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Nathaniel Hawthorne

Six New England Places To Learn About Irish History

Outside of Ireland, New England may be one of the best places to explore Irish history. After all, many people of Irish ancestry live here – and we do love our history.

Massachusetts and New Hampshire have special claims on Irish history. More than one in five residents of each state claims Irish ancestry. And about 18 percent of people living in Rhode Island, Maine and Vermont have Irish ancestors. Connecticut may be the least Irish state in New England, with only 16.6 percent of its people claiming Irish ancestors. But still, it’s in the top ten, with only Delaware claiming slightly more.

We have already brought you six Irish landmarks in New England, but many of them are closed in the winter. So in honor of St. Patrick’s Day, we bring you six more places where you can learn about Irish history. Even if it’s cold outside.

Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum

Learn about the most tragic chapter in Irish history at the Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum

Between 1845-52, half of all immigrants to the United States came from Ireland. A potato blight and English oppression caused mass starvation, disease and death.

The Irish came to the U.S. in vessels called famine ships. If they didn’t die of disease or hunger aboard the ships, they crowded into slums when they arrived. At Quinnipiac University, Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum in Hamden claims the largest collection of visual art, artifacts and printed materials about that tragic episode in Irish history.

The exhibit “Making America: The Irish in the Civil War Era” ends on March 17. The work of Irish immigrant John Mulvany, a sketch artist during the Civil War, accompanies the exhibit.

3011 Whitney Ave, Hamden, Conn.

Burnham Tavern

Both Revolutionary and Irish history can be found at the Burnham Tavern.

During the American Revolution, some of the most notable fighters on both sides had Irish ancestry. Two – Henry Knox and John Sullivan — served as Washington’s generals. Another, Jeremiah O’Brien, fought the first naval battle of the American Revolution.

On June 12, 1775, Jeremiah O’Brien led a group of Machias men – some armed only with pitchforks — in capturing a British schooner called the Margaretta. They planned the maneuver at the Burnham Tavern, today a National Historic Site. Visitors can learn the history of the battle and see some of the O’Brien family’s belongings.

Should you decide to explore Irish history in Machias, you’ll find a classic, picturesque Downeast town. And you can get the best blueberry pie in Maine and therefore the world at Helen’s.

Main Street, Machias, Maine

James Michael Curley House

The James Michael Curley house.

James Michael Curley, Boston’s ‘Rascal King,’ personified the big city political boss for the first half of the 20th century. He spent lavishly on parks and hospitals, which not only served his immigrant constituents but created jobs for them.

Curley first won election as mayor in 1914, and went on to win three more times. He also won as Massachusetts governor and congressman. But he went to prison twice, once for sitting in for a friend on a civil service exam and once for mail fraud. Curley embarrassed the Democratic Party, and he couldn’t get elected as a Democratic delegate to the 1932 convention. Somehow he went as a delegate from Puerto Rico.

Curley built a mansion in Jamaica Plain with shamrocks cut out of the shutters at 350 The Jamaicaway. He never quite explained how he managed to build it on a mayor’s salary. Today there are plans to open the house to the public on a regular basis. Until then, you can embrace Irish history by visiting James Michael Curley Park near Faneuil Hall.

1 Union Street, Boston, Mass.

First Parish Church, East Derry

The First Parish Church, where potato and Irish history were made.

The Scots-Irish arrived in New England at the invitation of the Massachusetts Puritans, who viewed them as a persecuted Protestant minority like themselves.

The Puritans didn’t exactly embrace the poor Scots-Irish who first arrived in five ships in 1718. They strongly encouraged them to push on toward the frontier (Maine and New Hampshire). The Scots-Irish settlers provided a convenient barrier to unfriendly French and Indians.

In 1719, a group of Scots-Irish settled Nutfield, which evolved into the towns of Derry, Londonderry, Windham, and part of Manchester. When they arrived, they planted the first white potato in North America.

