From ice skating on frozen ponds to cherished family recipes, the New Brunswick Museum preserves these magical moments through a collection of rare photographs, letters, and artifacts—including a handwritten copy of ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas’ with a special connection to our province.
New Brunswick has holiday traditions that have long been celebrated and handed down from generation to generation. Drawing on the collections of the New Brunswick Museum Archives and Research Library, here are several enchanting holiday memories of yesterday.
Included in the New Brunswick Museum Archives and Research Library holdings are a variety of beautiful historic photographs and published and unpublished items from holidays past, each containing an aspect of the New Brunswick story. These stories include a range of Acadian, Scottish, English, Irish and other traditions from yesteryear.
One of the most enchanting holiday memories in the Museum’s collection is a handwritten version of “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” also known as “Twas the Night before Christmas.” This poem, written by Clement Clarke Moore (1779-1863), is familiar to many, but has a special New Brunswick connection. Image 1 shows this rare handwritten copy of the famous Christmas poem from 1825, created by Mary Odell.
At the New Brunswick Museum Archives, in the Odell family papers, there is this handwritten version of “A Visit from St. Nicholas.” It was written in 1825, and very likely the handwriting is that of Jonathan Odell’s daughter Mary. The Odell family were Loyalists who came to New Brunswick from New York in 1784, and the Moore and Odell families were friends in pre-revolutionary times. Jonathan Odell was the first Provincial Secretary of New Brunswick and was Clement Moore’s godfather. The families continued to correspond in the decades after the Odells left New York.
Clement Clarke Moore was proficient in languages and music and graduated from Columbia College in 1798. He became a professor at the General Theological Seminary of the Protestant Episcopal Church in New York City and continued to serve as professor of Oriental and Greek literature until his resignation in 1850. He had also studied Hebrew, and in 1809, he published “A Compendious Lexicon of the Hebrew language” in 2 volumes.
The original poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas” was written by Clement Clarke Moore in 1822, as a Christmas gift for his children; it was said to have been transcribed by a guest of the household and given by her to the press in Troy, N.Y. and was published anonymously in the Troy Sentinel, Dec. 23, 1823. Since it was not a scholarly publication, as other material written by Moore, he was not anxious to acknowledge it publicly. However, in 1844 it was included in a collection of his poetry.
The New Brunswick Museum Archival collections include this and other correspondence between Clement Clarke Moore and the Odell family.
The collections that help discover the spirit of the season in New Brunswick also include greeting cards, postcards, letters, songs and poetry, expressing seasonal greetings and sentiments. Image 2 displays a sample of the collection of seasonal greeting cards at the Museum Archives, showing how New Brunswickers shared holiday cheer in the past.
The Museum’s holdings also feature historical photographs that capture winter activities like skating and sleighing. Image 3 shows an interior view of Victoria Skating Rink in Saint John, New Brunswick, around 1870, where festively dressed skaters enjoyed this popular winter pastime.
The collection includes menus from hotels and other establishments holding seasonal dinners with menu items such as: reform sauce, corned tongue, Kummel Eckau ice cream, picalli, nesselrode, crapaudine and Victoria sauce. Image 4 shows a 1900 menu card from the Royal Hotel, Saint John, N.B., highlighting the festive fare of that era.
Historical photographs provide glimpses into holiday commerce and traditions. Image 5 captures the first load of Christmas trees out of Fredericton, New Brunswick being shipped to Boston on Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) No. 71, with R. Merryweather as Fireman and Robert Donaldson as Engineer, on December 11, 1905, demonstrating an important holiday industry connection.
The Fredericton Christmas Market was also a notable tradition captured in the Museum’s collection. Image 6 shows a postcard of the Christmas Market in Fredericton, New Brunswick, circa 1910, from the Dr. William Francis Ganong Collection, illustrating the city’s early 20th-century holiday spirit.
The Museum also preserves memories of how institutions celebrated the season. Image 7 shows nurses, student nurses and children enjoying Christmas festivities at Saint John General Hospital in Saint John, New Brunswick, around 1950. Similarly, Image 8 captures nurses singing Christmas carols at Saint John General Hospital, with Miss Louise Peters, Associate Director of Nursing Service, in the center, circa 1955.
Within the New Brunswick Museum Archives, in the Saint John Jewish Museum archival collections, there is also material relating to the celebration of Chanukah, the festival of lights, by the Jewish community. In November 2016, the Museum’s blog featured a post on Chanukah in New Brunswick.
The Clement Clarke Moore handwritten poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas” was displayed, with several other seasonal pieces from the New Brunswick Museum Archives, at the New Brunswick Museum Exhibition Centre, from Tuesday, December 15, 2015, to Sunday, January 3, 2016. This past seasonal exhibition showcased the Museum’s commitment to preserving New Brunswick’s holiday traditions.
