February, 2007

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February, 2007

OT

Longfellow's love: Legend or fact?

news@TimesRecord.Com 02/08/2007

By Bonnie W. Mason, Times Record Contributor Special to Ticket

Arts Around the Mid-coast
Find local arts and entertainment events in Midcoast Maine. Every Thursday in The Times Record. VIEW A LIST OF SOME AREA EVENTS ON-LINE.

BRUNSWICK Shhh. Don't tell anyone. It's just gossip. And anyway, the only two people who know the truth are Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Susan Chase. And they are not here to defend themselves, so it's not really fair is it?

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From which of Longfellow's works do these quotes

It can happen here

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come?

1. Music is the
universal language of mankind,/poetry their universal pastime and delight.

2. I heard the trailing

garments of the Night,/Sweep through her marble halls.

3. And the skipper

had taken his little daughter,/ To bear him company.

4. Under the
Local activities plannned?
Have activities you'd like our readers to know about? Please contact the news dept.or mail your news release to: The Times Record, P.O. Box 10, Brunswick, ME 04011. To contact the editorial dept., go to our "About Us" page

spreading chestnuttree/ The village smithy stands;

5. I shot an arrow into

the air,/ It fell to earth, I knew not where

6. Sail on, Oh Ship of

State/ Sail on, Oh Union, strong and great!

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7. Why don't you

speak for yourself, John?

8. A boy's will is the

wind's will.

9. One if by land, and

two if by sea;

10. There was a little

girl/ Who had a little curl/Right in the middle of her forehead;

But if you promise, really promise, I'll tell you the story. And it is just a story. From 1822 to 1825, when young Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was a student at Bowdoin College, he reportedly was seen walking from the college campus to Pennellville. Now here's where the speculation begins. Did young Henry walk out to watch the ships being built in Pennellville by the Pennell shipbuilders? Or did the now famous student walk out to watch the tide come in?

11. Nothing that is can

pause or stay

12. "Oh, Caesar, we

who are about to die/ Salute you!" was the gladiator's cry.
These quotes were compiled with the help of "Familiar Quotations" by John Barlett and also "Longfellow's Complete Poetical Works," Cambridge Edition, 1863.

SEE BOTTOM OF STORY FOR ANSWERS

Did he sometimes wander over to Bunganuc Road to visit the Samuel Chase family who raised six young women, many of whom married into the Pennell clan? And if so, why? Was it because the youthful poet's maternal grandfather, General Peleg Wadsworth, had been friends with Benjamin Chase, Samuel Chase's father, during the Revolutionary War? William Barry, at the reference desk of the Maine Historical Society, says he can find no Revolutionary War link between the Chases and the Wadsworths or Longfellows. "Perhaps," he says, "Benjamin Chase was a Revolutionary War captain (as is stated on a plaque found in the old Chase home) but I cannot find it here." Still, there's a possibility that the families knew each other, says Charles Calhoun, author of "Longfellow, A Rediscovered Life." "Maine was a small place, and the leading families all knew each other," he explained. "The Chases and the Longfellows were all leading gentry of the day," explained Weld Henshaw, a retired Boston lawyer, as he tramped through the snow on his property near the small cemetery where Samuel and Mary Chase are buried off Bunganuc Road. And on these alleged visits to see the Chases, did Longfellow make the acquaintance of a special Chase daughter, one named Susan

Chase? Henshaw, who at one time lived in the Chase home, at 380 Bunganuc Road, after his parents bought it, but before his nephew, John Henshaw, renovated it, first heard the legend as a youth from Robert Tristam Coffin, former Maine poet laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner. His mother and grandmother had once befriended Coffin's daughter who got caught in a thunderstorm riding her bicycle in front of their house. They took her home in their station wagon, where Coffin invited them in. "The whiskey bottles popped open," said Henshaw. "And Coffin told us the tale." It has been said by some, who don't want to be named, that Coffin was a better storyteller than he was an historian, but no matter, a story is a story. And the fact that it has persisted so long is interesting, said Calhoun, who also is a scholar-in-residence at the Maine Humanities Council. "Even if the story were true," says Christoph Irmscher, author of "Longfellow Redux," "and I haven't seen any references to it anywhere it wouldn't change our perception of Longfellow one bit. He was a very sensual man, and even before his marriage, he was involved with a number of women we know about a girl in Spain with whom he seems to have fallen in love with in 1827, Florencia Gonzalez, and in Rome he became romantically interested in Giula Persiana s o all of this would be old news." Old news? To a highly respected, serious Longfellow scholar such as Irmscher, indeed it would be. But to those of us who enjoy the spinning of yarns, perhaps it wouldn't. Nancy Pennell of Pennellville said the legend was passed down to her from her mother-in-law, Alice Coffin Pennell. And Robert P. Tristam Coffin's son, Richard Coffin, of Falmouth, said he has always heard about Longfellow's letters to Susan which Susan's niece, Mary Ellen Pennell, supposedly burned after Susan's death.

