William Lloyd Garrison in Bennington, Vermont: Literary New England #12

'FIFTY FEET WEST OF THIS SPOT

WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON

EDITED

THE JOURNAL OF THE TIMES

OCTOBER 3, 1828 – MARCH 27, 1829[.]

HITHER CAME

BENJAMIN LUNDY DECEMBER 6, 1828

TO ENLIST HIM IN THE CAUSE OF THE SLAVE.

GARRISON DEPARTED HENCE

TO LIFT UP IN BALTIMORE

THE BANNER

OF IMMEDIATE EMANCIPATION'

A detail of the representation of the printing press.

Toward the end of the afternoon we went for a coffee, and saw this mockingbird in the parking lot. The only excuse I have for publishing it here is that I really like it, and that it reminds me of Harper Lee, who reminds me of a number of things.

William Lloyd Garrison in Newburyport, Massachusetts

'IN THIS HOUSE WAS BORN

DECEMBER 10, 1805

WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON
---------------------------------------------

THIS TABLET ERECTED BY

THE CITY IMPROVEMENT SOCIETY

OF NEWBURYPORT

DECEMBER 10, 1905'

'HISTORIC SITE IN JOURNALISM

WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON

BORN HERE IN 1805, FOUNDED THE LIBERATOR, ANTISLAVERY JOURNAL, JANUARY 1, 1831, AND DECLARED: "I AM IN EARNEST. I WILL NOT EQUIVOCATE. I WILL NOT EXCUSE. I WILL NOT RETREAT A SINGLE INCH. AND I WILL BE HEARD."

MARKED THIS 24TH DAY OF JUNE 1980 BY
THE SOCIETY OF

PROFESSIONAL JOURNALISTS

SIGMA DELTA CHI'

The imposing statue of William Lloyd Garrison stands in Brown Square.

There are two information panels to the rear, of which the one to the left of the statue reads:

'William Lloyd Garrison was born in 1805 on School Street in Newburyport. His family experienced deep poverty after his sailor father, Abijah Garrison, deserted them in 1808, At age five, Garrison sold candy on the streets and begged for food at the houses of the wealthy, and then worked making shoes and cabinets as a boy. Garrison's mother, Fanny, moved to Lynn and other cities looking for work, while Garrison grew up in Newburyport living with friends. She died in 1823 when he was 17. At age 12 Garrison became an apprentice at The Newburyport Herald. He was almost entirely self-taught, learning reading and writing plus the business of printing and journalism, and was soon promoted to foreman. At 20, he established his own newspaper called Newburyport Free Press. His zeal for reform antagonized his fellow citizens and the newspaper failed. Five year later, he established his long-running anti-slavery newpaper The Liberator in Boston.

'In 1830 Garrison returned to Newburyport to make an abolitionist speech at the Congregational Church on Brown Square. Many strongly disapproved, and the congregation refused to allow him back for his next scheduled address. In 1836, the Essex County Anti-Slavery Society tried in 1837 to hold an anti-slavery convention in a garden off of Brown Square, a mob broke up the meeting, beating tin pans, blowing horns, cutting the buttons off the coat of one of speakers [sic], and throwing rotten eggs and sticks.

'Although several residents participated in the Undergound Railroad, much of Newburyport was conservative and not supportive of Garrison or the Abolitionists during the pre-war period. In 1859, Representative Spofford of Newburyport spoke out against abolitionists' 'constant and useless agitation of the slavery question'. After the Civil War, however, Garrison was generally hailed as a prophet in the North. In 1893, fourteen years after his death in 1879, Newburyport erected a bronze statue honoring him here in Brown Square.'

The information panel on the righthand side of the statue states:

'William Lloyd Garrison (1805-1879) was a prominent spokesman for the American Abolition Movement, forcefully advocating for the unconditional eradication of slavery. Garrison also strongly supported women's equality and suffrage (a position which split him from many fellow Abolitionists), and denounced discrimination, alcohol, and New England churches for not taking a strong stand against slavery.

'Garrison's national reputation as a radical began in 1829, when he publicly challenged the wealthy Newburyport merchant Francis Todd as a "highway robber and murderer", and wrote that his captain Nicholas Brown should be "sentenced to solitary confinement for life" for shipping about 80 slaves chained below deck. Garrison was charged with libel and jailed for 44 days.

