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Six Beautiful Buildings Designed by Asher Benjamin

Asher Benjamin, a young country housewright, published a book in 1797 that is responsible for the way much of early New England looked.

Asher Benjamin

He was only 24 when he wrote The Country Builder’s Assistant. The book arose from his dissatisfaction with the large, lavish and expensive handbooks imported from England that most builders relied on.

In writing the book, Asher Benjamin popularized a new style of architecture known today as the Federal style.

Charles Bulfinch and Thomas Jefferson had adopted it already. Though just a poor boy recently released from apprenticeship, Asher Benjamin encountered Bulfinch’s work when he built a stone spiral staircase in Bulfinch’s Old State House in Hartford in 1795.

Asher Benjamin

Born to a poor family in Hartland, Conn., in 1773, Asher Benjamin’s father died shortly after his birth. He was apprenticed as a housewright to a local builder until 1794, the year before he worked with Bulfinch.

He spent the first 30 years of his life in the Connecticut River Valley designing buildings from Suffield, Conn., to Greenfield, Mass., to Windsor, Vt.

His first pattern book, published when he was just 24, helped to spread an urbane Federal style that adapted English designs to the scale and wallet of New England. He published the book when living in Greenfield, Mass., where he built two large houses and started a family with his new wife, Achsah Hitchcock.

Then he moved his family to Windsor, Vt., where he built the Old South Congregational Church. Windsor was too small for his big ambitions, though. Benjamin moved to Boston, where he designed a number of public buildings. He also won election as alderman in 1823 and 1824. He ran as a member of the “Middling Interest,” middle class artisans an businesspeople opposed to the Federalists (but not the Federal style).

Significantly, he also took as an assistant Ithiel Town, inventor of the covered truss bridge.

Asher Benjamin would publish six more handbooks on design. They contained anything a housewright could hope to know, including patterns for frontispieces, architraves, cornices, doors, fireplace mantels, dormer windows, pilasters, balusters and fences.

As architectural historian Talbot Hamlin writes:

“…he, more than any other person is responsible for the character we roughly call ‘Late Colonial.

Here, then, are six buildings designed by Asher Benjamin, one in each New England state. If you know of another one, please include it in the comments section.

Center Church on the Green

Asher Benjamin’s Center Church on the Green.

The Center Church on the Green has been a New Haven institution since 1639, when the Puritans established the parish. The first minister, John Davenport came with Theophilus Eaton to settle New Haven. By the 19^th century, the First Congregational Church was New Haven’s most conservative, socially prominent congregation.

By 1814 they’d already gone through three meeting houses. For the fourth, they bought the plans from Asher Benjamin, who sent them from Boston. Ithiel Town directed construction of the church, making some modifications.

Not coincidentally, the Center Church on the Green resembles the much-admired St. Martin in the Fields in London. So do many other North American churches. Its architect, Charles Gibbs, wrote a popular pattern book that made its way to the United States, and Benjamin borrowed from it. Like the London church, the Center Church on the Green has three doors, a pediment, a cupola, and a double row of rectangular windows.

The church, by the way, was built over the colony’s ancient burial grounds on the Green. So the basement has many old burial stones in it, and people call it the Crypt.

250 Temple St., New Haven, Conn.

The Black House

The Black House, today the Woodlawn Museum.

John Black came to Maine from England at the age of 18, sent by the Dutch bank Hope & Co. to assist its U.S. agent, David Cobb.

Cobb, a Massachusetts congressman, had served on George Washington’s staff. Hope & Co. hired him to take care of property it had bought from William Bingham, a wealthy Philadelphian. Bingham had speculated in a huge tract shortly after the Revolution, then sold half of it to Hope & Co. in the financial panic of 1792.

Black married his boss’s daughter, and David Cobb apparently approved the match. He gave the couple 300 acres in Ellsworth.

Built between 1824 and 1827, the mansion is based on Plate 54 of Asher Benjamin’s The American Builder’s Companion, published in 1806. Bricks for the house came from Philadelphia and Boston masons took three years to build it.

Three generations of Blacks lived in the mansion until 1928, when the family gave it to the Hancock County Trustees of Public Reservations. Today the trustees run it as the Woodlawn Museum, which includes the house, outbuildings, hiking trails, a formal garden and the only regulation size croquet court in the state.

