Part of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s historic Portland home, the Longfellow Garden is “a little sanctuary in the city,” a lifelong Mainer and Portland campus marketing manager says.
When most people think of Portland, Maine, they think of its food scene, breweries and waterfront, but Emma Lishness is not most people.
Lishness, the marketing manager for Northeastern’s Portland campus and the Roux Institute, grew up in Port Elizabeth, right outside Portland, and has spent a significant portion of her life in Maine. She’s a local through and through, which is why she always recommends people visit one of Portland’s true hidden gems: Longfellow Garden.
Located behind the Wadsworth-Longfellow House, the home of one of Portland’s best-known figures, the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the Longfellow Garden is deeply connected to the city’s history. Longfellow, one of the most famous American poets of the 19th century, was born and raised in Portland and his legacy still touches many parts of the city, including the Longfellow Garden.
“It’s kind of a secret garden,” Lishness says. “Congress Street is one of the busiest thoroughfares in Portland, and so many people who even grew up here and lived here for decades don’t know about this place. It’s free, you can wander in at any time when it’s open, and it’s just this lovely little sanctuary in the city.”
The garden is made up of seasonally appropriate foliage with stone paths woven through that are designed for a wandering moment of reflection. The Longfellow Garden Club, a volunteer organization, maintains the property, and Lishness says it embodies the relationship a lot of Mainers have with their home state.
“There’s this volunteer organization that’s over 100 years old [the Longfellow Garden Club] who takes care of this space, who maintains it, who loves it,” Lishness says. “Mainers often are really proud to be from here, and because it is a smaller place, you often feel those connections to history.”
However, Lishness explains that the best reason to visit Longfellow Garden is the way it makes “time kind of stand still.” Spending a few minutes walled off from the rest of the city is an underrated luxury, whether you’re a local on the way to work or a visitor with a packed schedule of sightseeing.
“I would walk by on my way to see a play at Portland Stage, and sometimes if I was a little ahead of schedule, I might just stop in there for a few minutes,” Lishness says. “You don’t forget about the rest of the world, but you kind of do. It’s just that great little moment where everything slows down.”