GENEALOGICAL and PERSONAL MEMOIRS
Relating to the Families of Boston and Eastern Massachusetts
Prepared under the editorial supervision of William Richard CUTTER, A. M.
Historian of the New England Historic Genealogical Society; Librarian of Woburn Public Library; Author of “The Cutter Family,” “History of Arlington,” “Bibliography of Woburn,” etc., etc.
Volume I.; Illustrated
New York; Lewis Historical Publishing Company; 1908
Page 40
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.
John Greenleaf Whittier, of Amesbury, Massachusetts, was born in Haverhill, Massachusetts, December 17, 1807, and died in Hampton Falls, New Hampshire, September 7, 1892. He was descended from Thomas Whittier (or Whittle) of Salisbury, Newbury, and Haverhill, Massachusetts, through Joseph 2, Joseph 3, and John 4 Whittier, his father, who married Abigail Hussey, daughter of Joseph Hussey, of Somersworth, New Hampshire.
He was a famous American poet. "A Quaker in religion, he was remarkable for his consistency and the purity of his life; he was one of the earliest and most influential abolitionists, several times mobbed for his opinions. He was at different periods editor of several journals, among them (1838-40) the Pennsylvania Freeman, an abolition publication, and the leading contributor to the Washington National Era, 1847-59. He was a member of the Massachusetts legislature, 1835-36, and one of the secretaries of the American Anti-Slavery Society, 1836. He took great interest in politics. His home, after 1840, was at Amesbury, Massachusetts.
"Among his best-known poems are: "Skipper Ireson's Ride," 1860; "My Playmate," 1860; "Barbara Frietchie," 1863; "Laus Deo," 1865; "My Birthday," "Snowbound," 1866; "Maud Muller," 1866; "The Tent on the Beach," 1867, and "The Eternal Goodness." "Perhaps no other of our poets, not even Longfellow, has so reached the popular heart." (Library of the World's Best Literature.)
An estimate by a writer in the above work states: His work depends for its appreciation to an unusual degree on an understanding of his life and character. Others of his contemporaries need little explanation. Whittier was born of simple farming folk; his formal education was merely that of the district school and county academy and he had no experience of foreign travel. He sprang from the soil of New England, and possessed to the full the virtues and defects of his ancestry and environment, and he represents and with success, the most winning side of country life in his native district. Until he was twenty his educational advantages were very ordinary. He attended for a short time the Haverhill Academy. For a year he was employed in a Boston printing house, and there edited a paper. For another year he was editor of a journal in Hartford. The papers with which he was connected were not those of the general sort, but were special publications devoted to such subjects as temperance and anti-slavery. With very few exceptions his days were spent in Essex County, and his early life, as well as his later, was free from affectation, and in the first of it full of effort and discipline, a life in which the outer world of cities was unrealized.
The birthplace of Mr. Whittier is standing in that part of Haverhill, which is near the boundary line of the present town of Merrimac. Its antiquity, aside from its connection with the notable poet, is its principal attraction. The front of the house remains as originally built, with unimportant changes in the way of repairs. The house was built about the year 1688, by Thomas Whittier, the ancestor who left England in 1638, at the age of eighteen, and settled in Salisbury about 1640, and thence removed to Haverhill in 1648, first living in a log hut which he built and occupied until the erection of the house above mentioned, which was about half a mile distant from his former residence.
ANCESTRY. — Thomas Whittier (I), of Salisbury and Haverhill, Massachusetts, born about 1620 or 1622, died at Haverhill, November 28, 1696; married Ruth Green (alias Rolfe?) who died his widow, July, 1710. He was of Haverhill in 1647. Among those who came with him to this country were his uncles John and Henry Rolfe, and a distant relative, Ruth Green, whom he afterwards married, and whose name appears in every subsequent generation. Children: 1. Mary, born October 9, 1647, died July 29, 1698; married September 21, 1666, Benjamin Page, of Haverhill. 2. John, born December 23, 1649; married January 14, 1685-6, Mary Hoyt, of Haverhill. 3. Ruth, born November 6, 1651, died December 16, 1719; married April 20, 1675, Joseph True, of Salisbury. 4. Thomas, born January 12, 1653-4, died October 17, 1728. 5. Susanna, born March 27, 1656, died February 15, 1726-7; married July 15, 1674, Jacob Morrill, of Salisbury. 6. Nathaniel, born August 11, 1658, died July 18, 1722; married first, August 26, 1685, Mrs. Mary Osgood, who died May 11, 1705; married second, June, 1710, widow Mary Ring, who died July 19, 1742. 7. Hannah, born September 10, 1760; married May 30, 1683, Edward Young. 8. Richard, born June 27, 1663, died March 3, 1725-6. 9. Elizabeth, born November 21, 1666; married June 22, 1699, James Sanders, Jr., of Amesbury, Massachusetts. 10. Joseph, born May 8, 1669, see forward.
