Tag:

Kingstown

Six Places Renamed Out of Spite

Many New England cities and towns have been renamed over the years. When the European settlers arrived, they usually changed Indian names to those from their home country. And then they sometimes renamed a place again.

The Puritans, for example, first called Boston Trimontaine after the three hills on the peninsula. John Winthrop soon renamed the town Boston after the hometown of several prominent colonists. The new name would fit better, as Bostonians eventually cut down their three hills.

Townspeople, though, sometimes renamed themselves because they didn’t like what the old name represented. Sometimes they didn’t have a choice, as when a new authority arrived and tried to assert his power over a town.

Here, then, are six towns renamed for spite. If you know of any others, please mention them in the comments section.

Pochoug, Conn.

The Patchogue River in Westbrook.

Westbrook, Conn., originally belonged to Saybrook, which came under attack by Indians during the Pequot War. When the Pequot threat ended, about 40 families moved to West Saybrook to an area known by the Indian name of Pochoug. The word meant ‘place where the river divides,’ and refers to the Patchogue and the Menunketesuck rivers.

In 1810, the town petitioned the General Assembly to rename it Westbrook. The petition noted that ever since the first settlement it had ‘retained the Indian name of Poochague or Poorchague, which name it is believed very few if any, can either spell or pronounce correctly.’ The name was said to be ‘inconvenient to the said inhabitants and to the public.’

Connecticut is full of towns with portmanteau names, and ‘Westbrook’ probably derived from ‘West Saybrook.’ However, we note that Col. Thomas Westbrook had fought Indians during Father Rale’s War.

Gorgeana, Maine

Nubble Light in York, Maine

When King James I in 1620 gave Sir Fernando Gorges a patent to colonize the New World, Gorges thought that included Massachusetts. After all, the king had specified he was to ‘plant, rule, order and govern’ all the land between New France and Virginia.

Gorges, an Anglican and a Royalist, began by financing the settlement of Maine. He hoped to turn it into a series of feudal plantations, and he named one settlement after himself — Gorgeana.

Maine’s neighbor, Puritan Massachusetts, grew in population, wealth and power. Anglican Maine did not. So by 1658, the Puritans from Massachusetts went town by town to persuade what is now Maine to join Massachusetts.

Names carried great importance to the early New England Puritans. And so when Gorgeana agreed to join Massachusetts, the Puritans decided to rename it York. The name York carried a special sting because it was the name of a Royalist city in England that fell to the Puritan Parliament during the English Civil War.

New Glasgow, Mass.

The White Church in Blandford, Mass.

Scots-Irish families first came to Blandford in 1735 and called their settlement ‘New Glasgow.’ They had good reason: The people of Glasgow, Scotland, had promised them a church bell if they named their town after them.

The colonists of Massachusetts Bay only tolerated the Scots-Irish because they provided a useful buffer against hostile Indians on the frontier. In 1741, the settlers petitioned royal Gov. William Shirley for incorporation as the Town of New Glasgow. Shirley instead renamed the town Blandford, supposedly for the ship that had just carried him to Boston.

But what did Shirley have against Glasgow? He probably wasn’t keen to recognize the Scottish city. After all, enraged Glaswegians had recently rioted against a malt tax, driven out the British military and destroyed the home of their parliamentary representative.

Blandford didn’t get its bell.

Adams, N.H.

Jackson, New Hampshire

Nestled in the White Mountains near Maine’s border, Jackson, N.H., was originally named New Madbury after the Seacoast town from which its first settlers came. The town renamed itself Adams in 1800 to honor John Adams, just elected president as a Federalist Party member.

But then two Democratic-Republicans won election — Benjamin Pierce as governor of New Hampshire in 1827 and Andrew Jackson as president in 1829. Rivalry between the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans could get fierce. So when Adams, N.H., petitioned the General Court for incorporation as a town in 1829, Pierce brought to bear his influence. Adams was renamed Jackson.

Haversham, R.I.

Westerly, R.I.

In 1684, British authorites sought to assert their control over their colonies in New England. They annulled the colonial charters and combined the colonies into the Dominion of New England. In 1686 they appointed Joseph Dudley, a native of Roxbury, Mass., as president of the Council of New England, which included Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine and the Narragansett Country in Rhode Island.

Dudley had a tough time of it. Magistrates and military officers refused to serve and Puritan leaders ignored him. He traveled to Narragansett to establish his authority there, and he renamed Westerly ‘Haversham,’ Kingstown ‘Rochester’ and Greenwich ‘Dedford.’

Sir Edmund Andros took over from Dudley with the added territory of Connecticut and Rhode Island. He didn’t last long, only until 1689, when Bostonians sent him packing. In England, a new king took the throne and restored the colonial governments. Haversham was renamed Westerly.

Sodom, Vt.

Back in the day, quarrying often used to attract rough men who enjoyed women and liquor when they weren’t blasting rock. Sodom, an unincorporated village in the central Vermont town of Calais, was apparently one such place. Sodom had several active quarries, but no church.

