John Greenleaf Whittier

Although Whittier was close friends with Quaker-poet and abolitionist Elizabeth Lloyd Howell and considered marrying her, in 1859 he decided against it. He never married and had no children.

He died on September 7, 1892, at the age of 84.

The John Greenleaf Whittier Homestead is now a historic site open to the public. His later residence in Amesbury, where he lived for 56 years, is also open to the public.

Whittier was born on December 17, 1807, to John and Abigail, at their homestead in Haverhill, Massachusetts and grew up in a household consisting of his parents, a brother and two sisters, a maternal aunt and paternal uncle.

There was only enough money to get by and he received little formal education. An avid reader, he studied his father’s six books on Quakerism and its stress on compassion, and social responsibility.

Introduced to the poetry by a teacher, his sister sent his first poem, ‘The Exile's Departure’, to the Newburyport Free Press without his permission and its editor, William Lloyd Garrison, published it in 1826.

Garrison encouraged Whittier to attend the Haverhill Academy. He saved money working as a shoemaker and a teacher. He attended Haverhill Academy from 1827 to 1828 completing high school education in only two terms.

Garrison reassigned Whittier as editor of the weekly American Manufacturer in Boston. He openly criticized President Andrew Jackson, and by 1830, he was editor of influential Whig journal New England Weekly Review in Hartford, Connecticut.

In 1832, he wrote a 900-line eponymous poem about Moll Pitcher, a clairvoyant and fortune-teller and like the poet was a native of Massachusetts. In the poem, Whittier described Moll Pitcher as a witch doing sinful work

In 1833, he published, ‘The Song of the Vermonters’, anonymously in The New-England Magazine. Similarities in the last stanza with Ethan Allen’ prose caused many to believe the entire work to be by Allen.

He became interested in politics but, returned home after losing a Congressional election. 1833, was a turning point for Whittier; he corresponded with Garrison and joined his mentor’s crusade against slavery.

Whittier attended the first meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Convention in Philadelphia. In 1833, he published a pamphlet, ‘Justice and Expediency’, proposing immediate and unconditional emancipation of slaves, considered his most significant contribution.

He was an ardent advocate of abolition of slavery and adopted poetry as a medium to propagate his views. His persistent efforts bore fruit when the Thirteenth Amendment, passed in 1865, ended slavery.

‘Snow-Bound: A Winter Idyll’, published in 1866, was a financial success. Set in his Homestead, in Haverhill, Massachusetts, it chronicles a rural family confined in their home due to a snow-storm, exchanging stories.