Longfellow House-Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was the final home of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the most famous American poet of the 1800’s. Some of Longfellow’s best-known works were written there, including Evangeline (1847), The Song of Hiawatha (1855), and The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858).
Major John Vassall built the house in 1759. Vassall supported the British in the Revolutionary War in America, and he fled the house at the start of the war in 1775. The house served as the headquarters of General George Washington, commander in chief of the Continental Army, for part of the war. Andrew Craigie, an apothecary (pharmacist), purchased the home in 1792, and it became known as Craigie House.
Longfellow rented a room in Craigie House in 1837, following the death of his first wife, Mary Storer Potter. In 1843, Longfellow married his second wife, Frances Appleton. Appleton’s wealthy father gave the couple Craigie House as a wedding gift. Famous visitors, including the poet Ralph Waldo Emerson, the authors Nathaniel Hawthorne and Julia Ward Howe, and the antislavery leader Charles Sumner, came to see Longfellow at his home. The poet lived at Craigie House (now known as Longfellow House) until his death in 1882.
Most of the items at Longfellow House are original furnishings. In the furnished rooms of the house are displays of the works of major artists of the 1800’s, including Gilbert Stuart, Jean-Baptiste Corot, and John Frederick Kensett. Decorative arts from Asia, Europe, and the United States are also on display.
Longfellow’s personal library of about 10,000 volumes is at the site. The property also serves as a research center, with 600,000 papers and documents relating to the site’s history. For example, the collection of original family papers includes letters and signed documents of Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, and Abraham Lincoln.
The property was declared a national historic landmark in 1962. In 1972, it became the Longfellow National Historic Site. In 2010, the site’s name was changed to Longfellow House-Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site to reflect the house’s history as the headquarters of General George Washington during the early months of the American Revolution (1775-1783).