A historic marker in front of the First Parish Church in historic East Derry notes the historic planting of the spud:

The marker reads, “In April 1719, sixteen Presbyterian Scotch-Irish families settled here in two rows of cabins along West Running Brook easterly of Beaver Brook. Initially known as Nutfield, the settlement became Londonderry in 1723. The first year, a field was planted, known as the Common Field, where the potato was first grown in North America.”

On April 12, Nutfield kicks off its 300th anniversary celebration, including a strawberry festival, a founders weekend and an old home day.

47 E Derry Rd, East Derry, N.H.

Governor William Sprague Mansion

Not just a Yankee monument, the Gov. William Sprague house also played a role in Irish history.

On New Year’s Eve 1843, Rhode Island textile baron Amasa Sprague went for a walk. His servant later found his body, shot and bludgeoned.

The rich and powerful Sprague owned several textile mills, including the Cranston Print Works and the Slater Mill. he had had a dispute with three Irish brothers who ran a saloon. One of those brothers, John Gordon, was convicted of his murder.

John Gordon’s real crime was to be Irish at a time when hatred of the Irish ran rampant. The judge had actually told the jury to pay more attention to Yankee witnesses than Irish witnesses.

Even though circumstantial evidence showed John Gordon hadn’t committed the crime, the state hanged him. After Gordon’s execution, Rhode Island banned capital punishment. Then in 2011, Gov. Lincoln Chafee pardoned him.

To trace the events in this sad chapter of Irish history, you can visit Cranston to see where Sprague and Gordon lived. Sprague lived in what is now known as the Governor William Sprague Mansion. The house, now a museum, was named for his son who also lived there.

Sprague died on the grounds of St. Mary’s Church in Cranston, a 100-year old building. His Slater Mill is now on the National Register of Historic Places. You can see a video at the mill in March.

And John Gordon lived above a general store and saloon that is now St. George Maronite Catholic Church.

Governor William Sprague Mansion, 1351 Cranston St, Cranston, R.I.

Battery Street Historic District

Burlington, Vt., has a lot of Irish history, especially along the waterfront.

Nathaniel Hawthorne visited Burlington in 1832 and published a sketch of the young city. He noted “the great number of Irish emigrants” to be found there. They were everywhere: “lounging” around the wharves,” “swarming in huts and mean dwellings near the lake,” and “elbow[ing] the native citizens” out of work. (You can read the whole sketch here.)

Burlington had lots of Irish immigrants – 30 percent in the mid-19th century. They first sailed from Ireland to Canada, then came down Lake Champlain on steamboats. Most settled near the steamboat wharf.

Irish laborers lived and worked along the industrial waterfront. Today, a section of that waterfront is known as the Battery Street Historic District.

You can join Burlington’s celebration of its Irish history on St. Patrick’s Day with an annual Irish Heritage Festival.

Battery Street Historic District: rough boundaries are Main, St. Paul, and Maple Streets, and Lake Champlain.

Irish History End Notes

Images: Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum, By Jllm06 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=50748374; Burnham Tavern By Unknown photographer – Reproduced from an original postcard published by G. W. Morris, Portland, Maine, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19769449; First Parish Church of East Derry By John Phelan – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24513489; Gov. William Sprague Mansion By Swampyank – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=23861004; Battery Street Historic District By Mfwills – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8672750.

This story was updated in 2022.

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Six Historic Buildings With a Clerestory

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

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

One can find a clerestory window in all kinds of buildings. Here are six historic buildings with a clerestory.

General Henry Knox Museum, Thomaston, Maine

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

The General Henry Knox Museum is a replica of the mansion the revolutionary leader built in 1794 — but a good replica. By 1871, his house had gotten run down and the Thomaston Railroad backers wanted it for a right of way. So it fell to the wrecking ball.

After the turn of the 20th century, community members raised money to rebuild the house on a different site but according to the original designs. Those designs include a large clerestory that fills the house with light down to the first floor.

30 High Street, Thomaston

West End Library, Farmington, Conn.

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

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

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

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

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

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

15 School St, Unionville, Conn.

Tate House, Portland, Maine

clerestory-tate-houseclerestory-tate-house

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1270 Westbrook Street, Stroudwater neighborhood, Portland, Maine.