According to lore, a local preacher pounded his fist on the pulpit and said, “I am adamant that we change the name of this town!” Citizens in 1905 petitioned the Legislature to change the name, and Sodom was renamed Adamant.

Village boosters say the name was chosen to reflect the hardness of granite. We like the other explanation better, though.

Images: The White Church, Blandford, Mass. By Rhcowles – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31505090; Sodom, Vt. By Erikamit – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=39732709. This story was updated in 2023.

0 comment 3.7K views

In 1770 Silversmith Samuel Casey Narrowly Escaped the Gallows

Samuel Casey was a talented, well-respected silversmith in Kingstown, R.I in the mid-1700s. He made teapots, tankards and porringers as well as hardware for furniture such as escutcheon plates and drawer pulls.

Described as a prosperous merchant, his luck took a turn for the worse in 1764 when he was about 40 years old. Casey had stoked a hot fire for working his forge. A beam at the back of the brick chimney caught fire. His house burned, destroying most of his belongings and his wealth.

After the fire, Casey began working in the attic of the Helme House, a historic home that today serves as the headquarters of the South County Art Association.

Samuel Casey, Down on His Luck

After the fire, Samuel Casey struggled. He was repeatedly hauled to court for non-payment of debts. Finally, in September 1770, he was indicted on charges of passing counterfeit dollars. News of the scandal spread throughout New England.

Teapot by Samuel Casey at the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College

In October, Casey stood trial. The trial lasted until eight o’clock at night. The jury would deliberate until 4 a.m. the following morning. It returned a verdict of not guilty. The judge in the trial, however, exercised an option not available today. He told the jurors that their verdict lacked logic and ignored the evidence. He directed them to reconsider and find Casey guilty. The jury returned a special verdict and the judge sentenced Casey to death.

Things got worse for Casey as he appealed his sentence.. Someone made a discovery while he was still in jail. In the part of Kingstown called Tower Hill, a set of tools was found that included dyes for stamping coins — counterfeit coins. Another set of tools was discovered in a nearby stone wall. The could make phony dollars, Spanish pistareens and Portuguese josephuses.

Freedom

With the evidence against him mounting, Casey finally had a bit of luck. Several days after the discovery, a gang of men with blackened faces assembled outside the Kingstown jail. They battered down the door to the jail with iron bars and pick axes. Inside, they smashed the locks and released four inmates, including Samuel Casey.

The silversmith didn’t wait for a second trial. Samuel Casey disappeared after his unexpected release and left Rhode Island. Historians suspect he died in 1773, probably in New York.

Today, Samuel Casey’s work can be found in museums such as the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Winterthur and the museums of Yale and Dartmouth College.

Thanks to Rhode Island, A Guide to the Smallest State, Federal Writers’ Project. This story updated in 2022.

0 comment 1.3K views

The Oldest Lighthouse in Each New England State

The oldest lighthouse in the country would have been in New England had the British not blown it up during the American Revolution. Today, Boston Light is the second oldest lighthouse in the country — and the oldest in Massachusetts.

Lighthouses and history go together like — well, ‘New’ and ‘England.’ Many of the coastal beacons predated the United States itself, but, like Boston Light, were replaced with newer, better versions.

Each New England state has multiple lighthouses. Maine, with its long coastline, has 57, while New Hampshire has only two along its 18 mile coast. Vermont actually has six.

But which are the oldest? Here, then, is a list of the oldest lighthouse in each New England state.

New London Harbor Light

Built in 1801, the New London Harbor Light is not only Connecticut’s oldest lighthouse, it is the tallest.

New London Harbor Light

The colonial Connecticut legislature in 1760 decided to build the first lighthouse at New London, then one of the busiest whaling ports in the colonies. The government sold lottery tickets to raise 500 pounds to pay for building it. In 1781, Benedict Arnold led a British raid on New London and burned the town, but the stone lighthouse and keeper’s cottage survived the attack.

Connecticut ceded New London Harbor Light to the United States in 1789, and 11 years later Congress voted money to rebuild it.

Abisha Woodward, a New Londoner, built the 80-foot-tall octagonal stone tower.

Lighthouse keepers were political appointees, and Martin van Buren appointed John Munn at New London Harbor Light. Munn lost his job in 1841 after van Buren lost reelection, and before he left he blackened the reflector and trashed the lamps. His successor, a popular fisherman named John Mason, took weeks to repair Munn’s vandalism. But after Mason served only four months as keeper, Munn wrangled his job back, outraging the locals. The controversy died down when Munn passed away and Mason took his place.

The Bureau of Lighthouses automated the New London Harbor Light in 1912, and auctioned the property. Today the lighthouse remains in private hands, but New London has others. Today, you can see five lighthouses from Pequot Avenue — and learn more about lighthouses at the Coast Guard Museum.

U.S. Coast Guard Museum, 15 Mohegan Ave., New London, Conn.

