Longfellow House - Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site, Boston

This stately house on Brattle Street began life much like many of its neighbors: built by a wealthy Colonial merchant loyal to the British Crown. During the American Revolutionary War, however, loyalties became complicated. When the original owner fled back to Europe, the property was seized by revolutionaries and transformed into something far more historic.

From July 1775 to April 1776, it served as the headquarters of George Washington during the long Siege of Boston. Before he became president, before the portraits and dollar bills, Washington was here planning strategy, writing orders, and trying to figure out how to push the British out of Boston without losing the entire revolution in the process.

Several decades later, the house took on a quieter kind of fame. In 1837, poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow moved in as a tenant. By 1843, he received the property as a wedding gift, which is certainly one way to raise expectations for anniversary presents... Longfellow remained here until he died in 1882, writing some of his best-known works inside these rooms, including The Song of Hiawatha and Tales of a Wayside Inn.

Step inside today, and the first floor still feels remarkably lived in. The poet's desk, papers, furnishings, and personal objects remain in place, giving the impression that he may have simply stepped out for a walk and planned to return before sunset.

Although interior tours are mostly offered during the summer, the grounds are worth visiting year-round. The formal garden behind the house feels surprisingly removed from busy Brattle Street, trading traffic noise for birdsong and rustling leaves. In spring, lilacs, roses, and flowering trees fill the air with fragrance, while church bells drift faintly across Cambridge. A careful 2006 restoration recreated the garden’s original layout, including more than 1,700 Korean boxwoods arranged to match the low hedges Longfellow designed himself.

Still, one small literary disappointment awaits on the lawn. The grand tree shading the property is a linden, not the spreading chestnut made famous in Longfellow’s poem The Village Blacksmith. That original chestnut eventually had to be removed, but local schoolchildren turned its wood into a chair for the poet. Today, this chair still occupies a place of honor in his study as proof that even a fallen tree can enjoy a second chapter...