John Greenleaf Whittier: His Life, Genius, and Writings

Vi. Amesbury 123

Removal to Amesbury. Description of the Town and of the Poet's Residence. The Study. Whittier Corresponding Editor of the National Era. Various Works Written, including "Stranger in Lowell," "Supernaturalism of New England," "Songs of Labor," "Child-Life," "Child-Life in Prose," "Introduction" to Woolman's Journal, and "Songs of Three Centuries" (Edited). Whittier College Established.

Vii. Later Days 141

Danvers. Oak Knoll. Summerings of the Poet at the Isles of Shoals and the Bearcamp House. The Literary World Tribute, and the Whittier Banquet at the Hotel Brunswick. The Whittier Club. Various Volumes of Poetry Published.

Viii. Personal 153

Whittier's Personal Appearance Described by Frederika Bremer, Geo. W. Bungay, David A. Wasson, and others. Incident of his Kind-heartedness to a Stranger. Dom Pedro II. and Whittier at Mrs. John T. Sargent's Reception. Letter to Mrs. Sargent. Humor. Love of Children. Offices of Dignity and Honor.

I. the Man 169

The Moral in Whittier Predominates over the AEsthetic. Love of Freedom the Central Element of his Character. Freedom, Democracy, and Quakerism, links in one Chain. Quakerism Described; Freedom and the Inner Light; Quakerism is Pure Democracy or Christianity, and Pure Individualism, or Philosophical Idealism; it Resembles Transcendentalism; the Details of the Quaker Religion Considered; Quotations from William Penn, Mary Brook, and A. M. Powell; Objections to Quakerism; Beautiful Lives of the Quakers; Whittier's Attitude Toward the Religion of his Fathers. His Religious Development, Doubt, and Trust. Patriotism. Has Blood Militant in his Veins. A Representative American Poet. Summing Up.

Ii. the Artist 196

Little or no Technique. More Fancy than Imagination. The Artistic Quality of his Mind a Fusion of that of Wordsworth and Byron. His Bookish Lore. The Beauty and Melody of his Finest Ballads. His Strength and Nervous Energy. Culmination of his Genius. His Three Crazes. Letters to the Nation, and to the American Anti-Slavery Society. Illustrations of the Predominance of the Moral in his Nature. Taine Quoted. Pope-Night. His Over-religiousness. Love of Consecutive Rhymes. Minor Mannerisms. Originality.

Iii. Poems Seriatim 217

Mr. David A. Wasson's Classification of Epochs in the Poet's Development. The Author's Classification. Four Periods: 1st, Introductory; 2d, Storm and Stress; 3d, Transition; 4th, Religious and Artistic Repose. General Review of Earlier Productions. The Indian Poems. "Songs of Labor." The Ballad Decade. "Prophecy of Samuel Sewall." John Chadwick on "Skipper Ireson's Ride." The "Barbara Frietchie" Controversy. The Romance of the "Countess." Winter in Poetry. "Snow-Bound." "The Tent on the Beach." Various Poems.

Iv. the King's Missive 254

Joseph Besse Quoted. Story of the Quaker and the King of England. The Debate of Whittier and Dr. Geo. E. Ellis of Boston. Humorous Specimen of Quaker Rant from Mather's Magnalia. Terrible Sufferings of the Quakers.

V. Poems by Groups 272

The Anti-Slavery Poems Reviewed. Poems Inspired by the Civil War. Hymns. Children's Poems: "Red Riding-Hood," "The Robin," etc. Oriental Poems and Paraphrases.

Vi. Prose Writings 279

Much of his Prose of Historical or Sectarian Interest Only. Charming Nature- and Folk-Studies and Sketches. "Margaret Smith's Journal." "Old Portraits and Modern Sketches." "Literary Recreations and Miscellanies." Specimens of Whittier's Prose.

I. Twilight and Evening Bell 301

Whittier's death at Hampton Falls, N. H. Celebration of his birthdays. Funeral and memorial services. Personal reminiscences. Fac-simile of letter to Oliver Wendell Holmes.

APPENDIX.

The Hermit of Amesbury, the Wood-thrush of Essex, the Martial Quaker, the Poet of Freedom, the Poet of the Moral Sentiment,--such are some of the titles bestowed upon Whittier by his admirers. Let us call him the Preacher-Poet, for he has written scarcely a poem or an essay that does not breathe a moral sentiment or a religious aspiration. What effect this predetermination of character has had upon his artistic development shall be discussed in another place.

The present chapter--which may be called the propylaeum or vestibule of the biographical structure that follows--will deal with the poet's ancestry, and the information afforded by it, and the two chapters that succeed will afford unmistakable evidence of the truth that a poet, no less than a solar system or a loaf of bread, is the logical resultant of a line of antecedent forces and circumstances. The fine but infrangible threads of our destiny are spun and woven out of atom-fibres indelibly stamped with the previous owners' names. Their characters immingle in our own,--the affluence or the indigence of their intellects, the sugar or the nitre of their wit, the shifting sand or the unwedgeable iron of their moral natures.

