Built 1761 (1761) Opened 1761 Added to NRHP 22 March 1984 | NRHP Reference # 84001365 Area 4,000 m² | |
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Nearest city Longfellow Rd., Gorham, Maine Architectural style Greek Revival architecture | ||
The Stephen Longfellow House is a historic house on Longfellow Road in Gorham, Maine. It was built in 1761, and was bought in 1775 by Stephen Longfellow, the great-grandfather of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and contains one of the state's finest Georgian interiors. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.
Description and history
The Longfellow house is located in a rural area of eastern Gorham, on the north side of Longfellow Road, opposite its junction with Dragonfly Lane. It is a 2-1/2 story wood frame structure, with a side gable roof, central chimney, clapboarded exterior, and granite foundation. Its main facade is five bays wide, with a center entrance flanked by pilasters and topped by a gabled pediment. A single-story ell extends to the northeast. The house interior is laid out in a typical center-chimney plan, with the front parlors feature carved paneling on the walls, and the center stairway featuring finely carved newel posts and an elegant handrail.
The house was built in 1761, and was purchased in 1775 by Stephen Longfellow after his Portland home was destroyed by British military forces in the Burning of Falmouth. His son, Stephen Jr., was trained as a lawyer, and was active in the town's civic affairs, and also served as a trustee of the Gorham Academy and Bowdoin College. It is known that a young Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was a visitor to what was then his grandfather's farm.