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diff --git a/29754-8.txt b/29754-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..252719d --- /dev/null +++ b/29754-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6134 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Whittier-land, by Samuel T. Pickard + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Whittier-land + A Handbook of North Essex + +Author: Samuel T. Pickard + +Release Date: August 22, 2009 [EBook #29754] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHITTIER-LAND *** + + + + +Produced by K. Nordquist, Diane Monico, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + + + + +WHITTIER-LAND + +_SAMUEL T. PICKARD_ + +[Illustration] + + + + +By Samuel T. Pickard + +WHITTIER-LAND. Illustrated. 12mo, $1.00 _net_. Postage 9 cents. + +LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. With Portraits and other +Illustrations. 2 vols. crown 8vo, gilt top, $4.00. + +_One-Volume Edition_. Illustrated. Crown 8vo, $2.50. + +HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY +BOSTON AND NEW YORK + + + + +WHITTIER-LAND + + +[Illustration: JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER + +From an ambrotype taken about 1857] + + + + +WHITTIER-LAND + +A Handbook of North Essex + +CONTAINING MANY ANECDOTES OF AND POEMS +BY JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER +NEVER BEFORE COLLECTED + +BY + +SAMUEL T. PICKARD + +AUTHOR OF "LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER" + +_ILLUSTRATED WITH MAP AND ENGRAVINGS_ + +[Illustration: The Riverside Press] + +BOSTON AND NEW YORK +HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY +The Riverside Press Cambridge + + + + +COPYRIGHT 1904 BY SAMUEL T. PICKARD + +ALL RIGHTS RESERVED + +_Published April 1904_ + +EIGHTH IMPRESSION + + + + +PREFACE + + +This volume is designed to meet a call from tourists who are visiting +the Whittier shrines at Haverhill and Amesbury in numbers that are +increasing year by year. Besides describing the ancestral homestead and +its surroundings, and the home at Amesbury, an attempt is made to +answer such questions as naturally arise in regard to the localities +mentioned by Whittier in his ballads of the region. Many anecdotes of +the poet and several poems by him are now first published. It is with +some hesitancy that I have ventured to add a chapter upon a phase of +his character that has never been adequately presented: I refer to his +keen sense of humor. It will be understood that none of the impromptu +verses I have given to illustrate his playful moods were intended by +him to be seen outside a small circle of friends and neighbors. This +playfulness, however, was so much a part of his character from boyhood +to old age that I think it deserves some record such as is here given. + +For those who are interested to inquire to whom refer passages in such +poems as "Memories," "My Playmate," and "A Sea Dream," I now feel at +liberty to give such information as could not properly be given at the +time when I undertook the biography of the poet. + +If any profit shall be derived from the sale of this book, it will be +devoted to the preservation and care of the homes here described, which +will ever be open to such visitors as love the memory of Whittier. + + S. T. P. + +WHITTIER HOME, AMESBURY, MASS., + March, 1904. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + +I. Haverhill 1 + +II. Amesbury 53 + +III. Whittier's Sense of Humor 105 + +IV. Whittier's Uncollected Poems 127 + + Footnotes 154 + + Index 155 + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + +JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER _Frontispiece_ +From an Ambrotype taken about 1857. + +MAP OF WHITTIER-LAND xii + +WHITTIER'S BIRTHPLACE 2 +From a photograph by Alfred A. Ordway. + +RIVER PATH, NEAR HAVERHILL 5 +From a photograph by Ordway. + +HAVERHILL ACADEMY 6 +From a photograph by G. W. W. Bartlett. + +MAIN STREET, HAVERHILL 8 +From a photograph by Ordway. + +BIRTHPLACE IN WINTER 9 +From a photograph by Ordway. + +KENOZA LAKE 10 +From a photograph by Ordway. + +FERNSIDE BROOK, THE STEPPING-STONES 11 +From a photograph by Ordway. + +THE BIRTHPLACE, FROM THE ROAD 13 +From a photograph by Ordway. + +"THE HAUNTED BRIDGE OF COUNTRY BROOK" 15 +From a photograph by W. L. Bickum. + +GARDEN AT BIRTHPLACE 18 +From a photograph by W. L. Bickum. + +SNOW-BOUND KITCHEN, EASTERN END 21 +From a photograph by Ordway. + +SNOW-BOUND KITCHEN, WESTERN END 23 +From a photograph by Ordway. + +THE WHITTIER ELM 29 + +JOSHUA COFFIN, WHITTIER'S FIRST SCHOOLMASTER 31 + +SCENE OF "IN SCHOOL DAYS" 33 +From a pencil sketch by W. L. Bickum. + +HARRIET LIVERMORE, "HALF-WELCOME GUEST" 41 + +SCENE ON COUNTRY BROOK 43 +From a photograph by Ordway. + +THE SYCAMORES 45 +From a photograph by Ordway. + +OLD GARRISON HOUSE (PEASLEE HOUSE) 47 + +ROCKS VILLAGE AND BRIDGE 48 +From a photograph by Ordway. + +RIVER VALLEY, NEAR GRAVE OF COUNTESS 49 +From a photograph by Ordway. + +DR. ELIAS WELD, THE "WISE OLD PHYSICIAN" OF SNOW-BOUND, +AT THE AGE OF NINETY 50 + +CURSON'S MILL, ARTICHOKE RIVER 57 +From a photograph by Ordway. + +DEER ISLAND AND CHAIN BRIDGE, HOME OF MRS. SPOFFORD 59 + +THE WHITTIER HOME, AMESBURY 61 +From a photograph by Mrs. P. A. Perry. + +JOSEPH STURGE, WHITTIER'S ENGLISH BENEFACTOR 63 + +"GARDEN ROOM" AMESBURY HOME 65 +From a photograph by C. W. Briggs. + +MRS. THOMAS, TO WHOM "MEMORIES" WAS ADDRESSED 67 + +EVELINA BRAY, AT THE AGE OF SEVENTEEN 68 +From a miniature by J. S. Porter. + +WHITTIER, AT THE AGE OF TWENTY-TWO. His earliest portrait 69 +From a miniature by J. S. Porter. + +EVELINA BRAY DOWNEY, AT THE AGE OF EIGHTY 71 + +ELIZABETH WHITTIER PICKARD 75 +From a portrait by Kittell. + +SCENE IN GARDEN, AT WHITTIER'S FUNERAL 76 + +THE FERRY, SALISBURY POINT, MOUTH OF POWOW 77 +From a photograph by Miss Woodman. + +POWOW RIVER AND PO HILL 79 +From a photograph by Miss Woodman. + +FRIENDS' MEETING-HOUSE AT AMESBURY 80 +From a photograph by Mrs. P. A. Perry. + +INTERIOR OF FRIENDS' MEETING-HOUSE 81 +From a photograph by G. W. W. Bartlett. + +CAPTAIN'S WELL 83 +From a photograph by G. W. W. Bartlett. + +WHITTIER LOT, UNION CEMETERY, AMESBURY 85 +From a photograph by W. R. Merryman. + +THE FOUNTAIN ON MUNDY HILL 87 + +ROCKY HILL CHURCH 88 +From a photograph by Miss Woodman. + +INTERIOR OF ROCKY HILL CHURCH 89 +From a photograph by Miss Woodman. + +SCENE OF "THE WRECK OF RIVERMOUTH" 90 + +SCENE OF "THE TENT ON THE BEACH" 91 + +HAMPTON RIVER MARSHES, AS SEEN FROM WHITTIER'S CHAMBER 92 +From a photograph by Greenleaf Whittier Pickard. + +HOUSE OF MISS GOVE, HAMPTON FALLS, WHITTIER ON THE BALCONY 93 +From a photograph taken a few days before the poet's death, +by Greenleaf Whittier Pickard. + +CHAMBER IN WHICH WHITTIER DIED 94 + +AMESBURY PUBLIC LIBRARY 95 +From a photograph by Gilman P. Smith. + +WHITTIER, AT THE AGE OF FORTY-NINE 97 +From a daguerreotype by Thomas E. Boutelle. + +THE WOOD GIANT, AT STURTEVANT'S, CENTRE HARBOR 99 + +THE CARTLAND HOUSE, NEWBURYPORT 101 + +WHITEFIELD CHURCH AND BIRTHPLACE OF GARRISON 103 + +BEARCAMP HOUSE, WEST OSSIPEE, N. H. 110 + +GROUP OF FRIENDS AT STURTEVANT'S, CENTRE HARBOR, WITH WHITTIER 113 + +JOSIAH BARTLETT STATUE, HUNTINGTON SQUARE, AMESBURY 123 +From a photograph by Charles W. Briggs. + + * * * * * + + +[Illustration: MAP OF WHITTIER-LAND + +KEY:-- + +1. The Whittier Birthplace. +2. Joshua Coffin's School, in house now occupied by Thomas Guild. + Scene of poem "To My Old Schoolmaster." +3. Site of District School. Scene of "In School Days." +4. Job's Hill. +5. East Haverhill Church. +6. Cemetery referred to in "The Old Burying Ground." +7. The Sycamores. +8. Ramoth Hill. +9. Hunting Hill. +10. Grave of the Countess. +11. Country Bridge. +12. Site of Thomas Whittier's Log House. +13. Birchy Meadow, where Whittier taught school. +14. Home of Sarah Greenleaf. +15. Home of Dr. Elias Weld and of the Countess, Rocks Village. +16. "Old Garrison," the Peaslee House. +17. Rocks Bridge. +18. Curson's Mill, Artichoke River. +19. Pleasant Valley. +20. The Laurels. +21. Site of "Goody" Martin's House. +22. Whittier Burial Lot, Union Cemetery. +23. Macy House. +24. The Captain's Well. +25. Friends' Meeting-House, Amesbury. +26. Whittier Home, Amesbury. +27. Hawkswood. +28. Deer Island, Chain Bridge, home of Mrs. Spofford. +29. Rocky Hill Church. +30. The Fountain, Mundy Hill. +31. House at Hampton Falls, where Whittier died. +32. Scene of "The Wreck of Rivermouth." +33. Boar's Head.] + + + + +HAVERHILL + + +[Illustration: WHITTIER'S BIRTHPLACE + +Copyright, 1891, by A. A. Ordway] + + + + +WHITTIER-LAND + +I + +HAVERHILL + + +The whole valley of the Merrimac, from its source among the New +Hampshire hills to where it meets the ocean at Newburyport, has been +celebrated in Whittier's verse, and might well be called +"Whittier-Land." But the object of these pages is to describe only that +part of the valley included in Essex County, the northeastern section +of Massachusetts. The border line separating New Hampshire from the Bay +State is three miles north of the river, and follows all its turnings +in this part of its course. For this reason each town on the north of +the Merrimac is but three miles in width. It was on this three-mile +strip that Whittier made his home for his whole life. His birthplace in +Haverhill was his home for the first twenty-nine years of his life. He +lived in Amesbury the remaining fifty-six years. The birthplace is in +the East Parish of Haverhill, three miles from the City Hall, and three +miles from what was formerly the Amesbury line. It is nearly midway +between the New Hampshire line and the Merrimac River. In 1876 the +township of Merrimac was formed out of the western part of Amesbury, +and this new town is interposed between the two homes, which are nine +miles apart. + +Haverhill, Merrimac, Amesbury, and Salisbury are each on the +three-mile-wide ribbon of land stretching to the sea, on the left bank +of the river. On the opposite bank are Bradford, Groveland, Newbury, +and Newburyport. The whole region on both sides of the river abounds +in beautifully rounded hills formed of glacial deposits of clay and +gravel, and they are fertile to their tops. At many points they press +close to the river, which has worn its channel down to the sea-level, +and feels the influence of the tides beyond Haverhill. This gives +picturesque effects at many points. The highest of the hills have +summits about three hundred and sixty feet above the surface of the +river, and there are many little lakes and ponds nestling in the +hollows in every direction. In the early days these hills were crowned +with lordly growths of oak and pine, and some of them still retain +these adornments. But most of the summits are now open pastures or +cultivated fields. The roofs and spires of prosperous cities and +villages are seen here and there among their shade trees, and give a +human interest to the lovely landscape. It is not surprising that +Whittier found inspiration for the beautiful descriptive passages which +occur in every poem which has this river for theme or illustration:-- + + "Stream of my fathers! sweetly still + The sunset rays thy valley fill; + Poured slantwise down the long defile, + Wave, wood, and spire beneath them smile." + +[Illustration: RIVER PATH] + +Here is a description of the scenery of the Merrimac valley by Mr. +Whittier himself, in a review of Rev. P. S. Boyd's "Up and Down the +Merrimac," written for a journal with which I was connected, and never +reprinted until now:-- + + "The scenery of the lower valley of the Merrimac is not bold + or remarkably picturesque, but there is a great charm in the + panorama of its soft green intervales: its white steeples + rising over thick clusters of elms and maples, its neat + villages on the slopes of gracefully rounded hills, dark + belts of woodland, and blossoming or fruited orchards, which + would almost justify the words of one who formerly + sojourned on its banks, that the Merrimac is the fairest + river this side of Paradise. Thoreau has immortalized it in + his 'Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers.' The late + Caleb Cushing, who was not by nature inclined to sentiment + and enthusiasm, used to grow eloquent and poetical when he + spoke of his native river. Brissot, the leader of the + Girondists in the French Revolution, and Louis Philippe, who + were familiar with its scenery, remembered it with pleasure. + Anne Bradstreet, the wife of Governor Bradstreet, one of the + earliest writers of verse in New England, sang of it at her + home on its banks at Andover; and the lovely mistress of + Deer Island, who sees on one hand the rising moon lean above + the low sea horizon of the east, and on the other the + sunset reddening the track of the winding river, has made it + the theme and scene of her prose and verse." + +[Illustration: HAVERHILL ACADEMY] + +The visitor who approaches Whittier-Land by the way of Haverhill will +find in that city many places of interest in connection with the poet's +early life, and referred to in his poems. The Academy for which he +wrote the ode sung at its dedication in 1827, when he was a lad of +nineteen, and before he had other than district school training, is now +the manual training school of the city, and may be found, little +changed except by accretion, on Winter Street, near the city hall. As +this ode does not appear in any of his collected works, and is +certainly creditable as a juvenile production, it is given here. It was +sung to the air of "Pillar of Glory:"-- + + Hail, Star of Science! Come forth in thy splendor, + Illumine these walls--let them evermore be + A shrine where thy votaries offerings may tender, + Hallowed by genius, and sacred to thee. + Warmed by thy genial glow, + Here let thy laurels grow + Greenly for those who rejoice at thy name. + Here let thy spirit rest, + Thrilling the ardent breast, + Rousing the soul with thy promise of fame. + + Companion of Freedom! The light of her story, + Wherever her voice at thine altar is known + There shall no cloud of oppression come o'er thee, + No envious tyrant thy splendor disown. + Sons of the proud and free + Joyous shall cherish thee, + Long as their banners in triumph shall wave; + And from its peerless height + Ne'er shall thy orb of light + Sink, but to set upon Liberty's grave. + + Smile then upon us; on hearts that have never + Bowed down 'neath oppression's unhallowed control. + Spirit of Science! O, crown our endeavor; + Here shed thy beams on the night of the soul; + Then shall thy sons entwine, + Here for thy sacred shrine, + Wreaths that shall flourish through ages to come, + Bright in thy temple seen, + Robed in immortal green, + Fadeless memorials of genius shall bloom. + +Haverhill, although but three miles wide, is ten miles long, and +includes many a fertile farm out of sight of city spires, and out of +sound of city streets. As Whittier says in the poem "Haverhill:"-- + + "And far and wide it stretches still, + Along its southward sloping hill, + And overlooks on either hand + A rich and many-watered land. + + . . . . . + + And Nature holds with narrowing space, + From mart and crowd, her old-time grace, + And guards with fondly jealous arms + The wild growths of outlying farms. + + Her sunsets on Kenoza fall, + Her autumn leaves by Saltonstall + No lavished gold can richer make + Her opulence of hill and lake." + +[Illustration: MAIN STREET, HAVERHILL + +City Hall at the right; Haverhill Bridge in middle distance] + +This "opulence of hill and lake" is the especial charm of Haverhill. +The two symmetrical hills, named Gold and Silver, near the river, one +above and one below the city proper, are those referred to in "The +Sycamores" as viewed by Washington with admiring comment, standing in +his stirrups and + + "Looking up and looking down + On the hills of Gold and Silver + Rimming round the little town." + +[Illustration: BIRTHPLACE IN WINTER + +From hemlocks above brook + +_Copyright, 1891, by A. A. Ordway._] + +Silver Hill is the one with the tower on it. As one takes at the +railway station the electric car for the three-mile trip to the +Whittier birthplace, two lakes are soon passed on the right. The larger +one, overlooked by the stone castle on top of a great hill embowered in +trees, is Kenoza--a name signifying pickerel. It was christened by +Whittier with the poem which has permanently fixed its name. The whole +lake and the beautiful wooded hills surrounding it, with the +picturesque castle crowning one of them, are now included in a public +park of which any city might be proud. Our car passes close at hand, on +the left, another lake not visible because it is so much above us. This +is a singular freak of nature--a deep lake fed by springs on top of a +hill. The surface of this lake is far above the tops of most of the +houses of Haverhill, and it is but a few rods from Kenoza, which lies +almost a hundred feet below. Our road is at middle height between the +two, and only a stone's throw from either. + +[Illustration: KENOZA] + +[Illustration: FERNSIDE BROOK, THE STEPPING-STONES] + +As we approach the birthplace, it is over the northern shoulder of +Job's Hill, the summit of which is high above us at the right. This +hill was named for an Indian chief of the olden time. We look down at +the left into an idyllic valley, and through the trees that skirt a +lovely brook catch sight of the ancient farmhouse on a gentle slope +which seems designed by nature for its reception. To the west and south +high hills crowd closely upon this valley, but to the east are green +meadows through which winds, at last at leisure, the brook just +released from its tumble among the rocks of old Job's left shoulder. +The road by which we have come is comparatively new, and was not in +existence when the Whittiers lived here. The old road crosses it close +by the brook, which is here bridged. The house faces the brook, and not +the road, presenting to the highway the little eastern porch that gives +entrance to the kitchen,--the famous kitchen of "Snow-Bound." + +The barn is across the road directly opposite this porch. It is now +much longer than it was in Whittier's youth, but two thirds of it +towards the road is the old part to which the boys tunneled through the +snowdrift-- + + ... "With merry din, + And roused the prisoned brutes within. + The old horse thrust his long head out, + And grave with wonder gazed about; + The cock his lusty greeting said, + And forth his speckled harem led + The oxen lashed their tails, and hooked, + And mild reproach of hunger looked; + The hornéd patriarch of the sheep, + Like Egypt's Amun roused from sleep, + Shook his sage head with gesture mute, + And emphasized with stamp of foot." + +This is not the original barn of the pioneers, but was built by +Whittier's father and uncle Moses in 1821. The ancient barn was not +torn down till some years later. It was in what is now the orchard back +of the house. There used to be, close to the cattle-yard of the +comparatively new barn, a shop containing a blacksmith's outfit. This +was removed more than fifty years ago, being in a ruinous condition +from extreme old age. It had not been so tenderly cared for as was its +contemporary of the Stuart times across the road. + +[Illustration: THE BIRTHPLACE, FROM THE ROAD + +Showing eastern porch, gate, bridle-post, and large boulder used as +horse-block] + +Thomas Whittier, the pioneer, did not happen upon this valley upon his +first arrival from England, in 1638. Indeed, at that time the +settlements had not reached into this then primeval wilderness. He +settled first in that part of Salisbury which is now named Amesbury, +and while a very young man represented that town in the General Court. +The Whittier Hill which overlooks the poet's Amesbury home was named +for the pioneer, and not for his great-great-grandson. It is to this +day called by Amesbury people Whitcher Hill--as that appears to have +been the pronunciation of the name in the olden time. For some reason +he removed across the river to Newbury. As a town official of +Salisbury, he had occasion to lay out a highway towards Haverhill--a +road still in use. He came upon a location that pleased his fancy, and +in 1647, at the age of twenty-seven, he returned to the northern side +of the river and built a log house on the left bank of Country Brook, +about a mile from the location he selected in 1688 for his permanent +residence. He lived forty-one years in this log house, and here raised +a family of ten children, five of them stalwart boys, each over six +feet in height. He was sixty-eight years old when he undertook to build +the house now the shrine visited yearly by thousands. In raising its +massive oaken frame he needed little help outside his own family. As to +the location of the log house, the writer of these pages visited the +spot with Mr. Whittier in search of it in 1882. He said that when a boy +he used to see traces of its foundation, and hoped to find them again; +but more than half a century had passed in the mean time, and our +search was unsuccessful. It was on the ridge to the left of the road, +quite near the old Country Bridge. + +[Illustration: THE HAUNTED BRIDGE OF COUNTRY BROOK] + +Country Bridge had the reputation of being haunted, when Whittier was a +boy, and several of his early uncollected poems refer to this fact. No +one who could avoid it ventured over it after dark. He told me that +once he determined to swallow his fears and brave the danger. He +approached whistling to keep his courage up, but a panic seized him, +and he turned and ran home without daring to look behind. It was in +this vicinity that Thomas Whittier built his first house in Haverhill. +Further down the stream was Millvale, where were three mills, one a +gristmill. This mill and the evil reputation of the bridge are both +referred to in these lines from "The Home-Coming of the Bride," a +fragment first printed in "Life and Letters:"-- + + "They passed the dam and the gray gristmill, + Whose walls with the jar of grinding shook, + And crossed, for the moment awed and still, + The haunted bridge of the Country Brook." + +It was the custom of the pioneers, when they had the choice, to select +the sites of their homes near the small water powers of the brooks; the +large rivers they had not then the power to harness. There were good +mill sites on Country Brook below the log house, but probably some +other settler had secured them, and Thomas Whittier found in the +smaller stream on his own estate a fairly good water power. Fernside +Brook is a tributary of Country Brook. Probably this decided the +selection of the site for a house which was to be a home for generation +after generation of his descendants. The dam recently restored is at +the same spot where stood the Whittier mill, and in making repairs some +of the timbers of the ancient mill were found. Parts of the original +walls of the dam are now to be seen on each side of the brook, but the +mill had disappeared long before Whittier was born. Further up the +brook were two other dams, used as reservoirs. The lower dam when +perfect was high enough to enable the family to bring water to house +and barn in pipes. + +When entering the grounds, notice the "bridle-post" at the left of the +gate, and a massive boulder in which rude steps are cut for mounting a +horse led up to its side:-- + + "The bridle-post an old man sat + With loose-flung coat and high cocked hat." + +Like all of Whittier's descriptions, this is an exact picture of what +he had in mind; for this stone, after a great snowstorm, would assume +just this appearance. As to the phrase, "the well-curb had a Chinese +roof," I once asked him how this well could have had a roof, as the +"long sweep high aloof" would have interfered with it. He stood by the +side of the well, and explained that there was no roof, but that there +was a shelf on one side of the curb on which to rest the bucket. The +snow piled up on this like a Chinese roof. The isolation of the +homestead referred to in the phrase, "no social smoke curled over +woods of snow-hung oak," has not been broken in either of the centuries +this house has stood. No other house was ever to be seen from it in any +direction. And yet neighbors are within a half-mile, only the hills and +forests hide their habitations from view. When the wind is right, the +bells of Haverhill may be faintly heard, and the roar of ocean after a +storm sometimes penetrates as a hoarse murmur in this valley. + +In the old days, before these hills were robbed of the oaken growths +that crowned their summits, their apparent height was much increased, +and the isolation rendered even more complete than now. Sunset came +much earlier than it did outside this valley. The eastern hill, beyond +the meadow, is more distant and not so high, and so the sunrises are +comparatively early. Visitors interested in geology will find this hill +an unusually good specimen of an eschar, a long ridge of glacial gravel +set down in a meadow through which Fernside Brook curves on its way to +its outlet in Country Brook. Job's Hill at the south rises so steeply +from the right bank of Fernside Brook, at the foot of the terraced +slope in front of the house, that it is difficult for many rods to get +a foothold. The path by which the hill was scaled and the +stepping-stones by which the brook was crossed are accurately sketched +in the poem "Telling the Bees,"--a poem, by the way, which originally +had "Fernside" for its title:-- + + "Here is the place; right over the hill + Runs the path I took; + You can see the gap in the old wall still, + And the stepping-stones in the shallow brook." + +Visitors should read the stanzas immediately following this, and note +the exactness of the poet's description of the homestead he had in +mind. The poem was written more than twenty years after he left +Haverhill, and it was many years after that when Mr. Alfred Ordway, in +taking photographs of the place, noticed that it had already been +pictured in verse; when he spoke of it to Mr. Whittier, the poet was +both surprised and pleased at this, which, he said, was the first +recognition of his birthplace. The public is indebted to Mr. Ordway for +many other discoveries of the same kind, illustrating Whittier's minute +fidelity to nature in his descriptions of scenery. + +[Illustration: GARDEN AT BIRTHPLACE] + +Let us enter the house by the eastern porch, noting the circular +door-stone, which was the millstone that ground the grain of the +pioneers, more than a century before Whittier was born. It belonged in +the mill on the brook to which reference has been made. The fire which +destroyed the roof of the house in November, 1902, did not injure this +porch, and there were other parts of the house which were scarcely +scorched. These are the original walls, and the handiwork of the +pioneers is exactly copied in whatever had to be restored. This was +made possible by photographs that had been kept, showing the width and +shape of every board and moulding, inside and outside the house. Here +again it is Mr. Ordway, president of the board of trustees having the +birthplace in charge, who is to be especially thanked. It is proper +here, as I have spoken of the fire, to mention the heroic work of the +custodian, Mrs. Ela, and others, who saved every article of the +precious souvenirs endangered by the fire, so that nothing was lost. + +The kitchen, which occupies nearly the whole northern side of the +house, is twenty-six feet long and sixteen wide. The visitor's +attention is usually first drawn to the great fireplace in the centre +of its southern side. The central chimney was built by the pioneer more +than two centuries ago, and it has five fireplaces opening into it. The +bricks of the kitchen hearth are much worn, as might be expected from +having served so many generations as the centre of their home life. It +was around this identical hearth that the family was grouped, as +sketched in the great poem which has consecrated this room, and made it +a shrine toward which the pilgrims of many future generations will find +their way. Here was piled-- + + "The oaken log, green, huge and thick, + And on its top the stout back-stick; + The knotty forestick laid apart, + And filled between with curious art + The ragged brush; then, hovering near, + We watched the first red blaze appear, + Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam + On whitewashed wall and sagging beam, + Until the old, rude-furnished room + Burst, flower-like, into rosy bloom." + +Here on these very bricks simmered the mug of cider and the "apples +sputtered in a row," while through these northern windows the homely +scene was repeated on the sparkling drifts in mimic flame. The table +now standing between these windows is the same that then stood there, +and many of the dishes on the shelves near by are the family heirlooms +occupying their old places. Two of these pieces of china were brought +here by Sarah Greenleaf, Whittier's grandmother. The bull's-eye watch +over the mantel is a fine specimen of the olden time, and hangs on the +identical nail from which uncle Moses nightly suspended his plump +timepiece. + +But perhaps the article which is most worthy of attention in this room +is the desk at the eastern corner. This was the desk of Joseph +Whittier, great-grandfather of the poet, and son of the pioneer. On the +backs and bottoms of the drawers of this desk are farm memoranda made +with chalk much more than a century ago. One item dated in 1798 records +that the poet's father made his last excursion to Canada in that year. +It was about a century old when the boy Whittier scribbled his first +rhymes upon it. By an interesting coincidence he also, in his +eighty-fifth year, wrote his very last poem upon it. When the family +removed to Amesbury, in 1836, this desk was taken with them, but soon +after was replaced by a new one, and this went "out of commission." The +new desk was the one on which "Snow-Bound" was written, and this may +now be seen at Amesbury. When Mr. Whittier's niece was married, he gave +her this old desk, which she took to Portland, where it was thoroughly +repaired. When he visited Portland, he wrote many letters and some +poems on it. In the summer of 1891, as her uncle proposed to make his +home with his cousins, the Cartlands, in Newburyport, his niece had +this ancient desk sent there. Mr. Whittier was greatly pleased, upon +his arrival, to find in his room the heirloom which was hallowed by so +many associations connected not only with his ancestry, but with his +own early life. Nearly all of the literary work of his last year was +done upon this desk. To his niece he wrote:-- + +"I am writing at the old desk, which Gertrude has placed in my room, +but it seems difficult to imagine myself the boy who used to sit by it +and make rhymes. It is wonderfully rejuvenated, and is a handsome +piece of furniture. It was the desk of my great-grandfather, and seemed +to me a wretched old wreck when thee took it to Portland. I did not +suppose it could be made either useful or ornamental. I wrote my first +pamphlet on slavery, 'Justice and Expediency,' upon it, as well as a +great many rhymes which might as well have never been written. I am +glad that it has got a new lease of life." + +[Illustration: KITCHEN IN BIRTHPLACE + +Copyright, 1891, by A. A. Ordway] + +The little room at the western end of the kitchen was "mother's room," +its floor two steps higher than that of the larger room, for a singular +reason. In digging the cellar the pioneer found here a large boulder it +was inconvenient to remove, and wishing a milk room at this corner, he +was obliged to make its floor two steps higher than the rest of the +cellar. This inequality is reproduced in each story. In this little +room the bed is furnished with the blankets and linen woven by +Whittier's mother on the loom that used to stand in the open chamber. +Her initials "A. H." on some of the pieces show that they date back to +her life in Somersworth, N. H. On the wall of this room may be seen the +baby-clothes of Whittier's father, made by the grandmother who brought +the name of Greenleaf into the family. The bureau in this room is the +one that stood there in the olden time. The little mirror that stands +on it is the one by which Whittier shaved most of his life. He used it +at Amesbury, and possibly his father used it before him at Haverhill. + +Mr. Whittier had a great fund of stories of the supernatural that were +current in this neighborhood in his youth, and one that had this very +kitchen for its scene, he told with much impressiveness. It was the +story of his aunt Mercy-- + + "The sweetest woman ever Fate + Perverse denied a household mate." + +It was out of this window in the kitchen that she saw the horse and its +rider coming down the road, and recognized the young man to whom she +was betrothed. It was out of this window in the porch that she saw them +again, as she went to the door to welcome her lover. It was this door +she opened, to find no trace of horse or rider. It was to this little +room at the other end of the kitchen that she went, bewildered and +terrified, to waken her sister, who tried in vain to pacify her by +saying she had been dreaming by the fire, when she should have been in +bed. And it was in this room she received the letter many days later +telling her of the death of her lover in a distant city at the hour of +her vision.