In 1844, Whittier was the Liberty Party candidate for representative to the General Court from Amesbury, running against Whig and Democratic candidates. A majority vote being required there were five attempts to elect, in each of which Whittier steadily gained, and it was at last evident he would be elected at the next trial. Whereupon the two opposing parties united, and the town voted to have _no_ representative for 1845. This was at the time of the agitation against the annexation of Texas, and Whittier was very anxious to be elected. Towns then paid the salaries of their representatives, and could, if they chose, remain unrepresented.
At his last visit to his birthplace, in 1882, Whittier called my attention to the millstone which serves as a step at the door of the eastern porch, to which reference is made on page 18. It was soon after this that he wrote his fine poem "Birchbrook Mill," one stanza of which was evidently inspired by noticing this doorstep, and by memories of the mill of his ancestors on Fernside Brook, the site of which he had so recently visited:
"The timbers of that mill have fed Long since a farmer's fires; His doorsteps are the stones that ground The harvest of his sires."
Following down the left bank of the river, we come, near the village of Amesbury, to a sheltered nook between the steep northern hill and the broad winding river, known as "Pleasant Valley." At some points there is scant room for the river road between the high bluff and the water; at others a wedge of fertile intervale pushes back the steep bank. The comfortable houses of an ancient Quaker settlement are perched and scattered along this road in picturesque fashion. It was a favorite walk of Whittier and his sister, and it is commemorated in "The River Path,"--
"Sudden our pathway turned from night; The hills swung open to the light;
"Through their green gates the sunshine showed, A long, slant splendor downward flowed.
"Down glade and glen and bank it rolled; It bridged the shaded stream with gold;
"And, borne on piers of mist, allied The shadowy with the sunlit side!"
When Mr. Whittier returned to Amesbury from the last visit to his birthplace, referred to in the preceding chapter, it was by the road passing the Old Garrison House, the Countess' grave, Rocks Village, and Pleasant Valley. He pointed out each feature of the scene that reminded him of earlier days. When we came to Pleasant Valley, he stopped the carriage at a picturesque wooded knoll between the road and the river, and said that here he used to come with his sister to gather harebells. It was so late in the season that every other flower by the roadside had been killed by frost; even the goldenrod was more sere than yellow. But the harebells were fresh in their delicate beauty, and he gathered a handful of them which lighted up his "garden room" for several days. I remember that on this occasion an effect referred to in "The River Path" was reproduced most beautifully. The setting sun, hidden to us, illuminated the hills of Newbury:--