The house where Washington planned and Longfellow wrote

Built in 1759 for John Vassall, a Loyalist who fled at the start of the Revolution, the house on Brattle Street served as George Washington's headquarters during the Siege of Boston in 1775 and 1776.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow rented a room here in 1837. When he married Fanny Appleton in 1843, her father bought the house for them as a wedding gift, and they raised their children here.

Fanny died in 1861 after her dress caught fire in the house. Longfellow lived there until his death in 1882, and the family later gave the house to the National Park Service.

One house held a war's planning and a poet's family — two very different kinds of history.