Jolly Old Saint Nicholas: A Song History
Some sources label this children’s song “traditional” or anonymous.[1][2] More recent research credits the words to Emily Huntington Miller (1833–1913), whose poem “Lilly’s Secret” is reported to have appeared in The Little Corporal, a Chicago magazine, in December 1865; Miller was then an associate editor there and later became its editor-in-chief.[3][4] The compilers of the Hymns and Carols of Christmas site noted in 2018, however, that they had not yet been able to consult the December 1865 issue.[3] The attribution to Benjamin Hanby (who wrote “Up on the Housetop”) is described as erroneous,[3] and no evidence is known for a credit to the songbook editor John P. McCaskey.[4]
Thomas Nast, A Merry Christmas, published in Harper’s Weekly, January 3, 1880, relief print and electrotype (detail). The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0).
The earliest known musical setting is in James R. Murray’s School Chimes (Cleveland: S. Brainard’s Sons, 1874), which credited the tune to Murray; it was later included in McCaskey’s Franklin Square Song Collection (1881).[3][4] Hymnary.org lists it in songbooks from 1935, 1947 and 1951, one of which (Christmas in Song, 1947) credits the words to “Anonymous.”[2]
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