Object of the Month

Longfellow House - Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site has a large museum collection consisting of thousands of objects, many of which are not regularly displayed in the house's furnished exhibit rooms. Every month, an object will be featured on this page, providing a look at an unusual piece from the collection.

 

The original tiller from the yacht "Alice", carved in the form of an eagle's head.

NPS

On July 11, 1866, Thomas Gold Appleton’s yacht Alice, named for his niece Alice, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s eldest daughter, sailed from Nahant Massachusetts on a record-setting voyage to England. On board as part of the crew was Appleton’s nephew Charles Appleton Longfellow, who took a friend along on the trip. Also present was a crew of professional sailors hired expressly for the trip. Despite having the Alice custom built with all the luxuries that such a boat could accommodate, Thomas Gold Appleton did not make the voyage on his own yacht, but rather opted for the comfort of a passenger steamer for the trip across the ocean.

The trip was an event of some note in yachting circles of the time, as the Alice was regarded as a rather small craft to confidently attempt a transatlantic crossing. At one point during the crossing the boat was approached by a larger ship whose crew had the mistaken impression that since the Alice was so far out to sea that her crew must be in distress. But, the yacht completed the voyage in record time, arriving at the Isle of Wight 19 days, 8 hours, and 20 minutes after leaving Massachusetts. Thus began almost two months of pleasure cruising and participating in yacht races in the English Channel until the Alice was put in dry dock for the coming winter before being sailed back to Massachusetts the next spring by one of the hired sailors. While wintering in England, the yacht underwent repairs and refitting, as the cross-ocean trip had caused a considerable amount of wear and tear. Among the things repaired and replaced was the tiller handle, visible above. The end of the tiller, carved in the likeness of an eagle’s head, was removed and kept by the Longfellow family as a memento of the yacht. Ultimately it was installed above a window in what is now a guest bedroom on the second floor of the family home on Brattle Street, where it can be viewed today.

Thomas Gold Appleton owned the Alice for the rest of his life, and after his death in 1884 the yacht was willed to his nephew Charles Longfellow. Charles kept it for another four years, taking friends and family members on cruises along the New England coast before getting himself a new boat. What ultimately happened to the Alice is unknown, although a 1905 newspaper article about it concluded with “So far as known she is still afloat on the Maine coast.”

 

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