Longfellow’s Parents Missing From Tomb

PORTLAND, Me. — A tomb presumed to contain poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s parents and four other relatives is actually empty, and officials are at a loss to explain where the bodies are.

Cemetery workers who were planning to replace an old iron door with a permanent brick wall opened the tomb and found it empty, officials said today. Among the missing remains were those of Longfellow’s mother and father, Zilpah and Stephen Longfellow.