The copper country evening news. [volume] (Calumet, Mich.) 18??-1907, 1897-12-27
TO SAVE HIS HOME.
MONEY IS NEEDED TO PRESERVE J. q.
WHITTlER'S BIRTHPLACE.

The Haverhill Whittier Club Has Issued
an Appeal For Funds For This Purpose.
The House Was Erected Two Hundred
Years Ago.
AS the day draws near for the annual
meeting of the Whittier club at Haver-
hill, Mass, the country is informed
that money is needed for the care and
preservation of the poets birthplace.
Dec IL, Whittier's birthday, is the reg
ular date for the clubs meeting, and
exercises are usually held appropriate
to the occasion. Anticipating the forth
coming event. the Haverhill Whittier
club has issued an appeal for funds for
the purpose stated. 1t is believed many
admirers of Mr.. Whittier throughout
the country will respond to this appeal.
At the last change of ownership the
historic birthplace passed into the hands
of j. II. Carleton, who intrusted 1T TO
the care Of the club, but there is no
money with which TO maintain it and
keep it in proper condition for tourists
and visitors. 1t is shrine visited by
many hundreds of people every year.
This historic old dwelling in which
the famous bard of the Merrimac valley
was born Dec. IL, 1903, was erected by
his t-great-grandfather, Thomas
Whittier, the first of his name in Amer
lea, about 200 years ago. 1t is in tho
east parish of Haverhill, lonely farm
house in one Of the most rugged and
billy sections of Essex county. Haver-
hill, now a city of about 30, 900 inhab.
itants, is three miles away. Two GEN.
turtles ago, as now, Essex county was
more thickly populated than any other
ON this side the Atlantic that included
no big city, yet the Whittier homestead,
q spot that from the date of its erection
to the present time no neighbours roof
has been in sight 1t is in a sunken
pocket of the inland hills. In the early
days, it is said, Indians in their war
paint occasionally passed up the valley,
and the evening freight in the Whit
tier kitchen would frequently reveal
savage face at the window, but this
Quaker household was never harmed.
The birthplace, its environs and the
life of the family within have been we'll
described by the poet in "Snow Bound"
In winter there was nothing to see in
the prospect but universe of sky and
SNOW
Shut in from all the world without,
We sat the clean winged hearth about,
Content to let the north wind roar
In baffied rage at pane and door,
While the red logs before US beat
The frost line back with tropic heat
The house has been infinitely de-
scribed in the accounts of Whittier's
boyhood and youth. On one side of the
great kitchen is cupboard, at which
the tramp mentioned by the poet in his
Yankee Gypsies, prospecting for
brandy, filled his mouth with whale oil
and spluttered inarticulate impreca-
tions. There is straight and steep
flight of back stairs leading up from the
western porch. 1t was down these stairs
that in his tenderest infancy the poet,
wrapped in blanket, was once rolled,
as an experiment, by little girl who
had him in charge.
When Whittier last visited the home
stead, in 1882, he pointed out a stone
wall he helped to build, which is now
standing between the brook and the
gate. 1t is the garden wall referred to
in 1.-THE Barefoot Boy" Quaker meet
ings were sometimes held in the large
kitchen.
1t was in 1910 that Whittier reluc-
family disposed of the old homestead, in
which he had resided much of the time
for nearly 30 years, and removed to
Amesbury, that lovely little hamlet at
the foot of Powow hill, in full sight of
the much loved Merrimac. In later years
he made his home at Danvers. The
Haverhill Whittier club was formed at
the time the poets SEVENTEEN birthday
was celebrated in so memorable man.
ner at the Hotel Brunswick, Boston,
Dec. II, 1877. Mrs. Mary Fl. Wood of
Haverhill is the clubs present treasurer
and will gladly receive contributions
IL. L. 4