WHIT'TIER, GREENLEAF' (1807-92).
An American poet, born in Haverhill, Mass. He was a descendant of an emigrant to New Eng land in 1638, whose children became members of the Society of Friends. llis life as a youth was spent mainly at work on his father's farm. Ile early showed a talent for verse and published his first poem at the age of eighteen. in the Free Press, :in anti-slave•y paper edited by William Lloyd Garrison. Determining to obtain a better education, he learned the art of making slippers, by which he supported himself during tlto terms at the Haverhill Academy ( 1827-28 , and then for a short time taught school. In 1829 he be came editor of the American Manufacturer, pub lished in Boston, and from January to June of the following year was editor of the Ha/Tr/till Gazette. In July, 1830, he was Made editor of the New England Review, at Hartford, Conn., a post which he held till ill health obliged hint to resign in January, 1832. Ilere he published his first volume of prose sketelfes and poems, Legends of New England (1831), and was active as a sup porter of the great Whig, Henry Clay. On his re turn to Haverhill he worked on his father's farm, contributed to the Haverhill Ga::ctle, wrote Justice and Expediency (1833), an anti-slavery pamphlet, and was a delegate to the anti-slavery convention in Philadelphia. in December. 1833. lie represented his district in the -Massachusetts Legislature in 1835 and 1836. In 1836 he removed to Amesbury, Mass., a small town im mediately east of Haverhill. and here he lived the greater part of his life. By this time he was well known as a leading anti-slavery man and was called upon to do a good deal of work for the movement. In 1837 he served for a few months as one of the secretaries of the Anti-Slavery So ciety in New York, and the following year went to Philadelphia, where, until 1840, he edited the Pennsy/rania Freeman. In May, 1838, his print ing office was sacked and burned by a mob. On his return to Massachusetts he busied himself with the publication of poems designed to arouse public sentiment against slavery, and in addi tion to these spirited lyrics he wrote »iany poems deseriptive of simple New England life. Many poems of this sort had from time to time ap peared from his hand, but thesre, published in 1843 as Lays of My Home. were the first that brought him any money. He was also editor, at Lowell, Mass., for six months (1844-45), of the Middlesex Standard. In 1849 lie published a volume of anti-slavery verses entitled Voices of Freedom. From 1847 to 1860, while living at Amesbury, he contributed editorial articles to the National Era of Washington, the anti-slavery paper in which Sirs. Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin first appeared, and on the establishment of the Atlantic Monthly in 1857 lie became a frequent contributor. He was a member of the Massachu setts Electoral College in 1860 and 1864. but thereafter took little, if any. active part in public life. He died at Hampton Falls, N. H., is bile on a visit there. He never married. Aside from his poetry. Whittier was a real force in the practical anti-slavery politics of Massachusetts.
Whittier's literary work, though never very abundant. was very constant. It usually appear ed in periodicals, and few years of his life were unmarked by literary production of some sort.
The chief titles of his separate works, aside from those already cited and collected editions, are, in prose: The stranger in. Lowell (1845) ; Super naturalism in New England (1847); Leaves from Alargaret Smith's Journal ( 1849) ; Old Portraits and ilodern Sketches ( 1850) ; Literary Recre ations and Miscellanies (1854) ; in verse: MO/ Pitcher (1832) ; Nogg Megone (1836) ; Songs of Labor A Sabbath Serve (1853), a poem descriptive of the workings of the Fugitive Slave Law; The Chapel of the Hermits (1853) ; The Panorama (18:1(1) ; //once Ballads and Poems in War Time (1863); National Lyrics (1865): 8i/off-Bound (1806), probably his hest work; The Tent on the Beach (1867) : Among the Hills (1868) : 3lirirun The Pennsylvania Pilgrim (1872) ; Hazel Blossoms (1874), includ ing poems by his sister, Elizabeth Whittier; ]label Martin (1875) ; A Centennial Hymn The Vision of Echard (1878) ; The King's Mis sive (1881); 7'8e Bay of Seven Islands (1883) ; Poems of Nature Saint Gregory's Guest (1886) : and Sundown (1892). These have been collected into the Complete Poetical and Prose Works, revised and annotated by the poet, in seven volumes of the Riverside Press. Whit tier was also the compiler, with Lucy Larcom, of Child Life (1871), Child. Life in Prose (1874), and Songs of Three Centuries (1876) ; and during his life he also had a hand in many anti-slavery collections and compilations, both in verse and in prose.
Whittier ranks as one of the foremost Ameri can poets. His chief excellence lies in his sim plicity, sincerity, directness, and fervor. His verse is, to be sure, often disfigured by faulty rhyming, and much of it labors under the disad vantage of being merely occasional, but even this body of poetry is redeemed by the unfailing sincerity and earnestness of the poet. In his verse dealing with New England life Whittier may be said to have achieved permanence. No America 0 poet has better depicted the simple seelleti of rural life, with finer eye for truth of detail or more impressive delicacy of sentiment, than has Whittier in such scenes as those of Snow-Bound. a poem which has caused him to he regarded is a sort of American Burns, though in respect to lyrical quality the similarity of the two poets is not striking. A selection of his verses which would 5110w llk quality, lyric, de scriptive, and moral, most characteristically and at its best, would include such as lrhabod, Barbara Frietehie, Skipper in'son's Ride, pcs eat Lucknoir. La US Deo. The Eternal Good ness la i—alm). In School Days, [laud .11 utter, The. Barefoot Boy, The Swan. Song of Parson ,I very. and Snwr•Bonml.
Consult: W. S. Kennedy, John Greenleaf Whit tier: His 1.11e, Genius, find IVrifinys (1S52) John ei, Whittier, the Poet of Freedom (1892, in "American Serb's:" F. H. Un derwood, John) Greenleaf 11'1:ittier, a Biog raphy (1884) ; W. J. Linton, Life of John Greenleaf 117:i/tier (1893), in "Great Writers Series;" Sirs. James T. Fields, Whittier: Notes of His Life and His Friendships (1893) ; Mary B. Claflin, Personal Recollections of John G. Whittier (1893) ; S. T. Pickard, Life and Letters of John Greenleaf Whittier (1804). authori tative work on Whittier; and G. R. Carpenter, John, Greenleaf Whittier, in "American Men of Letters Series" (1903).