 1811, the president of Columbia College. Moore was privately educated before attending Columbia College, where he studied theology and graduated as valedictorian in 1798. He received his master’s degree from Columbia College in 1801.
Moore, a biblical scholar and sometime poet who spoke five languages, became an early city real estate developer, growing wealthy in the process. He contributed articles to periodicals such as the New York Evening Post and published several books, including an anonymous pamphlet (to which he later admitted authorship) that successfully argued against extending a grid of streets into Greenwich Village, thus preserving the character of the area.
In 1807, he was in a bookstore when he met Lorenzo da Ponte, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s former librettist, and helped launch da Ponte’s American career as an Italian language and literature teacher. In 1809, Moore produced a two-volume work that became a standard reference, A Compendious Lexicon of the Hebrew Language. He later published a volume of poetry, Poems (1844), and a biography, George Castriot, Surnamed Scanderbeg, King of Albania (1850).
Moore married Catharine Elizabeth Taylor, then nineteen years of age, in 1813, and they lived on an estate called Chelsea in the then-rural countryside outside New York City. From 1821 until the early 1850’s, Moore taught Oriental and Greek literature at General Theological Institute, the school he founded on land he donated. From 1840 to 1850, he was a member of the board of the New York Institution for the Blind, now the New York Institute for Special Education.
In 1822, according to legend, Moore made the literary contribution for which he is best recognized when he wrote a poem written for his children, variously titled “A Visit from St. Nicholas” or “The Night Before Christmas.” Published anonymously in 1823 in the Troy Sentinel, the rhyming couplets, later accompanied by a Thomas Nast cartoon, were instrumental in changing the public perception of Santa Claus from a stern figure into the icon of today: a jolly, white- bearded fat man, dressed in red and white, who delivers presents from a sleigh driven by eight flying reindeer. Moore took credit for “A Visit from St. Nicholas” by including it in his poetry collection published in 1844; in 1848, the poem for the first time was published in a separate illustrated edition. Moore continued to be honored as the poem’s author when he died at his summer home in Newport, Rhode Island, on July 10, 1863.
However, in the late 1850’s, the descendants of Revolutionary War veteran, publisher, and family man Henry Livingston, Jr. (1748-1828), insisted that Livingston had first recited the familiar rhyming couplets of “A Visit from St. Nicholas” in 1808. The validity of the Livingston claim was enhanced by an examination of published poems definitely attributed to Moore, which are moralistic in tone and clumsy in rhyme scheme. In 2003, a scholarly analysis and comparison of the known works of the two claimants also suggested that Livingston, rather than Moore, may indeed be the true author of the beloved Christmas poem.