Born in Portland, Maine, on the 27 of February in 1807, Henry Wadesworth Longfellow would become America's favorite household poet of his time. The characteristics that brought him to this position in the world of poets have been alternately overpraised and belittled. Longfellow was something of a child prodigy. He was further along than children twice his age in Latin when he was only 7. He tried to emulate (imitate) Washington Irvin's Sketch Book at 12. Longfellow had written several youthful poems as an undergraduate, and his father urged him to study law. At 24, he married Mary Storer Potter and rose in the academic world. Longfellow became a proffesor at Harvard when he was 27. His wife, Mary, died in late 1835 during their second trip to Europe. He remarried to Fanny Appleton in 1843. Some of Longfellow's most memorable poetry included works such as "The Wreck of the Hesperus," "The Village Blacksmith," ,"Excelsior," and "The Skeleton in Armor." Longfellow passed away in 182, shortly after his second wife, Mary.