BIRTH, CHILDHOOD, AND YOUTH
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine, February 27,
1807, being the son of Stephen and Zilpah (Wadsworth) Longfellow, both
his parents having been descended from Yorkshire families which had
migrated in the seventeenth century. The name of Longfellow first
appears in English records as Langfellay, while the name of Wadsworth
sometimes appears as Wordsworth, suggesting a possible connection with
another poet. His father, Stephen Longfellow, was a graduate of Harvard
College in 1794, being a classmate of the Rev. Dr. W. E. Channing and
the Hon. Joseph Story. He became afterward a prominent lawyer in
Portland. He was also at different times a member of the Massachusetts
Legislature, Maine being then a part of that State; a member of the
celebrated "Hartford Convention" of Federalists; a presidential elector,
and a member of Congress. In earlier generations the poet's grandfather
was a judge of the Court of Common Pleas; his great-grandfather was a
graduate of Harvard College in 1742, and was afterward town
schoolmaster, parish clerk, and register of probate; his
great-great-grandfather was a "village blacksmith;" and his ancestor
once more removed, the American founder of the family, was William
Longfellow, who was born in Hampshire County, England, in 1651, and came
in early life to this country, where he engaged in mercantile pursuits.
Thus much for the paternal ancestry.
To turn to the "spindle side," Mr. Longfellow's mother was Zilpah
Wadsworth, eldest daughter of General Peleg Wadsworth, who was the son
of Deacon Peleg Wadsworth, of Duxbury, Mass., and was the fifth in
descent from Christopher Wadsworth, who came from England and settled in
that town before 1632. The Peleg Wadsworth of military fame was born at
Duxbury, and graduated from Harvard in 1769; he afterward taught school
at Plymouth, and married Elizabeth Bartlett of that town; he then took
part in the Revolution as captain of a company of minutemen, and rose to
a major-general's command, serving chiefly on the eastern frontier. He
was captured, was imprisoned, escaped, and had many stirring adventures.
When the war was over he purchased from the State no less than 7500
acres of wild land, and spent the rest of his life at Hiram, Maine,
representing his congressional district, however, for fourteen years in
the national Congress. Through the Wadsworths and Bartletts, the poet
could trace his descent to not less than four of the Mayflower pilgrims,
including Elder Brewster and Captain John Alden.
Judge Longfellow, the poet's grandfather, is described as having been "a
fine-looking gentleman with the bearing of the old school; an erect,
portly figure, rather tall; wearing, almost to the close of his life,
the old-style dress,--long skirted waistcoat, small-clothes, and
white-topped boots, his hair tied behind in a club, with black ribbon."
General Wadsworth was described by his daughter as "a man of middle
size, well proportioned, with a military air, and who carried himself so
truly that men thought him tall. His dress a bright scarlet coat, buff
small-clothes and vest, full ruffled bosom, ruffles over the hands,
white stockings, shoes with silver buckles, white cravat with bow in
front, hair well powdered and tied behind in a club, so called." The
poet was eminently well descended, both on the father's and mother's
side, according to the simple provincial standard of those days.
Stephen Longfellow and his young wife lived for a time in a brick house
built by General Wadsworth in Portland, and still known as "the
Longfellow house;" but it was during a temporary residence of the family
at the house of Samuel Stephenson, whose wife was a sister of Stephen
Longfellow, that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born. He was the second
son, and was named for an uncle, Henry Wadsworth, a young naval
lieutenant, who was killed in 1804 by the explosion of a fire-ship,
before the walls of Tripoli. The Portland of 1807 was, according to Dr.
Dwight,--who served as a sort of travelling inspector of the New England
towns of that period,--"beautiful and brilliant;" but the blight of the
Embargo soon fell upon it. The town needed maritime defences in the war
of 1812, and a sea-fight took place off the coast, the British brig
Boxer being captured during the contest by the Enterprise, and brought
into Portland harbor in 1813. All this is beautifully chronicled in the
poem "My Lost Youth:"--
"I remember the sea-fight far away,
How it thundered o'er the tide!
And the dead captains, as they lay
In their graves, o'erlooking the tranquil bay
Where they in battle died.
And the sound of that mournful song
Goes through me with a thrill;
'A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'"
Here Henry Longfellow spent his childhood and youth. Much of that strong
aversion to war which pervades the poet's verses may undoubtedly be
charged to early association with his uncle's death.
The imaginative side of his temperament has commonly been attributed to
his mother, who was fond of poetry and music, and a lover of nature in
all its aspects; one who would sit by a window during a thunderstorm, as
her youngest son has testified, "enjoying the excitement of its
splendors." She loved the retirement of a country life, and found in it,
in her own language, "a wonderful effect in tranquillizing the spirit
and calming every unpleasant emotion." She played the spinet until her
daughter's piano replaced it, and apparently read Cowper, Hannah More,
and Ossian with her children. She sent them early to school, after the
fashion of those days; this experience evidently beginning for Henry
Longfellow at three years of age, when he went with a brother of five to
a private school where he learned his letters. After several
experiments, he was transferred, at the tolerably early age of six, to
the Portland Academy. At this age, his teacher, Mr. Carter, wrote of
him, "Master Henry Longfellow is one of the best boys we have in school.
