JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER (United States—1807-1892).
In America, also, there has been no lack of bachelors who have achieved fame. The poet Whittier is, perhaps, the best known.
The son of a Quaker farmer, his boyhood was spent mainly upon the farm, but he early displayed a talent for verse, and learned the art of slipper-making to support himself while improving his education. In 1829 he was made editor of a Boston paper, and soon, aside from his poetry, became a real force in the anti-slavery movement in Massachusetts.
Yet in all his long and active life as editor, author, legislator, reformer, and poet, he had no thought—so far as we can tell—of marriage.