Shaker Barn, Hancock, Mass.

clerestory-round-stone-barn-hancockclerestory-round-stone-barn-hancock

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

34 Lebanon Mountain Rd., Hancock, Mass.

Samuel Tenney House, Exeter, N.H.

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

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

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

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

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

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

65 High St., Exeter, N.H.

Upper Rockville Mill, Hopkinton, R.I.

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

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

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

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

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

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

332 Canonchet Rd., Hopkinton, R.I.

Christ Episcopal Church, Montpelier, Vt.

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

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

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

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

64 State St., Montpelier, Vt.

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

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A Haunted Murder Scene in Each New England State

If you’re looking for a haunted murder scene, New England has plenty of them. The region is awash in old taverns where the ghosts of murder victims move furniture at night or cemeteries where they float above gravestones.

New England has always embraced tales of the supernatural. New England ghosts, witches, devils and monsters in human shape populate the novels of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, Shirley Jackson and Stephen King. There’s even a name for the region’s special brand of horror: Gothic New England.

Here then is a haunted murder scene in each New England state.

The Murder Scene at Union Cemetery

The White Lady’s murder scene? Union Cemetery at night.

One autumn night a man knelt by his wife’s grave in 400-year-old Union Cemetery in Easton, Conn. He missed her, and it comforted him to talk to her.

After a short while he looked up from the grave and saw a ghostly figure watching him. She had long dark hair and wore a diaphanous white veil and an old-fashioned white dress or nightgown.

“I wish my husband would have loved me as much as you love your wife,” she said, and then she vanished.

Some people believe the White Lady was murdered. Her body, they think, was dumped behind the Easton Baptist Church next to the cemetery. Others believe she murdered her husband. Whatever the case, the White Lady is one of Connecticut’s most famous ghosts. People have seen her walking among the gravestones and floating above them. She also appears to motorists on Route 59.

Whether it’s because it abuts a murder scene or because it’s so old, Union Cemetery has been called the most haunted cemetery in Connecticut. The cemetery attracts so many ghost hunters the Easton police have closed it off to traffic at night.

Johnny Winter and Harry Reasoner are also buried in Union Cemetery, but so far as we know they do not haunt the place.

Easton, Conn.

Wood Island Lighthouse

A lighthouse and a haunted murder scene: Wood Island Light.

In 1896, local sheriff Fred Milliken rented his chicken coop on Wood Island to Howard Hobbs, a drifter, to sleep in. The two men argued, and Hobbs shot the sheriff. He then went to the lighthouse keeper’s house and shot himself there.

Hobbs’ spirit haunts the murder scene at the Wood Island lighthouse, located off Biddeford Pool in Maine. People have heard moans and strange voices, seen dark shadows and found locked doors mysteriously opened.

The story doesn’t end there. One lighthouse keeper was so spooked by the haunting that he left the lamp unlit and rowed to the mainland. He found a room in a boardinghouse and jumped to his death the next morning.

20 Yates St., Biddeford, ME

The Lizzie Borden House

The Fall River hatchet murder scene is now a popular bed and breakfast.

Lizzie Borden, a 31-year-old single woman, famously took an axe and killed her father and stepmother at their home in Fall River, Mass. Or did she? The debate continues since the couple was found murdered on Aug. 4, 1891.

A jury acquitted Lizzie of murder nearly a year later. Many thought she got away with the crime. Others think the maid did it, or perhaps Lizzie’s uncle, who provided an absurdly overdetailed alibi.

Whatever the case, Lizzie continued to live in Fall River, ostracized by the community, until her death at age 66. The murder scene was turned into a popular bed and breakfast in 1996. Guests most often request the room where Lizzie’s stepmother met her end.

Ghost hunters sometimes stay in the house to investigate paranormal activity. A floor will creak in an empty room, or doors will open and close mysteriously. Sometimes the proprietor smells a faint flowery scent, and once the hallway chandelier suddenly turned off and a shadow climbed the stairs.

Today, a popular rhyme persists about the murders:

Lizzie Borden took an axe
And gave her mother forty whacks.
When she saw what she had done,
She gave her father forty-one.

