She had passed under the assumed name of Walker while at the Bell Tavern
of Danvers, and her wardrobe was found marked with the corresponding
initials, "E.W.," although applying to her real name as well. These
facts, in connection with her death, were immediately published in the
Boston and Salem journals, and her friends advertised to appear; and
thus were her real name and place of residence elicited.
A short time afterwards, and a stranger came and caused to be erected in
the old burying ground in Danvers, on the spot where she was interred,
two "gray stones," after the manner of Ossian, with the touching
inscription which this volume records; and the feet of strangers, moved
by pity and humanity, have worn a path to her grave which he who covets
most in the world's memory might even envy.
The tombstones (which the fathers of that ancient town should shame to
have recorded) have been battered and broken for relics, till much of
the inscription is gone already, and the footstone entirely removed.
But I have noted that Elizabeth Whitman was of superior merit, and had
been recognized as a child of genius in its most earnest sense. From her
earliest childhood she had been remarkable for a deeply poetic
temperament, and it appears she was recognized as a poet of no common
order by the most distinguished writers of the day--Barlow, Trumbull,
and others.
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