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Abenaki Indians

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

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Six Breathtaking National Natural Landmarks

New England can claim 57 National Natural Landmarks of the 599 listed throughout the country. The six-state region has a wealth of beautiful conservation land that contains fossilized dinosaur tracks, quaking bogs, old growth forests, rhododendron stands and a spectacular rocky gorge.

The National Park Service administers the National Natural Landmarks Program to encourage conservation of sites with outstanding biological or geological features.

We selected the most breathtaking of the National Natural Landmarks in each of five New England states. Because tiny Rhode Island has only one, we didn’t have much choice.

If you know of any National Natural Landmarks worthy of note, please include them in the comments section.

Connecticut Dinosaur Trackway

national-natural-landmarks-dinosaur-trackway

The Dinosaur Trackway.

In 1802, a Massachusetts farm boy named Pliny Moody came across dinosaur tracks in Holyoke, Mass. He made the first of many such discoveries in the Connecticut River Valley’s sandstone.

On Aug. 23, 1966, Edward McCarthy was bulldozing a path for I-91 in Rocky Hill, Conn., when he overturned a block of sandstone imprinted with six three-toed footprints. It turned out he was disturbing a former lakebed riddled with dinosaur tracks, the largest in North America.

Scientists confirmed the importance of the Rocky Hill dinosaur tracks, each about a foot long.

Engineers rerouted the highway, and the state designated the lake bed a Connecticut state park. Scientists subsequently found about 2,000 of the three-toed tracks, linked to the Jurassic-era Dilophosauris.

The seven-acre Dinosaur State Park abuts an arboretum that has about two miles of hiking trails. The exhibit center opens Thursday through Saturday from 9 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. The park opens every day but Sunday and Monday.

Dinosaur State Park, 400 West St., Rocky Hill, Conn.

Gulf Hagas

Of Maine’s 12 National Natural Landmarks, Gulf Hagas is easily the wildest and most remote.

Gulf Hagas earned the name ‘Grand Canyon of the East’ for the three-mile slate gorge carved by the West Branch of the Pleasant River in Central Maine. The river drops 370 feet through the gorge, creating waterfalls that only the most experienced kayaker can manage. The West Branch of the Pleasant River creates a three-mile slate gorge with many waterfalls. Gulf Hagas belongs to the Appalachian Trail Corridor, following it through the Hundred-Mile Wilderness. Many view it as the most remote and difficult part of the Appalachian Trail.

Most people reach Gulf Hagas by driving through the Katahdin Iron Works, a historic site where iron ore was once smelted. Loggers used to drive logs for those smelting operations through the gorge, as narrow as eight feet wide in some places. .

Archaeologists have found gravesites belonging to the Red Paint People in the area.

The Gulf Hagas Rim Trail goes through The Hermitage, a rare stand of virgin old growth forest. Giant eastern white pine trees, once used for the British Royal Navy, grow as tall as 150 feet and as thick as 10 feet in diameter.

One eight-mile-long hike along the canyon rim takes as long as eight hours. An easier trail takes hikers four miles through The Hermitage and Gulf Hagas Brook.

Katahdin Iron Works Road, Bowdoin College Grant East Townswhip, Maine

Bartholomew’s Cobble

The John Ashley Hose sits near Bartholomew’s Cobble, one of Massachusetts’ 11 National Natural Landmarks.

Col. John Ashley, a Connecticut River God, settled the 329 acres of Bartholomew’s Cobble before the American Revolution. Ashley enslaved an African American woman named Elizabeth Mum Bett Freeman, who won a place in history by suing for her freedom and helping to end slavery in Massachusetts.

Bartholomew’s Cobble

The Trustees of Reservations took ownership of Bartholomew’s Cobble in 1946 and gradually added to it over the years. The trustees also manage the John Ashley home site.

Bartholomew’s Cobble sits right on the border of the northern and southern limits of a number of species, giving it tremendous diversity of plants, especially ferns. It also sits on the crossroads of the marble valley lowlands of the Berkshires and the Taconic uplands.

You can snowshoe, canoe, picnic, birdwatch, climb Hurlburt Hill to catch the sunset. The five miles of trails take you along the Housatonic River, up through the geological cobble formations, meadows and farmland full of wildflowers, ferns, mosses and ground-nesting bobolinks.

105 Weatogue Rd., Sheffield, Mass.

Rhododendron State Park

national-natural-landmarks-old-patch-placce

The Old Patch Place, one of New Hampshire’s National Natural Landmarks and part of Rhododendron State Park.

