Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 February 1893 — WHIT[?] IER'S GRAVE. [ARTICLE]

WHIT[?] IER'S GRAVE.

UN la a Ha*leot«d Cemetery OwrI grown with Bank Weeds. In aooordanon with the simpilottar which had marked his life, the poet "Whittier wished his funeral to be conducted and his last resting place oared |qt. But It would seem as If his grave Was not preserved with that care and •aspect which it deserves. The poet nes In an oid and dilapidated cemetery at Amesbury, Mass., where rank weeds and decaying trunks of scrub trees lying where they have fallen give the place an unkempt and unsightly appearance. Bo care is seemingly taken of the spot by any one. Whittier’s lot Is a long, rectangular one surrounded by a hedge of scrub pines. Seven plain Seadstones occupy the southern half of ie reotangle. Eaoh stone has a name Of one of the poet's family engraved on It with the date of birth and death. Directly In the center of the lot is the poet’s new-made grave, overshadowed t>y a pine tree. The hedge around the grave is neat and orderly and well brimmed save in one spot. And that Is dlreotty in the oenter, just on a line with the new-made grave. Here twigs and branches have been rudely broken off until the symmetry of the hedge is utterly destroyed. The pine tree in the oenter has also < iffered severely. Evidently the relic-. anter had been at work here. Disappointed In his searoh for a tombstone to violate he had wrecked his revenge on the surrounding foliage. The grave is wholly unprorted, and who ever would could violate Even on the day of the poet’s funeral people pressed into the lot and robbed the grave of all the flowers heaped upon It, and It was not until a polioeman was dispatched there that the crowd oould be induced to stop their thieving. Whittier expressly stated before his death that he wished to have no different sort of a monument from that which marked the graves of his relatives. He left a small sum, however, to keep in order that part of the cemetery where he was buried and so very likely, in time, the visitor may notice an Improvement there.