According to the New-York Historical Society, The modern Santa was born in the imagination of Clement Clarke Moore, a scholar who penned a whimsical poem about St. Nicholas, the patron of old Dutch New York, for the amusement of his six children at Christmastime. According to several family accounts, Livingston's fifth great-granddaughter, Mary Van Deusen of Massachusetts, told the Journal that a guest who heard Livingston recite the poem that Christmas morning was so enthralled with it that she pleaded with Livingston to make her a copy, which he did.