'In 1831, Garrison founded the anti-slavery newspaper The Liberator. Although he barely made a living, he published the paper for more than three decades, and founded the New England, Massachusetts, and American Anti-Slavery Societies. Harsh, brilliant, militant, and articulate, Garrison thrived on controversy over one of the most crucial moral issues in American history. He characterized the American Constitution as a "covenant with death" and an "agreement with hell" for its partial embrace of slavery, and publicly burned a copy in 1854. Far ahead of most white Americans, Garrison rode in segregated rail cars with his African American associates. He also helped to launch the career of the great abolitionist Frederick Douglass in 1841, although he later split with Douglass.

'Garrison eventually embraced the Civil War, although it shattered his utopian principles of pacifism, non-violence, and opposition to voting, as well as his previous advocacy of separatism from the southern states. Today, Garrison is recognized as a prophetic American hero who was central to the transformation of public opinion that ultimately lead [sic] to the freeing of the slaves in the United States.'

John Greenleaf Whittier's Haverhill, Massachusetts

This sculpture, a tribute to the Quaker poet John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-92), the most famous son of Haverhill (pronounced 'HAY-vrill'), is downtown.

The whole poem:

The River Path

No bird-song floated down the hill,
The tangled bank below was still;

No rustle from the birchen stem,
No ripple from the water’s hem.

The dusk of twilight round us grew,
We felt the falling of the dew;

For, from us, ere the day was done,
The wooded hills shut out the sun.

But on the river’s farther side
We saw the hill-tops glorified,—

A tender glow, exceeding fair,
A dream of day without its glare.

With us the damp, the chill, the gloom
With them the sunset’s rosy bloom;

While dark, through willowy vistas seen,
The river rolled in shade between.

From out the darkness where we trod,
We gazed upon those hills of God,

Whose light seemed not of moon or sun.
We spake not, but our thought was one.

We paused, as if from that bright shore
Beckoned our dear ones gone before;

And stilled our beating hearts to hear
The voices lost to mortal ear!

Sudden our pathway turned from night;
The hills swung open to the light;

Through their green gates the sunshine showed,
A long, slant splendor downward flowed.

Down glade and glen and bank it rolled;
It bridged the shaded stream with gold;

And, borne on piers of mist, allied
The shadowy with the sunlit side!

'So,' prayed we, 'when our feet draw near
The river dark, with mortal fear,

'And the night cometh chill with dew,
O Father! let Thy light break through!

'So let the hills of doubt divide,
So bridge with faith the sunless tide!

'So let the eyes that fail on earth
On Thy eternal hills look forth;

'In Thy beckoning angels know
The dear ones whom we loved below!'

'The River Path'
artist: Dale Rogers
sponsored by: Team Haverhill
unveiled: August 14, 2010
inspired by: John Greenleaf Whittiers [sic]
                                             Poem:
                                  'The Rivers [sic] Path'

The Whittier Birthplace, at 305 Whittier Road to the east of the town, once a farm, was built by John Greenleaf Whittier's great-great-grandfather, and remained in the Whittier family until 1836. James Carleton, former mayor of Haverhill and friend of Whittier's, later purchased the property, gave it to the Haverhill Whittier Club,  and the museum was opened in 1893, the year after Whittier's death. It has remained much the same as when John Greenleaf Whittier lived in it.

'IN THIS HOUSE

BUILT BY THOMAS WHITTIER

IN 1688

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER

WAS BORN

DECEMBER 17, 1807

HERE AND ABOUT THE SURROUNDING

COUNTRYSIDE LAY THE SCENES

OF HIS POEM

SNOWBOUND'

Samuel T. Pickard's Whittier-land: A Handbook of North Essex (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1904) states that 'The visitor's attention is usually first drawn to the great fireplace in the centre of its southern side [in the kitchen]', and quotes from Whittier best-known poem Snow Bound (1866), which was a huge success and further good sales from later books meant that Whittier could live comfortably for the rest of his life:

'The oaken log, green, huge and thick,
And on its top the stout back-stick;
The knotty forestick laid apart,
And filled between with curious art
The ragged brush; then, hovering near,
We watched the first red blaze appear,
Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam
On whitewashed wall and sagging beam,
Until the old, rude-furnished room
Burst, flower-like, into rosy bloom.'

To the left of the photo above is a curious log device with five prongs: this is for roasting apples, and recalls the evocative line 'And apples sputtered in a row'.

