Former Massachusetts governor and member of the House of Representatives William Claflin invited people to a garden party at his home in Newtonville, Massachusetts to celebrate the 70th birthday of Harriet Beecher Stowe. For that special occasion, held June 14, 1882, fellow anti-slavery writer John Greenleaf Whittier wrote a poem, "A Greeting":

Thrice welcome from the Land of Flowers
And golden-fruited orange bowers
To this sweet, green-turfed June of ours!
To her who, in our evil time,
Dragged into light the nation's crime
With strength beyond the strength of men,
And, mightier than their swords, her pen!
To her who world-wide entrance gave
To the log-cabin of the slave;
Made all his wrongs and sorrows known,
And all earth's languages his own, —
North, South, and East and West, made all
The common air electrical,
Until the o'ercharged bolts of heaven
Blazed down, and every chain was riven!