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Wadsworth-Longfellow House was the 1800s home of renowned American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and is today the oldest standing building on the Portland peninsula. The historic house has been preserved with estate furnishings and is now a house museum operated by the Maine Historical Society. The house was completed in 1786 by Peleg Wadsworth, the American Revolutionary War General. It was the first dwelling in Portland built completely out of bricks and has two floors and a pitched roof.
Wadsworth raised ten children here. His grandson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, moved into the house with his parents when he was eight months old and lived in it for the next 35 years. The family added the third story in 1815. The last family member to live here was Anne Longfellow Pierce, who pretty much preserved the house as it was in Peleg Wadsworth's time and who was famous among the neighbors for growing oranges in the house window. She left the house to the Maine Historical Society upon her death, and the society opened the house to the public soon after.
489 Congress St, Portland, ME 04101-3414, Phone: 207-774-1822
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