92 Second St., Fall River, Mass.

The Country Tavern

The Country Tavern in Nashua, a murder scene long ago.

In 1741, a sea captain named Ford built a house in what is now Nashua, N.H. He brought his much younger wife Elizabeth to live there while he went to sea.

Once, after a 10-month absence at sea, he returned to find Elizabeth and her new baby. In a fit of rage he locked Elizabeth in a closet and killed the infant. When Elizabeth emerged to find out what he’d done, she attacked her husband. Capt. Ford then stabbed her with a knife and threw her body down a well.

In the 1980s, Elizabeth Ford’s farmhouse became a popular eatery, the Country Tavern. Her ghost supposedly haunts the murder scene, but in a playful way. She moves salt and pepper shakers, tosses dishes off shelves and runs her fingers through patrons’ hair. Sometimes she makes an appearance in a window on the second floor, gazing out over the property.

452 Amherst St., Nashua, N.H.

The Biltmore Hotel Murder Scene

The lobby of the Biltmore Hotel, scene of murders and suicides during Prohibition.

In 1918, a rumored Satanist named Johan Leisse Weisskopf financed construction of the Biltmore Hotel (now known as Graduate Providence). He supposedly installed chicken coops on the roof to supply birds for ritual sacrifices and dug hot springs in the basement for purification rites.

During Prohibition, the Biltmore became a speakeasy frequented by Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong. The hotel hosted raucous parties that supposedly resulted in the murders of several guests. Today, Biltmore guests say they hear laughing and dancing from an empty room, once, perhaps, a murder scene.

The most famous ghost, though, belongs to a wealthy guest who threw himself off the 14^th floor of the Biltmore when the stock market crashed in 1929. Hotel guests say they’ve seen a man plummet past their windows, only to look down and see no body on the sidewalk.

11 Dorrance St., Providence, R.I.

College Hall, Vermont College of Fine Arts

The ghost of Anna Wheeler haunts College Hall.

College Hall at the Vermont College of Fine Arts was built near an 1897 murder scene involving a jealous lover.

On a Saturday morning, 17-year-old Anna planned to meet her fiance, Jack Wheeler, a handsome 22-year-old stonecutter. They would take the train to Barre that day to watch the Decoration Day celebration. She lived on East Liberty Street where her cousins, the Bugbees, had hired her to do domestic work.

Mildred Brewster, 20, went to the Bugbee house and waited on the porch for 20 minutes before knocking on the door. The two women talked inside for 45 minutes, and a witness later testified to overhearing the conversation. Mildred said, “Jack Wheeler can’t be engaged to us both; we will have to let him decide.”

Mildred and Anna then walked past the Montpelier Seminary, now College Hall, toward Jack Wheeler’s house. Then Mildred took out a .32 caliber revolver and shot Anna, then herself. Anna died that afternoon, but Mildred lived to be charged with murder. A jury found her not guilty by reason of insanity, and she spent the rest of her life in and out of sanitariums.

Anna’s ghost now haunts College Hall near the murder scene, closing doors, moving objects, breaking glass and throwing pictures off walls. Once she supposedly moved furniture to block the door of a locked office.

36 College St., Montpelier, Vt.

If you enjoyed this story about haunted murder scenes, you may want to read our story about haunted houses in New England here.

Haunted murder scene images: Union Cemetery By Karl Thomas Moore – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=46789828; Biltmore Lobby By Kenneth C. Zirkel – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21843548. This story last updated in 2021.

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The Raging Blizzard That Killed Mr. and Mrs. Tarbox in 1819

Samuel Tarbox and his wife are still remembered nearly 200 years after they froze to death in a fearful March snowstorm. To this day, some people in Maine’s Sebago Lakes Region refer to a fierce snowstorm as a ‘real tarboxer.’

It had snowed for three days when Samuel Tarbox ventured out of his house in the town of Standish, Maine. He set out to the local gristmill to have a bag of corn ground, but collapsed on his return. His wife went to find him and she, too, perished.

