It was the home of noted American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow for almost 50 years, and it had previously served as the headquarters of General George Washington (1775–76).

The house was built in 1759 for Jamaican plantation owner John Vassall Jr., who fled the Cambridge area at the beginning of the American Revolutionary War because of his loyalty to the king of England.

George Washington occupied it as his headquarters beginning on July 16, 1775, and it served as his base of operations during the Siege of Boston until he moved out on April 4, 1776.

He demolished the structure that had stood there and built a new mansion,[4] and the home became his summer residence with his wife Elizabeth (née Oliver) and children until 1774.

His wife's brother was Thomas Oliver, the royal lieutenant governor of Massachusetts[4] who moved to Cambridge in 1766 and built the Elmwood mansion.

[7] Vassall's house and all his other properties were confiscated by Patriots in September 1774 on the eve of the American Revolutionary War because he was accused of being loyal to the King.

He recorded in his journal: "It is a singular circumstance that, while I am engaged in preparing for the press the letters of General Washington which he wrote at Cambridge after taking command of the American army, I should occupy the same rooms that he did at that time.

[26] Longfellow moved to Cambridge to take a job at Harvard College as Smith Professor of Modern Languages and of Belles Lettres,[27] and rented rooms on the second floor of the home beginning in the summer of 1837.

[22] Elizabeth Craigie initially refused to rent to him because she thought that he was a student at Harvard, but Longfellow convinced her that he was a professor there, as well as the author of Outre-Mer, the very book that she was reading.

[20] The first major works that Longfellow composed in the home were Hyperion, a prose romance likely inspired by his pursuit for the affections of his future wife Frances Appleton, and Voices of the Night, a poetry collection which included "A Psalm of Life".

[23] Edward Wagenknecht notes that it was these early years at the Craigie House which marked "the real beginning of Longfellow's literary career".

[31] Joseph Emerson Worcester leased the property from Elizabeth Craigie's heirs after her death, and he rented the eastern half to Longfellow.

[35] Longfellow lived in the house for the next four decades, producing many of his most famous poems including "Paul Revere's Ride" and "The Village Blacksmith",[36] as well as longer works such as Evangeline, The Song of Hiawatha, and The Courtship of Miles Standish.

[31] He published 11 poetry collections, two novels, three epic poems, and several plays while living in this house, as well as a translation of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy.

Specific visitors included Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray, singer Jenny Lind, and actress Fanny Kemble.

[41] In 1876, Emperor Dom Pedro II of Brazil also visited the house as part of his tour of the United States and requested the company of Longfellow, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., and James Russell Lowell for dinner.

Although Lowell could not attend, they were joined by Longfellow's daughters, his brother-in-law Thomas Gold Appleton, and Alexander Agassiz who had made the arrangements.

[19] On display are many of the original nineteenth century furnishings, artwork, over 10,000 books owned by Longfellow, and the dining table around which many important visitors gathered.

In addition to a bust of the poet, a carved bas-relief by Henry Bacon depicts the famous characters Miles Standish, Sandalphon, the village blacksmith, the Spanish student, Evangeline, and Hiawatha.

[52] In 1994, locals established the Friends of the Longfellow House, a nonprofit organization which raises funds to supplement federal support for the site and to assist with ongoing preservation projects.

[4] In 1791, Andrew Craigie added the two side porches and the two-story back ell and also expanded the library into a twenty by thirty foot ballroom with its own entrance.

As Frances Longfellow wrote, "we are full of plans & projects with no desire, however, to change a feature of the old countenance which Washington has rendered sacred".

[57] After her father's death in 1882, Alice Longfellow commissioned two of America's first female landscape architects, Martha Brookes Hutcheson and Ellen Biddle Shipman, to redesign the formal garden in the Colonial Revival style.

The garden was recently restored by an organization called Friends of the Longfellow House, which completed the final stage of its reconstruction, the historic pergola, in 2008.

Originally built by businessman Robert "Fish" Jones, it currently serves as an information center for the Minneapolis Park System and is on the Grand Rounds Scenic Byway.