Portland Head Light

You may know the Portland Head Light as the Cape Elizabeth Lighthouse. The General Court of Massachusetts appropriated $750 to build it on the shores of Cape Elizabeth in 1787. Three years later, the U.S. government took responsibility for lighthouses and provided $1,500 to finish the job. President George Washington reminded the contractors the government didn’t have much money, so they should take building materials from the fields and shores.

Portland Head Light, the oldest lighthouse in Maine

Sixteen whale oil lamps first lit Portland Head Light on Jan 10, 1791.

One of the strangest shipwrecks in history took place at Portland Head Light on Christmas Eve, 1886. The three-masted bark Annie C. Maguire rammed right into the ledge by the lighthouse, though the crew plainly saw the light before the disaster. The keeper, Joshua Strout, along with his family and volunteers used a ladder as a gangplank to rescue all 14 aboard.

The U.S. Coast Guard decommissioned Maine’s oldest lighthouse in 1989. Today Portland Head Light, which sits next to 90-acre Fort Williams Park, has a museum within the former keeper’s quarters and a seasonal gift shop.

1000 Shore Rd., Cape Elizabeth, Maine

Boston Light

One would almost think Boston Light was cursed, given the trouble that befell the people who associated with it and the number of attacks it sustained from fire, lightning and warring armies.

Boston Light

There had been beacons on Brewster Island before to signal the approach of enemies and ships. The Boston merchant who petitioned the General Court to build Boston Light died before construction began. The first lighthouse keeper drowned. So did the second. The third lighthouse keeper had to clear his name after he was unfairly blamed for a fire in the light.

Fire broke out again and lightning struck the lighthouse several times. During the American Revolution, the Americans burned the wooden parts after the British captured it. When the British evacuated Boston, they left a time charge in Boston Light and blew it up.

A second Boston Light was built in 1783, and it is now the second oldest lighthouse in the United States. (The oldest is in Sandy Hook, N.J.)

Massachusetts gave Boston light to the federal government in 1790. In 1813, lighthouse keeper Jonathan Bruce and his wife watched the battle between the USS Chesapeake and the HMS Shannon. Just before dying, the wounded Chesapeake captain told his men, “Don’t give up the ship.” The crew gave up the ship anyway nine minutes later.

The military extinguished the light during World War II as a security precaution, and relit it on July 2, 1945. The Coast Guard decommissioned Boston Light in 1998, but it remains staffed by a keeper who acts mostly as a tour guide.

The National Park Service conducts tours of Boston Light twice daily on summer weekends.

Little Brewster Island, Boston, Mass.

White Island Light

The oldest of New Hampshire’s two lighthouses: White Island Light.

White Island Light, also known as Isles of Shoals Light, was built in 1859, though the New Hampshire light station had been around since 1821.

Thomas Laighton famously took the job as lighthouse keeper after losing the election for New Hampshire governor in 1839. He sold his business in Portsmouth, moved his family to the small archipelago known as the Isles of Shoals and vowed he’d never set foot on the mainland again.

Laighton bought four of the nine islands and wrangled the federal appointment as lighthouse keeper. His daughter Celia wrote a poem about the island’s sandpipers, which the Atlantic magazine published. Laighton later built a summer resort on another island in the Isles of Shoals, and Celia Laighton Thaxter became one of America’s most popular writers. She maintained a salon on the Isles, hosting such luminaries as Childe Hassam, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Ralph Waldo Emerson.

New Hampshire’s oldest lighthouse was built of brick with a cast iron lantern.

The island is closed to the public, but you can get close to White Island Light in an excursion boat.

White Island, Rye, N.H.

Poplar Point Light

Built in 1831 in North Kingstown, R.I., Poplar Point Light is not only Rhode Island oldest lighthouse, it’s the oldest with a wooden tower in the United States.

Wickford, R.I.’s, protected harbor off Narragansett Bay allowed the village to develop as a shipping point for trade between local plantation and international ports.

Poplar Point Lighthouse

Congress agreed to spend $3,000 for a light at the entrance to Wickford Harbor, and local contractors finished it by the end of 1831. The Poplar Point Light guided sloops and schooners in and out of the harbor’s wharves.

By 1838, a Coast Guard survey concluded the light wasn’t needed, but Poplar Point Light stayed lit. By 1870, the government decided to build a new lighthouse at Old Gay Rock to guide the burgeoning ferryboat traffic. Albert Sherman bought Poplar Point Lighthouse at auction for $3,944.67. By 1932, Edith Grant owned the lighthouse and built a large house around it. The Shippee family bought the building in 1962, and has lived there since.

Poplar Point Light is not open to the public, but Rhode Island Bay Cruises and Save the Bay offer lighthouse cruises that may go near. They usually run between May and October.

Juniper Island Light

The oldest lighthouse in Vermont: Juniper Island Light in Lake Champlain.

Juniper Island Light is not only the oldest lighthouse in Vermont, it’s the oldest cast iron lighthouse left in the United States. Originally a lantern on a post on Juniper Island marked the entrance to Burlington Harbor until a 30-foot-tall brick tower, the first on Lake Champlain, replaced it. That fell to a tower of cast iron in 1846. The lighthouse guided thousands of ships into Burlington Harbor, for many years the second busiest lumber port in the United States.