The contents of the house are the same as when the last Black died in 1928, so ‘entering the house is like stepping back at least 100 years in time,’ according to the National Park Service, which lists it on the National Register of Historic Places.

West Maine Street on Route 172, Ellsworth, Maine

Old West Church

The widely copied Old West Church in Boston.

The first Old West Church was built in 1737 in Boston’s West End, which today is actually the north part of the city. British soldiers used it as a barracks before the American Revolution. They tore down the tower in 1775 because they suspected the rebels were signaling from it.

The church had a history of rebellious sentiment. One of its pastors, the Rev. Jonathan Mayhew, was a revolutionary who befriended Samuel and John Adams, John Hancock and Robert Paine.

Timbers from the wrecked first church formed part of the African Meeting House in Boston, also designed by Asher Benjamin.

In 1806, the Old West congregation commissioned Asher Benjamin to build a new church. He designed it with a 3-1/2 story porch divided into three bays. The National Park Service called it an ‘early and highly successful example of a monumentally scaled church constructed in the then-new Federal-Adamesque style.’

Though widely copied, the church almost fell to the wrecking ball several times. But several times a rescuer saved it. After functioning as a library for many years, the Methodist Church bought it in 1961. Today the Methodists use the building as a church while urging people ‘to do justice, love mercy and hustle humbly.’

Benjamin designed many other buildings in Boston, including the Exchange Coffee House, the Charles Street Meeting House, Headquarters House, the Fourth Meeting House of the First Church, the William Ellery Channing House and the Charles Playhouse.

131 Cambridge St., Boston

Nashua Manufacturing Co.

Clocktower Place, part of the mill complex designed by Asher Benjamin.

After winning election as Boston alderman at the age of 50, the ambitious Asher Benjamin probably aimed at a higher office. But he fell into financial distress and declared bankruptcy in 1825. So from 1825 to 1827, he went to work to Nashua, N.H., supervising the construction of canals, locks, roads, mill buildings and churches for the new Nashua Manufacturing Co. He even designed worker housing and decided where the company should plant shade trees.

The mill complex, modeled on Lowell’s farther south, succeeded, and Nashua’s population swelled from 100 to 1200. The company churned out cotton textiles until it sold to Textron in 1945, which shut down the mills in 1948.

Today the National Register of Historic Places lists the mill district, and some of the buildings now serve as an apartment complex called Clocktower Place

Two Clocktower Place, Nashua, N.H.

Washington Lodge No. 3

asher-benjamin-washington-lodge-no-three

Washington Lodge No. 3, courtesy Google Maps.

We had a hard time finding an Asher Benjamin house in Rhode Island. His most prominent building in the state, the Rhode Island Union Bank, has been demolished.

But his influence was so pervasive we thought there must be some building with a link to Asher Benjamin. We finally found it in a Masonic Temple, Washington Lodge No. 3 in Warren.

The lodge had 58 original members, of which 21 were sea captains.

asher-benjamin-washington-lodge-corniceasher-benjamin-washington-lodge-cornice

An Asher Benjamin cornice

Built in 1796 or 1798, the building has beams salvaged from British frigates sunk in Newport Harbor during the American Revolution. The federal style detailing on the outside of the building includes a ‘modified cornice from Asher Benjamin,’ according to the Rhode Island Historical Preservation Commission.

The building served as Warren’s Town Hall and the Warren Academy during the early days of the Republic.

Inside, visitors will find a surprise: Egyptian-themed frescoes painted by Max Muller, a Mason and recent graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design. There was a well-known Max Muller who studied Orientalism, traveled to Egypt and taught college in Philadelphia, but we don’t know if it’s the same person. Perhaps our readers can help us.

The second oldest building in Warren after the Baptist Church of Warren39 Baker St., Warren, R.I.

Old South Church

Old South Church, one of four buildings in Windsor designed by Asher Benjamin.

Asher Benjamin and his new wife moved to Windsor, Vt., around 1798. There he built the Old South Church, and designed and built three other houses, all since demolished.

The parishioners of the Congregational church had not had a leader for 10 years when Asher Benjamin drew up the designs for a new meetinghouse. The previous pastor, Benjamin Bell, had been accused of unchristian conduct and excommunicated in 1795. The old meetinghouse had deteriorate to such an extent the parishioners agreed to spend $5,000 on a new one.

