Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (February 27, 1807 - March 24, 1882) wrote many poems which are still famous today, including the epic poem Hiawatha, and lived for most of his life in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Henry was the son of Stephen Longfellow and Zilpah Wadsworth Longfellow. He was born in Portland, Maine and his father was a lawyer and his maternal grandfather a general in the American Revolutionary War. He was descended from the Longfellow family who came to America in 1676 from Yorkshire, England[?] and from Priscilla and John Alden on his father's side.

He studied at Bowdoin College and went on to become librarian and the first professor of modern languages there after touring Europe between 1826 and 1829.

In 1831, he married Mary Storer Potter who died a few years later in Rotterdam while the couple were travelling. He took up a professorship at Harvard University and later married Frances Appleton, living at Cragie House, overlooking the Charles River.