Father Christmas promising baby asleep in a cradle". The figure of Santa Claus had originated in the US, drawing at least partly upon Dutch St Nicolas traditions. A New York publication of 1821, "A New-Year’s Present", contained an illustrated poem "Old Santeclaus with Much Delight" in which a Santa figure on a reindeer sleigh brings presents for good children and a "long, black birchen rod" for use on the bad ones. In 1823 came the famous poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas", usually attributed to the New York writer Clement Clarke Moore, which developed the character further. Moore's poem became immensely popular
Clement Moore Butler was thereafter chaplain to the United States minister at Rome, Italy, and the second rector of Grace Church (now St. Paul’s Within the Walls) in Rome (1861–1864). When Butler returned to the United States in 1864, he became professor of ecclesiastical history at the Divinity School of the Protestant Episcopal Church, Philadelphia, until 1884 when he retired due to ill health. Butler died on March 5, 1890, in Germantown, Pennsylvania. In 1836 Butler married Frances Livingston Hart (1816–1895) in Washington, DC. They had three children: Frances Livingston Butler, Helen Moore Butler and Clement Moore Butler. Frances was a niece of