Snow Bound is a long narrative poem in iambic tetrameter that was originally published as a full book. It goes back to the narrator's childhood, and is autobiographical throughout. The poem covers several days in December 1822, when snow held the family indoors, and gives descriptions of all the people present on that occasion. The poem makes clear at times that these are memories, and says that only the poet and his brother Flanklin Whittier are still alive.

John Whittier was John Greenleaf's father,  but the father in the poem is just called 'A prompt,  decisive man', who got  the boys to clear a path through the snow and reach the animals.

Abigail Hussey was John Greenleaf's mother, of whom Whittier says:

'Our mother, while she turned her wheel
Or run the new-knit stocking wheel'.

And certainly Abigail used this spinning wheel to the right of the photo to make the Whittier garments.

John Greenleaf's bachelor uncle Moses is also part of the family:

'Our uncle, innocent of books,
Was rich in lore of fields and brooks.
The ancient teachers never dumb
Of Nature's unhoused lyceum'

As is his maiden aunt, Mercy Evans:

'The sweetest woman ever Fate
Peverse denied a household mate.'

Of his elder sister Mary he says:

'A rich, full nature, free to trust,
Truthful and almost sternly just,
Impulsive, earnest, prompt to act,
And make her generous thought a fact.'

Of his beloved sister Elizabeth he says:

'Our youngest and our dearest sat,
Lifting her large sweet asking eyes,'

and immediately adds:

'Now bathed in the unfading green
And holy peace of Paradise.'

One of John Greenleaf's teachers is also present - George Haskell, of whom the narrator says:

'Brisk wielder of the birch and rule,
The master of the local school
Held at the fire his favorite place,
Its warm glow hit the laughing face',

And though the teacher's more playful as opposed educational side is seen here - playing with the cat with a mitten on its head - the narrator takes the opportunity of Haskell's learned presence to launch into a kind of digressive rant about ignorance and stupidity as opposed to their perceived adversary - education. Slavery - once Whittier's bête noire - is only briefly mentioned as the book was published after the Civil War had (very recently) ended.

The final person present is Harriet Livermore (1788-1868) - the 'not unfeared, half-welcome guest'. Livermore was a well-known preacher who traveled throughout the US.

The only other person mentioned in the poem is the 'wise old Doctor', this being Dr Elias Weld, an early benefactor of Whittier's, to whom the poem 'The Countess' is dedicated.

In Pickard's words:

'The little room at the western end of the kitchen was "mother's room," its floor two steps higher than that of the larger room, for a singular reason. In digging the cellar the pioneer found here a large boulder it was inconvenient to remove, and wishing a milk room at this corner, he was obliged to make its floor two steps higher than the rest of the cellar.'

Again, in Pickard's words:

'The door at the southwestern corner of the kitchen opens into the room in which the poet was born. This was the parlor, but as the Friends were much given to hospitality, it was often needed as a bedroom, and there was in it a bedstead that could be lifted from the floor and supported by a hook in the ceiling when not in use. [...] The inlaid mahogany card-table between the front windows was brought to this house just a century ago (1804) by Abigail Hussey, the bride of John Whittier, and placed where it now stands.'

 'The volume of Robert Burns loaned to the poet, when he was a boy of 14, by his schoolmaster, Joshua Coffin.' In a short autobiographical sketch written in 1882,  Whittier states that he begged Coffin to leave the book with him, and that this was more or less the first poetry he'd ever read, and that it was then that he started a dual life, writing his poems in his secret world of fancy.

And a sketch of Joshua Coffin.

Whittier's sister Mary discovered a poem he'd written and sent it to the Newburyport Free Press, which was edited by William Lloyd Garrison who printed the poem, 'The Exile's Departure'. Shortly after the publication, Garrison went to Haverhill to see Whittier, and urged him to get an education. By making shoes the first year and teaching the next, Whittier managed to spend two six-month terms at the Haverhill Academy.

 A painting in the kitchen of a rather young Whittier looking a little like Nathaniel Hawthorne.

 And a bust of the older Whittier, certainly made long after he had left this house.

 The chairs we sat on were the actual chairs of Whittier's grandfather.

 The rear of the house.

