"All things come around to him who will but wait."
Everyone has heard this quote, or one a lot like it. But few people know that it was author Henry Wadsworth Longfellow who is attributed with saying it.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine on February 27, 1807, the second of seven children born to Stephen and Zilpah . At the time of his birth, Maine was still part of Massachusetts.
Henry began attending school when he was three years old. He was a very bright child, who quickly learned Latin, reading and multiplication. He also studied music, and with encouragement from his mother, learned to play the piano and the flute.
At the age of fourteen, Henry began attending Bowdoin College, looking to a career in law. But Henry became a scholar and was offered a teaching position after he graduated in 1825. Henry spent three years traveling Europe before returning to Bowdoin to teach Modern Languages from 1829 to 1835. Then from 1836 to 1854, Longfellow was a professor at Harvard.
Henry married Mary Potter of Portland, Maine, in 1831. While they were married, they traveled in Europe. It was during one of these trips that Mary became ill and died in 1835. Henry continued his travels and continued to teach at Harvard, eventually meeting Frances Appleton, to whom he was married in 1841.
Frances' father, Nathan Appleton, who was a wealthy Boston merchant, owned Craigie House. He gave this house, which overlooked the Charles River, to Longfellow as a wedding gift. Their home became a meeting place for students, literary and philosophical figures such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Julia Ward Howe, and Charles Sumner. During their happy marriage, Longfellow fathered six children (two boys and four girls).
It is thought that Longfellow based the heroine in Hyperion, written in 1839, on his wife Fanny. His children also influenced his writing as evidenced in his poem The Children's Hour. In 1857, Longfellow became a regular contributor to the Atlantic Monthly. In 1858, Longfellow published The Courtship of Miles Standish, which sold over 15,000 copies during the first week of publication.
On July 9, 1861, Mary Longfellow died in a fire at age 44, while sealing envelopes with matches and hot wax. Longfellow received severe burns to his hands and face, while trying to put out the fire. Because shaving was difficult due to scars from the fire, Longfellow grew the beard that has made him so recognizable.
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