Category:

Spotlight Series

NEHS Spotlight Series

A Historic Train Ride in Each of New England’s Six States

What better way to take in New England’s fall foliage than a historic train ride? There’s no danger of running off the road while taking in the beauty wrought by Mother Nature’s paintbrush.

New England has more than two dozen so-called heritage railways, museums on wheels that recreate the experience of train travel during the golden age of passenger rail.

Sometimes heritage railways are run as profitable tourist attractions, but more often they’re maintained by enthusiastic volunteers. Rail enthusiast restore and maintain vintage steam and diesel locomotives, passenger coaches, track, stations and other infrastructure.

Here then are six heritage railroads that offer passengers a historic train ride, one in each New England state. If you have other favorites, please include them in the comments section.

Essex Steam Train and Riverboat Ride

Valley Railroad 3025 under steam in November 2015

Back in the day, travelers often journeyed by train to a steamboat landing, then continued on their way by water. Alas, only one steam-train-and-steamboat trip remains in the United States: in Essex, Conn.

The Essex Steam Train & Riverboat ride Is also only one of two in the world. It’s part of the Valley Railroad, which formed a century after the Connecticut Valley Railroad started regular train service in 1871. For a while it operated as a branch line of the New Haven Railroad. By 1961 the New Haven Line declared bankruptcy and all service finally stopped in 1968. The New Haven Railroad became the Penn Central (later Amtrak), and Penn Central gave the Valley track to the state of Connecticut, which leased it to a group of volunteers.

The Essex Steam Train & Riverboat ride runs from May through October. The 2-1/2-hour historic train ride begins at the Essex Station, built in 1892. It then runs for a 12-mile round trip through the quintessential New England towns and unspoiled parts of the Connecticut River Valley. Passengers aboard the 1920s-era coaches will see Selden Neck State Park, Deep River and Chester.

Then comes an hour-long riverboat ride along the Connecticut River on the Becky Thatcher, where passengers will see Gillette Castle, Goodspeed Opera House and Haddam Swing Bridge.

Check the calendar here for dates.

Downeast Scenic Railroad

A Downeast Scenic Railroad passenger car

Antique rail cars take passengers on a 90-minute trip through 13 miles of wetlands and woods, where passengers may see fox, bald eagles, bear, osprey and moose. Many of the same sights the rusticators saw when they took the train to their summer cottages in Bar Harbor.

The Downeast Scenic Railroad started as the Calais Branch line, built in 1884 as the Maine Shore Line Railroad. Later the Maine Central Railroad Co. bought the line, but closed in 1985. It stayed closed for 30 years.

Then five local businessmen formed the Downeast Rail Heritage Trust in 2005. The next year they leased 30 miles of track from the state of Maine. Volunteers restored the rails, an engine, passenger cars and caboose. Service restarted on July 24, 2010, when invited guests took a historic train ride along five miles of track from Ellsworth.

The train runs on weekends through Columbus Day (click here for a schedule)

Cape Cod Central Railroad

The Cape Cod Central coming ’round the bend

The Cape Cod Central Railroad offers a historic train ride along 27 miles of track from Hyannis to Buzzards Bay.

It’s a remnant of the first train on the Cape, built in the mid-19^th-century to carry freight to and from the Boston and Sandwich Glass Co. Eventually the railroad carried passengers between 14 of Cape Cod’s 15 towns. Then in 1935, the Buzzards Bay vertical train lift extended the railroad across the Cape Cod Canal.

Passenger service on Cape Cod stopped in 1959, but 40 years later the Cape Cod Central Railroad formed. In 2012, Iowa Pacific Holdings LLC bought a controlling interest in the company.

The Shoreland Excursion takes passengers on a two-hour historic train ride past salt marshes, sand dunes and cranberry bogs, then along the canal.

They’ll also see historic railroad buildings, including the West Barnstable station and the Buzzards Bay dispatch tower, both built in 1911. In Bourne, the Gray Gables Station, built in 1892 for Grover Cleveland’s personal use, now serves as a rail museum.

The railroad, which runs from May to October, also offers brunch trains, dinner trains and special excursions. For a schedule click here.

See a short video about the Cape Cod Central Railroad here.

Winnipesaukee Scenic Railroad

A train set from the Winnipesaukee Scenic Railroad. Photo courtesy Google maps.

The Winnipesaukee Scenic Railroad offers a one- and a two-hour historic train ride in restored coaches along the western shore of New Hampshire’s biggest lake. Passengers can board at the station in Meredith, or at the Weirs Beach Station on the historic boardwalk. During the historic train ride they never lose sight of Lake Winnipesaukee.

The railroad once belonged to the Boston & Maine Railroad and brought tourists to lakeside resorts from the Gilded Age to the 1950s. Today, the Winnipesaukee Scenic Railroad still goes through the front yards of gracious old summer homes.

Passengers can also take a 40-mile Fall Foliage Special. Call 603-745-2135 for information.

Newport and Narragansett Bay Railroad

historic-train-ride-locomotive-locomotive

A locomotive during the Old Colony and Newport Railroad days.

The Newport and Narragansett Bay Railroad runs historic train rides on Aquidneck Island, offering gorgeous views of the bay, colonial homes and the decommissioned USS Saratoga in the Newport Naval Station.

The railroad once belonged to the Old Colony Railroad, a major system running from Boston to southeastern Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Lowell and Cape Cod. In 1976, then-owner Conrail sold the railroad to the state, which then leased it to the volunteers who ran the Old Colony and Newport Scenic Railway.

