3 Images, 2 Moments, 1 Memory
Three Images of History
Two Moments in History
Moment 1—December 16, 1773
In Boston Harbor, Patriot leader Samuel Adams, along with about 60 members of the Sons of Liberty—his underground resistance group—disguised themselves as Mohawk Indians to board three British tea ships and dump 342 chests of tea into the harbor. The midnight raid, commonly known as the “Boston Tea Party,” was organized to protest the British Parliament’s Tea Act of 1773, a bill aimed at saving the struggling East India Company by significantly lowering its tea tax and granting it a near-monopoly on the American tea trade. The reduced tax enabled the East India Company to undercut even tea smuggled into America by Dutch traders, leading many colonists to see the act as another instance of taxation tyranny. [Source: ALLEGIANCE’S THIS WEEK IN AMERICAN HISTORY]
Moment 2— January 3, 1863
The American version of Santa Claus first appeared in a magazine called Harper’s Weekly on January 3, 1863. It was created by a German-American artist named Thomas Nast. He’s often credited with making the Santa we know today.
In his first version of Santa Claus, he depicted Santa as a Union supporter during the Civil War. Santa was sitting in a sleigh full of presents, ready to give them to soldiers in a Union Army camp. Nast was clearly on the Union side, as he showed Santa wearing a jacket with stars and striped pants.
Over time, Nast kept changing and improving Santa’s look. He drew 33 Christmas pictures for Harper’s Weekly between 1863 and 1886.
By 1881, Thomas Nast made his most famous Santa Claus picture, “Merry Old Santa Claus.”
Nast’s Santa Claus pictures mixed ideas from different traditions: his German Saint Nicholas, the poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas” by Clement Clarke Moore, and his own imagination.
One Memory Preserved
“I ought not to forget the Chapel under the great oak tree that shaded the
grave yard. In those days I cannot say that I was especially fond of the Chapel at
Christmas. And yet it is Christmas that reminds me of it. My Father had a book of
sermons by Burden. There was one on the text, “Let us now go to Bethlehem and
see, etc.” and even now whenever I hear that text read, or read it myself, it
matters not where I am or about what I am thinking at the time, my thoughts
immediately go to the Christmas sermon in that Chapel.“
Reverend J. Julius Sams, D.D.
circa 1905
This quote is from a letter the Reverend Julius Sams (1826 – 1918) wrote to his nephew, Conway Whittle Sams (1864 – 1935) in about 1905. It is the most extensive first person account of life on Datha Island in the antebellum era that I know of. You can find the entire letter here.