the
childless physician, was named "Greenleaf" for the young poet in whom
he took so much interest. The grave of the Countess in the cemetery
near Rocks Village is now better cared for than when the poem was
written. This is not the cemetery referred to in the poem "The Old
Burying-Ground," which is near the East Haverhill church.

In 1844, Whittier was the Liberty Party candidate for representative to
the General Court from Amesbury, running against Whig and Democratic
candidates. A majority vote being required there were five attempts to
elect, in each of which Whittier steadily gained, and it was at last
evident he would be elected at the next trial. Whereupon the two
opposing parties united, and the town voted to have _no_ representative
for 1845. This was at the time of the agitation against the annexation
of Texas, and Whittier was very anxious to be elected. Towns then paid
the salaries of their representatives, and could, if they chose, remain
unrepresented.

At his last visit to his birthplace, in 1882, Whittier called my
attention to the millstone which serves as a step at the door of the
eastern porch, to which reference is made on page 18. It was soon after
this that he wrote his fine poem "Birchbrook Mill," one stanza of which
was evidently inspired by noticing this doorstep, and by memories of
the mill of his ancestors on Fernside Brook, the site of which he had
so recently visited:

"The timbers of that mill have fed
Long since a farmer's fires;
His doorsteps are the stones that ground
The harvest of his sires."

AMESBURY

II

AMESBURY

Following down the left bank of the river, we come, near the village of
Amesbury, to a sheltered nook between the steep northern hill and the
broad winding river, known as "Pleasant Valley." At some points there
is scant room for the river road between the high bluff and the water;
at others a wedge of fertile intervale pushes back the steep bank. The
comfortable houses of an ancient Quaker settlement are perched and
scattered along this road in picturesque fashion. It was a favorite
walk of Whittier and his sister, and it is commemorated in "The River
Path,"--

"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 go