Anne Longfellow Pierce, Portland, ca. 1890
Item 16836 info
NPS, Longfellow House-Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site
Anne Longfellow Pierce (1810-1901) bequeathed the Wadsworth-Longfellow House and property on Congress Street in Portland to the Maine Historical Society, where MHS built its Research Library and headquarters. Her estate included directions to operate the House as a museum honoring her family, especially her brother, poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Pierce told the Lewiston Journal in 1893, "It is but right that the house should belong to the public… Henry always loved the old home above any spot on earth."
Pierce lived in the Wadsworth-Longfellow home for eighty-seven of her ninety years. She married George Washington Pierce in 1832, but moved back to the family home when he died in 1835.
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