Longfellow House-Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site — Attraction in Cambridge

I used to live in Boston in the nineties and always wanted to tour the Longfellow Home but was never able to, so I jumped at the chance to visit in the summer of 2024. I was touring with my two sons, aged 12 and 15. I had always loved the stories and works of Longfellow and hoped to learn more about him and his family on the tour. That was not the case, however. I will start by saying that there are several tours you can take of Longfellow house, the tours focusing on the queer people who lived in the home, the African American enslaved people who lived in the home or just the standard tour. I chose the standard tour, assuming it would focus on the Longfellow family and possibly George Washington’s stay there as well.

The tour began by talking extensively about the enslaved family that had lived there long before the Longfellows (who were abolishionists). We were told all the names of these individuals and how they ended up getting government assistance when their Tory owners fled the country and they were given their freedom as a result. I enjoyed hearing their story but was surprised that they didn’t talk at all about the story of the original owners of the home that had fled. As we continued the tour, it focused heavily on the furniture and decorations and on Longfellow’s unmarried daughter, Alice, who, due to her longstanding friendship with another single woman, was deemed as queer by the Longfellow staff. She also had a nephew whom they also mentioned was assumed to be gay. My skin crawled as I listened with my young sons as they talked extensively about the sexual leanings of the queer occupants of the home yet never even mentioned the loving relationship Henry and Fanny shared or the love they both gave their children, who were never named beyond Alice.

They also covered every detail of the furnishings and his love of philosophy but didn’t mention his love of God. They barely touched on Washington except to share that he was a slave owner (even though he didn’t have any slaves with him at Longfellow house). I asked the tour guide why she didn’t tell us about the story behind the song, “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” that was written after a fire in the home. Her answer was that it was a disturbing story that they felt would be hard for children and visitors to hear. I thought, “A story of overcoming a great trial with the help of family and God is too traumatic to children while focusing on slavery and sexuality isn’t?”

Ultimately, I found the tour extremely disappointing and depressing as its focus was heavily slanted toward a few stories in the home at the exclusion of THE story of the home, Longfellow and his family. They were a most beautiful and unique family who loved each other, loved life, loved God and loved their country. It was sad that none of this was shared in the tour of “The...

Summary: The house is beautiful and a must-see for fans of Longfellow; the tour guide is a necessary evil - the price to be paid/endured for access to the house.

The house and gardens are exquisite. The tour provides unprecedented access to the personal belongings, spaces, and artwork of the Longfellow family. In this regard, the tour is amazing. One could spend hours soaking it all in... if not for the constraints of the tour guide.

The standard tour lasts for about an hour. Our guide was friendly and knowledgeable. If he had stuck to answering questions, it would have been an amazing experience.

Instead, he went off on tangential monologues focused on topics that had little to do with the reasons that most people travel to a house made famous by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. For example, the guide went out of his way to discuss and name (several times) the enslaved people who had been in the house long before its namesake (an ardent abolitionist) lived there. He made a lengthy biographical outline of one of these slaves, while only giving scant attention to Longfellow's own children.

One exception that he made was to shoehorn in a modern interpretation of the personal correspondence of one of Longfellow's daughters that concludes that she was a lesbian because she had a close female friend. He also dedicated some of the precious time of to tour to discuss a grandson that was reportedly gay. This discussion of the sex lives of minor characters in the Longfellow story were given in a way that was very much inappropriate for my children that were on the tour.

He made sure to mention that Longfellow benefited from slavery because his father in law who gifted him the house had made his money in industry supported by slavery, exposing his sins while extolling the virtues of his allegedly LGBT descendants.

He dedicated little time to Longfellow's relationship with his wife, and the role of his wife as his companion and editor. He said little about his dedication to his children, the tragedy of losing his wife, and the Christian faith that led him to pen poems such as "Christmas Bells." In fact, Longfellow's Christianity was completely ignored - apparently not a story worth telling, regardless of its importance to the author. So many other parts of the story of Longfellow's life were ignored so that the park ranger could share his personal agenda. There was comparatively little time to discuss and ask questions about the artifacts in the house and how they related to Longfellow's life and works. In this regard it was a huge disappointment.

I do recommend the tour, but just know that you will have to listen to biased tangents that are propagandistic in their elevation of popular, culturally privileged agendas at the cost of telling the...

Summary: House was beautiful. Tour guide has an extremely woke agenda.

Our family of 8, from Texas, toured this beautiful home recently and were all turned off by the tour guide’s lack of respect for America’s greatest president, George Washington. It was disappointing to witness someone focusing solely on President Washington’s role as a slave holder. (Does she realize that he inherited those individuals from his father at the age of 11!!??) As another commenter said, surely our generation will be judged just as harshly as our Founding Fathers and Mothers have been. True historians know you can’t judge a society solely based on what we today know and practice. The context will always be skewed 200 years later….

As for the Henry Longfelllow history, that too (surprise, surprise) was very agenda-driven. She seemed to only want to highlight the (supposed) gay/lesbian “story” of Longfellow’s daughter and grandson—-the daughter because she had a very close female friend (!!!!! Has she never read Anne of Green Gables??) , and the grandson because he apparently had letters written about him suspicious of his sexuality. So disappointing when there are far more worthy (and true) things to say about this incredible family. She never even brought up Longfellow’s spiritual experience upon his wife’s death! I had to bring up the fact that he was inspired to write the famous Christian carol, ‘I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day’ because of the tragedy of Fanny’s accident. And then, when I proceeded to let our group know about the awesome movie based on this wonderful family, “I Heard the Bells “, this lady tried to shut me down. When I asked her why, she said it was because it was completely inaccurate. Then, I proceeded to ask her about certain events in the movie, and if they actually occurred. She conceded, “Well, yes, that part was true….” to every single reference I made! Guess I would have done a better job of informing our group of Henry and Fanny Longfellow’s lives!...