The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1894-05-05
LoNGFELLoW AND PORTLAND.
Mr. G. MILFORD Pierce Corrects William
Dean Howe1Is.


Mr.G. MILFORD Pierce, whose article in
the New York Sun, on so-called negro
melodies, was published in the PRESS.
has written a letter to the New York
Evening Post, correcting William Dean
Howells. Mr.. Pierce says:
ut is not surprising that William Dean
Howells, who has an article in Harper's
Magazine for May. entitled My First
Visit to New England should have
been misinformed by hackmen concern
ing the house in which the Poet Long
fellow was born in Portland, Me- Inc
house wherein he was born stood nearer
the Strand than the house illustrated
by Harper's, and was destroyed by ilre
more than sixty years ago. Another
illustration of the same article is marked
Longfellow's Mansion at Portland, Inc
poet never owned residence in that
city; the house is that of his Uncle
Samuel, with whom the Poet usually
stayed when in his native town, which
he visited every summer when ID Amer!-
ca. Mr.. Howells quotes Longfellow's
lines from the well-remembered Sea
Fight:
The dead captains as they lay
In their graves overlooking the tranquil
bay
UAOAC UACy III boebAO o&SA'
II do not find anything in MIR. How
ells's article that induce the belief that
the gentleman who escorted him to the
old Eastern cemetery knew that the poem
of the Sea Fight was almost the first
pluming of the Poets wings. He stood
on the beach at Portland when boy,
during our second war with England,
and heard the roar of the cannons of the
American Enterprise and British Boxer,
in the cool September days when the
commanders of both ships were killed
in hand-to-h hand fight on the deck OF
the Boxer a few minutes before she
struck her flag and became the prize OF
the American man-of-war. The evening
after the battle Portland clergyman,
who volunteered to read the burial ser
vice over the dead captains. discovered
that they were born on the same day of
the same year. They were of the same
height, weight and complexion, ana or
the same faith, SO by agreement with the
surviving officers of both ships it was
decided to inter both corpses in one
grave, and place one grave tablet en-
gravedswith thetaboye mentioned coin
cidences above the earth that wrapped
their clay; and thanks to the loving
care of the Maine Historical Society.
the grave and tablet are kept intact to
this day.
1.-The English captain was engaged to
beautiful young maiden in Ibis native
town who, soon after the war, visited
Portland to plant tree near the tablet
and before going away she plac a sum
of money in trust, the interest to be ex-
pended In paying for a wreath of ever
greens to be placed on the grave every
Christmas morning. Very near the
graves of the captains is the tomb of
brave old Admiral Preble, who made
the name of TIE United States terrible
among the Barbary pirates and other
enemies of his country, which he loved
SO WE'LL He was a native of Portland,
and occupied house next to the left of
the old colonial brick house.
"Portland is glorious town, set like
an emerald between the pearl-tipped
White Mountains and the bright blue
sea that rushes in by the basaltic guard
ed cliffs that line the shore which Cap
tain John Smith named Cape Elizabeth.
in honor of England's queen. There
nature wears SO comedy face, it is not
strange that Portland has given birth
to writer's like Longfellow, Mp. Willis,
Fanny Fern, Bowditch, Greenleaf, Iisley,
Deering and Beckett.
"We have spent many summers in New
England, ranging from Plymouth bay
to Eastport. where the American eagle
and the British lion meet on the border,
but we know no place SO rich in natural
beauty and colonial remains as Portland,
the good old town that was burned by
the British because it contained so many
subjects disloyal to King George"