WHITTIER
WHITTIER
studied law; was admitted to the bar, 1845; and
served as auditor's clerk and in the government
service until 1848, when he began practice in
Columbia, Tenn. He was married in July, 1848,
to Jane Campbell. He was a state senator, 1855-
58; a representative in the general assembly,
1859, serving as speaker; a presidential elector-at-
large on the Breckinridge ticket, 1860, and a
delegate to the Democratic national convention
of the same year. He served as assistant adju-
tant-general, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel,
in the Provisional Army of Tennessee, 1861; was
adjutant of Anderson's brigade in the West Vir-
ginia campaign, and promoted adjutant-general
of the state in November, 1861, serving until 1865,
on the staff of Generals Anderson, Wright,
Carter and Hardee. He was a Democratic
representative from the seventh Tennessee dis-
trict in the 42d-47th congresses, 1871-83, serving
for three terms as cliairman of the committee on
naval affairs, and was re-elected in 1886 to the
50th congress, but did not take his seat, being
appointed and afterwards elected U.S. senator,
to fill the unexpired term of Howell E. Jackson,
and serving from April 26, 1886, to March 3, 1887.
He died in Columbia, Tenn., Sept. 21, 1891.
WHITTIER, John Qreenleaf, poet, was born in the East Parish of Haverhill, Mass., Dec. 17, 1807; son of John (1760-1830) and Abigail (Hus- sey) Whittier; grandson of Joseph (1716-1796) and Sarah (Greenleaf) Whittier and of Samuel and Mercy (Evans) Hu.ssey; great-grand- son of Joseph Pease- ley, from whom the Quaker element in the family was de- rived, and great-- grandson of Tliomas Whittier of South- ampton, England, who sailed in the Confidence, April 24, 1638, for Boston, Mass.; settled in Salis- bury, Mass., whence he was sent as a deputy to the general court; married a distant relative, Ruth Green, and in 1647 located permanently in Haverhill. The sur- name of his paternal grandmotlier. Sarah Green- leaf, was originally Feuilleverts, the family be- ing of French Huguenot extraction. John Green- leaf Whittier's boyhood was spent in the simple, rural surroundings of a country home, where he did his share of the many rough tasks incident to farm life, incurring, when about seventeen years of age, injuries from overwork, which re- sulted in permanent frailty. His educational X. — 26
advantages were naturally meagre. Until 1820
he had attended only the district schools and had
had access to but few books of the qualitj^ to ap-
peal to his literary tastes. The first pregnant
event in his early career was the awakening of
his poetic instinct by reading the poems of
Burns, a copy of which had been given him by
his teacher, Joshua CoflSn, who became an anti-
quary of note, and to whom Whittier subse-
quently addressed a poem entitled " To My Old
Schoolmaster." The impulse inspired by the
poetry of Burns found its expression in many
crude attempts at verse making, of which scarcely
a remnant remains, Whittier's first published
poems being " The Exile's Departure," and " The
Deity," which appeared in the Free Press of New-
buryport, respectively, June 8 and June 22,
1826. Their publication led to the second, and
not less vital incident in his development. Will-
iam Lloj'd Garrison, editor of the Free Press,
sought out his young contributor at Haverhill,
the meeting resulting in a life-long friendship
based upon mutual and active interests in the
national problems of the day. Thus it was
partly due to Garrison's influence and partly to
that of Abijah W. Tha^-er, editor of the Portland
Gazette, to which Whittier also contributed some
of his early verses, that the latter was finally per-
mitted to begin a classical education. Tlu-ough
his own efforts Whittier earned sufficient money
to attend Haverhill academy for six months in
1827 and for a similar period in 1828, meanwhile
teaching a district school in W^est Amesbury,
Mass. Under various pen-names, including
"Adrian," "Donald,"' "Timothy." " Micajah,"
and " Ichabod," he contributed poems to the Bos-
ton Statesman, the National Philanthropist and
the Gazette, Mr. Thayer of the last publication
proposing in 1828 to bring out by subscription a
volume entitled "The Poems of Adrian," but the
enterprise did not materialize. Whittier was at
this time also becoming known as a prose writer.
The materials he had collected for a histoiy of
Haverhill, he gave, in 1828, to one B. L. Mirick,
by whom the work was completed (1831). From
December, 1828, to August, 1829, Whittier
edited the American Manufacturer of Boston, a
political journal devoted to the interests of Henry
Clay, and during this period wrote his famous
poetical tribute to " Harry of the West." After
leaving the editorship of the Manufacturer,
Whittier was engaged in managing his father's
farm until the latter's death in June, 1830, and
also edited the Haverhill Gazette, January-June,
1830. In the following Jvily he assumed charge
of the Neio England Revieiv of Hartford, Conn.,
with which he remained until January, 1832.
His first book. Legends of Neic England, in Prose
and Verse, appeared in 1831. also his poem " Moll
