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Six Historic Buildings With a Clerestory

The clerestory window makes a lot of sense in New England because of the short, short days during the long, long winter. The clerestory brings in much (and much-appreciated) light.

Technically, a clerestory is a high section of wall that contains windows above eye level to bring in fresh air as well as light. Sometimes people confuse them with widows walks, at least from outside.

One can find a clerestory window in all kinds of buildings. Here are six historic buildings with a clerestory. If you know of another notable building with a clerestory, please include it in the comments section.

The Henry Knox house in Thomaston, Maine, has a clerestory.

West End Library, Farmington, Conn.

This mini-version of the Boston Public Library has something the BPL doesn’t: clerestory windows.

The National Park Service calls the old West End Library in the village of Unionville in Farmington, Conn., ‘an unusually intact example’ of the nearly 2,000 libraries Andrew Carnegie gave away. Today it looks much as it did when built in 1917: Even the toilet room in the basement is original.

Back around the turn of the century, cities and towns rarely supported public libraries with tax dollars (few, by the way, still do). Local library organizations had a hard time finding a place to store their books. So Andrew Carnegie, the steel tycoon, gave away all of his fortune, mostly to libraries. He singlehandedly doubled the number of public libraries in the United States, giving away 1,689. Of those, 95 were in New England. All but three are still standing, including the West End Library in Farmington.

A nationally renowned architect, Edward Lippincott Tilton, designed the old West End Library, finished in 1917. Like many Carnegie libraries, the West End Library is a miniature version of a famous large library: in this case, the Boston Public Library. But unlike the Boston Public Library the West End Library has clerestory windows directly above the main arched windows in the front and back.

The building operated as library until 1968, when it became a senior center. Then in 1984 the town leased it to the nonprofit Unionville Museum.

The National Park Service called the library ‘a testament to small-town civic achievement.’ It has significance not just as a historic building but as a contributor to the character of the surrounding village of Unionville, a historic district since 1978.

15 School St, Unionville, Conn.

Tate House, Portland, Maine

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This house has a gambrel clerestory, once popular in New England. Now only two remain.

Capt. George Tate served as Maine’s last mast agent, overseeing the cutting and shipping of white pine trees to England for the Royal Navy’s masts. Tate may have thought the plum job set him up for life, but things began to go south for him.

Tate, born in 1700, moved with his family to the colonies around 1750s. He built himself a fine house in 1755 in what is now the Stroudwater Historic District, a section of Portland cut off from the rest of the city and containing many 18^th and 19^th-century homes.

The king’s first mast agent in Maine, Col. Thomas Westbrook, settled Stroudwater. He built some of the roads, a dam, a bridge, and sawmills and gristmills — in short, an early industrial village that thrived on the processing of white pine trees.

Tate brought paneling and wainscoating from England; the unpainted clapboard exterior disguises the lavish interior. The Tate House has a clerestory gambrel roof, once a common form of colonial architecture. Only one other survives in New England, in the Burnham Tavern in Machias, Maine.

But then in 1770 his wife Mary died at age 60. According to an entry on the findagrave website,

Mary Tate was killed by a booby trap set by her son William to catch thieves. William was convicted of her murder but was later pardoned by George III.

Then, of course, revolution broke out, in part due to resentment of the king appropriating the colonies’ white pine trees.

George Tate lived to be 94, dying in 1794. The house opens to the public in the warmer months.

1270 Westbrook Street, Stroudwater neighborhood, Portland, Maine.

Shaker Barn, Hancock, Mass.

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The clerestory in this barn let in light for milking cows and fresh air for preventing hay from combusting.

Shakers established Hancock Shaker Village in 1791, the third of 19 started between 1783 and 1836 Closed in 1960.

Built in 1820, the barn at the Hancock Shaker Village was probably the first round barn in the United States.

A model of efficiency and clever design, the barn has three levels, each with a specific use. The Shakers designed the big fieldstone barn for 52 cows, but it can hold 70. Once constructed, it attracted visitors, including Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville, who raced each other on foot inside the building.

After a fire, the Shakers replaced the conical roof with a clerestory that let in light and fresh air, which prevented the spontaneous combustion of wet hay.

A ramp takes wagons filled with hay to the third level; because the barn is round, the wagons never have to back up, they simple circumnavigate the barn and exit through the same door they entered.

From the third level, Shakers could pitch hay to the cows on the second level, where they were milked.

The cows’ heads fit into stanchions so they could feed while they were milked. At the cows’ rear ends, the Shakers built trap doors so they could easily shovel manure into the first level. They let it accumulate until they spread it on fields for fertilizer.