The name Whittier is spelled in thirty-two different ways in the old records: a list of these different spellings is given in Daniel Bodwell Whittier's genealogy of the family. The common ancestor of the Whittiers is Thomas Whittier, who in the year 1638 came from Southampton, England, to New England, in the ship "Confidence," of London, John Dobson, master. It is recorded of Thomas Whittier, says his descendant, the poet, in a half facetious way, that the only noteworthy circumstance connected with his coming was that he brought with him a hive of bees. He was born in 1620. His mother was probably a sister of John and Henry Rolfe, with the former of whom he came to America. His name at that time was spelled "Whittle." He married Ruth Green, and lived at first in Salisbury, Mass. He seems afterward to have lived in Newbury. In 1650 he removed to Haverhill, where he was admitted freeman, May 23, 1666.

It was customary in those days, says the historian of Haverhill, for the nearest neighbors to sleep in the garrisons at night, but Thomas Whittier refused to take shelter there with his family. "Relying upon the weapons of his faith, he left his own house unguarded, and unprotected with palisades, and carried with him no weapons of war. The Indians frequently visited him, and the family often heard them, in the stillness of the evening, whispering beneath the windows, and sometimes saw them peep in upon the little group of practical 'non-resistants.' Friend Whittier always treated them civilly and hospitably, and they ever retired without molesting him."[1] Thomas Whittier died in Haverhill, November 28, 1696. His autograph appears in the probate records of Salem, Mass., as witness to a will of Samuel Gild. His widow died in July, 1710, and her eldest son John was appointed administrator of her estate. Thomas had ten children, of whom John became the ancestor of the most numerous branch of the Whittiers. Joseph, the brother of John, became the head of another branch of the family, and is the great-grandfather of our poet. Joseph married Mary, daughter of Joseph Peasley, of Haverhill, by whom he had nine children, among them Joseph, 2d, the grandfather of the poet. Joseph, 2d, married Sarah Greenleaf of Newbury, by whom he had eleven children. The tenth child, John (the father of the poet), married Abigail Hussey, who was a daughter of Joseph Hussey, of Somersworth,--now Rollinsford,--N. H., a town on the Piscataqua River, which forms the southern part of the boundary line between New Hampshire and Maine. The mother of Abigail Hussey (the poet's mother) was Mercy Evans, of Berwick, Me. John Whittier, the father of the poet, died in Haverhill, June 30, 1830. His children were four in number: (1) Mary, born September 3, 1806, married Jacob Caldwell, of Haverhill, and died January 7, 1860; (2) John Greenleaf, the poet, born December 17, 1807, in Haverhill; (3) Matthew Franklin, born July 18, 1812, married Jane E. Vaughan; (4) Elizabeth Hussey, born December 7, 1815, died September 3, 1864. From this statement it will be seen that Matthew is the only surviving member of the family, besides the poet himself. Matthew resides in Boston, and has sons, daughters, and grandchildren.[2]

[Footnote 1: "The History of Haverhill, Mass.; from its first settlement in 1640 to the year 1860. By George Wingate Chase, Haverhill. Published by the author, 1861."]

[Footnote 2: The foregoing statements are taken from the Whittier genealogy. But the author finds that there are a few slight discrepancies of date between this book and the inscriptions on the family tombstones in Amesbury. The tombstones say that John Whittier died "11th of 6 mo., 1831," and that Mary died "1st mo. 7, 1861."]

The name Whittier constantly appears in important documents signed by the chief citizens of Haverhill. The family was evidently respected and honored by the community. In 1669 a Whittier was chosen town-constable. It is recorded that in 1711 Thomas Whittier--probably a son of Thomas (1st)--was one of a militia company provided with snow-shoes in order the better to repel an anticipated attack of the Indians. But, in spite of civil honors, it is well known that, down to comparatively recent times, the family suffered considerable social persecution and slight on account of their religious belief. For example, when the citizens built a new meeting-house, in 1699, they peremptorily refused to allow the Quakers to worship in it, although petitioned to do so by Joseph Peasley and others, and although they were taxed for its support. It was not until 1774 that an act was passed by the State exempting dissenters from taxation for the support of what we may call the State religion. It is important to bear this in mind, if we would know all the influences that went to form the character of the poet.

The poet's paternal grandmother was Sarah Greenleaf, of Newbury. The genealogist of the Greenleafs says: "From all that can be gathered it is believed that the ancestors of the Greenleaf family were Huguenots, who left France on account of their religious principles some time in the course of the sixteenth century, and settled in England. The name was probably translated from the French Feuillevert.[3] Edmund Greenleaf, the ancestor of the American Greenleafs, was born in the parish of Brixham, and county of Devonshire, near Torbay, in England, about the year 1600." He came to Newbury, Mass., in 1635. He was by trade a silk-dyer. Respecting the family coat-of-arms the genealogist gives, on page 116, the following interesting statement:--

"The Hon. William Greenleaf, once of Boston, and then of New Bedford, being in London about the year 1760, obtained from an office of heraldry a device, said to be the arms of the family, which he had painted, and the painting is now in the possession of his grand-daughter, Mrs. Ritchie, of Roxbury, Mass. The field is white (argent), bearing a chevron between three leaves (vert). The crest is a dove standing on a wreath of green and white, holding in its mouth three green leaves. The helmet is that of a warrior (visor down); a garter below, but no motto."