One Friday afternoon in February we went behind the scenes of the Wadsworth-Longfellow House. The brick colonial style house on Congress Street served as the childhood home of poet Henry Wadsworth-Longfellow. He wrote his first poems here and the streets of Portland along with the Casco Bay coastline served as inspiration for many of his greatest works.

The Wadsworth-Longfellow House offers guided tours but some areas are not open to the public. The attic at the childhood home of one of the world's most famous writers is largely used for storage now, but it has remained essentially untouched since Henry and his siblings lived there. With the help of Kathleen Newman of the Maine Historical Society, we learned that the best kept secrets are found in the attic.

 

 

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