Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1907-02-27
for my lady's bower
Ruilt / a lofty fOWpr
FOreVer-never!
Never-foreveri

I4N0Ig HOuSt III lnls country III WHICH
Dongfellow has taken shelter for any per-
iod of time is the object of homage. The
once stately house standing in e1le eastern
part of Portland, Ne, on, a little promon-
tory overlooking Casco Bay, within
stones throw of the birthplace of Thomas
b. Reed is not now visited by the sojourner
in 1.-THE Gem of Casco Bay because Of its
interesting architecture, for it has the same
sordid atmosphere that any other remod-
elled three-story wooden tenement house
has, but because IT was the birthplace OF
Longfellow, the man who has been called
the Poet of America. The brick house in
Congress street, Portland, is not being pre-
served by the Maine Historical society be-
cause 1t was the first house In the city
built of brick, although that is true, but
because there Longfelow spent his boyhood
days and at the age of thirteen penned his
hrst verses, entitled THE Battle of Lovell's
Pond The visitor to Brunswick, Me-, the
seat Of Bowdoin college, goes to see a GER
tain two-and-a-half story frame house, not
only because Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe
wrote Uncle Toms Cabin" beneath its
roof, when her husband was a professor
in the college. but because there Longfel-
low roomed when he was student at
Bowdoin.
The chief Longfeilow shrine is the
Crafgie house at Cambridge, In which he
spent the years between 1897 and 1882,
the year of his death. This house was a
mecca long before Longfellow died. Peo-
pie used to pass the house merely for the
sake OF seeing the benignant gray-bearded
face Of the poet as he sat in his chair at
an upper window. Almost with bated
breath one would point toward The south
east corner and say to a companion
THE guide book says that that room is
the one where, he writes his poems. They
say that he will let almost any one see
him. Let's ask him for his autograph"
He was generous in the responses FOR
| audiences and autographs, and II is said
that he sometimes saw as many as four
teen strangers in a single morning, and
wrote his autograph on an average
seventy times a day.
The Craigie house was the only one in
which Longfellow lived which had as
part of it's furnishings a historical and
romantic atmosphere to give It an added
| charm in the eyes of poet. Some of the
tragedies OF life which make little noise
in the world, but are as painful as those
which are blazoned forth in large type,
were enacted in the lives of persons liv-
ing in the house at different times.
Within its walls, also, as is generally
known, before the evacuation OF Boston
by the British. Washington organized the
rebellion into a revolution. The house
was built in 1889 by Colonel John Vassal,
young tory, who swore by King George.
General Washington took a fancy to
the house after a shot had penetrated his
first Cambridge headquarters, and moved
TO IT. Here he remained until the British
sailed away from Boston, Mrs. Washing
ton, being with him there during the
latter part of his occupancy:
Andrew Craigie. a shrewd Scotchman,
from whom the house derives it's name,
became its owner in 1898. Longfeliow
rented rooms there in 1897, and on his
marriage to Francis Elizabeth Appleton
in ls43 received the home as a gift from
the brides parents. Shortly after the
marriage Mr.. and Mrs Longfellow Visited
the Appleton summer home at Pittsheld,
and saw the old timepiece which sug-
gested the poem of The Old Clock on
the Stairs"
Craigie house was to be the scene Of
another domestic tragedy. for there In
July, 1851, Mrs. Longfellow. while anus
ing her children with some burning seal
ing wax set fire to her light summer
gown, and was so badly burned before
help came that she died.
The house, II is reported. is to be pre-
served by Boston as relic of Long
fellow because OF what he did for the city
by the writing Of "The Ride OF Paul
Revere"