After 108 years of service, an automatic light on a tower replaced the Juniper Island Light. A state senator named Fred Fayette bought the island and the lighthouse in 1956. Careless campers started a fire that destroyed the lighthouse keeper’s house in 1962. Fayette’s 11 children inherited the island after his death and in 2001 began to reconstruct the keeper’s house with reclaimed bricks. They later restored and painted the tower.

Juniper Island, Burlington, Vt.

Images: Portland Head Light, By Rapidfire – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7161757; Boston Light By Dpbsmith at the English language Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1663166. This story was updated in 2023.

0 comment 4K views

Six French Place Names in Six New England States

French place names reveal much about the history of a city or town. They reflect the great historical events that took place at the time residents settled on a name. They may have named their town when a popular king took the throne, or during the French struggle for liberty, or right after the American Revolution, or during westward expansion.

You’re far more likely to find French place names the closer you get to the border of Canada. Still, the number of French place names in New England doesn’t truly reflect the region’s French heritage.

Vermont, of course, comes from the French for ‘green mountain’ (vert mont), and 23.9 percent of its population claims French ancestry. But only about a dozen of the state’s 255 municipalities have a French place name.

Vermont is only the third most Franco-American state in the Union. New Hampshire comes in second. Maine, with 25 percent of its population claiming French ancestry, ranks No. 1. The state has two dozen towns with French place names, and the state Legislature once claimed (probably wrongly) that ‘Maine’ came from the French province of the same name.

Here, then, are six New England municipalities with French place names, one in each state. If you know of another with a story worth repeating, please share in the comments section.

Orange, Conn.

Orange Congregational Church

Orange, Conn., initially belonged to the Algonquian Indians until 1637, when they sold it to the Rev. Peter Prudden. The price? Some coats and blankets, hatchets and hoes, a kettle, knives and a dozen small mirrors.

Prudden, educated at Cambridge University in England, came to Massachusetts as part of the Great Puritan Migration. He preached in Wethersfield, Conn., for a while. Then he joined a group of New Haven Colony settlers in Milford and was ordained pastor of the church in 1639.

When Prudden died in 1656, his survivors buried him in his garden, which became the Milford town cemetery. His widow, Joanna Boyse Prudden, married the first English mayor of New York City.

William of Orange

Thirty years after Prudden died, the last Roman Catholic king of England, James II, consolidated the New England colonies. He appointed the hated Edmund Andros as governor general of the Dominion of New England. Andros tried to seize Connecticut’s charter, but failed because a militia captain hid it in a large white oak tree, known forever after as the Charter Oak.

In 1689, much to the joy and relief of New England’s Puritans, William of Orange deposed James II. The staunchly Protestant William, who had inherited the French principality of Orange from his father, was James’ son-in-law and nephew. The colonists sent Andros back to England.

The popular new king gave the village of Orange its name. It belonged to Milford until 1822, when residents formed the Town of Orange. In 1921, rural Orange separated from urban West Haven.

Orange Center Historic District includes 42 historically significant structures, including the Orange Congregational Church. They form a ‘cohesive village of well-preserved buildings and their surroundings that convey a strong sense of the area’s historic appearance,’ according to the National Register of Historic Places nomination form.

Meetinghouse Lane, Orange Center Road, Schoolhouse Land, Tyler City Road.

Calais, Maine

Acadians first settled the region on both sides of the St. John River, so it’s natural that Calais, Maine, and St. Stephen, New Brunswick, should have a close friendship. Calais has three international crossings over the St. Croix River to St. Stephen.

Calais from St. Stephen

So friendly were the two towns that the British military gave St. Stephen gunpowder to defend itself against Americans during the War of 1812. St. Stephen instead gave the gunpowder to Calais for its July 4^th celebration.

The townspeople named Calais for the French city in 1809 to honor France’s help to the American colonies during the Revolutionary War.

Calais Avenue about 1905

Calais didn’t really get going as a town until the 1820s, when shipbuilding and lumber brought growth and prosperity. Between 1810 and 1850, the town’s population grew tenfold, to 4,749. By 1840, Calais was the second busiest port in Maine next to Bangor. Many successful Calais businesspeople built fine homes in the city during its heyday.

The Calais Residential Historic District comprises 15 acres of handsome 19^th century homes in a variety of architectural styles.

Calais Residential Historic District: Calais Avenue and Main Street From Calais Avenue To Swan Street

Orleans, Mass.

the Duke of Orleans

Orleans, on Cape Cod’s elbow, has had its share of military assaults. The British captured the town twice during the American Revolution, and the Orleans militia skirmished with a British warship trying to dock at Rock Harbor during the War of 1812. And German U-boats shelled Orleans during World War I.

The town split off from Eastham in 1797, when memories of the British occupation still stung.

