A Visit from St. Nicholas
church in the city of Troy, N. Y., and Dr. Butler's eldest daughter Harriet happened to be visiting the Moore children and to be present when Dr. Moore read the verses. She liked them so much that she copied them in her "album"—an essential property of all young ladies of that epoch—and carried them home with her to read to the children at the rectory.
When the following Christmas season rolled around, she bethought her of the verses which she had found so delightful, and could not resist the inclination to make them public. Accordingly she made a copy of them and sent it to Mr. Holley, the editor of the Troy Sentinel, without other communication of any sort or any indication of the authorship, and Mr. Holley used the poem, as has been stated, in his issue of December 23, 1823.
This is a reasonable and straightforward narrative, but it has been objected that it was written by Mr. Pelletreau more than thirty years after Dr. Moore's death, and that he nowhere indicates his sources of information. However, it is only fair to infer that he got the story from the Moore family, where it must have been well known. At least it agrees in essence with such details as Dr. Moore himself gave in the letter of 1862.
It is said that Dr. Moore was considerably chagrined by the publication of his verses—as
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