Christmas Mountains ten peaks are: The eight latter names commemorate Santa Claus's reindeer as named in the 1823 poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas" by Clement Clarke Moore. The poem reads in part: With a little old driver so lively and quick, I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick. More rapid than eagles, his coursers they came, And he whistled and shouted and called them by name: Now Dasher! Now Dancer! Now, Prancer and Vixen! On, Comet! On, Cupid! On, Donder and Blitzen! To the top of the porch! To the top of the wall! Now dash away! Dash
A Visit from St. Nicholas did not authorize the earliest publication of the poem in the Troy "Sentinel", he had close ties to Troy through the Protestant Episcopal Church that could explain how it got there. Harriet Butler of Troy, New York (daughter of the Rev. David Butler) who allegedly showed the poem to "Sentinel" editor Orville L. Holley, was a family friend of Moore's and possibly a distant relative. A letter to Moore from the publisher Norman Tuttle states, "I understand from Mr. Holley that he received it from Mrs. Sackett, the wife of Mr. Daniel Sackett who was then a merchant in this