WHITTIER, huit'i-er, John Greenleaf, American poet: b. Haverhill, Mass., 17 Dec. 1807; d. Hampton Falls, N. H., 7 Sept. 1892. A Quaker, he labored in boyhood on the farm made celebrated by 'Snowbound,' and received hut little formal education, though he con trived by working at shoemaking and teaching to pay for two periods of six months at Haver hill Academy in 1827-28. The acceptance of a poem from him in 1826 for the Newburyport Free Press led to a lifelong friendship with its editor, William Lloyd Garrison (q.v.). His fame had become so firmly established as a poet, that most people forget his long career as an editor and reformer. He edited the American Manufacturer, a weekly concerned chiefly with mechanics, the industries and agriculture, in Boston in 1829, and in the following year the Haverhill Gacette. During 1830-32 he conducted the New England Review, which G. D. Pren tice (q.v.) had brought into some prominence, at Hartford, Conn., and to this time belong his first independent publications, 'Legends of New England' (1831), and 'Moll Pitcher' (1832). In 18.33 he issued 'Justice and Expediency,' an anti-slavery pamphlet and acted as a secretary of the anti-slavery convention at Philadelphia, and a member of the committee which drafted the °declaration of principles.° He sat in the Massachusetts legislature in 1835, and in the following year sold his farm and removed to Amesbury, some eight miles northeast of Haver hill, where he chiefly resided for the rest of his life. In 1836 he became secretary of the Anti. Slavery Society, and in 1837 there appeared a volume of 'Poems Written During the Progress of the Abolition Cause in the United States.' With that cause he was now thoroughly identi fied. At Concord, N. H., he, with George Thompson (q.v.), was mobbed during the lat ter's lecturing tour. Whittier edited the Penn srivania Freeman in Philadelphia during 1838 4)t. and in the first of these years his office was sacked and burned by a mob. in 1844-45 he edited the Mit/dieser- Standard in Lowell, and l847-60 was corresponding editor of the .Vatimial Era, a \S"ashituren paper, sometimes writing half-a-dozen columns weekly of general article; and re%iews. fie the Atlantic Monthly from its foundation in 1857. His poem. 'A Word for the Hour' (Jan uary 1861), shows that he shrank from the Civil War and was prepared to let the Southern States secede. He hailed the end of the war and of slavery with delight, and did his utmoo to induce the North to welcome hack the in the most generous spirit. His publications. after those above mentioned, include the fol lowil: 'Mogg Megone' (1836); (1838 ; 'Lays of My Home and Other Poems' (1843 ; 'The Stranger in Lowell' (18-45t; 'Supernaturalism in New England' (1g47); 'Leaves from Margaret Smith's Journal' (1849), an imaginative description of early Nsw England, and 'Old Portraits and Modern Sketches' (1850), all four collected from the 'Era': 'Voices of Freedom' (1846) ; 'Songs of Labor, and Other Poems' (1850) ; 'The (Impel of the Hermits, and Other Poems' (1853); 'Literary Recreations and Miseel!ant. also gathered from the 'Era' (1854); 'The Panorama, and Others Poems' (1856) ; 'Home Ballads and Poems' .(I860); 'In War Time,
and Other Poems' (1864); 'National Lyrics' 'Snowbound: a Winter Idyl' (Moo) 'The Tent on the Beach, and Other Poems' (1867); 'Among the Hills, and Other Porno' (1869); 'Miriam and Other Poems' (1871); 'The Pennsylvania Pilgrim, and Other Poem,' (1872); 'Hazel Blossoms' (1875) ; ' Mabel Martin: a Harvest Idyl' (1875); 'The Vision of Echard, and Other Poems' (1878) : 'The King's Missive, and Other Poems' (18811 ; 'The Bay of Seven Islands, and Other Poem,' (1883); 'Saint Gregory's Guest, and Rec(rt Poems' (1886), and 'At Sundown' (1892). a posthumous volume. The Riverside edition of his works, both in prose and in verse, carefully icvised and annotated by himself, appeared at Boston in 1888-89. The most complete editiot, of the poems is the one-volume Cambridge edi tion (1895). Whittier was long interested in politics, though his active participation largely ceased with the development of anti-slavery opinion in the North. His services to the canse of anti-slavery were important. He wrote nu merous occasional poems celebrating or de nouncing incidents and events of the conflict the best known being the 'Ichabod' verses, °the most powerful that he ever wrote,• rebuk ing the defection of Webster from the anti slavery principles in the 'Seventh of March' speech. Opposed to the Civil War, he insisted when it was begun, that slavery was the vital question, and during its progress contributed largely to the small quantity of valuable poetry that it evoked. Subsequently he devoted him self to presenting in narrative and ballad poems the legends, traditions and history of colonial America, particularly New England; to de scribing, as he did notably in 'Snowbound.' rural scenes and conditions, many of which hair passed into history, and to writing several hymns which appear in the collections of denominations. His work had been criticized for its inequality and faulty rhymes, and als• somewhat for its moralizing tendency. Much es his verse does reveal a certain want of cum pression and verbal selections, due to the fact that it was written with a readine• approaching improvisation. To object to hn moralizing tendency is simply to object to the point of view of one who was originally and strongly, a reformer. His leading characteris tics arc a fine simplicity, a convincing gnat.. and what Lowell styled as his 'genial piety ' He was less cosmopolitan than Longfellow, but by many critics has been ranked as not greatly inienor to that poet Consult the biographies by Underwood (1875; new ed., 185i3) • Kennedy IM2); Linton (1893); Pickard (1894; the au thoritative 'Life and Letters') Barton (1900; 'Beacon Biographies)). and Carpenter, G. R. (1914) Also Fields. 'Whittier: Notes of His ic and His Friendships' (1893) • Claflin, 'Personal Recollections of John G. Whittier' (1t493): Pickard, 'Whittier as a Politician' (19001 and 'Whittier Land' (1904) ; Stedman, 'Poet, of America' (1886), and Eastburn's 'Whittier's Relation to German Life and Thought' (Philadelphia 1916).