Rhododendron State Park in Fitzwilliam, N.H., has the largest of 19 native Rhododendron maximum stands in central and northern New England. The 15-acre park, near Little Monadnock Mountain, once had another name: Old Patch Place.

Samuel Patch built the Old Patch Place sometime between 1790 and 1816. The Patch family sold the house and land around 1841. Subsequent owners sold it several times before Stephen Follansbee bought it in 1885. Follansbee did a thriving business selling rhododendron blooms for 5 cents a bunch, 10 cents a tub or 25 cents a buggyful. Follansbee also sold the medicinal waters of Monadnock Mineral Spring.

Levi Fuller bought the Old Patch Place and planned to lumber it off in 1901. A philanthropist named Mary Lee Ware, however, bought the land from Fuller and gave it to the Appalachian Mountain Club in 1903. The gift came with several conditions: that it be open to the public forever, that no rhododendron would ever be picked and that no ax ever be used. The AMC breached the contract once, after the Great Hurricane of 1938 required downed trees to be clear.

Hikers used the Old Patch Place as a hostel until 1947, when the New Hampshire Division of Parks and Recreation took over.

The National Register of Historic Places added the house to its list in 1980. Two years later the National Park Service named the rhododendron lot one of its national Natural Landmarks. According to the National Register of Historic Places, it represents ‘an early achievement of the conservation movement in New Hampshire to protect endangered natural resources.’

424 Rockwood Pond Rd, Fitzwilliam, N.H.

Ell Pond

The kettle hole known as Ell Pond in Hopkinton, R.I.

Ell Pond, Rhode Island’s only entry on the list of National Natural Landmarks, is a kettle hole surrounded by a quaking bog. The bog in turn is encircled by a cedar bog and rock formations. The surrounding woodlands are dense with rhododendron and mountain laurel, which bloom in mid-June.

The 50-acre preserve has trails that offer some of the most beautiful hikes in Rhode Island. Visitors say they go to the uncrowded preserve to find some peace.

The preserve abuts lands owned by The Audubon Society of Rhode Island and the state. In 1972, The Nature Conservancy bought Ell Pond to add a link to the web of contiguous protected lands in Rhode Island.

433-,445 Old Rockville Rd, Hopkinton, R.I.

Camels Hump

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

You’ve seen the Camels Hump of Vermont, if only on the back of the state quarter. Its distinctive profile makes it Vermont’s most recognized mountain.

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.

The Camels Hump has a number of trails, popular with hikers. On a clear day the view from the summit takes in Mount Washington in New Hampshire, Mount Marcy in New York and Mount Mansfield in Vermont.

Camels Hump is one of 12 National Natural Landmarks in Vermont, which include pristine freswhater marshes, a biologically diverse fossil reef, virgin forests and alpine tundra.

Camels Hump Road, Huntington, Vt.

Images: Dinosaur Trackway By Daderot – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2105435; Col. John Ashley House, By I, Daderot, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2523950; Gulf Hagas By Tcpx36 – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17590021; Old Patch Place Cottage By User:Magicpiano – Own work, GFDL, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22023191

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Susannah Johnson, Indian Captive, Gives Birth in the Wild and Commemorates the Spot 45 Years Later

In August 1754, Susannah Johnson gave birth to a daughter in the Vermont wilderness during a forced march by her Indian captors.

The French and Indian War had started, and childbirth in the woods was only the beginning of her ordeal. Hunger, fatigue, fear and pain accompanied her on her march to an Indian village. The Indians sold her into slavery to the French, who eventually put her and her family into a Montreal prison. To return to her home in Charlestown, N.H., Susannah Johnson had to sail to England first.

Forty-five years later, Susannah Johnson hired a stonecutter to create two stone markers. She had them placed on the exact spot where she bore her daughter Captive and where they spent the night.

The markers still stand, though only near their original location. People know them as the Vermont Indian stones.

Susannah Johnson

Susannah Johnson was born Feb. 20, 1729 or 1730, in Lunenberg, Mass., one of 12 children to Moses and Susanna Hastings Willard. She was descended from Maj. Simon Willard, who founded Concord, Mass., and Thomas Hastings, who immigrated to America in the Puritan Great Migration.

Old Fort No. 4

At the age of 14 she moved to Charlestown with her family. The New Hampshire settlement amounted to little more than a fort, a saw mill and a cluster of huts for about 10 families.

Susannah Johnson’s step-uncles settled Charlestown, but Indians killed one of them during King George’s War, the third of the four French and Indian Wars.

When still in her teens, she married James Johnson in Lunenberg, Mass.

James Johnson

Her new husband had already spent much of his life in captivity – but to the British. As a 10-year-old boy he went to sea with his uncle, a ship captain. His uncle died on the voyage, and the crew sold him to a ship taking Irish slaves to America.

