 Longfellow was born in Portland , Maine , which was then a part of Massachusetts . He studied at Bowdoin College . After spending time in Europe he became a professor at Bowdoin and , later , at Harvard College . His first major poetry collections were Voices of the Night ( 1839 ) and Ballads and Other Poems ( 1841 ) . Longfellow retired from teaching in 1854 , to focus on his writing , living the remainder of his life in Cambridge , Massachusetts , in a former Revolutionary War headquarters of George Washington . His first wife Mary Potter died in 1835 , after a miscarriage . His second wife Frances Appleton died in 1861 , after sustaining burns when her dress caught fire . After her death , Longfellow had difficulty writing poetry for a time and focused on translating works from foreign languages . He died in 1882 . 