Asher Benjamin designed the building with seven windows along each side and a Palladian window in the front, but a renovation in 1922 eliminated those architectural elements.

In fact, Old South’s alterations disguise its original similarity to the Asher Benjamin design for a country meeting house. He included that design in The Country Builder’s Assistant, and builders throughout New England used it. One of the keys to the success of Asher Benjamin’s books was his understanding of the country builder’s limitations.

In December 1801 he took out an advertisement for ‘young carpenters, joiners and all others concerned in the art of building.’ He wrote that he hoped to open a school of architecture in his home in Windsor. It probably never happened, as he moved to Boston in 1803.

146 Main St., Windsor, Vt.

Industry and Talents

From Windsor, Asher Benjamin he wrote to Postmaster General Gideon Granger in hopes of getting a commission for a public building in Boston. He didn’t get the job, but he got many others in Boston.

Granger later described Asher Benjamin:

“From a poor boy unaided by friends, by his indefatigable industry and talents in a few years he has raised himself to the first rank of his profession.”

To read the American Builders Companion, click here.

Images: Old West Church By [email protected] – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21361578; Nashua mill complex, By User:Magicpiano – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10608802. This story was updated in 2021.

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Six Places That Appear on the Back of a Quarter

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

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

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

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

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

Charter Oak Tree

Connecticut State Quarter

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

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

The Charter Oak by Charles DeWolf Brownell, 1857

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pemaquid Point Lighthouse

Maine State Quarter

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

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

A storied lighthouse keeper, Marcus Hanna

Pemaquid Point Lighthouse

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

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

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

Minute Man National Park

Massachusetts State Quarter

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

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

The Minute Man

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

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

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

The Old Man of the Mountain

New Hampshire State Quarter

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

The Old Man of the Mountain, back in the day

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

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

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

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

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

Claiborne Pell Newport Bridge

Rhode Island State Quarter

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

The Claiborne Pell Newport Bridge

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

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

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

Camels Hump Mountain

Vermont State Quarter

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Six Historic Barns

Thousands of New England’s historic barns have survived severe weather, westward migration, suburban sprawl and competition from corporate agribusiness.

Often connected to other farm buildings and the farmhouse, they usually had many uses. Historic barns sheltered dairy cows, teams of oxen, horses, hay and crops.

Some historic barns, on the other hand, were built specifically for one purpose, like Connecticut tobacco or Vermont dairy cows.

But typical New England farm families grew a variety of crops and livestock, making and selling anything to support the farm. A New England farmer might sell maple syrup, timber, clothing, hard cider and barrels. He might run a tavern, or rent out his rooms or his beehives.

Big House, Little House…

Northern New England’s historic barns often connect to the house and to other buildings, Thomas L. Hubka described such connected farm buildings as ‘Big House, Little House, Back House, Barn.’

Though you might assume New Englanders connected their houses to outbuildings because of the weather, you would be only partly right.

According to Hubka, the agricultural reform movement beginning in the early 19^th century inspired New England farmers to make their farms more efficient.

So they connected their houses with such outbuildings as barns, ells, chicken coops, sugar houses, woodsheds, workshops and carriage sheds.

Farming as a way of life has waned in New England, but the public appetite for locally grown, unadulterated food is sparking a revival on a smaller scale.

If you have any favorite historic barns in New England, please share them in the comments section.

Windsor Tobacco Barn

Two of Windsor’s historic barns that sheltered shade tobacco. Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

Tobacco loved the sandy soil of Windsor, Conn., and in 1640 farmers began planting tobacco seeds from Virginia. As cigar smoking grew popular in the early 19th century, Connecticut farmers began to specialize in cigar binders using Broadleaf and Havana Seed. Eventually, they grew a light, tasty tobacco under tents of hand-woven cloth (hence ‘shade tobacco’) to use as wrappers.

By the middle of the 19th century, Connecticut emerged as a leading producer of tobacco. The tobacco Valley ran from Springfield to Hartford.

Tobacco farmers relied on seasonal labor from college campuses in the South, including Morehead College, which sent a young Martin Luther King, Jr., to Simsbury. They also used local child labor. World War II and the passage of child labor laws forced farmers to rely on immigrant workers from Puerto Rico and Jamaica.