When the ship landed in Boston, the boys were allowed to play on the wharf. Susannah Johnson’s great-uncle happened to walk by them, and he noticed young James Johnson, the only boy who spoke English. The great-uncle bought his indenture.

At the age of 20, James Johnson bought his freedom and obtained a lieutenant’s commission. He married Susannah Willard, and they moved to the northernmost British settlement on the Connecticut River. Known then as Fort at Number 4, it is now called Charlestown, N.H.

Charlestown

During the peaceful years between the third and fourth French and Indian wars, Charlestown doubled in size. James Johnson did some farming and traded with the Indians.

An Abenaki couple

By May of 1754, James and Susannah Johnson had three children. That spring, he decided to go to Connecticut on a trading trip. In Connecticut he learned about an imminent war with the French and Indians, but he didn’t think Charlestown was in any immediate danger.

When James Johnson returned home in late August, neighbors came over to celebrate his return. They ate watermelons, drank flip, made merry and stayed in the Johnsons’ log house until midnight. When the neighbors left, the Johnsons went to bed and slept soundly.

Susannah was in the last days of pregnancy, happy her husband had returned.

The Indian Attack

Just before sunrise on Aug. 30, 1754, the Johnsons’ neighbor Peter Labarree knocked at the door. James Johnson got out of bed and put on his clothes to let him in.

Susannah Johnson heard him open the door and then shout “Indians! Indians!” He went to grab his gun, but a crowd of Indians burst in. Some hauled her 14-year-old sister out of bed, another grabbed Susannah and four Indians tied up her husband.

The Indians led her to the door, fainting and trembling, then brought her three naked children to her. She realized she herself had no clothes on. An Indian gave her a gown. She asked for a petticoat, but he refused.

The Indians took some plunder, bundled it up quickly then ordered them to march. Two Indians grabbed her arms and hurried her through thorny thickets. She lost a shoe.

They walked for a little while until they heard alarm guns from the fort. That hurried the Indians. After walking a mile and a half, Susannah Johnson grew faint and sat down. An Indian drew his knife; she thought he meant to kill her, but he just loosened her dress.

Baby Captive

Image of Susannah Johnson giving birth

The marching party included 11 Abenaki Indians, who understood little English. Also included: James and Susannah Johnson, their son Sylvanus, 6, daughters Susanna, 4, and Polly 2, Susannah’s sister Miriam, 14, neighbor Peter Labbaree and Ebenezer Farnsworth, a hired hand.

Hours after they set out, Indians noticed the blood covering Susannah’s legs and feet, cut badly because she had lost her shoe. They gave her moccasins. Then they caught a stray horse, threw bags and blankets on top of him and put her on top.

They walked another eight miles or so before sleeping on the ground. On the next day’s march, Susannah Johnson sat on the horse, her husband walking next to her holding her on.

After about an hour, she went into labor. The Indians indicated they must go to a brook.

She later wrote of her distress. She was

…fifteen or twenty miles from the abode of any civilized being, in the open wilderness, rendered cold by a rainy day–in one of the most perilous hours, and unsupplied with the least necessary, that could yield convenience in the hazardous moment. My children were crying at a distance, where they were held by their masters, and only my husband and sister to attend me.

Though the Indians remained aloof during her delivery, ‘they shewed some humanity,”

They built a small hut to shelter her, and at 10 am, she gave birth to a daughter, named Captive. The Indians expressed pleasure that they had another prisoner to sell.

More Misery

Captivity narrative by Susannah Johnson

The Indians let her rest during the day and made her a hut to sleep in at night. For two more days they marched on in glum silence and unvarying fatigue. On Day 5 they reached the banks of Lake Champlain, where they shot the horse she rode and ate it.

She couldn’t walk. Her husband had to carry her, which nearly killed them both.

“Inevitable death, in the midst of woods, one hundred miles wide, appeared my only portion,” she wrote.

They marched for four more days. At every meal, the Indians shared with them equally, and more than once they gave her a blanket, to shelter her from a thunderstorm.

On day 9 they reached East Bay in Lake Champlain. There, two Indians met them in four canoes, and they paddled all night to reach the western shore. The Indians built a fire and made the prisoners dance.

Again they embarked in canoes, and arrived at the French fort Crown Point at noon. The Indians took the prisoners to the French commander’s home. He gave them brandy, a good dinner, a change of linen and he put them up for four days. Susannah Johnson had a nurse, who dressed her infant in a French outfit she described as fantastical. Captive kept the outfit her whole life.

