NEWS & PUBLICATIONS

   These words from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "A Gleam of Sunshine" were conceived as the poet returned from visiting the home of Julia Ward Howe in Brookline, Massachusetts, in 1844. But today they might just as well serve to invite visitors into his former home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where an incredible array of letters, books, photos, paintings, and artifacts attest to a uniquely American life.

   Unlike many authors and poets whose work is not appreciated in their time, Longfellow was well-known among the public and lauded by literary critics of the day. His words bridged the cultural gap between Europe and America, a relatively young country that hadn't yet developed its own artistic and literary traditions.

   "Longfellow created a sort of mythology using Native Americans and various American Revolutionary war heroes to tell America's story before history books existed," says Jim Shea, site director at Longfellow National Historic Site.

   In fact, his epic poem, "Song of Hiawatha," which celebrates its 150th anniversary in November, put a human face on native peoples in a time when many still considered them savages.

A scholarly man who taught modern language and literature at nearby Harvard University, Longfellow spoke eight languages and could read as many as 12, which meant he could converse with quite diverse groups of people on countless subjects. If you judge a man by the company he keeps, Longfellow would get a favorable appraisal from most anyone.

   "The Longfellow home was a popular salon or gathering place for artists, writers, and politicians from America, Europe, and worldwide," says Shea. "People like Nathaniel Hawthorne, Charles Dickens, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Julia Ward Howe, Oscar Wilde, famous theater actors, musicians, and opera singers were regularly welcomed into the home."

   Today, the Longfellow home is one of a number of stops on The Literary Trail of Greater Boston, along with Walden Pond and the homes of Hawthorne and Louisa May Alcott, among others. But the Longfellow home laid claim to fame long before the poet was born.

   Built in 1759, the home was owned by a wealthy plantation family named Vassal-loyalists whose allegiance lay with the King of England. When Americans declared their independence from Britain and war broke out, the Vassal family left the country and abandoned the house, leaving it in the hands of slaves who had served the family for years. Shortly thereafter, General George Washington took over the home, establishing it as his first major headquarters during the Revolutionary War, planning the Siege of Boston between July 1775 and April 1776, and calling it home for several months, until moving to New York.

   Sixty years later, Longfellow returned from his travels in Europe, a young widower, renting a room in the home where he would spend the next 45 years of his life. The house soon passed into the possession of Nathan Appleton, whose daughter, Frances, married Longfellow in 1843; the home was given to the couple as a wedding gift. And that growing family eventually contributed to the diverse collections within the home.

   "Longfellow's son Charlie was a very early explorer, traveling through Southeast Asia for years, and living in Japan from 1871 to 1873," says Shea. "While he was there, he amassed a great collection of items from Japan and sent them back to the house in Cambridge, along with journals, letters, and photographs, making the Longfellow home one of the earliest places in the country to house [an extensive Asian collection] in a private home."

   The house has been undergoing renovations for the last four years, and now Park Service employees and contractors are pointing their attention to the museum collection, cleaning and conserving the library's collections and the antique furniture.

The restoration to the home is complete, but the formal garden and landscaping are still being restored to their original glory with help of Friends of the Longfellow House and the wider community. During the winter and spring months the site is closed to the general public, but researchers and specially arranged tours keep the building full of visitors. The home is expected to reopen in early June, and visitors are welcome every Sunday afternoon during the annual summer festival, which includes poetry readings and musical performances that recall the days when the Longfellow home was a world-renowned destination for lovers of literature and the arts.