The new railway formed in 2014 when the for-profit Newport Dinner Train and the nonprofit Old Colony and Newport Scenic Railway merged. It runs between the Melville Marina section of Portsmouth and downtown Newport.

Today, Rhode Island’s only heritage railroad also offers dining experiences, as it has a kitchen car and chef. The Grand Bellevue Rail Dining Experience, for example, offers a two-hour, multiple course, formal dinner with live music. Other themed excursions include such excursions as the Autumn Harvest Bistro train, Lunch with Santa and Murder on the Bellevue Express.

Click here for a schedule

Green Mountain Flyer

Green Mountain Flyer locomotive 405.

During five weeks of New England’s glorious foliage season, the Green Mountain Flyer runs five days a week from Chester, Vt. Passengers can take a historic train ride on a Fall Foliage Excursion, a Cocktails on the Rails trip or a Green Mountain Dinner in a restored dining car.

The Green Mountain Railroad, one of New England’s oldest heritage railroads, formed in early 1964 by a steam-locomotive enthusiast. F. Nelson Blount persuaded the State of Vermont to obtain 52 miles of track between Bellows Falls and Rutland. Blount also ran a museum of steam locomotives, called Steamtown, USA, in North Walpole, N.H.

Blount died in an airplane crash in 1967 but his dream lived on. Today, the Green Mountain Railroad is part of the 350-mile Vermont Rail System. The Green Mountain Flyer, named after the fastest train on the Rutland Railroad, runs for 13 miles between Bellows Falls and Chester along woods, the Williams River and the Brockway Mills Gorge. In the fall, a foliage excursion takes passengers another 14 miles to Ludlow. For a schedule, click here.

Images: Valley locomotive By Msomerville21 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44814393; Cape Cod Central Railroad By Mark from Baltimore, USA – .Uploaded by XV HTV 1352, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7379781; Old Colony and Newport locomotive By Toby7OCN – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19193774; Green Mountain Railroad locomotive By NellsWiki – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9510777. This story was updated in 2021.

0 comment 1.5k views

Six Lovers Leaps in New England

Lovers leaps are nearly always found in isolated spots where a fall could kill you. They tend to inspire tales of romantic tragedy, often involving a star-crossed Indian maiden (beautiful, of course) and her lover. Sometimes, though, the stories may surprise you.

The United States has 25 designated lovers leaps, including ones in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Maine. We had little difficulty, however, finding lovers leaps in New Hampshire, Vermont and Rhode Island.

Do you know of another lovers leap, other than the six listed below? If so, please mention it in the comments section.

Lovers Leap Bridge, New Milford, Conn.

Lovers Leap Bridge

Lovers Leap Park includes about 140 acres along the Housatonic River and a high cliff that inspired several legends. According to one, an Indian princess named Lillinonah fell in love with an Englishman. When her lover left her and didn’t return, the despairing princess paddled her canoe over the Great Falls. But then, just as she entered the rapids, he reappeared. When he tried to save her they both drowned.

A second version has the two lovers forbidden to see each other, so broken-hearted and distraught they jumped off the high cliffs together.

The Housatonic widens at one point into a lake today called Lake Lillinonah. In 1895, the Berlin Iron Bridge Company built Lovers Leap Bridge, well after the mythical lovers died.

Lovers Leap Park straddles the Housatonic Gorge near Connecticut Route 67 and Connecticut Route 202.

Lovers Leap Park, Bangor, Maine

The Kenduskeag Stream in Bangor

Bangor, Maine, has a lovers leap along the scenic Kenduskeag Stream Trail, which cuts through the center of the city.

Someone thoughtfully put an informational sign along the cliff known as Lovers Leap. Not surprisingly, it tells the story of a beautiful Native American maiden who fell in love with a handsome young settler. “After she was denied permission to marry him by her chieftain father, the couple leapt off the cliff hand-in-hand rather than live their lives apart,” the sign says.

Old postcards featuring the lovers leap name the young woman Tahalta or Tahiti, and the young man Shawano.

People have actually fallen off the cliff. And other parts of the Kenduskeag have inspired romance. In 1882, The History of Penobscot, Maine, described a poem carved into a tree along the river:

Of lovely Sophia’s eyes beware, / Mirth and mischief mingle there; / I with her have careless laugh’d, / Nor fear’d shy beauty’s dangerous shaft; / But pensive now I linger here, / To trace a name forever dear.

Remnants of old mills dot the banks of the Kenduskeag Stream, and one can see the more prosaically named Shopping Cart Rapids from Lovers Leap.

The image shows a more benign section of the Kenduskeag Stream, behind Bangor’s post office. Another local legend claims that section of the waterway inspired Stephen King’s IT.

Purgatory Chasm State Reservation, Sutton, Mass.

Lovers leap in Purgatory Chasm, Mass.

There’s little love in the story of the lovers leap in Sutton, Mass. The leap is a narrow 70-foot-deep chasm, with about two miles of hiking trails around it.

The legend has an Algonquin Indian woman killing a white settler and walking away from her crime. She ran into another settler and tried to run away. When he grabbed her, she called out to her god Hobomoko for help. The settler then revealed himself as Hobomoko, took her by the waist and flew to the site of Purgatory Chasm. There he stomped his feet and swung his tomahawk, forming the 70-foot-deep chasm. Then he threw his victim into it.

Geologists, on the other hand, say a glacier let loose meltwater, which ripped apart blocks of bedrock 14,000 years ago.