Health concerns and competition from mass-produced cigar wrappers caused Connecticut’s tobacco acreage to dwindle.

Windsor produced more shade tobacco than anywhere else in the state. So in 1988, the Connecticut Valley Tobacco Historical Society formed in Windsor to preserve artifacts from the era. The historical society’s Luddy/Taylor Connecticut Valley Tobacco Museum is located in Northwest Park in Windsor.

135 Lang Road, Windsor, Connecticut

Sabbathday Lake Barns

The Shakers built these classic examples of New England historic barns. Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

Ann Lee founded the Shaker sect, formally known as the The United Society of Believers, in Manchester, England, in 1847. Lee broke away from the Quakers, and her followers were known as the ‘Shaking Quakers’ because of their ecstatic dancing during Sunday meeting.

After Ann Lee – known as ‘Mother Ann’ – went to prison for her beliefs, she came to America with eight followers in 1774.

The Shakers expanded to 19 utopian communities throughout the Northeast and Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, Georgia and Florida. They preached a doctrine of celibacy, self-sufficiency, pacifism, communal living and equality between the sexes.

In 1794, the Shakers formed Sabbathday Lake near New Gloucester and Poland, Maine,

By the 1840s, the Sabbathday Lake Shakers had carved a large enterprise out of the Maine forests. They owned 1,900 acres and 26 large buildings, including barns, a meetinghouse, a blacksmith shop and a large dwelling house.

The Sabbathay Lake Shakers built their barns in the New England style, the most common found in the region. Larger than typical barns in other parts of the country, they have doors at the ends and basements. The Shakers built the Sabbathday Lake barns into the side of a hill, which allowed them to access the upper floor from the ground.

The Shakers peaked in the 1840s, with 6,000 members throughout the United States. Their belief in celibacy would doom them to slow, near extinction.

But for many years during the 19^th century, the simple, self-sufficient Shakers of Sabbathday Lake, Maine, sold their products to the luxury-loving guests and the owners of the Poland Spring Hotel.

707 Shaker Road, New Gloucester, Maine

Old Tavern Farm

Like many historic barns in New England, the Old Tavern barn connects to the other farm buildings.

Like many historic barns in Northern New England, the barn at the Old Tavern Farm in Greenfield, Mass., connects to buildings with other uses.

The Old Tavern Farm served many purposes over the centuries, reverting today to its original use as a bed and breakfast.

The Old Tavern Farm’s early owners supplemented their farm income by running a tavern – or perhaps it was the other way around. They served neighbors and travelers along the Old Post Road

The tavern also served as a meeting place, a courtroom and a newsroom, noted the registration form for the National Register of Historic Places. The property doubled as a military training field, sports arena, stockyard and fairgrounds.

The main house was built around 1820, but the wing was built in 1794 on a foundation built in 1740.

Samuel Hinsdale inherited the farm from his father, Mehuman Hinsdale, once taken captive by Indians in the 1704 raid on Deerfield. Hinsdale began building on the land in 1740, and by 1747 he operated a tavern.

Others ran the tavern from 1836 until 1860, when the temperance movement shut it down. The Smith family ran the 160-acre farm from the latter part of the 19th century until 1997.

817 Colrain Road, Greenfield, Massachusetts

Bennett Farm

That cupola on the Bennett Farm’s barn was once a steeple.

Ocean Born Mary’s son Thomas Wallace once owned the land in Henniker that became the Bennett Farm. The son of the legendary New Hampshire woman then sold it to Joseph Lewis in 1777. Its subsequent owners ran it as a tavern until 1848. From that point on, its owners ran it as a typical Northern New England farm.

The barn was built in 1834 as a religious meeting house. Around 1860, the Bennett Farm’s barn burned down, so the farm’s owner moved the meeting house to the farm and converted it to a barn. The top of the steeple blew off during the Hurricane of 1938, leaving a cupola. .

Mark Bennett bought the farm in 1902, and his son Stephen took over when his father died in 1925 and ran it into the 1960s. Stephen’s son now runs the farm.

“Bennett Farm as it survives today conveys the character and scale of a late 19th-early 20th century diversified family farm,” notes The National Register of Historic Places registration form.

