Introduction: In this article, Melissa Davenport Berry shares some stories and trivia connected to Christmases past. Melissa is a genealogist who has a website, americana-archives.com, and a Facebook group, New England Family Genealogy and History.
Today I bring good cheer with memorable events connected with Christmases past. A few merry anecdotes and history trivia that will make for holiday party chat.
Over the years, many traditions, customs, decorations, songs, and stories have become associated with the Christmas holiday season. Here are a few from a Dallas Morning News article, and I added some additional festivity into the mix which includes images.
1492: Christopher Columbus’ ship, the Santa Maria, struck a reef off the cost of Haiti and was abandoned on Christmas Day. Timber from the ship was used to build a fortress which was named La Navidad, the Nativity (Puerto de la Navidad, Christmas Port).
1608: Captain John Smith later (in 1612) published what is the first written account of a Christmas-time feast in English North America that he enjoyed in 1608. The full story can be read here at the Colonial Williamsburg site entitled: Captain John Smith’s Christmas.
Here is the skinny and what was on the menu:
“The next night being lodged at Kecoughtan; six or seaven dayes the extreame winde, rayne, frost and snow caused us to keep Christmas among the Salvages, where we were never more merry, nor fed on more plentie of good Oysters, Fish, Flesh, Wild-foule, and good bread; nor never had better fires in England, than in the dry smoaky houses of Kecoughtan.”
1776: General George Washington and his troops crossed the Delaware to launch a strategic surprise attack that significantly turned the tide of the American Revolutionary War in America’s favor.
A Side Note: A great big kudos for General John Glover and his regiment of “Marblehead” sailors from Massachusetts, who played a crucial role in the American Revolutionary War by ferrying George Washington and his troops across the icy Delaware River on Christmas night, December 25th, enabling the surprise attack on the Hessian forces at Trenton, New Jersey, which is famously known as “Washington Crossing the Delaware.” I adore this fellow so much I named my Tiger Cat “General Glover.”
1821: The first record of a Christmas tree in America was mentioned in the diary of Matthew Zahm in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The Christmas trees were decorated with gingerbread, apples, raisins, and colored cloth rosettes. Zahm writes that he cut down an evergreen on 20 December 1821 “on the hill at Kendrick’s sawmill” to use as a Christmas tree.
1822: Clement Clarke Moore, a professor at the General Theological Seminary in New York, wrote “A Visit from St. Nicholas” to read to his children on Christmas Eve. The famous poem, better known as “Twas the Night before Christmas,” introduced the reindeer-drawn sleigh.
Moore married Catherine Elizabeth Taylor, daughter of William and Elizabeth (Van Cortlandt) Taylor – a direct descendant of Stephanus Van Cortlandt, the first native-born mayor of New York City and first patroon of Van Cortlandt Manor, as well as the niece by marriage of Sir Edward Buller, 1st Baronet. Together, Catherine and Clement Moore were the parents of nine children.
1863: The first fat and rosy-cheeked Santa was drawn by Thomas Nast, a cartoonist for Harper’s Weekly. In his sketches, Nast pictured Santa making toys, watching children, and perched on a chimney.
1868: “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” was sung for the first time by the Children of Holy Trinity Sunday School in Philadelphia. The Christmas carol was written in 1868 by Phillips Brooks, an Episcopal priest, who was inspired by his visit to Bethlehem in 1865.
Brooks was the son of William Gray and Mary Ann (Phillips) Brooks, and a direct descendant of Rev. John Cotton and a great-grandson of Samuel Phillips Jr., founder of Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts.
Stay tuned for Part 2!
Merry Christmas Peeps!
Explore over 330 years of newspapers and historical records in GenealogyBank. Discover your family story! Start a 7-Day Free Trial
Note on the header image: candle on a Christmas tree. Credit: Malene Thyssen; Wikimedia Commons.