The sad tale reached the ears of their 67-year-old neighbor, Thomas Shaw, who wrote bad but popular poems for a little bit of money. Shaw sold printed copies of MOURNFUL SONG, On a man and wife, who both froze to death in one night, on Standish Cape, so called. (Read it here.)

Shaw sold his ballad for pennies in nearby Portland, where sailors picked it up and took it to distant lands. And Nathaniel Hawthorne, the teenaged nephew of the Tarboxes’ neighbor, supposedly watched the burial of Mr. and Mrs. Tarbox.

The mournful ballad of Samuel Tarbox and his wife

The Storm of 1819

The winter of 1818-19 had had remarkably little snow. People had hardly had to use their sleighs.

Then on March 25 came the great snowstorm. “Probably more snow fell at this time than has ever fallen during a single storm in this town since its settlement,” wrote Francis Gould Butler in his history of Farmington, Maine.

“The depth was estimated from three and one-half feet, and the surrounding country is blockaded for several days.”

The storm, according to some accounts, lasted nine days.

The Tarbox Tragedy

Samuel Tarbox left his starving family at their home in Standish with a bag of corn to have it ground. He reached the gristmill, but on his return the heavy bag of cornmeal proved too much for him in the heavy snowdrifts. He tied the bag to a low-hanging branch, then struggled home through the snow.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Just outside his yard, Samuel Tarbox collapsed. He cried to his wife for help. Inside the house, Mrs. Tarbox thought she heard her husband call over the howling wind. So she told her five children to stay inside the house, and to blow a horn so she could find her way back, according to Hidden History of the Sebago Lakes Region.

Mrs. Tarbox (her first name is lost to history) found her husband lying just a few feet from her door. She tried to move him, but couldn’t. So she covered him with her woolen cape and hat, then set off to a neighbor’s house for help. But she didn’t get far. Mrs. Tarbox collapsed not far from her husband.

Meanwhile the frightened Tarbox children blew intermittently on the horn for two days. Finally a woodsman came upon the frozen bodies of their parents.

Thomas Shaw

Thomas Shaw wrote folksy poems he called mournful ballads and sold them on broadside sheets in Portland and the other Cumberland County towns.

Bon in 1753, he had come to Standish as a 10-year-old with his father. He grew up on the frontier of Cumberland County before churches or schools were built. In 1775, he joined the Continental Army.

Thomas Shaw had no formal education, but as he wrote in his journal, “I learned to read and write a little, and in the year 1775 I began in my ignorant way to write spiritual songs . . . and some of them I have got printed.”

The subjects included the fall of the Gorham meeting house, Captain Adams’ shipwreck and the hanging of Drew, which he and his son watched in Portland in 1808.

He sold thousands of the ballads for six and a quarter cents apiece. In his poem about the Tarbox tragedy, Shaw had two coffins printed at the top.

The mournful song did not go down as great literature, with lines such as “She left her children then with speed To help her husband then in need, Through cold and wind in a deep snow, God knows what she did undergo.”

Betsy Tarbox

The tale of the Tarbox tragedy may have inspired a greater writer than Thomas Shaw. Nathaniel Hawthorne, 14, visited his Aunt Susan and Uncle Richard Manning in Standish in 1819. He reportedly stood by an upstairs window and watched in horror as Mr. and Mrs. Tarbox were buried.

The Mannings, who had no children of their own, adopted the youngest Tarbox child, Betsy. Hawthorne, who spent some of his youth in nearby Raymond, Maine, later described her in his diary:

“I can from my chamber window look across into Aunt Manning’s garden, this morning, and see little Betty Tarbox, flitting among the rosebushes, and in and out of the arbor, like a tiny witch. She will never realize the calamity that came upon her brothers and sisters, that terrible night when her father and mother lay within a few rods of each other, in the snow, freezing to death. I love the elf, because of her loss; and still my aunt is much more to her than her own mother, in her poverty, could have been.”

Two of Hawthorne’s short stories, The Gentle Boy and My Kinsman, Major Molineux, deal with young people cut off from their families. Betsy Tarbox may have inspired them..