11 Bennett Rd., Henniker, New Hampshire

Mount Hope Farm

See Mount Hope’s historic barn at the Saturday farmer’s market held at Mount Hope.

Mount Hope Farm in Bristol, R.I., includes a mansion built in 1745 and expanded in 1840 and 1895, and two historic barns built in 1860. But it also owes its significance to its storied owners and connected events.

Once the traditional seat of the Wampanoag Indians, Benjamin Church killed King Philip nearby. The colonists then confiscated the land, and the wealthy merchant and slave owner Isaac Royall, Jr., built the farmhouse in 1745. But Royall’s Loyalist sympathies forced him to move to Halifax at the outbreak of the American Revolution.

The State of Rhode Island then confiscated the land again. Proceeds from the sale of Mount Hope went to pay Continental Army officers and soldiers.

William Bradford, great, great grandson of the Pilgrim governor, bought the house in 1783, and George Washington visited him for a week there. Bradford later won election to the U.S. Senate. The farm is also known as the Governor Bradford House, though he only served as deputy governor.

In the early 1950’s, the then-owner, Rudolf F. Haffenreffer, III, deeded Mount Hope and approximately 250 acres of the original farm to Brown University.

“Today, this handsome estate with its historic mansion and beautiful gardens, is an island of tranquility in an increasingly urban landscape,” noted the National Register of Historic Places registration form.

250 Metacom Ave., Bristol, Rhode Island

Shelburne Farms Horseshoe Barn

The Horseshoe Barn at Shelburne Museum.

Cornelius Vanderbilt’s granddaughter, Eliza Osgood Vanderbilt Webb, created a classic Gilded Age gentleman farm in Shelburne, Vt.

Eliza and her husband, Dr. William Seward Webb, bought up small farms to create their 3,800-acre estate in 1886. They hired Frederick Law Olmsted to design the winding drives, scenic vistas, parklands, gardens and a golf course.

Among Shelburne Farms’ historic barns is the horseshoe barn, not one of the original buildings designed by architect Robert Henderson Robertson. It was built later as the next generation of Vanderbilts struggled to keep up the farm.

The Webbs’ daughter-in-law, Electra Havemeyer Webb, turned Shelburne Farms into a museum. She wanted a proper setting for the carriage collection, so she searched and found a rare horseshoe-shaped dairy born in Georgia, Vt.

Because the owner refused to sell it, Electra had her staff find, move and assemble hand-hewn beams from 12 historic barns and stone from two gristmills. They finished the 238-foot-long barn in 1949.

In 1957, the museum built the annex to house 150 more vehicles added to the collection.

In 1972, the Webb descendants incorporated Shelburne Farms as a nonprofit educational organization. It has 400 acres of sustainably managed woods and a grass-fed herd of Brown Swiss cows. It’s also one of the principal concert sites for the Vermont Mozart Festival. Shelburne Farms also features an inn and restaurant, open seasonally, on the shores of Lake Champlain, tours, walking trails, a children’s farmyard and a farm store that sells, among other things, cheddar cheese.

Shelburne Farms, 1611 Harbor Road, Shelburne, Vermont

Images: Bennett Farm By User:Magicpiano – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19490337; Old Tavern Farm By John Phelan – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24500134.

Mount Hope Barn by By Kenneth C. Zirkel – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=28160904.

This story about historic barns was updated in 2021.

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The Strange Death of Sarah Grosvenor in 1742

In 1742 in Pomfret, Conn., Sarah Grosvenor and Amasa Sessions were boyfriend and girlfriend, he 26 and she 19. In May of that year, Sarah told Amasa she was pregnant, and he agreed to marry her. But they never made it to the altar. In August, Sarah miscarried and lost the baby. In September, she contracted a fever and died.

Her story might have ended that simply, with a headstone in the local cemetery, but the town swarmed with rumors over Sarah’s death. Three years later, a grand jury was empaneled to investigate.

The jurors indicted Amasa Sessions and Dr. John Hallowell, a local doctor, for murdering Sarah Grosvenor. In the first case of its type in North America, the jury accused Hallowell of murder for attempting an abortion on Sarah.

It would be 1747, a full five years after Sarah’s death, that a court would try the cases and the whole story would came out.

A meetinghouse in Pomfret, Conn.