34 Lebanon Mountain Rd., Hancock, Mass.

Samuel Tenney House, Exeter, N.H.

The clerestory in this Georgian house came from an English pattern book.

The Samuel Tenney house at one time or another involved five well-known New Hampshire figures: Dr. Samuel Tenney, who tended wounded soldiers at the Battle of Bunker Hill; his wife Tabitha, the first best-selling author in America; Tristan Shaw, U.S. congressman; Ebenezer Clifford, inventive master carpenter; and Bradbury Johnson, builder-architect.

Samuel Tenney built the house around 1800 where the courthouse now stands. Born in 1748, he served as a surgeon to the army to the end of the American Revolution. George Washington appointed him acting surgeon general at Valley Forge. After the war he had a long and distinguished career as a judge, U.S. congressman, author and scientist.

Tabitha Tenney was the best-selling novelist in the country for the first half of the 19^th century. Her novel, Female Quixotism, poked fun at the illusions of romance. Published in 1799, the book was still in print when Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

Ebenezer Clifford and Bradbury Johnson together built several landmark buildings in Exeter, including the First Parish Church, the second Phillips Exeter Academy building and the Atknson Academy building. The two men creatively adapted designs from English pattern books as the gabled clerestory in the Tenney house shows. Clifford, by the way, built and designed a diving bell that he used in the Exeter River.

Finally, U.S. Rep. Tristran Shaw lived in the Tenney house in the early 19^th century. The house was moved to its current location on High Street to make way for the courthouse.

65 High St., Exeter, N.H.

Upper Rockville Mill, Hopkinton, R.I.

The clerestory in this Rhode Island textile mill let more workers work longer.

The Upper Rockville Mill, built in 1844, typifies the granite mill buildings that dotted Hopkinton, R.I., in the 19^th century. What’s different about the Upper Rockville Mill: It used water power well into the 20^th century, and didn’t stop making textiles until the late 1980s or early 1990s.

The Rockville Manufacturing Company built the big granite mill on a hill in 1844, and ever since it has served as the town’s most prominent architectural feature. Like many Rhode Island cotton mills, it had clerestory windows that allowed more natural light and usable work space in the mill’s attic.

Two years later the Seventh Day Baptists built a church, and from then on village life revolved around the mill and the church. Seventh Day Baptists owned the mill, and everyone who worked there belonged to the church. As many as half the workforce were women and children.

The mill made cotton yarn, cloth, fishing line, twine and cord. Since it relied on water power, it could never expand too much, but it could survive for more than a century.

Today the National Register of Historic Places lists the Upper Rockville for two reasons: It demonstrates the rise of the textile industry in New England, and how that industry created many mill villages in rural towns. In 1850, Hopkinton alone had more than a dozen mill villages.

332 Canonchet Rd., Hopkinton, R.I.

Christ Episcopal Church, Montpelier, Vt.

Christ Episcopal Church features a large round clerestory window ‘to the glory of Almighty God.’

The neo-Gothic Christ Episcopal Church reflects Montpelier’s growth and prosperity after the Civil War. The parish in 1868 replaced an old frame church built 30 years earlier with a substantial stone building. It had both a 100-foot tower and spire and a stained-glass clerestory window, a key feature in Gothic churches.

The building, though, suffered repeated damage. In 1903, a fire ruined the roof and the interior. Then in 1927 the flood that devastated Vermont also devastated the church, undermining its structural integrity. Though the parish repaired the church, it had to remove the spire in 1963. Then in 2015, a crane collapsed and crashed through the roof. Once again, the church required repair.

Today Christ Episcopal Church stands as one of five historic churches built in Montpelier between 1865 and 1873. All survive and belong to the Montpelier Historic District.

64 State St., Montpelier, Vt.

Images: West End Library By Doug Kerr from Albany, NY, United States – Unionville, Connecticut Uploaded by Magicpiano, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29970923; Round barn at Hancock Shaker Village: By Bestbudbrian – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=51387903; Samuel Tenney House, By User:Magicpiano – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25270039; Christ Episcopal Church By John Phelan – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18509487; Tate House By User:Magicpiano – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=28918831.; Upper Rockville Mill By Tmac02892 – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6897440. This story was updated in 2022.

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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

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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. a gorge in central Maine. 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

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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.

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.

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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The Somnambulism Defense: The Sleepwalking Murderer of Pembroke, N.H.

Doubtless many people are murdered in their sleep. But it’s not often the would-be murderer is asleep, too, suffering from somnambulism. But that was the case in 1833 in Pembroke, N.H., or at least that’s what everyone believed.

