Christmas Carols and Their Stories
Puzzle 50 · American Carols · Page 74 in print
It Came Upon the Midnight Clear
Edmund Sears was born at Sandisfield in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, in 1810, studied at Union College in Schenectady, New York, and died at Weston, Massachusetts, in 1876.
Jump to a word
The words
Choir Studies
Willis’s 1850 book Church Chorals and Choir Studies, where the tune first appeared.
Church Hymns
Church Hymns with Tunes (1874), where Sullivan’s Noel was paired with the words.
Edmund Sears
Author of the carol, a Unitarian pastor in Massachusetts.
Lancaster
Massachusetts town where Sears was pastor from 1840.
Morison
John H. Morison, editor of the Christian Register, who first received the carol.
Quincy
Town where Morison read the carol at a Sunday-school Christmas celebration.
Richard Willis
Richard Storrs Willis, composer of the tune Carol.
Sandisfield
Massachusetts town where Sears was born in 1810.
Sarum Hymnal
1868 English hymnal whose changes to the words many later books copied.
Schenectady
New York city of Union College, where Sears studied.
Sullivan
Arthur Sullivan, who adapted the tune Noel for the words.
Union College
College in Schenectady where Sears graduated in 1834.
Unitarian
The denomination of Sears’s congregation and of the paper that first printed the carol.
Wayland
Massachusetts town where Sears was pastor when he wrote the carol.
Weston
Massachusetts town where Sears served last and died in 1876.