 Longfellow attended a dame school at the age of three and by age six was enrolled at the private Portland Academy . In his years there he earned a reputation as being very studious and became fluent in Latin . His mother encouraged his enthusiasm for reading and learning , introducing him to Robinson Crusoe and Don Quixote . He published his first poem , a patriotic and historical four @-@ stanza poem called " The Battle of Lovell 's Pond " , in the Portland Gazette on November 17 , 1820 . He stayed at the Portland Academy until the age of fourteen . He spent much of his summers as a child at his grandfather Peleg 's farm in the western Maine town of Hiram . 
