December’s Object-of-the-Month is a printing block that figures into a bit of Christmas poetic humor, courtesy of Henry W. Longfellow’s grandson Harry Dana. In 1941 Dana composed a poem titled “The Midnight Ride of Santa Claus”, a parody of his grandfather’s “Paul Revere’s Ride” published in 1860. The poem incorporated elements of Clement Clark Moore’s well known 1823 work “A Visit from St. Nicholas”, but Dana had Santa making a midnight trip from Boston to Lexington, Massachusetts on Christmas Eve, 1775 much in the manner of Paul Revere's famous April 1775 ride.Dana attempted, unsuccessfully, to have the poem published in The New Yorker magazine. He instead had 300 privately printed copies made, which were then given to family members, friends, and acquaintances. The printing took place in December 1941, shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and Dana likely had the essence of the call-to-alarm character of his grandfather’s earlier work in mind, albeit presented in a lighter tone.
To create an image to accompany the poem, a printing block (shown above, on top) was made from a piece of linoleum, into which was carved a scene depicting Santa Claus in his sleigh drawn by eight reindeer. In the printed image (shown below the block) Boston’s Old North Church appears with lanterns shining from the steeple on the left, and a building, possibly representative of Lexington, on the right. As evidenced by the label on its brown paper wrapping, the printing block was made by Rev. Samuel Miller, minister of the Old Cambridge Baptist Church from 1935 to 1959 and later Dean of the Harvard Divinity School, a position he held at his death in 1968. Miller lived on Ware Street in Cambridge, on the opposite side of Harvard Yard from Harry Dana, who in 1941 resided in his grandfather’s Brattle Street Mansion. While the extent of Miller’s relationship with Harry Dana is unknown, the Reverend obviously knew Dana well enough to create this image to illustrate the poem.
The text of the full poem can be read at : 150 Years of “Paul Revere’s Ride”: The Midnight Ride of Santa Claus (paulreveresride.org)