Maine Memory Network

Anne Longfellow Pierce and her aunt Lucia Wadsworth became the principal residents of the house after Stephen Longfellow died in 1849 and Zilpah Longfellow died in 1851.

Both women welcomed extended family members including nephews, cousins, brothers, sisters, and their families into the home, making it a vibrant and active place.

This image is one of the oldest photographs of the house. Elm trees frame the main entrance, while a wooden fence screens the working portion of the yard.

Samuel Bartlett Wadsworth, one of Anne Longfellow Pierce's uncles, inscribed the mat, "The House in which I was Born, Sept. 18, 1791. Erected by my father in 1785, the first brick house built in Portland."

Samuel Wadsworth moved to Eastport in 1818 and opened a ship’s chandlery, S.L. Wadsworth Company, that still operates and claims to be the nation’s oldest chandlery.

Anne Pierce became the sole owner of the property in 1864 when Lucia Wadsworth died.

By then, other family members who had lived with her had moved on to their own homes or to other activities.

While Anne continued to welcome visits from family and friends, life in the house became more solitary.

The back door of the house led to the garden, a space Anne considered her "sylvan retreat."

As Anne aged, she could only care for a small area of her favorite plants.

Even though Anne Pierce's home life was quieter, Portland bustled with activity.

Rebuilding after the fire of 1866 and riding a wave of post Civil War prosperity, local business boomed and new workers, including many immigrants, flooded into the city.

This stylish map shows the sprawling city just 10 years after the devastating fire of 1866.

The city is seen from Portland Harbor looking north toward the White Mountains in New Hampshire.

Numerous details are visible, including ships in the harbor, the buildings and wharves along Portland's peninsula, trains in transit and the open country to the north and west of the city.

By this time, the city was home to more than 32,000 residents.

Anne’s neighborhood began to change dramatically with tenements lining the back property line –– and filling neighborhoods throughout the city.

New and reconstructed buildings loomed ever taller on either side of her house.

The Morton Block, to the west of the Wadsworth-Longfellow house, was renovated in 1864, when a third floor and a mansard roof were added.

Five sections or blocks contained a variety of businesses. On the street level were candy-making shops, drug stores, and specialty products, and on the upper floors were offices, social clubs, and restaurants.

Built in 1858 with 150 rooms the Preble House, just to the east of the Wadsworth-Longfellow house, was Portland’s largest hotel at that time.

Guests were offered a range of services – residential or overnight – and the building featured commercial offices and retail shops.

A small portion of the 1858 building stands today and can be seen along the eastern property line.

"...on our own street we have had a whole summer of dust already...for in our town is the constant stir up by the horse cars. For the past months we have had the full benefit of the tearing down of brick and plastering in the old Morton block."
(- Anne Longfellow Pierce to her sister Mary, 1864)

In 1864, shortly after horse-drawn trolleys began to operate, Anne Pierce wrote to her sister Mary and complained how the dirt and dust from the trolleys made cleaning her house impossible.

Water and Waste

Members of the Wadsworth and Longfellow families drew water from wells on the property and, by the mid 1840s, from a cistern that was built in the basement.

Water from roof gutters supplied the cistern, and a hand-pump brought the water to the kitchen sink.

In order to take a bath, the family used a tin tub that could be filled with buckets of water, or they used a hand-held shower while sitting in the tub.

The wash tub was stored in the ell, close to the kitchen where water could be heated and used for bathing.

Up until the 19th century, wells, springs or cisterns provided adequate water. People used a modest amount each day -- for cooking, washing clothes, nourishing their livestock, and for an occasional bath.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow had learned about the therapeutic benefits of bathing during his studies in Germany in the 1830s.

He sponsored family members to visit a spa in Brattleboro, Vermont, where they could take "the water cure."

Made in Boston, this hand shower was found in the Longfellow house and may have been a gift from Henry to his family.

By the 1860s with the increase in population, the network of private and town wells and cisterns could not meet the needs of city residents.

In February 1866, citizens approved the formation of the Portland Water Company to improve the supply of water for domestic use, as well as for fighting fires.

Water began to flow into Portland from Sebago Lake three years later.

In 1894, Anne Longfellow Pierce added running water to her kitchen, but she never furnished the house with a bathroom or water closet.

The running water consisted of a single cold-water faucet for the kitchen sink.

Until indoor plumbing was available, many households used chamber pots as indoor toilets.

They were kept in the bedroom and saved the user from a trip to the outhouse when it was dark or cold.

