Haverhill Historian Gus Reusch Presenting John Greenleaf Whittier Talk

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Curator of the Whittier Birthplace Gus Reusch will talk about the poet Feb. 7 at Haverhill’s Citizens Center. (File photograph)

Note: New date.

The life and legacy of Haverhill’s John Greenleaf Whittier comes to life Wednesday, Feb. 21, when local historian Gus Reusch presents “Nuggets from the Letters of John Greenleaf Whittier” at the Citizens Center, 40 Welcome St.

During the talk, Reusch will share favorite excerpts from Whittier’s estimated 5,500 letters written to female friends, politicians and other literary figures.

Reusch, the curator of Whittier’s Birthplace, has said letters went to everyone—from the ordinary to very high-profile personalities of the day.

“He wrote to politicians, former classmates, neighbors, editors of many newspapers, fellow Quakers, anti-slavery groups, the Grimke sisters—Sarah and Angelina, Benjamin Greenleaf, William Lloyd Garrison, Charles Sumner, John Quincy Adams, Caleb Cushing, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, Oliver Wendell Holmes, William Cullen Bryant, Horace Greeley, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Celia Thaxter, Sarah Orne Jewett, Lucy Larkham, Hellen Keller, publisher James T. Fields and his wife Annie,” the historian and former educator has said.

To register for the free 1 p.m. program, contact Kathy or Rita at 978-374-2390.