The Rest of the Story

They traveled north by water from French garrison to French garrison. Finally they arrived in St. Francis near Montreal, a village of about 30 wigwams and a Catholic church where a French friar said daily Mass.

Sylvanus went hunting with the Indians. Susannah Johnson wouldn’t see him again for years. The Indians put her in a large wigwam with three Indian men and three women. They took James Johnson to Montreal to sell him. Her daughters, her sister Miriam and Peter Labarree soon followed. In November, so did she.

After 11 days of travel she found her husband, children and friends in Montreal. Respectable people had bought them all and treated them well, except for the mayor, who treated her small daughter Polly badly.

James Johnson got two months’ parole to go to New England to raise cash to redeem his family. Massachusetts gave him 10 pounds and New Hampshire 150, but then the Massachusetts governor told him he had to stay.

When he didn’t return after two months, Susannah’s masters started to treat her badly. Finally James Johnson did return, only to be incarcerated with his family in a criminal jail. They were prisoners of war.

Susannah Johnson described conditions in the jail as shocking. The family all got smallpox, but survived.

Freedom

The Indian Stones, near the spot where Susannah Johnson gave birth

After six months the Johnsons persuaded the French authorities to transfer them to a civil jail. There they had decent beds, candles, food and fuel.

In the spring of 1757 they petitioned for their freedom, and got it. She found passage to England and from there she hoped to return home. Her husband had to stay behind. She, her two little daughters and her sister sailed for Plymouth, then went to Portsmouth. They then sailed to Cork. Then to New York, three years, three months and 11 days after her capture.

On Jan. 1, 1758 she embraced James Johnson, her ‘dearest friend’ in Charlestown. Charlestown had suffered from the war, so the family went to Lancaster. Her husband won a captain’s commission.

Captivity, slavery and imprisonment hadn’t killed James Johnson. But shortly after he won his freedom, he died fighting the French and Indians at Ticonderoga.

In October 1758, Susannah Johnson tracked down her son, now 11, who didn’t know her and spoke only broken English. He knew perfect Abenaki, however, after living with the Indians for three years.

Susannah Johnson eventually remarried and had more children. She published a book about her captivity in 1796, when captivity narratives had become a popular literary genre. Hers was no exception.

Indian Stones

In 1799, Susannah Johnson hired a stonecutter to engrave two slate slabs. One said,

On the 31 st of August 1754, Capt James Johnson had / a Daughter born on this Spot of Ground, being / Captivated with his whole Family by the Indians.

The other said,

This is near the Spot that the Indians Encamp/ the Night after they took Mr Johnson’s Family, / Mr Labarree & Farnsworth, August 30th 1754, and / Mrs Johnson was Delivered of her Child Half a mile up this Brook; // When troubles near the Lord is- kind, / He hears the Captives crys. / He can subdue the Savage mind, / And learn it sympathy.

She had the stone slabs placed on the spot where she gave birth to Captive, and the other near the place where they slept that night. In 1918, the stone markers were mounted on a single slab. You can still visit them.

Susannah Johnson died November 27, 1810.

To read her entire story, click here.

Elizabeth George based her young adult novel Calico Captive on Susannah Johnson’s story. You can find the Indian Stones at a small roadside pullout in southern Reading, Vt., on the east side of Route 106 at its junction with Knapp Brook Road.

Images: Stone marker with steps, By Magicpiano – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34713735; small stone Indian stone By Magicpiano – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34713733

This story was updated in 2022.

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Six Indian Trails That Turned Into Scenic Highways and Byways

The Indian trails that crisscrossed New England go back to prehistoric times.

Native Americans migrated from summer to winter homes along the paths, often worn bare by centuries of travel. They used the trails for hunting, trading and making war.

When the English colonists arrived, they owed a debt of gratitude for the Indian trails, wrote Chester B. Price in his book, Historic Indian Trails of New Hampshire.

“[T]hanks to the Indians, the early New Englanders inherited a vast network of trails which not only covered the New England states, but extended as far west as the Rocky Mountains,” Price wrote.

The Mohawk Trail and Kennebec Trail were two of the most famous Indian trails in New England. During the American Revolution, they were used for military maneuvers. Benedict Arnold followed both, the Kennebec Trail to his regret and the Mohawk Trail to his satisfaction – he captured Fort Ticonderoga at the end of it.

We identified six scenic driving routes that follow old Indian trails, at least one in each state. Some have been researched more thoroughly than others. If you know of scenic old Indian trails that can be driven today, please share them in the comments section.

The Old Connecticut Path

The Oliver Ellsworth House lies near one of Connecticut’s Indian trails.

