Preservation
Anne Longfellow Pierce (1810–1901) was the last family member to live in the house. She deliberately kept the house much as it was in Peleg Wadsworth's time, but is perhaps best remembered for growing oranges in the window (no small feat in a Maine winter). Her will stipulated that the house, lot, and many furnishings be given to the Maine Historical Society upon her death.
Pierce died in 1901 and the Maine Historical Society opened the home to the public within a year. 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.
Read more about this topic: Wadsworth-Longfellow House
Famous quotes containing the word preservation:
“Men are not therefore put to death, or punished for that their theft proceedeth from election; but because it was noxious and contrary to men’s preservation, and the punishment conducing to the preservation of the rest, inasmuch as to punish those that do voluntary hurt, and none else, frameth and maketh men’s wills such as men would have them.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)
“The reason why men enter into society, is the preservation of their property; and the end why they choose and authorize a legislative, is, that there may be laws made, and rules set, as guards and fences to the properties of all the members of the society: to limit the power, and moderate the dominion, of every part and member of the society.”
—John Locke (1632–1704)
“Is not our role to stand for the one thing which means our own salvation here but with which it will also be possible to save the world, and with which Europe will be able to save itself, namely the preservation of the white man and his state?”
—Hendrik Verwoerd (1901–1966)