The answer to the most frequently asked question:
What does Hesperus mean?

Hesperus is the name of the doomed fishing vessel of Henry Wardsworth Longfellow's ballad, "The Wreck of the Hesperus".

The setting of the poem is in Gloucester, where I grew up.

One of my fondest memories is of my grandmother reading this poem to me over and over while I gazed at her painting of the Fisherman at the Wheel envisioning his plight in a ship wreck.

My Husband grew up around the corner from the "Reef of Norman's Woe" and lived on Hesperus Circle.

We named our first boat "Hesperus" and it promptly sank in Hurricane Bob just a month after we bought it! (Lesson: Never name your boat after a shipwrecked vessel; it is obviously bad luck!)

The name "Hesperus" seems to haunt me, so I named my company "Hesperus Web Design.

Read "The Wreck of the Hesperus" at Poetry Foundation