The Wadsworth-Longfellow House is a historic house and museum in

Portland, Maine Portland is the largest city in the U.S. state of Maine and the seat of Cumberland County. Portland's population was 68,408 in April 2020. The Greater Portland metropolitan area is home to over half a million people, the 104th-largest metropol ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. It is located at 489 Congress Street and is operated by the

Maine Historical Society The Maine Historical Society is the official state historical society of Maine. It is located at 489 Congress Street in downtown Portland. The Society currently operates the Wadsworth-Longfellow House, a National Historic Landmark, Longfellow Ga ...

. It was designated a

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...

in 1962, and administratively added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1966. The house is open daily to public from May through October (half days on Sundays). An admission fee is charged.

History

The house has both historical and literary importance, as it is both the oldest standing structure on the Portland peninsula and the childhood home of American poet

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (February 27, 1807 – March 24, 1882) was an American poet and educator. His original works include "Paul Revere's Ride", ''The Song of Hiawatha'', and ''Evangeline''. He was the first American to completely transl ...

(1807–1882).

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...

General

Peleg Wadsworth Peleg Wadsworth (May 6, 1748 – November 12, 1829) was an American Patriot officer during the American Revolutionary War and a Congressman from Massachusetts representing the District of Maine. He was also grandfather of noted American po ...

built the house in 1785–1786, the first wholly brick dwelling in Portland. Wadsworth raised ten children in the two-story structure with a pitched roof before retiring to the family farm in

Hiram, Maine Hiram is a town in Oxford County, Maine, United States. The population was 1,609 at the 2020 census. It includes the villages of Hiram, East Hiram, South Hiram and Durgintown. Located among the rugged and unspoiled Western Maine Mountains, Hira ...

, in 1807. His daughter Zilpah and her husband Stephen Longfellow IV were married in the house. Their son, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, was born nearby at the home of an aunt, Stephen's sister, on February 27, 1807. The home was a three-story

Federal architecture Federal-style architecture is the name for the classicizing architecture built in the newly founded United States between 1780 and 1830, and particularly from 1785 to 1815, which was heavily based on the works of Andrea Palladio with several inn ...

-style home at the corner of Fore and Hancock Streets. Young Longfellow did not move with his parents to the Wadsworth-Longfellow House until he was eight months old, but spent the next 35 years there. The Longfellows added today's third story in 1815. On September 10, 2001, the eve of the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...

, two of the soon-to-be hijackers

Mohamed Atta Mohamed Mohamed el-Amir Awad el-Sayed Atta ( ; ar, محمد محمد الأمير عوض السيد عطا ; September 1, 1968 – September 11, 2001) was an Egyptian hijacker and the ringleader of the September 11 attacks in 2001 in which fo ...

and

Abdulaziz al-Omari Abdulaziz al-Omari ( ar, عبد العزيز العُمري, , also transliterated as Alomari or al-Umari; May 28, 1979 – September 11, 2001) was a Saudi terrorist who was one of five hijackers of American Airlines Flight 11 as part of the Sept ...

visited the Wadsworth-Longfellow House in the afternoon.

Preservation

Anne Longfellow Pierce (1810–1901) was the last family member to live in the house. She deliberately kept the house much as it was in Peleg Wadsworth's time, but is perhaps best remembered for growing oranges in the window (no small feat in a Maine winter). Her will stipulated that the house, lot, and many furnishings be given to the Maine Historical Society upon her death. Pierce died in 1901 and the Maine Historical Society opened the home to the public within a year. At the time, only one other American author's home was owned by an organization committed to its preservation, specifically the

John Greenleaf Whittier Homestead The John Greenleaf Whittier Homestead is the birthplace and home of American Quaker poet and abolitionist John Greenleaf Whittier. It currently serves as a museum. The homestead is located at 305 Whittier Road in Haverhill, Massachusetts. Histor ...

Haverhill, Massachusetts Haverhill ( ) is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. Haverhill is located 35 miles north of Boston on the New Hampshire border and about 17 miles from the Atlantic Ocean. The population was 67,787 at the 2020 United States Cen ...

.Sweeting, Adam W. "Preserving the Renaissance: Literature and Publivc Memory in the Homes of Longfellow, Hawthorne, and Poe", ''American Studies''. 46:1 (Spring 2005): 23. Wadsworth-Longfellow House, Portland, ME

Wadsworth-Longfellow House, Portland, ME

Longfellow Garden

Library at Wadsworth-Longfellow House, Portland, ME IMG 1882

Pearl Wing started the Longfellow Garden Club in 1924 to establish the Longfellow Garden located alongside the Wadsworth-Longfellow House. The Longfellow Garden Club engaged landscape architect Myron Lamb to design the Colonial Revival style Longfellow Garden located in what was once part of the Longfellow family farmyard. The garden was replanted in 2007 after renovations to Maine Historical Library. A lilac tree mentioned by Anne Longfellow is located in the back corner alongside the library. A Children's Gate designed by Alexander Wadsworth Longfellow, nephew of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, was installed in the 1930s. The gate was removed in the 1960s and restored in 2012. The Longfellow Garden is open to the public at no charge Monday-Saturday from May–October from 10 AM to 5 PM.

References

External links

Maine Historical Society - Wadsworth-Longfellow HouseLongfellow site

The Wadsworth-Longfellow House: Longfellow's Old Home.
By Nathan Goold. Published 1908. Full image at books.google. {{authority control Houses completed in 1786 National Historic Landmarks in Maine Historic house museums in Maine Museums in Portland, Maine Biographical museums in Maine Literary museums in the United States Houses in Portland, Maine Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Maine National Register of Historic Places in Portland, Maine Homes of American writers

History

Preservation

Longfellow Garden

See also

References

External links