Massachusetts made Purgatory Chasm a state park in 1919. Since then, Purgatory Chasm has inspired a poem, a song and a novel.

Lovers Leap, West Derry, NH

Lovers Leap in West Derry, N.H.

Beaver Brook in West Derry, N.H., has a stone arch bridge over it, built by the Manchester and Lawrence Railroad in 1848. For years people called it Lovers Leap Bridge, assuming it had to do with the usual Indian maiden flinging herself off it after the usual doomed love affair.

But that’s not it, according to a 1915 account reported in the Derry News. The story goes that an Indian chief in Derry (then Nutfield) called Flying Cloud had a beautiful daughter named Bright Eyes. She had many suitors, but the only one she loved was White Feather. White Feather, though, came from a different tribe, and her father hated him. One day he discovered them together by the stream now called Beaver Brook.

Flying Cloud ran after White Feather with a tomahawk, but the young man picked up Bright Eyes and carried her down the hill toward Beaver Brook. He reached his canoe, and they paddled toward Nassana (now Nashua), where his tribe had camped.

Eventually, Flying Cloud sent an ambassador to make peace with the young couple, and they all lived happily ever after.

The story is at best improbable, especially since it identifies White Feather as a Sioux, not exactly a tribe that hung out in New Hampshire. But you can hike to Lovers Leap Bridge along the 3.6 mile Derry rail trail.

Purgatory Chasm, Middletown, RI

Purgatory Chasm, a Rhode Island lovers leap.

In New England you can often find the same thing in two states. Such is the case of the other narrow, deep Purgatory Chasm in Middletown, R.I. The story of the lovers leap, however, is different.

Legend has it that a beautiful young heiress had received the ardent affection of a young man who was her social equal. She shared his feelings but hid them from him.

One day they stood on the edge of Purgatory Chasm and he begged her for some show of love. She told him he could prove his devotion to her by jumping across the chasm. The young man leaped across the divide, tipped his hat, praised her looks, condemned her character and then dumped her. She never saw him again, and went into mourning for the rest of her life.

Like the Purgatory Chasm in Massachusetts, a glacier formed the one in Rhode Island. It overlooks the Sachuest Beach, which interests geologists because of its peculiar elongated pebbles. The hike from the parking lot on Tuckerman Avenue to the chasm is short, only three-tenths of a mile.

Lovers Leap, Cavendish, Vt.

The Black River in Cavendish, Vt.

The Black River carves out a ravine in the lower part of Cavendish, Vt., creating falls, rapids, caves and romantic scenery. Lovers Leap rises at a turn in the ravine. Locals tell a legend about it, but it has nothing to do with love — well, at least, the love between people.

The story goes that two young farmers went to the Lovers Leap to gather some rocks for a foundation wall. They began to quarry when one of the farmers lost his balance and stumbled down the cliff. His companion looked over the edge, expecting to see a mangled corpse. However, the victim was crawling up the side of the precipice. “Are you hurt much?” the first farmer shouted.

The victim slowly and painfully stood, then began to search his pockets. A look of grave concern crossed his face. “Waal, I ain’t hurt much, but I’ll be durned if I haven’t lost my jack-knife.”

Lovers leap state park conn. By Jllm06 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=56688546; Lovers Leap Bridge By RHSHAW57 – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22394866; Kenduskeag Stream Attribution, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=970222; Purgatory Chasm By Dale E. Martin (Martinde) – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5027847; West Derry postcard, Derry Public Library by Creative Commons 2.0; Purgatory Chasm, Newport, by Paul Irish, Creative Commons 2.0; Stereoscopic view of the Black River courtesy New York Public Library.

1 comment 947 views

Six Abandoned Places

What is so appealing about abandoned places? Cyberspace abounds with photos, videos and bloggers waxing elegiac about abandoned old mills, mansions and malls.

Tim Edensor, a geography professor at Manchester Metropolitan University, studies why people like abandoned places.

He called them ‘marginal spaces filled with old and obscure objects,’ where people can see and feel things they can’t in everyday life. They’re about time, nature, mortality and disinvestment, he says.

Perhaps people like abandoned places because they feel genuine in a world full of commercial clutter and Disneyized cityscapes. Or perhaps they long for an industrial past, when manufacturing provided jobs that would support a family.

Here are six abandoned places, one in each New England state.

Remington Arms, Bridgeport, Conn.

Remington Arms, one of the many abandoned places that once made something.

You can barely swing a cat in New England without hitting an abandoned factory. They’re a sad reminder of the region’s past as an industrial powerhouse. The old plants stand as silent witnesses to the impact of trade deals, tax incentives and government policies rewarding finance over manufacturing.

New England’s once-enormous textile industry began to move south around the turn of the 20^th century in search of cheap land and labor. A similar fate befell the high-tech industry that sprang up after World War II.

Factories that made products for the military continued to thrive, however, and successive wars masked manufacturing’s decline. Remington Arms serves as a prime example.

Eliphalet Remington founded the company in 1816 in New York. He sold it in 1888 to a company that also owned the Union Metallic Cartridge Co. in Bridgeport and the Winchester Repeating Arms Co. of New Haven.

Remington made arms for France, Britain, Russia and the United States during World War I. During the Great Depression, it began making ammunition, and it made the Springfield bolt-action rifle for the U.S. government during World War II.

Remington’s Bridgeport factory expanded in 1915. At one point it was called ‘the greatest small arms and ammunition plant in the world.’ At its height, Remington Arms employed more than 17,000 workers.

