Clement Clarke Moore (July 15, 1779 – July 10, 1863) was an American writer, scholar and real estate developer. He is best known as author of the Christmas poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas", which first named each of Santa Claus's reindeer.
Moore was Professor of Oriental and Greek Literature, as well as Divinity and Biblical Learning, at the General Theological Seminary of the Protestant Episcopal Church, in New York City. The seminary was developed on land donated by Moore and it continues on this site at Ninth Avenue between 20th and 21st streets, in an area known as Chelsea Square. Moore gained considerable wealth by subdividing and developing other parts of his large inherited estate in what became known as the residential neighborhood of Chelsea. He also served for 44 years as a member of the board of trustees of Columbia College (later University), and was a board member of the New York Society Library and the New York Institution for the Blind.
"A Visit from St. Nicholas," which later became widely known by its opening line, "'Twas the Night Before Christmas," was first published anonymously in 1823. Moore publicly claimed authorship in 1837, and this was not disputed during his lifetime, but a rival claimant emerged later and scholars now debate the identity of the author, calling on textual and handwriting analysis as well as other historical sources.
Moore was born on July 15, 1779, in New York City, at "Chelsea", his mother's family estate. He was the son of Benjamin Moore (1748–1816) and Charity (née Clarke) Moore (1747–1838). At the time of Clement's birth Benjamin Moore was assistant rector of Trinity Church in Manhattan. He later became rector of Trinity and bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New York, also serving as acting president of Kings College in 1775 and 1776 and president of the renamed Columbia College (now Columbia University) from 1801 to 1811.
Moore's maternal grandfather was Major Thomas Clarke, an English officer who stayed in the colony after fighting in the French and Indian War. He owned the large Manhattan estate "Chelsea", then in the country north of the developed areas of the city. As a girl, Moore's mother Charity Clarke wrote letters to her English cousins. Preserved at Columbia University, these show her disdain for the policies of the British monarchy and her growing sense of patriotism in pre-Revolutionary days. Moore's grandmother Sarah Fish was a descendant of Elizabeth Fones and Joris Woolsey, one of the earlier settlers of Manhattan. Moore's parents inherited the Chelsea estate, and deeded it to him in 1813. He got great wealth by subdividing and developing it in the 19th century.
Moore received a Bachelor of Arts from Columbia College as valedictorian of the class of 1798, a Master of Arts in 1801, and an honorary Doctor of Laws (LLD) in 1829.
One of Moore's earliest known works was an anonymous pro-Federalist pamphlet published prior to the 1804 presidential election, attacking the religious and racial views of Thomas Jefferson (the incumbent president and Democratic-Republican candidate). His polemic, titled in full "Observations upon Certain Passages in Mr. Jefferson's Notes on Virginia, which Appear to Have a Tendency to Subvert Religion, and Establish a False Philosophy," depicted Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia (1785) as an "instrument of infidelity" that "debases the negro to an order of creatures lower than those who have a fairer skin and thinner lips."
In 1820, Moore helped Trinity Church organize a new parish church, St. Luke in the Fields, on Hudson Street. He later gave 66 tracts of land – the apple orchard from his inherited Chelsea estate – to the Episcopal Diocese of New York to be the site of the General Theological Seminary.
Based likely on this donation, and on the publication of his Hebrew and English Lexicon in 1809, Moore was appointed as professor of Biblical learning at the Seminary. He held this post until 1850.
After the seminary was built, Moore began the residential development of his Chelsea estate in the 1820s with the help of James N. Wells, dividing it into lots along Ninth Avenue and selling them to well-heeled New Yorkers. Covenants in the deeds of sale created a planned neighborhood, specifying what could be built on the land as well as architectural details of the buildings. Stables, manufacturing and commercial uses were forbidden in the development.
Moore was appointed to the Columbia College board of trustees in 1813 and served until 1857. He was clerk of the board from 1815 to 1850. From 1840 to 1850, Moore also served as a board member of the New York Institution for the Blind at 34th Street and Ninth Avenue (now the New York Institute for Special Education). He published a collection of poems (1844).
This poem, "arguably the best-known verses ever written by an American," was first published anonymously in the Troy, New York Sentinel on December 23, 1823. It had been given to the paper's editor by Sarah Sackett of Troy, who probably got it from Harriet Butler of Troy, a family friend of the Moores.
Anonymous or pseudonymous publication of poetry was customary at the time, but as the poem's popularity grew so did curiosity about its author. In response to a query in 1829, Sentinel editor Orville Holley wrote that "We have been given to understand that the author ... 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." (Italics his.)
In 1837 Moore was finally publicly identified as the author in journalist Charles Fenno Hoffman's The New-York Book of Poetry, to which Moore had submitted several poems. In 1844, he included "Visit" in Poems, an anthology of his works. His children, for whom he had originally written the piece, encouraged this publication. In 1855, Mary C. Moore Ogden, one of the Moores' married daughters, painted "illuminations" to go with the first color edition of the poem.
Scholars have debated whether Moore was the author of this poem. Professor Donald Foster used textual content analysis and external evidence to argue that Moore could not have been the author. Foster proposed that Major Henry Livingston, Jr., a New Yorker with Dutch and Scottish roots, should be considered the chief candidate for authorship. This view was long espoused by the Livingston family. Livingston was distantly related to Moore's wife.
In response to Foster's claim, Stephen Nissenbaum, professor of history at the University of Massachusetts, wrote in 2001 that, based on his research, Moore was the author. In his article, "There Arose Such a Clatter: Who Really Wrote 'The Night before Christmas'? (And Why Does It Matter?)", Nissenbaum confirmed Moore's authorship, "I believe he did, and I think I have marshaled an array of good evidence to prove [it]".
Foster's claim has also been countered by document dealer and historian Seth Kaller, who once owned one of Moore's original manuscripts of the poem. Kaller has offered a point-by-point rebuttal of both Foster's linguistic analysis and external findings, buttressed by the work of autograph expert James Lowe and Dr. Joe Nickell, author of Pen, Ink and Evidence.
There is no evidence that Livingston ever claimed authorship, nor has any record ever been found of any printing of the poem with Livingston's name attached to it. As first published in The Sentinel, the names of Santa's last two reindeer in the poem were Dunder and Blixem, and Foster argued the change to Donder and Blitzen in later versions was evidence of tampering by Moore with the "perfectly correct Dutch" of Livingston. But donder is the correct Dutch word for thunder, and the phrase was used by multiple English and American authors with a variety of different spellings in the late 1700s and early 1800s.