ASp, how seriously can one take Mr. Foster's claim that the "The Night Before Christmas" was authored not by Clement C. Moore (as has been accepted for well over a century) but rather by Major Henry Livingston Jr.?
There's nothing new here: The Livingston family has been claiming authorship for years -- and finding no takers.
"No one has questioned the authenticity of this account [of Moore's authorship] except the descendants of one Henry Livingston, born in 1748...The Livingston family stoutly maintained that their ancestor was the true author of the ballad. Somehow it found its way into Moore's hands, they claimed, and More was unable to disown it once it had been attributed to him. Stevenson carefully considers the Livingston claim and roundly rejects it. The sole basis for it seems to be that Livingston did write some verses in anapest meter, but, as Stevenson says, all anapestic verse sounds the same."* (Martin Gardener (1991), relying upon Burton E. Stevenson, (1924). That seems solid authority: Mr. Gardner for years authored a monthly column for Scientific American; Mr. Stevenson (1872-1962) is prominent enough to be listed in bartleby.com.)
The Livingston claim had been thoroughly investigated -- and rejected -- when a Livingston descendant triggered Foster's interest. Could Foster have simply concluded that a "man bites dog" story would garner him more attention, and royalties, than "dog bites man"? As best I can tell, he neither offered new evidence nor published in any academic journal, subjecting his view to peer review and critique -- and his claim has not achieved scholarly acceptance.
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*
"Anapest" is in the original; not meant in the slightest as a punning reference to any ayleur! 
