The first Europeans to arrive in the New World brought St. Nicholas. Vikings dedicated their cathedral to him in Greenland. On his first voyage, Columbus named a Haitian port for St. Nicholas on December 6, 1492. In Florida, Spaniards named an early settlement St. Nicholas Ferry, now known as Jacksonville. However, St. Nicholas had a difficult time during the 16th century Protestant Reformation which took a dim view of saints. Even though both reformers and counter-reformers tried to stamp out St. Nicholas-related customs, because the common people so loved St. Nicholas, he survived on the European continent as people continued to place nuts, apples, and sweets in shoes left beside beds, on windowsills, or before the hearth.
Although it is almost universally believed that the Dutch brought St. Nicholas to New Amsterdam, scholars find scant evidence of such traditions in Dutch New Netherland. Colonial Germans in Pennsylvania kept the feast of St. Nicholas, and several later accounts have St. Nicholas visiting New York Dutch on New Years’ Eve, thus adopting the English custom.
Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle) joined the society and on St. Nicholas Day that same year, he published the satirical fiction, Knickerbocker’s History of New York, with numerous references to a jolly St.Nicholas character. This was not the saintly bishop, rather an elfin Dutch burgher (A Citizen of a town or city, typically a member of the wealthy bourgeoisie) with a clay pipe. These delightful flights of imagination are the source of the New Amsterdam St. Nicholas legends: that the first Dutch emigrant ship had a figurehead of St. Nicholas; that St. Nicholas Day was observed in the colony; that the first church was dedicated to him; and that St. Nicholas comes down chimneys to bring gifts. Irving’s work was regarded as the “first notable work of imagination in the New World.”
The New York Historical Society held its first St. Nicholas anniversary dinner on December 6, 1810. John Pintard commissioned artist Alexander Anderson to create the first American image of Nicholas for the occasion. Nicholas was shown in a gift-giving role with children’s treats in stockings hanging at a fireplace.
Alexander Anderson’s accompanying poem is below:
Saint Nicholas, good holy man!
Put on the Tabard (a coarse sleeveless garment worn as the outer dress of medieval peasants and clerics), best you can,
Go, clad therewith, to Amsterdam,
From Amsterdam to Hispanje (Spain),
Where apples bright of Oranje (Orange),
And likewise those granate (Garnet, red) surnamed,
Roll through the streets, all free unclaimed.
Saint Nicholas, my dear good friend,
To serve you ever is my end,
If you will, now, me something give,
I’ll serve you ever while I live.