Isaac Snow, a descendant of Mayflower Pilgrim Stephen Hopkins, supposedly suggested the French place name for the new town. The British had captured Snow during the American Revolution and confined him aboard a prison ship in England. Snow then escaped to France, where he more than likely learned about the popular Louis Philippe Joseph, Duke of Orleans. The duke, though one of the richest men in France, supported the French revolutionary cause.

CG 36500

Isaac Snow’s family opened its first store in Orleans in 1887. The Snow family still runs Snow’s, where you can probably find whatever you need.

The town also harbors a motorboat listed on the National Register of Historic Places, CG36500, used in the courageous rescue of 31 Pendleton crewmembers in 1952.

CG 36500 is berthed at Rock Harbor n Rock Harbor Rd., Orleans, Mass.; Snow’s, 22 Main St., Orleans, Mass.

Fremont, N.H.

Fremont, N.H., took its French place name from the illegitimate son of a French-Canadian schoolteacher. John C. Fremont also happened to be a military hero and the Republican Party’s first candidate for president of the United States.

Fremont, N.H., meeting house

Fremont’s mother was the daughter of a wealthy Virginia planter. At 17 she married a well-to-do army major in his 60s. The major hired a Canadian immigrant, Charles Fremon, to tutor his young wife. They fell in love and ran away to Savannah, Ga., where John Fremon was born out of wedlock. The major refused to divorce John’s mother, so she could not marry his father.

When Charles Fremon died, John Fremont and his mother lived in poverty and disgrace. He compensated with pride and ambition.

During his lifetime he fought in the Mexican War, rose to the rank of major general, explored the West, gained and lost a fortune, served in the U.S. Senate from California and ran for president in 1856. He also met and married Jessie Benton, daughter of the powerful U.S. senator from Missouri, Thomas Hart Benton.

John Fremont

Benton earned immense popularity for his support of western expansion. In 1840, the town of Coventry, N.H., decided to change its name to Benton in honor of the senator. Fourteen years later, a town called Poplin, N.H., decided to change its name to Fremont after the future presidential candidate and senator’s son-in-law

Today the town takes justifiable pride in its 1800 Meetinghouse – and for being home to the stunningly awful all-girl group, The Shaggs.

Fremont Meeting House 464 Main Street , Fremont, N.H.

Lafayette Village, R.I.

When the Marquis de Lafayette made his triumphal tour of the United States in 1824, enthusiastic Rhode Islanders renamed a village in North Kingstown after him. Previously, people had given it a less glamorous name: the North Kingstown Cotton Factory.

Lafayette in 1825

Lafayette, though, remained little more than a French place name for a cotton mill, a smattering of houses and an unusually wide road. The road had been ordered by the Rhode Island colony in 1703 so farmers could bring their goods to the port of Wickford. The road had to be as straight as possible and 160 feet wide to allow grazing for livestock.

Today, the National Register of Historic Places lists Lafayette Village as a monument to Robert Rodman, a paternalistic textile manufacturer in the tradition of southern Rhode Island.

Rodman, a relative of the Hazard manufacturing family in nearby Peace Dale, began making wool textiles in Lafayette in the 1840s. He incorporated as the Rodman Manufacturing Co. in 1883 and employed 500 workers by 1900. The Rodman family still owned the company into the late 1940s, when it ceased operation.

One of the Rodman mansions in Lafayette. Google maps photo.

The company sold St. Nicolas Doeskin to growing markets in the south and west. In 1876, “one supposes a celebratory mood as Rodman packed his entire family, children and grandchildren off to the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, where the doeskin, a luxury fabric with nap, won a medal,” according to Lafayette Village’s nomination for the National Register of Historic Places.

Shortly after the Centennial, Rodman bought the engineering marvel of the day, a Corliss steam engine, to power his textile machinery. In 1877 he built the vast brick mill that still stands.

Rodman also built a mansion for himself (now a patio furniture store) and three more for his children, a church, boarding houses and workers cottages.

The paternalistic Rodmans stayed within the community, made up of local Yankees who in the 1970s remembered it as ‘one big family’ and ‘all English.’ The Rodmans sponsored the Lafayette Cornet Band, magic shows, games and pottery classes to entertain the mill workers – and, no doubt, to distract them from any union organizers who might be prowling around.

For more photos of Lafayette in the 1970s, click here.

Lafayette Historic District, Properties bordering Ten Rod Road from Wickford Junction to the culvert east of 935 Ten Rod Road and side streets, North Kingstown, R.I.

Barre, Vt.

Barre, Vt., took its name from an Irishman of French Huguenot ancestry who gave the Sons of Liberty their name.

Isaac Barre

Isaac Barre, the son of Dublin’s high sheriff, served the British Army with distinction before representing Chipping Wycombe in Parliament. He had a long, colorful parliamentary career, during which he vigorously opposed the taxation of the American colonies. While addressing Parliament, he coined the phrase ‘Sons of Liberty.’

During his military career, Barre fought at the Battle of Quebec and gathered around the dying general James Wolfe. John Gouldsbury, the earliest settler of Barre, also fought at the Battle of Quebec under Wolfe.