Legend of 'The Old Clock'

The old Chase home is not open to the public although at one time it was a tavern. It is now the residence of John Henshaw and his wife. There is a legend that a clock on the stairs in the Chase home inspired Longfellow's famous poem, "The Old Clock on the Stairs." Says Irmscher: "In Longfellow's journal he doesn't mention a specific clock as having inspired the poem but talks instead about a literary source, Jacques Bridaine, a French Jesuit. "Tradition has it that the old clock was in the Appleton family estate in Pittsfield, Mass., this is what all his contemporaries and friends assumed. Again, this doesn't really matter I find Longfellow's source (Bridaine) far more interesting than the question where the clock was that he had in mind. His journal entry ('a Clock') suggests he wasn't thinking of a specific one anyway." According to Anita Israel, archives specialist at the Longfellow National Historic Site, a letter written by Longfellow is archived there that said that the clock was the one that stood in Mrs. Longfellow's grandfather's house in Pittsfield, Mass. "Apparently," she said, "Longfellow first became acquainted with it when he and his second wife, Fanny Appleton, went to Pittsfield

Were they love letters, those letters to visit her grandmother, that Robert P. Tristam Coffin wrote Mrs. Gold, on their bridal about in his 1939 book, "Captain trip." Abby and Captain John"? Were they kept in a trunk all Susan Chase's life, as Coffin speculated? Nobody knows. "People in the Victorian Age never talked about sex," said Richard Coffin, "or anything that somebody might think would be bad." No letters from Susan Chase to Longfellow, however, can be found at the Harvard Houghton Library, according to Anita Israel, archives specialist, Longfellow National Historic Site. "Victorian families were famous for editing family papers to remove any hint of scandal," said Calhoun. "We have found nothing in our collections to support or deny the rumor," said Richard Lindemann, director of the George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections and Archives at the Bowdoin College Library. But even people in Pennellville who aren't related to the Pennells have heard the legend about Susan Chase and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Speculation continues to this day. Did Longfellow perhaps want to marry Susan, as history buff, Frank Connors, of Bowdoinham, suggested? Did her father refuse a poet because he wanted a sea captain? Or did Susan want to marry Longfellow but the poet preferred to follow his father's wishes, which may have been for him to marry Mary Potter, the daughter of a Portland lawyer who was his father's friend? And here's another spin: Perhaps Susan Chase rejected Longfellow just like she did all the other suitors that Robert P. Tristam Coffin claimed came to her door. She never married. Calhoun has a different theory: "Maybe the Longfellow (in this story) was Henry's scapegrace older brother Stephen, also a Bowdoin student at that time. He was far wilder than Henry. In later years, especially as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow got famous, maybe their identities were conflated in local

reminiscence." But the facts remain. "The two great loves of Longfellow's life were Mary Potter and Fanny Appleton," said Calhoun. Weld Henshaw disagreed. "Longfellow broke Susan's heart twice." Once, when he married Mary Potter. And a second time when he chose to pursue Fanny Appleton in Boston after he moved to Cambridge to teach at Harvard University. "Maybe little Susan Chase wasn't going to hack it," suggested Henshaw. "Longfellow may have had greater social ambitions." Irmscher, professor of English at Indiana University, differs with that opinion. "Longfellow was a very ethical man, and while he liked women, he did not decide whom to be with on the basis of money or social status," he said. His seven-year-long courtship of Fanny had nothing to do with economic aspirations," he said. It was all about love. Will we ever know the truth about Longfellow and Susan Chase? Probably not, unless some letters surface that have been reportedly lost. But, "It's a story I like to tell," said Henshaw.
Answers: 1. Outre-Mer; 2. Hymn to Night; 3. The Wreck of the Hesperus; 4. The Village Blacksmith; 5. The Arrow and the Song; 6. The Building of the Ship; 7. The Courship of Miles Standish; 8. My Lost Youth; 9. Tales of a Wayside Inn. Paul Revere's Ride; 10. There Was a Little Girl; 11. Keramos; 12. Morituri Salutamus.

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ADVERTISEMENT

OT

Longfellow's love: Legend or fact?

news@TimesRecord.Com 02/08/2007

By Bonnie W. Mason, Times Record Contributor Special to Ticket

Arts Around the Mid-coast
Find local arts and entertainment events in Midcoast Maine. Every Thursday in The Times Record. VIEW A LIST OF SOME AREA EVENTS ON-LINE.

