![A photo of Charles Sampson that appeared alongside a profile on him in the New Brunswick Reporter in 1874. Notably for the time, this 1874 profile included a glamourous photograph [above]; an extreme rarity for a NB newspaper at that time. In fact, it was so exceptionally rare that the paper actually explained to its readers the painstaking process behind its appearance: first, a Fredericton photographer named Tuck had taken the picture; next Sampson had sent it to New York to get “engraved and stereotyped”; then it was sent back to be published in the newspaper.](/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/001-santas-first-appearance-in-the-maritimes-9fc5c9d2.png)
Santa Claus made his first ever in-person appearance in New Brunswick at a Fredericton candy shop way back in 1872.
What is remarkable is that Santa appeared at all; according to Saint John historian and Christmas expert David Goss, the tradition of a ‘shop Santa’ had only ever occurred in Boston, beginning in 1841.
Santa’s first sighting in the province’s capital had been preceded by an increasingly close business partnership with Charles Sampson, a Fredericton candy maker.
Before settling in Fredericton where he opened his Queen Street candy store, right across from Officers Square, Sampson owned an express parcel delivery service which took him everywhere from Woodstock to Saint John and from Fredericton to Boston.
It was possibly in Boston where Sampson first became acquainted with Santa.
On one of those New England trips he got frostbite. David Goss writes that “he had given his seat to a dignitary and had rode with the stage driver.” This may have been the impetus for Sampson to start his candy business in 1867 … a job that allowed him to stay indoors!
That very first year the shop was open, newspapers began reporting that he worked closely with Santa in order to provide local children with candies.
Four days before Christmas in 1867, the following ad was printed in the Colonial Farmer newspaper: “Santa Claus has appointed Charles A. Sampson, Confectioner, agent for the sale of all sorts of Confectionary for the Holiday Season…”
Mr. Claus and Mr. Sampson seem to have had a deepening business relationship. In 1869, a Fredericton newspaper ad read: “Santa Claus and Sampson’s have, this day, entered into a copartnership in order more fully to meet the demands of parents as well as their children during the holiday season.”
These early years don’t seem to have involved Santa actually visiting New Brunswick quite yet. Instead, and perhaps somewhat oddly, early ads for Sampson’s candy shop around Christmastime involved a business announcement between Santa and his shop, calling it a “firm,” and later declaring it was “ratified by the Dominion government.”
It is unclear how interested local children were in these details of Sampson and Santa’s business relationship.
Likely to be of considerably more interest to Fredericton children, though, was that the ad stated: if kids dropped off a sock on December 23rd or Christmas Eve, “Old Santa will carefully fill them with the choicest Confectionary, Nuts, Fruit, Toys, etc.…”
Children could bring socks to Sampson’s candy shop, Santa would fill them up in the night, and the kids could come pick up their filled stockings later. There weren’t, yet, any visits by Santa; at least, not any in which he was actually seen.
It was only in 1872 that Santa finally did appear. Unfortunately, newspapers from that year, which covered this visit, all seem to be lost, leaving us to guess how children reacted to Santa’s first-ever visit to the Maritimes.
However, the New Brunswick Reporter newspaper’s lengthy 1874 profile on Charles Sampson described what had become, by then, an annual tradition of Santa visiting Fredericton:
“For two Christmas seasons, Mr. Sampson’s establishment has been made the abode of St. Nicholas, from whence on Christmas Eve has issued a veritable Santa Claus, clad in his Greenland robes and driving his illuminated sleigh, freighted with all manner of nice things for the good girls and boys of Fredericton.”
That note about Santa being “clad in his Greenland robes,” suggests a heavy outfit that included considerably more furs, and less red, than today’s.
Santa’s early visits seem to have occurred twice, in late December. In the days leading up to Christmas, he would first show up on the streets of Fredericton in the evening, in “his illuminated sled,” illumination at the time being from lamps and candles.
Santa would ride around the city’s streets in a sleigh pulled by two horses, not only greeting excited children as he passed, but also examining the house's chimneys.
Then, on Christmas Eve, Santa would once again head out into Fredericton streets, going house to house, making deliveries of, according to the reporter: “all manner of nice things for the good little girls and boys of Fredericton,” from Charles Sampson’s Confectionary Shop.
Although it was well known by the 1870s that Santa went down chimneys, it did pose a bit of a logistical issue back then, because most houses were kept warm at night by fires that were still burning, or, at least, still had hot embers.
It seems that there was some flexibility in Santa’s early visits delivering candies to Fredericton’s children, having been given the option to approach front doors rather than use chimneys.
These early visits are notable because, at the time, Santa was, for the most part, fairly unknown to children across North America; however, word was spreading.
A noteworthy event in Santa Claus's history unfolded approximately 26 years after his initial appearance in Fredericton. It occurred in the distant city of New York and went on to become widely publicised.
In 1897, eight-year-old Virginia O’Hanlon wrote to New York’s biggest newspaper, The Sun, asking “Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?”
That newspaper published her letter with the reply: “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to our life its highest beauty and joy. … How dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance … The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.”
The author of that famous editorial, Francis Church, was unknowingly echoing what Fredericton’s children had known for a quarter century: the sentiment that had already been felt in the city’s heart through the actions of a benevolent candy maker.
The story remains a heartwarming testament to the amount of joy that one person, inspired by the spirit of giving, can bring to an entire community.
MORE CHRISTMAS BACKYARD HISTORIES:
Santa and The Flaming Christmas Tree Incident
T'was The Night Before Christmas Maritimes' Connection
Snapdragons: The Hottest Game of Christmas Past
Before Santa Claus There Was The Queen of the Fairies