Sarah Grosvenor

In May 1742, Amasa Sessions helped Sarah Grosvenor obtain an herbal remedy designed to make her lose the baby. It was known as ‘taking the trade,’ and viewed as acceptable in the early stages of pregnancy.

Sarah denied being pregnant to anyone who asked, and continued taking the medicine for the next two months. But the medicine didn’t work, and Sarah began feeling sick. By July the situation grew more dire.

She finally admitted her pregnancy to her sister and her cousin, and Dr. Hallowell visited her home. She felt ill, and the doctor worried she had taken so much of the medication that she would not survive childbirth. Aided by Sarah’s cousin and sister, he attempted an abortion on August 2. Two days later, Sarah miscarried.

Sarah’s sister and cousin buried the dead baby and Sarah began to feel better. But her condition soon worsened. Within two weeks, Sarah developed a fever. The family summoned Dr. Parker Morse to treat her.

Dr. Morse had heard a rumor about Sarah’s pregnancy, but her family denied it. They told him he could prescribe the best treatment for Sarah with no worry that she was pregnant.

Passing Judgment

On Sept. 14, Sarah Grosvenor died at age 20, probably from an infection caused by unsanitary tools used in her surgery.

Three years later, local gossip about Sarah’s death probably induced the town to empanel a grand jury to sort out what happened.

The jury did not convict Amasa of any wrongdoing for his part in arranging for Dr. Hallowell’s services. But it did convict Dr. Hallowell of a misdemeanor for performing the surgical abortion.

Dr. Hallowell would petition the Connecticut legislature to reduce his punishment to a fine, with no corporal punishment, but it refused.

Thanks to: Taking the Trade: Abortion and Gender Relations in an Eighteenth-Century New England Village, by Cornelia Hughes Dayton. This story about the death of Sarah Grosvenor was updated in 2022.

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Six Christmas Towns for the Holidays

So much of New England looks like a Currier & Ives print over the holidays that it was hard to choose the best of the Christmas towns.

We ended up choosing a town or city that offers history along with the carols, greenery, lights, Santas, skating rinks and horse-drawn sleighs.

So here are six of the best historic Christmas towns, one for each New England state.

Wethersfield, Conn.

A colonial doorman greets guests over the holidays in Wethersfield, Conn.

Wethersfield, one of the three oldest Connecticut towns, has the state’s largest historic district. Some of Wethersfield’s most historically significant houses dress up and offer tours over the Christmas holidays.

The Webb-Deane-Stevens Museum goes all out with its annual Three Centuries of Christmas event in its three historic houses. The museum shows the evolution of the Christmas holidays in America with authentic decorations, house tours and candlelight tours led by guides in period dress.

The Silas Deane House presents the 18^th century, when the household celebrated New Year’s Day as the main holiday when the Puritanical dislike of Christmas still lingered.

The Isaac Stevens House celebrates the holidays the way a middle-class household would during the early to mid-1800s, when New England adopted many of today’s Christmas traditions.

Finally, the Joseph Webb House shows a lavish Christmas open house typical of the early 20^th century.

Webb-Deane-Stevens: 211 Main St., Wethersfield, Conn. Click here for more information.

Kennebunkport, Maine

Kennebunkport’s huge Christmas tree in the center of town.

The historic seaside town of Kennebunkport, Maine, has celebrated Christmas in a big way since 1982.

In 2022, Kennnebunkport’s Christmas Prelude stretches from Dec. 1-11 and features craft fairs, rides through the woods aboard a festive historic trolley and boat rides aboard a Maine fishing boat.

On December 9, the second annual Prelude Family Street festival will feature strolling carolers, food vendors and entertainment from Dock Square through Lower Village.

White Columns, a historic Greek Revival home, offers house tours and stunning Victorian Christmas decorations. The 11th annual fireworks display takes place right after the tree lighting on Friday, Dec. 9.

For more information, click here.

Boston, Mass.

Hundreds of thousands of lights throughout Boston proper put a nighttime sparkle in the historic seaport city.

Faneuil Hall puts on a seven-minute light show with 350,000 lights, along with the city’s largest Christmas tree. String lights twinkle throughout the Public Garden and the Boston Common, which also has a lighted Christmas tree and ice skating on the Frog Pond.

