John Greenleaf Whittier Home Museum

05/31/2026

Our 3:30PM performance of The Abolitionist's Refrain in partnership with Punctuate4 Inc is full, but there are still a few spots remaining for the 2PM performance! This will take place next weekend on Saturday, June 6! Registration is FREE thanks to the Amesbury Cultural Council.

Register at www.whittierhome.org/programs.

05/30/2026

The museum will not be open today because of the large power outage in Amesbury. Please visit us next Saturday!

05/16/2026

The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, and we are OPEN until 1pm today!

05/15/2026

Today is International Day of Families! Tomorrow the museum will be open where you can visit where the Whittier family lived after moving to Amesbury. Visit us from 11-1 to see where the Whittiers slept, worked, and lived, and to learn about why their stories are important.

05/12/2026

We're so excited to partner with Punctuate4 Inc to present an original play called The Abolitionist's Refrain. The setting of the play is in Whittier's home, so what better place to stage it than in Whittier's *actual* home? There will be two performances on Saturday, June 6; one at 2PM, the other at 3:30PM. Each lasts about thirty minutes. Tickets are free thanks to a grant from the Amesbury Cultural Council but space is very limited! To register, head to our programs page, https://whittierhome.org/programs/, and click on the registration link for the show time you want.

05/08/2026

Yesterday was the last day of work for our intern, Jen! Since January, UNH Museum Studies student Jen Adie has been carefully reviewing the books in our collection, of which we have hundreds. She created a spreadsheet that records the publication date, title, condition, and any other interesting features of each book. Since not all of our books have records in our collections management software, this work was especially important and will help us gain far better intellectual control over this collection. While there are far too many books for one person to inventory in one semester, Jen set us up for success and made a massive dent. While her internship is now complete, Jen is working on her final project, which is about the use of linen as a form of protest against the cotton industry's use of the labor of enslaved people. Part of her project will examine the abolitionist work of Elizabeth Whittier, John’s sister. Therefore she’ll be visiting over the summer to conduct further research.
We truly appreciate Jen’s incredible work for the Whittier Home and Museum, and we wish her all the best in her museum career!

05/01/2026

We’re opening on May 16th! Tour the museum on Saturdays from 11am to 1pm or by appointment. For more info email [email protected].

04/24/2026

01/19/2026

Today, on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, we are reminded that freedom for people of color in the United States was not automatically granted when abolitionists like Whittier won the fight for the end of slavery in the 1860s. Likewise, the fight for equal rights did not end when universal suffrage was enacted, or when segregation was made illegal.

The fight continues.

Today we have our own struggles; some go back to Whittier’s time, even before. And some are newer. But Dr. King’s words remind us to look for the stars in the darkness.

“…the world is all messed up. The nation is sick. Trouble is in the land. Confusion all around…But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough, can you see the stars... The masses of people are rising up. And wherever they are assembled today, whether they are in Johannesburg, South Africa; Nairobi, Kenya; Accra, Ghana; New York City; Atlanta, Georgia; Jackson, Mississippi; or Memphis, Tennessee — the cry is always the same — ‘We want to be free.’” -Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., April 3, 1968.