BRUNSWICK Shhh. Don't tell anyone. It's just gossip. And anyway, the only two people who know the truth are Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Susan Chase. And they are not here to defend themselves, so it's not really fair is it?

AD

Take a Longfellow poetry trivia quiz

From which of Longfellow's works do these quotes come?

It can happen here

A special series on Elder Abuse in Maine.
READ MORE about Elder Abuse subjects in our

13. Music is the

universal language of mankind,/poetry their universal pastime and delight.

Features Section

14. I heard the trailing

garments of the Night,/Sweep through her marble halls.

15. And the skipper

had taken his little daughter,/ To bear him company.

16. Under the

spreading chestnuttree/ The village smithy stands; Local activities plannned?
Have activities you'd like our readers to know about? Please contact the news dept.or mail your news release to: The Times Record, P.O. Box 10, Brunswick, ME 04011. To contact the editorial dept., go to our "About Us" page

17. I shot an arrow into

the air,/ It fell to earth, I knew not where

18. Sail on, Oh Ship of

State/ Sail on, Oh Union, strong and great!

ABOUT US
About Us Advertise with us Submit an Announcement Letters to the Editor Photo Reprints Submit a Classified Ad Subscribe to The Times Record Where to find The Times Record Employment at The Times Record Area Support Groups

19. Why don't you

speak for yourself, John?

20. A boy's will is the

wind's will.

21. One if by land, and

two if by sea;

22. There was a little

girl/ Who had a little curl/Right in the middle of her forehead;

23. Nothing that is can

pause or stay

24. "Oh, Caesar, we

who are about to die/ Salute you!" was the gladiator's

But if you promise, really promise, I'll tell you the story. And it is just a story. From 1822 to 1825, when young Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was a student at Bowdoin College, he reportedly was seen walking from the college campus to Pennellville. Now here's where the speculation begins.

cry.
These quotes were compiled with the help of "Familiar Quotations" by John Barlett and also "Longfellow's Complete Poetical Works," Cambridge Edition, 1863.

SEE BOTTOM OF STORY FOR ANSWERS

Did young Henry walk out to watch the ships being built in Pennellville by the Pennell shipbuilders? Or did the now famous student walk out to watch the tide come in? Did he sometimes wander over to Bunganuc Road to visit the Samuel Chase family who raised six young women, many of whom married into the Pennell clan? And if so, why? Was it because the youthful poet's maternal grandfather, General Peleg Wadsworth, had been friends with Benjamin Chase, Samuel Chase's father, during the Revolutionary War? William Barry, at the reference desk of the Maine Historical Society, says he can find no Revolutionary War link between the Chases and the Wadsworths or Longfellows. "Perhaps," he says, "Benjamin Chase was a Revolutionary War captain (as is stated on a plaque found in the old Chase home) but I cannot find it here." Still, there's a possibility that the families knew each other, says Charles Calhoun, author of "Longfellow, A Rediscovered Life." "Maine was a small place, and the leading families all knew each other," he explained. "The Chases and the Longfellows were all leading gentry of the day," explained Weld Henshaw, a retired Boston lawyer, as he tramped through the snow on his property near the small cemetery where Samuel and Mary Chase are buried off Bunganuc Road. And on these alleged visits to see the Chases, did Longfellow make the acquaintance of a special Chase daughter, one named Susan Chase?

Henshaw, who at one time lived in the Chase home, at 380 Bunganuc Road, after his parents bought it, but before his nephew, John Henshaw, renovated it, first heard the legend as a youth from Robert Tristam Coffin, former Maine poet laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner. His mother and grandmother had once befriended Coffin's daughter who got caught in a thunderstorm riding her bicycle in front of their house. They took her home in their station wagon, where Coffin invited them in. "The whiskey bottles popped open," said Henshaw. "And Coffin told us the tale." It has been said by some, who don't want to be named, that Coffin was a better storyteller than he was an historian, but no matter, a story is a story. And the fact that it has persisted so long is interesting, said Calhoun, who also is a scholar-in-residence at the Maine Humanities Council. "Even if the story were true," says Christoph Irmscher, author of "Longfellow Redux," "and I haven't seen any references to it anywhere it wouldn't change our perception of Longfellow one bit. He was a very sensual man, and even before his marriage, he was involved with a number of women we know about a girl in Spain with whom he seems to have fallen in love with in 1827, Florencia Gonzalez, and in Rome he became romantically interested in Giula Persiana s o all of this would be old news." Old news? To a highly respected, serious Longfellow scholar such as Irmscher, indeed it would be. But to those of us who enjoy the spinning of yarns, perhaps it wouldn't. Nancy Pennell of Pennellville said the legend was passed down to her from her mother-in-law, Alice Coffin Pennell. And Robert P. Tristam Coffin's son, Richard Coffin, of Falmouth, said he has always heard about Longfellow's letters to Susan which Susan's niece, Mary Ellen Pennell, supposedly burned after Susan's death.

