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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 horned 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, Fenelon 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"]