5. In this latter year (after having meanwhile taught a school in
York) he went to Portland in Maine (then Falmouth), to be the
schoolmaster of the town.{110}

He gained the respect of the community to such a degree that he was
called to fill important offices; being successively parish clerk, town
clerk, register of probate, and clerk of the courts. When Portland was
burned by Mowatt in 1775, his house having been destroyed, he removed to
Gorham, where he resided till his death, in 1790. It was said of him
that he was a man of piety, integrity, and honor, and that his favorite
reading was history and poetry. He had married Tabitha, daughter of
Samuel Bragdon, of York. Their eldest son, Stephen (3), was born in
1750, inheriting the name and the farm; and in 1773 he married Patience
Young, of York. He represented his town in the Massachusetts legislature
for eight years, and his county for several years after as senator. For
fourteen years (1797-1811) he was judge of the Court of Common Pleas,
and is remembered as a man of sterling qualities, great integrity, and
sound common-sense. His second child, Stephen (4), born in Gorham in
1776, graduated at Harvard College in 1798, studied law in Portland, and
in 1801 was admitted to the Cumberland Bar, at which he soon attained
and kept a distinguished position. In 1814, as a member of the
Federalist party, to whose principles he was strongly attached, he was
sent as a representative to the Massachusetts legislature. In 1822 he
was elected representative to Congress, which office he held for one
term. In 1828 he received the degree of LL. D. from Bowdoin College, of
which he was a Trustee for nineteen years. In 1834 he was elected
President of the Maine Historical Society. He died in 1849, highly
respected for his integrity, public spirit, hospitality, and generosity.
In 1804 he had married Zilpah, daughter of General Peleg Wadsworth, of
Portland. Of their eight children, Henry Wadsworth was the second. He
was named for his mother's brother, a gallant young lieutenant in the
Navy, who on the night of September 4, 1804, gave his life before
Tripoli in the war with Algiers. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born on
the 27th February, 1807; graduated at Bowdoin College in 1825; in 1829
was appointed Professor of Modern Languages in the same college; was
married in 1831 to Mary Storer Potter (daughter of Barrett Potter of
Portland), who died in 1835; in 1836 was appointed Professor of