Remington Arms closed its Bridgeport plant in 1986.

Today the abandoned Remington Arms plant still sits at 812 Barnum Ave. in Bridgeport, though plans call for its demolition.

Since workers were killed there, it is said to be haunted.

Abandoned Locomotives, The Allagash, Maine

One of the ghost locomotives in the Allagash wilderness.

Deep in the heart of Maine’s Allagash region sit two abandoned locomotives silently rusting in the wilderness. Only a few intrepid canoes, hikers and snowmobilers can see the hulking machines, miles from any road or railhead.

An independent logger named King Ed Lacroix, put the ghost locomotives there. He built a 13-mile railroad in the middle of the Allagash — some would call it nowhere — to haul pulpwood to Maine paper mills in Millinocket and East Millinocket. There the mills turned it into newsprint.

By 1933 the Great Depression had depressed demand for newsprint, so Lacroix abandoned the Allagash, the railroad, the rolling stock and the ghost locomotives.

By the time demand for paper picked up, trucks hauled logs more efficiently than railroads.

Today the abandoned places that Ed Lacroix left are part of the remote and scenic Allagash Wilderness Waterway protected by the State of Maine.

Abandoned Bear Pens, Boston

Bear pens, among Boston’s odder abandoned places.

Abandoned bear pens in Boston? Yup. They’re part of Zoo New England, formerly the Franklin Zoo in Franklin Park.

Frederick Law Olmsted designed an open plan zoological park surrounded by the larger park, also designed by Olmsted. The free zoo was a huge hit when it opened in 1912. Millions came each year. Then came the depression and the decline of the wild zoo.

Bears roamed freely (well, freely-ish) in a large stone enclosure at the bottom of a grand stone staircase. Large bas-reliefs of bears still stand amid the decaying cages.

Bears before their pens became abandoned places. Photo courtesy Boston Public Library.

In 1958, a city commission took over the zoo and tried to figure out how to revitalize it. They built a fence around the wild menagerie and charged admission for it. The bear pens, hard to tear down, and a badger enclosure, were simply left outside to rot.

They appear in the book and film Mystic River, where a murder victim was found in the pits.

More photos here.

Beech Hill Estate, Dublin, NH

Beech Hill Estate. Even mansions can be abandoned places.

Just because the National Park Service lists a building on the National Register of Historic Places doesn’t mean it’s been preserved. Such is the case with Beech Hill Estate in Dublin, N.H., as it also makes the list of abandoned places.

Noted architect Charles Platt designed the large Georgian Revival manor house for his sister and brother-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Francis Jencks of Baltimore. Like other wealthy Victorians, they fled the hot cities along the Eastern Seaboard for the summer colony along Dublin Lake. Platt designed several other mansions for the Dublin summer colony, but none so large as the Beech Hill Estate. A prominent landmark, the house has a spectacular view of the surrounding countryside.

Built in 1902-03, the house changed hands before becoming the guest house for a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center in 1949. Though it remains in private hands, the owners abandoned the house in the 1980s and it shows plenty of signs of neglect. The surrounding property is now conservation land with public hiking trails.

Abandoned Kmart, Cranston, R.I.

Cranston’s abandoned Kmart. Dead retail space make up a lot of abandoned places these days.

The company that incorporated as S.S. Kresge in 1916 had 85 U.S. stores. In 1962, the company had grown to hundreds of discount stores and took on the name Kmart.

By 2000, Kmart peaked with 2,171 stores in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico.

Then shopping malls started to die, Kmart bought Sears and began to shut down stores. In Rhode Island, both Kmart and Sears stores closed in Warwick, Woonsocket, South Attleboro, Swansea and nearby Fall River in Massachusetts.

In August 2017, the company announced the closing of Rhode Island’s last Kmart in Cranston.

Abandoned Interstate 189, Burlington, Vt.

I-189, one of Vermont’s abandoned places.

Once the Federal Highway Administration planned to build an interstate from Exit 13 on I-89 in Burlington, Vt., to the industrial waterfront where it would service freight carriers. But then a toxic barge canal stopped highway construction just beyond the US Route 7 interchange, only 1.488 miles from its beginning.

About half a mile of unfinished highway remained, though, so Jersey barriers prevented traffic on the orphaned stretch of pavement.

And then industry disappeared. By the 1980s Burlington’s commercial activity mainly involved tourism, so transportation officials abandoned plans to finish I-189, at least for a while.

In 2012, federal highway planners came up with a new plan to extend I-189 to funnel traffic from Route 7 to downtown. Opposition to the plan halted construction, and the abandoned pavement serves as a pedestrian walkway for curious explorers.

Images: Remington Arms by Eric Kilby; Franklin Park Bear Dens By Ekmall – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29727050; Beech Hill Estate By User:Magicpiano – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25650567; abandoned Kmart by JJBers Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0); abandoned interstate by Doug Kerr Attribution Share-Alike 2.0. This story last updated in 2022.

0 comment 760 views

Six Places That Raised a Liberty Pole

Beginning in 1766, the liberty pole symbolized dissent from Great Britain, but over the years it took on different meanings for the people who raised them.

The first liberty pole in America was actually a tree. On Aug. 14, 1765, the Sons of Liberty hanged stamp collector Andrew Oliver in effigy from the boughs of a large elm in Boston. Forever after it’s been known as the Liberty Tree.

When someone raised a red flag – a gift of John Hancock — at the top of the tree, it meant the Sons of Liberty should meet. British soldiers later hacked it down when they occupied Boston.

