Longfellow House - Washington's Headquarters

105 Brattle St, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA

Massachusetts

state

MA - Middlesex

county

MA - Cambridge

city

MUSEUM

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The Longfellow House–Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site (also known as the Vassall-Craigie-Longfellow Houseand) is a historic site located at 105 Brattle Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was the home of noted American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow for almost 50 years, and it had previously served as the headquarters of General George Washington (1775–76).

SITE FEATURES

Gardens, Gift Shop, Surviving Structures, Tours

On this site...

The original house was built in 1759 for Loyalist John Vassall Jr. owner of a slave-labor sugar plantation in Hanover, Jamaica. He inherited the land along what was called the King's Highway in Cambridge when he was 21. He demolished the structure that had stood there and built a new mansion, and the home became his summer residence with his wife Elizabeth (née Oliver) and children until 1774. Vassall's house and all his other properties were confiscated by Patriots in September 1774 on the eve of the American Revolutionary War because he was accused of being loyal to the King. He fled to Boston and later to England where he died in 1792.

HOME

EST. 1759

HEADQUARTERS

JUL 16, 1775 - APR 4, 1776

The home was used as a temporary hospital in the days after the Battles of Lexington and Concord. Colonel John Glover and the Marblehead, Massachusetts Regiment occupied the house as their temporary barracks in June 1775. General George Washington, Commander-in-Chief of the newly formed Continental Army, initially used the Benjamin Wadsworth House at Harvard College as his headquarters, but he decided that he needed more space for his staff. He moved into the Vassall House on July 16, 1775, and used it as his headquarters and home until he departed on April 4, 1776.

It was in this house that Washington received a poem written by Phillis Wheatley, the first published African-American poet. Martha Washington joined her husband in December 1775 and stayed until March 1776. She brought with her Washington's nephew George Lewis as well as her son John Parke Custis and his wife Eleanor Calvert. On Twelfth Night in January 1776, the couple celebrated their wedding anniversary in the home. Washington left the house in April 1776.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow lived in the house from the 1840s-1880s, and produced many of his most famous poems including "Paul Revere's Ride"in the study.