Civic Spotlight

Whittier Birthplace begins year of celebration

This page honors local organizations that help the community and its residents improve their lives. Each quarter a new organization will be honored.

This quarter Haverhill Bank honors:
John Greenleaf Whittier Homestead

This is a very big year for the Whittier Birthplace which is preparing for a year long celebration of the 200th anniversary of John Greenleaf Whittier’s birth.

The celebration coincides with a portrait of Whittier at age 25 being added to a new collection at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. This collection is entitled “American Origins, 1600-1900.” It is being shown in the Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture. The portrait was painted in 1833 and is part of the abolitionist series. The Whittier portrait is on permanent loan from the Whittier Homestead in Haverhill.

“The museum is delighted to have this portrait of Whittier as a young man. He can be found in the abolitionist group,” said Beverly Cox, of the Smithsonian.

Dr. Raymond Comeau, president of the Trustees of John Greenleaf Whittier Homestead, inspects an exact copy of a portrait of Whittier that is now on loan to the Smithsonian Institute.

Whittier’s portrait is hanging in Gallery 122 in the American Origins collection. Others famous Americans in the same collection include John Quincy Adams. A portrait of Margaret Fuller, another famous poet of the 19th century, is hung next to Whittier.

In return for lending the portrait to the Smithsonian, the Smithsonian provided the Birthplace with an exact copy of the original painting, which will be hung in the family room of the birthplace.

John Greenleaf Whittier, who was one of the premiere fireside poets of the 19th century, was born at the Whittier Homestead 198 years ago. The 200th anniversary of his birth is on Dec. 17, 2007.

The homestead is located off Route 110 onWhittier Road. The original farm building was built in 1688. The property is in dire need of repair and a campaign by the Whittier trustees to raise money is in full swing.

Roof repairs are underway at the 300-year-old Whittier Birthplace.

Work has already started to repair the chimney, which has five holes in it. The chimney repairs should be completed in time for the beginning of the year long celebration of Whittier’s birth with the reenactment of his famous poem, “Snow-Bound,” in December, 2006.

“We can no longer use the fireplace for the reenactment because of safety issues,” said Renee Harlow, curator of the Birthplace. With the mason already on the job, the fireplace should be repaired in time”

The goal of the anniversary celebration is to bring the public’s attention back to Whittier, who was a strong advocate for social justice. “He was a politician and very much involved in the labor movement and civil rights,” said Harlow.

In his own words, looking back on his life in 1882, Whittier wrote of his regard of slavery “as a great and dangerous evil.” Whittier was a delegate to the first National Anti-Slavery Convention in 1833. That same year, he was mobbed in Concord, N.H. because of his views. “I narrowly escaped from great danger,” he said.

In 1833, Whittier had printed his pamphlet “Justice and Expediency,” for the anti-slavery cause. He later edited several publications including the Democratic Review, Buckinghams’s Magazine and the Middlesex Standard.

In 1837, while in New York, he took charge of the American Anti-Slavery Society, along with Henry B. Stanton and Theodore D. Weld. In 1838, while running the “Pennsylvania Freeman,” an organ of the Anti-Slavery Society, his office was sacked and burned by a mob. Whittier recalls in a letter about his life, how he tried to carry on with his work, until his health failed and he had to return to his home in Amesbury.

“My health was never robust. I inherited a sensitive, nervous temperament and one of my earliest recollections is of a pain in my head, from which I suffered all my life,” he recalled in 1882.

His first volume of poems was printed in 1837. In 1863, Snow-Bound was published. The money Whittier made from the sale of his poems helped support him throughout his life.

Whittier was a Quaker by birth. His formal education was limited because his parents were poor farmers. “The farm was not a profitable one; it was burdened with debt,” Whittier wrote.

Whittier earned the money to pay for his brief formal education at Haverhill Academy by learning how to make ladies’ shoes and slippers from a summer helper on the family farm.

His first poem was published in the “Free Press” in Newburyport when Whittier was 14 years old. His sister had submitted the poem to William Lloyd Garrison. It was Garrison who convinced Whittier’s father to allow the young man to attend school.

The Whittier anniversary year will feature monthly events. Some of the upcoming events include a tie-in with the NAACP annual breakfast to bring attention to the anti-slavery work of Whittier. Other events include a Barefoot Boy look-alike contest, a bicyle and wagon tour of the Merrimack Valley with stops at some of the places Whittier described in his poetry. Visitors will also be invited to watch a Civil War-era baseball game.

The repairs to the fireplace are being paid for in part with a grant received from the Essex Natural Heritage Commission. The Trustees of the Homestead had to raise money to match the grant.

Haverhill Bank donated $1,000 towards the needed repairs.

“The Whittier Birthplace is a real treasure. Haverhill Bank is proud to do its part to help maintain an important part of Haverhill history,” said Thomas Faulkner, president of Haverhill Bank.

There is much work needed to be done to preserve the birthplace, which is now 300 years old.

The birthplace is an outstanding example of the old New England farm. This 19th century treasure was preserved thanks to the foresight of then-Mayor James H. Carleton in 1893. He purchased the home and the land and presented to the Haverhill Whittier Club. The Club established a Board of Trustees which to this day holds the deed in trust with the intent and obligation that the house and grounds be maintained both as a tribute to the poet and as a valuable educational resource. Towards this end, the Trustees open the birthplace to local students for study and exploration.