The house has both historical and literary importance, as it is both the oldest standing structure on the Portland peninsula and the childhood home of American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882).

American Revolutionary War General Peleg Wadsworth built the house between 1785 and 1786, the first wholly brick dwelling in Portland.

[3] Wadsworth raised ten children in the two-story structure with a pitched roof before retiring to the family farm in Hiram, Maine, in 1807.

Their son, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, was born nearby at the home of an aunt, Stephen's sister, on February 27, 1807.

At the time, only one other American author's home was owned by an organization committed to its preservation, specifically the John Greenleaf Whittier Homestead in Haverhill, Massachusetts.