My 4th cousin 6x removed Benjamin Moore (1748-1816) and his son, Clement Clark Moore (1779-1863)
Chelsea is where we have lived the most in the city with two lofts and now our office. So I feel very at home in this area. I was shocked to discover the land was once owned by my distant relatives.
Captain Thomas Clarke was an English officer and a veteran of the French and Indian Wars. In 1750, Thomas built a house and called his land Chelsea. At that time, there were no other houses around for miles. A picture that is hard to imagine today!
Shortly after his house was built on the south side of what is today 23rd Street just west of Ninth Avenue, a fire destroyed it and burned it almost to the ground. Captain Clarke was ill at the time of the fire and was taken to the home of a friend where he died.
After his death, his wife had the house rebuilt and lived in it with her two daughters until she died in 1902. One of the daughters was Charity Clarke (1747-1838). Charity married my 4th cousin 6x removed, Benjamin Moore. He inherited the home.
Benjamin Moore was born on October 5, 1748 in Newtown, Queens, New York and died on February 27, 1816 in Greenwich Village. He and his wife Charity lived in the house in Chelsea after Charity’s mother died. Benjamin was president of Columbia College from 1801-1811. He was the second Protestant Episcopal Bishop of the Diocese of New York and a Rector at Trinity Church Wall Street. He also administered the last rites to Alexander Hamilton. Benjamin’s gravesite today is at the Trinity Wall Street Cemetery in lower Manhattan.
Later, twenty six houses were part of Old Chelsea Village. Some of the houses on 23rd and 24th street had little gardens and were occupied by writers and artists. At that time they were only a few stories high. By 1930, things were changing, and new apartment buildings were added. Today, about 1700 apartments between 17-19 stories occupy an entire city block where the Moore home was. Our office is one of them.
Benjamin Moore’s son, my 5th cousin 5x removed Clement Clarke Moore is known today as the author of one of my favorite poems. “Twas the Night Before Christmas.” He was born July 15, 1779 in Chelsea. He graduated from Kings College and in 1821, he was a professor of Greek and other courses in the General Theological Seminary in New York. Today a park is named after him at Tenth Avenue and West 22nd Street.
I wonder if it ever bothered Clement that he was so brilliant and yet was most remembered for his simple but classic poem, “A Visit From St. Nicholas.” This was to honor St. Nicholas, a bishop in the early Christian Church who was said to devote his life to the welfare of children. Clement’s poem was later called, ‘Twas The Night Before Christmas.
He was use to writing more serious essays and “weighty” papers that involved intense research and learning. But he became most famous for this lighthearted poem that he wrote in 1822 for his daughters at Christmas time. It’s a poem I love to read every year. It makes me feel nostalgic and reminds me of happy celebrations as a child.