Biography of whittier john greenleaf

Biographical Sketch by Donna-Jean Breckenridge

Imagine a birthday party whose guests included Mark Twain, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, William Cullen Bryant, and James Russell Lowell.

Biography of whittier john greenleaf

The guest of honor was John Greenleaf Whittier, celebrating his 70th birthday. What prompted such company?

Whittier's life began in December of , in Haverhill, Massachusetts, into a Quaker family. He lived on a farm, and it's easy to imagine that it was from a real-life experience that he later wrote his lengthy and most famous poem, "Snow-bound."

Whittier's first published poem was entitled "The Exile's Departure," and it was printed in William Lloyd Garrison's Newburyport Free Press, in Thereafter, Garrison published a poem by Whittier every week.

Whittier was a teacher and shoemaker by trade, and he carried out those occupations while continuing his writing. He was also an editor of several different newspapers d