We know that throughout the eighteenth century New Year Day was an indigenous New York holiday, talked about in Boston and Philadelphia as belonging to New York. Now just at that moment, Mitchill was making a great play for Historicity. Now we come to Washington Irving. Although I am a professor, I cannot wholly resent Pintard’s attitude. Later, Gulian Verplanck (in his The State Triumvirate, 1819) was to take a dig at the same group: 13 Only three years later a juvenile (False Stories Corrected, published by Samuel Wood, 357 Pearl Street) tried to debunk “Old Santaclaw, of whom so often little children hear such foolish stories; and once in the year are encouraged to hang their stockings in the Chimney at night, and when they arise in the morning, they find in them cakes, nuts, money, etc. I have not found evidence of St. Nicholas in any form—in juveniles or periodicals or diaries—in the period of Dutch rule, or straight through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to the year 1773. Meisen5 transcribes a few of many laws, passed against St. Nicholas by that government. Although Gulian’s mother was a notorious Anglophile during the Revolution, and his father no ardent patriot, Gulian, during the period of post-Revolutionary exaltation of Holland, began to boast his Dutch extraction, as did other New Yorkers. While Weir was painting our St. Nicholas—Irving’s subject, and one specifically commissioned by Verplanck—a committee was meeting in Washington to decide the commission. It is obviously derived from both the Pintard verses and the Knickerbocker History: Santa Claus was made by Washington Irving. 180-181.) As Irving’s biographer, Professor Stanley Williams, records, the act of writing this lovable satire interested the author in history, so that from his pen eventually flowed his Columbus, Astoria, and Washington. by Charles W. Jones*, The New-York Historical Society Quarterly, October 1954. The St. Nicholas over the door to the Baptistry at St. John the Divine is our saint. But there is no evidence that it existed in New Amsterdam or for a century after English occupation. I only say that it has not yet been cited, and that I and those who have graciously assisted me have searched more specifically for it than have, for instance, H. L. Mencken for his American Language and the editors of the Dictionary of American English, who also found nothing. I can see no reason whatever for the doubt. The authors ransacked history and legend for patron saints. Ours is not the European saint, but an American commodity, which we have exported to the whole world. back. Is he a sample of the professors of the local school— … Eheu! Thus the little innocents are imposed on by those who are older than they, and improper ideas take possession, which are not by any means profitable.” back14. No. We also have St. Nicholas Avenue and St. Nicholas Arena, not to mention the beauty shop, drug store, etc., quite irreverently dedicated to the saint. But he who came to scoff remained to pray. Patron saints run through his mind in connection with politics and commerce. The Library of Congress lists, for the single year 1947 alone, twenty-two new songs with Santa Claus as the first word in the song (I have no way of knowing how many more songs had the name somewhere in them). Here is the description of Santa Claus bringing gifts, parking his horse and wagon on the roof while he slides down the chimney. The legends about this poem are growing nearly as fast as legends about Santa Claus himself. Even in this instance Pintard was in the van; for though he did not create the tiger, in his later days he referred to Tammany as a panther. There are evidences of Santa Claus’s visitation on New Year’s Eve as late as the 1850’s. It is most clearly and simply stated in Mary L. Booth’s History of the City of New York (pages 192–195), published in 1859: Nearly everyone repeats this story. The Bollandist Acta Sanctorum does not include Nicholas because that edition has not yet reached December 6. back2. History with the Macy's Parade Father Knickerbocker made … For instance, there is a wide-spread legend that Clement Moore learned about Santa Claus from his Dutch gardener in a moment’s pause from Moore’s Hebrew studies. At all events, John Pintard wrote the Constitution and became Sagamore of the Society here. Irving had not seen them for many years and it was as if their youth had returned to them again … . The reformers tried violently by prayer, force, law, and scorn to erase St. Nicholas from our minds; and in this the counter-reformers agreed with them. The post office at Santa Claus, Indiana (established 1852, population still less than 100), handles nearly four million pieces of mail yearly, and even in midsummer is a tourists’ paradise. Among the Germans of Pennsylvania, a conservative ethnic group, Kris Kringle (a corruption of Christ Kindlein) and Pelznichol (that is, Furry Nicholas) were imported in the eighteenth century and still leave traces. Cutting “early predicted the future eminence of his pupil, and contributed by his praise and encouragement to its fulfillment.” (N.Y. Genealogical and Biographical Society, Records II, 162.) Our United States is now symbolized by Uncle Sam; but in 1800, it was St. Tammany. A kindlier disposition than Irving’s would be hard to find. By 1820, Santa Claus was fairly commonplace in New York journalism. To use Dr. Edgar Romig’s phrase, the Dutch were hagiophobic to a preeminent degree. I mention but two other incidents in the maturation of Santa Claus. According to his nephew, many years later: “I remember when Washington Irving first came from Europe, on a Sunday shortly after his return, Mr. Verplanck and my brother Ogden Hoffman unexpectedly dropped in to dinner. And so, when the History was published, it was derisively dedicated to this Society. Father Knickerbocker, then as now, was the symbol of New York. He is an early Gothic revivalist. Kase developed the idea of an organized professional league to showcase college players upon their graduation and felt it could be… Tammany is no longer a saint, but a tiger. back12. From 1838 the sensationally popular verses were attributed to him, and he not only subscribed to the attribution but included the verses in a reprint of his poetry and deposited a holograph copy of the poem at The New-York Historical Society. By 1771, the Sons of St. Tammany were meeting in Philadelphia and Annapolis. E. L. Raesly, Portrait of New Netherland, New York: 1945. Of reliable books written on aspects of the European cult, unfortunately none is in English, unless we count an excellent dissertation by Dr. Otto Albrecht, Four Latin Plays of St. Nicholas, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1935. Copyright © 2002–2021 What we can assert with surety is that New York patriots formed a local society and dedicated it to St. Nicholas as a New York symbol, just as Philadelphians sanctified Tammany—all because of St. George. Sometimes Nicholas had to disguise himself pretty effectively—as Père Noel, the Weihnachtsmann, Knecht Ruprecht, Kris Kringle, and the like. An exception the excellent dissertation of K. Richards, How Christmas Came to the Sunday Schools, 1934, who, p. 52, expresses doubt about the New Amsterdam origin Santa Claus. Hockey was another popular sport at the time and generated considerable profits; however, the arenas were not used often. Father Knickerbocker rebels by Wertenbaker, Thomas Jefferson, 1879-1966. While he and Pintard were working together with Bishop Hobart and others for the establishment of the General Theological Seminary, Pintard recorded in his private notebook: “I told [Moore] not to speak slightly or disrespectfully of what he was totally ignorant. Neither did the Historical Society, of which he was now a leading member, nor the Democrats, whom he represented in the Assembly and was shortly to represent in the Congress of the United States; nor the authors and artists whom he worked with and sponsored, nor the wealthy Dutch burghers, now, at last, by grace of Irving, the aristocracy of the city. About N-YHS; President and CEO; Highlights 2018-19 Ned Irish – the founding fatherof the Knicks – led the club to victory against the Toronto Huskies (68-66) during their first showdown in this newfound league. 337-343; Oct. 1953, pp. The final decision to call the team the “Knickerbockers” was made by the club’s founder, the legendary Ned Irish. Systematic records for the period 1804–1809 are not extant. We cannot know whether these cookies gave the patriots their idea. When did it all start? He could only have been in that chair because Moore put him there, with the concurrence of Bishop Hobart. So there is, I believe, an element of truth in the myth about Clement Moore’s Dutch gardener; only the gardener was Gulian Crommelin Verplanck, collaborator with Sands and Bryant on The Talisman, Peter Puff, the pseudonymous author of The Bucktail Bards, friend of James Fenimore Cooper (who refers to Santa Claus in The Pioneers, which he was writing at this moment); a founder of the St. Nicholas Society and the St. Nicholas Club. My sister Mrs. Annie Nicholas, was at home. The forgotten Dutch colonizing of New Amsterdam was now remembered with civic pride. Thank you for the history on the hospital. Then came the Revolution. Both Nick and Claus are natural phonetic changes. Among the Society’s papers is a series of letters from Weir to Verplanck. But germination does not become virulent unless a unique set of conditions and a unique