SOURCE URL: https://web.archive.org/web/2024/https://www.henrylivingston.com/xmas/witnesses/eliza-mar4-1879.htm   [page path reconstructed from the site's relative links]
DOCUMENT: Eliza (Elizabeth Davenport) Livingston Thompson [Lansing] (1805-1886), daughter of Henry Livingston Jr., to her great-niece Anne Livingston Goodrich, "Elm Cottage", March 4th [1879 — year assigned by the site; the letter says her father died "more than fifty years ago"]. Thomas Collection. EARLIEST DATED WRITTEN RECORD of the family claim found.
PROVENANCE OF THIS TEXT: henrylivingston.com transcription of the manuscript (Thomas Collection, now New-York Historical Society, unless stated).
VERIFICATION STATUS: [S] SECOND-HAND transcription (not checked against the original)
RETRIEVED: 2026-09-14
NOTES: Live site henrylivingston.com fails TLS in this environment; page fetched from the Internet Archive Wayback Machine (2024 capture) and converted HTML->text; site navigation lines removed. The site (Mary S. Van Deusen, Livingston descendant) transcribes manuscripts of the Thomas Collection / New-York Historical Society; transcriptions are SECOND-HAND and have not been checked against the manuscripts.
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From Eliza Livingston Thompson Lansing to Anne Livingston Goodrich, Mar 4, 1879
Transcription
Dear Annie
Your letter has just reached me, and I hasten to tell you all I know about the poem 'Night
            Before Christmas.' It was approved and believed in our family to be Father's, and I well
            remember our astonishment when we saw it claimed as Clement C. Moore's.
            Many years after my father's decease, which took place more than fifty years ago [1828];
            at that time my brothers in looking over his papers found the original in his own
            handwriting, with his many fugitive pieces which he had preserved.
            And then, too, the style was so exactly his, when he felt in a humorous mood. We have
            often said, could it be possible that another could express the same originality of thought
            and use the same phrases so familiar to us, as Father's!
            What my brother Edwin said to your mother, no doubt, was true, but I do not remember
            the circumstances. I remember my brother Charles took the poem home with him, he was
            then living in Ohio, and I have an indistinct idea that he intended to have it published, but
            I am not at all sure on that point, so don't like to assert it as fact.
            My father had a fine poetical taste, and wrote a great deal both prose and poetry, but not
            for publication, but for his own and our amusement; he also had a great taste for drawing
            and painting. When we were children he used to entertain us on winter evenings by
            getting down the paint box, we seated around the table, first he would portray something
            very pathetic, which would melt us to tears, the next thing would be so comic, that we
            would be almost wild with laughter. And this dear good man was your
            great-great-grandfather.
Now my dear give your mama and grandmama my warmest love
Yours very truly
E L Thompson
Elm Cottage & xx xx
March 4th
Manuscript
Thomas Collection