Wadsworth-Longfellow House

Peleg Wadsworth (maternal grandfather of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow), commanding general of American forces in Massachusetts's District of Maine during the war, was wounded, taken prisoner, escaped, and kept fighting against British encroachment on the northeastern frontier. Wadsworth served as aide to Gen. Artemas Ward in March 1776 and as an engineer under Gen. John Thomas in 1776, assisting in laying out the defenses of Roxbury, Massachusetts. He was present at the Battle of Long Island on August 1, 1776. In 1777, he became brigadier general of militia, and in 1778, Adjutant General of Massachusetts. Wadsworth’s finest military engagement came during one of the war's worst American defeats, Penobscot Bay.

After the war, he began building in the promising seaport. The house was completed in 1786. In 1792, Peleg, an active participant in Portland's town government, was elected a senator in the Massachusetts legislature and then became Cumberland County's first representative to the United States Congress, an office he held for fourteen consecutive years. 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow lived at the Wadsworth-Longfellow House from 1807 until 1822, when he entered Bowdoin College as a sophomore. Closed November–April. Please call for tour times.