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]