[1] Mr. Whittier told such stories with the air of more than +half belief in their truth, especially in his later years, when he +became interested in the researches of scientists in the realm of +telepathy. He said his aunt was the most truthful of women, and she +never doubted the reality of her vision. + +[Illustration: WESTERN END OF KITCHEN + +View of "mother's room;" the poet was born in a room at the left, +beyond the fireplace + +Copyright 1891, by A. A. Ordway] + +The door at the southwestern corner of the kitchen opens into the room +in which the poet was born. This was the parlor, but as the Friends +were much given to hospitality, it was often needed as a bedroom, and +there was in it a bedstead that could be lifted from the floor and +supported by a hook in the ceiling when not in use. In the corners are +cabinets containing articles of use and ornament that are genuine +relics of the Whittier family. The inlaid mahogany card-table between +the front windows was brought to this house just a century ago (1804) +by Abigail Hussey, the bride of John Whittier, and placed where it now +stands. Like the desk in the kitchen, it has always been in the +possession of the family, and was restored to the birthplace by the +niece to whom Whittier gave it. In this room are several books that +belonged in the small library of Whittier's father, which are mentioned +in "Snow-Bound," and described more fully in the rhymed catalogue, a +part of which appears in "Life and Letters," p. 46. I here give the +full list copied from Whittier's manuscript, for which I am indebted to +Miss Sarah S. Thayer, daughter of Abijah W. Thayer, who edited the +"Haverhill Gazette," and with whom Whittier boarded while in the +Academy. Mr. Thayer had appended to the manuscript these words: "This +was deposited in my hands about 1828, by John G. Whittier, who assured +me that it was his first effort at versification. It was written in +1823 or 1824, when Whittier was fifteen or sixteen years old." + + +NARRATIVES + + How Captain Riley and his crew + Were on Sahara's desert threw. + How Rollins to obtain the cash + Wrote a dull history of trash. + O'er Bruce's travels I have pored, + Who the sources of the Nile explored. + Malcolm of Salem's narrative beside, + Who lost his ship's crew, unless belied. + How David Foss, poor man, was thrown + Upon an island all alone. + + +RELIGIOUS + + The Bible towering o'er the rest, + Of all the other books the best. + Old Father Baxter's pious call + To the unconverted all. + William Penn's laborious writing, + And the books 'gainst Christians fighting. + Some books of sound theology, + Robert Barclay's "Apology." + Dyer's "Religion of the Shakers," + Clarkson's also of the Quakers. + Many more books I have read through-- + Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" too. + A book concerning John's baptism, + Elias Smith's "Universalism." + +JOURNALS, LIVES, &c. + + The Lives of Franklin and of Penn, + Of Fox and Scott, all worthy men. + The Lives of Pope, of Young and Prior, + Of Milton, Addison, and Dyer; + Of Doddridge, Fénelon and Gray, + Armstrong, Akenside, and Gay. + The Life of Burroughs, too, I've read, + As big a rogue as e'er was made; + And Tufts, who, I will be civil, + Was worse than an incarnate devil. + --Written by John G. Whittier. + +The books of this library now to be seen are the "Life of George Fox," +in two leather-bound volumes, printed in London, 1709, Sewel's "Painful +History," printed in 1825, Ellwood's "Drab-Skirted Muse," Philadelphia +edition of 1775, and Thomas Clarkson's "Portraiture of Quakerism," New +York edition of 1806. + +The little red chest near the fireplace is an ancient relic of the +family, formerly used for storing linen. The portrait of Whittier over +the fireplace is enlarged from a miniature painted by J. S. Porter +about 1830, and it is the earliest likeness of the poet ever taken. The +original miniature may be seen at the Amesbury home. The large +portrait on the opposite side of the room was painted by Joseph Lindon +Smith, an artist of celebrity, who is a relative of Whittier's. +Portraits of Whittier's brother, his sisters, his mother, and his old +schoolmaster, Joshua Coffin, are shown in this room. The silhouette on +the mantelpiece is of aunt Mercy, his mother's unmarried sister. A +sampler worked by Lydia Aver, the girl commemorated in the poem "In +School Days," is exhibited in this room. She was a member of the family +who were the nearest neighbors of the Whittiers--a family still +represented in their ancient homestead, where her grandniece now lives. +She died at the age of fourteen. + +It was the privilege of the writer to accompany Mr. Whittier when he +made his last visit to his birthplace, in late October, 1882. When in +this birth-room, he expressed a wish to see again a fire upon its +hearth, not for warmth, for it was a warm day, but for the sentiment of +it. The elderly woman who had charge of the house said she would have a +fire built, and in the mean time we went down to the brook, intending +to cross by the stepping-stones he had so often used. But the brook was +running full, the stepping-stones were slippery, and Mr. Whittier +reluctantly gave up crossing. Then we visited the little burying-ground +of the family, where lie the remains of his ancestors. When we returned +to the parlor, we found the good woman had brought down a sheet-iron +air-tight stove from the attic, set it in the fireplace, and there was +a crackling fire in it! I suggested that we could easily remove the +stove and have a blaze on the hearth, but Mr. Whittier at once +negatived the proposition, saying we must not let the woman know we +were disappointed. She had taken much pains to please us, and must not +be made aware of her mistake. He was always ready to suffer +inconvenience rather than wound the sensibilities of any one. + +From the back entry at the western end of the kitchen ascends the +steep staircase down which Whittier, when an infant, was rolled by his +sister Mary, two years older than he. She thought if he were well +wrapped in a blanket he would not be harmed, and the experiment proved +quite successful, thanks to her abundant care in bundling him in many +folds. He happily escaped one other peril in his infancy. His parents +took him with them on a winter drive to Kingston, N. H. To protect him +from the cold, he was wrapped too closely in his blankets, and he came +so near asphyxiation that for a time he was thought to be dead. He was +taken into a farmhouse they were passing when the discovery was made, +and after a long and anxious treatment they were delighted to find he +was living. + +The rooms in the upper part of the house injured by the recent fire +have been perfectly restored to their original condition. At Whittier's +last visit here he went into every room, and told stories of the +happenings of his youth in each. At the head of the back stairs is a +little doorless press, which he pointed out as a favorite play-place of +his and his brother's. Here they found room for their few toys, as +perhaps three generations of Whittier children had done before them. +And it is not unlikely that some of their toys had amused the youth of +their grandfather. One of his earliest memories is connected with this +little closet, for here he had his first severe twinge of conscience. +He had told a lie--no doubt a white one, for it did not trouble him at +first--and soon after was watching the rising of a thunder-cloud that +was grumbling over the great trees on the western hill near at hand. A +bolt descended among the oaks, and the deafening explosion was +instantaneous. He saw in it an exhibition of divine wrath over his sin, +and obeyed the primal instinct to hide himself. His mother, searching +for him some time after the storm had passed, found her repentant +little boy almost smothered under a quilt in this closet, and as he +confessed his sin, he was tenderly shrived. Here in the open chamber +the brothers often slept when visitors claimed the little western +chamber they usually occupied. They would sometimes find, sifted +through cracks in the old walls, a little snowdrift on their quilt. The +small western room the boys called theirs was the scene of the story +Trowbridge has so neatly versified. The elder proposed that as they +could lift each other, by lifting in turn they could rise to the +ceiling, and there was no knowing how much further if they were out of +doors! The prudent lads, to make it easy in case of failure, stood upon +the bed in this little room. Trowbridge says:-- + + "Kind Nature smiled on that wise child, + Nor could her love deny him + The large fulfilment of his plan; + Since he who lifts his brother man + In turn is lifted by him." + +Boys were boys in those days, and Whittier told us of trying to annoy +his younger sister by pretending to hang her cat on this railing to the +attic stairs. And girls were girls too; for he told of Elizabeth's +frightening two hired men who were occupying the open chamber. They had +been telling each other ghost stories after they went to bed; but both +asserted that they could not be frightened by such things. From over +the door of her room Elizabeth began throwing pins, one at a time, so +that they would strike on the floor near the brave men. They were so +frightened they would not stay there another night. In the open attic +bunches of dried herbs hung from the rafters, and traces of corn +selected for seed. On the floor the boys spread their store of nuts +"from brown October's wood." Originally the northern side of the roof +sloped down to the first story, as was the fashion in the days of the +Stuarts. But some years before Whittier's birth this side of the roof +was raised, giving much additional chamber room. + +Not far from the house, at the foot of the western hill, is the small +lot inclosed by a stone wall, to which reference has been made, that +from the earliest settlement was the burying-place of the family. Here +lie the remains of Thomas Whittier and those of his descendants who +were the ancestors of the poet. A plain granite shaft in the centre of +the lot is inscribed with the names of Thomas Whittier and of Ruth +Green, his wife; Joseph Whittier and Mary Peaslee, his wife; Joseph +Whittier, 2d, and Sarah Greenleaf, his wife. No headstones mark the +several graves. Others of the family were buried here, including Mary +Whittier, an aunt of the poet. His father and uncle Moses, originally +buried here, were removed to the Amesbury cemetery, when his mother +died, in 1857. + +[Illustration: THE WHITTIER ELM] + +Across the road from the house of the nearest neighbors, the Ayers, in +a field of the Whittier farm, is an old, immense, and symmetrical tree, +labeled "The Whittier Elm," which the poet's schoolmate, Edmund Ayer, +saved from the woodman's axe by paying an annual tribute, at a time +when the farm had gone out of the possession of the Whittiers, and +while the new proprietors were intent upon despoiling the place of its +finest trees. This is the tree referred to in these lines, written in +1862, in the album of Lydia Amanda Ayer (now Mrs. Evans), his +schoolmate Lydia's niece:-- + + "A dweller where my infant eyes + Looked out on Nature's sweet surprise, + Whose home is in the ample shade + Of the old Elm Tree where I played, + Asks for her book a word of mine:-- + I give it in a single line: + Be true to Nature and to Heaven's design!" + +Whittier took us that October day to neighbor Ayer's house, where the +brother of little Lydia was still living, who also was a schoolmate of +the poet, and they talked of the old times with the greatest relish. +The Ayer house occupies the site of a garrison house, built of strong +oaken timbers, and used as a house of refuge in the time of the Indian +wars. The Whittiers, though close at hand, never availed themselves of +its protection, even when Indian faces covered with war-paint peered +through the kitchen windows upon the peaceful Quaker family. We were +soon joined by another aged schoolmate, Aaron Chase, and with him we +went to Corliss Hill, where Whittier showed us the two houses in which +he first went to school. They are both now standing, and are +dwelling-houses in each of which a room was given up for the district +school--one before the house described in "In School Days" was built, +and the other while it was being repaired. He had not yet arrived at +school age when his sister Mary took him to his first school, kept by +his life-long friend, Joshua Coffin, to whom he addressed the poem, "To +My Old Schoolmaster." As I happened to be a nephew of Coffin, he told +me stories of his first school. It was kept in an unfinished ell of a +farmhouse; but the room had been transformed into a neatly furnished +kitchen when we visited it. In the poem referred to he alludes to the +quarrels of the good man and his tipsy wife heard through "the cracked +and crazy wall." He told this story of the tipsy wife: She sent her son +for brush to heat her oven. He brought such a nice load that she +thought it too bad to waste it in the oven. So she sent her son with it +to the grocery, and he brought back the liquor he received in payment. +But this made her short of oven wood, and to eke out her supply of fuel +she burned a loose board of the cellar stairs. The next time she had +occasion to go to the cellar, she forgot the hiatus she had made and +broke her leg. After Mr. Chase left us, Whittier told me that his old +schoolmate was a nephew of the last person usually accounted a witch in +this neighborhood. She was the wife of Moses Chase of Rocks Village. +Her relatives believed her a witch, and one of her nieces knocked her +down in the shape of a persistent bug that troubled her. At that moment +it happened that the old woman fell and hurt her head. The old lady on +one occasion went before Squire Ladd, the blacksmith and Justice of the +Peace at the Rocks, and took her oath that she was not a witch. + +[Illustration: JOSHUA COFFIN + + "Olden teacher, present friend, + Wise with antiquarian search, + In the scrolls of State and Church; + Named on history's title-page, + Parish-clerk and justice sage." + TO MY OLD SCHOOLMASTER] + +We next visited the scene of "In School Days," and found some traces of +the schoolhouse that have since been obliterated, although a tablet now +marks its site. The door-stone over which the scholars "went storming +out to playing" was still there, and some of the foundation stones were +in place. "Around it still the sumachs" were growing, and blackberry +vines were creeping. Mr. Whittier gathered a handful of the red sumach, +and took it to Amesbury with him. It remained many days in a vase in +his "garden room." Speaking of his boyhood, he said he was always glad +when it came his turn to stay at home on First Day. The chaise, driven +to Amesbury--nine miles--every First and Fifth Day, fortunately was not +of a capacity to take the whole family at once. This gave him an +occasional opportunity, much enjoyed, to spend the day musing by the +brook, or in the shade of the oaks and hemlocks on the breezy hilltops, +which commanded a view unsurpassed for beauty. These hills, which so +closely encompass the ancient homestead at the west and south, are +among the highest in the county. From them one gets glimpses of the +ocean in Ipswich Bay, the undulating hills of Newbury, cultivated to +their tops, on the further side of the Merrimac, the southern ranges +of the New Hampshire mountains, and the heights of Wachusett and +Monadnock in Massachusetts. Po Hill, in Amesbury, under which stands +the Quaker meeting-house where his parents worshiped, shows its great +round dome in the east. He never tired of these views, and celebrated +them in many of his poems. He especially dreaded the winter drives to +meeting. Buffalo robes were not so plenty in those days as they became +a few years later, and our fathers did not dress so warmly as do we. He +was so stiffened by cold on some of these drives to Amesbury that he +told me "his teeth could not chatter until thawed out." Winter had its +compensations, as he has so well shown in "Snow-Bound." But it is +noticeable that he does not refer in that poem to the winter drives to +meeting. On one occasion he improved the absence of his parents on a +First Day to go nutting. He climbed a tall walnut, and had a fall of +about twenty feet which came near being fatal. The Friends did not +theoretically hold one day more sacred than another, and yet theirs was +the habit of the Puritan community, to abstain from all play as well as +from work on the Sabbath, and this fall gave a smart fillip to the +young poet's conscience. + +[Illustration: SCENE OF "IN SCHOOL DAYS"] + +This story illustrating Whittier's popularity when a child I did not +get from him, but is a legend of the neighborhood. One of their nearest +neighbors, a Miss Chase, had a cherry-tree she guarded with the utmost +jealousy. No bird could alight on it in cherry time, and no boy +approach it, without bringing her to the rescue with a promptness that +frightened them. One day she saw a boy in the branches of this precious +tree, and issued upon the scene with dire threats. She caught sight of +the culprit's face, and instantly changed her tone: "Oh, is it you, +Greenleaf? Take all the cherries you want!" + +The old homestead was an object of interest as far back as 1842, as is +shown by a letter before me, written by Elizabeth Nicholson of +Philadelphia, who asks her friend, Elizabeth Whittier, for a picture of +it: "When thee come to Philadelphia if thee will bring ever so rough a +sketch of the house where Greenleaf was born, for Elizabeth Lloyd to +copy for my book, why--we'll be glad to see thee! I hope for the sake +of the picturesque it is a ruin--indeed it must be, for Griswold says +it has been in the family a hundred years!" It had then been in the +family for over one hundred and fifty years. The book referred to by +Miss Nicholson was a manuscript collection of all the verses, published +and unpublished, that Whittier had written at that time--a notable +collection, now in existence. She had obtained from the poet a preface +in verse for this album, which as it has autobiographical material, +refers to the scenery of his birthplace, and was never in print, is +here given in a version he prepared for another similar album. For +this version I am indebted to the collection made by Mary Pillsbury of +Newbury, which contains other original poems of Whittier never +published:-- + + +A RETROSPECT + + O visions of my boyhood! shades of rhymes! + Vain dreams and longings of my early times! + The work of intervals, a ploughboy's lore, + Oft conned by hearthlight when day's toil was o'er; + Or when through roof-cracks could at night behold + Bright stars in circle with pattens of gold; + Or stretched at noon while oaken branches cast + A restful shade, where rippling waters passed; + The ox unconscious panted at my side, + The good dog fondly his young master eyed, + And on the boughs above the forest bird + Alone rude snatches of the measure heard; + The measure that had sounded to me long, + And vain I sought to weave it in a song, + Or trace it, when the world's enchantment first + To longing eye, as kindling dawn's light, burst. + Then flattery's voice, in woman's gentlest tone, + Woke thoughts and feelings heretofore unknown, + And homes of wealth and beauty, wit and mirth, + By taste refined, by eloquence and worth, + Taught and diffused the intellect's high joy, + And gladly welcomed e'en a rustic boy; + Or when ambition's lip of flame and fear + Burned like the tempter's to my listening ear, + And a proud spirit, hidden deep and long, + Rose up for strife, stern, resolute, and strong, + Eager for toil, and proudly looking up + To higher levels for the world, with hope. + +In these lines Whittier has told in brief the whole story of his life, +from his early dreaming by this brookside and at this hearthstone, to +the waking of his political ambitions, and later to his earnest strife +to bring up the world "to higher levels." + +It happened that the day on which Whittier visited his birthplace for +the last time was toward the close of a spirited political campaign in +which Whittier took much interest, as General Butler was a candidate he +was opposing. Speaking of Butler reminded him of the pet ox of his +boyhood, which had the odd name of "Old Butler," between whose horns he +would sit as the animal chewed his cud under the hillside oaks. This +was the same ox that, in rushing down one of these steep hills for +salt, could not stop because of his momentum, but saved his young +master's life by leaping over his head. No doubt this ox was in mind +when he wrote the line just quoted, "The ox unconscious panted at my +side." One story reminded him of another, and he said this ox was named +for another that had its day in a former generation on a neighboring +farm. + +This is the story he told of the original "Old Butler:" A family named +Morse lived not far from here, and included several boys fond of +practical joking. The older brothers one day bound the youngest upon +the back of the ox, Butler. Frightened by the unusual burden, the +animal dashed away to the woods on Job's Hill. The lad was fearfully +bruised before he was rescued. Indignant at the treatment he had +received, he left home the next morning, and was not heard from until +in his old age he returned to the Haverhill farm, and found his +brothers still living. They killed for him the fatted calf, and after +the supper, as they sat before the great wood fire, they talked over +the events of their boyhood. One of the brothers referred to the +subject all had hitherto avoided, and said, "Don't you remember your +ride upon Old Butler?" "Yes, I _do_ remember it," was the answer, "and +I don't thank you for bringing it up at this time." The next morning he +left the place, and was never again heard from. Mr. Whittier told this +story to explain the odd name he had given his ox. + +The story has been often told of Garrison's coming out to East +Haverhill to find a contributor who had interested him; and it has +been stated that the Quaker lad was called in from work in the field to +see the dapper young editor and his lady friend. He once told me that +the situation was a bit more awkward for him. It happened that on this +eventful morning the young poet had discovered that a hen had stolen +her nest under the barn, and he was crawling on his hands and knees, +digging his dusty way towards the hen, when his sister Mary came out to +summon him to receive city visitors. It was only by her urgent +persuasion that he was induced to give up burrowing for the eggs. By +making a wide detour, he entered the house without being seen, and in +haste effected a change of raiment. In telling the story, he said he +put on in his haste a pair of trousers that came scarcely to his +ankles, and he must have been a laughable spectacle. He would have felt +much more at ease if he had come in just as he was when he emerged from +under the barn. Garrison, with the social tact that ever distinguished +him, put the shy boy at his ease at once. + +After the death of their father, Greenleaf and his brother Franklin for +a time worked the farm together, and when in later life they indulged +in reminiscences of this agricultural experience, this is a story with +which the poet liked to tease his brother: Franklin was sent to swap +cows with a venerable Quaker living at considerable distance from their +homestead. He came back with a beautiful animal, warranted as he +supposed to be a good cow, and he depended upon a verbal warrant from a +member of a Society which was justly proud of its reliability in all +business transactions. It was soon found that she was worthless as a +milker, and Franklin took her back, demanding a cancellation of the +bargain because the cow was not as represented. But the old Quaker was +ready for him: "What did I tell thee? Did I say she was a _good_ cow? +No, I told thee she was a _harnsome_ cow--and thee cannot deny she _is_ +harnsome!" + +One of Whittier's ancestors was fined for cutting oaks on the common. +When this fact was discovered, he was asked if he would wish this +circumstance to be omitted in his biography. "By no means," he said, +"tell the whole story. It shows we had some enterprising ancestors, +even if a bit unscrupulous." + +When Whittier last visited his birthplace, ten years before his death, +he was saddened by many evidences he saw that the estate was not being +thriftily managed, and expressed the wish to buy and restore the place +to something like its condition when it remained in his family. Not one +of his near relatives was then so situated as to be able to take charge +of it, and his idea of again making it Whittier homestead was +reluctantly given up. When he learned, towards the close of his life, +that Mr. Ordway, Mayor Burnham, and other public-spirited citizens of +Haverhill, proposed to buy and care for the place, already become a +shrine for many visitors, he asked permission to pay whatever might be +needed for its purchase. He died before negotiations could be +completed, and Hon. James H. Carleton generously bought the homestead, +and transferred the proprietorship to a self-perpetuating board of nine +trustees, viz.: Alfred A. Ordway, George C. How, Charles Butters, +Dudley