John Greenleaf Whittier homestead in heavy snow

December 17, 1939 (air date)

Published below the photograph, "From a photograph spread for The Mentor, February 1923. THE WHITTIER HOMESTEAD, SNOWBOUND. Whittier had a peculiar fondness for writing about actual places. Frequently he mused on the associations of his boyhood--the homestead where he was born, the school he attended, the rivers and hills of the country side. The ancestral farm of the Whittiers lies on the main road between Amesbury and Haverhill, Massachusetts. One steps directly from the dooryard into "the old rude-furnished room" from whose unfading memories "Snowbound" was fashioned. Whittier was born in the corner room on the first floor, to the left of the visitor as he enters the main floor. Beneath "the sagging beams" of the living-room the future poet, his sisters, and his brother made a fireside crescent and listened to winter talks spun by the elders. In and Near Amesbury are many other reminders of Whittier\u2014the Captain's Well, the Meeting House, the Chain Bridge over the Merrimac. Up the Massachusetts coast beyond Newburyport the spot has been identified where the three friends, one of whom was the poet, pitched the Tent on the Beach. 17." Handwritten, "Mentor \u201923. House. Historic Whittier"

Digitizing agency: University of Missouri--Kansas City. Library. Dr. Kenneth J. LaBudde Special Collections.