As tall as 170 feet high, the liberty pole sprang up in towns throughout New England as the British Parliament imposed unpopular taxes and restrictions on the American colonies. Sometimes it stood next to a liberty tree. Sometimes it replaced the tree.

Historian Arthur Schlesinger, commenting on symbolic reisistance to Great Britain, wrote, “In this department of silent propaganda no single venture paid richer dividends than the Tree of Liberty.”

“Raising the liberty pole,” 1776 / painted by F.A. Chapman ; engraved by John C. McRae, N.Y.

The Liberty Pole

The Romans erected the first liberty pole after assassinating Julius Caesar. The murder plot’s leaders met at the Roman Forum, where someone placed a Phrygian cap from a freed slave on top of a pole to show the Romans won their freedom from Caesar’s tyranny.

In the British North American colonies, the liberty pole began to spring up in response to specific events. Shutesbury, Mass., for example, erected a liberty pole on Sept. 5, 1774, the day the Continental Congress first met.

When the pole (or tree) was capped with a red Phrygian cap or a flag, it meant the townspeople should assemble and vent their anger with the British government.

The liberty pole reappeared even after the Revolution ended. It showed resistance to the Whiskey Tax and support for the French Revolution. When the Sedition Act passed, the liberty pole reappeared — and disappeared. Federalists who supported the Sedition Act cut them down in Wallingford, Vt., and in Vassalboro, Maine.

By the mid-19^th century, people erected liberty poles as focal points for Fourth of July celebrations or as symbols of loyalty to the United States. Sometimes they stood for symbols of dissent and had nothing to do with patriotism.

The Phyrgian cap survives too — on the official seals of the U.S. Senate and the U.S. Army and the state flags of West Virginia, New Jersey and New York.

Here, then, are six places where a liberty pole once stood. If you know of any others, please mention them in the comments section.

Newtown, Conn.

On May 19, 1774, 1,000 residents of Farmington, Conn., erected a liberty pole, burned an effigy of Gov. Thomas Hutchinson and a copy of the Boston Port Act.

By October 1774, Connecticut newspapers reported, “Liberty-poles from 100 to 170 feet high, are erected and erecting in most of the towns of Connecticut.”

Newtown, Conn., put up a liberty pole to commemorate the nation’s centennial in 1876. It wasn’t the town’s first liberty pole, though; a resident remembered one in his childhood, sometime in the 1830s. The wooden pole fell to the weather and the town replaced it several times. Today, Newtown’s flagpole stands as the town’s most prominent landmark.

Old Town, Maine

A disagreement among two factions of the Penobscot Indian tribe resulted in two liberty poles on their reservation.

Sometime between 1848 and 1859, the Indians on the Penobscot Reservation in Old Town, Maine, split into two groups. It started when the old sachem, Atien Swassin, was accused of drunkenness, adultery and corruption. A public council convicted him and removed him from office, but his followers remained loyal to him. They formed the Old Party and erected a liberty pole and flag.

Those loyal to the new sachem formed the New Party and also erected a liberty pole and flag.

The two groups argued and fought until the Old Party sent a messenger to several Indian tribes in Canada, inviting them to participate in a fight on the reservation, also known as Indian Island. The tribes refused, but held a Great Fire Council to try to reconcile the two parties.

The council sent two envoys to the Penobscot Reservation, and they agreed to abolish the parties, cut down the liberty poles and live in peace. But a wily leader of the Old Party persuaded the New Party to cut down its liberty pole first. After they cut it down, three members of the Old Party hugged their liberty pole so now one could cut it down without cutting their arms.

Eventually the three Old Party members repented and apologized, and the two parties managed to get along after that, according to Sprague’s Journal of Maine History in 1917.

Bedford, Mass. (Still Raising a Liberty Pole)

The liberty pole appeared in many Massachusetts towns, including Taunton, Concord, Middleborough, Barnstable, Granville and Vineyard Haven. But as far as we know, only Bedford still commemorates the raising of the liberty pole two Saturdays before Patriots Day.

The tradition began in 1965, a year after the Bedford Minuteman Company of reenactors formed. Now, minutemen reenactors from all over New England gather on the Town Common and march with fife and drum to Wilson Park. There they watch a minuteman shinny up a 25-foot pole and place a red cap on it. Then a British soldier disrupts the celebration.

The Bedford Liberty Pole Capping Parade and Ceremony is one of the opening event for all of the minuteman companies of the region;

Portsmouth, N.H.

A tall flagpole with an eagle, a shield and a carved Phrygian cap marks the spot of Portsmouth’s first liberty pole. It lies between what is now Prescott Park and Strawbery Banke.

During the run-up to the American Revolution, a tidal inlet separated the two places, and a swing bridge connected them.

On Jan 9, 1766, New Hampshire’s Sons of Liberty erected a liberty pole by the bridge to show their opposition to the Stamp Act. They hoisted a banner that read, ‘Liberty, Property and No Stamp.’ They also forced the stamp tax collector, George Meserve, to resign.

From then on, Portsmouth called the bridge Liberty Bridge.

Portsmouth put up a flagpole to honor the original liberty pole on the Fourth of July in 1824, and then replaced it with another in 1899.

At that point, Portsmouth also filled in the inlet, dismantled the Liberty Bridge, tore down dilapidated old buildings and created Prescott Park and the Strawbery Banke house museum.

The flagpole, though, still stands in the original spot.

Newport, R.I.

