(1775-1849) a U.S. Representative; born in Gorham on June 23, 1775, was graduated from Harvard University in 1798. He studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1801 and began his practice in Portland. In 1807 he became the proud parent of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, at the time an unknown future poet.
A member of the general court of Massachusetts in 1814 and 1815, he belonged to the Federalist Party and was a delegate to the Hartford Convention in 1814 and 1815. Longfellow was a Federalist presidential elector in 1816.
Elected to the Eighteenth Congress (March 4, 1823-March 3, 1825), he was not a candidate for renomination in 1824. He resumed the practice of his profession, became a member of the Maine House of Representatives in 1826.
Longfellow was an overseer of Bowdoin College From 1811 to 1817, and a trustee of Bowdoin College from 1817 to 1836. President of the Maine Historical Society in 1834, he died in Portland August 2, 1849.