Longfellow National Historic Site

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Longfellow National Historic Site
IUCN Category V (Protected Landscape/Seascape)
Longfellow National Historic Site
Location Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Nearest city Cambridge, MA
Coordinates 42°22′36″N 71°07′35″W / 42.37667, -71.12639
Area 2 acres (8,093 m²)
Established October 9, 1972
Visitors 36,660 (in 2005)
Governing body National Park Service
The Longfellow National Historic Site, also known as the Vassall-Craigie-Longfellow House, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The Longfellow National Historic Site, also known as the Vassall-Craigie-Longfellow House, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The Longfellow National Historic Site, also known as the Vassall-Craigie-Longfellow House, is a historic site located at 105 Brattle Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts that was for almost fifty years the home of noted American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Contents

[edit] History

The mid-Georgian house was built in 1759 for Royalist John Vassall[1] who made it his summer residence with his wife Elizabeth (Oliver) and children until 1774. On the eve of the American Revolution, they fled Boston. Colonel John Glover and the Marblehead Regiment occupied the house as their temporary barracks in June 1775, followed by General George Washington, Commander-in-Chief of the newly-formed Continental Army, who headquartered and planned the Siege of Boston in the house between July, 1775 and April, 1776.

During his time there, Washington allegedly was visited by John Adams and Abigail Adams, Benedict Arnold, Henry Knox, and Nathaniel Greene.[2]

Nathaniel Tracy, who had made a great fortune as one of the earliest and most successful privateers under Washington, owned the house from 1781-1786, after which he went bankrupt and sold the house to Thomas Russell, a wealthy Boston merchant who in turn occupied it until 1791.

Andrew and Elizabeth Craigie owned the house from 1791-1819. Craigie was the first Apothecary General of the United States, in charge of medical services at the battles of Bunker Hill, Cambridge, Germantown and Valley Forge. Craigie died in 1819, leaving his wife in great debt. Accordingly, Mrs. Craigie took in boarders until her death in 1841. Short-term residents of the home included Jared Sparks, Edward Everett, and Joseph Emerson Worcester.[3]

Longfellow first rented rooms in the house from Mrs. Craigie in 1837. After her death, however, the house passed to Nathan Appleton, who gave the house to Longfellow as a wedding gift when Longfellow married Nathan's daughter, Frances. Longfellow lived in the house for the next four decades, producing many of his most famous poems including "Paul Revere's Ride" and "The Village Blacksmith".[4] During this time, the house also served as a gathering place for famous artists, writers, politicians and other luminaries attracted to Longfellow's hospitality and fame.

After Longfellow's death in 1882, ownership of the house passed to Longfellow's children. His daughter, Alice Longfellow, commissioned two of America's first female landscape architects, Martha Brookes Hutcheson and Ellen Biddle Shipman, to redesign the formal garden in the Colonial Revival style.

[edit] Preservation

2/3 scale replica of the Longfellow House in Minnehaha Park in Minneapolis
2/3 scale replica of the Longfellow House in Minnehaha Park in Minneapolis

In 1913, the surviving Longfellow children established the Longfellow House Trust to do the following:
1. to preserve the property as a memorial to Longfellow and Washington and
2. to showcase the property as a "prime example of Georgian architecture."
In 1962, the trust successfully lobbied for the house to become a national historic landmark. In 1972, the Trust donated the property to the National Park Service. The Longfellow National Historic Site is established and the house was opened to the public.

A 2/3-scale replica of the house, simply called Longfellow House, also exists in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and serves as an information center for the Minneapolis Park System and is on the Grand Rounds Scenic Byway.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Calhoun, Charles C. Longfellow: A Rediscovered Life. Boston: Beacon Press, 2004. ISBN 0807070262. p. 124
  2. ^ Calhoun, Charles C. Longfellow: A Rediscovered Life. Boston: Beacon Press, 2004. ISBN 0807070262. p. 125
  3. ^ Brooks, Van Wyck. The Flowering of New England. New York: E. P. Dutton and Company, Inc., 1952. p. 153
  4. ^ Haas, Irvin. Historic Homes of American Authors. Washington, DC: The Preservation Press, 1991. ISBN 0891331808. p. 93

[edit] External links

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