Until 1788, roving bands of Indians were the only inhabitants of the area described as ‘primeval forests, granite hills and green valleys.’ The first settlers named it Wildersborough, but the residents didn’t like it and the name didn’t stick.

According to one story, the settlement’s selectmen decided the person who contributed the most to a meeting house could rename the town. For 64 pounds, Ezekiel Wheeler got to name the town Barre.

Socialist Labor Hall

According to another story, two men from Massachusetts put forward their preferred names at a Town Meeting. Both Captain Joseph Thompson of Holden and Jonathon Sherman of Barre wanted to name it after their former towns. They decided to fight it out in a barn, and Sherman won.

Barre grew into a center of granite cutting shortly after the War of 1812. The work attracted a diverse group of European immigrants, including Italian anarchists and members of the International Workers of the World. In 1916 and in 1929 Barre residents elected a Socialist Party candidate as mayor.

The old Socialist Labor Party Hall still stands, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2000.

Socialist Labor Party Hall, 46 Granite St., Barre City, Vt.

Images for French place names: Fremont Meeting House, By John Phelan – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24513389; Socialist Labor Hall By John Phelan – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=35779862; Calais By P199 – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18061218; Orange church By The original uploader was Staib at English Wikipedia – Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons., CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34580770

3 comments 3K views

Six Strange Rocks of New England, From the Eubrontes to the Man-eating Stone of Glastonbery

It should be no surprise that New England’s stony soil should produce a goodly number of strange rocks. They have such nicknames as the Devil’s Footprint, the Narragansett Runestone and the Man-eating Stone of Glastonbery.

Folktales grew up around some of New England’s strange rocks, like the one about the devil’s footprint in Maine. Scientific research explained some of the others, like the dinosaur tracks named the Connecticut State Fossil.

In some cases, like the Mystery Stone of Lake Winnipesaukee, there has never been a satisfactory explanation for how they got that way.

Here then are six strange rocks, one in each state, along with the stories that go with them. If you know of any others, please share them in the comments section.

The Connecticut State Fossil

Eubronte, one of Connecticut’s strange rocks

In 1802, a Massachusetts farm boy named Pliny Moody came across dinosaur tracks in Holyoke, Mass. That was the first of many discoveries of dinosaur tracks in the sandstone of the Connecticut River Valley.

Eubrontes is the name given to the footprint, not the dinosaur. Edward Hitchcock, the president of Amherst College, studied fossils in Holyoke, Mass., and gave them the name. He concluded, wrongly, the tracks were made by large birds.

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. The land turned out to be a former lakebed riddled with dinosaur tracks, the largest in North America.

Scientists confirmed the importance of the Rocky Hill dinosaur tracks, which are about a foot long. The highway was moved and the lake bed was designated a Connecticut state park. Scientists found about 2,000 of the three-toed tracks, which have been linked to the Jurassis-era Dilophosauris.

The Connecticut Legislature designated the Eubrontes fossil as the official state fossil in 1991. Other state legislatures were doing the same around that time. They did so in Massachusetts (therapod tracks in Granby), Maine (Pertica quadrifaria,a plant, in Baxter State Park) and Vermont (Beluga whale skeleton in Charlotte).

Dinosaur State Park, 400 West St., Rocky Hill

Devil’s Footprint

The devil’s footprint is said to be in the cemetery wall.

Next to the meeting house in North Manchester, Maine, lies a cemetery surrounded by a wall with a strange rock in it. The rock, in the corner of the wall, has three imprints said to be the devil’s footprints. One looks like a cloven hoof, the other two look human. Someone conveniently spray painted them red.

There is a story that goes with the rock, which may or may not be true (probably not). Years ago, a crew of construction workers was clearing a path for Scribner Hill Road when they came upon a boulder that could not be moved. One of the workmen exclaimed he’d sell his soul to the devil to move the rock. The next day, the rock was moved and the construction worker gone. The devil left his footprints on the rock as a reminder of the deal.

The North Manchester Meeting House, built in 1793, is still used as a church.

144 Scribner Hill Rd., North Manchester

Dighton Rock

Of all New England’s strange rocks, Dighton Rock, is the most studied.

Dighton Rock has mystified people since before the colonization of America. The rock is an 11-foot-high boulder covered with ancient petroglyphs of an unknown origin. It once rested on the shore of the Taunton River, but it now has its own museum (operated by appointment only) in Berkley, Mass., once part of Dighton, Mass.

Visitors to the strange rock will be in good company as Cotton Mather, George Washington and dozens of scientists have attempted to decode the meaning behind the writing on it.

Some theories: A message left by Norse explorers, Native American symbols and a message from God. So far no consensus exists as to the rock’s significance, and its meaning remains a mystery.

Dighton Rock State Park, Bayview Ave, Berkley

Lake Winnipesaukee Mystery Stone

The Mystery Stone of Lake Winnipesaukee

Seneca Ladd was many things: Piano maker, carriage maker, mill owner, banker (He was one of the founders of the Meredith Village Savings Bank), amateur meteorologist, and geologist.