In January of 1833, 18-year-old Abraham Prescott, a farmhand living with Sally and Chauncey Cochran, entered their bedroom and bashed them both over the head with an ax. Sally survived with an injury to the cheek. Abraham walloped Chauncey on the side of the head, knocking him unconscious. He lived, however.

Only after striking Chauncey did Abraham come to and realize what he had done, he later told the sheriff. Abraham quickly roused Chauncey’s mother, who lived with the family, and they summoned help.

Somnambulist Murder

In the aftermath, Sally told her neighbor, Lucy Robinson, that she did not blame Abraham for his actions. Abraham had lived with the Cochrans for three years as an apprentice farmhand. “Mrs. Cochran used to say that Abraham ought not to be blamed,” Lucy said. “If he had been awake he’d have hurt himself as quick as them.”

Abraham’s explanation satisfied the sheriff and life continued as usual at the Cochran farm until June 23, a Sunday morning. Sally took Abraham with her to her brother-in-law’s field to pick strawberries. Chauncey stayed home reading until he heard strange noises from the barn. Upon investigation he found Abraham crying.

Colony Farm in West Keene, New Hampshire, James A. French

At Chauncey’s urging Abraham led him to a spot in the field to Sally’s battered body, strawberries strewn around her. Abraham had struck her twice on the head with a wooden stake. She died at just 28.

Abraham could only remember that he had laid down in the field, suffering from a toothache. But blood covered his clothes. No one doubted who killed Sally Cochran.

Somnambulism Defense

Shortly after Sally’s death, two pictures began to emerge of Abraham Prescott. Both Chauncey and Abraham’s family agreed the young man had limited intellect. He had also seemed moodier than usual in the time before the murder.

Abraham’s family said mental illness ran in their family. Abraham’s grandfather had been deranged, everyone agreed, and an uncle was a drunkard who was given a state guardian. Abraham, they said, had suffered fits as a child. A doctor told them his head was too large and they described a long history of treating his mental condition. It included a mix of medications and bizarre physical treatments such as regular cold baths. At one point, they said, they took Abraham to the ocean and dipped him in, believing the cold would somehow improve his condition.

Abraham was a regular sleepwalker as a child, his mother said, and she often had to watch out for him at night to prevent him hurting himself during one of his attacks of somnambulism.

Testimony

An array of doctors gave testimony, including George Parkman of Boston, whose own murder several years later would shock Boston society. Insanity, these doctors said, would include symptoms of somnambulism, and it was definitely inheritable.

Abraham’s own doctor said he had no recollection of any insanity involving Abraham. Chauncey, meanwhile, said he knew nothing of Abraham’s claims of somnambulism. The young man, he said, was a happy, content farmhand, but he had been moodier than normal. He had to scold him for beating the cows too hard.

“I believe the devil got full possession of him,” Chauncey said.

The jailer testified that he had quizzed Abraham about the murder and that Abraham confessed he had made an improper advance toward Sally. She had rebuked him and said she intended to tell Chauncey about it. Abraham figured he was headed to jail for this, and so he killed Sally. He would rather be hanged then locked up in jail.

Abraham later said he just made up his confession to get the jailer to stop interrogating him.

Two Juries, Two Trials

Late in 1834, Abraham came to trial. The jury heard the story and, without much debate, did not buy the somnambulism defense. They found Abraham guilty.

Abraham’s lawyers, however, were able to win him a second trial. The jurors had discussed the case in public while drinking at the bar at Concord’s Eagle Hotel and at a barber shop.

In 1835, Abraham’s case was repeated, and the result was the same. The second jury concluded he was responsible for his actions and was not insane.

By now public opinion was running high both for and against Abraham. The governor was under pressure to commute his sentence to prison rather than hanging. With the execution scheduled for December 23, Governor William Badger was pressed to at least delay the sentence until the state’s executive council could convene to take up the matter.

Badger was an opponent of the death penalty, but he said he didn’t like the idea of overturning the decisions of two juries. He agreed to delay the hanging, however, until the executive council could meet in January of 1836.

Mob Scene

Not knowing of the delay, a crowd of thousands came to Hopkinton, N.H., on December 23^rd expecting to witness an execution. When they learned of the delay, they went wild. Members of the crowd first tried to pressure the jailer into handing Abraham over to them. When he refused, they hanged Abraham in effigy from a limb in front of the Perkins Hotel.

When January 6 arrived, there would be no second delay. The executive council had declined to intervene and Abraham Prescott was hanged in front of a large crowd. He had feared, he said, that his body would be given over to a college for medical research since he was poor and had no money to arrange for a burial. Townspeople ponied up the necessary funds, however, and buried Abraham in Rumney, N.H.

