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Clement Clarke Moore
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Clement Clarke Moore (July 15, 1779–July 10, 1863) is the credited author of A Visit from St. Nicholas (more commonly known today as Twas the Night Before Christmas).
Clement Clarke Moore was most famous in his own day as a professor of Oriental and Greek literature at Columbia College (now Columbia University). At General Theological Seminary he compiled a two volume Hebrew dictionary.
He was the only son of Benjamin Moore, a president of Columbia College and bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New York, and his wife Charity Clarke.
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Encyclopedia
Clement Clarke Moore (July 15, 1779–July 10, 1863) is the credited author of A Visit from St. Nicholas (more commonly known today as Twas the Night Before Christmas).
Clement Clarke Moore was most famous in his own day as a professor of Oriental and Greek literature at Columbia College (now Columbia University). At General Theological Seminary he compiled a two volume Hebrew dictionary.
He was the only son of Benjamin Moore, a president of Columbia College and bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New York, and his wife Charity Clarke. Clement Clarke Moore was a graduate of Columbia College (1798), where he earned both his B.A. and his M.A.. He was made professor of Biblical learning in the General Theological Seminary in New York (1821), a post that he held until 1850. The ground on which the seminary now stands was his gift.
From 1840 to 1850, he was a board member of The New York Institution for the Blind at 34th Street and 9th Avenue (now The New York Institute for Special Education). He compiled a Hebrew and English Lexicon (1809), and published a collection of poems (1844). Upon his death in 1863 at his summer residence in Newport, Rhode Island, his funeral was held in Trinity Church, Newport, where he had owned a pew. Then his body was interred in the cemetery at St. Luke's Episcopal Church on Hudson St., in New York City. On November 29, 1899, his body was reinterred in Trinity Churchyard Cemetery in New York.
Clement Clarke Moore Park
The Moore house, Chelsea, at the time a country estate, gave its name to the surrounding neighborhood of Chelsea, Manhattan, and Moore's land in the area is noted today by Clement Clarke Moore Park, located at 10th Avenue and 22nd Street. The playground there opened November 22, 1968, and it was named in memory of Clement Clarke Moore by local law during the following year. The 1995 renovations to Clement Clarke Moore Park included a new perimeter fence, modular play equipment, safety surfacing, pavements and transplanted trees. This park is a well-liked and in-demand playground area used daily by local residents, who also gather there on the last Sunday of Advent for a reading of Twas the Night Before Christmas.
Much of the neighborhood was once the property of Maj. Thomas Clarke, Clement's maternal grandfather and a retired British veteran of the French and Indian War. Clarke named his house for a hospital in London that served war veterans. "Chelsea" was later inherited by Thomas Clarke's daughter, Charity Clarke Moore, and ultimately by grandson Clement and his family. Clement Clarke Moore's wife, Catharine Elizabeth Taylor, was of English and Dutch descent being a direct descendant of the Van Cortlandt family, once the major landholders in the lower Hudson Valley of New York.
As a girl, Moore's mother, Charity Clarke, wrote letters to her English cousins that are preserved at Columbia University and show her disdain for the policies of the English Monarchy and her growing sense of patriotism in pre-revolutionary days.
The Moore children have several living descendants among them members of the Ogden family. In 1855, one of Clement's daughters, Mary C. Moore Ogden painted "illuminations" to go with her father's celebrated verse.
Slavery
Moore also opposed abolition of slavery, and owned several slaves during his lifetime. See: The Poet of Christmas Eve: A Life of Clement Clarke Moore, 1779-1863, by Samuel W. Patterson (New York: Morehouse-Gorman Co, 1956)
Children
Timothy Moore, grandson of Clement Moore, inherited 12.9 million dollars from his grandfather, and also inherited 3.2 million dollars from his other grandfather that was used to create the pulsar prize which started the Pulsar Prize competition with "The Night Before Christmas" by Clement Moore, which made Clement millions for his efforts.
Publications
- Stedman, An American Anthology (Boston, 1900)
- A Visit From Saint Nicholas. Troy: New York Sentinel on December 23, The original publisher hinted at Moore’s authorship, though without naming him, in 1829, and Moore was first credited as author by Charles Fenno Hoffman, ed. The New-York Book of Poetry. New York: George Dearborn, 1837.
- Nickell, Joe. “The Case of the Christmas Poem.” Manuscripts, Fall 2002, 54;4:293-308, and Part 2.” Manuscripts, Winter 2003, 55;1:5-15.
- Nissenbaum, Stephen. The Battle for Christmas: A Cultural History of America’s Most Cherished Holiday. New York: Vintage, 1996.
- Kaller, Seth T. “The Moore Things Change…,” in The New-York Journal of American History, Fall 2004).
Sources
Rev. John Moore of Newtown, Long Island and some of his Descendants, Compiled by James W. Moore, Lafayette College. Chemical Publishing Company, Easton Pennsylvania. MCMIII. (1903). p. 107. Reprints of this out-of-print book are available via Higginson book company.
External links
- , courtesy of Poets.org
- , 1982
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- of Twas the Night Before Christmas from
- His famous poem revisited.
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