Porter, Thomas E. Burnham, Clarence E. Kelley, Susan B. Sanders, +Sarah M. F. Duncan, and Annie W. Frankle. In the deed of gift the +trustees were enjoined "to preserve as nearly as may be the natural +features of the landscape; preserve and restore the buildings thereon +as nearly as may be in the same condition as when occupied by Whittier; +and to afford all persons, at such suitable times and under such proper +restrictions as said trustees may prescribe, the right and privilege of +access to the same, that thereby the memory and love for the poet and +the man may be cherished and perpetuated." Mr. Ordway was made +president of the board, and in his hands the office has been no +sinecure. His unflagging zeal and his unerring good taste have resulted +not only in putting the ancient house into the perfect order of the +olden time, but in fertilizing the wornout fields, and preserving for +future ages one of the finest specimens in the country of the colonial +farmhouse of New England. Mr. Whittier's niece, to whom he left his +house in Amesbury, returned to the birthplace many of the household +treasures that were carried from there in 1836. The articles in the +house purporting to be Whittier heirlooms may be depended on as +genuine. + +I do not think that Whittier was ever aware that Harriet Livermore, the +"not unfeared, half-welcome guest," of whom he gave such a vivid +portrait in "Snow-Bound," returned to America from her travels in the +Holy Land at about the time that poem was published, and died the next +year, 1867. I have from good authority this curious story of her first +reading of those lines which meant so much in a peculiar way to the +immortality of her name. She was ill, and called with a prescription at +a drugstore in Burlington, N. J. It happened that the druggist was a +personal friend of Whittier's--Mr. Allinson, father of the lad for whom +the poem "My Namesake" was written. This was in March, 1866, and +Whittier had just sent his friend an early copy of his now famous poem. +He had not had time to open the book when the prescription was handed +him. As it would take considerable time to compound the medicine, he +asked the aged lady to take a seat, and handed her the book he had just +received to read while waiting. When he gave her the medicine and she +returned the book, he noticed she was much perturbed, and was mystified +by her exclamation: "This book tells a pack of lies about me!" He +naturally supposed she was crazy, both from her remark and from her +appearance. It was not until some time later that he learned that his +customer was Harriet Livermore herself! + +In another New Jersey town was living at the same time another of the +"Snow-Bound" characters,--the teacher of the district school, whose +name even the poet had forgotten when this sketch of him was written. +In the last year of his life Whittier recalled that his name was +Haskell, but could tell me no more, except that he was from Maine, and +was a Dartmouth student. His story is told in "Life and Letters," and +is now referred to only to note the curious fact that although he lived +until 1876, and was a cultivated man who no doubt was familiar with +Whittier's work, yet he was never aware that he had the poet for a +pupil, and died without knowing that his own portrait had been drawn by +the East Haverhill lad with whom he had played in this old kitchen. I +have this from my friend, John Townsend Trowbridge, who was personally +acquainted with Haskell in the last years of his life. + +It was in 1698, ten years after this house was built, that the Indians +in a foray upon Haverhill burned many houses and killed or captured +forty persons, including the heroic Hannah Dustin, in whom they caught +a veritable tartar. Her statue with uplifted tomahawk stands in front +of the City Hall. It is possible that on her return to Haverhill she +brought her ten Indian scalps into this kitchen. + +Whittier used to tell many amusing stories of his boyhood days. Here is +one he heard in the old kitchen of the Whittier homestead at Haverhill, +as told by the aged pastor of the Congregational church in the +neighborhood, who used to call upon the Quaker family as if they +belonged to his parish. These extra-official visits were much prized, +especially by the boys, for he told them many a tale of his own boyhood +in Revolutionary times. This story of "the power of figures" I can give +almost in Whittier's words, as I made notes while he was telling it: + +The old clergyman sat by the kitchen fire with his mug of cider and +told of his college life. He was a poor student, and when he went home +at vacation time, he tramped the long journey on foot, stopping at +hospitable farmhouses on the way for refreshment. One evening an old +farmer invited him in, and as they sat by the fire, after a good +supper, they talked of the things the student was learning at college. +At length the farmer suggested:-- + +"No doubt you know the power of figures?" + +The student modestly allowed he had learned something of algebra and +some branches of the higher mathematics. + +[Illustration: HARRIET LIVERMORE[2]] + +"I know it! I know it! You are just the man I want to see. You know the +power of figures! I have lost a cow; now use your power of figures and +find her for me." + +The student disclaimed such power, but it was of no use. The farmer +insisted that one who knew the power of figures must be able to locate +his cow. Else, of what use to go to college; why not stay at home and +find the cows after the manner of the unlearned? So the student decided +to quiz a little. He took a piece of chalk and drew crazy diagrams on +the floor. The farmer thought he recognized in the lines the roads and +fences of the vicinity, rubbed his hands, and exclaimed:-- + +"You are coming to it! Don't tell me you don't know the power of +figures!" + +At last, when the poor student had exhausted the power of his +invention, he threw down the chalk, and pointing to the spot where it +fell, said:-- + +"Your cow is there!" + +He had a good bed, but could not rest easy on it for the thought of how +he was to get out of the scrape in the morning, when it would be surely +known that his figures had lied. He decided that he would steal off +before any of the family had arisen. In the early dawn he was +congratulating himself upon having got out of the house unobserved, +when he was met at the gate by the old farmer himself, who was leading +the cow home in triumph. He had found her exactly where the figures had +foretold. Of course the mathematician must go back to breakfast--what +was he running off for, after doing such a service by his learning? + +They stood again by the cabalistic diagram on the floor of the kitchen. + +"You needn't tell me you don't know the power of figures," exclaimed +the good man, "for the cow was just there!" + +For once, the clergyman said, Satan had done him a good turn. + +[Illustration: SCENE ON COUNTRY BROOK] + +Nearly all the early letters and poems of Whittier, written before he +gave up every selfish ambition and devoted his life to philanthropic +work, show how great was the change that came over his spirit when +about twenty-five years of age. Before that time he imagined that the +world was treating him harshly, and he was bracing himself for a +contest with it, with a feeling that he was surrounded by enemies. His +tone was almost invariably pessimistic. After the change referred to, +he habitually saw friends on every side, gave up selfish ambitions, and +a cheerful optimism pervaded his outlook upon life. The following +extract from a letter written in April, 1831, while editing the "New +England Review," to a literary lady in New Haven, is in the prevailing +tone of what he wrote in the earlier period. This letter has only +lately come into my possession, and is now first quoted:-- + + "Disappointment in a thousand ways has gone over my heart, + and left it dust. Yet I still look forward with high + anticipations. I have placed the goal of my ambitions + high--but with the blessing of God it shall be reached. The + world has at last breathed into my bosom a portion of its + own bitterness, and I now feel as if I would wrestle + manfully in the strife of men. If my life is spared, the + world shall know me in a loftier capacity than _as a writer + of rhymes_. [The italics are his own.] There--is not that + boasting?--But I have said it with a strong pulse and a + swelling heart, and I shall strive to realize it." + +In another letter, written at about the same time to the same +correspondent, he says: "As for tears, I have not shed anything of the +kind since my last flogging under the birchen despotism of the Nadir +Shah of our village school. I have sometimes wished I _could_ shed +tears--especially when angry with myself or with the world. There is an +iron fixedness about my heart on such occasions which I would gladly +melt away." + +From the birthplace to the Amesbury home is a distance of nine miles, +traversed by electric cars in less than an hour. Midway is the thriving +village of Merrimac, formerly known as West Amesbury. It was at Birchy +Meadow in this vicinity that Whittier taught his first and only term of +district school, in the winter of 1827-28. The road is at considerable +distance from the Merrimac River, and at several points it surmounts +hills which afford remarkably fine views of the wide and fertile river +valley, with occasional glimpses of the river itself. At Pond Hills, +near the village of Amesbury, the landscape presented to view is one of +the widest and loveliest in all this region. It is a panorama of the +beautifully rounded hills peculiar to this section, with a tidal river +winding among them with many a graceful curve. The electric road we +have taken is about two miles from the left bank of the river, across +which we look to the Newbury hills, cultivated to their tops, with here +and there a church spire indicating the location of the distant +villages. Every part of this lovely valley has been commemorated in +Whittier's writings, prose and verse. + +[Illustration: THE SYCAMORES] + +If, instead of the trolley, we take the carriage road from Haverhill +along the bank of the river, we soon come to what are left of "the +sycamores," planted in 1739 by Hugh Tallant, in front of the +Saltonstall mansion. This mansion is now occupied by the Haverhill +Historical Society, and most of the famous row of "Occidental +plane-trees" were cut down many years ago, a sacrifice to street +improvement. Three of the ancient trees still stand, and will probably +round out the second century of their existence. They are about eighty +feet in height, and measure nearly twenty feet around their trunks. +Under these trees Washington "drew rein," and Whittier repeats the +legend that he said:-- + + "I have seen no prospect fairer + In this goodly Eastern land." + +About a mile below on the northeasterly side of Millvale, a hill +picturesquely crowned with pines attracts attention. This is the Ramoth +Hill immortalized in the lovely poem "My Playmate:"-- + + "The pines were dark on Ramoth Hill, + Their song was soft and low. + + . . . . . + + "And still the pines of Ramoth wood + Are moaning like the sea,-- + The moaning of the sea of change + Between myself and thee!" + +Until recently there has been much doubt as to the location of Ramoth +Hill, Whittier himself giving no definite answer when asked in regard +to it. Indeed, the poem as originally written had the title "Eleanor," +and the hill was given the name of Menahga. But Mr. J. T. Fields, to +whom the manuscript was submitted, did not like this name, and Whittier +changed it to Ramoth, which suited his editor's taste. Mr. Alfred A. +Ordway, the best authority on all matters pertaining to Whittier's +allusions to places in this region, has discovered that the name +Menahga was given to this particular hill in Haverhill by Mrs. Mary S. +West of Elmwood, one of a family all the members of which were dear to +Whittier from his boyhood to the close of his life. A letter of +Whittier's to Mrs. West has come to light, written about the time this +poem was composed, in which he commends the selection of the name of +this hill, and intimates that he shall use it in a poem. + +On the Country Bridge road, leading from the birthplace to Rocks +Village, is an ancient edifice, known as the "Old Garrison House," +which is of interest to Whittier-Land pilgrims because it was the home +of Whittier's great-grandmother, Mary Peaslee, who brought Quakerism +into the Whittier family. Thomas Whittier, the pioneer, did not belong +to the Society of Friends, though favorably disposed toward the sect. +His youngest son, Joseph, brought the young Quakeress into the family, +and their descendants for several generations, down to the time of the +poet, belonged to the sect founded by her father's friend, George Fox. +Joseph Peaslee built this house with bricks brought from England before +1675. As it was one of the largest and strongest houses in the town, in +the time of King Philip's war it was set apart by the town authorities +as a house of refuge for the families of the neighborhood, and as a +rallying point for the troops kept on the scout. There are many +port-holes through its thick walls. + +[Illustration: OLD GARRISON HOUSE (PEASLEE HOUSE)] + +A little farther on we come to Rocks Village, pictured so perfectly by +Whittier in his poem "The Countess," that it will be at once +recognized:-- + + "Over the wooded northern ridge, + Between its houses brown, + To the dark tunnel of the bridge + The street comes straggling down." + +The bridge across the Merrimac at this point was a covered and gloomy +structure at the time this poem was written. It has since been +partially remodeled, and many of the houses of the "stranded village," +then brown and paintless, have received modern improvements. But there +is enough of antiquity still clinging to the place to make it +recognizable from Whittier's lines. This was the market to which the +Whittiers brought much of the produce of their farm to barter for +household supplies. This was the home of Dr. Elias Weld, the "wise old +doctor" of "Snow-Bound," and it was to him "The Countess" was +inscribed--the poem which every year brings many visitors hither, for +the grave of the Countess is near. + +[Illustration: ROCKS VILLAGE AND BRIDGE + +Home of the Countess was at further end of the bridge, in house now +standing, afterward occupied by Whittier's benefactor, Dr. Weld.] + +Whittier was still in his teens when this eccentric physician left +Rocks Village and removed to Hallowell, Maine, and almost half a +century had intervened before he wrote that remarkable tribute to the +friend and benefactor of his youth, which is found in the prelude to +"The Countess." The good old man died at Hudson, Ohio, a few months +after the publication of the lines that meant so much to his fame, and +it is pleasant to know that they consoled the last hours of his long +life. Whittier did not know whether or not the benefactor of his +boyhood was living in 1863, when he wrote the poem, as is shown in the +lines:-- + + "I know not, Time and Space so intervene, + Whether, still waiting with a trust serene, + Thou bearest up thy fourscore years and ten, + Or, called at last, art now Heaven's citizen." + +[Illustration: RIVER VALLEY, NEAR GRAVE OF COUNTESS + + "For, from us, ere the day was done + The wooded hills shut out the sun. + But on the river's further side + We saw the hill-tops glorified." + THE RIVER PATH] + +[Illustration: DR. ELIAS WELD, AT THE AGE OF NINETY] + +And yet they were in correspondence in the previous year, as is shown +by the fact that I find in an old album of Whittier's a photograph +labeled by him "Dr. Weld," and this photograph, I am assured by Mrs. +Tracy, a grandniece of Weld, was taken when he was ninety years of age. +I think it probable that the sending of this photograph by the aged +physician put Whittier in mind to write his Rocks Village poem, with +the tribute of remembrance and affection contained in its prelude. As +to the ancient sulky which-- + + "Down the village lanes + Dragged, like a war-car, captive ills and pains," + +it was a chaise with white canvas top, and the doctor always dressed in +gray, and drove a sober white horse. I have seen a letter of Whittier's +written to Dr. Weld, then at Hallowell, in March, 1828, in which he +says: "I am happy to think that I am not forgotten by those for whom I +have always entertained the most sincere regard. I recollect perfectly +well that (on one occasion in particular) after hearing thy animated +praises of Milton and Thomson I attempted to bring a few words to +rhyme and measure; but whether it was poetry run mad, or, as Burns +says, 'something that was rightly neither,' I cannot now ascertain; I +am certain, however, that it was in a great measure owing to thy +admiration of those poets that I ventured on that path which their +memory has hallowed, in pursuit of--I myself hardly know what--time +alone must determine.... I am a tall, dark-complexioned, and, I am +sorry to say, rather ordinary-looking fellow, bashful, yet proud as any +poet should be, and believing with the honest Scotchman that 'I hae +muckle reason to be thankful that I am as I am.'"[3] It is of interest +further to state that Whittier's life-long friend and co-laborer in the +anti-slavery field, Theodore D. Weld, was a nephew of "the wise old +doctor." Also that another nephew, who was adopted as a son by the +childless physician, was named "Greenleaf" for the young poet in whom +he took so much interest. The grave of the Countess in the cemetery +near Rocks Village is now better cared for than when the poem was +written. This is not the cemetery referred to in the poem "The Old +Burying-Ground," which is near the East Haverhill church. + +In 1844, Whittier was the Liberty Party candidate for representative to +the General Court from Amesbury, running against Whig and Democratic +candidates. A majority vote being required there were five attempts to +elect, in each of which Whittier steadily gained, and it was at last +evident he would be elected at the next trial. Whereupon the two +opposing parties united, and the town voted to have _no_ representative +for 1845. This was at the time of the agitation against the annexation +of Texas, and Whittier was very anxious to be elected. Towns then paid +the salaries of their representatives, and could, if they chose, remain +unrepresented. + +At his last visit to his birthplace, in 1882, Whittier called my +attention to the millstone which serves as a step at the door of the +eastern porch, to which reference is made on page 18. It was soon after +this that he wrote his fine poem "Birchbrook Mill," one stanza of which +was evidently inspired by noticing this doorstep, and by memories of +the mill of his ancestors on Fernside Brook, the site of which he had +so recently visited: + + "The timbers of that mill have fed + Long since a farmer's fires; + His doorsteps are the stones that ground + The harvest of his sires." + + + + +AMESBURY + + + + +II + +AMESBURY + + +Following down the left bank of the river, we come, near the village of +Amesbury, to a sheltered nook between the steep northern hill and the +broad winding river, known as "Pleasant Valley." At some points there +is scant room for the river road between the high bluff and the water; +at others a wedge of fertile intervale pushes back the steep bank. The +comfortable houses of an ancient Quaker settlement are perched and +scattered along this road in picturesque fashion. It was a favorite +walk of Whittier and his sister, and it is commemorated in "The River +Path,"-- + + "Sudden our pathway turned from night; + The hills swung open to the light; + + "Through their green gates the sunshine showed, + A long, slant splendor downward flowed. + + "Down glade and glen and bank it rolled; + It bridged the shaded stream with gold; + + "And, borne on piers of mist, allied + The shadowy with the sunlit side!" + +When Mr. Whittier returned to Amesbury from the last visit to his +birthplace, referred to in the preceding chapter, it was by the road +passing the Old Garrison House, the Countess' grave, Rocks Village, and +Pleasant Valley. He pointed out each feature of the scene that reminded +him of earlier days. When we came to Pleasant Valley, he stopped the +carriage at a picturesque wooded knoll between the road and the river, +and said that here he used to come with his sister to gather +harebells. It was so late in the season that every other flower by the +roadside had been killed by frost; even the goldenrod was more sere +than yellow. But the harebells were fresh in their delicate beauty, and +he gathered a handful of them which lighted up his "garden room" for +several days. I remember that on this occasion an effect referred to in +"The River Path" was reproduced most beautifully. The setting sun, +hidden to us, illuminated the hills of Newbury:-- + + "A tender glow, exceeding fair, + A dream of day without its glare. + + "With us the damp, the chill, the gloom: + With them the sunset's rosy bloom; + + "While dark, through willowy vistas seen, + The river rolled in shade between." + +To a friend in Brooklyn who inquired in regard to the origin of this +poem, Mr. Whittier wrote: "The little poem referred to was suggested by +an evening on the Merrimac River, in company with my dear sister, who +is no longer with me, having crossed the river (as I fervently hope) to +the glorified hills of God." + +"The Last Walk in Autumn" is another poem inspired by the scenery of +this locality. At the lower end of this valley, near the mouth of the +Powow, on the edge of the bluff overlooking the Merrimac, Goody Martin +lived more than two hundred years ago, and the cellar of her house was +still to be seen when, in 1857, Whittier first told the story of "The +Witch's Daughter," the poem now known as "Mabel Martin." She was the +only woman who suffered death on a charge of witchcraft on the north +side of the Merrimac. One other aged woman in this village was +imprisoned, and would have been put to death, but for the timely +collapse of the persecution. She was the wife of Judge Bradbury, and +lived on the Salisbury side of the Powow. In his ballad Whittier traces +the path he used to take towards the Goody Martin place, as was his +custom in many of his ballads. One who desires to take this path can +enter upon it at the Union Cemetery, where the poet is buried. Follow +the "level tableland" he describes towards the Merrimac, looking down +at the left into the deep and picturesque valley of the Powow,--a +charming view of its placid, winding course after it has made its +plunge of eighty feet over a shoulder of Po Hill,--until you + + ... "see the dull plain fall + Sheer off, steep-slanted, ploughed by all + The seasons' rainfalls," + +and you look down upon the broad Merrimac seeking "the wave-sung +welcome of the sea." Find a path winding down the bluff facing the +river, half-way down to the hat factory which is close to the water, +and you are upon the location of Goody Martin's cottage. But no trace +is now to be seen of "the cellar, vine overrun" which the poet +describes. + +[Illustration: CURSON'S MILL, ARTICHOKE RIVER] + +I visited the spot with the poet on the October day before referred to, +and noted the felicity of his descriptions of the locality. It is near +the river, but high above it, and one looks _down_ upon the tops of +the willows on the bank:-- + + "And through the willow-boughs _below_ + She saw the rippled waters shine." + +Opposite Pleasant Valley, on the Newbury side of the river, are "The +Laurels," "Curson's Mill," and the mouth of the Artichoke, celebrated +in several poems. In June, when the laurels are in bloom, this shore is +well worth visiting for its natural beauties, as well as for the +association of Whittier's frequent allusion to it in prose as well as +verse. It was for the "Laurel Party," an annual excursion of his +friends to this shore, that he wrote the poems, "Our River," +"Revisited," and "The Laurels." In "June on the Merrimac" he sings:-- + + "And here are pictured Artichoke, + And Curson's bowery mill; + And Pleasant Valley smiles between + The river and the hill." + +In the stanza preceding this he takes a view down the Merrimac, past +Moulton's Hill in Newbury,--an eminence commanding one of the finest +views on the river, formerly crowned with a castle-like structure +occupied for several years as the summer residence of Sir Edward +Thornton,--to the great bend the river makes in passing its last rocky +barrier at Deer Island. The Hawkswood oaks are a magnificent feature of +the scene. This estate, on the Amesbury side of the river, was formerly +occupied by Rev. J. C. Fletcher, of Brazilian fame. + + "The Hawkswood oaks, the storm-torn plumes + Of old pine-forest kings, + Beneath whose century-woven shade + Deer Island's mistress sings." + +[Illustration: DEER ISLAND AND CHAIN BRIDGE] + +The Merrimac, beautiful as are its banks along its entire course, +nowhere presents more picturesque scenery than where it passes through +the deep valley it has worn for itself between the hills of Amesbury +and Newbury, and especially where its tidal current is parted by the +perpendicular cliffs of Deer Island. At this point the quaint old chain +bridge, built about a century ago, spans the stream. This island is the +home of Harriet Prescott Spofford, who is referred to in the stanza +just quoted. About forty years ago, it was proposed to build a summer +hotel on this island, which is four or five miles from the mouth of the +Merrimac. I have found among Mr. Whittier's papers an unfinished poem, +protesting against what he considered a desecration of this spot which +always had a great charm for him. It is likely that the reason why this +poem was never finished or published was because the project of +building a hotel was abandoned. I have taken the liberty to give as a +title for it "The Plaint of the Merrimac." As it was written in almost +undecipherable hieroglyphics, some of the words are conjectural:-- + + "I heard, methought, a murmur faint, + Our River making its complaint; + Complaining in its liquid way, + Thus it said, or seemed to say: + + "'What 's all this pother on my banks-- + Squinting eyes and pacing shanks-- + Peeping, running, left and right, + With compass and theodolite? + + "'Would they spoil this sacred place? + Blotch with paint its virgin face? + Do they--is it possible-- + Do they dream of a hotel? + + "'Match against my moonlight keen + Their tallow dip and kerosene? + Match their low walls, plaster-spread, + With my blue dome overhead? + + "'Bring their hotel din and smell + Where my sweet winds blow so well, + And my birches dance and swing, + While my pines above them sing? + + "'This puny mischief has its day, + But Nature's patient tasks alway + Begin where Art and Fashion stopped, + O'ergrow, and conquer, and adopt. + + "'Still far as now my tide shall flow, + While age on age shall come and go, + Nor lack, through all the coming days, + The grateful song of human praise.'" + +Before the chain bridge was built, a ferry was maintained at the mouth +of the Powow, and here Washington crossed the river at his last visit +to New England. It is said that a French ship lay at the wharf near the +ferry, and displayed the French flag over the American because of the +French feeling against the policy of Washington's administration. +Washington refused to land until the obnoxious flag was lowered to its +proper place. + +It was a one-story cottage on Friend Street, Amesbury, to which the +Whittiers came in July, 1836--a cottage with but four rooms on the +ground floor, and a chamber in the attic. The sum paid for this +cottage, with about an acre of land, was twelve hundred dollars. The +Haverhill farm was sold for three thousand dollars. Accustomed to the +comparatively large ancestral home at Haverhill, it is no wonder that +there was at first a feeling of homesickness, as is evidenced in the +diary kept by Elizabeth. This feeling was naturally intensified by the +prolonged absences of her brother, who from 1836 to 1840 was away from +home most of the time, engaged with his duties as secretary of the +anti-slavery society in New York, and as editor of the "Pennsylvania +Freeman" in Philadelphia. During these years, the only occupants of the +cottage were Whittier's mother, his sister Elizabeth, and his aunt +Mercy, except when his frequent illnesses, and his interest in the +political events of the North Essex congressional district, called him +home. But in 1840, his residence in Amesbury became permanent. At about +this time he made the tour of the country with the English +philanthropist, Joseph Sturge, who noticed his straitened +circumstances, and out of the largeness of his heart, in a most +delicate way, not only gave him financial assistance at the time, but +seven years later enabled him to build a two-story ell to the cottage, +and add a story to the eastern half of the original structure. A small +ell of one story, occupying part of the space of the present "garden +room," was built by Mr. Whittier when he bought the cottage in 1836, +and this was aunt Mercy's room. At the later enlargement of the house +this small room was lengthened, and a chamber built over it. In the +lower floor of this enlarged ell is the room which has ever since