He was raised by his uncle, Lewis Pintard, and attended grammar school under the Reverend Leonard Cutting at Hempstead, New York.

He attended the College at New Jersey (which later became Princeton University), but left school to join the patriot forces when the British arrived at New York.

Pintard had inherited a legacy from his maternal grandfather, John Cannon, and this allowed him to go into the China and East India trade.

[3] He was rated as one of New York's most successful and prosperous merchants when in 1792 he lost his fortune by engaging with William Duer in a scheme to fund the national debt.

He filed a very favorable report of the French colony to Albert Gallatin, secretary of the treasury, and minister to France James Monroe, a relative by marriage to his wife's aunt.

A deeply religious man, he was one of the chief supporters of the General Theological Seminary and helped found the American Bible Society, which he always called his "brat."

He was vestryman for the Huguenot Church of New York City for thirty-four years and his translation of the Book of Common Prayer from English to French is still used today.

[9] Perhaps Pintard's greatest contribution to American society, however, was his role in establishing the modern popular conception of Santa Claus based upon the Dutch legend of Sinterklaas.

[7] Protestants, he argued, unlike Catholics and even pagans, had systematically suppressed the kind of “religious festivals” at which “mechanics and laborers” could find officially sanctioned and organized “processions” that would allow them to release their “pent-up” energies in satisfying but orderly ways.