Faneuil Hall over the holidays.

City Hall Plaza features a European-style Christmas market with a winding skating path, Santa’s House and a traveling wine and beer exhibit.

The Boston Opera House stages the classic holiday ballet, The Nutcracker, and the Paramount Theatre stages Langston Hughes’ Black Nativity. It’s one of the hottest tickets in Boston, where the play is in its 49th year. The Boston Pops Orchestra plays classic holiday favorites in a cabaret setting at Boston Symphony Hall.

To find out what’s going on in Boston over the holidays, click here.

Portsmouth, N.H.

Portsmouth’s Market Square during the holidays.

Few holiday traditions evoke the past as well as the Strawbery Banke candlelight stroll, now in its fourth decade in Portsmouth, N.H.

Strawbery Banke, an outdoor history museum, comprises dozens of restored Colonial, Georgian and Federal style buildings clustered around a large green. At Christmas, hundreds of candle lanterns light the grounds, evergreens garnish the houses and holiday music fills the air.

Costumed role players recreate past traditions including a 1919 Hanukkah celebration and a Victorian Christmas. The outdoor Puddle Dock skating rink offers skating every day of the week from December through February.

Strawbery Banke anchors Portsmouth’s ‘Vintage Christmas’ celebration. A big part of Portsmouth’s charm lies in its walkability and in its many family-owned shops, restaurants and inns. Fresh green garlands and balsam wreaths decorate nearly every shop and the period homes nearby, while the city illuminates Market Square with a Christmas tree.

The Music Hall Theater in Portsmouth’s downtown, along with the Ogunquit Playhouse, present Elf The Musical.

For those who don’t want to walk, a free Holiday Trolley circulates through the neighborhoods. And when you pass those shops, remember that New Hampshire doesn’t have a sales tax.

For more information, click here.

Newport, R.I.

The Breakers, decorated for the holidays.

Three Newport mansions present over-the-top Christmas tours worthy of the last Gilded Age. The Preservation Society of Newport County decked the halls of The Breakers, The Elms and Marble House with extravagant Yuletide finery through January 1. Thousands of poinsettias, evergreens and flowers decorate the magnificent rooms, while holiday music fills the air and tables glisten with silver and china.

Outside the Breakers, a half-mile-long path glitters with hundreds of thousands of holiday lights at night, including a 50-foot tunnel of light. Friendly gnomes point the way and music fills the winter air.

Santa makes several appearances throughout the holiday season, and on December 9, St. Barnabas Church in Portsmouth presents a Christmas in Song concert.

Newport recaptures past candlelit holidays with thousands of clear bulbs. For the 52nd annual Christmas in Newport, the lights illuminate the harbor, restored colonial buildings and Bellevue Avenue.

The Breakers exterior.

Historic churches and museums hold open houses and high teas, while musicians and thespians stage Christmas concerts and Christmas plays throughout the month.

For more information click here.

Woodstock, Vt.

The Jackson House Inn, decorated for the holidays.

The quintessential Vermont town of Woodstock throws itself into the holidays with lights, greenery, activities and plenty of shopping action.

The Billings Farm & Museum demonstrates the traditions of a late 19th century Vermont Christmas at Wassail Weekends beginning December 9 from 10 am to 4 pm.

The Woodstock YOH Theatre Players present a live radio play, Miracle on 34th St., on Dec. 14, 15 and 16.

The Woodstock Inn offers seasonal culinary treats during the holidays. And on Sunday, December 16, A Festival of Nine Lessons & Carols is presented at the St. James Church in Woodstock.

Local stores stay open late so locavores can do their holiday shopping, and the town’s art galleries feature holiday exhibits.

For more information, click here.

The Christmas holiday actually began in ancient Rome — and so did Italian cookies. The New England Historical Society’s new book, 24 Historic Italian Christmas Cookie Recipes, tells you how to make those delicious treats. It also bring you the history of the Italian immigrants who brought them to New England. Available now on Amazon; just click here.

Images: Faneuil Hall by Tony Fischer Photography; Jackson House Inn by Mark Goebels, Creative Commons License; Kennebunkport Tree by Amy Meredith, Creative Commons License. Tree lighting at Faneuil Hall, via Flickr , CC by ND 2.0. This story was updated in 2022.

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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

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