And finally our guide to the house, Gus Reusch, a very lively, informative, and fascinating docent who held us spellbound for quite some time. Not only were we allowed to take any photos we wanted here - itself unusual in Massachusetts - but encouraged to take time doing so. There was no sense of rush - quite the reverse - and Gus is obviously deeply interested in John Greenleaf Whittier. We left very happy, and I can honestly say - after visiting more authors' homes than I can readily number - that this is the favorite. Thank you so much, Gus.

Addendum: The Whittier Home have just (17 December 2011) published a video on their website of Gus Reusch reading Snow-Bound and answering questions. It lasts for 108 minutes and is here.

William Lloyd Garrison, Samuel Eliot Morison, Lucy Stone, Abigail Adams, and Phillis Wheatley in Boston, Massachusetts

The first seated statue on Commonwealth Avenue Mall - a long walkway between the two sides of Commonwealth Avenue where many people sit on benches eating and drinking or merely relaxing - was of the noted journalist and abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison (1805-79), about whom I shall say more in my post on Garrison in Newburyport, North Shore, Massachusetts.

The bronze statue was sculpted in 1885 by Olin Levi Warner, and the side facing north reads 'I am in earnest - I will not equivocate I will not excuse - I will not retreat a single inch - and I will be heard'.

And the south-facing side reads 'My country is the world - my countrymen are all mankind'.

Between Exeter and Fairfield streets (the street names ascend in alphabetical order from south-east to south-west from Arlington to Hereford) is a more recent seated statue - that of Samuel Eliot Morision (1887-1976), a maritime historian born on Charles Street, Boston MA. It was sculpted by Penelope Jencks and erected here in 1982. Morison sits on a large granite rock. His writings were many, including Builders of the Bay Colony (1930) and The Foundation of Harvard College (1935).

Some of the stones contain inscriptions:

'TO MY

READERS

YOUNG AND OLD

"A FLOWNE SHEATE

A FAIRE WINDE

A BOUNE VOYAGE"'

'DREAM DREAMS

THEN WRITE THEM

AYE BUT LIVE THEM FIRST'.

The newest additions to the statues on the mall are of a very different order from the others, and are a result of the efforts of the Boston Women's Memorial, which commissioned artist Meredith Gang Bergmann to make memorials to three women - Lucy Stone, Abigail Adams, and Phillis Wheatley - whose progressive ideas influenced society by their writings. This amazing monument is between Fairfield and Gloucester streets, was finished in 2003, and shows a very different conception of representation.

Here, men don't stand (or rather sit) on pedestals, but women are at ground level and engage with the pedestals, and the public can touch the statues: it is a very original work of art.

'ABIGAIL ADAMS
                           1744-1818
'BORN IN WEYMOUTH, MASSACHUSETTS, SHE WAS
THE WIFE OF THE SECOND PRESIDENT OF THE
UNITED STATES AND THE MOTHER OF THE SIXTH.
HER LETTERS ESTABLISH HER AS A PERCEPTIVE
SOCIAL AND POLITICAL COMMENTATOR AND
A STRONG VOICE FOR WOMEN'S ADVANCEMENT.'
 

'..AND BY THE WAY IN THE
NEW CODE OF LAWS

WHICH I SUPPOSE
IT WILL BE NECESSARY
FOR YOU TO MAKE
I DESIRE YOU WOULD
REMEMBER THE LADIES
AND BE MORE GENEROUS
AND FAVORABLE TO THEM
THAN YOUR ANCESTORS.
DO NOT PUT SO MUCH UNLIMITED
POWER INTO THE HANDS
OF THE HUSBANDS.
REMEMBER ALL MEN WOULD
BE TYRANTS IF THEY COULD.
IF PARTICULAR CARE AND
ATTENTION IS NOT PAID TO THE
LADIES WE ARE DETERMINED
TO FOMENT A REBELLION.
AND WILL NOT HOLD OURSELVES
BOUND BY ANY LAWS IN WHICH
WE HAVE NO VOICE,
OR REPRESENTATION.'

         LETTER TO JOHN ADAMS

                       MARCH 31, 1776

'IF WE WERE TO COUNT OUR YEARS

BY THE REVOLUTIONS

WE HAVE WITNESSED

WE MIGHT NUMBER THEM

WITH THE ANTIDILUVIANS.

SO RAPID HAVE BEEN

THE CHANGES: THAT THE MIND,

SO FLEET IN ITS PROGRESS,

HAS BEEN OUTSTRIPPED BY THEM,

AND WE ARE LEFT LIKE STATUES

GAZING AT WHAT WE CAN NEITHER

FATHOM, OR COMPREHEND.'

