A Visit from St. Nicholas
only child of the Right Reverend Benjamin Moore, president of Columbia College and Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in New York, one of the most prominent men of his time, who had, among other things, assisted at the inauguration of George Washington as first president of the United States and administered the last communion to Alexander Hamilton as he lay dying after his duel with Aaron Burr. His wife had inherited from her father a tract of land extending from the present Nineteenth street to Twenty-fourth street, and from what is now Eighth avenue to the Hudson River. Here the family mansion, known as "Chelsea Farm," stood on a knoll, looking down upon the Hudson, and here on July 15, 1779, Clement Clarke Moore was born.
He graduated from Columbia in 1798 and prepared for the ministry, but never took orders. Instead, continuing to live in his father's house, he devoted himself to oriental and classical studies and to the occasional writing of verse. The first fruit of his studies was a Hebrew and English lexicon, in two volumes, published in 1809. It was a decidedly important work for those days, the first of its kind published in America. Though long since superseded, it was undoubtedly, as its compiler hoped it would be, "of some service to his young countrymen in breaking down the impediments
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