set of men change a latent infection into a plague. Such holdover customs of the old country die here—quickly, if the group is quickly assimilated; more slowly if, like the Pennsylvania Germans, they resist the melting pot. According to Weyman’s New York Gazette, April 13, 1761, “The anniversary feast of St. George is to be held” at the House of James Elliott, at Corlear’s Hook. Who should be there, founding the New Jersey Society of the Sons of St. Tammany, No. Today we are somewhat sheepish when we gather to acknowledge St. Nicholas as our patron. The custom lasted for sixty years or so, but has now, I believe, disappeared. I do not mean that his delightful rhymes about St. Nicholas are out of character. The best estimates indicate that in this period the number of Dutch in the Colonies did not noticeably outnumber French, Flemish, Walloons, or Swedes, and were outnumbered by Germans—all of whom together constituted but ten per cent of the population. Publication date 1948 Topics New York (N.Y.) -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783 Publisher New York : C. Scribner's Sons Collection inlibrary; printdisabled; trent_university; internetarchivebooks Digitizing sponsor I emphasize that there is a good chance that these patriots never had Holland in mind at all. For instance, in Buffalo and like places where there was a heavy concentration of Germans who immigrated around 1840, St. Nicholas would call at each home on Nicholas Eve, December 5th, to take orders for presents to be delivered on Christmas. The symbol was spreading. In Poland and France he brings husbands and babies. But to readers it must be clear that it was also a take-off on Mitchill himself. Pintard records that he especially fought and lost on the appointment of Gulian Verplanck as Professor of the Evidences of Revealed Religion. L. White, speaking to you from Finland, the country where our legend of Santa Claus and his reindeer first began.” But the Finnish Santa Claus, with reindeer, was an American export. Soon that Society would be celebrating with him his special saint’s day. Pintard never could have felt warmly about Verplanck, but they had worked closely together as leaders of The New-York Historical Society. St. Nicholas Center All rights reserved, Saint Nicholas of Myra, Bari, and Manhattan: Book Review. It is demonstrable that Pintard helped to create Washington’s Birthday and the Fourth of July as national holidays. back17. The hagiolatry stirred up by revolutionary temper made popular a whole cycle of saints. Knickerbocker himself—the name literally means “child’s marble baker”—is in certain flashes Mitchill, and in still other flashes Pintard and Hosack and Clinton. The name comes from the first settlers rolling their pants just below the knees.This style of pants was eve… Illustrations, which, I understand, were the first published by lithograph in America, accompany eight quatrains about Santeclaus. There is a popular explanation, which is about as accurate as most explanations of plagues—a legend which is repeated yearly in those Christmas books which blossom with the poinsettias. He was a great patriot and a staunch Jeffersonian. The verses, as printed in Pintard’s broadside, are related to an eighteenth-century Dutch song, somewhat debased, presumably by oral transmission. This correspondence indicates, first, that before the publication of Moore’s poem in The New York Book of Verse in 1837 Weir had done still another picture of St. Nicholas at Verplanck’s request. “E’en the poor Negro will a while resign/His furrows, to adorn Saint Quaco’s shrine …” (1788). Arthur Hosking, in his True Story of a Visit from St. Nicholas, and other true-story writers say that Moore invented the reindeer. Pintard gradually drifted from his Huguenot church; by 1828 he was firmly installed in the Anglican communion, to which his family subscribed. N. Phelps Stokes, Iconography of Manhattan Island, index, S. V. back4. Even this erudite son of the Episcopal Bishop of New York and President of Columbia College must have heard of Santa Claus after Irving. These are the days, in 1789 to 1793, when his patriotism leads him to search for American history and antiquities; when he inspires Belknap to found the Massachusetts Historical; and when, blocked from founding a society in New York, he “engrafts” it, as he himself, writes, onto his Society of St. Tammany. Gulian, who was the youngest and most brilliant Bachelor of Arts ever to graduate at Columbia, could write the kind of classical criticism Moore understood and appreciated.18. When New Yorkers resurrected St. Nicholas, they did so because he was anti-British, not because he was pro-Dutch; and he was not to be taken seriously. In statements about St. Nicholas’ patronage of The