Postcard Thursday: Happy Birthday, Saint Nick

Saint Nicholas (the patron saint of -- among other things -- sailors, repentant thieves, brewers, and pawnbrokers) was purportedly born on March 15 in the year 270 CE. Of course, what Saint Nicholas is most famous for these days is as the basis for our modern-day Santa Claus, a Dutch tradition that was popularized in New York City by its Dutch-American inhabitants, including poet Clement Clarke Moore.

'Twas the night before Christmas

And all through the house

Not a creature was stirring

Not even a mouse.

Those immortal words, first published anonymously in the Troy Sentinel in 1823, have become a central part of the American Christmas story. They were penned by Moore, a prominent New Yorker; together with Thomas Nast's depictions of Santa later in the century (such as the 1881 version pictured here), Moore's poem helped shaped our modern ideas of Santa Claus.

Moore was a major landowner and important to the growth of both Greenwich Village and Chelsea. As we write in Footprints in New York:

To his contemporaries, Moore was best known as a Greek language scholar at the Episcopal Church’s General Seminary, and for his vast farm, Chelsea, which gave rise to the neighborhood of the same name. Today, people recognize him as the author of “A Visit from Saint Nicholas” (aka “Twas the Night Before Christmas”), the well-known poem that imbued the American Santa Claus with a healthy dose of his mother’s family’s Dutch traditions. 

In Inside the Apple, we note that

Moore was descended from distinguished New York families: his large family estate, Chelsea, which gave rise to the modern-day neighborhood, had originally been owned by his grandfather, Major Thomas Clarke, a veteran of the French and Indian War. Moore’s father, Bishop Benjamin Moore, was the head of the Episcopal Diocese of New York and twice president of Columbia College. 

In 1817, soon after Bishop Moore’s death, the Episcopal Church convened in New York to establish the General Theological Seminary. Jacob Sherred, a member of the Trinity Church vestry, donated $70,000 and Clement Clarke Moore agreed to donate 66 lots from his Chelsea estate to house the school. (The seminary met elsewhere until construction could begin in the 1820s.) Moore, already the author of a well-regarded Hebrew lexicon, was also hired to serve on its faculty, teaching Biblical languages until 1850.

Thomas Nast, meanwhile, is probably best remembered today for his role in bringing down William "Boss" Tweed through his political cartoons in The New York Times and Harper's Weekly. Nast's poison pen was so famous, in fact, that there's a folk etymology that the word "nasty" comes from his name. That's not true, but it gives a sense of how damning his pictures could be.

Nast is also the person who gave us the elephant as the symbol of the Republican Party and the donkey for the Democrats. In an 1870 issue of Harper's Weekly, Nast launched the donkey as a symbol of the Democratic party. In the cartoon, Nast was lambasting the Copperhead faction of the party -- which had opposed the Civil War -- and those Democratic papers that continued to criticize Lincoln's recently deceased Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton. Nast's critique is not terribly subtle: Stanton is "lionized" by the cartoonist and the Democrats are branded jackasses.

Despite Nast's pointed political statements, he had a soft spot for the holidays. Beginning in 1863, he would draw pictures of Santa Claus or families celebrating together for Harper's, culminating in 1881 with the image at the top of this post, which is still seen by many as the iconic depiction of St. Nick.

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Read more about NYC history in

 

Footprints in New York: Tracing the Lives of Four Centuries of New Yorkers

Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City

Postcard Thursday: 'Twas the Night Before Christmas...

'Twas the night before Christmas

And all through the house

Not a creature was stirring

Not even a mouse.

Those immortal words, first published anonymously in the Troy Sentinel in 1823, have become a central part of the American Christmas story. They were penned by Clement Clarke Moore, a prominent New Yorker, and together with Thomas Nast's depictions of Santa later in the century (such as the 1881 version above) helped shaped our modern ideas of Santa Claus.

We write about both men in Footprints in New York and Inside the Apple, though in neither case about their contributions to Christmas.

Moore was a major landowner and important to the growth of both Greenwich Village and Chelsea. As we write in Footprints:

To his contemporaries, Moore was best known as a Greek language scholar at the Episcopal Church’s General Seminary, and for his vast farm, Chelsea, which gave rise to the neighborhood of the same name. Today, people recognize him as the author of “A Visit from Saint Nicholas” (aka “Twas the Night Before Christmas”), the well-known poem that imbued the American Santa Claus with a healthy dose of his mother’s family’s Dutch traditions. 

In Inside the Apple, we note that

Moore was descended from distinguished New York families: his large family estate, Chelsea, which gave rise to the modern-day neighborhood, had originally been owned by his grandfather, Major Thomas Clarke, a veteran of the French and Indian War. Moore’s father, Bishop Benjamin Moore, was the head of the Episcopal Diocese of New York and twice president of Columbia College. 

In 1817, soon after Bishop Moore’s death, the Episcopal Church convened in New York to establish the General Theological Seminary. Jacob Sherred, a member of the Trinity Church vestry, donated $70,000 and Clement Clarke Moore agreed to donate 66 lots from his Chelsea estate to house the school. (The seminary met elsewhere until construction could begin in the 1820s.) Moore, already the author of a well-regarded Hebrew lexicon, was also hired to serve on its faculty, teaching Biblical languages until 1850.

Moore is also the person responsible for building the Church of St. Luke in the Fields in Greenwich Village.