Abraham Prescott never denied killing Sally Cochran. His motives, however, were unclear. The best explanation that could be found was that he mistakenly assumed if he killed the Cochrans he would own their farm.

After the execution, Chauncey Cochran moved to East Corinth, Maine, where he became a storekeeper and legislator.

Thanks to Report of the trial of Abraham Prescott, for the murder of Mrs. Sally Cochran and Life and Times in Hopkinton, N.H. By Charles Chase Lord. This story was updated in 2022.

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6 Historic Stagecoach Stops You Can Visit

The history of New England’s post roads and their stagecoach stops mirror the history of the country. The roads date back to the Pequots who used the trails that grew into the post roads for generations. The same trails carried John Winthrop on his journeys from Boston to Springfield.

Traffic on the roads shrank as King Philip’s War turned them into dangerous gauntlets. They expanded again as the war ended and horses made travel more enticing and the mails more efficient.

The heyday of the stagecoaches in the 1800s really drove a blossoming of the post roads. They grew from the first Upper Post Road into a maze of roads that wound their way into every corner of New England.

These stagecoaches created economic booms wherever they went, bringing commerce as well as jobs. Stagecoach stops, needed every 12 to 20 miles or so, were essential, especially in the early days of the stagecoach era. These inns provided income to their owners, and many others: drivers, ticket agents, coach makers, blacksmiths, stable hands and farmers.

Today, the vestiges of the stagecoach era remain with us. Many of the roads New Englanders travel today were once used by the stagecoaches. And along those roads, some of the old stagecoach stops still serve up food, drink and comfort to the weary traveler.

Here are six still open to the public today, one in each New England state:

Old Riverton Inn

The Old Riverton Inn, one of Connecticut’s many, many stagecoach stops back in the day.

Several years before the American Revolution, stagecoaches and stagecoach stops appeared on the Upper Post Road from New York to Boston, and from Hartford to Norwich and Providence. The war interrupted service, but resumed when it wound down. Stagecoach service expanded quickly on the new turnpike roads and postal routes.

Levi Pease began a stage service between New York and Boston on the Upper Post Road. He got the mail contract for all of New England from the U.S. Congress in 1789. Then he expanded his business into Northern New England and to Albany.

By 1827 Connecticut had 26 stage routes. By then it took only 36 hours to travel between New York and Boston vs. the previous six days. Taverns were generally 12 to 18 miles apart. Drivers announced their arrival at stagecoach stops by blowing on a trumpet.

During the early part of the 19^th century, Connecticut developed the most complex network of toll roads in New England. The state had few centers of wealth like Providence or Boston, and market towns competed fiercely for the trade of the back country. Between 1792 and 1839, 1,600 miles of turnpike road were created in Connecticut. The Talcott Mountain Turnpike was a key part of the route from Hartford to Albany.

Jess Ives opened the Ives Tavern or Ives Hotel in 1796 along the Hartford-to-Albany Route in Riverton, Conn. Today it’s known as the Old Riverton Inn and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It overlooks a wild and scenic section of the Farmington River.

The artist who painted murals on the walls of the Hobby Horse Bar also painted murals for the 1936 New York World’s Fair. The inn features bar stools made of saddles on kegs.

For more information about the Old Riverton Inn, click here.

Coach Stop Inn

The Coach Stop Inn, one of the stagecoach stops along the way from Bar Harbor to Maine’s interior.

Stagecoach lines began regular service between Maine towns after the Revolutionary War. The first stages ran between Portland and Portsmouth, N.H., a journey that took three days in 1787. By 1825, a stage could make the journey between Bangor and Portland in 36 hours.

The Coach Stop Inn in Bar Harbor was built in 1804 for newcomers who came to build homes, farms and ships on Mount Desert Island. Known as the Halfway Tavern, it often hosted sailors in the early days. Patrons would arrive by sea and take a stagecoach from the tavern into Maine’s interior towns.

Wealthy patrons charmed by fresh air, beautiful scenery and hiking trails made Bar Harbor a fashionable summer resort during the Gilded Age. In 1947, a fire that burned much of Maine also destroyed some of Bar Harbor’s hotels and mansions. The oldest hotel to survive the fire is now the Coach Stop Inn, a luxurious bed and breakfast.

For more information, click here.

Longfellow’s Wayside Inn

The most famous of the stagecoach stops, The Wayside Inn.

The Wayside Inn in Sudbury, Mass., boasts that it’s the oldest operating inn in the United States. It has accommodated travelers along the Boston Post Road since 1716. Just a few miles down the road from historic Minuteman National Historical Park in Concord, it began life 300 years ago as Howe’s Tavern. David Howe ran it as an extension of his own home.

