Thanks are due to Messrs. J. B. Lippincott and Company, Thomas Y.
Crowell Company, and “The Congregationalist” for the permitted use of
articles written for them and now revised with the new material for the
book.
“You do, indeed, know a great deal about uncle,” wrote Whittier’s
niece, Mrs. Pickard, to the writer.
In the middle 1830’s Whittier with his mother, her sister “Aunt
Mercy,” and his sister Elizabeth, “our youngest and our dearest” of
“Snow Bound” memories, removed from his birthplace in Haverhill to the
Amesbury home which grew to be so dear to him.
His townspeople held him in admiration and loving reverence. Some came
to his home as honored citizens enter a city made free to them, and
learned that his life was poetry no less than his writings.
In 1887 he said in a letter to the writer: “I think often of the old
days when thy father was alive and sister Lizzie and we were all
together.”
As the daughter of his physician and friend, she has given in “Whittier
at Close Range” intimate glimpses of his life and character.