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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 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.

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.The main house was built around 1820, but the wing was built in 1794 on Hinsdale’s foundation.

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.

The 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 2023.

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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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When the Pickwick Club Collapse Killed 44 in Boston, the Charleston Took the Blame

At 3 a.m. on July 4, 1925, 50 couples crowded onto the dance floor of the Pickwick Club in Boston’s Chinatown, kicking their heels while dancing the Charleston. They were tripping the light fantastic ‘like folks gone mad,” a club singer later said.

Moments later the Pickwick Club came crashing down, killing 44 and injuring scores more. It was the worst disaster to strike Boston until then.

Though fire, rain and an excavation next door weakened the Pickwick Club, many believed the Charleston caused the building’s collapse.

Workmen clearing debris from the collapsed Pickwick Club.

City officials, including Mayor James Michael Curley, thought the old five-story building couldn’t withstand the unnatural pounding of the dancers’ feet. Some cities banned the Charleston altogether, going so far as to post signs saying, “This Building Cannot Withstand the Charleston.”

The Charleston got the nickname ‘Dance of Death.’

The Pickwick Club Disaster

The boisterous crowd at the Pickwick Club in Boston’s Combat Zone celebrated the Fourth of July in exuberant Jazz Age style, drinking (illegally–Prohibition was in effect), eating and dancing the Charleston. It was a revolutionary dance, a break from the past because it allowed partners to separate from each other.

The Pickwick Club was located at 6 Beach St. in Boston’s Chinatown. Here’s how it looks today. Photo courtesy Google Maps.

A fight had broken out earlier, and police arrested one of the belligerents. Men lit little firecrackers to make the women jump. Patrolman Benjamin Alexander had gone into the club, looking for a jewel thief. He would not come out alive.

The four-piece orchestra just finished playing The Twelfth St. Rag, when one of the musicians spoke up.

“Aren’t these lights getting dim?” he said. The porter then pointed out sand sifting down from the ceiling.

The lights went dark, what sounded like fireworks crackled, a women cried out and the floor suddenly dropped. There was an awful crash and a huge gap opened in the floor.

“With a roar that was heard for blocks, the second and third floors were carried down into the basement with their cargo of dead and dying,” newspapers reported.

Two patrolmen heard the roar, and looking back saw dust rising from the ruined building. They pulled several people from the building as the walls and staircase still quaked.

The Dead and Dying

Help came immediately. Within 15 minutes flood lights were trained on the wreckage. Police officers and firefighters searched the timbers and flooring amid the wrenching cries of injured people trapped under beams and bricks. A fleet of ambulances raced back and forth, carrying the injured from the ruined building to nearby hospitals.

A Charleston contest in St. Louis, 1925.

Doctors arrived on the scene. Dr. Michael McGarty amputated a man’s finger to free him, but only after lighting a cigarette and blowing smoke into the victim’s mouth. He had begged for a cigarette before the doctor cut off his finger.

Priests came to provide conditional absolution to the dead and dying as firefighters took off their helmets and kneeled. Rescuers found most of the bodies 15 to 20 feet below street level.

Rescuers heard the cries of Edith Jordan, a 28-year-old newlywed from Somerville buried under four feet of brick and plaster. A beam lay across her chest and two dead people on her legs. Hours later, rescue workers managed to dig a tunnel to her and take her out on a stretcher. She died soon after arriving at City Hospital. Her husband also suffered injuries in the collapse, but survived.

Patrolman Alexander and another police officer died in the Pickwick Club disaster. So did several popular boxers and a man indicted for gas bombing the Rhode Island state Senate Chamber the year before. Most of the dead had only reached their 20s or 30s.

Charleston Blamed

At the time, dance halls were linked with Satan. Reformers like the Rev. John Roach Straton argued that dancing led to immorality.

Newspapers reported the PIckwick Club collapsed because ‘the newest crazy dance step causes vibrations which give the stamping heels of an average couple the destructive force of a giant twenty times their weight.’

Boston city officials tried to shut down two other nightclubs where people danced the Charleston.

Local officials then banned the Charleston across the country. In Kansas City, officials pronounced, “The Charleston dance may shake the foundations of public morality all it wants to, but when it weakens the foundations of buildings housing dance floors, it ought to be stopped.”

What Caused the Pickwick Club Collapse

The real cause of the collapse was a dangerously weakened building undermined by excavation for a garage in the next lot.

A fire had broken out in the Pickwick Club building in April, and only a thin board and tar paper comprised the roof. Rainstorms had weakened the often-overcrowded building.

Three days before the building collapse, a rainstorm blew off part of the roof and a hole was chopped in the floor to let water drain into the basement.

The next day, Boston’s building inspector inspected the building and pronounced it safe.

A grand jury charged 10 men with manslaughter, including building contractors, building inspectors and the president of the Pickwick Club.

During the trial, witnesses testified the collapse was caused by a lack of bracing and the pressure of excavated earth against one side of the wall. The engineer who supervised the construction of the Panama Canal testified a collapsed pier was made of the ‘rottenest concrete’ he had ever seen. Another witness said the fire damaged 50 supporting timbers and a side wall

The jury acquitted all 10 accused men.