LETTER TO MERCY OTIS WARREN

MARCH 9, 1807

'LUCY STONE

        1818-1893

'BORN IN BROOKFIELD, SHE WAS ONE OF THE

FIRST MASSACHUSSETTS WOMEN TO GRADUATE FROM

COLLEGE. SHE WAS AN ARDENT ABOLITIONIST,

A RENOWNED ORATOR AND THE FOUNDER OF

THE WOMEN'S JOURNAL, THE FOREMOST

WOMEN SUFFRAGE PUBLICATION OF ITS ERA.'

'FROM THE FIRST YEARS TO WHICH MY MEMORY STRETCHES
I HAVE BEEN A DISAPPOINTED WOMAN. IN EDUCATION, IN MARRIAGE,
IN RELIGION, IN EVERYTHING DISAPPOINTMENT IS THE LOT OF WOMEN.
IT SHALL BE THE BUSINESS OF MY LIFE TO DEEPEN THIS DISAPPOINTMENT
IN EVERY WOMAN'S HEART UNTIL SHE BOWS DOWN TO IT NO LONGER.'

SPEECH, NATIONAL WOMAN'S RIGHTS CONVENTION, CINCINNATI 1755

'I BELIEVE THE WORLD GROWS BETTER BECAUSE I BELIEVE
THAT IN THE ETERNAL ORDER THERE IS ALWAYS A MOVEMENT,
SWIFT OR SLOW, TOWARD WHAT IS RIGHT AND TRUE.'

LAST PUBLISHED STATEMENT, THE INDEPENDENT 1893.
 

'THE LEGAL RIGHT FOR WOMAN
TO RECORD HER OPINION
WHEREVER OPINIONS COUNT,
IS THE TOOL FOR WHOSE

OWNERSHIP WE ASK.'

      WOMAN'S JOURNAL, 1891.

'LET WOMAN'S SPHERE BE BOUNDED
ONLY BY HER'

SPEECH, WOMAN'S RIGHTS CONVENTION, WORCESTER 1851.'

'PHILLIS WHEATLEY

CA. 1753-1784

'BORN IN WEST AFRICA AND SOLD AS A SLAVE

FROM THE SHIP PHILLIS IN COLONIAL BOSTON.

SHE WAS A LITERARY PRODIGY WHOSE 1773 VOLUME

POEMS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS RELIGIOUS

AND MORAL, WAS THE FIRST BOOK PUBLISHED BY

AN AFRICAN WRITER IN AMERICA.'

'IMAGINATION! WHO CAN SING THY FORCE?

OR WHO DESCRIBE THE SWIFTNESS OF THY COURSE?

SOARING THROUGH AIR TO FIND THE BRIGHT ABODE,

TH'EMPYREAL PALACE OF THE THUND'RING GOD

WE ON THY PINIONS CAN SURPASS THE WIND.

AND LEAVE THE ROLLING UNIVERSE BEHIND:

FROM STAR TO STAR THE MENTAL OPTICS ROVE,

MEASURE THE SKIES AND RANGE THE REALMS ABOVE.

THERE IN ONE VIEW WE GRASP THE MIGHTY WHOLE.

OR WITH NEW WORLDS AMAZE TH'UNBOUNDED SOUL.'

                                               ON IMAGINATION

'I, YOUNG IN LIFE, BY SEEMING CRUEL FATE

WAS SNATCH'D FROM AFRIC'S FANCY'D HAPPY SEAT

WHAT PANGS EXCRUCIATING MUST MOLEST

WHAT SORROWS LABOR IN MY PARENT'S BREAST?

STEEL'D WAS THAT SOUL AND BY NO MISERY MOV'D

THAT FROM A FATHER SEIZ'D HIS BABE BELOV'D:

SUCH, SUCH MY CASE. AND CAN I THEN BUT PRAY

OTHERS MAY NEVER FEEL NO TYRANNIC SWAY?'

'IN EVERY HUMAN BREAST GOD HAS IMPLANTED A PRINCIPLE

WHICH WE CALL LOVE OF FREEDOM

IT IS IMPATIENT OF OPPRESSION

AND PANTS FOR DELIVERANCE.

THE SAME PRINCIPLE LIVES IN US.'

LETTER TO THE REVEREND SAMSON OCCOM