But perhaps the article which is most worthy of attention in this room is the desk at the eastern corner. This was the desk of Joseph Whittier, great-grandfather of the poet, and son of the pioneer. On the backs and bottoms of the drawers of this desk are farm memoranda made with chalk much more than a century ago. One item dated in 1798 records that the poet's father made his last excursion to Canada in that year. It was about a century old when the boy Whittier scribbled his first rhymes upon it. By an interesting coincidence he also, in his eighty-fifth year, wrote his very last poem upon it. When the family removed to Amesbury, in 1836, this desk was taken with them, but soon after was replaced by a new one, and this went "out of commission." The new desk was the one on which "Snow-Bound" was written, and this may now be seen at Amesbury. When Mr. Whittier's niece was married, he gave her this old desk, which she took to Portland, where it was thoroughly repaired. When he visited Portland, he wrote many letters and some poems on it. In the summer of 1891, as her uncle proposed to make his home with his cousins, the Cartlands, in Newburyport, his niece had this ancient desk sent there. Mr. Whittier was greatly pleased, upon his arrival, to find in his room the heirloom which was hallowed by so many associations connected not only with his ancestry, but with his own early life. Nearly all of the literary work of his last year was done upon this desk. To his niece he wrote:--
"I am writing at the old desk, which Gertrude has placed in my room, but it seems difficult to imagine myself the boy who used to sit by it and make rhymes. It is wonderfully rejuvenated, and is a handsome piece of furniture. It was the desk of my great-grandfather, and seemed to me a wretched old wreck when thee took it to Portland. I did not suppose it could be made either useful or ornamental. I wrote my first pamphlet on slavery, 'Justice and Expediency,' upon it, as well as a great many rhymes which might as well have never been written. I am glad that it has got a new lease of life."
The little room at the western end of the kitchen was "mother's room," its floor two steps higher than that of the larger room, for a singular reason. In digging the cellar the pioneer found here a large boulder it was inconvenient to remove, and wishing a milk room at this corner, he was obliged to make its floor two steps higher than the rest of the cellar. This inequality is reproduced in each story. In this little room the bed is furnished with the blankets and linen woven by Whittier's mother on the loom that used to stand in the open chamber. Her initials "A. H." on some of the pieces show that they date back to her life in Somersworth, N. H. On the wall of this room may be seen the baby-clothes of Whittier's father, made by the grandmother who brought the name of Greenleaf into the family. The bureau in this room is the one that stood there in the olden time. The little mirror that stands on it is the one by which Whittier shaved most of his life. He used it at Amesbury, and possibly his father used it before him at Haverhill.