"It Came Upon A Midnight Clear" was written by Edmund H. 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".