New Hampshire’s Lakes Region well remembers his legacy. But his most unusual accomplishment remains a mystery. One day while workmen were digging on his property in Meredith sometime in 1872 or earlier they uncovered an egg-shaped object buried at a depth of two feet and encased in clay.

The object, by far the smallest of our mystery stones, is a carved stone bearing markings that remain unidentified. Ladd himself thought his “egg” was Native American in its origins and he displayed it for the curious for much of his life. The egg still baffles scientists as to what exactly it is. Ladd’s daughter gave the object to the New Hampshire Historical Society in 1927, which then displayed it in its Museum of New Hampshire History in Concord.

New Hampshire Historical Society, 30 Park St., Concord

Quidnessett Rock

Wickford, R.I.

Quidnessett Rock, also known as the Narragansett Runestone, is a strange rock in North Kingstown, R.I., with a somewhat shaky pedigree.

Rhode Island historians first paid attention to the 2.5 ton rock around 1984. The rock bears a series of unusual markings that some claim look like markings made by the religious sect known as the The Knights Templar. This faction claims the stone is a marker, probably documenting a land claim that dates to before the arrival of Christopher Columbus.

However, Edward Brown of Providence came forward to clarify that he and his brother made the markings on the rock as young boys in 1964, though not as a hoax. They did it just for fun, he said.

Others view the rock as a nuisance. A resident of Pojac Point in North Kingstown caused a kerfuffle when he lifted the rock and dropped it farther out to sea to slow the onslaught of visitors to the stone. After someone caught him he retrieved the stone, now on permanent display in Updike Park in the Village of Wickford. It makes as good an excuse as any for a trip to the charming village.

Updike Park, 89 Brown St., Wickford

Man-Eating Stone of Glastonbery

The Green Mountains

Between 1945 and 1950, five people disappeared on Glastonbery Mountain, four without a trace: Middie Rivers (1945); Paula Jean Welden (1946); James Tedford (1949); Paul Jephson (1950); and Frieda Langer (1950).

Rivers, an experienced hunter, knew the area. Welden, a Bennington College sophomore, disappeared while hiking the Long Trail. James Tedord, a veteran, vanished on a bus exactly three years after Paula Welden disappeared. Jephson, an eight-year-old boy, went missing from the family truck while his mother fed some pigs. And Langer disappeared on a hike near the Somerset Reservoir. Her body was then found seven months later in an area that had been carefully searched.

In 2009, a writer named Joseph Citro suggested an explanation in his book, The Vermont Monster Guide: The man-eating stone of Glastonbery Mountain. In it, he wrote,

“No one alive has seen this dangerous anomaly on Glastonbury Mountain. Native Americans knew of it, and warned people away. We can only imagine it as a sizable rock, large enough to stand on. But when someone stands upon it, the rock becomes less solid, and, like a living thing, swallows the unfortunate trespasser. A number of disappearances have been reported on Glastonbury Mountain. Could all these vanished folks have stepped inadvertently on this hungry stone?”

Citro dubbed the area, part of the Green Mountains, the Bennington Triangle.

Glastonbery Mountain, Glastonbery

To read about the strange rocks that form mysterious stone structures of New England, click here.

Images: Wickford, R.I., By Swampyank at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20433895; Lake Winnipesaukee Mystery Stone By John Phelan – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18574963; Green Mountains From the nek – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22873955. This story about strange rocks was updated in 2022.

2 comments 3.8K views

The Oldest Business in Each New England State

Family-owned businesses are becoming a thing of the past as Amazon and Walmart gobble up everything in sight. But the independent business still exists in New England. The oldest business in your state could be a farm that survived real estate development and competition from agribusiness. Or it could be a tavern that made it through more than a dozen wars. Perhaps it’s a ferry that’s been running since Nathaniel Hawthorne took notes.

Here, then, is the oldest business in each New England state.

Field View Farm, Connecticut’s Oldest Business

This farm in nearby Derby didn’t make it through the Great Depression. Here it is being auctioned off. Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

The Griswold Inn in Essex, Conn., and the Hartford Courant are two of Connecticut’s oldest businesses, having opened in 1776 and 1764, respectively. But neither is as old as Field View Farm, which has been in continuous operation in Orange since 1639.

Thomas Hine established the farm in 1639, and his descendants have run the farm for 12 generations. Today it’s a dairy farm that sells eggs, milk and ice cream (and lets you pet the cows). It’s the last remaining farm between New Haven and New York City, and it has stayed alive by diversifying. The farm is also a trucking business, with tractor trucks and trailers that haul goods throughout the Northeast.

A fire burned down the main barn in 1996, and since then the Hine family has sold agricultural equipment and rented vehicles to stay in business.

707 Derby Ave., Orange, Conn.

Seaside Inn

The Seaside Inn

The town of Kennebunk, Maine, bustles in the summer with tourists seeking lobster, whale watching, shopping and the summer home of President George H.W. Bush. Tourists have stayed in Kennebunk since 1667 at the Seaside Inn, Maine’s oldest business.