The Wadsworth and Longfellow privy was located near the woodhouse, which was attached to ell at the back of the house.

Industrializing Portland

After the Civil War, Portland's industry expanded and diversified.

The industrial activity, linked with increased immigration, brought changes to the city -- especially new tenement housing for workers, and increased need for transportation, water, and sanitation services for factories and residents alike.

The E. Swasey & Co. pottery and glassware company made a wide array of utilitarian ceramics – including pots like this for baking beans.

A blotter advertises E. Swasey & Co. pottery of Portland on the front and has pink blotting paper on the reverse.

It also contains illustrations of various pots, crocks, and a teapot.

Among the text is, "Beware of mean imitations. Genuine Swasey Stoneware, Specialties Sold by Us, Lamp Chimneys, Tea Presents, Enamelled Ware, Assortments, 5c and 10c Goods, Premium Goods, Woodenware, Fruit Jars, Lamps, Gold and Ruby Glassware Decorated."

Swasey operated at 273 Commercial Street from 1890 to about 1930. The building still stands and the "Swasey" name still appears, painted on the brick.

The button lady's polished leather shoes were fashionable in the 1880s and manufactured in Portland -- and elsewhere.

Grace Lufkin McIntire of North Yarmouth owned these shoes.

The stereograph view shows the interior of an unidentified shoemakers’ shop in Portland. It is part of a series, "Maine Scenery Illustrated," created by A.D. Bonney, a Portland photographer.

All of the workers in the small shoe shop are men. By 1900, that changed as about a fifth of all women and girls in Portland worked for wages, many in factory settings.

As with shoes, fashion determined the types of manufacturing in the city. Small hat factories -- and millinery shops -- produced hats of the latest fashions for the growing consumer economy.

In 1891 Phineas Ayer and John Houston employed over 150 workers in their factory at 2 Beach Street, making men's felt hats.

The company began operating in Portland in 1876.

Between 1910 and 1940, about 50 women worked at Ayer and Houston, stitching sweatbands and adding trim. Men did the work of making the hat itself.

Vegetable, fruit, and fish canning were important parts of the Portland economy.

George Burnham and Charles Morrill founded their company in 1867 to can meat, vegetables, and fish.

Burnham & Morrill was the largest Portland cannery.

The company still operates from a factory built in 1915 near Tukey's Bridge.

In this photograph from the 1930s, women at the Burnham & Morrill plant in Portland are shown filling cans with fish flakes.

As with a number of other Portland factories, women made up an increasingly large percentage of the workforce by the early years of the 20th century.

Bottles that survive from Portland's industrial past reflect the variety of manufacturing in the city in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The square, brown glass bottle is embossed, "Schlotterbeck & Foss Co., Manufacturing Chemists, Portland, Maine."

Augustus G. Schlotterbeck and Charles S. Foss founded Schlotterbeck & Foss Company in Portland in 1866.

The company began as a prescription apothecary shop, moving to patent medicines and flavoring extracts.

The clear glass bottle has the image of a mortar and pestle embossed on it, along with the words, "Geo. C. Frye, Portland, ME."

Frye was a wholesale and retail druggist.

The small rectangular glass bottle is embossed, "Wood's Tooth Powder, Nathan Wood & Son, Portland.

The company made a variety of extracts and other apothecary products.

The glass bottle from H.H. Hay Sons of Portland contained "Hay's Antiseptic Air Freshener."

Henry H. Hay started the H.H. Hay Company in 1841 at the corner of Free and Middle streets.

The company sold chemicals and drugs, paints, oils, and other products for 52 years.

After Hay's death in 1895, his sons, Edward A. Hay and Charles M. Hay, operated as H.H. Hay & Sons.

The clear glass bottle contained 2 ounces of "Brooks Antiseptic 'Sea Breeze' Lotion" from J.W. Brooks & Co. Inc. of Portland.

This scene shows the sidewalk in front of the Morton Block, just to the west of the Wadsworth-Longfellow house, with a view to the old City Hall in Market Square.

Concurrent with Portland's growth, Anne Pierce's brother Henry Wadsworth Longfellow achieved huge international success and acclaim as a poet.

Anne resisted the opportunity to introduce modern technology into her home. Instead she embraced a sentimental view of the house and the family history that was strongly present in every room.

Because the house was a rare residential survivor amongst the modern commercial blocks lining Congress Street, Anne and her family referred to it as the "Old Original."