In Cambridge there are two literary shrines to which visitors are
sure to find their way soon after passing the Harvard gates, "Craigie
House," the home of Longfellow and "Elmwood," the home of
Lowell. Though their hallowed retirement has been profaned by the
encroachments of the growing city, yet in their simple dignity these
fine old colonial mansions still bespeak the noble associations of the
past, and stand as memorials of the finest products of American
culture.
Elmwood was built before the Revolution by Thomas Oliver, the
Tory governor, who signed his abdication at the invitation of a
committee of "about four thousand people" who surrounded his
house at Cambridge. The property was confiscated by the
Commonwealth and used by the American army during the war. In
1818 it was purchased by the Rev. Charles Lowell, pastor of the
West Congregational Church in Boston, and after ninety years it is
still the family home. Here was born, February 22, 1819, James
Russell Lowell, with surroundings most propitious for the nurturing
of a poet-soul. Within the stately home there was a refined family
life; the father had profited by the unusual privilege of three years'
study abroad, and his library of some four thousand volumes was
not limited to theology; the mother, whose maiden name was
Spence and who traced her Scotch ancestry back to the hero of the
ballad of Sir Patrick Spens, taught her children the good old
ballads and the romantic stories in the Fairie Queen, and it was one
of the poet's earliest delights to recount the adventures of Spenser's
heroes and heroines to his playmates.