Newport’s patriots assembled under the liberty tree on a triangular piece of land at the corner of Thames and Farewell streets. William Read had donated the land to William Ellery and other Sons of Liberty shortly after the repeal of the Stamp Act. There, the patriots held mock funerals for liberty and hanged unpopular Loyalists in effigy. They also put up a liberty pole at a distance from the tree and put their colors on both whenever appropriate.

When the British occupied Newport, they cut down the liberty tree. Newport patriots planted an oak tree in its place to commemorate their victory in the American Revolution. It lasted until the Civil War, and another oak was planted in 1876. That one lasted only 21 years. The fourth liberty tree, a leaf beech tree, was planted in 1897 and still stands. In 1919, Henrietta C. Ellery deeded the property and the tree to the city. It is now William Ellery Park, a small pocket park.

Waterford, Vt.

Capt. John Wyman was a belligerent Revolutionary War veteran extremely proud that he had fought at Bunker Hill. After the war he moved to Dummerston, Vt., and said he wanted to be buried on a hill on his farm. He got his wish, at least until the town moved his body to a cemetery. While he rested on his farm, however, townspeople erected a liberty pole next to his grave.

However, we couldn’t figure out where the old revolutionary had been buried, and Dummerston bears no sign of a liberty pole. Nor could we find evidence of liberty poles in Bennington or Wallingford, where Vermonters had erected them. We hit pay dirt, though, in the Lower Waterford section of St. Johnsbury.

The Caledonian Record reported on May 17, 1861, “People of all parties assembled at Lower Waterford to participate in the ceremony of giving to the breeze the American flag … and to declare their devotion to the constitution and the Union.” They formed into a hollow square around the liberty pole, and ‘the flag was brought forth and flung to the breeze…’

Howard Coffin, in his book, Something Abides: Discovering the Civil War in Today’s Vermont, refers to a photo that shows the flagpole in front of the Congregational Church across from the old hotel. Both still stand.

This story last updated in 2022.

4 comments 582 views

The Oldest Newspaper in Each New England State

Those quarrelsome publishers just love to argue over the honor of being the oldest newspaper in the United States. But which one deserves the title?

The Hartford Courant, founded in 1764, says it’s nation’s oldest continuously published newspaper. The Courant, though, lost its independence when purchased by the Times Mirror chain. Then the Tribune Corporation bought Times-Mirror.

The Rutland Herald started 30 years later than the Courant, but managed to stay independent. So now it can claim the distinction as the oldest newspaper owned by the same family in continuous operation, published under the same name in the same city, in the United States.

The New Hampshire Gazette also claims to be the oldest newspaper. However, since its founding in 1756 it has changed owners about 25 times, disappeared and merged with other publications.

The Newport Mercury, founded in 1759, was identified as the nation’s oldest newspaper during one of the New Hampshire Gazette‘s lulls. It didn’t quite disappear, having been published by The Newport Daily News as a weekly with reprinted daily stories for out-of-town subscribers. In 2018 it became Mercury Magazine.

Hartford Courant 1764

Thomas Green started the Connecticut Courant as a weekly on Oct. 29, 1764. It claims the title ‘America’s oldest continuously published newspaper’ and the slogan, ‘Older than the nation.’

Hartford printer Ebenezer Watson then took over the Connecticut Courant. Watson died suddenly of smallpox in late 1777, creating a dilemma for American patriots.

The British had shut down all the newspapers in Boston. Plus, New York’s Loyalist newspapers printed nothing but pro-British news. The Courant, as the only paper large enough to provide reliable (that is, pro-patriot) news, was viewed as crucial to maintaining popular support for the Revolution in New England.

Patriots approached Watson’s widow, Hannah Bunce Watson, and asked her to continue publishing the newspaper. She knew little about printing, but went ahead publishing the Courant to support the war effort. She made 20-year-old George Goodwin a business partner, as he had already worked for the newspaper for 12 years.

In 1779, she married Barzillai Hudson, and he took control of the newspaper. In 1837 the Connecticut Courant became the Hartford Courant, now the largest daily newspaper in Connecticut.

Bangor Daily News 1889

Richard J. Warren founded the Bangor Daily News on June 18, 1889, making it the oldest newspaper in Maine. In 1900 it merged it with the Bangor Whig and Courier. Today Warren’s great-grandson publishes the newspaper and his sister, Carolyn J. Mowers, serves as chairman of the board.

Though not as old as the Rutland Herald, the Bangor Daily News is a rarity in the newspaper business: a newspaper under the ownership of a single family. Today it’s the only newspaper in Maine owned independently. The BDN is also Maine’s largest, covering a readership area larger than Connecticut.

It did fail to publish once in its history: on Dec. 30, 1962, when a blizzard dumped five feet of snow on Bangor.

Daily Hampshire Gazette 1786

Massachusetts claims the oldest newspaper in the United States, the Boston News-Letter, but the Loyalist rag didn’t survive the Revolution. Founded in 1704 , it ceased publication when the British withdrew from Boston in 1776.

That leaves the Daily Hampshire Gazette, founded in 1786 in Northampton, Mass., as the oldest newspaper in the Bay State. In the first edition of the Hampshire Gazette, its 22-year-old publisher, William Butler, reported the news of Shay’s Rebellion. For more than a century the paper was published every week, but in 1890 it became a daily.

The Daily Hampshire Gazette went through a series of owners until its business manager, Harriet Williams DeRose, bought it in 1929. When she died in 1960, her son Charles Nathan DeRose took over. Charles died 10 years later and his two sons took over. By 2005, there were no more DeRoses interested in running the newspaper. That year Newspapers of New England, a chain based in Concord, N.H., bought the Daily Hampshire Gazette.

