...freemen unless they withdrew their names. Sixteen refused to withdraw them, of whom two, Thomas Whittier and Christopher Hussey, were ancestors of the poet, as was one of the prohibited exhorters, Joseph Peasley . These were temporarily disfranchised, but the name of Thomas Whittier often appears with honour in the town records, even to mentioning the fact that when he came to dwell in Haverhill he brought ...