David handed the property to his son Ezekial – a soldier in Sudbury’s militia during the American Revolution. The Howe family continued to operate and expand the inn until 1861, serving traffic between Worcester and Boston.

The inn stopped operating as a traditional inn in 1861. The owners converted it into something more like a boarding house and dance hall.

But in 1862, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow sealed the inn’s place in history. Longfellow visited the building and published his now-famous Tales of the Wayside Inn in 1863. From that time on, the inn was the destination of tourists and literary pilgrims who wanted to see first-hand the inspiration for Longfellow’s book.

In 1923, the inn took another important step into immortality when automobile magnate Henry Ford bought the property. Ford then began the restoration and expansion that gave shape to the inn’s current configuration.

For more information, click here.

Coach Stop Restaurant & Tavern

The Coach Stop, one of New Hampshire’s many stagecoach stops in the early 19th century.

In 1786 the legislature in New Hampshire expanded the system of post roads to travel to four sections of the state. Though the earlier post roads moved mail and people between Portsmouth and some points west and north, only later did the routes reach deep into the western portion of the state.

One such line ran from Portsmouth across the state’s southern tier over to Amherst and back, creating the need for taverns and inns along the way.

Londonderry’s Coach Stop Restaurant & Tavern began life in 1810 as the home of the town’s doctor. Later in the 1800s it was maintained as Plummer’s Tavern, located at the junction of two post roads. One carried coaches east and west to Nashua and the other carried traffic north and south to Manchester and Concord. For a map of all stagecoach lines operating in New Hampshire in 1833, click here.

Today the restaurant and inn maintains much of its historical charm, with signs of the original elements of its days as a coach stop remaining intact.

For more information, click here.

Stagecoach House Inn

The Stagecoach House Inn, for many years one of the stagecoach stops along the New London Turnpike.

Settlers first came to Wyoming, a historic village in Richmond, Rhode Island, in 1757. Wyoming grew and prospered when the Brand’s Iron Works was founded across the Wood River in Hopkinton in 1787. Sometime around 1800, an inn was built at a strategic crossroads in Wyoming.

Textile mills sprang up in the area, and in 1815 the New London Turnpike opened right past the inn. The new road brought stagecoach riders between Richmond and New London, Connecticut

By 1835, the New London Turnpike – now Route 3 – connected Providence and New London. It proved to be faster and more direct than the Old Post Road, which followed the coastal route. The village thrived, and for many years an inn once known as Dawley Tavern continued as a stagecoach stop.

By the 20^th century, industry began to founder along the Wood River. That, however, allowed Hopkinton and Wyoming to retain much of their historic 19^th century character. The National Register of Historic Places lists almost a square mile of the two villages as the Wyoming Village Historic District. It includes the old ironworks, Greek Revival, Late Victorian, and Federal architecture in both Wyoming and Hopkinton.

Today the Dawley Tavern is called the Stagecoach House Inn at 1136 Main Street.

For more information, click here.

Stagecoach Inn

The Stagecoach Inn, a fitting name for one of Vermont’s old stagecoach stops.

At the start of the 19th century, ancient footpaths connected Burlington and Montpelier in Vermont. In 1805, the 36-mile Winooski Turnpike along the Winooski River was chartered to connect the two major towns.

The old Winooski Turnpike turned into U.S. Route 2, the main highway connecting the White Mountains to the Adirondacks. It cuts through Waterbury, the town where Ben and Jerry’s make their ice cream.

In 1826 either a Mr. Parmalee or a lawyer named Dan Carpenter had a structure built on the corner of the Winooski Turnpike and what is now Route 100. The building served as a tavern and inn for travelers and as a meeting place for locals.

By the mid-1800s, a farming family named the Henrys owned the inn. Their eccentric daughter Nettie married an Ohio rubber baron, Albert Spencer. Nettie smoked cigarettes, chewed tobacco and wore a celluloid eyeshade. She expanded and improved the old family house in Queen Anne Style.

Nettie Spencer died in 1947. The home was later run as a rooming house and fell into disrepair. A young couple from Boston bought the property in 1985 and rebuilt the house. Today it’s the Old Stagecoach Inn, a historic bed-and-breakfast in the center of downtown Waterbury.

For more information about the Stagecoach Inn click here.

This story about New England stagecoach stops was updated in 2021. If you enjoyed this story, you may also want to read about six Revolutionary taverns here.

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Boston Marathon Trivia, or Things You (Probably) Didn’t Know About the Big Race

Like so many New England sports traditions, the Boston Marathon is surrounded by lore and legend.

Boston Marathon, circa 1930. Photo courtesy Boston Public Library, Leslie Jones collection.