been +known as the "garden room," because it was built into the garden, and a +much prized fruit tree was sacrificed to give it place. The chamber +over this room was occupied by Elizabeth until her death in 1864, and +after that by Mr. Whittier. + +[Illustration: THE WHITTIER HOME, AMESBURY] + +While repairs were making in this part of the house in the summer of +1903, a package of old letters was found in the wall, bearing the date +of 1847, the year when the enlargement was made. One of them reveals +the source of the money required for the improvement. It was from Lewis +Tappan of New York, the financial backbone of the anti-slavery society, +inclosing a check for arrears of salary due Whittier for editorial +work. Mr. Tappan writes: "I will ask the executive committee to raise +the compensation. I wish we could pay you according to the real value +of your productions, rather than according to their length.... Inclosed +is a check for one hundred dollars. Mr. Sturge authorizes me to draw on +him for one thousand dollars at any time when you and I should think it +could be judiciously invested in real estate for your family. I can +procure the money in a week by drawing on him. When you have made up +your mind as to the investment, please let me know." + +At this time the poet was feeling the pinch of real poverty and was +living in a little one-story cottage that gave him no room for a study, +and no suitable chamber for a guest. It was at this time that he +received the letter which contained not only a check for overdue +salary, but a promise of a gift of one thousand dollars from his +generous English friend, Joseph Sturge. The result of this beneficence +was the building of the "garden room," to which thousands of visitors +come from all parts of this and other countries, because in it were +written "Snow-Bound," "The Eternal Goodness," and most of the poems of +Whittier's middle life and old age. Mr. Sturge had sent Whittier six +years earlier a draft for one thousand dollars, intending it should be +used by him in traveling for his health. But Whittier had given most of +this toward the support of an anti-slavery paper in New York. Two years +later the same generous friend offered to pay all his expenses if he +would come to England as his guest, an offer he was obliged to decline. +A portrait of Sturge is appropriately placed in this room. Tappan's +letter was written April 21, 1847, and the addition to the cottage was +built in the summer of that year. The whole expense of the improvement +was no doubt covered by Sturge's gift. Other interesting letters of the +same period were included in the package in the wall. + +[Illustration: JOSEPH STURGE, THE ENGLISH PHILANTHROPIST + + "The very gentlest of all human natures + He joined to courage strong." + IN REMEMBRANCE OF JOSEPH STURGE] + +In a drawer of the desk is a most remarkable album of autographs of +public men, presented to Mr. Whittier on his eightieth birthday, by the +Essex Club. It is a tribute to the poet signed by every member of the +United States Senate and House of Representatives, the Supreme Court of +the United States, the Governor, ex-Governors, and Supreme Court of +Massachusetts, and all the members of the Essex Club; also, many +distinguished citizens, such as George Bancroft (who adds to his +autograph "with special good wishes to the coming octogenarian"), +Robert C. Winthrop, Frederick Douglass, and J. G. Blaine. An eloquent +speech of Senator Hoar, who suggested this unique tribute, is engrossed +in the exquisite penmanship of a colored man, to whom was intrusted the +ornamental pen-work of the whole volume. The congressional signatures +were obtained by Congressman Coggswell of the Essex district. It is +noticeable that no Southern member declined to sign this tribute to one +so identified with the anti-slavery movement. + +The "garden room" remains almost precisely as when occupied by the +poet--the same chairs, open stove, books, pictures, and even wall-paper +and carpet, remaining in it as he placed them. In the north window the +flowers pressed between the plates of glass are those on receipt of +which he wrote "The Pressed Gentian." By the desk is the cane he +carried for more than fifty years, made of wood from his office in +Pennsylvania Hall, burned by a pro-slavery mob in 1838. This is the +cane for which he wrote the poem "The Relic:"-- + + "And even this relic from thy shrine, + O holy Freedom! hath to me + A potent power, a voice and sign + To testify of thee; + And, grasping it, methinks I feel + A deeper faith, a stronger zeal." + +[Illustration: THE "GARDEN ROOM," AMESBURY HOME] + +He had many canes given him, some valuable, but this plain stick was +the only one he ever carried. With this cane may be seen one made of +oak from the cottage of Barbara Frietchie--not, as was erroneously +stated in the biography, a cane carried by the patriotic Barbara. The +portraits he hung in this room are of Garrison, Thomas Starr King, +Emerson, Longfellow, Sturge, "Chinese" Gordon, and Matthew Franklin +Whittier. There is also a fine picture of his birthplace, a water-color +sent him by Bayard Taylor from the most northern point in Norway, and a +picture, also sent by Bayard Taylor, of the Rock in El Ghor, on receipt +of which the poem of that title was written. The Norway picture was +painted by Mrs. Taylor, and represents the surroundings of the +northernmost church in the world. The mirror in this room is an +heirloom of the Whittier family, dating at least a century before the +birth of the poet. The little table under it is almost equally old. + +The album containing the likeness of Dr. Weld has also a photograph +under which Whittier has written "Mary E. S. Thomas," and this has a +special interest, as it is a portrait of his relative, schoolmate, and +life-long friend, Mary Emerson Smith, who became the wife of Judge +Thomas of Covington, Ky. She was a granddaughter of Captain Nehemiah +Emerson, who fought at Bunker Hill, was an officer in the army of +Washington, serving at Valley Forge and at the surrender of Burgoyne, +and her grandmother was Mary Whittier--a cousin of the poet's father, +whom Whittier used to call "aunt Mary." For a time, when in his teens, +he stayed at Captain Emerson's, and went to school from there, making +himself useful in doing chores. Mary Smith, then a young girl, passed +much of her time at her grandfather's, and later was a fellow-student +of Whittier's at the Academy. I think there is now no impropriety in +stating that it is to her that the poem "Memories" refers.[4] She was +living at the time when the biography of Whittier was written, and for +that reason her name was not given, but only a veiled reference in +"Life and Letters," as at page 276. During many years of her widowhood +she spent the summer months in New England, and occasionally met Mr. +Whittier at the mountains. They were in friendly correspondence to the +close of his life. She survived him several years. It has been +suggested with some show of probability that it is a memory of the days +they spent together at her grandfather's that is embodied in the poem +"My Playmate." At the time when this poem was written she was living in +Kentucky. + + "She lives where all the golden year + Her summer roses blow; + The dusky children of the sun + Before her come and go." + +But this poem, like others of Whittier's, is probably a composite of +memories and largely imaginative, as is shown in what is elsewhere said +about the localities of Ramoth Hill and Folly Mill. + +[Illustration: MARY EMERSON (SMITH) THOMAS] + +[Illustration: EVELINA BRAY, AT THE AGE OF SEVENTEEN] + +In the "garden room" also is a miniature on ivory of a beautiful girl +of seventeen, crowned with roses. This is Evelina Bray of Marblehead, a +classmate of Whittier's at the Academy in the year 1827, when this +portrait was painted. But for adverse circumstances, the school +acquaintance which led to a warm attachment between them might have +resulted in marriage. But the case was hopeless from the first. He was +but nineteen years old, and she seventeen. On both sides the families +opposed the match. Among the Quakers marriage "outside of society" was +not to be thought of in those days; in his case it would mean the +breaking up of a family circle dependent on him, and a severance from +his loved mother and sister. This same reason prevented the ripening of +other attachments in later life; for in each case his choice would +have been "out of society." Two or three years after they parted at the +close of an Academy term, he walked from Salem to Marblehead before +breakfast on a June morning, to see his schoolmate. He was then editing +the "American Manufacturer," in Boston. She could not invite him in, +and they walked to the old ruined fort, and sat on the rocks +overlooking the beautiful harbor. This meeting is commemorated in three +stanzas of one of the loveliest of his poems, "A Sea Dream"--a poem, by +the way, not as a whole referring to Marblehead or to the friend of his +youth. But I have good authority for the statement that these three +stanzas refer directly to the Marblehead incident. All who are familiar +with the locality will recognize it in these verses:-- + +[Illustration: WHITTIER, AT THE AGE OF TWENTY-TWO] + + "The waves are glad in breeze and sun, + The rocks are fringed with foam; + I walk once more a haunted shore, + A stranger, yet at home, + A land of dreams I roam. + + "Is this the wind, the soft sea-wind + That stirred thy locks of brown? + Are these the rocks whose mosses knew + The trail of thy light gown, + Where boy and girl sat down? + + "I see the gray fort's broken wall, + The boats that rock below; + And, out at sea, the passing sails + We saw so long ago + Rose-red in morning's glow." + +With a single exception, these schoolmates did not meet again for more +than fifty years, and Whittier was never aware of this exception. In +middle life, when the poet was editing the "Pennsylvania Freeman," and +Miss Bray was engaged with Catherine Beecher in educational work, they +once happened to sit side by side in the pew of a Philadelphia church, +but he left without recognizing her, and she was too shy to speak to +him. I had the story from a lady who as a little girl sat in the pew +with them, and knew them both. Miss Bray married an Englishman named +Downey, and in a romantic way[5] Mr. Whittier discovered her address. +Mr. Downey was an evangelist making a crusade in the great cities +against Romanism, and met his death from wounds received in facing a +New York mob. Whittier, supposing he was poor, and that his schoolmate +was having a hard time, sent Downey money without her knowledge. She +accidentally discovered this and returned the money. In her widowhood +she occasionally corresponded with Mr. Whittier, who induced her to +come to the reunion of his schoolmates in 1885, more than fifty years +after their parting at Marblehead, and more than forty years after the +chance meeting in Philadelphia. At this reunion she gave him the +miniature reproduced in our engraving, which was returned to her after +Whittier's death. When she died it went to another schoolmate, the wife +of Rev. Dr. S. F. Smith, author of our national hymn. From her it came +to Whittier's niece, and is now kept in the drawer where the poet +originally placed it. With it is the first portrait ever taken of +Whittier--it being painted by the same artist (J. S. Porter) two or +three years after the girl's miniature, while he was editing the +"Manufacturer." + +[Illustration: EVELINA BRAY DOWNEY] + +Here is an extract from a note Whittier sent Mrs. Downey soon after the +reunion: "Let me thank thee for the picture thee so kindly left with +me. The sweet, lovely girl face takes me back to the dear old days, as +I look at it. I wish I could give thee something half as valuable in +return." The portrait of Mrs. Downey at the age of eighty, here given, +is from a photograph she contributed to an album presented to Whittier +by his schoolmates of 1827, after the reunion of 1885. Rev. Dr. S. F. +Smith attended this reunion in place of his wife, who was then an +invalid, and he wrote to his wife this account of the appearance of her +old schoolmate at that meeting: "She looked, O so _distingué_, in black +silk, with a white muslin veil, reaching over the silver head and down +below the shoulders. Just as if she were a Romish Madonna, who had +stepped out from an old church painting to hold an hour's communion +with earth." + +I was in correspondence with Mrs. Downey during the last years of her +life, but she would not give me permission to call upon her, and the +reason given was that I had seen the miniature, and she preferred to be +remembered by that. She was very shy about telling of her early +acquaintance with Whittier, and whatever I could learn was by +indirection. For instance, I obtained the Marblehead story by her +sending me a copy of Whittier's poems which he had given her, and she +had drawn a line around the stanzas quoted above. No word accompanied +the book. Of course I guessed what she meant, and asked if my guess was +correct. She replied "Yes," and no more. Whittier said he had the +Captain Ireson story from a schoolmate who came from Marblehead. I +asked her if she, as the only Marblehead schoolmate, was the person +referred to, and received an emphatic "No." To an intimate friend she +once said that during her early acquaintance with Whittier it seemed as +if the devil kept whispering to her, "He is only a shoemaker!" + +The apartment now used as a reception room was the kitchen of the +original cottage, and has the large fireplace and brick oven that were +universal in houses built a century ago. A small kitchen was later +built as an ell, and this central room became the dining room, +remaining so as long as Mr. Whittier lived. In the reception room is a +large bookcase filled with a part of the poet's library, exactly as +when he was living here. His books overrun all the rooms in the house, +and many are packed in closets. The large engraving of Lincoln over the +mantel is an artist's proof, and was placed there by Whittier forty +years ago. An ancient mirror in this room, surmounted by a gilt eagle, +was broken by a lightning stroke in September, 1872. The track of the +electrical current may still be seen in the blackening of a gilt +moulding in the upper left corner. The broken glass fell over a member +of the family sitting under it, and Whittier himself, who was standing +near the door of the "garden room," was thrown to the floor. All in the +house were stunned and remained deafened for several minutes, but no +one was seriously injured. Up to that time the house had been protected +by lightning rods; but Mr. Whittier now had them removed, and refused +to have them replaced, though much solicited by agents. In revenge, one +of the persistent brotherhood issued a circular having a picture of +this house with a thunderbolt descending upon it, as an awful warning +against neglect! He had the impudence to emphasize his fulmination by +printing a portrait of the poet, who, it was intimated, would yet be +punished for defying the elements. + +The old parlor, the principal room of the original cottage, has +suffered no change in the several remodelings of the house. The beams +in the corners show a frame of the olden style--for the cottage had +been built many years when the Whittiers came here. The clear pine +boards in the dado are two feet in width. In this room are placed many +memorials of the poet of interest to visitors. What to him was the most +precious thing in the house is the portrait of his mother over the +mantel--a work of art that holds the attention of the most casual +visitor. The likeness to her distinguished son is remarked by all. One +sees strength of character in the beautiful face, and a dignity that is +softened by sweetness and serenity of spirit. The plain lace cap, white +kerchief, drab shawl, and folded hands typify all the Quaker virtues +that were preëminently hers. + +On the opposite wall is the crayon likeness of Elizabeth, the dearly +loved sister, so tenderly apostrophized in "Snow-Bound:"-- + + "I cannot feel that thou art far, + Since near at need the angels are; + And when the sunset gates unbar, + Shall I not see thee waiting stand, + And, white against the evening star, + The welcome of thy beckoning hand?" + +When she died, in 1864, her friend, Lucy Larcom, had this excellent +portrait made and presented it to the bereaved brother, and it has hung +on this wall nearly forty years. All the other members of the +"Snow-Bound" family are here represented by portraits, except the +father and uncle Moses, of whom no likenesses exist, save as found in +the poet's lines. The Hoit portrait of Whittier, painted when he was +about forty years of age, was kept out of sight in a seldom-used +chamber, while the poet was living, for he allowed no picture of +himself to be prominently displayed. The portrait of his brother was +painted when he was about forty years of age. A small photograph of his +older sister, Mary Caldwell, is shown, and a silhouette of aunt Mercy; +also a portrait of his brother's daughter, Elizabeth (Mrs. Pickard), +who was a member of his household for twenty years, and to whom he left +this house and its contents by his will. Her son Greenleaf, to whom +when four years of age his granduncle inscribed the poem "A Name," now +resides here. + +[Illustration: MRS. PICKARD] + +In this parlor is the desk on which "Snow-Bound" was written, also "The +Tent on the Beach" and other poems of this period. The success of +these poems enabled him to buy a somewhat better desk, now to be seen +in the "garden room," where this desk formerly stood. In this desk are +presentation copies of many books, with the autographs of their +authors--Harriet Beecher Stowe, Lydia Maria Child, Miss Mitford, Julia +Ward Howe, John Hay, T. B. Aldrich, and others. Here also is the diary +kept by Elizabeth Whittier, in the years 1835-37, covering the period +of the removal from Haverhill to Amesbury. Of antiquarian interest is +an account-book of the Whittier family, from 1786 to 1800, going into +minute details of household expenses, and containing many times +repeated the autographs of Whittier's grandfather, his father, and his +uncles Moses and Obadiah, who recorded their annual settlements of +accounts in this book. Near the desk are bound volumes of papers +edited by Whittier--the "New England Review" of 1830, the "Pennsylvania +Freeman" of 1840, and the "National Era" of 1847-50. These contain much +of his prose and verse never collected. The Rogers group of statuary +representing Whittier, Beecher, and Garrison listening to the story of +a fugitive slave girl, who holds an infant in her arms, is in the +corner of the room, where it has been for about thirty years. The +garden, in the care of which Mr. Whittier took much pleasure, comprises +about one half acre of land. He had peach, apple, and pear trees--but +the peaches gave out and were not renewed. He also raised grapes, +quinces, and small fruit in abundance. The rosebush he prized as his +mother's favorite is still flourishing, as are also the fine magnolia, +laburnum, and cut-leaved birch of his planting. The ash tree in front +of the house was planted by his mother. + +While gathering grapes in an arbor in this garden, in 1847, Mr. +Whittier received a bullet wound in the cheek. Two boys were firing at +a mark on the grounds of a neighbor, and this mark was near where +Whittier stood, but on account of a high fence they did not see him. +When the bullet struck him, he was so concerned lest his mother should +be alarmed by the accident that he said nothing, not even notifying the +boys. He bound up his bleeding face in a handkerchief and called on Dr. +Sparhawk, who lived near. As soon as the wound was dressed, he came +home and gave his family their first notice of the accident. The boys +had not then learned the result of their carelessness. The lad who +fired the gun was named Philip Butler, and he has since acquired a high +reputation as an artist. The painting representing the Haverhill +homestead which is to be seen at the birthplace was executed by this +artist. He tells of the kindness with which Whittier received his +tearful confession. It was during the first days of the Mexican war, +and some of the papers humorously commented upon it as a singular fact +that the first blood drawn was from the veins of a Quaker who had so +actively opposed entering upon that war. + +[Illustration: SCENE IN GARDEN, AT WHITTIER'S FUNERAL] + +Once while his guest at Amesbury, I went with him to town meeting. He +was one of the first men in the town to vote that morning, and after +voting spent an hour talking politics with his townsmen. General C., +his candidate for Congress, had been intemperate, and the temperance +men were making that excuse for voting in favor of Colonel F., who, +Whittier said, always drank twice as much as C., but was harder headed +and stood it better. Other candidates were being scratched for reasons +as flimsy, and our Grand Old Man was getting disgusted with the Grand +Old Party, as represented at that meeting. He said to a friend he met, +"The Republicans are scratching like wild cats." In the evening an old +friend and neighbor called on him, and was complaining of Blaine and +other party leaders. At last Mr. Whittier said, "Friend Turner, has +thee met many angels and saints in thy dealings with either of the +parties? Thy experience should teach thee not to expect too much of +human nature." On the same evening he told of a call Mr. Blaine made +upon him some time previously. The charm of his manner, he said, +recalled that of Henry Clay, as he remembered him. On that occasion +Blaine made a suggestion for the improvement of a verse in the poem +"Among the Hills," which Whittier adopted. The verse is descriptive of +a country maiden, who was said to be + + "Not beautiful in curve and line." + +Blaine suggested as an amendment,-- + + "Not _fair alone_ in curve and line;" + +and this is the reading in the latest editions. + +[Illustration: THE FERRY, SALISBURY POINT + +Mouth of Powow in foreground at the right hidden by its own banks in +this picture. Hawkswood in distance at extreme right.] + +Thomas Wentworth Higginson, during his residence in Newburyport, was +often a guest at the Amesbury home, and he has this to say of each +member of the family: "The three members of the family formed a perfect +combination of wholly varying temperaments. Mrs. Whittier was placid, +strong, sensible, an exquisite housekeeper and 'provider;' it seems to +me that I have since seen no whiteness to be compared to the snow of +her table-cloths and napkins. But her soul was of the same hue; and all +worldly conditions and all the fame of her children--for Elizabeth +Whittier then shared the fame--were to her wholly subordinate things, +to be taken as the Lord gave. On one point only this blameless soul +seemed to have a shadow of solicitude, this being the new wonder of +Spiritualism, just dawning on the world. I never went to the house that +there did not come from the gentle lady, very soon, a placid inquiry +from behind her knitting-needles, 'Has thee any farther information to +give in regard to the spiritual communications, as they call them?' But +if I attempted to treat seriously a matter which then, as now, puzzled +most inquirers by its perplexing details, there would come some keen +thrust from Elizabeth Whittier which would throw all serious solution +further off than ever. She was indeed a brilliant person, unsurpassed +in my memory for the light cavalry charges of wit; as unlike her mother +and brother as if she had been born into a different race. Instead of +his regular features she had a wild, bird-like look, with prominent +nose and large liquid dark eyes, whose expression vibrated every +instant between melting softness and impetuous wit; there was nothing +about her that was not sweet and kindly, but you were constantly taxed +to keep up with her sallies and hold your own; while her graver brother +listened with delighted admiration, and rubbed his hands over bits of +merry sarcasm which were utterly alien to his own vein." + +[Illustration: POWOW RIVER AND PO HILL] + +The village of Amesbury enjoyed a sense of proprietorship in Whittier +which it never lost, even when Danvers claimed him for a part of each +year. He did not give up the old house, consecrated by memories of his +mother and sister, but returned to it oftener and oftener in his last +years, and he hoped that he might spend his last days on earth where +his mother and sister died. The feeling of the people of Amesbury was +expressed in a poem written by a neighbor, and published in the village +paper, under the title of "Ours," some stanzas of which are here +given:-- + + "I say it softly to myself, + I whisper to the swaying flowers. + When he goes by, ring all your bells + Of perfume, ring, for he is ours. + + "Ours is the resolute, firm step, + Ours the dark lightning of the eye, + The rare sweet smile, and all the joy + Of ownership, when he goes by. + + . . . . . + + "I know above our simple spheres + His fame has flown, his genius towers; + These are for glory and the world. + But he himself is only ours." + +[Illustration: FRIENDS' MEETING-HOUSE AT AMESBURY] + +The Friends' meeting-house, in 1836, was nearly opposite the Whittier +cottage, on the site of the present French Catholic church. Two +centuries ago there had been an earlier meeting-house of the Society, +also on Friend Street, and the name of the street was given on this +account. The present meeting-house, on the same street, was built in +1851, upon plans made by Mr. Whittier, who was chairman of the +committee having it in charge. He once told me that some conservative +Friends were worried lest he make the house too ornate. To satisfy +them, he employed three venerable carpenters, one of them a Quaker +minister and the other two elders of the Society, and the result was +this perfectly plain, neat structure, comfortable in all its +appointments. Visitors like to find the seat usually occupied by +Whittier. It is now marked by a silver plate. I have accompanied him to +a First Day service here, in which for a half hour no one was moved to +say a word. And this was the kind of service he much preferred to one +in which the time was "fully occupied." The meeting was dismissed +without a spoken word, the signal being the shaking of hands by two of +the elders on the "facing seats." Then each worshiper shook the hand of +the person next him. There was no sudden separation. The company formed +itself into groups for a pleasant social reunion. In the group that +surrounded Whittier were ten or twelve octogenarians, whom he told me +he had met in this way almost every week since his boyhood; for even +when living in Haverhill, this was the meeting his family attended. It +was delightful to see the warmth and tenderness of the greetings of +these venerable life-long friends. I once accompanied him to a +devotional meeting, where many of the leading Friends of the Society +were present, and as the papers had announced the names of several +speakers from distant States, he expressed the fear that there would be +no opportunity to get "into the quiet." As the speakers followed each +other in rapid succession, he asked me if I had a bit of paper and a +pencil with me. Then he appeared to be taking notes of the proceedings. +I fancied some of the speakers noticed his pencil, and were spurred by +it to an enlargement of utterance. When we were at home, I asked what +he had written. He smiled and handed me his "notes," which are before +me as I write. "Man spoke," "Woman sang," "Man prayed," and so on for +no less than fourteen items. Being slightly deaf, he had heard scarcely +anything, and had been noting the number and variety of the +performances. It was his protest against much speaking. At dinner the +same day, his cousin, Joseph Cartland, commented upon the inarticulate +sounds that accompanied the remarks of one or two of the speakers. "Let +us shame them out of it," he said, "let's call it grunting." "Oh, no, +Joseph," said Whittier, "don't thee do that--take away the grunt, and +nothing is left!" + +[Illustration: INTERIOR OF FRIENDS' MEETING-HOUSE + +Whittier's usual seat marked, on left side, near "facing seats."] + +Mr. Whittier had many wonderful stories illustrating the guidance of +the spirit to which members of the Society of Friends submitted in the +daily intercourse of life. One was of an aged Friend, who never failed +to attend meeting on First Day. But one morning he told his wife that +he was impelled to take a walk instead of going to meeting, and he knew +not whither he should go. He went into the country some distance and +came to a lane which led to a house. He was impressed to take this +lane, and soon reached a house where a funeral service was in progress. +At the close of the service he arose, and said that he knew nothing of +the circumstances connected with the death of the young woman lying in +the casket, but he was impelled to say that she had been accused of +something of which she was not guilty, and the false accusation had +hastened her death. Then he added that there was a person in the room +who knew she was not guilty, and called upon this person, whoever it +might be, to