Dexter Pratt House

Dexter Pratt House
Location Cambridge, Massachusetts
Coordinates 42°22′28.0″N 71°7′20.3″W / 42.374444°N 71.122306°WCoordinates: 42°22′28.0″N 71°7′20.3″W / 42.374444°N 71.122306°W
Built 1808
Architect Unknown
Architectural style Federal
Governing body Private
NRHP Reference #

73000288

[1]
Added to NRHP May 8, 1973

The Dexter Pratt House is an historic house at 54 Brattle Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

History

The house was built in 1808 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. It was built for blacksmith Torrey Hancock, who sold the home in 1827 to fellow blacksmith Dexter Pratt. Pratt worked there until his death in 1847; his widow lived there until her death in 1858.[2]

Dexter Pratt was the village blacksmith that inspired Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem "The Village Blacksmith".[3] Longfellow published the poem in 1841 as part of Ballads and Other Poems, which also collected "The Wreck of the Hesperus".[4] The poem proved to be popular. It mentioned a "spreading chestnut tree" where Dexter Pratt worked and, when the actual tree was cut down, the children of Cambridge raised money to have the wood converted into an arm-chair and presented it to Longfellow.[5]

The building is now owned by the Cambridge Center for Adult Education which also owns the historic William Brattle House.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. 2008-04-15.
  2. ↑ Nathans, Sydney. To Free a Family: The Journey of Mary Walker. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012: 303. ISBN 978-0-674-06212-2
  3. ↑ Wilson, Susan. Literary Trail of Greater Boston. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000: 105. ISBN 0-618-05013-2
  4. ↑ Sullivan, Wilson. New England Men of Letters. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1972: 194. ISBN 0-02-788680-8.
  5. ↑ Sullivan, Wilson. New England Men of Letters. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1972: 198. ISBN 0-02-788680-8.