This story about the Tarbox family was updated in 2023.

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Little Women Surprises Louisa May Alcott With Its Amazing Success

Louisa May Alcott called Little Women some ‘rubbish’ she ‘scribbled.’ When she gave her manuscript to her publisher, she hoped for a meager advance to pay off her family’s debts. She didn’t get it.

Louisa May Alcott

She later brought Part two of Little Women to her publisher, again hoping for a small check. His reaction shocked her.

Some 60-odd years later, her neighbor Julian Hawthorne – Nathaniel Hawthorne’s son – recounted the vivid tale of her visit to her publisher.

Little Women

Louisa May Alcott didn’t want to write Little Women, but her publisher insisted. She was 35 years old and a spinster who wrote potboilers under the name A.M. Barnard to alleviate her family’s poverty.

The book only took a few months to write, but she had lost her health while nursing soldiers in Washington, D.C., during the Civil War. She suffered headaches and rheumatism, probably the result of the mercury doctors used to treat her typhoid pneumonia she caught during the war.

She began Little Women in May 1868, when the Nathaniel Hawthornes lived next door to the Alcotts’ ramshackle house in Concord, Mass. Ralph Waldo Emerson lived in a big white frame house in the other direction. Louisa and her sisters grew up playing constantly with the Hawthorne and Emerson children.

When she finished the first part of Little Women, her family badly needed money. She was ready to sell the manuscript for $100.

Louisa took the train to Boston, wondering if she’d recoup the 60 cents she spent on fare. She took her manuscript to the publisher, who said he’d look at it when he got time. He couldn’t possibly give her cash, however. Fortunately for Louisa May Alcott, she had to accept royalties instead.

Louisa May Alcott returned home, convinced she’d never hear anything more about Little Women.

Part one of Little Women, published on Sept. 30, sold for $1.50.

Julian Hawthorne

Louisa May Alcott didn’t hear from her publisher. But she owed him the second volume of Little Women, so three months later she took another trip to Boston with a manuscript under her arm.

Julian Hawthorne, 13 years Louisa’s junior, had an adoring, younger brother attitude toward her. He was in his early 20s and living next door when Louisa took Part two to Boston. That evening he got a message to see the Alcotts, so he went over to their house to hear the story.

According to Louisa, she had the blues, and a word of encouragement wouldn’t have gone amiss. Nor would a small check.

She got off the train and made her way to the Washington Street entrance of Roberts Brothers, her publisher. A huge crowd blocked her way. Packing cases filled with books lined the sidewalk and men loaded books onto drays.

Julian Hawthorne

Clerks and stock boys filled the doorway; inside, chaos reigned.

Louisa thought creditors were seizing the publishing house for unpaid debts. Her manuscript, she thought, was probably lying in a rubbish heap in the back.

She forced her way to her publisher’s office. Her publisher, Thomas Niles, sat hunched over his desk cluttered with bills and books. “Like the Duke of Marlborough, he was riding the whirlwind and directing the storm; something tremendous was evidently going on,” wrote Hawthorne. “Having crossed her Rubicon, however, Louisa had the courage of desperation. “I’ve come to ask you –”

He waved her away. Louisa held her ground

The Liberating Tide

“He finished signing the check and looked up,” wrote Hawthorne. ““I told you to get out — .” He stopped, petrified as at a Gorgon. Then an exclamation burst from him.

“”My dear — dearest Miss Alcott! At such a juncture! You got my letter? No? No matter! Nothing to parallel it has occurred in my experience! All else put aside–street blocked — country aroused–overwhelmed — paralyzed! Uncle Tom’s Cabin backed off the stage! Two thousand more copies ordered this very day from Chicago alone! But that’s a fleabite — tens of thousands — why, dearest girl, it’s the triumph of the century!””

He was writing her a check the very moment she walked in. He told her to name her price and he’d give it to her in cash.

Louisa went home, triumphant, and told Julian Hawthorne and her family the story.

Hawthorne acknowledged that Louisa had exaggerated, but she did return home with her pockets bulging with cash.