vindicate the character of the deceased. After a solemn +pause, a woman arose and confessed she had slandered the dead girl. In +telling such stories as this, Mr. Whittier did not usually express full +and unreserved belief in their truth, but he maintained the attitude of +readiness to believe anything of this kind which was well +authenticated, and he approved of the methods of work adopted by the +Society for Psychical Research in England and in this country. + +[Illustration: CAPTAIN'S WELL] + +The hills encircling the lovely valley of the short and busy Powow +River, beginning with the southwestern extremity of the amphitheatre, +are: Bailey's, on the declivity of which, overlooking the Merrimac, is +the site of Goody Martin's cottage, the scene of the poem of "Mabel +Martin;" next is the ridge on which is the Union Cemetery where +Whittier is buried; then Whittier Hill, named not for the poet but for +his first American ancestor who settled here, and locally called +"Whitcher Hill"--showing the ancient pronunciation of the name; then, +across the Powow, are Po, Mundy, Brown's, and Rocky hills. On a lower +terrace of the Union Cemetery ridge, and near the cemetery, is the Macy +house, built before 1654 by Thomas Macy, first town clerk of Amesbury +(and ancestor of Edwin M. Stanton, the great war secretary), who was +driven from the town for harboring a proscribed Quaker in 1659, as told +in the poem "The Exiles;"[6] also, the birthplace of Josiah Bartlett, +first signer of the Declaration of Independence after Hancock, whose +statue, given by Jacob R. Huntington, a public-spirited citizen of +Amesbury, stands in Huntington Square; and near by is "The Captain's +Well," dug by Valentine Bagley in pursuance of a vow, as told in +Whittier's poem; also the Home for Aged Women, for which Whittier left +by his will nearly $10,000. It is to a view of Newburyport as seen from +Whittier Hill, a distance of five miles, that the opening lines of "The +Preacher" refer:-- + + "Far down the vale, my friend and I + Beheld the old and quiet town; + The ghostly sails that out at sea + Flapped their white wings of mystery; + The beaches glimmering in the sun, + And the low wooded capes that run + Into the sea-mist north and south; + The sand-bluffs at the river's mouth; + The swinging chain-bridge, and, afar, + The foam line of the harbor-bar." + +The cemetery in which Whittier is buried can be reached by either the +electric line from Merrimac, or the one from Newburyport--the latter +approaching nearest the part in which is the Whittier lot. This lot is +in the section reserved for the Society of Friends, and is surrounded +by a well-kept hedge of arbor vitć. Here is buried each member of the +family commemorated in the poem "Snow-Bound," and also the niece of the +poet, who was for twenty years a member of his household. There is a +row of nine plain marble tablets, much alike, with Whittier's slightly +the largest. At the corner where his brother is buried is a tall cedar, +and at the foot of his own grave is another symmetrical tree of the +same kind. Between him and his brother lie their father and mother, +their two sisters, their uncle Moses and aunt Mercy. His niece, +daughter of his brother, has a place by his side. Inclosed by the same +hedge is the burial lot of his dearly-loved cousin, Joseph Cartland. +For those who take note of dates it may be said that his father died in +1830, and not, as stated on his headstone, one year later. + +[Illustration: WHITTIER LOT, UNION CEMETERY, AMESBURY] + +Po Hill, originally called Powow, because of the tradition that the +Indians used to hold their powwows upon its summit, is three hundred +and thirty-two feet high, and commands a view so extended that many +visitors make the ascent. One of Whittier's early prose legends is of a +bewitched Yankee whose runaway horse took him to the top of this hill +into a midnight powwow of Indian ghosts. In describing the hill he +says: "It is a landmark to the skippers of the coasting craft that sail +up Newburyport harbor, and strikes the eye by its abrupt elevation and +orbicular shape, the outlines being as regular as if struck off by the +sweep of a compass." From it in a clear day may be seen Mount +Washington, ninety-eight miles away; the Ossipee range; Passaconaway; +Whiteface; Kearsarge in Warner; Monadnock; Wachusett; Agamenticus and +Bonny Beag in Maine; the Isles of Shoals with White Island light; Boon +Island in Maine; and nearer at hand Newburyport with its harbor and +bay; Plum Island; Cape Ann; Salisbury and Hampton beaches; Boar's Head +and Little Boar's Head; Crane Neck and many other of the beautiful +hills of Newbury, Rowley, Ipswich, and Danvers. The view of Cape Ann as +seen from Po Hill is referred to by Whittier at the opening of the poem +"The Garrison of Cape Ann:"-- + + "From the hills of home forth looking, far beneath the tent-like span + Of the sky, I see the white gleam of the headland of Cape Ann." + +Down the south side of the Po flows the Powow River in a series of +cascades, the finest of which are now hidden by the mills, or arched +over by the main street of the village of Amesbury. The hill is +celebrated in several of Whittier's poems, including "Abram Morrison," +"Miriam," and "Cobbler Keezar's Vision." The Powow, a little way above +its plunge over the rocks where it gives power for the mills, flows in +front of the Whittier home, and but the width of a block distant. The +surface of its swift current is but a few feet below the level of +Friend Street. Po Hill rises steeply from its left bank. The Powow is +mentioned in the poem "The Fountain:"-- + + "Where the birch canoe had glided + Down the swift Powow, + Dark and gloomy bridges strided + Those clear waters now; + And where once the beaver swam, + Jarred the wheel and frowned the dam." + + +[Illustration: THE FOUNTAIN, ON MUNDY HILL] + +"The Fountain" is a spring that may be found on the western side of +Mundy Hill. The oak mentioned in this poem is gone, and a willow takes +its place. The Rocky Hill meeting-house is well worth the attention of +visitors, as a well-preserved specimen of the meeting-houses of the +olden time. Its pulpit, pews, and galleries retain their original form +as when built in 1785. It is situated on the easternmost of the fine +circlet of hills that incloses the valley of the Powow. This hill is +well named, for here the melting glaciers left their most abundant +deposit of boulders. A trolley line from Amesbury to Salisbury Beach +passes this venerable edifice. + +[Illustration: ROCKY HILL CHURCH, BUILT IN 1785] + +Salisbury Beach, now covered with summer cottages, will hardly be +recognized as the place described by Whittier in his "Tent on the +Beach." When that poem was written, not one of these hundreds of +cottages was built, and those who encamped here brought tents. Hampton +Beach is a continuation of Salisbury Beach beyond the state line into +New Hampshire. It has given its name to one of the most notable of +Whittier's poems, and several ballads refer to it. "The Wreck of +Rivermouth" has for its scene the mouth of the Hampton River, which, +winding down from the uplands across salt meadows, and dividing this +beach, finds its outlet to the sea. At the northern end of the beach +is the picturesque promontory of Boar's Head, and eastward are seen the +Isles of Shoals, and in the further distance the blue disk of +Agamenticus. Whittier describes the place with his usual exactness:-- + + "And fair are the sunny isles in view + East of the grisly Head of the Boar, + And Agamenticus lifts its blue + Disk of a cloud the woodlands o'er; + And southerly, when the tide is down, + 'Twixt white sea-waves and sand-hills brown, + The beach-birds dance and the gray gulls wheel + Over a floor of burnished steel." + +[Illustration: INTERIOR OF ROCKY HILL CHURCH] + +Rev. J. C. Fletcher, in an article published in 1879, says that he was +with Whittier at Salisbury Beach, in the summer of 1861, when he saw +the remarkable mirage commemorated in these lines in "The Tent on the +Beach:"-- + + "Sometimes, in calms of closing day, + They watched the spectral mirage play; + Saw low, far islands looming tall and nigh, + And ships, with upturned keels, sail like a sea the sky." + +[Illustration: MOUTH OF HAMPTON RIVER + +Scene of "The Wreck of Rivermouth"] + +Mr. Fletcher was spending several weeks that summer with his family in +a tent on the beach. He says: "Here we were visited by friends from +Newburyport and Amesbury. None were more welcome than Whittier and his +sister, and two nieces, one of whom, Lizzie, as we called her, had the +beautiful eyes--the grand features in both the poet and his sister. +Those eyes of his sister Elizabeth are most touchingly alluded to by +Whittier when he refers to his sister's childhood in the old Snow-bound +homestead:-- + + "'Lifting her large, sweet, asking eyes, + Now bathed in the unfading green + And holy peace of Paradise.' + +"One day, late in the afternoon, I recall how Elizabeth was enjoying a +cup of tea in the family tent, while Whittier and myself were seated +upon a hillock of sand outside. It had been a peculiarly beautiful day, +and as the sun began to decline, the calm sea was lit up with a dreamy +grandeur wherein there seemed a mingling of rose-tint and color of +pearls. All at once we noticed that the far-off Isles of Shoals, of +which in clear days only the lighthouse could be seen, were lifted into +the air, and the vessels out at sea were seen floating in the heavens. +Whittier told me that he never before witnessed such a sight. We called +to the friends in the tent to come and enjoy the scene with us. +Elizabeth Whittier was then seeing from the shore the very island, +reduplicated in the sky, where two years afterwards she met that fatal +accident which, after months of suffering, terminated her existence." + +[Illustration: SALISBURY BEACH, BEFORE THE COTTAGES WERE BUILT + +Scene of "The Tent on the Beach"] + +Elizabeth fell upon the rocks at Appledore in August, 1863. It was not +thought at the time that she was seriously injured, and perhaps Mr. +Fletcher is wrong in attributing her death solely to this cause. For +many years before and after the death of his sister, Mr. Whittier spent +some days each summer at Appledore. It was at his insistence that Celia +Thaxter undertook her charming book, "Among the Isles of Shoals." + +[Illustration: HAMPTON RIVER MARSHES] + +Other ballads of this region are "The Changeling," and "The New Wife +and the Old." The ancient house which is the scene of the last named +poem is still standing, and may be seen by passengers on the Boston and +Maine road, near the Hampton station. It has a gambrel roof, and is on +the left when the train is going westward. On the right as the train +passes Hampton Falls station may be seen in the distance, shaded by +magnificent elms, the house of Miss Gove, in which Whittier died. It +was upon these broad meadows and the distant line of the beach that his +eyes rested, when he took his last look upon the scenery he loved and +has so faithfully pictured in his verse. The photographs here +reproduced were taken by his grandnephew a few days before his death, +and the last time he stood on the balcony where his form appears. The +room in which he died opens upon this balcony. It was his cousin, +Joseph Cartland, who happened to stand by his left side when the +picture was taken. This house is worthy of notice aside from its +connection with Whittier, as one of the finest specimens of colonial +architecture, its rooms filled with the furniture and heirlooms of the +ancestors of the present proprietor. A trolley line from Amesbury now +passes the house. + +[Illustration: HOUSE OF MISS GOVE, HAMPTON FALLS] + +[Illustration: CHAMBER IN WHICH WHITTIER DIED] + +As a coincidence that was at the time considered singular, the +superstition in regard to the matter of thirteen at table was recalled +when Whittier dined for the last time with his friends. During the +summer he had lodged at the house of Miss Gove, taking his meals with +others of his party in a house adjoining. One evening all had taken +their places at the table except Mr. Whittier. His niece noticed there +were twelve seated, and without comment took her plate to a small table +in a corner of the room. When her uncle came in, he said in a cheery +way, "Why, Lizzie, what has thee been doing, that they put thee in the +corner?" Some evasive reply was made, but probably Mr. Whittier guessed +the reason, for he was well versed in such superstitions, and sometimes +laughingly heeded them. In a few minutes, Mr. Wakeman, the Baptist +clergyman of the village, just returned from his summer vacation, came +in unexpectedly, and took the thirteenth seat that had just been +vacated. Whittier's grandnephew, to again break the omen, took his +plate over to the table in the corner with his mother. It was all done +in a playful way, but the matter was recalled while we were at +breakfast next morning. The news then came of the paralysis which had +affected Mr. Whittier while dressing to join us. He never again came to +the dining room. Another incident of the same evening was more +impressive, and remains to this day inexplicable. After sitting for a +while in the parlor conversing with friends, he took his candle to +retire, and as he said "Goodnight" to his friends, and passed out of +the door, an old clock (the clock over the desk) struck once! It had +not been wound up for years, and as no one present had ever before +heard it strike, it excited surprise--the more so as the hands were not +in position for striking. It was an incident that had a marked effect +upon a party little inclined to heed omens; and in many ways, without +success, we tried to get the clock to strike once more. + +[Illustration: AMESBURY PUBLIC LIBRARY] + +A beautiful little lake in the northern part of Amesbury, formerly +known as Kimball's Pond, is the scene of "The Maids of Attitash." Its +present name was conferred by Whittier because huckleberries abound in +this region, and Attitash is the Indian name for this berry. His poem +pictures the maidens with "baskets berry-filled," watching + + ... "in idle mood + The gleam and shade of lake and wood." + +In a letter to the editor of "The Atlantic" inclosing this ballad, he +says of Attitash: "It is as pretty as St. Mary's Lake which Wordsworth +sings, in fact a great deal prettier. The glimpse of the Pawtuckaway +range of mountains in Nottingham seen across it is very fine, and it +has noble groves of pines and maples and ash trees." A trolley line +from Amesbury to Haverhill passes this lake; but this is not the line +which passes the Whittier birthplace. + +Annually, in the month of May, the Quarterly Meeting of the Society of +Friends is held at Amesbury, and during the fifty-six years of Mr. +Whittier's residence in the village, this was an occasion on which he +kept open house, and wherever he happened to be, he came home to enjoy +the company of friends, giving up all other engagements. He could not +be detained in Boston or Danvers, or wherever else he might be, when +the time for this meeting approached. It was an annual event in which +his mother and sister took much interest, and after they passed away, +the custom was maintained with the same spirit of hospitality with +which they had invested it, to the last year of his life. + +Among Mr. Whittier's neighbors was an aged pair, a brother and sister, +whose simple, old-fashioned ways and quaint conversation he much +enjoyed. He thought they worked harder than they had need to do, as the +infirmities of age fell upon them, for they had accumulated a +competency, and on one occasion he suggested that they leave for +younger hands some of the labor to which they had been accustomed. But +the sister said, "We must lay by something for our last sickness, and +have enough left to bury us." Whittier replied, "Mary, did thee ever +know any one in his last sickness to stick by the way for want of +funds?" The beautiful public library of Amesbury was built with the +money of this aged pair, whose will was made at the suggestion of +Whittier. Part of the money Whittier left to hospitals and schools +would have been given to this library, had he not known that it was +provided for by his generous neighbors. + +[Illustration: WHITTIER AT THE AGE OF FORTY-NINE] + +In his poem "The Common Question," Whittier refers to a saying of his +pet parrot, "Charlie," a bird that afforded him much amusement, and +sometimes annoyance, by his tricks and manners. His long residence in +this Quaker household had the effect to temper his vocabulary, and he +almost forgot some phrases his ungodly captors had taught him. But +there would be occasional relapses. He had the freedom of the house, +for Whittier objected to having him caged. One Sunday morning, when +people were passing on the way to meeting, Charlie had gained access to +the roof, and mounted one of the chimneys. There he stood, dancing and +using language he unfortunately had not quite forgotten, to the +amazement of the church-goers! Whatever Quaker discipline he received +on this occasion did not cure him of the chimney habit, but some time +later he was effectually cured; for while dancing on this high perch he +fell down one of the flues and was lost for some days. At last his +stifled voice was heard in the parlor, in the wall over the mantel. A +pole was let down the flue and he was rescued, but so sadly demoralized +that he could only faintly whisper, "What does Charlie want?" He died +from the effect of this accident, but we will not dismiss him without +another story in which he figures: He had the bad habit of nipping at +the leg of a person whose trousers happened to be hitched above the top +of the boot. One day Mr. Whittier was being worn out by a prosy +harangue from a visitor who sat in a rocking-chair, and swayed back and +forth as he talked. As he rocked, Whittier noticed that his trousers +were reaching the point of danger, and now at length he had something +that interested him. Charlie was sidling up unseen by the orator. There +was a little nip followed by a sharp exclamation, and the thread of the +discourse was broken! The relieved poet now had the floor as an +apologist for his discourteous parrot. + +At a time when Salmon P. Chase was in Lincoln's Cabinet, but was +beginning to think of the possibility of supplanting him at the next +presidential election, he visited Massachusetts, and called upon his +old anti-slavery friend, Mr. Whittier. Chase told him among other +things that he did not like Abraham Lincoln's stories. Whittier said, +"But do they not always have an application, like the parables?" "Oh, +yes," said Chase, "but they are not decent like the parables!" + +Henry Taylor was a village philosopher of Amesbury given to the +discussion of high themes in a somewhat eccentric manner, and Whittier +had a warm side for such odd characters. Once when Emerson was his +guest, he invited Taylor to meet him, knowing that the Concord +philosopher would be amused if not otherwise interested in his Amesbury +brother. Taylor found him a good listener, and gave him the full +benefit of his theories and imaginings. Next morning Whittier called on +him to inquire what he thought of Emerson. "Oh," said he, "I find your +friend a very intelligent man. He has adopted some of my ideas." + +[Illustration: THE WOOD GIANT, AT STURTEVANT'S, CENTRE HARBOR + + "Alone, the level sun before; + Below, the lake's green islands; + Beyond, in misty distance dim, + The rugged Northern Highlands."] + +The likeness of Whittier on page 97 is from a daguerreotype taken in +October, 1856, and has never before been published in any volume +written by or about the poet. Mr. Thomas E. Boutelle, the artist who +took this daguerreotype, is now living in Amesbury at the age of +eighty-five. He tells me how he happened to get this picture,--a rather +difficult feat, as it was hard to induce the poet to sit for his +portrait. He had set up a daguerrean saloon in the little square near +Whittier's house, and Whittier often came in for a social chat, but +persistently refused to give a sitting. One day he came in with his +younger brother Franklin, whose picture he wanted. When it was +finished, Franklin said, "Now, Greenleaf, I want your picture." After +much persuasion Greenleaf consented, and Mr. Boutelle showed him the +plate before it was fully developed, with the remark that he thought he +could do better if he might try again. By this bit of strategy he +secured the extra daguerreotype here reproduced, but he took care not +to show it in Amesbury, for fear Whittier would call it in. He took it +to Exeter, N. H., and put it in a show-case at his door. His saloon was +burned, and all he saved was this show-case and the daguerreotype, +which many of the poet's old friends think to be his best likeness of +that period. + +Several of Whittier's poems referring to New Hampshire scenery +celebrate particular trees remarkable for age and size. For these +giants of the primeval forest he ever had a loving admiration. The +great elms that shade the house in which he died would no doubt have +had tribute in verse if his life had been spared. He invited the +attention of every visitor to them. The immense pine on the Sturtevant +farm, near Centre Harbor, called out a magnificent tribute in his poem +"The Wood Giant." Our engraving on page 99 gives some idea of "the +Anakim of pines." There is a grove at Lee, N. H., on the estate of his +dearly-loved cousins, the Cartlands, to which he refers in his poem "A +Memorial:"-- + + "Green be those hillside pines forever, + And green the meadowy lowlands be, + And green the old memorial beeches, + Name-carven in the woods of Lee!" + +There is a "Whittier Elm" at West Ossipee, and indeed wherever he chose +a summer resort, some wood giant still bears his name. + +[Illustration: THE CARTLAND HOUSE, NEWBURYPORT + +Where Whittier spent the last winter of his life. A century ago the +residence of the father of Harriet Livermore.] + +Visitors to Whittier-Land will find an excursion to Oak Knoll, in +Danvers, to be full of interest. Here the poet, after the marriage of +his niece, spent a large part of each of the last fifteen years of his +life in the family of his cousins, the Misses Johnson and Mrs. Woodman. +Without giving up his residence in Amesbury, where his house was always +kept open for him during these years by Hon. George W. Cate, he found +in the beautiful seclusion of the fine estate at Oak Knoll a restful +and congenial home. Many souvenirs of the poet are here treasured, and +the historical associations of the place are worthy of note. Here lived +the Rev. George Burroughs, who suffered death as a wizard more than two +centuries ago. He was a man of immense strength of muscle, and his +astonishing athletic feats were cited at his trial as evidence of his +dealings with the Evil One. The well of his homestead is shown under +the boughs of an immense elm, and the canopy now over it was the +sounding-board of the pulpit of an ancient church of the parish so +unenviably identified with the witchcraft delusion. + +Inquiries are sometimes made in regard to the places in Boston +associated with the memory of Whittier. His first visit to the city was +in his boyhood, when he came as the guest of Nathaniel Greene, a +distant kinsman of his, who was editor of the "Statesman" and +postmaster of Boston. Many of his earliest poems were published in the +"Statesman" under assumed names, and until lately never recognized as +his. Not one of these juvenile productions, of which I have happened +upon many specimens, was ever collected. When he was editing the +"Manufacturer," he boarded with the publisher of that paper, Rev. Mr. +Collier, at No. 30 Federal Street. When visiting Boston in middle life, +he felt most at home in the old Marlboro Hotel on Washington Street. He +would often leave the hotel for a morning walk, and find a hearty +welcome at the breakfast hour from his dear friends, Mr. and Mrs. James +T. Fields, at No. 148 Charles Street. In later life, at the home of +Governor Claflin, at No. 63 Mount Vernon Street, he was frequently an +honored guest. It was here he first met Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, who +gives this account of their meeting: "On this morning he came in across +the thick carpet with that nervous but soft step which every one who +ever saw him remembers. Straight as his own pine tree, high of stature, +and lofty of mien, he moved like a flash of light or thought. The first +impression which one received was of such eagerness to see his friends +that his heart outran his feet. He seemed to suppose that he was +receiving, not extending the benediction; and he offered the delicate +tribute to his friend of allowing him to perceive the sense of debt. It +would have been the subtlest flattery, had he not been the most honest +and straightforward of men. We talked--how can I say of what? Or of +what not? We talked till our heads ached and our throats were sore; and +when we had finished we began again. I remember being surprised at his +quick, almost boyish, sense of fun, and at the ease with which he rose +from it into the atmosphere of the gravest, even the most solemn, +discussion. He was a delightful converser, amusing, restful, +stimulating, and inspiring at once." The winter of 1882-83 he spent at +the Winthrop Hotel, on Bowdoin Street, where the Commonwealth Hotel now +stands. + +[Illustration: WHITEFIELD'S CHURCH AND BIRTHPLACE OF GARRISON] + +A visit to Whittier-Land is incomplete if Old Newbury and Newburyport +(originally one town) are left out of the itinerary. At the celebration +of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the settlement of +Newbury, in 1885, a letter from Whittier was read in which he recites +some of the reasons for his interest in the town. He says: "Although I +can hardly call myself a son of the ancient town, my grandmother, Sarah +Greenleaf of blessed memory, was its daughter, and I may therefore +claim to be its grandson. Its genial and learned historian, Joshua +Coffin, was my first school-teacher, and all my life I have lived in +sight of its green hills, and in hearing of its Sabbath bells. Its +history and legends are familiar to me.... The town took no part in the +witchcraft horror, and got none of its old women and town charges +hanged for witches. 