In entering on the duties of his Harvard professorship (December, 1836) Longfellow took rooms at the Craigie House in Cambridge. This house, so long his residence, has been claimed as having more historic interest than any house in New England, both from the fact of his ownership and of its having been the headquarters of General Washington during the siege of Boston. It has even been called from these two circumstances the best known residence in the United States, with the exception of Mt. Vernon, with which it has some analogy both in position and in aspect. It overlooks the Charles River as the other overlooks the Potomac, though the latter view is of course far more imposing, and the Craigie House wants the picturesque semicircle of outbuildings so characteristic of Mt. Vernon, while it is far finer in respect to rooms, especially in the upper stories. It was built, in all probability, in 1759 by Colonel John Vassall, whose family owned the still older house across the way now called the Batchelder House; and there is a tradition of a subterranean passage between the two houses, although this has hitherto been sought in vain. Both these dwellings belonged to a series of large houses on Brattle Street, called Tory Row, whose proprietors were almost all kinsfolk, owned West India estates and slaves, entertained company in great affluence, according to the descriptions of the Baroness Riedesel, and were almost all forced to leave the country at the approach of the Revolution. Tradition recalls a Twelfth Night party given by Mrs. Washington in 1776, she having come to visit her husband during his residence in Cambridge. "She arrived in great ceremony, with a coach and four black horses, with postilions and servants in scarlet livery. During her visit she and her husband celebrated their wedding anniversary, though the General had to be much persuaded by his aides."{37} The southeastern room, afterwards Longfellow's study, had been Washington's office, and the chamber above it his private room, this being Longfellow's original study. The house was bought about 1792, the dates being a little uncertain, by Andrew Craigie, apothecary-general of the northern department of the Revolutionary army, who made additions to the house, which was described as a princely establishment.{38} Mr. Craigie sometimes entertained a hundred guests at the Commencement festival, and had among his other guests the celebrated Talleyrand and the Duke of Kent, Queen Victoria's father, then Prince Edward. Mr. Craigie had large business transactions, speculated extensively but at last unsuccessfully in real estate, and died in 1819. His wife long outlived him, and being poor, let rooms to various inmates. Edward Everett took his bride there in 1822, and so did President Jared Sparks in 1832. Five years after, Longfellow took the rooms, and thus describes his first visit to Mrs. Craigie:--