A few months ago, I was on vacation in Portland, Maine, and decided to visit Henry Wadsworth-Longfellow’s childhood home where he lived until he was 14 years old. Built in 1785 by the poet’s grandfather, Peleg Wadsworth, it is a neoclassical-style building and the oldest standing structure on the Portland peninsula. Anne Longfellow Pierce, the poet’s younger sister lived in the house until her death in 1901, and left it…