By Patrick T. Conley
Two centuries before English novelist Charles Dickens created Ebenezer Scrooge, who dismissed Christmas with a disgruntled “bah-humbug,” the early New England settlers had done the same. The popular depiction of a New England colonial Christmas is a fairy tale,
In 17th century New England, Christmas was not even a holiday, let alone a holy, and for over two decades, the celebration of Christmas was a crime. In 1659, the legislature of the Massachusetts Bay Colony enacted a law that levied a five-shilling fine on anyone who was “found observing any such day as Christmas or the like, either by forbearing of labor, feasting, or any other way.” It remained on the books until 1681, when it was repealed due to pressure from Anglican England.
Puritan opposition to Christmas had many motives. The sect, forerunner of the present-day Congregationalists, received its name because it wished to “purify” England’s Anglican Church from “popish” (i.e., Roman Catholic liturgy, customs, traditions, and “superstitions”). It reasoned that such purification was more effectively accomplished in New England rather than in Old England.
The Puritans and their Pilgrim neighbors in Plymouth believed that Rome had placed a Christian veneer on a pagan post-harvest festival that coincided with the winter solstice (December 21). Only in the 4th century did the Church, led by Pope Julius I, officially decide to observe Christmas on December 25. Puritans noted that this date was arbitrary, not biblical.
In the 4th century, Western Civilization operated under the calendar promulgated by Julius Caesar (the Julian Calendar). The first day of the year was March 25, and December, as indicated by its name, was the 10th month. A nine-month period of human gestation from New Year’s Day (March 25) forward would culminate with a birth on Dec. 25.
Fortunately, the Puritans failed to perpetuate their views, as did their Calvinist brethren in Rhode Island. Several Rhode Islanders played key roles in the evolution of Christmas as we observe it today. In the early 1720s, James and Ann Franklin published almanacs in Boston, boldly identifying December 25 as Christmas Day. By this and other acts of disrespect for civil and ecclesiastical authority in the pages of his newspaper, New England Courant, James was jailed briefly for his opinions. Like other Massachusetts dissenters, he and Ann sought greater liberty in Rhode Island. They came to Newport in 1726 to exercise their freedom of the press by printing the colony’s first newspaper, the Rhode Island Gazette,
In the 19th century, two other Rhode Islanders helped shape the modern observance of Christmas in more significant ways. Clement Clarke Moore (1799-1863), son of a New York Episcopalian minister and a professor of Greek and Hebrew at Columbia University, penned a Christmas poem for his children called “A Visit From St. Nicholas,” which he published in 1844, around the time he retired to live permanently in Newport at 25 Catherine Street.
Shortly after Moore’s death, German American cartoonist Thomas Nast popularized the appearance of the St. Nicholas described by Moore in his famous verses. Thus, Moore and Nast combined their talents to produce America’s present image of Santa Claus as it first appeared in the widely read Harper’s Weekly magazine, then edited by Providence-born George William Curtis (1824-1892), an author, orator, and civil service reformer. Curtis was the grandson of U.S. Sen. James Burrill, for whom our Rhode Island town is named.
To this secular icon, 19th- and early 20th-century immigration to New England added a strong religious dimension to our local Christmas observances. Irish and German arrivals, followed by French-Canadian, Swedish, Portuguese, Polish Lithuanians, and Italian immigrants, properly made the holiday more Christ-centered—a condition that prevailed for most of the 20th century.
But just as the Puritans’ opposition waned, so did religious devotion decline in present-day New England. Consumerism now competes with Christianity in the celebration of Christmas. Today, the bar code, rather than “bah-humbug,” is becoming the prevailing spirit of Christmas.
George Curtis was inducted into The Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame in 1973, and Clement Moore joined him in 2004.
Patrick T. Conley is President Emeritus of The Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame and Rhode Island’s historian laureate.