Santa Claus and chimneys, 1812, 1862, 1902 and 1918.
Santa Claus is well known nowadays for coming down chimneys to place gifts in children’s homes, something first documented in print in a book from 1813 or 1814. Just a year or two earlier, however, in 1812, he is first recorded as using chimneys for this purpose—but he drops the gifts down without accompanying them along the way.
The 1812 edition of A History of New York, from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty states that “the good St. Nicholas would often make his appearance … of a holyday afternoon, riding jollily among the tree tops, or over the roofs of the houſes, now and then drawing forth magnificent preſents from his breeches pockets, and dropping them down the chimnies of his favourites.”
Even after he has begun going down the chimneys himself, he does still sometimes just drop gifts down, as he does around 1862, and in 1902 and 1918.
Bibliography in progress
A History of New York, from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty, 2ⁿᵈ ed., vol. 1, by Diedrich Knickerbocker (pseudonym of Washington Irving), 1812. (In the public domain.)
False Stories Corrected, 1814 (but presumably also in the original 1813 printing). (In the public domain.)
“A Christmas Mistake,” by Edwin L. Sabin, St. Nicholas, vol. 30, no. 2, Dec. 1902. (In the public domain.)
Early American Children’s Books, by A. S. W. Rosenbach, 1933. (In the public domain.)
☝︎ Santa Claus, painting by William Holbrook Beard, ca. 1862. (In the public domain.)
☝︎ Illustration by Otto W. Beck for “A Christmas Mistake,” by Edwin L. Sabin, St. Nicholas, vol. 30, no. 2, Dec. 1902. (In the public domain.)
☝︎ Detail of “The Saint and the Sinner,” cartoon by Calvert Smith, Judge, vol. 75, no. 1938, 7 Dec. 1918. (In the public domain.)