The stately home to the right should be the subject of my photo, or perhaps the meticulously preserved interior, but I’ve always loved the garden. Brattle is a quiet street off of Harvard Square, and the garden is a lovely little oasis for contemplation. George Washington doubtless had little free time after he set up his command here to build a revolutionary army. The British had retreated to Boston (along with the owner of this house) after the Minutemen forced them back in Concord. A siege ensued, and the British were unable to break out of the city, taking heavy losses at Bunker Hill. Then Washington arrived here, organized, trained, and motivated his troops for nine months. In the middle of an exceptionally cold winter, using oxen to drag sledges quickly over the ice, Henry Knox delivered cannon captured in New York to the hills surrounding Boston, and the British evacuated the city permanently.

Some sixty years later, a young literature professor named Henry Wadsworth Longfellow arrived here to rent a room from the indebted landlord, and he was thrilled to stay in the famous headquarters of General Washington. His father in law bought the house for the young couple, and Longfellow wrote the poems that many of us memorized as children: A Psalm of Life, The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere, Song of Hiawatha, the Courtship of Miles Standish, and Tales of a Wayside Inn. Fortunately for us, his family protected his legacy in exceptional detail, along with heirlooms from his colorful relatives, such that “if Longfellow returned, he would be able to find his books and most of his things exactly where he left them”. The tour explains the history of all kinds of people who lived here, from the first owner’s slaves to the flamboyant Longfellow descendant who both preserved the original artifacts and entertained here in style.