What Bostonian doesn’t know about Heartbreak Hill, Johnny Kelley and Rosie Ruiz?

But a few things can escape a fan’s attention, especially when the event has hosted hundreds of thousands of runners over its 122 years. Here are seven things you may not know about the big race:

1. Boston Marathon Entry Fee

Tarzan Brown wouldn’t have run the 1939 Boston Marathon if someone hadn’t given him a dollar. The chronically unemployed runner showed up in Hopkinton without the $1 entrance fee. Walter Brown, who fired the starting gun, gave the Narragansett the dollar. Tarzan Brown won the race.

Tarzan Brown running the 1939 Boston Marathon. Photo courtesy Boston Public Library, Leslie Jones collection.

The eccentric, mercurial Brown had won the race before, in 1936. He dominated the sport of long-distance running in America along with John A. Kelley and Les Pawson throughout the 1930s.

Between races he worked as a stonemason and a shell fisherman, but sometimes had to sell his trophies and medals to feed his wife and four children. He died in 1975 when a van hit him outside a tavern.

2. Two Johnny Kelleys

There were two Johnny Kelleys, Johnny Kelley the Elder and John J. Kelley the Younger. Johnny Kelley the Younger, born in Norwich, Conn., in 1930, won the Boston Marathon in 1957. He became a successful running coach at Fitch High School in Groton, Conn., where he coached the 1968 Boston Marathon winter, Amby Burfoot.

Johnny Kelley the Younger

Burfoot roomed with Bill Rodgers, four-time Marathon winner, at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn. Rodgers, born in Hartford, invited runner Greg Meyer to move to Boston, where Meyer won the Marathon in 1983.

Johnny Kelley the Elder, born in 1907, won the marathon in 1935 and 1945, came in second seven times and ran the race 61 times. He ran his last full marathon in 1992 at the age of 84. For the next two years he ran the last seven miles.

Johnny Kelley the Elder in 1996

A statue of Johnny Kelley the Elder stands near Newton City Hall near Heartbreak Hill, so named because of something he did in 1936. He overtook Tarzan Brown on the hill, and gave him a conciliatory pat on the shoulder as he passed him. That aggravated Brown, who then speeded up and beat Kelley. Hence the name “Heartbreak Hill.”

At 65, 19 years before his last marathon, Johnny Kelley said, “For me, the race these days is to try to beat the girls to the finish and to wave to all my old friends along the course.”

3. Winningest Boston Marathon Runner

Clarence DeMar won seven Boston Marathons despite a five-year layoff on his doctor’s advice. He won more of the men’s open division than any other runner. DeMar won in 1911, 1922-24, 1927-28 and 1930.

His doctor detected a slight heart murmur and advised him to stop running because, he believed, running weakened the heart.

Clarence DeMar

DeMar’s doctor wasn’t alone in believing that running was dangerous. For many years the marathon required a pre-race physical, and doctors decided whether runners were fit to race. In 1958, three runners declared unfit finished in the top 10. Medical science has advanced since then.

One competitor has won more races than DeMar, though: Ernst van Dyk has won 10 times in the wheelchair division.

Ernst van Dyk

4. The Prizes Got Better

Prize money wasn’t awarded until 1986, due to the sponsorship of John Hancock Financial Services. But over the past 20 years, runners have received more than $20 million. Winners of the open division get $150,000, and competitors who set a course record in both the open and wheelchair divisions will receive $50,000 bonuses.

5. A Small Broad

Roberta ‘Bobbi’ Gibb was the first woman to run the entire Boston Marathon. She was a spiritualist who discovered inner peace while running up to 40 miles a day. In 1966 she put on a black bathing suit and her brother’s big Bermuda shorts and hid in the bushes near the start. She finished in three hours, 21 minutes and 40 seconds, ahead of two-thirds of the runners.

The crowd cheered her wildly along the way, but not everyone approved. Celtics coach Red Auerbach was perplexed. “I can’t get guys to run around the floor and a small broad goes out there and runs a marathon,” Auerbach said. “I don’t know what the world is coming to.”

Bobbi Gibb in 2016

6. Choice Epithets

The Boston Marathon for many years was run by two old friends, Will Cloney, a sportswriter, and Jock Semple, a trainer for the Celtics and Bruins. Semple had a penchant for physically attacking non-serious runners. In 1959 he chased a runner wearing a clown mask, tackled him from behind and beat him until police pulled him off.

