Longfellow House – Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site was the next place Tom and I headed in our quest for stamps. The house, at 105 Brattle Street in Cambridge, is a historic home. When Henry and Fanny Longfellow bought the house in 1844, Henry was well-acquainted with its history.
The Georgian mansion overlooking the Charles river was built in 1759 for John Vassall, a sugar plantation owner and future Loyalist. the Vasalls enslaved hundreds of people on their Jamaican plantations and kept at least seven slaves at their house in Massachusetts. Many of the homes in this area of Cambridge were owned by people who grew rich from enslaving others. In 1774 the Vassalls and their neighbors fled Massachusetts and the people they enslaved seized the opportunity for freedom.
When George Washington arrived in Cambridge in 1775 to command the Continental Army, he chose the large Vassall house as his headquarters. Here Washington strategized with his officers and received dignitaries. He had a party in the house when the British evacuated Boston in 1776. Andrew Craigie bought the house in 1791. When he died, his wife took in boarders from Harvard University. One of them was the young professor and poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Longfellow specifically rented the rooms where Washington slept.
When Longfellow married Fanny Appleton in 1843, his wife’s father gifted the couple the house as a wedding present. The Longfellows thrived in the social and intellectual atmosphere of Cambridge. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow soon left his teaching position to write full-time. The house was filled with with evidence of the Longfellows travels and personal interests. Longfellow even wrote about the house in his poem “To a Child.”
In 1913 the Longfellow children established a trust to preserve the family home and opened it to the public. The trust donated the site to the National Park Service in 1973. Today the Longfellow House – Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site struggles to maintain the house and keep it staffed. Rich people gifting their mansions to the National Park Service may seem like a good idea, but the homes have to be renovated and maintained.
Tom and I spent some time talking to two delightful rangers inside the small gift shop and entrance to the historic house. The only way to see the house is through a tour which is offered twice a day. We were there an hour before the next tour and didn’t want to wait on the site with nothing to see. Not even a movie or a museum. But both of the rangers are history majors and couldn’t believe we knew George Washington had started the French and Indian War. We shared George Washington stories for a while until some other visitors came in. I got my fifth stamp of the day and we headed out.
We would have liked to see the historic home, but the tour was 90 minutes long, which seemed a bit much. I’m sure either of those rangers would have done a good job, but we had one more place we wanted to go while we had time.