The Old Connecticut Path was one of the most important Indian trails, stretching from Massachusetts Bay to the Connecticut River. In the early 1630s Nipmuck Indians loaded their surplus corn onto birch-bark backpacks and walked from the Connecticut River to Massachusetts Bay. There they traded their corn for copper and iron goods and woolen cloth.

John Oldham, whose death started the Pequot War, followed the Old Connecticut Path to explore the continent’s interior in 1633.

In 1636, the Rev. Thomas Hooker spent two weeks on the Old Connecticut Path with his followers to Hartford.

The Rev. John Wareham also led his congregation along the Old Connecticut Path to Windsor, Conn. John Adams followed that route from Tolland to Windsor in 1771. “Today I rode through paradise,” Adams wrote.

There is no consensus the exact location of the Old Connecticut Path from beginning to end, though genealogical researchers are working on it.

They concluded Adams took a part of the path that goes from the Tolland Green Historic District through the towns of Ellington, East Windsor and South Windsor. Then he went on to the Palisado Green in Windsor.

Generally, the Old Connecticut Path went through Massachusetts heading west along the Charles River in Cambridge, curved south in Wayland through Framingham, to Webster and to Lake Chaubunagungamaug. In Connecticut it continued to Hartford, Wethersfield and Windsor.

Today you can download apps that guide driving tours along parts of the Old Connecticut Path in Northeast Connecticut. You can follow John Adams’ route, or you can take other routes that go from Webster, Mass., to Tolland or Woodstock in Connecticut. Another Connecticut route goes from Woodstock to the Willimantic River. (Click here for more information about driving tours.)

Waldoboro Mast Trail (Route 220)

Downtown Waldoboro, which hasn’t changed much since this postcard was published, lies at the end of one of Maine’s old Indian trails.

Maine’s Indians used a vast network of canoe trails to get around, and to reach them they used a series of Indian trails from the interior to the coast. Carrying places, or portages, gave Maine tribes mobility throughout the region. It also let them trade extensively with each other and later with Europeans.

Indian paths from inland Maine to the coast also gave the Native Americans access to fur, birch bark and moose hide. One such path is known as the Waldoboro Mast Trail, which now follows Route 220 from Montville to Waldoboro. It was the most direct route from Lake St. George to the shellfish beds of the seacoast.

Wawenoc Indian families migrated along the path from the seasonal hunting camp to the seasonal fishing camp. They hunted for moose and beaver in the winter and brought their fur as trade goods to the coast using snowshoes, sledges and toboggans.

English settlers found the trail a convenient route to carry masts and spars for hundreds of the King’s ships built in Waldoboro.

Today Route 220 winds through rural Maine from Montville, which has several historic properties and the Frye Mountain Wildlife Management Area. It passes through the scenic towns of Liberty, home of Lake George and the Davistown Museum, and Washington. Travelers know Waldoboro for its commercial clutter on Route 1, which includes the popular eatery Moody’s Diner. The town itself has five nature preserves, a traditional downtown and eight sites listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

For a map of Route 220, click here.

Mohawk Trail

The Mohawk Trail.

The Mohawk Trail, one of the most famous Indian trails, today is one of the most beautiful drives in Massachusetts. Originally a trade route, it connected the Atlantic Indian tribes with the Iroquois tribes in Upstate New York and Canada.

The trail became a warpath when Mohawk war parties traveled it to destroy Pocumtuck settlements. Metacomet, or King Philip, took the Mohawk trail in 1676 to try to enlist the Mohawks in his cause (he failed). Benedict Arnold then took the Mohawk Trail on his way to capture Fort Ticonderoga.

In 1914, the Massachusetts General Court declared the 63-mile Mohawk Trail a scenic tourist route – the first in the United States.

Today Routes 2 and 2A follow the Mohawk Trail in Massachusetts from Athol to Williamstown. Boosters claim 100 scenic and culture attractions, including the Hail to the Sunrise statue, the Bridge of Flowers, a natural bridge, glacial potholes, pre-revolutionary homes in Old Deerfield, old growth forests and views of the Berkshire and Taconic Mountains.

Highway markers designate the trail. Click here for Mohawk Trail driving tours.

Winnicoek Trail

A seaside estate at Little Boar’s Head along one of New Hampshire’s many old Indian trails.

The Winnicoek Trail ran along the coast from the Merrimack River in Massachusetts through Winnicoek, now Hampton, and along the seashore to the Piscataqua River at Strawbery Banke, now Portsmouth.

The Pennacook and Abenaki Indians migrated along the path in the summer to what is now Odiorne Point. It’s a wooded park along the shoreline with sweeping views of the Atlantic Ocean and the Town of New Castle.