Jock Semple

“He hurls not only his body at them, but also a rather choice array of epithets,” Cloney said. “Jock’s method of attack is apt to vary.” In 1967, before women could run officially, Kathrine Switzer evaded Semple’s radar by entering under “K. V. Switzer.” When he discovered a woman running the marathon, he tried to rip her number off. “Get the hell out of my race and give me those numbers,” he shouted, according to Switzer. Her boyfriend shoved Semple out of the way, but photos of Semple grabbing Switzer’s numbers made world news. He and Switzer later became friends.

In a 1968 Sports Illustrated interview, he complained about the runners he didn’t like. “These screwballs! These weirdies!” he said. “These MIT boys! These Tufts characters! These Harvard guys! They write me askin’ should they put on spiked shoes for the marathon!”

7. One Beer, One Cigar

Gerard Cote, the “fabulous Frenchman,” wouldn’t talk to reporters immediately after winning the race in 1948. He told them, “Gentlemens, gentlemens! One beer! One cigar! Then we talk about the race, eh!” He won three other Boston Marathons, in 1940, 1943 and 1944.

Gerard Cote winning the 1940 Boston Marathon

BONUS ITEM: Thanks to reader Don Mathesen, we’re adding “The Run for the Hoses.” One hour before the noon start in 1976, the temperature reached an unseasonable 100 degrees. Race fans sprayed water from garden hoses on the runners to cool them off. Jack Fultz, a Georgetown University graduate student, first crossed the finish line — sopping wet — that year.

This story about the Boston Marathon was updated in 2022.

Image: Bobbi Gibb By HCAM (Hopkinton Community Access and Media, Inc.) – HCAM News Focus: 26.2 Foundation Hosts Bobbi Gibb at approximately 50:30, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=73403151. Ernst van Dyk By Gr5 – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=32311476. Jock Semple By unknown – Original publication: unknownImmediate source: http://www.carlyjyll.com/2018/05/the-first-women-to-finish-boston_2.html, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=63615160. Johnny Kelley in 1996 By unknown – Original publication: unknownImmediate source: https://archive.boston.com/sports/specials/obituaries/kelley/kelley_pictures?pg=9, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=68969198.

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The 21 New England Colonial and State Capitals

New England cities and towns used to vie for colonial and state capitals the way they now court sports stadiums, with the result that 21 New England capitals graced the land since Europeans settled the region.

Typical 18th century New England government building

Typical 18th century building you’d find in New England state capitals

Rhode Island, the tiniest state, has had the most state capitals, while Massachusetts, the largest, has had the fewest.

Connecticut once had its state capital in New York and Maine had its in Canada. Two of Vermont’s capitals have served as the seat of a national government, and Boston was at one time the capital of all New England.

The reasons for moving colonial and then state capitals had to do with conquest, migration and the ideals of the American Revolution. Americans thought they were taxed without representations, and they blamed the distance from the British Parliament. After independence, they believed they needed equal physical access to the state legislature to get represented equally.

21 New England State Capitals

From 1776 to 1812, the people of the 13 original colonies agitated to move their state capitals to the center of the state, writes Rosemarie Zagarri, in The Politics of Size: Representation in the United States, 1776-1850.

“The confidence of people in their government rested on people’s ability to know and be known by their representatives,” Zagarri wrote. After decades of westward migration, it made no sense to them to have a capital on the Atlantic coast.

Old State House 1793

Boston, the longest continuing state capital in the United States, was the one New England capital that stayed put. John Winthrop’s city on a hill had too much power to let any upstart town take the government away from it.

As is still the case, western Massachusetts resented Boston for it. The people of Springfield, Mass., commented in 1780 that “It is probably, by Reason of their different situations, that many of the more distant Towns will generally omit the full Exercise of their Rights, and that those at or near the Center of Government will exercise them in their full Extent.”

Seating the commonwealth’s government in Boston was on the list of grievances during Shay’s Rebellion.

East vs. West

Residents of Lenox objected to the Massachusetts constitution of 1778 because, as they put it, “[Article 6] has a tendency to induce the Remote parts of the State … to neglect keeping a Representative at the General Court. In a word it is making Representation unequal.”

Plymouth

Boston reigned as the capital of all New England when King James II created the Dominion of New England in 1686. James correctly worried the colonies were too independent and thought consolidating the colonies would solve the problem. It didn’t. The Dominion lasted all of three years. In 1689, the Boston Revolt ended the Dominion and sent Royal Gov. Edmund Andros packing.

Boston, however, wasn’t always the capital of all Massachusetts. For 70 years, Plymouth was the capital of Plymouth Colony, which included Cape Cod, Scituate, Marshfield and Duxbury, Bridgewater, Taunton, what is now New Bedford and Fall River, Dartmouth and Freetown. Plymouth could even argue a history as capital of Rhode Island, as Plymouth Plantation claimed parts of Rhode Island including Bristol, Rehoboth and Little Compton.