'Goody' Morse had the spirit rappings in her house +two hundred years earlier than the Fox girls did, and somewhat later a +Newbury minister in wig and knee-buckles rode, Bible in hand, over to +Hampton to lay a ghost who had materialized himself and was stamping up +and down stairs in his military boots.... Whitefield set the example +since followed by the Salvation Army, of preaching in its streets, and +now lies buried under one of the churches with almost the honor of +sainthood. William Lloyd Garrison was born in Newbury. The town must be +regarded as the Alpha and Omega of the anti-slavery agitation." + +The grandmother to whom he refers was born in that part of the town +nearest to his own birthplace. The outlet to Country Brook is nearly +opposite the Greenleaf place, and Whittier's poem "The Home-Coming of +the Bride" describes the crossing of the river and the bridal +procession up the valley of the lesser stream, a part of which is known +as Millvale because of the mills alluded to in the poem. + +The house in which Garrison was born is on School Street next to the +Old South meeting-house, in which Whitefield preached, and under the +pulpit of which his bones are deposited. Whitefield died in the house +next to Garrison's birthplace. The ancient Coffin house, built in 1645, +the home of Joshua Coffin, to whom Whittier addressed his poem "To My +Old Schoolmaster," is on High Street, about half a mile below State +Street. Whittier's cousins, Joseph and Gertrude Cartland, with whom he +spent a large part of the last year of his life, lived at No. 244 High +Street, at the corner of Broad. + + + + +WHITTIER'S SENSE OF HUMOR + + + + +III + +WHITTIER'S SENSE OF HUMOR + + +Few men of his day, of equal prominence, have been so greatly +misunderstood as Whittier by the public which knows him only by the +writings he allowed to be published. These reveal him on the one hand +as an earnest reformer bitterly denouncing the sins of a guilty people, +and on the other as a prophet of God, with a message of cheer to those +who turn them from their evil ways. While slavery existed, he lashed +the institution with a whip of scorpions, and in later years, in poems +of exquisite sweetness, he sang of "The Eternal Goodness," and brought +words of consolation and hope to despairing souls. In the popular mind +there has been built up for him a reputation for extreme seriousness +and even severity. To be sure, some of the poems in his collected works +have witty and even merry lines, but they usually have a serious +purpose. The real fun and frolic of his nature were known only to those +privileged with his intimacy. He delighted at times in throwing off his +mantle of prophecy, and unbending even to jollity, in his home life and +among friends. The presence of a stranger was a check to such +exuberance. And it was not from any unsocial habit that he fell into +this restraint. It was because he found that the unguarded words of a +public man are often given a weight they were not intended to bear. If +he unbent as one might whose every word has not come to be thought of +value, it led to misunderstandings. In his home and among near friends +he revealed a charming readiness to engage in lively and frolicsome +conversation. + +Some stories illustrating his keen sense of humor, and specimens of +verse written in rollicking vein for special occasions, which might not +properly find place in a serious attempt at biography, I have thought +might be allowed in such an informal work as this. Few of the lines I +shall here give have ever appeared in any of his collected works, and +some of them were never before in print. I am sure I do no wrong to his +memory in thus bringing out a phase of his character which could not be +fully treated in biography. + +I never heard him laugh aloud, but a merrier face and an eye that +twinkled with livelier glee when thoroughly amused are not often seen. +He would double up with mirth without uttering a sound,--his chuckle +being visible instead of audible,--but this peculiar expression of +jollity was irresistibly infectious. The faculty of seeing the humorous +side of things he considered a blessing to be coveted, and he had a +special pity for that class of philanthropists who cannot find a laugh +in the midst of the miseries they would alleviate. A laugh rested him, +and any teller of good stories, any writer of lively adventures, +received a hearty greeting from him. He told Dickens that his "Pickwick +Papers" had for years been his remedy for insomnia, and Sam Weller had +helped him to many an hour of rested nerves. He loved and admired +Longfellow and Lowell, and they were his most cherished friends, but +the lively wit of Holmes had a special charm for him, and jolly times +they had whenever they met. The witty talk and merry letters of Gail +Hamilton, full as they were of a mad revelry of nonsense, were a great +delight to him. It was not in praise of but in pity for Charles Sumner +that he wrote:-- + + "No sense of humor dropped its oil + On the hard ways his purpose went; + Small play of fancy lightened toil; + He spake alone the thing he meant." + +As an illustration of his own way of speaking the thing he did _not_ +mean, just for fun, take the following: More than thirty years ago, a +Division of the Sons of Temperance was organized in Amesbury, and his +niece, one of his household, joined it. Her turn came to edit a paper +for the Division, and she asked her uncle to contribute something. He +had often complained in a laughing way in regard to the late hours of +the club, and had threatened to lock her out. This accounts for the +tone of the following remarkable contribution to temperance literature +from one of the oldest friends of the cause:-- + + +THE DIVISION + + "Dogs take it! Still the girls are out," + Said Muggins, bedward groping, + "'T is twelve o'clock, or thereabout, + And all the doors are open! + I'll lock the doors another night, + And give to none admission; + Better to be abed and tight + Than sober at Division!" + + Next night at ten o'clock, or more + Or less, by Muggins's guessing, + He went to bolt the outside door, + And lo! the key was missing. + He muttered, scratched his head, and quick + He came to this decision: + "Here 's something new in 'rithmetic, + Subtraction by Division! + + "And then," said he, "it puzzles me, + I cannot get the right on 't, + Why temperance talk and whiskey spree + Alike should make a night on 't. + D 'ye give it up?" In Muggins's voice + Was something like derision-- + "It 's just because between the boys + And girls there 's no Division!" + +[Illustration: BEARCAMP HOUSE, WEST OSSIPEE, N. H.] + +Whittier's favorite way of enjoying his annual vacation among the +mountains was to go with a party of his relatives and neighbors, and +take possession of a little inn at West Ossipee, known as the "Bearcamp +House." Sturtevant's, at Centre Harbor, was another of his resorts. At +these places his party filled nearly every room. It was made up largely +of young people, full of frolic and love of adventure. The aged poet +could not climb with them to the tops of the mountains; but he watched +their going and coming with lively interest, and of an evening listened +to their reports and laughed over the effervescence of their +enthusiasm. Two young farmers of West Ossipee, brothers named Knox, +acted as guides to Chocorua. They had some success as bear hunters, and +supplied the inn with bear steaks. One day in September, 1876, the +Knox brothers took a party of seven of Whittier's friends to the top of +Chocorua, where they camped for the night among the traps that had been +set for the bears. They heard the growling of the bears in the night, +so the young ladies reported, with other blood-curdling incidents. Soon +after the Knox brothers gave a husking at their barn,[7] and the whole +Bearcamp party was invited. Whittier wrote a poem for the occasion, and +induced Lucy Larcom to read it for him as from an unknown author, +although he sat among the huskers. It was entitled:-- + + +HOW THEY CLIMBED CHOCORUA + + Unto gallant deeds belong + Poet's rhyme and singer's song; + Nor for lack of pen or tongue + Should their praises be unsung, + Who climbed Chocorua! + + O full long shall they remember + That wild nightfall of September, + When aweary of their tramp + They set up their canvas camp + In the hemlocks of Chocorua. + + There the mountain winds were howling, + There the mountain bears were prowling, + And through rain showers falling drizzly + Glared upon them, grim and grisly, + The ghost of old Chocorua! + + On the rocks with night mist wetted, + Keen his scalping knife he whetted, + For the ruddy firelight dancing + On the brown locks of Miss Lansing, + Tempted old Chocorua. + + But he swore--(if ghosts can swear)-- + "No, I cannot lift the hair + Of that pale face, tall and fair, + And for _her_ sake, I will spare + The sleepers on Chocorua." + + Up they rose at blush of dawning, + Off they marched in gray of morning, + Following where the brothers Knox + Went like wild goats up the rocks + Of vast Chocorua. + + Where the mountain shadow bald fell, + Merry faced went Addie Caldwell; + And Miss Ford, as gay of manner, + As if thrumming her piano, + Sang along Chocorua. + + Light of foot, of kirtle scant, + Tripped brave Miss Sturtevant; + While as free as Sherman's bummer, + In the rations foraged Plummer, + On thy slope, Chocorua! + + Panting, straining up the rock ridge, + How they followed Tip and Stockbridge, + Till at last, all sore with bruises, + Up they stood like the nine Muses, + On thy crown, Chocorua! + + At their shout, so wild and rousing, + Every dun deer stopped his browsing, + And the black bear's small eyes glistened, + As with watery mouth he listened + To the climbers on Chocorua. + + All the heavens were close above them, + But below were friends who loved them,-- + And at thought of Bearcamp's worry, + Down they clambered in a hurry,-- + Scurry down Chocorua. + + Sore we miss the steaks and bear roast-- + But withal for friends we care most;-- + Give the brothers Knox three cheers, + Who to bring us back our _dears_, + Left bears on old Chocorua! + +[Illustration: GROUP AT STURTEVANT'S, CENTRE HARBOR + +Gertrude Cartland at Whittier's left, Mrs. Wade and Joseph Cartland at +his right. Mrs. Caldwell, wife of Whittier's nephew, at his left +shoulder.] + +The next day after the husking, Lucy Larcom and some others of the +party prepared a burlesque literary exercise for the evening at the +inn. She wrote a frolicsome poem, and others devised telegrams, etc., +all of which were to surprise Whittier, who was to know nothing of the +affair until it came off. When the evening came, the venerable poet +took his usual place next the tongs, and the rest of the party formed a +semicircle around the great fireplace. On such occasions Whittier +always insisted on taking charge of the fire, as he did in his own +home. He even took upon himself the duty of filling the wood-box. No +one in his presence dared to touch the tongs. By and by telegrams began +to be brought in by the landlord from ridiculous people in ridiculous +situations. Some purported to come from an old poet who had the +misfortune to be caught by his coat-tails in one of the Knox bear-traps +on Chocorua. It was suggested that he might be the author of the poem +read at the husking. Lucy Larcom, who, by the way, was another of the +writers popularly supposed to be very serious minded, but who really +was known among her friends as full of fun, read a poem addressed to +the man in the bear-trap, entitled:-- + + +TO THE UNKNOWN AND ABSENT AUTHOR OF "HOW THEY CLIMBED CHOCORUA" + + O man in the trap, O thou poet-man! + What on airth are you doin'?-- + We haste to the husking as fast as we can, + --But where 's Mr. Bruin? + + We listen, we wait for his sweet howl in vain, + Like the far storm resounding. + Brothers Knox ne'er will see Mr. Bruin again, + Through the dim moonlight bounding. + + For, thou man in the trap, O thou poet-y-man, + Scared to flight by thy singing, + Away through the mountainous forest he ran, + Like a hurricane winging. + + Aye, the bear fled away, and his traps left behind, + For the use of the poet; + If an echo unearthly is borne on the wind-- + 'T is the man's--you may know it + + By its tones of dismay, melancholy and loss, + O'er his coat-tails' sad ruin; + There 's a moan in the pine, and a howl o'er the moss-- + But it 's he--'t is n't Bruin! + + And the fire you see on the cliff in the air[8] + Is his eye-balls a-glarin'! + And the form that you call old Chocorua there + Is the poet up-rarin'! + + And whenever the trees on the mountain-tops thrill + And the fierce winds they blow 'em, + In most awful pause every bear shall stand still-- + He 's writing a poem! + +Whittier evidently enjoyed the fun, and after the rest had had their +say, he remarked, "That old fellow in the bear-trap must be _in +extremis_. He ought to make his will. Suppose we help him out!" He +asked one of us to get pencil and paper and jot down the items of the +will, each to make suggestions. It ended, of course, in his making the +whole will himself, and doing it in verse. It is perhaps the only poem +of his which he never wrote with his own hand. It came as rapidly as +the scribe could take it. Every one at that fireside was remembered in +this queer will--even the "boots" of the inn, the stage-driver, and +others who were looking upon the sport from the doorway. + + +THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF THE MAN IN THE BEAR-TRAP + + Here I am at last a goner, + Held in hungry jaws like Jonah; + What the trap has left of me + Eaten by the bears will be. + So I make, on duty bent, + My last will and testament, + Giving to my Bearcamp friends + All my traps and odds and ends. + First, on Mr. Whittier, + That old bedstead I confer, + Whereupon, to vex his life, + Adam dreamed himself a wife. + I give Miss Ford the copyright + Of these verses I indite, + To be sung, when I am gone, + To the tune the cow died on. + On Miss Lansing I bestow + Tall Diana's hunting bow; + Where it is I cannot tell-- + But if found 't will suit her well. + I bequeath to Mary Bailey + Yarn to knit a stocking daily.[9] + To Lizzie Pickard from my hat + A ribbon for her yellow cat. + And I give to Mr. Pickard + That old tallow dip that flickered, + Flowed and sputtered more or less + Over Franklin's printing press. + I give Belle Hume a wing + Of the bird that wouldn't sing;[10] + To Jettie for her dancing nights + Slippers dropped from Northern Lights. + And I give my very best + Beaver stove-pipe to Celeste-- + Solely for her husband's wear, + On the day they're made a pair. + If a tear for me is shed, + And Miss Larcom's eyes are red-- + Give her for her prompt relief + My last pocket-handkerchief![11] + My cottage at the Shoals I give + To all who at the Bearcamp live-- + Provided that a steamer plays + Down that river in dog-days-- + Linking daily heated highlands + With the cool sea-scented islands-- + With Tip her engineer, her skipper + Peter Hines, the old stage-whipper.[12] + To Addie Caldwell, who has mended + My torn coat, and trousers rended, + I bequeath, in lack of payment, + All that 's left me of my raiment. + Having naught beside to spare, + To my good friend, Mrs. Ayer, + And to Mrs. Sturtevant, + My last lock of hair I grant. + I make Mr. Currier[13] + Of this will executor; + And I leave the debts to be + Reckoned as his legal fee. + +This is all of the will that was written that evening; but the next +morning, at breakfast, I found under my plate a note-sheet, with some +penciling on it. As I opened it, Mr. Whittier, with a quizzical look, +said, "Thee will notice that the bear-trap man has added a codicil to +his will." This is the codicil:-- + + And this pencil of a sick bard + I bequeath to Mr. Pickard; + Pledging him to write a very + Long and full obituary-- + Showing by my sad example, + Useful life and virtues ample, + Wit and wisdom only tend + To bear-traps at one's latter end! + +I had to go back to my editorial desk in Portland that day, and +immediately received there this note from Mr. Whittier:-- + +"DEAR MR. P.,--Don't print in thy paper my foolish verses, which thee +copied. They are hardly consistent with my years and 'eminent gravity,' +and would make 'the heathen rage, and the people imagine vain things.'" + +I had no thought at the time of giving to the public this jolly side of +Whittier's character, but do it now with little misgiving, as it is +realized by every one that "a little nonsense now and then is relished +by the wisest men." Whittier's capacity for serious work is well known, +and his love of play never interfered with it. An earnest man without a +sense of humor is a machine without a lubricant, worn out before its +work is done. There can be no doubt that Whittier owed his length of +days to his happy temperament. + +Here is a story of Whittier told by Alice Freeman Palmer: One evening +they sat in Governor Claflin's library, in Boston, and he was taking +his rest telling ghost stories. Mrs. Claflin had given strict orders +that no visitor be allowed to intrude on Mr. Whittier when he was +resting. Suddenly, at the crisis of a particularly interesting story, +there was a commotion in the hall, and the rest of that story was not +told. A lady had called to see the poet, and would not be denied. The +domestic could not stop her, and she came straight into the library. +She walked up to Whittier and seized both his hands, saying, "Mr. +Whittier, this is the supreme moment of my life!" The poor man in his +distress blushed like a school-girl, and shifted from one foot to the +other; he managed to get his hands free, and put them behind him for +further security. And what do you think he said? All he said was, "Is +it?" Miss Freeman thought a third party in the way, and slipped out. As +she was going upstairs, she heard a quick step behind her, and Whittier +took her by the shoulder and shook her, saying as if angry, "Alice +Freeman, I believe thee has been laughing at me!" She could not deny +it. "What would thee do, Alice Freeman, if a man thee never saw should +come up in that way to thee, take both hands, and tell thee it was the +supreme moment of his life?" + +Probably the most seriously dangerous position in which he was ever +placed was on the occasion of the looting and burning of Pennsylvania +Hall, in the spring of 1838. His editorial office was in the building, +and for two or three days the mob had been threatening its destruction +before they accomplished it. It was not safe for him to go into the +street except in disguise. And yet it was at this very time that he +wrote the following humorous skit, never before in print. Theodore D. +Weld had the year before made a contract of perpetual bachelorhood with +Whittier, and yet he chose this troublous time to marry the eloquent +South Carolina Quakeress, Angelina Grimké, who had freed her slaves and +come North to rouse the people, and was creating a sensation on the +lecture platform. Her burning words in Pennsylvania Hall had helped to +make the mob furious. Whittier's humorous arraignment of his friend for +breaking his promise of celibacy was written at this critical time, and +he was obliged to disguise himself when he carried his epithalamium on +the wedding night to the door of the bridegroom. He had been invited to +assist at the wedding service, but as the bride was marrying "out of +society," Whittier's orthodoxy compelled him to decline the invitation. + + "Alack and alas! that a brother of mine, + A bachelor sworn on celibacy's altar, + Should leave me to watch by the desolate shrine, + And stoop his own neck to the enemy's halter! + Oh the treason of Benedict Arnold was better + Than the scoffing at Love, and then _sub rosa_ wooing; + This mocking at Beauty, yet wearing her fetter-- + Alack and alas for such bachelor doing! + + "Oh the weapons of Saul are the Philistine's prey! + Who shall stand when the heart of the champion fails him; + Who strive when the mighty his shield casts away, + And yields up his post when a woman assails him? + Alone and despairing thy brother remains + At the desolate shrine where we stood up together, + Half tempted to envy thy self-imposed chains, + And stoop his own neck for the noose of the tether! + + "So firm and yet false! Thou mind'st me in sooth + Of St. Anthony's fall when the spirit of evil[14] + + . . . . . + + Filled the cell of his rest with imp, dragon and devil; + But the Saint never lifted his eyes from the Book + Till the tempter appeared in the guise of a woman; + And her voice was so sweet that he ventured one look, + And the devil rejoiced that the Saint had proved human!" + +In 1874, Gail Hamilton's niece was married at her house in Hamilton, +and she sent a grotesque invitation to Whittier, asking him to come to +her wedding, and prescribing a ridiculous costume he might wear. As a +postscript she mentioned that it was her niece who was to be married. +Whittier sent this reply, pretending not to have noticed the +postscript, but finally waking up to the fact that she was not herself +to be the bride:-- + + + AMESBURY, 12th mo. 29th, 1874. + +GAIL HAMILTON'S WEDDING + + "Come to my wedding," the missive runs, + "Come hither and list to the holy vows; + If you miss this chance you will wait full long + To see another at Gail-a House!" + + _Her_ wedding! What can the woman expect? + Does she think her friends can be jolly and glad? + Is it only the child who sighs and grieves + For the loss of something he never had? + + Yet I say to myself, Is it strange that she + Should choose the way that we know is good + What right have we to grumble and whine + In a pitiful dog-in-the-manger mood? + + What boots it to maunder with "if" and "perhaps," + And "it might have been" when we know it could n't, + If she had been willing (a vain surmise), + It 's ten to one that Barkis would n't. + + 'T was pleasant to think (if it _was_ a dream) + That our loving homage her need supplied, + Humbler and sadder, if wiser, we walk + To feel her life from our own lives glide. + + Let her go, God bless her! I fling for luck + My old shoe after her. Stay, what 's this? + Is it all a mistake? The letter reads, + "My _niece_, you must know, is the happy miss." + + All 's right! To grind out a song of cheer + I set to the crank my ancient muse. + Will somebody kiss that bride for me? + I fling with my blessing, both boots and shoes! + + To the lucky bridegroom I cry all hail! + He is sure of having, let come what may, + The sage advice of the wisest aunt + That ever her fair charge gave away. + + The Hamilton bell, if bell there be, + Methinks is ringing its merriest peal; + And, shades of John Calvin! I seem to see + The hostess treading the wedding reel! + + The years are many, the years are long, + My dreams are over, my songs are sung, + But, out of a heart that has not grown cold, + I bid God-speed to the fair and young. + + All joy go with them from year to year; + Never by me shall their pledge be blamed + Of the perfect love that has cast out fear, + And the beautiful hope that is not ashamed! + +An aged Quaker friend from England, himself a bachelor, was once +visiting Mr. Whittier, and was shown to his room by the poet, when the +hour for retiring came. Soon after, he was heard calling to his host in +an excited tone, "Thee has made a mistake, friend Whittier; there are +female garments in my room!" Whittier replied soothingly, "Thee had +better go to bed, Josiah; the female garments won't hurt thee." + +[Illustration: JOSIAH BARTLETT STATUE, HUNTINGTON SQUARE, AMESBURY] + +Here is a specimen of his frolicsome verse written after he was eighty +years of age. It deals largely in personalities, was meant solely for +the perusal of a few friends whom it pleasantly satirized, and was +never before in print. When the bronze statue of Josiah Bartlett was to +be erected in Amesbury, Whittier of course was called upon for the +dedicatory ode, and he wrote "One of the Signers" for the occasion. The +unveiling of the statue occurred on the Fourth of July, 1888, and as +might have been anticipated, the poet could not be prevailed upon to be +present. The day before the Fourth he went to Oak Knoll, "so as to keep +in the quiet," he said. But his thoughts were on the celebration going +on at Amesbury, and they took the form of drollery. He imagined himself +occupying the seat on the platform which had been reserved for him, and +these amusing verses were composed, the satirical allusions in which +would be appreciated by his townspeople. The president of the day was +Hon. E. Moody Boynton, a descendant of the signer, and the well-known +inventor of the bicycle railway, the "lightning saw," etc. He has the +reputation of having the limberest tongue in New England, as well as a +brain most fertile in invention. The orator of the day was Hon. Robert +T. Davis, then member of Congress, a former resident of Amesbury, and +like Bartlett a physician. Jacob R. Huntington, to whose liberality +the village is indebted for the statue, is a successful pioneer in the +carriage-building industry of the place. It was cannily decided to give +the statue to the State of Massachusetts, so as to have an inducement +for the Governor to attend the dedication. Whittier's play on this fact +is in the best vein of his drollery. The statue is of dark bronze, and +this gave a chance for his amusing reference to the Kingston +Democrats, whom he imagined as coming across the state line to attend +the celebration. Dr. Bartlett was buried in their town. Professor J. W. +Churchill, of Andover, one of the "heretics" of the Seminary, was to +read the poem. The other persons named were eccentric characters well +known in Amesbury:-- + + +MY DOUBLE + + I 'm in Amesbury, not at Oak Knoll; + 'T is my double here you see: + _I 'm_ sitting on the platform, + Where the programme places me-- + + Where the women nudge each other, + And point me out and say: + "That 's the man who makes the verses-- + My! how old he is and gray!" + + I hear the crackers popping, + I hear the bass drums throb; + I sit at Boynton's right hand, + And help him boss the job. + + And like the great stone giant + Dug out of Cardiff mire, + We lift our man of metal, + And resurrect Josiah! + + Around, the Hampshire Democrats + Stand looking glum and grim,-- + "_That thing_ the Kingston doctor! + Do you call _that critter_ him? + + "The pesky Black Republicans + Have gone and changed his figure; + We buried him a white man-- + They've dug him up a nigger!" + + I hear the wild winds rushing + From Boynton's limber jaws, + Swift as his railroad bicycle, + And buzzing like his saws! + + But Hiram the wise is explaining + It 's only an old oration + Of Ginger-Pop Emmons, come down + By way of undulation! + + Then Jacob, the vehicle-maker, + Comes forward to inquire + If Governor Ames will relieve the town + Of the care of old Josiah. + + And the Governor says: "If Amesbury can't + Take care of its own town charge, + The State, I suppose, must do it, + And keep him from runnin' at large!" + + Then rises the orator Robert, + Recounting with grave precision + The tale of the great Declaration, + And the claims of his brother physician. + + Both doctors, and both Congressmen, + Tall and straight, you 'd scarce know which is + The live man, and which is the image, + Except by their trousers and breeches! + + Then when the Andover "heretic" + Reads the rhymes I dared not utter, + I fancy Josiah is scowling, + And his bronze lips seem to mutter: + + "Dry up! and stop your nonsense! + The Lord who in His mercies + Once saved me from the Tories, + Preserve me now from verses!" + + Bad taste in the old Continental! + Whose knowledge of verse was at best + John Rogers' farewell to his wife and + Nine children and one at the breast! + + He 's treating me worse than the Hessians + He shot in the Bennington scrimmage-- + Have I outlived the newspaper critic, + To be scalped by a graven image! + + Perhaps, after all, I deserve it, + Since I, who was born a Quaker, + Sit here an image worshiper, + Instead of an image breaker! + +In giving this picture of a poet at play, I have presented a side of +Whittier's character heretofore overlooked, although to his intimate +friends it was ever in evidence. I think there are few of the lovers of +his verse who, if they are surprised by these revelations, will not +also be pleased to become acquainted with one of his methods of +recreation. + + * * * * * + +When Edmund Gosse visited this country in 1884, he called upon Mr. +Whittier, and this is the impression he received of his personality: +"The peculiarity of his face rested in the extraordinarily large and +luminous black eyes, set in black eyebrows, and fringed with thick +black eyelashes curiously curved inward. This bar of vivid black across +the countenance was startlingly contrasted with the bushy snow-white +beard and hair, offering a sort of contradiction which was surprising +and presently pleasing. He struck me as very gay and cheerful, in spite +of his occasional references to the passage of time and the vanishing +of beloved faces. He even laughed frequently and with a childlike +suddenness, but without a sound. His face had none of the immobility so +frequent with very aged persons; on the contrary, waves of mood were +always sparkling across his features, and leaving nothing stationary +there except the narrow, high, and strangely receding forehead. His +language, very fluent and easy, had an agreeable touch of the soil, an +occasional rustic note in its elegant colloquialism, that seemed very +pleasant and appropriate, as if it linked him naturally with the long +line of sturdy ancestors of whom he was the final blossoming. In +connection with his poetry, I think it would be difficult to form in +the imagination a figure more appropriate to Whittier's writings than +Whittier himself proved to be in the flesh." + + + + +WHITTIER'S UNCOLLECTED POEMS + + + + +IV + +WHITTIER'S UNCOLLECTED POEMS + + +Between the years 1826 and 1835, Mr. Whittier was writing literally +hundreds of poems which he never permitted to be collected in any +edition of his works; and not only so, but he preserved no copies of +them, in later years destroying such as came to his notice. Some of +these verses went the rounds of the newspaper press of the country, +giving him a widespread reputation as a poet. But in much of his early +work we see traces of ambition for fame, and a feeling that the world +was treating him harshly. When the change came over his spirit to which +reference has been made in a preceding chapter, sweetening all the +springs of life, he lost interest in these early productions, some of +which were giving him the fame that in his earlier years he so much +craved. It was this radical change which no doubt influenced him in his +later life to omit from his collected works most of the verses written +previous to it. I have in my possession more than three hundred poems +which I have found in the files of old newspapers, the great mass of +which I would by no means reproduce, although I find nothing of which a +young writer of that period need be ashamed. A few of these verses are +given below as specimens of the work he saw fit to discard. + +The following poem, written when he was nineteen years of age, during +his first term in the Haverhill Academy, shows in one or two stanzas +the feeling that the world is giving him the cold shoulder:-- + + +I WOULD NOT LOSE THAT ROMANCE WILD + + I would not lose that romance wild, + That high and gifted feeling-- + The power that made me fancy's child, + The clime of song revealing, + For all the power, for all the gold, + That slaves to pride and avarice hold. + + I know that there are those who deem + But lightly of the lyre;-- + Who ne'er have felt one blissful beam + Of song-enkindled fire + Steal o'er their spirits, as the light + Of morning o'er the face of night. + + Yet there 's a mystery in song-- + A halo round the way + Of him who seeks the muses' throng-- + An intellectual ray, + A source of pure, unfading joy-- + A dream that earth can ne'er destroy. + + And though the critic's scornful eye + Condemn his faltering lay, + And though with heartless apathy, + The cold world turn away-- + And envy strive with secret aim, + To blast and dim his rising fame; + + Yet fresh, amid the blast that brings + Such poison on its breath, + Above the wreck of meaner things, + His lyre's unfading wreath + Shall bloom, when those who scorned his lay + With name and power have passed away. + + Come then, my lyre, although there be + No witchery in thy tone; + And though the lofty harmony + Which other bards have known, + Is not, and cannot e'er be mine, + To touch with power those chords of thine. + + Yet thou canst tell, in humble strain, + The feelings of a heart, + Which, though not proud, would still disdain + To bear a meaner part, + Than that of bending at the shrine + Where their bright wreaths the muses twine. + + Thou canst not give me wealth or fame; + Thou hast no power to shed + The halo of a deathless name + Around my last cold bed; + To other chords than thine belong + The breathings of immortal song. + + Yet come, my lyre! some hearts may beat + Responsive to thy lay; + The tide of sympathy may meet + Thy master's lonely way; + And kindred souls from envy free + May listen to its minstrelsy. + +8th month, 1827. + + +During the first months of Whittier's editorship of the "New England +Review" at Hartford, his contributions of verse to that paper were +numerous--in some cases three of his poems appearing in a single +number, as in the issue of October 18, 1830. Two of these are signed +with his initials, but the one here given has no signature. That it is +his is made evident by the fact that all but one stanza of it appears +in "Moll Pitcher," published two years later. It was probably because +of the self-assertion of the concluding lines that the omitted stanza +was canceled, and these lines reveal the ambition then stirring his +young blood. + + +NEW ENGLAND + + Land of the forest and the rock-- + Of dark blue lake and mighty river-- + Of mountains reared aloft to mock + The storm's career--the lightning's shock,-- + My own green land forever!