Illuminated manuscript of Clement Clarke Moore's "A Visit from St. Nicholas"

In 1822 the New York City professor and poet Clement Clarke Moore (1779–1863) wrote the most famous American Christmas poem, “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” better known as “The Night Before Christmas.” A year later the text was published anonymously in a Troy, NY newspaper and by 1837 it was publicly attributed to Moore. In his poem, Moore originated many of the features that are still associated with Santa Claus today and for the first time named the eight reindeer.

Reading “A Visit from St. Nicholas” has been a beloved holiday tradition for over two-hundred years, and this newly acquired illuminated manuscript documents the ways in which the Moore family enjoyed the poem in the middle of the nineteenth century. The manuscript was written and painted by Moore’s daughter, Mary Clarke Moore Ogden (1819–1893), and given to her husband John Doughty Ogden as a Christmas present in 1855. This manuscript features the earliest color illustrations of the poem, set as miniature vignettes within the decorative borders surrounding the text. Mary used a heavy Gothic script to write out the text of the poem, which features the original reading of “Happy Christmas to all / and to all a good night” instead of “Merry Christmas to all …”

One of the first illustrations in the volume shows the “Old Chelsea Mansion House,” the ancestral home of the Moore family in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, where Mary’s father would recite the poem to his children every Christmas. Registering this holiday pastime, the volume bears several illustrations showing children reading the poem with family members. Today many readers have similar memories of reading the poem communally with their families.

The manuscript was owned by the Ogden family for nearly one-hundred and seventy years before they generously donated it to the Morgan in 2024. The gift celebrates two centennials: the Morgan turned 100 that year, as did the donor David C. Ogden, born on November 4, 1924.