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Places – Sites – Monuments History Longfellow Park Places – Sites – Monuments History Longfellow Park Longfellow Park Address: 100 Brattle Street City: Cambridge State: Massachusetts Map and Lot Number: Map: Bromley 1903 – Longfellow Park Architect – Original Design - 1887: Eliot - Charles Eliot (1859-1897) Build Date: Circa 1887-1889 Subsequent Owners: 1843: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (-1882) Henry Wadsworth Longfellow House Address: 105 Brattle Street City: Cambridge State: Massachusetts Map and Lot Number: Map 217 – Lot 11 First Owner: Colonel John Vassall (1713-1747) Build Date: 1759 Subsequent Owners: Andrew Craigie (1754-1819) and Elizabeth “Betsy” Nancy (Shaw) Craigie (1772-1841) Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) The house was the home of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow – now Longfellow House-Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site, a memorial to the famous 19th century poet and George Washington. The house also served as headquarters for General George Washington during the Siege of Boston, July 1775 - April 1776, during the Revolutionary War. The first use in the United States of anesthesia for childbirth was administered to Fanny Longfellow at the house. The house was built in 1759 for John Vassall, who fled the Cambridge area at the beginning of the American Revolutionary War because of his loyalty to the king of England. George Washington used the abandoned home as his first official headquarters as commander of the Continental Army; the home served as his base of operations during the Siege of Boston until he moved out in July 1776. Andrew Craigie, Washington's Apothecary General, was the next person to own the home for a significant period of time. After purchasing the house in 1791, he instigated the home's only major addition. Craigie's financial situation at the time of his death in 1819 forced his widow Elizabeth Craigie to take in boarders. It was as a boarder that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow came into the home. He became its owner in 1843, when his father-in-law Nathan Appleton purchased it as a wedding gift. Longfellow lived in the house for the next four decades, producing many of his most famous poems including "Paul Revere's Ride" and "The Village Blacksmith", as well as longer works such as "Evangeline," "The Song of Hiawatha," and "The Courtship of Miles Standish." Longfellow died in 1882 and his daughter Alice Longfellow was the last of his children to live in the home. “A few days after Mr. (Henry) Longfellow’s death, Mr. Francis Brown Gilman, in conversation with his kinsman [second cousins once removed, having both descended from Rev. Nicholas and Mary Thing Gilman], Mr. Arthur Gilman of Cambridge, suggested the propriety of purchasing the open ground in front of the Longfellow mansion, on the opposite side of the street…” the beginning of Longfellow Park. – “Henry Wadsworth Longfellow” by William Sloane kennedy, The Saalfield Publishing Co, 1895, p. 234. Francis Brown Gilman was the father of Edith Gilman, whom Henry L. Rand photographed more than 28 times. Gilman - Edith (Gilman) Thacher (1876-1944) In 1913, the surviving Longfellow children established the Longfellow House Trust to preserve the home as well as its view to the Charles River. The house is owned by the United States Government and the park across Brattle Street is owned by the City of Cambridge. "In 1887 the [Longfellow Memorial] Association retained the services of Charles Eliot, a young landscape architect who had apprenticed in Frederick Law Olmsted’s office (1883-1885) in Brookline, Massachusetts, to design a park for the site. It was one of Eliot’s first independent projects, and his first park." Eliot - Charles Eliot (1859-1897) "Eliot’s plan was accepted by the Association, and was partially installed between 1887 and 1889. The major deviations from Eliot’s plan were the installation of a large stone stair case (designed by C. Howard Walker) instead of the exedra, the tightening of Eliot’s winding paths into [a more formal] oval, and the restricted use of shrubs." "Cultural Landscape Report for Longfellow National Historic Site, Vol. 1: Site History and Existing Conditions," by Catherine Evans, Landscape Architect, National Park Service, Cultural Landscape Publication No. 2, published by the Cultural Landscape Program, Division of Cultural Resources Management, North Atlantic Region, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, 1993, p. 54-55. The architect, Charles Howard Walker (1857-1936), who designed the granite seats and stair, was a Boston architect and engineer who taught at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Besides being neighbors the family of photographer Henry L. Rand (1862-1945) and the Eliots were associated by mutual friendships and the close connection of Henry’s brother, Edward Lothrop Rand (1859-1924) with the Champlain Society of Mount Desert. Charles Eliot founded the Champlain Society, writing the original Champlain Society Contract on May 5, 1880. “Among the active members of the Champlain Society was Edward Lothrup Rand. A student at the time [1880] he served as the director of botanical studies and the Society’s secretary, and prepared annual reports and a daily diary. In later years Rand used his botany notes to co-author a text with John Redfield entitled, “Flora of Mount Desert Island, Maine” in 1894 and became actively involved in the development of the [island’s] trail system…” - - “Pathmakers – Cultural Landscape Report for the Historic Hiking Trail System of Mount Desert Island: History, Existing Conditions, & Analysis” prepared by Margaret Coffin Brown, Olmstead Center for Landscape Preservation. Edward was the first Chairman of the Path Committee on Mount Desert Island from 1900 to 1907 and was “appointed Botanist in the Lafayette [Acadia] National Park” in 1919. - Report of the Secretary of the Class of 1881 of Harvard College, 1921. Charles Eliot became a notable American landscape architect. “In 1883 he became an apprentice for Frederick Law Olmsted and Company, where he worked on designs for Cushing Island, Maine (1883), Franklin Park (1884), the Arnold Arboretum (1885), the Fens (1883) in Boston, and Belle Isle Park (1884) in Detroit. In 1885, on Olmsted's advice, Eliot traveled to Europe to observe natural scenery as well as the landscape designs of Capability Brown, Humphry Repton, Joseph Paxton, and Prince Pückler-Muskau. Eliot's travel diaries provide one of the best visual assessments of European landscapes in the late 19th century. Returning to Boston in 1886, Eliot opened his own office. His commissions included White Park (1888) in Concord, New Hampshire Youngstown Gorge (1891), now called Mill Creek Park, in Youngstown, Ohio, and Salt Lake City's plan for a new town (1890). After the death of their partner Henry Sargent Codman, Olmsted's son Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. and stepson John Charles Olmsted asked Eliot to become a full partner in their firm. In March 1893 Eliot agreed, and the firm's name was changed to Olmsted, Olmsted and Eliot. Within a few months, Eliot assumed the leadership role as the elder Olmsted's health continued to fail. Eliot's work has left a lasting mark on the greater Boston area. With additional design by Guy Lowell and Arthur Shurcliff, Eliot created the remarkably fine esplanades of the Charles River between Cambridge and Boston. In 1883, he designed Longfellow Park between the Cambridge home of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and the Charles River. He pioneered many of the fundamental principles of regional planning and laid the conceptual and political groundwork for land and historical conservancies across the world. In addition, he played a central role in shaping the Boston Metropolitan Park System (the “Emerald Necklace”) designed a number of public and private landscapes, and wrote prolifically on a host of topics. Charles Eliot’s career was cut short by his death on March 25, 1897 at the age of 37 from spinal meningitis. Because of this history it is not unusual for archivists to find, when researching the subject of a Henry L. Rand photograph, that Charles Eliot may have created or influenced the scene. – This small history of Charles Eliot has been gathered from parts of his father’s book, “Charles Eliot, Landscape Architect, A Lover Of Nature And Of His kind, Who Trained Himself For A New Profession, Practised It Happily And Through It Wrought Much Good” and from pieces by those who have memorialized him. .
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