He spells and reads very well. He also can add and multiply numbers. His
conduct last quarter was very correct and amiable." He began early to
rhyme, and the first poem of his composing which is known to be
preserved in manuscript is entitled, "Venice, an Italian Song," and was
dated Portland Academy, March 17, 1820, he being then barely thirteen.
There appeared a little later, in the poets' corner of the Portland
"Gazette," the following verses, which show curiously, at the very
outset, that vibration between foreign themes and home themes which
always marks his verse:--
THE BATTLE OF LOVELL'S POND
Cold, cold is the north wind and rude is the blast
That sweeps like a hurricane loudly and fast,
As it moans through the tall waving pines lone and drear,
Sighs a requiem sad o'er the warrior's bier.
The war-whoop is still, and the savage's yell
Has sunk into silence along the wild dell;
The din of the battle, the tumult, is o'er,
And the war-clarion's voice is now heard no more.
The warriors that fought for their country, and bled,
Have sunk to their rest; the damp earth is their bed;
No stone tells the place where their ashes repose,
Nor points out the spot from the graves of their foes.
They died in their glory, surrounded by fame,
And Victory's loud trump their death did proclaim;
They are dead; but they live in each Patriot's breast,
And their names are engraven on honor's bright crest.
These verses cannot be assigned to the domain of high art, most
certainly, but they mark in this case the beginning of a career, and
milestones are always interesting. It was Longfellow's first poem, and
he chose an American subject. We know from him the circumstances of the
reception of this youthful effort. When the morning paper arrived it was
unfolded and read by his father, and no notice was taken of the
effusion; but when, in the evening, the boy went with his father to the
house of Judge Mellen, his father's friend, whose son Frederic was his
own playmate, the talk turned upon poetry. The host took up the
morning's "Gazette." "Did you see the piece in to-day's paper? Very
stiff. Remarkably stiff; moreover, it is all borrowed, every word of
it." No defence was offered. It is recorded that there were tears on the
young boy's pillow that night.
The young Henry Longfellow went to various schools, as those of Mrs.
Fellows and Mr. Carter, and the Portland Academy, then kept by Mr.
Bezaleel Cushman, a Dartmouth College graduate. In 1821, he passed the
entrance examinations of Bowdoin College, of which his father was a
trustee. The college itself was but twenty years old, and Maine had only
just become an independent State of the Union, so that there was a
strong feeling of local pride in this young institution. Henry
Longfellow's brother, Stephen, two years older than himself, passed the
examinations with him, but perhaps it was on account of the younger
brother's youth--he being only fourteen--that the boys remained a year
longer at home, and did not go to Brunswick until the beginning of the
Sophomore year. Henry's college life was studious and modest. He and
Nathaniel Hawthorne were classmates, having been friends rather than
intimates, and Hawthorne gives in his "Fanshawe" a tolerably graphic
picture of the little rural college. Neither of the two youths cared
much for field sports, but both of them were greatly given to
miscellaneous reading; and both of them also spent a good deal of time
in the woods of Brunswick, which were, and still are, beautiful.
Longfellow pursued the appointed studies, read poetry, was fond of
Irving, and also of books about the Indians, an experience which in
later life yielded him advantage.
It is just possible that these books may have revived in him a regret
expressed in one of his early college letters that he had not gone to
West Point instead of Bowdoin,--some opportunity of appointment to the
military school, perhaps through his uncle, General Wadsworth, having
possibly been declined in his behalf.{2} It is curious indeed to reflect
that had he made this different selection, he might have been known to
fame simply as Major-General Longfellow.
Hon. J. W. Bradbury, another classmate, describes Henry Longfellow as
having "a slight, erect figure, delicate complexion, and intelligent
expression of countenance," and further adds: "He was always a gentleman
in his deportment, and a model in his character and habits." Still
another classmate, Rev. David Shepley, D. D., has since written of
Longfellow's college course: "He gave urgent heed to all departments of
study in the prescribed course, and excelled in them all; while his
enthusiasm moved in the direction it has taken in subsequent life. His
themes, felicitous translations of Horace, and occasional contributions
to the press, drew marked attention to him, and led to the expectation
that his would be an honorable literary career." He spent his vacations
in Portland, where the society was always agreeable, and where the
women, as one of his companions wrote, seemed to him "something
enshrined and holy,--to be gazed at and talked with, and nothing
further." In one winter vacation he spent a week in Boston and attended
a ball given by Miss Emily Marshall, the most distinguished of Boston's
historic belles, and further famous as having been the object of two
printed sonnets, the one by Willis and the other by Percival. He wrote
to his father that on this occasion he saw and danced with Miss
Eustaphiève, daughter of the Russian consul, of whom he says, "She is an
exceedingly graceful and elegant dancer, and plays beautifully upon the
pianoforte." He became so well acquainted in later days with foreign
belles and beauties that it is interesting to imagine the impression
made upon him at the age of twenty-one by this first social experience,
especially in view of the fact that after his returning from Europe, he
records of himself that he never danced, except with older ladies, to
whom the attention might give pleasure.
{2 From a manuscript letter not dated as to year, but written,
apparently, while he was a freshman.}