Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
From Philosopedia
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth (27 February 1807 - 24 March 1882)
Longfellow was born in Maine, the son of an attorney who was also a member of Congress. Longfellow's mother was a descendant of John Alden of the Mayflower. Henry began writing poems at 13. He graduated from Bowdoin College, where classmates included Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Longfellow traveled widely, married twice (both wives dying tragically), and became professor of modern languages at Harvard, where he taught for 18 years.
He was the 19th century's most popular American poet ("I shot an arrow into the air"). His poems included "The Village Blacksmith" and "Paul Revere's Ride," as well as "Evangeline" (1847) and "The Song of Hiawatha" (1855).
William Ellery Channing reportedly said of Longfellow, a lifelong Unitarian, that "he did not belong to any one sect but rather to the community of those free minds who loved the truth."
His daughter Alice is quoted as saying that her father was born a Unitarian and remained one all his life. William Dean Howells, in his Literary Friends and Acquaintances, says that at the most Longfellow was a non-Christian theist. “I think, he says, “that as he grew older his hold upon anything like a creed weakened, though he remained of the Unitarian philosophy concerning Christ.” The poet, he added, “did not latterly go to church.”