When the English colonists arrived in 1635, they used the Winnicoek Trail as a bridle path. Today it’s scenic Route 1A, also known as Ocean Boulevard, running along New Hampshire’s 18-mile shoreline.

Ocean Boulevard passes the wide, sandy beaches in Salisbury, Mass., and Hampton, N.H., then climbs a rocky promontory. Seaside estates begin at the Little Boar’s Head historic district and continue through Rye. Take a detour along Route 1B to wind through the quaint town of New Castle and past the grand old Wentworth-By-The-Sea Hotel. Route 1A finally ends in Portsmouth, a historic seaside city with many fine restaurants and Federal style homes.

Click here for a map of Route 1A.

Pequot Path

Route 1A turns into Ocean Road and the Narragansett Pier.

For hundreds of years, Narragansett and Pequot Indians traveled along the Pequot Path. It ran about 69 miles near the mainland shore from Providence to New London, Conn.

In 1636, Roger Williams took the Pequot path through Apponaug (Warwick) on his journey from Providence to the trading post at Cocumscussoc (near Wickford). “It is admirable to see what paths their naked hardened feet have made in the wilderness in the most stony and rockie places,” he wrote. Williams probably saw a dozen Narragansett villages along 20 miles of the path.

English settlers began using the Pequot Path until it evolved into the lower part of the Boston Post Road. Today, parts of scenic Route 1A (not to be confused with US Route 1A) follow the old Pequot path along the South Coast.

Scenic Route 1A follows the shore from Wickford to Narragansett, past the John H. Chafee Nature Preserve, a good spot to get out and walk to Narragansett Bay. Or, take a detour to the Gilbert Stuart Birthplace. The road passes large, exclusive homes, with views of the bay and the historic Casey Farm. FInally it feeds into Ocean Road past Town Beach to Narragansett Pier.

Click here to see how the Lower Post Road follows existing roads in Rhode Island.

Route 22A

Vergennes, a city that grew up along one of Vermont’s Indian trails.

Route 22A through the Lake Champlain Valley in Vermont was once part of a network of well-worn Indian trails linking villages and other overland trail networks. The western Abenakis of Vermont also used waterways such as the Connecticut River and Lakes Champlain and Memphremagog.

The St. Francis Indians came down from Canada along the trail by Lake Champlain to find warmer fishing grounds. The trail finally stretched to the Bronx, N.Y., where it became known as ‘the road to Bedford and Vermont.’ Today Vermont Route 22A is a continuation of New York Route 22A and a scenic drive in foliage season.

Route 22A goes from Ferrisburgh to historic Vergennes, Vermont’s oldest city. It then runs through Addison, Bridport, Shoreham, Orwell and Fair Haven on the New York border. Along the way lie the Chimney Point State Historic Site, dairy farms, rolling hills, white church steeples, and country inns.

Images: Old County Jail and Museum, Tolland, Conn. By Photograph by Greg O’Beirne – Own work, CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1391441; Hail to the Sunrise, By This mediaToddC4176 (talk)Original workJoseph Pollia, 1893-1954. – self-made, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36285807; Bridge of Flowers By FFM784 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=61250392; https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=57432594; Little Boar’s Head By Teemu08 at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1798424; Narragansett Pier By John Phelan – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=57432594.

This story about New England Indian trails was updated in 2023.

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Champ, the Lake Champlain Lake Monster

Champ, North America’s answer to the Loch Ness monster, has long been a legend around Lake Champlain. He (or she) has spawned Indian legends, a baseball team mascot, offers of reward money, paranormal investigations, keychains, mugs and T-shirts . Champ has even inspired seafood patties on sesame-seed buns called “Champburgers.”

Artistic representation of Sandra Mansi's 1977 photograph of "Champ" monster. Illustration by Benjamin Radford.

Artistic representation of Sandra Mansi’s 1977 photograph of “Champ.” Illustration by Benjamin Radford.

More than 300 sightings have been reported over the years, and they’ve attracted the attention of serious people. In 1827, the eminent Yale scientist Benjamin Silliman said he was open to the possibility that a lake monster existed.

P.T. Barnum recognized the commercial potential of Champ. In 1873 and 1887, he offered the enormous sum of $20,000 to anyone who could capture the monster dead or alive.

But Barnum never had to pay up, and Silliman never had to put his reputation on the line. Though many believe in Champ’s existence, it’s unlikely the lake monster exists outside of the collective imagination.

Notes on Champ

Before the Europeans arrived, the Iroquois and Abenaki Indians described a lake monster that lurked in lakes and eats humans. The Abenaki called it Tatoskok or Gitaskog.

