A visit to the past

Last weekend, thanks to the nation-wide Free Museum Day, I did something. I drove to Portland (which admittedly was not free – it’s about a 45 minute drive) and visited the Wadsworth-Longfellow house. The poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow moved to this house on one of Portland’s main drags (Congress Street) in 1807, when he was a few months old; he left permanently when he went to Europe for the first time in 1826, on a trip that lasted three years (ah, those were the days). However, Henry’s favorite sister Anne (he had four sisters, as well as three brothers) continued to live in the house until she died in 1901. She bequeathed the house to the Maine Historical Society, which opened it to the public in 1902, making it the oldest house museum open to the public in Maine.

And as a matter of fact it is also the oldest standing structure in Portland, having been built by Henry’s maternal grandfather, General Peleg Wadsworth (Peleg – now there’s a name we’re glad didn’t catch on), who came to the area as a soldier during the Revolutionary War, and stayed. The house was built in 1785-86, the first brick house in Portland. Peleg and his wife reared 10 children in this house, and then his daughter Zilpah (another name that has, happily, not stayed the course) and her husband, Stephen Longfellow, raised their eight in it. When you’re going through the house it’s hard to imagine that many people crowded into the available space. None of the rooms is particularly large, and until 1815 there were only four bedrooms, on the second floor. A third story was added in that year, and then the youngsters were able to have their own rooms, instead of having to share not only a room, but a bed. But this always strikes me when I visit old houses in the U.S. – how little space people had in which to carry out the mundane tasks of their lives.

The house is beautifully maintained, full of the furniture and everyday objects that three generations of the same family used, over more than 100 years. I learned all sorts of interesting things through this visit – besides what I just trotted out, above – not least of which was that HWL was a real celebrity in his day. Of course, thanks to high school English, I knew he was a famous poet, though I couldn’t for the life of me remember which were some of his poems (a glance at the Maine Historical Society’s Poems Database reminds me: “I shot an arrow into the air? It came to earth I knew not where...” Or how about: “Listen my children and you shall hear...” Or “On the shores of Gitchee Gumee/of the shining Big Sea Water...” All of which represent far from his best poetry, but you know high school English classes). But he eventually became one of the most published, and renowned, men in the Western world. When he died, various products used his image on their packaging and advertising, because it would help sales.

Can you imagine a poet enjoying that kind of adulation today? You have to be a rock star or baseketball or baseball player. Oh, my goodness, what does that say about the state of our cultural life?

I also learned the appalling details of Longfellow's second wife’s death. His first wife had died following a miscarriage on a trip to Europe they made, which was bad enough. But then Fanny dies when she’s melting some sealing wax, and the candle catches her dress on fire. Two of her daughters were with her, and screamed for their father, who came running. He tried to put the fire out, badly burning his own face and hands in the effort. But Fanny was so severely burned that she died, though not before enduring a night of agonizing pain.

I have watched a husband die, and it was wrenching, but to watch a much-loved spouse die in such a horrible way has got to be one of the worst things life, which is just loaded with dreadful happenings it can throw at you, can throw at you.

I would have to say the main thing I learned from my free visit to this little museum on the streets of Portland was that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was a much more interesting...fellow...than a line like “On the shores of Gitchee Gumee” might suggest. And it has made me want to learn more about him.