New Hampshire Gazette 1756

The New Hampshire Gazette has trademarked its claim as ‘The Nation’s Oldest Newspaper,’ but not without dispute. The sassy alternative, published every two weeks, has appeared only intermittently on the journalism scene.

Daniel Fowle, the first man to print the words of Samuel Adams, founded the New Hampshire Gazette in Portsmouth in 1756. After he died in 1787, the Gazette continued publishing. In 1839, the Maryland Gazette went under and the Portsmouth Gazette was recognized as the nation’s oldest newspaper.

In the 1890s, the Portsmouth Herald began publishing the Gazette as a weekend supplement, changing its name to the Herald Weekend Edition in 1960. However, Daniel Fowle’s descendant Peter Fowle discovered in 1989 that the ‘Gazette’ name was no longer under trademark. He took the rights to the name and in 1999 began publishing the New Hampshire Gazette ‘episodically, in a very small format.’

Today it includes ‘The Fortnightly Rant,’ film reviews, two pages of history, stories from the New Hampshire Indymedia Collective, vintage news from the 19^th century and ‘Admiral Fowle’s Piscataqua River Tidal Guide.’

Newport Mercury 1759

In 1759, Ann Smith Franklin and her son started the Newport Mercury in Newport, R.I., with the ‘freshest advices.’ She was Benjamin Franklin’s sister-in-law, the widow of his brother James (the one Ben didn’t get along with). Ann Smith Franklin and her son published the newspaper until she died in 1763.

Solomon Southwick, a patriot, took over the paper, but buried the press and type when the British landed in Newport. After the Revolution, he resumed publishing the newspaper.

The Newport Mercury has the distinction of first publishing an African-American woman, Phyllis Wheatley, in a newspaper.

Edward A. Sherman, owner of the Newport Daily News, bought the Newport Mercury in 1928 and published it as a paid weekly. In 2005, the News turned the Mercury into an alternative weekly, covering entertainment, food and the arts.

Mirroring the newspaper industry’s struggles, the Mercury became a once-monthly insert into the Newport Daily News in 2018.

Rutland Herald 1794

On Dec. 8, 1794, the Rev Samuel Williams and his distant cousin Judge Samuel Williams, both Federalists, founded the Rutland Herald. Three years later, William Fay bought the newspaper and for four decades devoted it to biblical parables, poems and homilies.

The newspaper’s readers got a welcome relief when abolitionist George Beaman bought it in 1844. From 1856 to 1882, the father-and-son team of George and Albert Tuttle turned the Rutland Herald into a daily and covered the Civil War. .

Rutland native Percival W. Clement bought the Herald in 1882, having bought the Rutland Railroad, the Clement National Bank, New York real estate and a brokerage house. He used the newspaper to promote his political ambitions, succeeding in 1918 by winning the race for Vermont governor.

In 1927, P.W. Clements died and his son-in-law, William H. Field, moved back to Rutland to run the newspaper. Field, a co-founder of the New York Daily News, markedly improved the Herald. His son ran it until Robert W. Mitchell became owner-publisher in 1948. Mitchell’s son, R. John Mitchell, succeeded his father when he died in 1993.

Images: Bangor Daily News By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22888057; Shays Rebellion By Shockabrah – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=58001789

0 comment 547 views

Six Places That Appear on the Back of a Quarter

From 1999 through 2008, the 50 State Quarter program released commemorative quarters with unique designs for each state. Half of all Americans collected them at least casually, making it the most successful commemorative coin program ever.

The U.S. mint released five each year, one quarter every 10 weeks. They came out in the same order that the states ratified the Constitution. In New England, that order meant Connecticut went first, then Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont and Maine.

Rules governed the choice of design. No live person, no state flag and no head-and-shoulder image of a dead person.

Each New England state responded with an image that you can visit today.

Here, then, are the six New England places that appear on the backs of quarters.

Charter Oak Tree

Connecticut State Quarter

King Charles II in 1662 granted Connecticut a charter that allowed it to elect some of its own officials and make some of its own rules.

Charles’ successor, James II tried to combine the New England colonies with New York under a single Crown-appointed official, Edmund Andros. It didn’t go well.

The Charter Oak by Charles DeWolf Brownell, 1857

In 1687, Andros and 60 soldiers met with the leaders of the Connecticut Colony in Hartford and heatedly insisted they turn over the charter. The colonists just as heatedly refused to give him the document, which lay on a table before them.

According to legend, something — a gust of wind, perhaps — blew out the candles that lit the meetinghouse. In the confusion, the charter disappeared. Someone hid it in the hollow of a large white oak tree, where the king’s men couldn’t find it.

The oak, of course, became the revered Charter Oak and a symbol of American independence. Already more than 300 years old in 1687, the Charter Oak fell to a violent storm on Aug. 21, 1856.

The Dominion of New England fell well before that. Andros dissolved the colonial governments, including Connecticut’s even without the charter. Two years later in 1689 Massachusetts colonists sent Andros packing. James II lost power, the charter came out of hiding and the colonies reverted to their previous form of government.

The Charter Oak still exists – as chairs in the Old Connecticut Statehouse and as artifacts currently on display at the Connecticut Historical Society.

