Alice Longfellow's Quest for Authenticity

In 1850, one of America's most popular poets visited Mount Vernon. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote in his journal:

Steamed to Alexandria, and then a coach to Mt. Vernon. What a road, good heavens! And in what a dilapidated, squalid condition we found everything there! Nothing fresh and beautiful but the spring, and the situation of the house overlooking a bend in the Potomac.

Later that same year on December 7, 1850, his first daughter Alice Mary Longfellow was born at their family home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Little could Longfellow have known that this child would grow one day to play such a significant role in the restoration of George Washington's beloved home.

Life in Craigie House and the Influence of Washington

Alice Mary Longfellow began her life surrounded by history and lore associated with The Father of Our Country. She was born at the Vassall House (later Craigie House), where George Washington took command of the Continental Army during the American Revolution, and where he headquartered during the Siege of Boston, from July 1775 to April 1776.

She would spend her entire life in this historic home, which her wealthy grandfather purchased in 1837 for her parents, and her father decorated throughout with an eclectic collection of Washington memorabilia and artifacts.

A Poet's Daughter

Alice Longfellow grew up with a father who was a world-wide celebrity for such popular poems as Paul Revere's Ride, The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline­, works which helped forge important historical and cultural touchstones for a young nation with an emerging identity.

Through her father, Alice was a direct descendant of Pilgrims John and Priscilla Alden, whom Longfellow immortalized in his 1858 poem, The Courtship of Miles Standish. The poem was immensely popular in both the United States and England, and ultimately helped inspire the American colonial revival movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

"Grave Alice" in The Children's Hour

During her early life, Alice Mary Longfellow was well educated and exposed to a wide range of cultural experiences through her father, who was then chair of modern languages at Harvard University.

She became a household name at the age of ten, when her father's famous poem, The Children's Hour, was published in The Atlantic Monthly. Longfellow's poetic description of idyllic family life includes the lines, "From my study I see in the lamplight, descending the broad hall stair, Grave Alice and laughing Allegra, and Edith with golden hair."

A print of his three daughters was widely circulated with this piece of prose, which remains one of the most frequently cited and favorite American poems. 

This happy domestic setting for the growing Longfellow family was not to last. Alice's mother, Fanny Appleton Longfellow, died quite suddenly from severe burn received when her dress accidentally caught fire. Her father, who was himself permanently scarred from trying to rescue his wife, was devastated and never fully recovered.