And no amount of persuasion could get him to say when he expected to finish a work.
He would frequently say:
“We will just go ahead as if there were one long holiday before us, without thinking of the end, and some day, when we least expect it, the picture is finished; but if we keep thinking of the hours instead of the work, it may never come to an end.”
This indifference to time kept him young—to the very last. He persistently refused to note the flight of years.
There was once a very old Indian, how old no one knew, in Northern Michigan who, when asked his age by the pertinaciously curious, always replied, “I do not count the years; white people do—and die.”
His father went to Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1834 to take charge of the construction of the canals and locks. He resided in a house on Worthen Street, and there Whistler was born on July 10.
In a history of Lowell it is stated that Whistler was probably born in what was known as the Paul Moody house, a fine old house which stood on the site of the present city hall; but quite possibly the family occupied a house owned by the proprietors of the locks and canals, which still stands and is pointed out as the “Locks and Canal house.”
The old parish book of St. Anne’s Episcopal Church contains the following entry under 1834:
“Nov. 9, Baptized James Abbott, infant son of George Washington and Anna Mathilda Whistler. Sponsors, the parents. T. Edson.”
Rev. Theodore Edson was the rector of the church.