Longfellow House — Washington's Headquarters

A yellow Georgian mansion in Cambridge that served as George Washington's headquarters during the Siege of Boston — and later as the home of the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Two very different histories in one house.

I learned that Phillis Wheatley sent Washington a poem in October 1775 praising him as commander of the Continental Army. He was clearly moved — replied that it showed her "great poetical Talents" — and actually met her here in person in March 1776, talking for about half an hour, then arranged for the poem to be published.

Under Longfellow, the house became a real literary salon: Charles Dickens, Emerson, Hawthorne, Oscar Wilde, the singer Jenny Lind, even the Emperor of Brazil.

The real surprise was his son Charley Longfellow, who spent 20 months in Japan starting in 1871, right as the Meiji Restoration was ending centuries of isolation. He shipped home kimono, lacquerware, and — what caught my eye — an early Ainu collection from Hokkaido, gathered when almost no Westerners had access to that culture. A wild personal connection: my name, Layla (pronounced closer to "Rera"), is the real Ainu word for wind, and "Ainu" itself just means "human" in their language.