Clement Clarke Moore

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Clement Clarke Moore (July 15, 1779 – July 10, 1863) was a scholar and American Professor of Oriental and Greek Literature, as well as Divinity and Biblical Studies, at the Protestant Episcopal Church in New York City's General Theological Seminary.

The seminary was built on land donated by Moore and it is on display on Ninth Avenue between 20th and 21st streets, in an area known as Chelsea Square.

Moore's involvement in the seminary lasted for more than 25 years. Moore built a considerable fortune by subdividing and rebuilding portions of his vast inherited estate in Chelsea's growing residential neighborhood.

The urbanized portion of the city's downtown area ended on Manhattan Island's Houston Street long before this.

Moore served as a board member of the New York Institution for the Blind for ten years. He is credited and is best known as the author of the Christmas poem "A Visit From St. Nicholas," first published anonymously in 1823.

It was later identified as "The Night Before Christmas" and has been released in several illustrated versions in various languages.

Scholars debate the author's identity, in addition to other historical sources, relying on textual and handwriting analysis.

Early life

Moore was born on July 15, 1779, at his mother's funeral home in Elmhurst, Queens, although his parents purchased their own home. He was the son of Bishop Benjamin Moore (1748-1801) and Charity (née Clarke) Moore (1747-1882), both of whom died on July 28. His father was the head of the Episcopal Diocese of New York, which later extended the state. It was organized after the American Revolutionary War ended the church's independence from the Church of England. Moore, who was associated with King's College but later departed for Canada, became president of Columbia College, now Columbia University, during the turbulent years of the war. He served in this capacity twice before being pushed into this role.

Major Thomas Clarke, an English officer who stayed in the colony after being wounded in the French and Indian War, was Moore's maternal grandfather. He owned the huge Manhattan estate "Chelsea" before moving to the country north of the city's developed areas. Moore's mother, Charity Clarke, wrote letters to her English cousins as a teenager. These were preserved at Columbia University and reveal her disdain for the British monarchy's policies and her growing sense of patriotism in pre-Revolutionary days. Sarah Fish, Moore's grandmother, was a descendant of Elizabeth Fones and Joris Woolsey, one of Manhattan's early settlers. Moore inherited the Chelsea estate following his grandfather Clarke's and mother's deaths. In the 19th century, he acquired a lot of money by subdividing and expanding it.

Moore obtained his B.A. and B.A. from Columbia College (1798). He obtained his M.A. and his M.A.

Personal life

Moore married Catharine Elizabeth Taylor, a girl of English and Scottish descent, in 1813. Elizabeth (née Van Cortlandt) Taylor, her maternal grandmother, was born in Elizabeth (née Van Cortlandt) Taylor, Philip Van Cortlandt's niece and niece 1st Baronet's niece. They were the parents of nine children, including:: Several of them were children together.

Moore died on July 10, 1863, at his summer home on Catherine Street in Newport, Rhode Island, five days before his 84th birthday. His funeral took place in Trinity Church, Newport, where he had purchased a pew. His body was returned to New York for burial in the cemetery at St. Luke in the Fields. His body was reinterred in Trinity Church Cemetery in New York on November 29, 1899.

Chelsea Moore's estate, which was located on the west side of Manhattan's island above Houston Street, where the growing city came to a stop at the time. It was mostly open countryside before the 1820s. Maj. Thomas Clarke, a retired British soldier of the French and Indian war (the North American front of the Seven Years' War), had it owned by his maternal grandfather, Maj. Clarke named his house in London for a war veteran. The estate was later inherited by his daughter and Moore's mother, Charity Clarke Moore, and then his grandson Clement Moore and his family.

The new Ninth Avenue was supposed to pass through the middle of Manhattan's district when the city government laid down the street grid based on the Commissioner's Plan of 1811. Moore wrote and published a pamphlet urging other "Propert of Real Estate" to combat the city's continuing growth, which then culminated on Houston Street. It was a plot devised to increase political clout and appease the city's working class, according to the author. He also opposed paying taxes on public works such as the construction of new streets, which he described as "a tyranny no monarch in Europe would dare to exercise."

Despite his protests, Moore eventually began to play Chelsea, bringing high profits for himself by dividing it into several lots along Ninth Avenue and selling them to well-heeled New Yorkers. He donated a large block of land to the Episcopal diocese for the building of a seminary, giving them an apple orchard consisting of 66 tracts. The GM Theological Seminary was built in 1827. Moore was appointed as the country's first professor of Oriental Languages, based on his knowledge of Hebrew. He served until 1850.