Legend of 'The Old Clock'

The old Chase home is not open to the public although at one time it was a tavern. It is now the residence of John Henshaw and his wife. There is a legend that a clock on the stairs in the Chase home inspired Longfellow's famous poem, "The Old Clock on the Stairs." Says Irmscher: "In Longfellow's journal he doesn't mention a specific clock as having inspired the poem but talks instead about a literary source, Jacques Bridaine, a French Jesuit. "Tradition has it that the old clock was in the Appleton family estate in Pittsfield, Mass., this is what all his contemporaries and friends assumed. Again, this doesn't really matter I find Longfellow's source (Bridaine) far more interesting than the question where the clock was that he had in mind. His journal entry ('a Clock') suggests he wasn't thinking of a specific one anyway." According to Anita Israel, archives specialist at the Longfellow National Historic Site, a letter written by Longfellow is archived there that said that the clock was the one that stood in Mrs. Longfellow's grandfather's house in Pittsfield, Mass. "Apparently," she said, "Longfellow first became acquainted with it when he and his second wife, Fanny Appleton, went to Pittsfield to visit her grandmother, Mrs. Gold, on their bridal

Were they love letters, those letters trip." that Robert P. Tristam Coffin wrote about in his 1939 book, "Captain Abby and Captain John"? Were they kept in a trunk all Susan Chase's life, as Coffin speculated? Nobody knows. "People in the Victorian Age never talked about sex," said Richard Coffin, "or anything that somebody might think would be bad." No letters from Susan Chase to Longfellow, however, can be found at the Harvard Houghton Library, according to Anita Israel, archives specialist, Longfellow National Historic Site. "Victorian families were famous for editing family papers to remove any hint of scandal," said Calhoun. "We have found nothing in our collections to support or deny the rumor," said Richard Lindemann, director of the George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections and Archives at the Bowdoin College Library. But even people in Pennellville who aren't related to the Pennells have heard the legend about Susan Chase and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Speculation continues to this day. Did Longfellow perhaps want to marry Susan, as history buff, Frank Connors, of Bowdoinham, suggested? Did her father refuse a poet because he wanted a sea captain? Or did Susan want to marry Longfellow but the poet preferred to follow his father's wishes, which may have been for him to marry Mary Potter, the daughter of a Portland lawyer who was his father's friend? And here's another spin: Perhaps Susan Chase rejected Longfellow just like she did all the other suitors that Robert P. Tristam Coffin claimed came to her door. She never married. Calhoun has a different theory: "Maybe the Longfellow (in this story) was Henry's scapegrace older brother Stephen, also a Bowdoin student at that time. He was far wilder than Henry. In later years, especially as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow got famous, maybe their identities were conflated in local reminiscence."

But the facts remain. "The two great loves of Longfellow's life were Mary Potter and Fanny Appleton," said Calhoun. Weld Henshaw disagreed. "Longfellow broke Susan's heart twice." Once, when he married Mary Potter. And a second time when he chose to pursue Fanny Appleton in Boston after he moved to Cambridge to teach at Harvard University. "Maybe little Susan Chase wasn't going to hack it," suggested Henshaw. "Longfellow may have had greater social ambitions." Irmscher, professor of English at Indiana University, differs with that opinion. "Longfellow was a very ethical man, and while he liked women, he did not decide whom to be with on the basis of money or social status," he said. His seven-year-long courtship of Fanny had nothing to do with economic aspirations," he said. It was all about love. Will we ever know the truth about Longfellow and Susan Chase? Probably not, unless some letters surface that have been reportedly lost. But, "It's a story I like to tell," said Henshaw.
Answers: 1. Outre-Mer; 2. Hymn to Night; 3. The Wreck of the Hesperus; 4. The Village Blacksmith; 5. The Arrow and the Song; 6. The Building of the Ship; 7. The Courship of Miles Standish; 8. My Lost Youth; 9. Tales of a Wayside Inn. Paul Revere's Ride; 10. There Was a Little Girl; 11. Keramos; 12. Morituri Salutamus.

(C) 2009 All Rights Reserved Home | News | Sports | Opinion | Obituaries | Archive | Classified | Real Estate | Merchants | Worship | Subscribe | About Us

Home | News | Sports | Opinion | Obituaries | Archive | Classified | Real Estate | Merchants | Worship | Subscribe | About Us

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