It Came Upon A Midnight Clear

"It Came Upon A Midnight Clear" was written by Edmund Sears (1810-1876), pastor of the Unitarian Church in Wayland, Massachusetts. It appeared on December 29, 1849 in the (Boston, Massachusetts) Christian Register. Sears is said to have written these words at the request of his friend, W. P. Lunt, a minister in Quincy, Massachusetts. In 1850 Richard Storrs Willis, a composer who trained under Felix Mendelssohn as well as editor and critic for the New York Tribune, wrote the melody called "Carol".