The Flying State Capitals of RI and Conn.

View of Newport, 1730. Courtesy Library of Congress.

View of Newport, 1730, one of RI’s many state capitals. Courtesy Library of Congress.

Rhode Island and Connecticut resolved the conflicts over the location of their state capitals. They decided on rotating state capitals, a solution dubbed ‘The Flying Statehouse.’

From 1639 to 1644, Portsmouth, R.I., served as the capital of the English colony of Aquidneck Island and Providence the capital of – well, Providence. For more than a century, Providence prevailed as the seat of government when the two colonies merged in 1644, with the brief interruption of Boston as the capital of the Dominion.

In 1776, Rhode Island embarked on a lively experiment, rotating its capital to each of the five county seats: Providence, Newport, East Greenwich, South Kingstown and Bristol. The experiment proved too lively. After 1853 the state legislature stopped meeting in the Kent, Washington and Bristol counties and alternated between Providence and Newport. Providence grew and Newport declined, and in 1900 the government finally settled down in Providence.

The old Connecticut Statehouse,.

The Dutch once claimed Connecticut. Its capital was New Amsterdam, a fort at the tip of the island now known as Manhattan. In 1639 Connecticut broke off as a separate English colony. A year later, so did New Haven.

Hartford and New Haven held sway as respective state capitals, except during the three years of the Dominion of New England.

From 1701 to 1875, Hartford and New Haven were the co-capitals of Connecticut, with the General Assembly holding spring sessions in Hartford and fall sessions in New Haven. Lawmakers got fed up with the complicated arrangement and decided to settle on one city. Hartford and New Haven vied for the privilege of hosting the government, and Hartford won.

Vermont and NH

Artists’ conception of the first New Hampshire Statehouse

Portsmouth became the capital of New Hampshire in 1689 until 1775, with the usual caveat about Boston.

During the American Revolution, New Hampshire’s General Assembly shuttled among Concord, Hopkinton, Dover, Amherst, Charlestown and Hanover, but officially settled in Exeter. After the war, New Hampshire citizens clamored for a centrally located capital and travel-weary lawmakers agreed.

Portsmouth cautioned against the move in 1790, arguing that citizens were less likely to be represented when their state capitals were far away.

Concord became New Hampshire’s de facto capital in 1808, though not by law until 1816.

Montpelier

Vermont has had four capitals. The state started out as disputed territory between New York and New Hampshire. On Jan. 15, 1777, representatives meeting in the oldest town, Westminster, declared independence from both and gave themselves the name, The Republic of New Connecticut. Almost six months later, representatives of the new republic met in the biggest town, Windsor, and changed their name to the Republic of Vermont.

Vermont succumbed to the prevailing desire for a central capital in 1805, 14 years after it became a state. Windsor lost out to the small town of Montpelier, then with a population of less than 2,000.

Maine

Part of Maine was once the French colony l’Acadie, and in 1604 its capital was Ile St. Croix, now the uninhabited St. Croix Island. In 1605 Port Royal, now in Nova Scotia, became the capital of Acadia. Then by 1658 Maine had joined Massachusetts, and until 1820 its capital was Boston.

The people of Augusta chipped in $11,000 for this

For the next 12 years, Portland served as Maine’s capital, but many lawmakers wanted to move the seat of government to a central city or town. In 1822 a committee was appointed to visit Portland, Brunswick, Hallowell, Augusta, Waterville, Belfast and Wiscasset. The Lewiston Saturday Journal reported, “In each of which towns a choice of very valuable lots was freely offered for the acceptance of the state.”

They said if it were to be on the seaboard, it should be in Wiscasset, but if inland, on Weston Hill in Augusta because of its scenic beauty. Augusta bought the hill and gave it to the state. That sealed the deal; Augusta it was.

Still Not Resolved

Architects drew up plans for a statehouse budgeted to cost $80,000. In the end it cost $138,991.34. Augusta citizens picked up $11,000 to keep the capitol, but the tug-of-war hadn’t ended. Portland, now known as ‘the deserted village’ after the capital moved, kept trying to get the government back.

On Jan 26, 1907, the Lewiston Saturday Journal reported ‘ever since 1821, the issue has been right there in the same old place. Sometimes it has been quiescent. Sometimes it has been acute. It comes in cycles–usually of ten years separation. Several times it has shaken the state from border to border. It may do so again — this session or next. In either case, Augusta must wake up. … a serious and important movement [is] forming.”

Augusta kept the capitol.

This story about the 21 New England state capitals was updated in 2022. Image of the Old Connecticut Statehouse By olekinderhook, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=54816354.

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