New-York Historical Society, the year 1810 is usually cited. Nor was that all. The Father Knickerbocker ball given for the benefit of the City History club in the new ballroom of the Plaza last night was very largely attended. At the very moment in January 1808 that Washington and Peter Irving had the inspiration which became the Knickerbocker History, Salmagundi10 noticed Santa Claus: The embryo of the Knickerbocker History conceived at this date was, according to Irving, a take-off on the learned Doctor Samuel Latham Mitchill’s guide to the City of New York. His anapests and iambs never falter, and his diction is time-tested and secure. But according to one of the earliest records, on January 10, 1809, at the annual banquet of the Society, Dr. David Hosack (who because of Pintard’s deafness was apt to give public utterance to Pintard’s ideas) offered this toast: At that same dinner, Washington Irving’s name was proposed for membership. The next decades, too, established the city as the hub of publishing, of styles, and of the lively arts. But no Santa Claus. 300-305). The cathedral of the Vikings in Greenland was dedicated to St. Nicholas; Columbus on his first voyage named a port in Haiti for St. Nicholas; and the Spaniards called what is now Jacksonville, Florida, St. Nicholas Ferry. At Christmas 1822, Verplanck and Moore were close indeed. In New York City there are, or recently have been, three schools solely for the training of Santa Clauses; these Gotham schools are imitated in other major cities. "Wendy Knickerbocker has written a carefully-researched, well-balanced study of the life and times of the Methodist preacher Edward Taylor, or 'Father Taylor' as he was known in his day. Then no other mention of St. Nicholas until 1793, long after the Revolution. Gulian, too, was primary in the forming of the Knickerbocker History. As soon as the children of the family grow a bit older, the customs will probably disappear. The Knickerbocker baseball club, founded in 1845, was the first organized baseball team in the United States. 6. She married Adam J Hoysradt in 1799, in New York, United States. back. In Russia, he still protects communists from wolves. Father Knickerbocker is a giant balloon that appeared in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in 1936. Dr. Vail has published two very informative articles19 on this painting and on a watercolor sketch from which it was done by Robert Weir, Professor of Painting and Drawing at the Military Academy at West Point, in 1837. 87) through Judge Benson. As a prelude, he ran ads for nearly a month before about the missing Knickerbocker to whet the public’s appetite, as they did. According to Tin Pan Alley that year: Santa Claus is Due; Santa Claus Has Moved to Indiana; Santa Claus for President; Santa’s on His Way; Santa, Dear Santa; and Santa Drives Again. Father Knickerbocker used to represent New York City in cartoons, much the way Uncle Sam is used for the United States. The Yule log was burned, the Boar’s head adorned the table, the house was strung with green boughs, and Santa Claus (Kris Kringle) left his presents in appropriate costume.” (N.Y. Genealogical and Bio- graphical Society, Records I, 52.) That year the Society held its first anniversary dinner for St. Nicholas, and the well-known broadside (reproduced herewith) which Pintard had Alexander Anderson engrave was published at his own expense. That history was told from the alleged perspective of the old-line Dutch families who had settled New York before it was taken by the British. https://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Father+Knickerbocker, Dictionary, Encyclopedia and Thesaurus - The Free Dictionary, the webmaster's page for free fun content, Hudson River Valley National Heritage Area, Father Involvement Initiative Ontario Network, Father is passing himself off as daughter to collect inheritance. Belknap Papers, II, 162. back8. I got these at my favorite local shop for a very good deal in the best condition that I have ever seen. Irving could say with fairness that until he published his Knickerbocker History in 1809, few citizens knew “that New York had ever been called New Amsterdam or had heard of the names of its Dutch governors or cared a straw about their ancient Dutch progenitors”. Father Knickerbocker Rebels book. None is known. It seems to me that half of my respected colleagues spend their holidays chewing pencils over doggerel for their children. Father Knickerbocker, The Legend and the Myth Actually, the first Knickerbocker was a real person, as far as scant account reveals to us. If we think of Paulding at all, and we should, we probably think of him as Secretary of the Navy under Van Buren. 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