The tragedy inspired a ballad, The Pickwick Club Tragedy, much asthe Wilton Meetinghouse Collapse inspired a ballad 150 years earlier. (You can listen to it here),

The collapse is credited with inspiring two H.P. Lovecraft short stories, The Horror at Red Hook and He, written within three months of the Pickwick Club Tragedy.

Images: Chinatown Today By Ingfbruno – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27497701. Charleston contest courtesy Missouri Historical Society Photographs and Prints Collection via Flickr, CC by SA 2.0.

This story was updated in 2022.

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Doris Duke, the Last Gilded Age Socialite of Newport

In 1925 at the age of 12, Doris Duke became the richest little girl in the world. She was the only child of American Tobacco Co. magnate James B. Duke. From then on her romances, philanthropies and eccentricities became fodder for gossip columns.

She inherited many millions – accounts of the specific amount vary — and a Newport mansion built by Frederick Vanderbilt called Rough Point.

Her wealth multiplied during her lifetime and she gave away five times her original inheritance. She donated $1 million to her friend Elizabeth Taylor’s AIDS Foundation. She also supported animal rights and environmental causes.

And she cared about historic preservation, paying to save 83 historic buildings, including the Samuel Whitehorne House, Prescott Farm, the Buloid-Perry House, the King’s Arms Tavern, the Baptist Meetinghouse, and the Cotton House. Along with her friend Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, she saved Newport’s early American architecture through the Newport Restoration Foundation, established in 1968.

Rough Point

After her death in 1993 (and contested will), Rough Point became the foundation’s property.

Unlike the other Newport mansions, uninhabited for 60 years, Doris Duke lived in Rough Point until she died. The house still bears her imprint, from her priceless art and antiques to her bedroom draperies by J.C. Penney.

Rough Point, summer home of Doris Duke

Tours go from May to November and are limited to 12 people. Since 2003, the foundation staged an annual exhibit of her clothing, jewelry, silver or furniture. But Rough Point has no gift shop because Duke thought they were in bad taste.

Guides treat visitors to stories about Duke’s remarkable life.

Doris Duke, the Legend

Doris Duke was an avid art collector, traveler and animal lover. She had two pet camels at Rough Point, Princess and Baby, who slept in a tent on the patio. A Middle Eastern businessmen threw them into a deal for a B-25 bomber she bought from him. During the 1991 storm Hurricane Bob, the camels came into the house after she had hay strewn on the floor. One broke a mirror.

She hated being photographed, traveled under aliases and always minded her father’s dying words, “Trust no one.”

She had two husbands, diplomat James H.R. Cromwell and playboy Porfirio Rubirosa. She supposedly had affairs with Errol Flynn, surfer Duke Kahanamoku, jazz pianist Joe Castro and Gen. George S. Patton.

She confessed her money created a barrier to true love. In 1945, over a glass of wine at the Hassler Hotel in Rome, she told a friend:

All that money is a problem sometimes. It happens every time. After I’ve gone out with a man a few times, he starts to tell me how much he loves me. But how can I know if he really means it? How can I ever be sure?

Her only child, Arden, died at one day old. In her 70s she adopted a 35-year-old belly dancer and Hare Krishna Chandi Heffner, but then disinherited her.

Dark Side

Duke also had a dark side. She could be incredibly vindictive, her enemies said. Once she fell out with someone lawsuits were common.

Many books and movies have since been produced about her life. Her godson wrote a biography, Too Rich, in which he summed her up this way: “Doris gave no second chances. She collected people and then she threw them away.”

In 2021, author Peter Lance reported on a tragedy that occurred at Rough Point: the death of designer/actor Eduardo Tirella in 1966.

Duke killed Tirella when she ran over him with a station wagon at the Newport estate. Duke said her foot slipped, she hit the accelerator and ran over Tirella, who was her design consultant. Police declared it an accident A civil trial found she was negligent.

However, Lance argues in Homicide at Rough Point that the case was not properly investigated and that Duke may have murdered Tirella, given the fact Tirella and Duke had a falling out and Duke’s temper.

Her Newport Life

At Bailey’s Beach in Newport

Doris Duke was an accomplished pianist and practiced twice a day. She especially loved jazz and gospel music. After the Newport Jazz Festival, she invited musicians to jam at Rough Point, and she was even said to have played incognito at the festival.

Doris Duke was good at the tango, tennis and building sand castles. She swam off the rocks at Rough Point and surfed in Hawaii.

On Oct. 28, 1993, Doris Duke died at the age of 80. Her will then got tied up in lawsuits for years.

Photo of Rough Point, By John Phelan – Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15208189; in bathing suit: By Source (WP:NFCC#4), Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=42082593. This story about Doris Duke was updated in 2021.

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When the Pickwick Club Collapse Killed 44 in Boston, the Charleston Took the Blame

The Pickwick Club Disaster

The Dead and Dying

Charleston Blamed

What Caused the Pickwick Club Collapse

Doris Duke, the Last Gilded Age Socialite of Newport

Rough Point

Doris Duke, the Legend

Dark Side

Her Newport Life

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