(II) Joseph Whittier, son of Thomas Whittier (I), born in Massachusetts, May 8, 1669, died December 25, 1740; married May 24, 1694, Mary Peasley, born July 14, 1672, daughter of Joseph and Ruth (Barnard) Peasley. For four generations nearly all of his descendants retained their connection more or less closely with the Society of Friends. Children: 1. Elizabeth, born September 19, 1695; married November 24, 1721, Abner Chase. 2. Green, born March 13, 1696-7; married (published November 3, 1719) Hannah Chase. 3. Joseph, born April 2, 1699, died young. 4. Ruth, born July 31, 1701; married January 1, 1722-3, Benjamin Greeley. 5. Richard, born September 20, 1703. 6. Ebenezer, born December 29, 1704; married June 23, 1730, Judith Willett. 7. Hannah, born June 2, 1707, married November 25, 1725, Stephen Badger. 8. Susannah, born July 25, 1709; presumably married, May 8, 1734, Joseph Weed, Jr. 9. Joseph, born March 21, 1716-17, see forward.
(III) Joseph Whittier, son of Joseph Whittier (2), born at Haverhill, Massachusetts, March 21, 1716-17, died October 10, 1796; married July 12, 1739, Sarah Greenleaf, born March 5, 1716, died at Haverhill, Massachusetts, March 17, 1807, daughter of Nathaniel and Judith (Coffin) Greenleaf, of Newbury, Massachusetts. He remained on the ancestral farm of his ancestors, which passed to the son John. Children: 1. Stephen, born April 6, 1740, died April 17, 1740. 2. Thomas, born July 29, 1742, died August 13, 1742. 3. Ruth, born December 26, 1743, died December 27, 1743. 4. Obadiah, born January 22, 1745, died October 3, 1754. 5. Mary, born February 2, 1747, died September 5, 1802, unmarried. 6. Joseph, born September 14, 1750, died September 21, 1754. 7. Nathaniel, born July 13, 1753, died at Hollis, Maine, January, 1839, unmarried. 8. Joseph, born September 20, 1755, died February 20, 1833; married Mary Chase of Deering, New Hampshire, who married second, 1835, Jonathan Taylor, of Biddeford, Maine, and married third, ————— Hanson. 9. Obadiah, born September 2, 1758, died at Dover, New Hampshire, July 28, 1814; married December 17, 1786, Sarah Austin, of Dover, New Hampshire. 10. John, born November 22, 1760; see forward. 11. Moses, born December 20, 1762, died January 23, 1824, unmarried.
(IV) John Whittier, son of Joseph Whittier (3), born at Haverhill, November 22, 1760, died June 11, 1830; married October 3, 1804, Abigail Hussey, born September 3, 1779, died December 27, 1857, daughter of Samuel and Mercy (Evans) Hussey, of Somersworth,, now Rollinsford,, New Hampshire. He was several times elected a selectman of the town of Haverhill. This point is of interest in reference to the male line of the ancestry of the Poet. Thomas (1) Whittier was 49 years old when his son Joseph was born, and he lived to be seventy-six. Joseph (2) was forty-seven years old when his son Joseph (3) was born, and he died at the age of seventy. The second Joseph or Joseph (3) was forty-five years old when John (4) was born, and he lived to be eighty. John (4) was in his forty-eighth year when John Greenleaf (5) the Poet, was born, and he lived to be nearly seventy. Although each Whittier in this list lived to a good old age, they passed away without having seen their grandsons in this particular line. Children: 1. Mary, born September 3, 1806, died January 17, 1860; married Jacob Caldwell. 2. John Greenleaf, born December 17, 1807, died at Hampton, New Hampshire, September 7, 1892. 3. Matthew Franklin, born July 4, 1812, died January 7, 1883; married first, August 4, 1836, Abigail R. Poyen, who died at Portland, Maine, March 27, 1841; children: i. Joseph Poyen, died August 15, 1838. ii. Sarah, died March 13, 1841. Married second, Jane E. Vaughan, of St. John, New Brunswick, born April 27, 1819; children: iii. Charles Franklin, born December 8, 1843. iv. Elizabeth Hussey, born August 10, 1845; married Samuel T. Pickard. v. Alice Greenleaf, born February 19, 1848; married Wilbur Berry. 4. Elizabeth Hussey, born December 7, 1815, died at Amesbury, September 3, 1864.