The Longfellow House

A couple weeks ago I went on a tour of what is now known as the Longfellow House in Cambridge. It's right down the street from where we go to church (at the Episcopal Divinity School actually. our building burnt down).

This house has a lot of history. It was built by a Tory, a guy loyal to the British, back in the mid 1700s. But when Washington and his men were taking control of Cambridge and later Boston, all the Tories left. Washington took over this house to live in and to be used as a headquarters.

Then much later (around the mid 1800s) a young Henry Wadsworth Longfellow rented a room out of the house while he attended Harvard (or he was a teacher there...I forget). When he married his second wife, Francis Appleton, he asked his father-in-law to buy that house for them. Francis' dad worked in textiles, I think he owned a mill...or was somehow involved with one. That's why there are all different kinds of carpets in the house. Not only was it the style then, but Mr.Appleton used it as a way to showcase his product. There was also a lot of colorful wallpaper used which was also so "in". I loved all the colors and patterns, hence all the pictures.



And what's really cool is that after the tour (which was done expertly by a park ranger lady who dramatically recited Longfellow's poetry) we were able to go down to the basement to meet the archivist! It was really neat. All the papers, documents and items concerning the house and the Longfellow family are all kept there. What's even cooler is that I get to volunteer there. H.W. Longfellow owned a lot of books and I get to do some data entry to get the handwritten cards which catalog all the books into a computer database. I'm really looking forward to going to this house every week!!