SAINT NICHOLAS IN AMERICA.
Just as the Christmas tree was brought over to this country by early
German immigrants so Saint Nicholas, or Santa Klaus, came here in the
train of the Dutch settlers of New York. He established himself first
in the little island of Manhattan and then gradually spread all over
the country, being greatly assisted by the fact that he was no stranger
to the German settlers everywhere. But his Dutch origin is shown by the
very name Santa Klaus, which is common alike to Holland and America,
though it is elsewhere unknown.
At first he was honored on his own day with the same observances that
marked the festival in the Fatherland.
Before the beginning of the nineteenth century, however, St. Nicholas’s
day had been all but forgotten in New Amsterdam (the Dutch name for New
York) and we find that New Year’s eve was the occasion when he made
his rounds as a gift bearer to the children. Later he transferred his
activities to Christmas.
[Illustration: New Year’s gifts in a French workingman’s family.
Drawing by Gavarni.]
I reproduce from an old New York magazine, dated January, 1844, a
print which shows Santa Klaus on the point of remounting a chimney
after filling the stockings of the children of the household. The text
expressly says that the time is New Year’s eve.
To go further back, we know that even in the eighteenth century, when
New York was still to a great extent Dutch in blood and in feeling, the
little children of the Knickerbockers would gather expectant around
the great hearth in the parlor on the eve of New Year and not on the
eve of Saint Nicholas’s feast. It was to Saint Nicholas, however, that
they addressed the childish hymns and songs which their forefathers had
brought over from Holland.
Here are two specimen verses:
Santa Klaus, good holy man!
Go your way from Amsterdam;
From Amsterdam to Spain,
From Spain to Orange,
And bring us little children toys.
Saint Nicholas, my dear good friend,
To praise you ever is my end.
If you will presents to me give
I’ll serve you till I cease to live.
It was about the middle of the nineteenth century that the funny men
of America took the Saint under their special patronage. In Holland
he had been austere and dignified, as became a bishop and a saint. In
America he developed into the fat, jolly, pot-bellied old roysterer
whom we all know and love and who reminds us at so many points of the
fun loving Silenus of Pagan times.
Undoubtedly it was the American Clement C. Moore who immortalized the
figure and decided the model which all succeeding poets and artists
have ever followed. This is how Santa Klaus is described in Mr. Moore’s
very popular poem entitled “A Visit from Santa Klaus”:
He was dressed all in fur from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a pedlar just opening his pack,
His eyes how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry.
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard on his chin was as white as the snow.
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath,
He had a broad face and a little round belly
That shook, when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly,
He was chubby and plump--a right jolly old elf--
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself.
Year by year the funny men of the pencil and the pen do their best
to add to his eccentricities yet always they retain a measure of
respect for the dear old gentleman.
[Illustration: French children gazing up the chimney for gifts.
Old French print.]
One comic artist sends him to Wall Street among the brokers and the
bankers, yet he preserves his dignity even among those shrewd and
clever men, and is ready to teach them more than they can hope to teach
him.
Other artists make him turn to account the latest inventions of our
inventors and scientists. Even if one picture does show him coming
to grief on an automobile, another catches him in the very act of
utilizing a flying machine.
Again we are shown another side of the matter. We are brought face to
face with the unbelief of the child who is ripening into boyhood or
girlhood.
At six years old or sometimes later doubts begin to visit the youthful
mind. These doubts are carried very far by the little girl--a juvenile
Saint Thomas in pantalettes--who in Mr. J. R. Shaver’s picture, meets
Santa Klaus face to face, yet tells him to his face that she doesn’t
believe in him.
At this period in their lives young folks of both sexes will sympathize
with the spirit of inquiry that summons Saint Nicholas, as in Mr.
O’Malley’s cartoon, to answer before a judge and jury of their own age
the question as to whether he has any real existence.
And now turn to the last picture of all, that which Mr. Henry Hutt has
kindly lent me for reproduction in this little book, and if you insist
on an answer which will rob you of the bliss of ignorance, perhaps you
will find it there!
THE END
[Illustration: Silenus and Bacchus.
Roman statue of the fourth century.]
[Illustration: The bambino.
In the church of Ara Cœli, Rome.]
[Illustration: Santa Klaus on New Year’s eve.
From an early American print.]
[Illustration: The investigating committee--Santa Claus to the Bar. Is
he a real person?
By Power O’Malley.
Copyright 1908 by Life Publishing Co.]
[Illustration: St. Nicholas unveils.
By Henry Hutt.
Courtesy of the artist.]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Bacchus is the Latin name for this God. The Greek name was
Dionysos. This festival therefore is more properly the Dionysiac feast,
but the habit of calling Greek Gods by their Roman names is so general
among us that it is as well to stick to Bacchus and Bacchanalia.
[2] London Illustrated News, December 25, 1858. Schulzer: Legends of
the Rhine.
[3] “Il Libro D’oro. Translated by Mrs. Frances Alexander,” Boston.
Little Brown & Co. 1905.
[4] Lippincott’s Magazine.
[5] D’Israeli’s “Curiosities of Literature.”
[6] Annie C. Kuiper in “St. Nicholas” Magazine, January, 1897.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.
Incorrect entries in the List of Illustrations have been corrected.
The cover image for this eBook was created by the transcriber and is entered into the public domain.