Longfellow visited the real-life Wayside Inn in 1862 with his friend and publisher James T. Fields. At the time, the inn was called the Red Horse Tavern and had closed after the owner, Lyman Howe, died in 1861. It would not reopen as an inn until 1897. Longfellow referred to it as "a rambling, tumble-down building". He toured the building with Abigail Eaton, a relative of the Howe family, who told Longfellow the history of the building and her family. Henry Ford bought the inn in 1923, restored it, and donated it to a charitable foundation. It remains as an operating inn to this day.