The seminary continues to function on the same site, occupying the majority of the block between the 20th and the 21st streets and Ninth and Tenth avenues. Moore donated property at 20th Street and Ninth, east of the avenue, to the diocese for the building of St. Peter's Episcopal Church, ten years later. After his estate, the new Manhattan neighborhood is known as Chelsea.

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Career

Moore's earliest known work was an anonymous pro-Federalist pamphlet that was published before the 1804 presidential election, criticizing Thomas Jefferson's religious convictions (the incumbent president and Democratic presidential candidate). "Observations on Certain Passages in Mr. Jefferson's Notes on Virginia, which Appear to have a Tendency to Subvert Religion and Establish a False Philosophy," focused on Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia (1785). Moore called this work a "instrument of infidelity."

Moore, who helped Trinity Church install a new parish church, St. Luke in the Fields, on Hudson Street in 1820. He later gave the Episcopal Diocese of New York 66 tracts of land – the apple orchard from his inherited Chelsea estate – to the Episcopal Diocese of New York, which would be the site of the General Theological Seminary.

Moore was appointed Professor of Biblical education at the Seminary based on this gift and the publication of his Hebrew and English Lexicon in 1809. He served in this position until 1850. Moore owned many slaves over his lifetime. He opposed slavery's abolishal. After the Revolution, New York State passed a gradual slavery bill in 1799; it released the state's last slaves in 1827.

Moore began the residential construction 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. A planned neighborhood was established by covenants in the deeds of sale, defining what could be built on the property as well as the architectural details of the buildings. In the construction, stables, manufacturing, and commercial uses were outlawed.

Moore served as a board member of the New York Institution for the Blind from 1840 to 1850 (now the New York Institute for Special Education). He published a collection of poems (1844).

"This poem, which is undoubtedly the best-known verses ever written by an American," was first published anonymously in the Troy (NY) Sentinel on December 23, 1823. A Moore friend sent it to the paper. Moore was said to have written the poem while visiting Mary McVicker, a constable Hall resident in what is now known as Constableville, New York, New York. Mary C. Moore Ogden, one of the Moores' married daughters, created "illuminations" in 1855 to accompany the first color version of the poem.

The poem was not published in The New-York Book of Poetry (edited by Charles Fenno Hoffman), in 1837, when it was first attributed to Moore. Moore refused to deny or confirm authorship of the poem in the first place in order to shield his public image as a scholar of ancient languages. He included it in "Poems," his anthology of his works, in 1844. This issue was sponsored by his children, for whom he had written the piece at the time. Prior to this publication, the original author and at least seven others had already acknowledged him as author.

Scholars have debating whether Moore was the author of this work. Moore may not have been the author, according to Professor Donald Foster, who used textual content analysis and external evidence to show that he may not have been the author. According to Foster, Major Henry Livingston, Jr., a New Yorker with Dutch and Scottish roots, should be considered the leading candidate for authorship. The Livingston family had long disputed this view. Livingston was not directly related to Moore's wife.

In reaction to Foster's assertion, Stephen Nissenbaum, a history professor at the University of Massachusetts, wrote in 2001 that Moore was the author based on his research. "There Arose Such a Clatter Who Really Wrote 'The Night Before Christmas,' according to the writer.

(And Why Does It Matter?

"I believe he did, and I believe I have marshaled a slew of good reasons to show [it]," Nissenbaum said of Moore's authorship.

Foster's assertion has also been debuffed by document dealer and scholar Seth Kaller, who once owned one of Moore's original manuscripts of the poem. Kaller has written a point-by-point rebuttal of both Foster's linguistic analysis and external findings, which has been bolstered by the work of autograph specialist James Lowe and Dr. Joe Nickell, author of Pen, Ink and Evidence.

There are no signs that Livingston ever claimed authorship, nor has there been any evidence of a printing of the poem with Livingston's name attached to it. However, according to the original version of the poem that was sent to The Sentinel, Santa's last two reindeer's names were Dunder and Blixem, rather than Donder (later Donner) and Blitzen, rather than Donder (later Donner) and Blitzen. The spelling changes are due to a printing mistake and/or correcting Moore's spelling inaccuracies, since he did not speak Dutch.

MacDonald P. Jackson, an emeritus professor of English literature at the University of Auckland, a fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand and an authorship expert who uses statistical methods, explored the issue further in 2016. He analyzed every argument using modern computational stylistic techniques, including one that never had before – a numerical review of phones – and discovered that Livingston was the more likely author in every test.

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