Home of Longfellow, Cambridge, MA, 1906

About this postcard

The two-story clapboard house at 105 Brattle Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts, stands behind a hedge and a short flight of steps, with white columns at the entry, green shutters, a red roof, and trees pressing in on both sides. The printed caption calls it the home of Longfellow; the house is now the Longfellow House-Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow lived here for nearly fifty years, from 1837 until his death in 1882, and before that it served as George Washington's headquarters during the siege of Boston. By 1906 it was a familiar stop for visitors to Cambridge. The card was mailed to Mae M. Perkins in South Penobscot, Maine, on July 1, 1906. The sender, signing M.E.H., apologized that a letter written the previous Saturday night had sat unsent until that day, and told her to guess the news.