Henry Livingston Jr. Henry Livingston Jr. Henry Beekman Livingston Jr. (October 13, 1748 – February 29, 1828) has been proposed as being the uncredited author of the poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas", more popularly known (after its first line) as "The Night Before Christmas". Credit for the poem was taken in 1837 by Clement Clarke Moore, a Bible scholar in New York City, nine years after Livingston's death. It was not until another twenty years that the Livingston family knew of Moore's claim, and it was not until 1900 that they went public with their own claim. Since then, the question has
A Visit from St. Nicholas for whom he had originally written the piece. Moore's conception of Saint Nicholas was borrowed from his friend Washington Irving, but Moore portrayed his "jolly old elf" as arriving on Christmas Eve rather than Christmas Day. At the time that Moore wrote the poem, Christmas Day was overtaking New Year's Day as the preferred genteel family holiday of the season, but some Protestants viewed Christmas as the result of "Catholic ignorance and deception" and still had reservations. By having Saint Nicholas arrive the night before, Moore "deftly shifted the focus away from Christmas Day with its still-problematic religious associations." As