Letter from Stephen Longfellow to Daniel Appleton White, 1799 May 29

Stephen Longfellow wrote this letter in Portland, Maine on May 29, 1799; it was sent to his friend, Daniel Appleton White, in Medford, Massachusetts. In the letter, Longfellow describes the Election Day festivities among the "plebeans" in Portland, which he apparently found both amusing and upsetting. He compares the horses pulling their sleds to Don Quixote's horse, Rocinante. He also writes about mutual friends, including John Henry Tudor and Jabez Kimball, and bemoans the behavior of the current members of Phi Beta Kappa among the Harvard College undergraduates, whom he insists have sunk the society below its former "exalted station."

Gift of Henry Wilder Foote, 1958.

Title supplied by cataloger.

Stephen Longfellow was born in Gorham, Maine on March 23, 1776. He received an A.B. from Harvard College in 1798 and then studied law. He was admitted to the bar in 1801 and became a prominent lawyer in Portland, Maine. In 1814 and 1815, he was a delegate to the Hartford Convention. Longfellow received an L.L.D. from Bowdoin College in 1828. He and his wife had eight children, including the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Stephen Longfellow died in Portland, Maine on August 3, 1849.

Daniel Appleton White was born to John and Elizabeth (Haynes) White in what is now Lawrence, Massachusetts on June 7, 1776. He grew up on the family's farm, leaving in June 1792 to study under Silas Dinsmoor at Atkinson Academy. White was a diligent student and gained admission to Harvard College in July 1793. He received an A.B. with highest honors from Harvard in 1797, taught at the Medford grammar school from 1797 to 1799, and was Latin tutor at Harvard from 1799 to 1803. He studied law while he was a Harvard tutor and was admitted to the bar in 1804. After living in Salem, Massachusetts for a brief time from 1803 to 1804, White moved to Newburyport, Massachusetts, where he established a law practice. White stayed in Newburyport until 1817, when he returned to Salem. He was a member of the Massachusetts legislature from 1810 to 1815 and was elected a judge in Essex County, Massachusetts, in 1815; he held this office for thirty-eight years, until 1853. White was also an active member of the Essex Institute and the Massachusetts Historical Society and served as an Overseer at Harvard from 1842 to 1853. He was married three times. Daniel Appleton White died in Salem, Massachusetts on March 30, 1861.