In a drawer of the desk is a most remarkable album of autographs of public men, presented to Mr. Whittier on his eightieth birthday, by the Essex Club. It is a tribute to the poet signed by every member of the United States Senate and House of Representatives, the Supreme Court of the United States, the Governor, ex-Governors, and Supreme Court of Massachusetts, and all the members of the Essex Club; also, many distinguished citizens, such as George Bancroft (who adds to his autograph "with special good wishes to the coming octogenarian"), Robert C. Winthrop, Frederick Douglass, and J. G. Blaine. An eloquent speech of Senator Hoar, who suggested this unique tribute, is engrossed in the exquisite penmanship of a colored man, to whom was intrusted the ornamental pen-work of the whole volume. The congressional signatures were obtained by Congressman Coggswell of the Essex district. It is noticeable that no Southern member declined to sign this tribute to one so identified with the anti-slavery movement.
The "garden room" remains almost precisely as when occupied by the poet—the same chairs, open stove, books, pictures, and even wall-paper and carpet, remaining in it as he placed them. In the north window the flowers pressed between the plates of glass are those on receipt of which he wrote "The Pressed Gentian." By the desk is the cane he carried for more than fifty years, made of wood from his office in Pennsylvania Hall, burned by a pro-slavery mob in 1838. This is the cane for which he wrote the poem "The Relic:"—
"And even this relic from thy shrine,
O holy Freedom! hath to me
A potent power, a voice and sign
To testify of thee;
And, grasping it, methinks I feel
A deeper faith, a stronger zeal."
THE "GARDEN ROOM," AMESBURY HOME
He had many canes given him, some valuable, but this plain stick was the only one he ever carried. With this cane may be seen one made of oak from the cottage of Barbara Frietchie—not, as was erroneously stated in the biography, a cane carried by the patriotic Barbara. The portraits he hung in this room are of Garrison, Thomas Starr King, Emerson, Longfellow, Sturge, "Chinese" Gordon, and Matthew Franklin Whittier. There is also a fine picture of his birthplace, a water-color sent him by Bayard Taylor from the most northern point in Norway, and a picture, also sent by Bayard Taylor, of the Rock in El Ghor, on receipt of which the poem of that title was written. The Norway picture was painted by Mrs. Taylor, and represents the surroundings of the northernmost church in the world. The mirror in this room is an heirloom of the Whittier family, dating at least a century before the birth of the poet. The little table under it is almost equally old.
The album containing the likeness of Dr. Weld has also a photograph under which Whittier has written "Mary E. S. Thomas," and this has a special interest, as it is a portrait of his relative, schoolmate, and life-long friend, Mary Emerson Smith, who became the wife of Judge Thomas of Covington, Ky. She was a granddaughter of Captain Nehemiah Emerson, who fought at Bunker Hill, was an officer in the army of Washington, serving at Valley Forge and at the surrender of Burgoyne, and her grandmother was Mary Whittier—a cousin of the poet's father, whom Whittier used to call "aunt Mary." For a time, when in his teens, he stayed at Captain Emerson's, and went to school from there, making himself useful in doing chores. Mary Smith, then a young girl, passed much of her time at her grandfather's, and later was a fellow-student of Whittier's at the Academy. I think there is now no impropriety in stating that it is to her that the poem "Memories" refers.[4] She was living at the time when the biography of Whittier was written, and for that reason her name was not given, but only a veiled reference in "Life and Letters," as at page 276. During many years of her widowhood she spent the summer months in New England, and occasionally met Mr. Whittier at the mountains. They were in friendly correspondence to the close of his life. She survived him several years. It has been suggested with some show of probability that it is a memory of the days they spent together at her grandfather's that is embodied in the poem "My Playmate." At the time when this poem was written she was living in Kentucky.
"She lives where all the golden year
Her summer roses blow;
The dusky children of the sun
Before her come and go."