-- + Land of the beautiful and brave-- + The freeman's home--the martyr's grave-- + The nursery of giant men, + Whose deeds have linked with every glen, + And every hill and every stream, + The romance of some warrior dream!-- + Oh never may a son of thine, + Where'er his wandering steps incline, + Forget the sky which bent above + His childhood like a dream of love-- + The stream beneath the green hill flowing-- + The broad-armed trees above it growing-- + The clear breeze through the foliage blowing;-- + Or hear unmoved the taunt of scorn + Breathed o'er the brave New England born;-- + Or mark the stranger's Jaguar hand + Disturb the ashes of thy dead-- + The buried glory of a land + Whose soil with noble blood is red, + And sanctified in every part, + Nor feel resentment like a brand + Unsheathing from his fiery heart! + + Oh--greener hills may catch the sun + Beneath the glorious heaven of France; + And streams rejoicing as they run + Like life beneath the day-beam's glance, + May wander where the orange bough + With golden fruit is bending low;-- + And there may bend a brighter sky + O'er green and classic Italy-- + And pillared fane and ancient grave + Bear record of another time, + And over shaft and architrave + The green luxuriant ivy climb;-- + And far towards the rising sun + The palm may shake its leaves on high, + Where flowers are opening one by one, + Like stars upon the twilight sky, + And breezes soft as sighs of love + Above the rich mimosa stray, + And through the Brahmin's sacred grove + A thousand bright-hued pinions play!-- + + Yet, unto thee, New England, still + Thy wandering sons shall stretch their arms, + And thy rude chart of rock and hill + Seem dearer than the land of palms! + Thy massy oak and mountain pine + More welcome than the banyan's shade, + And every free, blue stream of thine + Seem richer than the golden bed + Of Oriental waves, which glow + And sparkle with the wealth below! + + Land of my fathers!--if my name, + Now humble, and unwed to fame, + Hereafter burn upon the lip, + As one of those which may not die, + Linked in eternal fellowship + With visions pure and strong and high-- + If the wild dreams which quicken now + The throbbing pulse of heart and brow, + Hereafter take a real form + Like spectres changed to beings warm; + And over temples worn and gray + The star-like crown of glory shine,-- + Thine be the bard's undying lay, + The murmur of his praise be thine! + +One of the poems in the same number which contained this spirited +tribute to New England was the song given below, which was signed with +the initials of the editor, else there might be some hesitation in +assigning it to him, for there is scarcely anything like it to be found +in his writings. It was evidently written for music, and some composer +should undertake it. + + +SONG + + That vow of thine was full and deep + As man has ever spoken-- + A vow within the heart to keep, + Unchangeable, unbroken. + + 'T was by the glory of the Sun, + And by the light of Even, + And by the Stars, that, one by one, + Are lighted up in Heaven! + + That Even might forget its gold-- + And Sunlight fade forever-- + The constant Stars grow dim and cold,-- + But thy affection--never! + + And Earth might wear a changeful sign, + And fickleness the Sky-- + Yet, even then, that love of thine + Might never change nor die. + + The golden Sun is shining yet-- + And at the fall of Even + There 's beauty in the warm Sunset, + And Stars are bright in Heaven. + + No change is on the blessed Sky-- + The quiet Earth has none-- + Nature has still her constancy, + And _Thou_ art changed alone! + +The "Review" for September 13, 1830, has a poem of Whittier's prefaced +by a curious story about Lord Byron:-- + +_The Spectre._--There is a story going the rounds of our periodicals +that a Miss G., of respectable family, young and very beautiful, +attended Lord Byron for nearly a year in the habit of a page. Love, +desperate and all-engrossing, seems to have been the cause of her +singular conduct. Neglected at last by the man for whom she had +forsaken all that woman holds dear, she resolved upon self-destruction, +and provided herself with poison. Her designs were discovered by Lord +Byron, who changed the poison for a sleeping potion. Miss G., with that +delicate feeling of affection which had ever distinguished her +intercourse with Byron, stole privately away to the funeral vault of +the Byrons, and fastened the entrance, resolving to spare her lover +the dreadful knowledge of her fate. She there swallowed the supposed +poison--and probably died of starvation! She was found dead soon after. +Lord Byron never adverted to this subject without a thrill of horror. +The following from his private journal may, perhaps, have some +connection with it:-- + +"I awoke from a dream--well! and have not others dreamed?--such a +dream! I wish the dead would rest forever. Ugh! how my blood +chilled--and I could not wake--and--and-- + + "Shadows to-night + Have struck more terror to the soul of Richard + Than could the substance of ten thousand-- + Armed all in proof-- + +"I do not like this dream--I hate its foregone conclusion. And am I to +be shaken by shadows? Ay, when they remind us of--no matter--but if I +dream again I will try whether all sleep has the like +visions."--Moore's "Byron," page 324. + + She came to me last night-- + The floor gave back no tread, + She stood by me in the wan moonlight-- + In the white robes of the dead-- + Pale--pale, and very mournfully + She bent her light form over me-- + I heard no sound--I felt no breath + Breathe o'er me from that face of death; + Its dark eyes rested on my own, + Rayless and cold as eyes of stone; + Yet in their fixed, unchanging gaze, + Something which told of other days-- + A sadness in their quiet glare, + As if Love's smile were frozen there, + Came o'er me with an icy thrill-- + O God! I feel its presence still! + And fearfully and dimly + The pale cold vision passed, + Yet those dark eyes were fixed on me + In sadness to the last. + I struggled--and my breath came back, + As to the victim on the rack, + Amid the pause of mortal pain + Life steals to suffer once again! + Was it a dream? I looked around, + The moonlight through the lattice shone; + The same pale glow that dimly crowned + The forehead of the spectral one! + And then I knew she had been there-- + Not in her breathing loveliness, + But as the grave's lone sleepers are, + Silent and cold and passionless! + A weary thought--a fearful thought-- + Within the secret heart to keep: + Would that the past might be forgot-- + Would that the dead might sleep! + +These are the concluding lines of a long poem written in 1829, while he +was editing the "American Manufacturer." The poem as a whole was never +in print; but these lines of it I find in the "Essex Gazette" of August +22, 1829, from which paper they were copied, as were most of his +productions of that period, by the newspapers of the country. They were +never in any collection of his works:-- + + +A FRAGMENT + + Lady, farewell! I know thy heart + Has angel strength to soar above + The cold reserve--the studied art + That mock the glowing wings of love. + Its thoughts are purer than the pearl + That slumbers where the wave is driven, + Yet freer than the winds that furl + The banners of the clouded heaven. + And thou hast been the brightest star + That shone along my weary way-- + Brighter than rainbow visions are, + A changeless and enduring ray. + Nor will my memory lightly fade + From thy pure dreams, high-thoughted girl;-- + The ocean may forget what made + Its blue expanse of waters curl, + When the strong winds have passed the sky; + Earth in its beauty may forget + The recent cloud that floated by; + The glories of the last sunset-- + But not from thy unchanging mind + Will fade the dreams of other years, + And love will linger far behind, + In memory's resting place of tears! + +Many of Whittier's early discarded verses are of a rather gruesome +sort, but more are inspired by contemplation of sublime themes, like +this apostrophe to "Eternity," which was published in the "New England +Review" in 1831:-- + + +ETERNITY + + Boundless eternity! the wingéd sands + That mark the silent lapse of flitting time + Are not for thee; thine awful empire stands + From age to age, unchangeable, sublime; + Thy domes are spread where thought can never climb, + In clouds and darkness where vast pillars rest. + I may not fathom thee: 't would seem a crime + Thy being of its mystery to divest + Or boldly lift thine awful veil with hands unblest. + + Thy ruins are the wrecks of systems; suns + Blaze a brief space of age, and are not; + Worlds crumble and decay, creation runs + To waste--then perishes and is forgot; + Yet thou, all changeless, heedest not the blot. + Heaven speaks once more in thunder; empty space + Trembles and wakes; new worlds in ether float, + Teeming with new creative life, and trace + Their mighty circles, which others shall displace. + + Thine age is youth, thy youth is hoary age, + Ever beginning, never ending, thou + Bearest inscribed upon thy ample page, + Yesterday, forever, but as now + Thou art, thou hast been, shall be: though + I feel myself immortal, when on thee + I muse, I shrink to nothingness, and bow + Myself before thee, dread Eternity, + With God coeval, coexisting, still to be. + + I go with thee till time shall be no more, + I stand with thee on Time's remotest age, + Ten thousand years, ten thousand times told o'er; + Still, still with thee my onward course I urge; + And now no longer hear the surge + Of Time's light billows breaking on the shore + Of distant earth; no more the solemn dirge-- + Requiem of worlds, when such are numbered o'er-- + Steals by: still thou art on forever more. + + From that dim distance I turn to gaze + With fondly searching glance, upon the spot + Of brief existence, when I met the blaze + Of morning, bursting on my humble cot, + And gladness whispered of my happy lot; + And now 't is dwindled to a point--a speck-- + And now 't is nothing, and my eye may not + Longer distinguish it amid the wreck + Of worlds in ruins, crushed at the Almighty's beck. + + Time--what is time to thee? a passing thought + To twice ten thousand ages--a faint spark + To twice ten thousand suns; a fibre wrought + Into the web of infinite--a cork + Balanced against a world: we hardly mark + Its being--even its name hath ceased to be; + Thy wave hath swept it from us, thy dark + Mantle of years, in dim obscurity + Hath shrouded it around: Time--what is Time to thee! + +In 1832 a living ichneumon was brought to Haverhill, and was on +exhibition at Frinksborough, a section of Haverhill now known as "the +borough," on the bank of the river above the railroad bridge. Three +young ladies of Haverhill went to see it, escorted by Mr. Whittier. +They found that the animal had succumbed to the New England climate, +and had just been buried. One of the ladies, Harriet Minot, afterward +Mrs. Pitman, a life-long friend of the poet, suggested that he should +write an elegy, and these are the lines he produced:-- + + +THE DEAD ICHNEUMON + + Stranger! they have made thy grave + By the darkly flowing river; + But the washing of its wave + Shall disturb thee never! + Nor its autumn tides which run + Turbid to the rising sun, + Nor the harsh and hollow thunder, + When its fetters burst asunder, + And its winter ice is sweeping, + Downward to the ocean's keeping. + + Sleeper! thou canst rest as calm + As beside thine own dark stream, + In the shadow of the palm, + Or the white sand gleam! + Though thy grave be never hid + By the o'ershadowing pyramid, + Frowning o'er the desert sand, + Like no work of mortal hand, + Telling aye the same proud story + Of the old Egyptian glory! + + Wand'rer! would that we might know + Something of thy early time-- + Something of thy weal or woe + In thine own far clime! + If thy step hath fallen where + Those of Cleopatra were, + When the Roman cast his crown + At a woman's footstool down, + Deeming glory's sunshine dim + To the smile which welcomed him. + + If beside the reedy Nile + Thou hast ever held thy way, + Where the embryo crocodile + In the damp sedge lay; + When the river monster's eye + Kindled at thy passing by, + And the pliant reeds were bending + Where his blackened form was wending, + And the basking serpent started + Wildly when thy light form darted. + + Thou hast seen the desert steed + Mounted by his Arab chief, + Passing like some dream of speed, + Wonderful and brief! + Where the palm-tree's shadows lurk, + Thou hast seen the turbaned Turk, + Resting in voluptuous pride + With his harem at his side, + Veiléd victims of his will, + Scorned and lost, yet lovely still. + + And the samiel hath gone + O'er thee like a demon's breath, + Marking victims one by one + For its master--Death. + And the mirage thou hast seen + Glittering in the sunny sheen, + Like some lake in sunlight sleeping, + Where the desert wind was sweeping, + And the sandy column gliding, + Like some giant onward striding. + + Once the dwellers of thy home + Blessed the path thy race had trod, + Kneeling in the temple dome + To a reptile god; + Where the shrine of Isis shone + Through the veil before its throne, + And the priest with fixéd eyes + Watched his human sacrifice; + And the priestess knelt in prayer, + Like some dream of beauty there. + + Thou, unhonored and unknown, + Wand'rer o'er the mighty sea! + None for thee have reverence shown-- + None have worshipped thee! + Here in vulgar Yankee land, + Thou hast passed from hand to hand, + And in Frinksborough found a home, + Where no change can ever come! + What thy closing hours befell + None may ask, and none may tell. + + Who hath mourned above thy grave? + None--except thy ancient nurse. + Well she may--thy being gave + Coppers to her purse! + Who hath questioned her of thee? + None, alas! save maidens three, + Here to view thee while in being, + Yankee curious, paid for seeing, + And would gratis view once more + That for which they paid before. + + Yet thy quiet rest may be + Envied by the human kind, + Who are showing off like thee, + To the careless mind, + Gifts which torture while they flow, + Thoughts which madden while they glow, + Pouring out the heart's deep wealth, + Proffering quiet, ease, and health, + For the fame which comes to them + Blended with their requiem! + +The following poem, which I have never seen in print, I find in a +manuscript collection of Whittier's early poems, in the possession of +his cousin, Ann Wendell, of Philadelphia. It is a political curiosity, +being a reminiscence of the excitement caused by the mystery of the +disappearance of William Morgan, in the vicinity of Niagara Falls, in +1826. It was written in 1830, three years before Whittier became +especially active in the anti-slavery cause. He was then working in the +interest of Henry Clay as against Jackson, and the Whigs had adopted +some of the watchwords of the Anti-Masonic party:-- + + +THE GRAVE OF MORGAN + + Wild torrent of the lakes! fling out + Thy mighty wave to breeze and sun, + And let the rainbow curve above + The foldings of thy clouds of dun. + Uplift thy earthquake voice, and pour + Its thunder to the reeling shore, + Till caverned cliff and hanging wood + Roll back the echo of thy flood, + For there is one who slumbers now + Beneath thy bow-encircled brow, + Whose spirit hath a voice and sign + More strong, more terrible than thine. + + A million hearts have heard that cry + Ring upward to the very sky; + It thunders still--it cannot sleep, + But louder than the troubled deep, + When the fierce spirit of the air + Hath made his arm of vengeance bare, + And wave to wave is calling loud + Beneath the veiling thunder-cloud; + That potent voice is sounding still-- + The voice of unrequited ill. + + Dark cataract of the lakes! thy name + Unholy deeds have linked to fame. + High soars to heaven thy giant head, + Even as a monument to him + Whose cold unheeded form is laid + Down, down amid thy caverns dim. + His requiem the fearful tone + Of waters falling from their throne + In the mid air, his burial shroud + The wreathings of thy torrent cloud, + His blazonry the rainbow thrown + Superbly round thy brow of stone. + + Aye, raise thy voice--the sterner one + Which tells of crime in darkness done, + Groans upward from thy prison gloom + Like voices from the thunder's home. + And men have heard it, and the might + Of freemen rising from their thrall + Shall drag their fetters into light, + And spurn and trample on them all. + And vengeance long--too long delayed-- + Shall rouse to wrath the souls of men, + And freedom raise her holy head + Above the fallen tyrant then. + +This poem, which was published in "The Haverhill Gazette" in 1829, was +copied in many papers of that time, but was never in any collection of +its author's works:-- + + +THE THUNDER SPIRIT + + Dweller of the unpillared air, + Marshalling the storm to war, + Heralding its presence where + Rolls along thy cloudy car! + Thou that speakest from on high, + Like an earthquake's bursting forth, + Sounding through the veiléd sky + As an angel's trumpet doth. + + Bending from thy dark dominion + Like a fierce, revengeful king, + Blasting with thy fiery pinion + Every high and holy thing; + Smitten from their mountain prison + Thou hast bid the streams go free, + And the ruin's smoke has risen, + Like a sacrifice to thee! + + . . . . . + + Monarch of each cloudy form, + Gathered on the blue of heaven, + When the trumpet of the storm + To thy lip of flame is given! + In the wave and in the breeze, + In the shadow and the sun, + God hath many languages, + And thy mighty voice is one! + +Here is a poem of Whittier's that will remind every reader of the hymn +"The Worship of Nature," which first appeared without a title in the +"Tent on the Beach." And yet there is no line in it, and scarcely a +phrase, which was used in this last named poem. I find it in the "New +England Review," of Hartford, under date of January 24, 1831. It would +seem that "The Worship of Nature" was a favorite theme of his, for a +still earlier treatment of it I have found in the "Haverhill Gazette" +of October 5, 1827, written before the poet was twenty years of age. It +is a curious fact that while in the version of 1827 there are a few +lines and phrases which were adopted forty years afterward, the lines +given here are none of them copied in the final revision of the poem. + + +THE WORSHIP OF NATURE + + "The air + Is glorious with the spirit-march + Of messengers of prayer." + + There is a solemn hymn goes up + From Nature to the Lord above, + And offerings from her incense-cup + Are poured in gratitude and love; + And from each flower that lifts its eye + In modest silence in the shade + To the strong woods that kiss the sky + A thankful song of praise is made. + + There is no solitude on earth-- + "In every leaf there is a tongue"-- + In every glen a voice of mirth-- + From every hill a hymn is sung; + And every wild and hidden dell, + Where human footsteps never trod, + Is wafting songs of joy, which tell + The praises of their maker--God. + + Each mountain gives an altar birth, + And has a shrine to worship given; + Each breeze which rises from the earth + Is loaded with a song of Heaven; + Each wave that leaps along the main + Sends solemn music on the air, + And winds which sweep o'er ocean's plain + Bear off their voice of grateful prayer. + + When Night's dark wings are slowly furled + And clouds roll off the orient sky, + And sunlight bursts upon the world, + Like angels' pinions flashing by, + A matin hymn unheard will rise + From every flower and hill and tree, + And songs of joy float up the skies, + Like holy anthems from the sea. + + When sunlight dies, and shadows fall, + And twilight plumes her rosy wing, + Devotion's breath lifts Music's pall, + And silvery voices seem to sing. + And when the earth falls soft to rest, + And young wind's pinions seem to tire, + Then the pure streams upon its breast + Join their glad sounds with Nature's lyre. + + And when the sky that bends above + Is lighted up with spirit fires, + A gladdening song of praise and love + Is pealing from the sky-tuned lyres; + And every star that throws its light + From off Creation's bending brow, + Is offering on the shrine of Night + The same unchanging subject-vow. + + Thus Earth 's a temple vast and fair, + Filled with the glorious works of love + When earth and sky and sea and air + Join in the praise of God above; + And still through countless coming years + Unwearied songs of praise shall roll + On plumes of love to Him who hears + The softest strain in Music's soul. + +There was a remarkable display of the aurora borealis in January, 1837, +and this poem commemorates the phenomenon:-- + + +THE NORTHERN LIGHTS + + A light is troubling heaven! A strange dull glow + Hangs like a half-quenched veil of fire between + The blue sky and the earth; and the shorn stars + Gleam faint and sickly through it. Day hath left + No token of its parting, and the blush + With which it welcomed the embrace of Night + Has faded from the blue cheek of the West; + Yet from the solemn darkness of the North, + Stretched o'er the "empty place" by God's own hand, + Trembles and waves that curtain of pale fire,-- + Tingeing with baleful and unnatural hues + The winter snows beneath. It is as if + Nature's last curse--the fearful plague of fire-- + Were working in the elements, and the skies + Even as a scroll consuming. + + Lo, a change! + The fiery wonder sinks, and all along + A dark deep crimson rests--a sea of blood, + Untroubled by a wave. And over all + Bendeth a luminous arch of pale, pure white, + Clearly contrasted with the blue above, + And the dark red beneath it. Glorious! + How like a pathway for the Shining Ones, + The pure and beautiful intelligences + Who minister in Heaven, and offer up + Their praise as incense, or like that which rose + Before the Pilgrim prophet, when the tread + Of the most holy angels brightened it, + And in his dream the haunted sleeper saw + The ascending and descending of the blest! + + And yet another change! O'er half the sky + A long bright flame is trembling, like the sword + Of the great angel of the guarded gate + Of Paradise, when all the holy streams + And beautiful bowers of Eden-land blushed red + Beneath its awful wavering, and the eyes + Of the outcasts quailed before its glare, + As from the immediate questioning of God. + + And men are gazing at these "signs in heaven," + With most unwonted earnestness, and fair + And beautiful brows are reddening in the light + Of this strange vision of the upper air: + Even as the dwellers of Jerusalem + Beleaguered by the Romans--when the skies + Of Palestine were thronged with fiery shapes, + And from Antonia's tower the mailed Jew + Saw his own image pictured in the air, + Contending with the heathen; and the priest + Beside the temple's altar veiled his face + From that fire-written language of the sky. + + Oh God of mystery! these fires are thine! + Thy breath hath kindled them, and there they burn + Amid the permanent glory of Thy heavens, + That earliest revelation written out + In starry language, visible to all, + Lifting unto Thyself the heavy eyes + Of the down-looking spirits of the earth! + The Indian, leaning on his hunting-bow, + Where the ice-mountains hem the frozen pole, + And the hoar architect of winter piles + With tireless hand his snowy pyramids, + Looks upward in deep awe,--while all around + The eternal ices kindle with the hues + Which tremble on their gleaming pinnacles + And sharp cold ridges of enduring frost,-- + And points his child to the Great Spirit's fire. + + Alas for us who boast of deeper lore, + If in the maze of our vague theories, + Our speculations, and our restless aim + To search the secret, and familiarize + The awful things of nature, we forget + To own Thy presence in Thy mysteries! + +This imitation of "The Old Oaken Bucket" was written in 1826, when +Whittier was in his nineteenth year, and except a single stanza, no +part of it was ever before in print. The willow the young poet had in +mind was on the bank of Country Brook, near Country Bridge, and also +near the site of Thomas Whittier's log house. Mr. Whittier once pointed +out this spot to me as one in which he delighted in his youth. On a +grassy bank, almost encircled by a bend in the stream, stood, and +perhaps still stands, just such a "storm-battered, water-washed willow" +as is here described:-- + + +THE WILLOW + + Oh, dear to my heart are the scenes which delighted + My fancy in moments I ne'er can recall, + When each happy hour new pleasures invited, + And hope pictured visions more lovely than all. + When I gazed with a light heart transported and glowing + On the forest-crowned hill, and the rivulet's tide, + O'ershaded with tall grass, and rapidly flowing + Around the lone willow that stood by its side-- + The storm-battered willow, the ivy-bound willow, the water-washed + willow, that grew by its side. + + Dear scenes of past years, when the objects around me + Seemed forms to awaken the transports of joy; + Ere yet the dull cares of experience had found me, + The dearly-loved visions of youth to destroy,-- + Ye seem to awaken, whene'er I discover + The grass-shadowed rivulet rapidly glide, + The green verdant meads of the vale wandering over + And laving the willows that stand by its side-- + The storm-battered willow, the ivy-bound willow, the water-washed + willow, that stands by its side;-- + + How oft 'neath the shade of that wide-spreading willow + I have laid myself down from anxiety free, + Reclining my head on the green grassy pillow, + That waved round the roots of that dearly-loved tree; + Where swift from the far distant uplands descending, + In the bright sunbeam sparkling, the rivulet's tide + With murmuring echoes came gracefully wending + Its course round the willow that stood by its side-- + The storm-battered willow, the ivy-bound willow, the water-washed + willow that stood by its side. + + Haunts of my childhood, that used to awaken + Emotions of joy in my infantile breast, + Ere yet the fond pleasures of youth had forsaken + My bosom, and all the bright dreams you impressed + On my memory had faded, ye give not the feeling + Of joy that ye did, when I gazed on the tide, + As gracefully winding, its currents came stealing + Around the lone willow that stood by its side-- + The storm-battered willow, the ivy-bound willow, the water-washed + willow, that stood by its side. + +This is a fragment of a poem written in the album of a cousin in +Philadelphia, in 1838. It was never before in print:-- + + +THE USES OF SORROW + + It may be that tears at whiles + Should take the place of folly's smiles, + When 'neath some Heaven-directed blow, + Like those of Horeb's rock, they flow; + For sorrows are in mercy given + To fit the chastened soul for Heaven; + Prompting with woe and weariness + Our yearning for that better sky, + Which, as the shadows close on this, + Grows brighter to the longing eye. + For each unwelcome blow may break, + Perchance, some chain which binds us here; + And clouds around the heart may make + The vision of our faith more clear; + As through the shadowy veil of even + The eye looks farthest into Heaven, + On gleams of star, and depths of blue, + The fervid sunshine never knew! + +In the summer of 1856, Charles A. Dana, then one of the editors of the +New York "Tribune," wrote to Whittier, calling upon him for campaign +songs for Fremont. He said: "A powerful means of exciting and +maintaining the spirit of freedom in the coming decisive contest must +be songs. If we are to conquer, as I trust in God we are, a great deal +must be done by that genial and inspiring stimulant." Whittier +responded with several songs sung during the campaign for free Kansas, +but the following lines for some reason he desired should appear +without his name, either in the "National Era," in which they first +appeared, August 14, 1856, or with the music to which they were set. A +recently discovered letter, written by him to a friend in Philadelphia +who was intrusted to set the song to music, avows its authorship, and +also credits to his sister Elizabeth another song, "Fremont's Ride," +published in the same number of the "Era." As the brother probably had +some hand in the composition of this last-mentioned piece, it is given +here. This is Whittier's song:-- + + +WE 'RE FREE + + The robber o'er the prairie stalks + And calls the land his own, + And he who talks as Slavery talks + Is free to talk alone. + But tell the knaves we are not slaves, + And tell them slaves we ne'er will be; + Come weal or woe, the world shall know. + We 're free, we 're free, we 're free. + + Oh, watcher on the outer wall, + How wears the night away? + I hear the birds of morning call, + I see the break of day! + Rise, tell the knaves, etc. + + The hands that hold the sword and purse + Ere long shall lose their prey; + And they who blindly wrought the curse, + The curse shall sweep away! + Then tell the knaves, etc. + + The land again in peace shall rest, + With blood no longer stained; + The virgin beauty of the West + Shall be no more profaned. + We 'll teach the knaves, etc. + + The snake about her cradle twined, + Shall infant Kansas tear; + And freely on the Western wind + Shall float her golden hair! + So tell the knaves, etc. + + Then let the idlers stand apart, + And cowards shun the fight; + We'll band together, heart to heart, + Forget, forgive, unite! + And tell the knaves we are not slaves, + And tell them slaves we ne'er will be; + Come weal or woe, the world shall know + We 're free, we 're free, we 're free! + +It was Whittier's habit to freely suggest lines and even whole stanzas +for poems submitted to him for criticism, and it may be readily +believed that his hand is shown in this campaign song of his +sister's:-- + + +FREMONT'S RIDE + + As his mountain men followed, undoubting and bold, + O'er hill and o'er desert, through tempest and cold, + So the people now burst from each fetter and thrall, + And answer with shouting the wild bugle call. + Who 'll follow? Who 'll follow? + The bands gather fast; + They who ride with Fremont + Ride in triumph at last! + + Oh, speed the bold riders! fling loose every rein, + The race run for freedom is not run in vain; + From mountain and prairie, from lake and from sea, + Ride gallant and hopeful, ride fearless and free! + Who 'll follow, etc. + + The shades of the Fathers for Freedom who died, + As they rode in the war storm, now ride at our side; + Their great souls shall strengthen our own for the fray, + And the glance of our leader make certain the way. + Then follow, etc. + + We ride not for honors, ambition or place, + But the wrong to redress, and redeem the disgrace; + Not for the North, nor for South, but the best good of all, + We follow Fremont, and his wild bugle call! + Who 'll follow? Who 'll follow? + The bands gather fast; + They who ride with Fremont + Ride in triumph at last! + +The following poem was written at the close of his last term at the +Academy, and was published in the "Haverhill Gazette" of October 4, +1828, signed "Adrian." Probably no other poem written by him in those +days was so universally copied by the press of the whole country. Its +rather pessimistic tone no doubt caused the poet to omit it from +collections made after the great change in his outlook upon life to +which reference has been made on another page. + + +THE TIMES + + "Oh dear! oh dear! I grieve, I grieve, + For the good old days of Adam and Eve." + + The times, the times, I say, the times are growing worse than ever; + The good old ways our fathers trod shall grace their children never. + The homely hearth of ancient mirth, all traces of the plough, + The places of their worship, are all forgotten now! + + Farewell the farmers' honest looks and independent mien, + The tassel of his waving corn, the blossom of the bean, + The turnip top, the pumpkin vine, the produce of his toil, + Have given place to flower pots, and plants of foreign soil. + + Farewell the pleasant husking match, its merry after scenes, + When Indian pudding smoked beside the giant pot of beans; + When ladies joined the social band, nor once affected fear, + But gave a pretty cheek to kiss for every crimson ear. + + Affected modesty was not the test of virtue then, + And few took pains to swoon away at sight of ugly men; + For well they knew the purity which woman's heart should own + Depends not on appearances, but on the heart alone. + + Farewell unto the buoyancy and openness of youth-- + The confidence of kindly hearts--the consciousness of truth, + The honest tone of sympathy--the language of the heart-- + Now cursed by fashion's tyranny, or turned aside by art. + + Farewell the social quilting match, the song, the merry play, + The whirling of a pewter plate, the merry fines to pay, + The mimic marriage brought about by leaping o'er a broom, + The good old blind man's buff, the laugh that shook the room. + + Farewell the days of industry--the time has glided by + When pretty hands were prettiest in making pumpkin pie. + When waiting maids were needed not, and morning brought along + The music of the spinning wheel, the milkmaid's careless song. + + Ah, days of artless innocence! Your dwellings are no more, + And ye are turning from the path our fathers trod before; + The homely hearth of honest mirth, all traces of the plough, + The places of their worshiping, are all forgotten now! + +I find among Mr. Whittier's papers the first draft of a poem that he +does not seem to have prepared for publication. As it was written on +the back of a note he received in March, 1890, that was probably the +date of its composition:-- + + +A SONG OF PRAISES + + For the land that gave me birth; + For my native home and hearth; + For the change and overturning + Of the times of my sojourning; + For the world-step forward taken; + For an evil way forsaken; + For cruel law abolished; + For idol shrines demolished; + For the tools of peaceful labor + Wrought from broken gun and sabre; + For the slave-chain rent asunder + And by free feet trodden under; + For the truth defeating error; + For the love that casts out terror; + For the truer, clearer vision + Of Humanity's great mission;-- + For all that man upraises, + I sing this song of praises. + +The following poem is a variant of the "Hymn for the Opening of Thomas +Starr King's House of Worship," and was contributed in 1883 to a fair +in aid of an Episcopal chapel at Holderness, N. H. + + +UNITY + + Forgive, O Lord, our severing ways, + The separate altars that we raise, + The varying tongues that speak Thy praise! + + Suffice it now. In time to be + Shall one great temple rise to Thee, + Thy church our broad humanity. + + White flowers of love its walls shall climb, + Sweet bells of peace shall ring its chime, + Its days shall all be holy time. + + The hymn, long sought, shall then be heard, + The music of the world's accord, + Confessing Christ, the inward word! + + That song shall swell from shore to shore, + One faith, one love, one hope restore + The seamless garb that Jesus wore! + + + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 1: This story is told more fully in _Life and Letters_, pp. +53, 54.] + +[Footnote 2: This picture is reproduced from a drawing by Miss +Francesca Alexander in her exquisite volume, _Tuscan Songs_. It is the +face of an Italian peasant, but bears so extraordinary a resemblance to +Harriet Livermore (as testified by several who knew her) that it is +here given as representing her better than any known portrait.] + +[Footnote 3: This letter has been published in full in a limited +edition, by Mr. Goodspeed, together with a New Year's Address referred +to in it as having given offense to some of the citizens of Rocks +Village. A portion of this Address (which appeared in the _Haverhill +Gazette_, January 5, 1828) is given in _Life and Letters_, pp. 62, 63. +The lines that seem to have given offense are these:-- + +"_Rocks_ folks are wide awake--their old bridge tumbled + Some years ago, and left them all forsaken; +But they have risen, tired of being humbled, + And the first steps towards a new one taken. +They're all alive--their trade becomes more clever, +And mobs and riots flourish well as ever." + +Thirty-five years later, perhaps remembering the offense he had given +in his youth by his portrayal of the _liveliness_ of the place, he +shaded his picture in _The Countess_ with a different pencil, and we +have a "stranded village" sketched to the life.] + +[Footnote 4: It is of curious interest that although the poem +_Memories_ was first published in 1841, the description of the +"beautiful and happy girl" in its opening lines is identical with that +of one of the characters in _Moll Pitcher_, published nine years +earlier, and I have authority for saying that Mary Smith was in mind +when that portrait was drawn. Probably the reason why Whittier never +allowed _Moll Pitcher_ to be collected was because he used lines from +it in poems written at later dates.] + +[Footnote 5: This is how it happened: Mr. Downey saw a newspaper item +to the effect that Mrs. S. F. Smith was a classmate of Whittier's. He +knew that his wife was a classmate of Mrs. Smith, and "put this and +that together." Without saying anything to her about it, he sent a +tract of his to Whittier, and with it a note about his work as an +evangelist; in a postscript he said, "Did you ever know Evelina Bray?" +Whittier wrote a criticism of the tract, which was against Colonel +Ingersoll, in which he said, "It occurs to me to say that in thy tract +there is hardly enough charity for that unfortunate man, who, it seems +to me, is much to be pitied for his darkness of unbelief." He added as +a postscript, "What does _thee_ know about Evelina Bray?" Downey +replied that she was his wife, but did not let her know of this +correspondence, or of his receipt of money from her old schoolmate. He +was not poor, only eccentric.] + +[Footnote 6: This house is now cared for by the Josiah Bartlett chapter +of the Daughters of the Revolution.] + +[Footnote 7: The house of these brothers and the barn in which the +husking was held may be seen near the West Ossipee station of the +Boston and Maine Railroad. The Bearcamp House was burned many years +ago, and never rebuilt.] + +[Footnote 8: There was a forest fire on a shoulder of Chocorua at this +time.] + +[Footnote 9: She was knitting at the time.] + +[Footnote 10: She had refused to sing that evening.] + +[Footnote 11: Lucy Larcom was then suffering from hay fever.] + +[Footnote 12: The papers had an item to the effect that some one had +given Whittier a cottage at the Isles of Shoals.] + +[Footnote 13: The only lawyer present.] + +[Footnote 14: A line is here missing. I had the copy of this poem from +Mr. Weld himself when he was ninety years of age. He had accidentally +omitted it in copying for me; and his death occurred before the +omission was noticed.] + + + + +INDEX + + + + +INDEX + + +"Abram Morrison," 86. + +"Adrian," 152. + +Agamenticus, 86, 89. + +Aldrich, T. B., 75. + +Allinson, Francis Greenleaf, 39. + +Allinson, W. J., 39. + +American Manufacturer, 69, 71, 102, 136. + +Amesbury, 3, 42, 55-89. + +Amesbury public library, 95. + +Ancient desk, 20. + +Andover, 5. + +Anecdotes as told by Whittier: + Aunt Mercy's vision, 22, 23; + Country Bridge ghost, 15; + conscience stirred by thunderstorm, 27; + Elizabeth's practical joke, 28; + the "tipsy wife," 31, 32; + cold drives to Amesbury, 33; + "Old Butler," 36; + the Morse boys, 36; + Garrison's first visit, 37; + a Quaker swaps cows, 37; + "the power of figures," 40-42; + instance of guidance of spirit, 82, 83; + legend of Po Hill, 85, 86; + Chase characterizes Lincoln's stories, 98; + Hiram Collins and Emerson, 98, 99. + +Anecdotes related of Whittier: + Last visit to birthplace, 24-38; + the fire on the hearth, 26; + attempt at levitation, 28; + visits site of "In School Days," 32; + cherry-tree incident, 34; + story of Evelina Bray, 68-72; + receives lightning stroke, 73; + taking notes at Quaker meeting, 82; + sees mirage at Salisbury Beach, 91; + Miss Phelps describes first meeting, 102; + thirteen at table, 93, 94; + clock strikes mysteriously, 95; + the May Quarterly Meeting, 96; + saving money for funeral expenses, 96; + the pet parrot, 97, 98; + husking at West Ossipee, 111-114; + an evening at Bearcamp, 114-118; + Alice Freeman Palmer's story, 118, 119; + contract of perpetual bachelorhood, 119; + his English Quaker guest, 122; + escapes dedication of Bartlett statue, 122. + +Anti-Masonic poem, 141. + +Appledore, 92. + +Artichoke River, 57, 58. + +"A Sea Dream," 69. + +"A Song of Praises," 153, 154. + +Ayer, Capt. Edmund, 29, 30. + +Ayer, Lydia, 26, 30. + +Ayer, Lydia Amanda (Mrs. Evans), 30. + +Ayer, Mrs., 117. + + +Bagley, Valentine, 84. + +Bailey, Mary, 116. + +Bailey's Hill, 83. + +Bancroft, George, 64. + +Barnard, Mary, 96. + +Bartlett, Josiah, 84, 122-125. + +Bearcamp House, 110-117. + +Beecher, Catherine, 70. + +Beecher, Henry Ward, 76. + +Birchy Meadow, 44. + +Birthplace of Whittier, 8, 9-40. + +Blaine, James G., 64, 77, 78. + +Boar's Head, 86, 89. + +Bonny Beag, 86. + +Boon Island, 86. + +Boston "Statesman," 102. + +Boutelle, Thomas E., 99. + +Boyd, Rev. P. S., 4. + +Boynton, E. Moody, 122-124. + +Bradbury, Judge, and wife, 56. + +Bradford, 3. + +Bradstreet, Anne, 5. + +Bray, Evelina, 68, 71. + +Brown's Hill, 84. + +Burnham, Thomas E., 38. + +Burroughs, George, 101. + +Butler, Benjamin F., 36. + +Butler, Philip, 76. + +Butters, Charles, 38. + +Byron, Lord, 134-136. + + +Caldwell, Adelaide, 112, 113, 117. + +Caldwell, Louis, 113. + +Caldwell, Mary (Whittier), 25, 74. + +Cape Ann, 86. + +Captain's Well, The, 83, 84. + +Carleton, James H., 38. + +Cartland, Gertrude (Whittier), 20, 104, 113. + +Cartland house, Newburyport, 20, 101. + +Cartland, Joseph, 82, 85, 92, 104, 113. + +Catalogue of father's library, 24, 25. + +Cate, George W., 101. + +Centre Harbor, N. H., 99, 110, 113. + +Chain Bridge, 59, 60. + +Chamber in which Whittier died, 94. + +"Changeling, The," 92. + +Chase, Aaron, 30, 32. + +Chase, Mrs. Moses, 32. + +Chase, Salmon P., 98. + +Child, Lydia Maria, 75. + +Chocorua, 110-115. + +Churchill, J. W., 123. + +Claflin, William, 102, 118. + +Clarkson, Thomas, 25. + +Clay, Henry, 77, 141. + +"Cobbler Keezar's Vision," 86. + +Coffin, Joshua, 26, 30, 31, 103, 104. + +Coggswell, William, 64. + +Collier, Rev. William R., 102. + +Collins, Hiram, 124. + +"Common Question, The," 97. + +Corliss Hill, 30-32. + +"Countess, The," 47, 51. + +Country Bridge, 14, 15, 46. + +Country Brook, 14-17, 104. + +Crane Neck, 86. + +Currier, Horace, 117. + +Curson's Mill, 57, 58. + +Cushing, Caleb, 5. + + +Dana, Charles A., 149. + +Danvers, 86. + +Daughters of the Revolution, 84. + +Davis, Robert T., 122. + +Deer Island, 5, 58-60. + +Dickens, Charles, 108. + +"Division, The," 109. + +Douglass, Frederick, 64. + +Downey, Evelina (Bray), 71. + +Downey, W. S., 70. + +Duncan, Sarah M. F., 38. + +Dustin, Hannah, 40. + + +East Haverhill, 3. + +East Haverhill church, 51. + +Ela, Amelia, 19. + +"Eleanor," 46. + +Ellwood's "Drab-Skirted Muse," 25. + +Emerson, Nehemiah, 66. + +Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 65, 99. + +Emmons, "Ginger-Pop," 124. + +Essex Club, 64. + +"Eternal Goodness, The," 63, 107. + +"Eternity," 137, 138. + +"Exiles, The," 84. + + +Fernside Brook, 9, 11, 12, 16, 17. + +Ferry, the, 75. + +Fields, Annie, 102. + +Fields, James T., 46, 102. + +Fletcher, Rev. J. C., 58, 89, 92. + +Ford, Miss, 112, 116. + +"Fountain, The," 87. + +Fox, George, 25, 47. + +"Fragment, A," 136. + +Frankle, Annie W., 38. + +Fremont, J. C., 149. + +Friend Street, 58. + +Friends' meeting-house, 33, 80, 81. + +Frietchie, Barbara, 65. + +Frinksborough, 138. + + +"Gail Hamilton's Wedding," 120-122. + +Garden at birthplace, 18. + +Garden room, Amesbury, 32, 62-71. + +Garrison, William Lloyd, 37, 76, 103, 104. + +Garrison's birthplace, 103. + +Golden Hill, 8. + +Goodspeed, C. E., 51 note. (TR: now Footnote 3) + +"Goody" Martin, 56, 57, 84. + +Gordon, "Chinese," 65. + +Gove, Sarah Abby, 92, 93. + +"Grave of Morgan, The," 142, 143. + +Green, Ruth, 29. + +Greene, Nathaniel, 102. + +Greenleaf, Sarah, 20, 22, 29, 103. + +Grimké, Angelina, 119. + +Group at Sturtevant's, 113. + +Groveland, 3. + + +"Hamilton, Gail," 108, 120-122. + +Hampton Beach, 86, 88. + +Hampton Falls, 92, 93. + +Hampton marshes, 92. + +Hampton River, 88. + +Haskell, George, 40. + +"Haunted Bridge of Country Brook," 15. + +Haverhill, 3, 7. + +Haverhill Academy, 6, 129. + +"Haverhill Gazette," 24, 48, 136, 143, 152. + +Hawkswood, 58. + +Hay, John, 75. + +Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, 78. + +Hines, Peter, 117. + +Hoar, George F., 64. + +Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 108. + +"Homecoming of the Bride, The," 15, 104. + +How, George C., 38. + +"How they climbed Chocorua," 111. + +Howe, Julia Ward, 75. + +Hume, Isabel, 116. + +Huntington, Jacob R., 84, 122. + +Hussey, Mercy Evans, 22, 26, 61, 62, 85. + + +Ichneumon, the living, 138. + +"In School Days," 26, 30, 32. + +Ipswich, 86. + +Ireson, Capt. Benjamin, 72. + +Isles of Shoals, 86, 89, 91, 117. + +"I would not lose that Romance Wild," 130. + + +Jackson, Andrew, 141. + +Job's Hill, 9, 12, 17, 36. + +Johnson, Caroline, 101. + +Johnson, Mary, 101. + +"June on the Merrimac," 58. + +"Justice and Expediency," 22. + + +Kansas, 150, 151. + +Kearsarge, 86. + +Kelley, Clarence E., 38. + +Kimball's Pond, 95. + +Kitchen at birthplace, 17, 19, 21, 23 + +Knox brothers, 110-115. + + +Ladd, "Squire," 32. + +Lake Kenoza, 8, 10. + +Lansing, Miss, 111, 116. + +Larcom, Lucy, 111, 114, 116. + +"Last Walk in Autumn, The," 56. + +"Last Will of Man in Bear-Trap, The," 116-118. + +"Laurels, The," 58. + +Lee, N. H., 100. + +Little Boar's Head, 86. + +Livermore, Harriet, 39, 101. + +Lloyd, Elizabeth, 34. + +Longfellow, Henry W., 65, 108. + +Lowell, James Russell, 108. + + +"Mabel Martin," 56, 84. + +Macy house, 84. + +Macy, Thomas, 84. + +"Maids of Attitash, The," 95. + +Map of Whittier-Land, xii. + +Marlboro Hotel, 102. + +"Memorial, A," 98. + +"Memories," 66. + +Menahga, 46. + +Merrimac, town, 3, 44, 82. + +Merrimac River, 3, 4, 44, 56, 58, 60. + +Millvale, 15, 46, 104. + +Minot, Harriet (Mrs. Pitman), 138. + +"Miriam," 86. + +Mitford, Mary Russell, 75. + +"Moll Pitcher," 66 note (TR: now Footnote 4), 131. + +Monadnock, 33, 86. + +Morgan, William, 141. + +Morrill, Jettie, 116. + +Morse, "Goody," 104. + +Mother's room, 22, 23. + +Moulton house, Hampton, 92. + +Moulton's Hill, 58. + +Mount Washington, 86. + +Mundy Hill, 84, 87. + +"My Double," 123-125. + +"My Namesake," 39. + +"My Playmate," 44, 46, 67. + + +"Name, A," 74. + +"National Era," 76, 150. + +Newbury, 3, 14, 32, 44, 56, 58, 86, 103. + +Newburyport, 3, 86. + +"New England," 131-134. + +"New England Review," 43, 76, 131, 137. + +New York "Tribune," 149. + +"New Wife and the Old, The," 92. + +Niagara Falls, 141. + +Nicholson, Elizabeth, 34. + +"Northern Lights, The," 146, 147. + +Nottingham, N. H., 96. + + +Oak Knoll, Danvers, 99, 101, 122, 123. + +Ode for dedication of Academy, 7. + +"Old Burying Ground, The," 51. + +"Old Oaken Bucket, The," 147. + +Old South meeting-house, Newburyport, 103, 104. + +"One of the Signers," 122. + +Ordway, Alfred A., 17-19, 35, 38, 46. + +Ossipee range, 86. + +"Our River," 58. + +"Ours," 79, 80. + + +Palmer, Alice Freeman, 118, 119. + +Passaconaway, 86. + +Pawtuckaway range, 95. + +Peaslee house, "Old Garrison," 46, 47, 55. + +Peaslee, Joseph, 47. + +Peaslee, Mary, 29, 46. + +"Pennsylvania Freeman," 61, 70, 76. + +Pennsylvania Hall, 119. + +Pickard, Elizabeth (Whittier), 20, 22, 39, 71, 74, 75, 85, 90, 94, +109, 116. + +Pickard, Greenleaf Whittier, 74, 94. + +Pickard, S. T., 116, 117. + +Pillsbury, Mary, 35. + +Pleasant Valley, 55, 58. + +Plum Island, 86. + +Plummer, Celeste, 112, 116. + +Poems hitherto uncollected: + Ode sung at dedication of Academy, 7; + Catalogue of his father's library, 22; + Lines in album, 30; + "A Retrospect," 35; + "The Plaint of the Merrimac," 59, 60; + "The Division," 109; + "How they climbed Chocorua," 111-114; + "To the Unknown and Absent Author of 'How they climbed Chocorua,'" + 114, 115; + "Last Will of Man in Bear-Trap," 116-118; + Weld epithalamium, 119, 120; + "Gail Hamilton's Wedding," 120-122; + "My Double," 123-125; + "I would not lose that Romance Wild," 130; + "New England," 131-133; + "That Vow of Thine," 133, 134; + "The Spectre," 135, 136; + "A Fragment," 136, 137; + "Eternity," 137, 138; + "Dead Ichneumon," 139-141; + "Grave of Morgan," 142, 143; + "The Thunder Spirit," 143; + "Worship of Nature," 144, 145; + "Northern Lights," 146, 147; + "The Willow," 148, 149; + "Uses of Sorrow," 149; + "We're Free," 150, 151; + "Fremont's Ride," 151, 152; + "The Times," 152, 153; + "Song of Praises," 153, 154. + +Po Hill, 33, 57, 84, 87. + +Pond Hills, 44. + +Porter, Dudley, 38. + +Porter, J. S., 25, 71. + +Portland, 20, 22, 118. + +Powow River, 56, 57, 60, 79, 83, 84, 86-87, 88. + +"Preacher, The," 84. + +"Pressed Gentian, The," 64. + +Purchase of birthplace, 38. + + +Ramoth Hill, 46, 67. + +"Relic, The," 64. + +"Revisited," 58. + +Reunion of schoolmates, 70. + +River Path, picture of, 5. + +"River Path, The," 49, 55, 56. + +River valley, near grave of Countess, 49. + +Rocks Bridge, 48. + +Rocks Village, 32, 44, 46, 51, 55. + +Rocky Hill, 84. + +Rocky Hill meeting-house, 87, 89. + +Rogers, John, 125. + +Rowley, 86. + + +Salisbury, 3, 14. + +Salisbury Beach, 86, 88, 89. + +Salisbury Point, 77. + +Saltonstall mansion, 45. + +Sanders, Susan B., 38. + +"Sea Dream, A," 69. + +Scene on Country Brook, 43. + +Sewel's "Painful History," 25. + +Silver Hill, 8, 10. + +Smith, Joseph Lindon, 26. + +Smith, Mary Emerson, 66, 67. + +Smith, S. F., 71, 72. + +Smith, Mrs. S. F., 71, 72. + +"Snow-Bound," 12, 20, 24, 39, 48, 63, 74. + +Snow-Bound barn, 12. + +Snow-Bound kitchen, 12, 17-52. + +Somersworth, N. H., 22. + +"Song of Praises, A," 153, 154. + +Sparhawk, Dr. Thomas, 76. + +"Spectre, The," 135, 136. + +Spofford, Harriet Prescott, 5, 59. + +Stanton, Edwin M., 84. + +Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 75. + +Sturge, Joseph, 61, 63-65. + +Sturtevant, Miss, 112. + +Sturtevant, Mrs., 117. + +Sturtevant's, 110, 113. + +Sumner, Charles, 108. + +Sycamores, the, 8, 45. + + +Tallant, Hugh, 45. + +Tappan, Lewis, 62. + +Taylor, Bayard, 65. + +Taylor, Henry, 98, 99. + +Taylor, Marie, 66. + +"Telling the Bees," 17. + +"Tent on the Beach, The," 74, 87, 90, 91. + +"That Vow of Thine," 133, 134. + +Thaxter, Celia, 92. + +Thayer, Abijah W., 24. + +Thayer, Sarah S., 24. + +Thomas, Mary Emerson (Smith), 66, 67. + +Thoreau, Henry D., 5. + +Thornton, Sir Edward, 58. + +"Times, The," 152, 153. + +"To My Old Schoolmaster," 30, 104. + +Tracy, Mrs., 49. + +Trowbridge, J. T., 28, 40. + +Turner, Judge, 77. + + +Union Cemetery, 29, 57, 84, 85. + +"Unity," 154. + +"Up and Down the Merrimac," 4. + +"Uses of Sorrow, The," 149. + + +Wachusett, 33, 86. + +Wade, Mrs., 113. + +Wakeman, Rev. Mr., 94. + +Ward, Elizabeth Phelps, 102. + +Washington, George, 45, 60. + +Weld, Dr. Elias, 48-50, 66. + +Weld, Theodore D., 51, 119. + +Wendell, Ann, 141. + +"We 're Free," 150, 151. + +West, Mary S., 46. + +West Ossipee, N. H., 110, 111. + +Whiteface, 86. + +Whitefield church, 103. + +Whitefield, George, 103, 104. + +Whittier, Abigail, 22-24, 26, 74, 78. + +Whittier, Elizabeth H., 28, 34, 61, 62, 74, 75, 78, 85, 90-92, 150. + +Whittier Hill, 14, 84. + +Whittier home, Amesbury, 61-79, 86. + +Whittier, John, 12, 20, 24, 85. + +Whittier, John Greenleaf, + reviews Boyd's "Up and Down the Merrimac," 4; + interest in psychical research, 23; + catalogues his father's library, 24, 25; his + early pessimism, 42-44, 129; + letter to Dr. Weld, 50, 51; + carrier's address quoted, 51 note; (TR: now Footnote 3) + removal to Amesbury, 60, 61; + tribute of Essex Club, 64; + friendship for schoolmates, 66-72; + reason why never married, 68; + portrait at age of twenty-two, 69; + prostrated by lightning, 73; + person referred to in "Memories" and "My Playmate," 67; + receives bullet wound, 76; + at town meeting, 77; + home life sketched by Higginson, 78; + plans Friends' meeting-house, 80; + preferred silent meetings, 81, 82; + interest in psychical research, 83; + his cemetery lot, 85; + care for Amesbury public library, 96; + portrait at age of forty-nine, 97; + his Boston homes, 102; + letter to Newbury celebration, 103, 104; + radical change in his spirit, 129; + peculiarity of his laugh, 108. + +Whittier, Joseph, 20, 29, 47. + +Whittier, Joseph, 2d, 29. + +Whittier, Mary, 26, 29. + +Whittier, Matthew Franklin, 26, 37, 65, 74, 85, 100. + +Whittier mill, 18. + +Whittier, Moses, 12, 20, 75, 85. + +Whittier, Obadiah, 75. + +Whittier, Thomas, 14, 15, 29, 46. + +"Willow, The," 148, 149. + +Winthrop Hotel, 102. + +Winthrop, Robert C., 64. + +"Witch's Daughter, The," 56. + +"Wood Giant, The," 99, 100. + +Woodman, Mrs. Abby, 101. + +"Worship of Nature, The," 144, 145. + +"Wreck of Rivermouth, The," 88. + + + + +A LIST OF THE WORKS + +OF + +JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER + + + + +[Illustration: (decoration)] + +Writings of +JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER + +_No edition of the Poetical and Prose Writings of John Greenleaf +Whittier is complete and authorized which does not bear the imprint of +Houghton Mifflin Company._ + + +COMPLETE WORKS + +_Riverside Edition._ In 7 volumes. + + +_POETRY_ + +1. Narrative and Legendary Poems. + +2. Poems of Nature; Poems Subjective and Reminiscent; Religious Poems. + +3. Anti-Slavery; Songs of Labor and Reform. + +4. Personal Poems; Occasional Poems; Tent on the Beach; Appendix. + + +_PROSE_ + +1. Margaret Smith's Journal; Tales and Sketches. + +2. Old Portraits and Modern Sketches; Personal Sketches and Tributes; +Historical Papers. + +3. The Conflict with Slavery; Politics and Reform; The Inner Life; +Criticism. + + Each volume, crown 8vo, gilt top; the set, $10.50. With + "Life of Whittier" (2 vols.) by SAMUEL T. PICKARD, 9 vols., + $14.50. + + +PROSE WORKS + +_Riverside Edition._ With Notes by the Author, and etched Portrait. 3 +vols. crown 8vo, gilt top, $4.50. + + +POEMS + +_Riverside Edition._ With Portraits, Notes, etc. 4 vols., crown 8vo, +gilt top, $6.00. + +_Handy-Volume Edition._ With Portraits, and a View of Whittier's Oak +Knoll Home. 4 vols., 16mo, gilt top, in cloth box, $4.00. Bound in +full, flexible leather, $10.00. + +_Cambridge Edition._ With a Biographical Sketch, Notes, Index to Titles +and First Lines, a Portrait, and an engraving of Whittier's Amesbury +Home. Large crown 8vo, gilt top, $2.00. + +_Library Edition._ With Portrait and 8 full-page Photogravures. 8vo, +gilt top, $2.50. + +_Household Edition._ With Portrait and Illustrations. Crown 8vo, $1.50. + +_Cabinet Edition._ From new plates, with numbered lines, and Portrait. +16mo, gilt top, $1.00. + + +_SEPARATE POEMS_ + +=Snow-Bound.= A Winter Idyl. _Holiday Edition._ With eight +Photogravures and Portrait. 16mo, gilt top, $1.50. + +=The Tent on the Beach.= _Holiday Edition._ With rubricated Initials +and 12 full-page Photogravure Illustrations by CHARLES H. WOODBURY and +MARCIA O. WOODBURY. 12mo, gilt top, $1.50. + +=At Sundown.= With Portrait and 8 Photogravures. 16mo, gilt top, $1.50. + +=Legends and Lyrics.= 16mo, gilt top, 75 cents. + + +COMPILATIONS + +=Birthday Book.= With Portrait and 12 Illustrations. 18mo, $1.00. + +=Calendar Book.= 32mo, parchment-paper, 25 cents. + +=Year Book.= With Portrait. 18mo, $1.00. + +=Text and Verse.= For Every Day in the Year. Scripture Passages and +Parallel Selections from WHITTIER'S Writings. 32mo, 75 cents. + + +EDITED BY MR. WHITTIER + +=Songs of Three Centuries.= _Library Edition._ With 40 full-page +Illustrations. 8vo, gilt top, $2.50. + +_Household Edition._ Much enlarged. Crown 8vo, $1.50. + +=Child-Life.= A Collection of Poems for and about Children. _New +Edition._ Finely Illustrated. 4to, $1.50. + +=Child-Life in Prose.= A Volume of Stories, Fancies, and Memories of +Child-Life. Finely Illustrated. Crown 8vo, gilt top, $2.00. + + +Many of the above editions may be had in leather bindings of various +styles. + +HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY + +4 Park Street, Boston. 85 Fifth Ave., New York + +[Illustration: (decoration)] + + + + + * * * * * + +Transcriber's Notes + + +Contents: Added listing for Footnotes. + +Some illustrations have been moved to avoid breaking up poems and +paragraphs of text. The List of Illustrations displays the original +page numbers. + +Spaced contractions have been retained from the original book. + +Omitted lines of poetry are indicated by a row of 5 dots. + +Bold text is indicated by =. + +Italic text is indicated by _. + +Index: Corrected page references for: + Hussey, Mercy Evans, from 21 to 22. + Whittier, John Greenleaf, + portrait at age of forty-nine, from 95 to 97. + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Whittier-land, by Samuel T. 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