Samuel de Champlain was said to have seen Champ in 1609, but that story came from a made-up quote in Vermont Life magazine in 1970.

Lake Champlain

There was an early sighting in 1819, when a captain aboard a scow near Port Henry, N.Y., saw a ‘black monster’ in the water. He thought it was more than 180 feet long and had eyes like peeled onions.

Then in 1870, steamboat passengers said they saw Champ. That led to more sightings by steamboat passengers. In 1871, they said they saw a head and long neck in Horseshoe Bay. Two years later, steamboat passengers spotted Champ in Dresden, N.Y.

Sightings then continued into the 20^th century. In 1945, passengers aboard the SS Ticonderoga saw Champ swimming in the middle of the lake.

What Could It Be?

Some think Champ, like the Loch Ness monster, is a relative of the plesiosaur, an extinct marine reptile. It had a small head, long neck, turtle-like body, short tail and two pairs of paddles.

Others think it could be a zeuglodon (or Basilosaurus), an extinct prehistoric whale. Champ’s ancestors may have lurked in the Iapetus Ocean 500 million years before the Atlantic Ocean was formed.

In 1977, a woman named Sandra Mansi took a photo verified as authentic of something. It looked very much like Champ. A professional debunker named Joe Nickell pointed out the photo was taken of something in 14 feet of water, unlikely to contain a giant lake monster.

Champ mascot

In 2005, two upstate New York fishermen named Dick Affolter and his stepson Pete Bodette took a video of something strange in Lake Champlain. Bodette said, “What we saw always stayed right on the surface, and parts of it would come above the water, the back or the nose or the head.” The video only showed something under the surface, but it appeared on ABC News.

Joe Nickel had already investigated the monster’s existence in 2003. He concluded that Champ believers were arguing from ignorance. “We don’t know what these people saw; therefore, it must have been Champ,” he asid.

“One cannot draw a conclusion from a lack of knowledge,” wrote Nickell. “And so, until an actual specimen presents itself, the possibility that any large, unknown animal inhabits Lake Champlain remains somewhere between extraordinarily slim and none.”

Images: Mansi image representation: By BRad06 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=43763274. Lake Champlain By Hbbrown18 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=48446678. This story was updated in 2023.

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The Highest Point in Each New England State

You might think the most challenging mountain climbing adventure in New England is to the highest point in the region: Mount Washington in New Hampshire. You would be wrong. It’s actually in Foster, R.I., but not because of its height.

New England’s high points are the subject of much lore and controversy. Henry David Thoreau climbed two of them. They’ve inspired literary works by authors from Nathaniel Hawthorne to J.K Rowling. One has a potato named after it. Another was supposed to be the place where God appeared in 1851.

Here is the highest point in each New England state, with a story to go with it.

Mount Frissell

Despite its location near the tony towns of Great Barrington, Mass., and Salisbury, Conn., Mount Frissell is the Rodney Dangerfield of mountains.

It just doesn’t get any respect.

Though the highest point in Connecticut is on Mount Frissell, Mount Frissell’s summit is in Massachusetts. And getting to Connecticut’s highest point requires climbing up two mountains, then climbing down to the high point.

Plus the trail to the summit (rather than the highest point) of Mount Frissell is near an attraction more interesting to some: the New York-Connecticut-Massachusetts tri-state marker.

Bear Mountain gets more respect than Mount Frissell because it’s the highest summit in Connecticut. Not only is it climbed more, but it’s on the Appalachian Trail. Some call it the fake Connecticut high point. Bear Mountain’s summit is 2,316 feet — 64 feet lower than the south slope of Frissell, which is 137 feet lower than Frissell’s summit.

Mount Katahdin

Mount Katahdin, near Millinocket, Maine, is only the 22^nd highest state peak in America, but National Geographic named it the country’s second best summit hike. Not because of its height or difficulty, but because it’s “the most inspiring peak in all of eastern North America.”

After Henry David Thoreau scaled it in 1846, he wrote, “This was the Earth of which we have heard, made out of Chaos and Old Night.”

Katahdin made another literary appearance in the novel A Separate Peace by John Knowles. The narrator, Gene, talks about his friend sleeping on top of Mount Katahdin, where “each morning the sun first strikes United States territory.”

Katahdin, which ends the Appalachian Trail, also has a potato, two U.S. Navy destroyers and a sheep named after it.

Mount Greylock

You can see five states from the summit of Mount Greylock in Adams, Mass.: Massachusetts, of course, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut and New York.

Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling put a school of wizardry atop Mount Greylock in her 2016 story, the Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It can be read on her Pottermore website.