Even for someone of Moore’s social station and wealth, commuting from Chelsea to [go to church all the way down in] the city was difficult. The best route was via the Hudson River by sloop, but this wasn’t always possible or practical. Overland, there were two options: the longer route via the Albany Post Road on the east side of the island, which connected to the Bowery and then to Lower Broadway or the shorter “Road to Greenwich,” which ran up the Hudson side of the island to the vicinity of 14th Street. However, this road (today called Greenwich Street), was so close to the river—and had to go through at least one swamp—that it was rutted, muddy, and frequently impassable.

Moore’s solution to this quandary was to ally with residents of the nearby village of Greenwich and convince Trinity Church to sell off part of the northern section of their land so that an independent Episcopal church could be established. The cornerstone for the church was laid in 1821 at a site on the corner of Hudson and Burrows [now Grove] Streets. The name of St. Luke, the healing evangelist, was chosen to reflect Greenwich’s role as a place of refuge for New Yorkers during summer outbreaks of yellow fever and other pestilence. Due to its rural location, the parish was soon dubbed St. Luke in the Fields and it became the center of religious life for the residents of Greenwich, Chelsea, and other outlying areas.

Thomas Nast, meanwhile, is probably best remembered today for his role in bringing down William "Boss" Tweed through his political cartoons in The New York Times and Harper's Weekly. Nast's poison pen was so famous, in fact, that there's a folk etymology that the word "nasty" comes from his name. That's not true, but it gives a sense of how damning his pictures could be.

Nast is also the person who gave us the elephant as the symbol of the Republican Party and the donkey for the Democrats. In an 1870 issue of Harper's Weekly, Nast launched the donkey as a symbol of the Democratic party. In the cartoon, Nast was lambasting the Copperhead faction of the party -- which had opposed the Civil War -- and those Democratic papers that continued to criticize Lincoln's recently deceased Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton. Nast's critique is not terribly subtle: Stanton is "lionized" by the cartoonist and the Democrats are branded jackasses.

In fact, the donkey had an association with the party dating back to President Andrew Jackson, who had been openly called a jackass by his opponents. But it was Nast's ongoing use of the symbol in the 1870s that brought it lasting popularity. In 1874, he introduced the elephant as his representation of the Republicans, minting the symbols that the parties still use to this day.

But despite Nast's pointed political statements, he had a soft spot for the holidays. Beginning in 1863, he would draw pictures of Santa Claus or families celebrating together for Harper's, culminating in 1881 with the image at the top of this post, which is still seen by many as the iconic depiction of St. Nick.

Have a safe and happy holiday!

Michelle & James

* * * *

Read more about NYC history in

Footprints in New York: Tracing the Lives of Four Centuries of New Yorkers

Available from your favorite online retailers (Amazon, Barnes and Noble, etc.) or from independent bookstores across the country. 

St Peter's Church, Chelsea

courtesy of the Library of Congress.

This year marks the 175th anniversary of the opening of St. Peter's Church in Chelsea, which was designed (in part) and financed (in large part) by Clement Clarke Moore, author of A Visit to St. Nicholas (aka 'Twas the Night Before Christmas).

Moore owned a massive amount of property in the area in the early nineteenth century. As we write in Inside the Apple:

Moore was descended from distinguished New York families: his large family estate, Chelsea, which gave rise to the modern-day neighborhood, had originally been owned by his grandfather, Major Thomas Clarke, a veteran of the French and Indian War. Moore’s father, Bishop Benjamin Moore, was the head of the Episcopal Diocese of New York and twice president of Columbia College. 

In 1817, soon after Bishop Moore’s death, the Episcopal Church convened in New York to establish the General Theological Seminary. Jacob Sherred, a member of the Trinity Church vestry, donated $70,000 and Clement Clarke Moore agreed to donate 66 lots from his Chelsea estate to house the school. (The seminary met elsewhere until construction could begin in the 1820s.) Moore, already the author of a well-regarded Hebrew lexicon, was also hired to serve on its faculty, teaching Biblical languages until 1850.

At first, residents of Chelsea attended church services at the seminary. However, as the population in the area began to grow--in part because Moore was making a killing selling property on the newly created Manhattan street grid--it was decided that a proper parish church should be erected.

In February 1831, a handsome Greek Revival chapel was built on land leased to the parish by Moore. Walking by this building today--which serves as the rectory--you'd be hard pressed to realize it once had an ecclesiastical function. Indeed, it had always been built with the idea that it was simply the first building in a complex that would eventually contain a much larger Greek Revival church. However, when construction on the new church began, tastes had changed and the Gothic Revival--formerly shunned in America for being too Catholic--was beginning to take hold. In conjunction with James W. Smith, Moore designed the restrained Gothic church. The new church opened in February 1838, two years before Richard Upjohn's magnificent Church of the Ascension on Fifth Avenue (which is considered by some to be the oldest true Gothic Revival house of worship in New York).

When you visit St. Peter's on West 20th Street, there appears to be a third church on the property as well. It sits just east of the main church, and is today used by the Atlantic Theater Company as their main stage. While this building had a Victorian Gothic refit in 1871 that made it look like a chapel, it always served as the parish hall.

Actually, the oldest part of the complex is the fence. According to the AIA Guide to New York City, this wrought iron gem comes from the second version of Trinity Church, Wall Street. There have been three Trinity Churches on Wall Street; the first burned down during the Revolution; the second was surrounded by this fence. When the second Trinity was felled in the late 1830s to make way for the current incarnation of the parish, the fence was moved to Chelsea.

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Find out more about Chelsea and Clement Clarke Moore in
our book:

Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City.

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