THE FERRY, SALISBURY POINT
Mouth of Powow in foreground at the right hidden by its own banks in this picture. Hawkswood in distance at extreme right.
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, during his residence in Newburyport, was often a guest at the Amesbury home, and he has this to say of each member of the family: "The three members of the family formed a perfect combination of wholly varying temperaments. Mrs. Whittier was placid, strong, sensible, an exquisite housekeeper and 'provider;' it seems to me that I have since seen no whiteness to be compared to the snow of her table-cloths and napkins. But her soul was of the same hue; and all worldly conditions and all the fame of her children—for Elizabeth Whittier then shared the fame—were to her wholly subordinate things, to be taken as the Lord gave. On one point only this blameless soul seemed to have a shadow of solicitude, this being the new wonder of Spiritualism, just dawning on the world. I never went to the house that there did not come from the gentle lady, very soon, a placid inquiry from behind her knitting-needles, 'Has thee any farther information to give in regard to the spiritual communications, as they call them?' But if I attempted to treat seriously a matter which then, as now, puzzled most inquirers by its perplexing details, there would come some keen thrust from Elizabeth Whittier which would throw all serious solution further off than ever. She was indeed a brilliant person, unsurpassed in my memory for the light cavalry charges of wit; as unlike her mother and brother as if she had been born into a different race. Instead of his regular features she had a wild, bird-like look, with prominent nose and large liquid dark eyes, whose expression vibrated every instant between melting softness and impetuous wit; there was nothing about her that was not sweet and kindly, but you were constantly taxed to keep up with her sallies and hold your own; while her graver brother listened with delighted admiration, and rubbed his hands over bits of merry sarcasm which were utterly alien to his own vein."
POWOW RIVER AND PO HILL
The village of Amesbury enjoyed a sense of proprietorship in Whittier which it never lost, even when Danvers claimed him for a part of each year. He did not give up the old house, consecrated by memories of his mother and sister, but returned to it oftener and oftener in his last years, and he hoped that he might spend his last days on earth where his mother and sister died. The feeling of the people of Amesbury was expressed in a poem written by a neighbor, and published in the village paper, under the title of "Ours," some stanzas of which are here given:—
"I say it softly to myself,
I whisper to the swaying flowers.
When he goes by, ring all your bells
Of perfume, ring, for he is ours.
"Ours is the resolute, firm step,
Ours the dark lightning of the eye,
The rare sweet smile, and all the joy
Of ownership, when he goes by.