Mount Greylock also inspired Nathaniel Hawthorne to write The Unpardonable Sin. The snow-covered mountain reminded Herman Melville of a great white sperm whale, which he named Moby Dick in his masterpiece. Thoreau wrote about his climb in A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers.

The mountain may have been named after an Indian chief, Gray Lock, who raided English settlements in Vermont and western Massachusetts during the last French and Indian war. Or it may have been named for the gray clouds that hover at its summit.

Greylock has extensive stands of old growth red spruce, and it’s an important bird area with 132 species of birds recorded on it. For more about recreation on Mount Greylock, click here.

Mount Washington

On a clear day, the view from the summit of Mt. Washington stretches 130 miles, to the Atlantic Ocean in the east and Lake Champlain in the west.

Today New Hampshirites proudly claim Mount Washington as the home of the world’s worst weather. On April 12, 1934, a wind speed of 231 mph was recorded on its summit, which is in Sargent’s Purchase.

In 1851, John Coffin Nazro made a bigger claim for New England’s tallest peak. Nazro, a devout Christian, announced that God would be appearing at the top of Mount Washington on July 4, 1851. He renamed it Temple Heights to signify its role as home to a new religious movement.

All it did was rain on that day. People who had come to see God told Nazro what they thought of him. Nazro gave up his religious movement and joined the Navy.

The Abenaki Indians also believed that the top of the mountain was a holy site. They declined to climb it in the belief that they would be punished with death if they did.

The first car to climb Mount Washington was a Stanley Steamer on Aug. 31, 1899. Co-inventor Freelan O. Stanley and his wife Flora drove to the peak in one of the earliest publicity stunts in the automotive industry.

For more about things to do on Mount Washington, click here.

Jerimoth Hill

No, the highest point in Rhode Island is not the 550-foot-high state landfill in Johnston.

It’s Jerimoth Hill, all 812 feet of it, in Foster, R.I. Some say it used to offer the most challenging climbing adventure in New England. The Highpointers Club, a national mounting climbing group, called it ‘America’s most inaccessible high point.’

The peak of Jerimoth Hill was owned by Brown University, which used it as an astronomy observatory location. The trail leading up to it, though, is on land once owned by a man who didn’t appreciate hikers traipsing across his property. Music teacher Henry P. Richardson posted signs saying, “Trespassing is a violation we take seriously.”

Richardson supposedly had a secret security system on his property. He enlisted a neighbor to report on any trespassers. One hiker returned from the summit of Jerimoth Hill to find his tires slashed. Another said Richardson tried to take his camera.A third claimed Richardson fired a warning shot with a shotgun.

In 2002, the Providence Journal suggested a solution for highpointers who couldn’t climb Jerimoth Hill: Shovel dirt onto 805-foot Durfee Hill in Glocester to make it higher than Jerimoth.

By 1999 the Highpointers Club negotiated four access dates a year with a friend of Richardson. Richardson died in 2001. The new owners opened the access trail on weekends.

The state bought Jerimoth Hill from Brown in 2014, and today you can climb it undisturbed by shotgun blasts. But manage your expectations. Jerimoth Hill is heavily wooded, has no views at all and is only about five feet higher than the highway.

You might think Rhode Island has the lowest high point in the country. You would be wrong. Jerimoth Hill ranks only 46^th.

New England’s honorary state, Florida, lies even lower even than the District of Columbia.

Mount Mansfield

From Stowe, Vermont, look toward Mount Mansfield and you may see a reclining giant’s face. Many a climber has tried to distinguish the giant’s chin, nose and forehead. The chin is the tallest point.

According to a Stowe newspaper in 1858, a giant was walking north and, “being fatigued with his journey, as night came on he laid him down to sleep, and unfortunately, he has never since awoke, but like the giant Rip Van Winkle sleeps on.”

The effort to make Mount Mansfield a regional mascot may have been spurred by competition with New Hampshire’s Old Man in the Mountain. In the mid 19^th century, Daniel Webster famously popularized the Old Man with the words: “God Almighty has hung out a sign to show that there He makes men.”

A small monument can be found along the summit. A cairn called Frenchman’s Pile marks the spot where lightning struck and killed a man many years ago.

Photos: Mount Washington By wwoods – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1539623; Mount Greylock By Ericshawwhite – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=28407006; Jerimoth Hill By Fredlyfish4 – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19337222. This story about the highest point in each New England state was updated in 2023.

8 comments 8.6K views

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The Highest Point in Each New England State

Mount Frissell

Mount Katahdin

Mount Greylock

Mount Washington

Jerimoth Hill

Mount Mansfield

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