ress. Through the Wadsworths and Bartletts, the poet
could trace his descent to not less than four of the Mayflower pilgrims,
including Elder Brewster and Captain John Alden.

Judge Longfellow, the poet's grandfather, is described as having been "a
fine-looking gentleman with the bearing of the old school; an erect,
portly figure, rather tall; wearing, almost to the close of his life,
the old-style dress,--long skirted waistcoat, small-clothes, and
white-topped boots, his hair tied behind in a club, with black ribbon."
General Wadsworth was described by his daughter as "a man of middle
size, well proportioned, with a military air, and who carried himself so
truly that men thought him tall. His dress a bright scarlet coat, buff
small-clothes and vest, full ruffled bosom, ruffles over the hands,
white stockings, shoes with silver buckles, white cravat with bow in
front, hair well powdered and tied behind in a club, so called." The
poet was eminently well descended, both on the father's and mother's
side, according to the simple provincial standard of those days.

Stephen Longfellow and his young wife lived for a time in a brick house
built by General Wadsworth in Portland, and still known as "the
Longfellow house;" but it was during a temporary residence of the family
at the house of Samuel Stephenson, whose wife was a sister of Stephen
Longfellow, that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born. He was the second
son, and was named for an uncle, Henry Wadsworth, a young naval
lieutenant, who was killed in 1804 by the explosion of a fire-ship,
before the walls of Tripoli. The Portland of 1807 was, according to Dr.
Dwight,--who served as a sort of travelling inspector of the New England
towns of that period,--"beautiful and brilliant;" but the blight of the
Embargo soon fell upon it. The town needed maritime defences in the war
of 1812, and a sea-fight took place off the coast, the British brig
Boxer being captured during the contest by the Enterprise, and brought
into Portland harbor in 1813. All this is beautifully chronicled in the
poem "My Lost Youth:"--

"I remember the sea-fight far away,
How it thundered o'er the tide!
And the dead captains, as they lay
In their graves, o'erlooking the tranquil bay
Where they in battle died.
And the sound of that mournful song
Goes through me with a thrill;
'A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'"