6/27/2012 11:45:56 AM
Mount Auburn Cemetery
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was primarily an American poet. Some of his notable works include The Ride of Paul Revere, The Courtship of Miles Standish and Other Poems, The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline. He received a degree from Bowdoin College and eventually taught there and then at Harvard College. His first wife, Mary Storer Potter, died of complications from a pregnancy in 1831. As a young man, he rented the home that George Washington lived in during the Siege of Boston. He later purchased the home where he lived with his second wife, Frances Fanny Appleton. They had six children but in 1861 tragedy struck. While collecting locks of her children’s hair and sealing them in envelops, her dress caught on fire and she died from the burns. He retired in 1854 to concentrate on his writing and died in 1882 of a stomach ailment.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (February 27, 1807 – March 24, 1882) was an American poet and educator whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline. He was also the first American to translate Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy and was one of the five Fireside Poets.