His father and grandfather were graduates of Harvard College; but as his father was then a trustee of Bowdoin College, at Brunswick, Maine, he was sent there. It happened that in the class which he entered there were several other youths who became very famous men. One was Hawthorne, the greatest American novelist; and in the class just above was Franklin Pierce, who afterwards became President of the United States. Not quite so famous as these two was another classmate of Longfellow’s, John S. C. Abbott, whose histories for young people have been only less popular than the “Rollo Books” written by his brother, Jacob Abbott, a somewhat older man. In those days no one suspected that there were in that college men destined to become so great. Longfellow was merely an aristocratic young man who stood well in his classes and “wrote verses as a pastime.” The poet of the class was a young man named Mellen. Hawthorne was very shy and never learned his lessons. He studied in his own way, and his professors had a very good opinion of him, but he was not a good scholar. There were in college two different kinds of students, the country boys and the city fellows. The country boys were usually rough, brown, and not very well dressed. They would lumber along the streets like farmers, as they were. It may easily be imagined that they were not rich. The lads from the seaports, on the other hand, the city fellows, had white hands and faces, were fashionably dressed, and were usually considered rich. Longfellow was a city lad, and had plenty of money. Hawthorne was more of a country fellow. While in college the two were not intimate. Both were naturally modest and shy, and each had only a few friends with whom he associated. But some years after they left college, Hawthorne sent his first volume of stories, the “Twice-told Tales,” to Longfellow, then a professor at Harvard College, and Longfellow wrote a very kind article about it, which was published in the _North American Review_. It was the first worthy recognition Hawthorne had received, and he was very grateful to Longfellow. This made them warm friends, and such they remained for the rest of their lives. During his first year Longfellow did most of his studying at home. He was doubtless a little homesick at Brunswick, at first. That town is not very far from Portland, but it took some time to get there, for in those days there were no railroads. The two Longfellow boys went up the coast in a sailing boat to a town not far from Brunswick, and from there they went by stage. While in college young Henry had no great adventures. He was a well behaved young man, never hazed anybody, and was generally thought rather a good fellow, but not remarkable in any way. He wrote a good deal of poetry, which was printed in the _United States Literary Gazette_, without his name; but his cousin John Owen, then at college with him, told him to his face one day that poetry was not his forte.