Innkeeping dates to 1660 on Kennebunk Beach, when ferrymen stayed on the oceanfront peninsula at the mouth of the Kennebunk River in case travelers needed to be ferried across the river.

John Gooch was the first member of the family to settle in Kennebunk. He arrived in 1637 as an agent of Ferdinando Gorges, who ordered Gooch to run the ferry. He began running an inn in 1667. The current inn has been in the Gooch family since 1756, when Jedidiah Gooch bought the business.

It is the fifth oldest family business in the United States. Maine also boasts the ninth oldest family business, Smiling Hill Farm, in operation in Westbrook since 1720.

For generations, the business was passed down to the first-born son. Four generations ago, it was passed down to a daughter and today the Seaside Inn and Cottages is run by a ninth-generation member of the family, Trish Mason, and her husband Ken.

Trish Mason has written a book, Seaside House: Maine Innkeepers. You can buy it here.
80 Beach Avenue, Kennebunk, Maine

Barker’s Farm

You can pet the cows at Barker’s Farm.

Barker’s Farm in North Andover, Mass., is still growing corn, strawberries and apples since it started in 1642. It has been in the same family since 1642, and is now run by Dianne Barker, the 11^th generation owner.

When the first Mr. Barker came to America, another old Massachusetts business was up and running – only in Constantinople. Zildjian didn’t move its cymbal company to Quincy until 1928 (it’s now in Norwell).

Today the Barker farm has 70 acres and a farmstand that sells corn, fruit, butter and vegetables. Customers can pick their own apples and flowers.

1267 Osgood St North Andover, Mass.

Tuttle’s Red Barn

Tuttle’s red barn

John Tuttle almost didn’t make it when he left England for the New World in 1632. His ship sank. But his wife and four-year-old daughter survived and found their way to what is now New Hampshire.

Now New Hampshire’s oldest business, The Tuttle Farm has been operating without pause in Dover, since 1632. It’s almost as old as the Shirley Plantation in Charles City, Va., which has been around since 1613.

The farm expanded to 240 acres in the 20th century, but now is down to 134. It’s been passed down through 11 generations of Tuttles. In the 1870s, Joseph Edward Tuttle died when his only son was still a baby. His brother ran the farm for 40 years until he died, when the farm went to the grown-up George Tuttle.

The Tuttle Farm today includes a 12-room house built around 1780, greenhouses, barns and a farmstand, which sells produce, groceries, plants and gift items. Its biggest crop is corn, followed by vegetables and berries.

Will and Lucy Tuttle sold the farm in 2013 for about $1 million to Matt Kozazcki, who also owns a farm in Newbury, Mass. It is now doing business as Tendercrop Farm.

123 Dover Point Rd., Dover, N.H.

White Horse Tavern

Newport, R.I., is home to three very old American businesses: John Stevens Stonecutter, Caswell-Massey and the White Horse Tavern.

The White Horse Tavern, Rhode Island’s oldest business, was built by Frances Brinley in 1652. It didn’t sell food and drink until 1683 when William Mayes bought the property and enlarged it into a tavern. And it wasn’t named White Horse until 1730.

The tavern was a hangout for Tories in the early days of the Revolution and housed British soldiers leading up to the Battle of Rhode Island. Among its more colorful owners was William Mayes Jr., a Rhode Island pirate.

Today you can not only visit the White Horse, you can still get a meal and a drink there. For more information, visit the Tavern’s website here.

John Stevens Stonecutter has been cutting stone since 1705, and Caswell-Massey has made soaps and scents since 1752. Kenyon’s Grist Mill has been grinding meal and flour in West Kingstown since 1696.

26 Marlborough St., Newport, R.I.

Fort Ticonderoga Ferry

Vermont ferries

The trip between Larrabee’s Point in Shoreham, Vt., and Ticonderoga, N.Y., takes seven-and-a-half minutes, just as it has for more than 100 years.

The Fort Ticonderoga Ferry makes its way across Lake Champlain guided by a set of cables that rest on the lake’s bottom.

There has been a ferry running from Ticonderoga to ports on the Connecticut River since at least the 1759 when Lord Jeffery Amherst, governor general of British North America, ordered the establishment of ferry service to assist in moving armies and supplies in the Seven Years’ War.

Since 1799, there has been a ferry service between New York and Larrabee’s Point, making it Vermont’s oldest business. In the early days it was essential to trade.

Operating from late spring through early fall, the ferry is less important as a vehicle for trade today than it used to be. But it still delights travelers as it did more than 100 years ago when Nathaniel Hawthorne noted its peculiar charms. He wrote of: “the continual succession of travelers who spent an idle quarter of an hour in waiting for the ferry boat, affording me just enough time to make their acquaintance, penetrate their mysteries and be rid of them without the risk of tediousness on either side.”

Images: White Horse Tavern By Kenneth C. Zirkel – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=58527439.

7 comments 4.1K views

Newer Posts

Older Posts