Santa,Nast, and the North Pole

[Laurence Horn]

>And, a shy poster provided me with a link to a source  that indicates a poem
>by George P. Webster is the earliest connection of the North
>Pole=Santa.(1869)
>
>http://www.snopes.com/cokelore/santa.asp

I'm usually convinced by snopes, but I'm wondering about an account
which continues to credit Clement Clarke Moore for 'Twas the Night
Before Christmas without brooking any alternative.  I remember being
convinced that there was strong textual and documentary evidence that
another author (whose name I forget) had written the poem and that
Moore published it under his own name after the other man's death.
But maybe this flap largely postdates the snopes piece, which was
posted in February 2001.  (If I'm not mistaken, there's also been a
recent biography of Santa Claus--or maybe that was an autobiography,
in which case it may not be entirely reliable.)

Larry