On the corner of Charter Oak Avenue and Charter Oak Place stands a column with a globe and a descendant of the original tree. There may be as many as 100 such trees, as people had collected acorns before it fell. The Simsbury Historical Society, for example, planted a descendant of the Charter Oak in 1976 to commemorate the nation’s bicentennial.

A portrait of the Charter Oak, framed in wood from the tree itself, hangs in the Wadsworth Athenaeum in Hartford.

Pemaquid Point Lighthouse

Maine State Quarter

Maine chose to honor its maritime heritage with an image of a windjammer sailing by Pemaquid Point Lighthouse on the back of its quarter.

President John Quincy Adams in 1827 commissioned Pemaquid Point Light in Bristol, Maine, about 60 miles north of Portland. The original lighthouse didn’t last long as builders mixed saltwater with the mortar mix. It had to be replaced in 1835, and the contract specified the use of fresh water in construction.

A storied lighthouse keeper, Marcus Hanna

Pemaquid Point Lighthouse

, once staffed the lighthouse. He was the only person to ever receive a Medal of Honor for bravery during the Civil War and a Gold Lifesaving Medal for saving a life off Cape Elizabeth.

Today, the Bristol Parks and Recreation Department owns and operates the outbuildings surrounding the lighthouse as Pemaquid Point Lighthouse Park.

The vessel on the quarter is the Victory Chimes, a rare three-masted schooner. Moored in Rockland, Maine, the Victory Chimes sails up and down the coast on windjammer excursions.

Minute Man National Park

Massachusetts State Quarter

Massachusetts honors its historic role in the American Revolution by putting a famous statue of the Minute Man. The monument depicts a farmer who dropped his plow to fight at North Bridge in Concord, Mass., on April 19, 1775.

Today the statue stands guard at The Minuteman National Historical Park in Concord, where 500 militiamen defeated three companies of British troops.

The Minute Man

In 1873 an unknown, 23-year-old college dropout was given the commission to create a monument to the Minute Man.

The 100^th anniversary of the shot heard ‘round the world was approaching, and the citizens of Concord wanted to honor the farmers and tradesmen who battled professional British soldiers.

They decided to award the commission to Daniel Chester French, who had never executed a full-size statue. They had their reasons: His father was well-connected in town, and he had taken art lessons from Louisa May Alcott’s little sister, who vouched for his talent. French, of course, went on to design many famous works, including the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

The Old Man of the Mountain

New Hampshire State Quarter

Alas, New Hampshire just can’t let go of the Old Man of the Mountain, though the mountain did. He tumbled to the ground on May 3, 2003, but his image still appears on license plates, state highway signs and the New Hampshire state quarter.

The Old Man of the Mountain, back in the day

Before the Old Man went to his forever home, he was a series of five granite ledges hanging 1,200 feet above the floor of Franconia Notch. He measured 40 feet high from forehead to chin, and over the years he was held together by chains and patched up with cement, plastic, steel rods and turnbuckles.

At least he was already on the quarter when the U.S. Mint released it on Aug. 7, 2000.

For nearly 200 years, the Old Man of the Mountain attracted tourists and served as a proud symbol of New Hampshire.

New Hampshire native Daniel Webster perhaps best expressed what the Old Man meant to the state:

[U]p in the Mountains of New Hampshire, God Almighty has hung out a sign to show that there He makes men.

Claiborne Pell Newport Bridge

Rhode Island State Quarter

Watery Rhode Island chose to put the Claiborne Pell Newport Bridge, New England’s longest suspension bridge, on the back of its quarter. Since 1969 it has connected Newport with Jamestown. Today it costs 16 quarters to cross.

The Claiborne Pell Newport Bridge

On a clear day, you can see the bridge from Gay Head Light in Martha’s Vineyard, the top floors of Providence’s tallest buildings and the parking lot of Stone Hill Marketplace in Johnston, R.I., 23 miles away.

Claiborne Pell served 36 years in the U.S. Senate from Rhode Island, and sponsored the bill to grant financial aid to college students in the form of Pell grants.

The quarter also depicts a vintage sailboat, as Rhode Island is nicknamed the sailing capital of the world. The nation’s smallest state, it has 400 miles of coastline and 100 beaches.

Camels Hump Mountain

Vermont State Quarter

Maple sugar is to Vermont as sailing is to Rhode Island. Well, maybe skiing is a more appropriate analogy, but Vermont went with maple sugaring on the back of its quarter.

The back of the quarter also features the Camels Hump Mountain in northern Vermont. It’s one of the tallest mountains in Vermont, and its distinctive profile makes it Vermont’s most recognized mountain.

Camels Hump, one of a dozen of Vermont’s National Natural Landmarks

The Camels Hump has had no less than a dozen names since Samuel de Champlain sailed down the lake that bears his name. De Champlain called it ‘Le Lion Couchant,’ meaning ‘the Resting Lion.’ Ira Allen called it the ‘Camel’s Rump.’ The Abenaki Indians called it ‘tahwahbodeay wadso.’

A forest preserve encloses the mountain, the summit of which philanthropist Joseph Battell donated to the state in 1905. By 1912, the Green Mountain Club built a trail between the mountain and Sterling Pond. Today the trail is a high point on the Long Trail system. The Green Mountain Club now pays a caretaker to make sure hikers respect the mountain’s fragile alpine tundra.

Images: Claiborne Pell Bridge By UpstateNYer – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7548436; Pemaquid Point Lighthouse (featured image) By Tiger635 – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31174599′ Pemaquid Point Lighthouse By WestportWiki – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21041474

0 comment 319 views

Newer Posts

Older Posts