# Origin of Santa Claus -- Re: Night Before Christmas **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [December 26, 2000, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-santa-claus-re-night-before-christmas/47264 "2000-12-26T18:25:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![onigame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/9fc29f/32.png) [@onigame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/onigame)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2000, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-santa-claus-re-night-before-christmas/47264/1 "2000-12-26T18:25:10Z")
The article “Did the popular image of Santa Claus originate in a Coca-Cola ad campaign?” ( [http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/msantaclaus.html](http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/msantaclaus.html) ) assumes without question that the authorship of “A Visit From St. Nicholas” was Clement Clarke Moore. As it turns out, this is actually an issue quite under some contention these days – there are some strong arguments attributing the authorship to a Major Henry Livingston, Jr. It would be great to see some straight dope on the authorship here. References: [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44875-2000Dec23.html](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44875-2000Dec23.html) [http://www.ultranet.com/~maida/familytree/henry/index.htm](http://www.ultranet.com/~maida/familytree/henry/index.htm) [http://www.snopes.com/holidays/xmas/moore.htm](http://www.snopes.com/holidays/xmas/moore.htm) ---
**Author:** ![maralinn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@maralinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/maralinn)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2000, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-santa-claus-re-night-before-christmas/47264/2 "2000-12-26T20:19:03Z")
I doubt if Cecil could do a more thorough job than Don Foster has already done. It’s all in his book Author Unknown.