“Hard times for the Alcott family were over forever,” he wrote. “We that evening saw the first flowing of the liberating tide.”

This story was updated in 2022.

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Six Historic Love Nests

In honor of Valentines Day, the New England Historical Society chose to highlight six love nests.

Love nests can be lavish mansions built for mistresses or summer homes where movie stars can canoodle. Or they can be places where long and happy marriages take place.

We even included a house that was a love nest only in an author’s imagination.

Here, then, are six historic love nests, one for each New England state. If you know of another historic love nest, please share it in the comments section.

Hepburn House

Katharine Hepburn’s house in Fenwick, probably Connecticut’s most famous love nests.

Katharine Hepburn loved her summer home in Fenwick, and she loved her married co-star Spencer Tracy.

And, lucky for her, she could enjoy both of them together.

She had been going to the summer beach colony in Old Saybrook, Conn., since she was five years old. Born in Hartford in 1907, she swam, sailed and golfed at the wealthy enclave. After she met Spencer Tracy on the set of Woman of the Year, she could have called it her love nest.

At that first meeting, Katharine famously said, “I fear I may be too tall for you, Mr. Tracy.” Film director George Stevens retorted, “Don’t worry, he’ll soon cut you down to size.”

Instead, they fell in love with each other. They starred in nine movies together, but lived apart and kept their affair private. Tracy was estranged from his wife, but neither sought a divorce.

Tracy and Hepburn stayed together at Hepburn’s Fenwick home. Her caddy remembers them having breakfast together.

The house, at 10 Mohegan Ave., is privately owned, but you can visit the Katharine Hepburn Museum in Old Saybrook. It’s at 300 Main St. Click here for more information.

Aaron Dunning House

As love nests go, this one was imaginary. Photo courtesy Google Maps.

Visitors to Brunswick, Maine can take a stroll past 76 Federal Street, also known as the Aaron Dunning House at the corner of Cleaveland Street. This was where Nathaniel Hawthorne (Bowdoin Class of 1825) spent most of his school days.

Across the street was the home of Professor Parker Cleaveland, a mineralogist who taught Hawthorne. More importantly to the future author, Cleaveland’s very attractive servant also lived there. Whenever someone arrived at Cleaveland’s door, Hawthorne would come to his window to catch a view of the young woman.

Some writers suggest this young woman was the model for a character in his first novel, Fanshawe, set at the fictional Harley College. The college bears a striking resemblance to Bowdoin.

In real life, 76 Federal Street served Hawthorne’s love nest only in his imagination. Some say Professor Cleaveland thwarted Hawthorne’s desire by shooing him away from the young lady. If so, that would explain his portrayal of an academic in his short story, The Great Carbuncle. An extremely eccentric fictional Doctor Cacophodel bore a striking resemblance to Professor Cleaveland.

The Aaron Dunning House is private, but you can see it at 76 Federal St., Brunswick, Maine

Emily Dickinson Museum

As love nests go, this one may have been the oddest.

Emily Dickinson’s married brother Austin carried on an illicit love affair for 13 years with Mabel Loomis Todd, also married.

The whole town of Amherst, Mass., including Todd’s husband, knew about the affair. He thought it was okay. Austin’s wife did not.

Austin used to take Mabel next door, where his mother and reclusive sisters Emily and Lavinia lived. They’d then have sex on Emily Dickinson’s dining room sofa.

We know because Austin recorded everything in his diary. For example, on January 3, 1886, he wrote, “at the other house 3 to 5 and +=====XXX.” Mabel, who also kept a diary, wrote on the same day. “A most exquisitely happy and satisfactory two hours.”

Emily Dickinson, who surely knew what went on in the dining room, died in 1886. Lavinia asked Mabel Loomis Todd and Thomas Wentworth Higginson to publish her poems. They did, and Mabel embarked on a lecture tour that made famous the reclusive Emily.

Mabel’s affair with Austin ended with his death in 1895.

The Emily Dickinson Museum includes both Emily’s and Austin’s house. It is at 280 Main St. in Amherst, Mass. Click here for more information.

Wentworth Coolidge House

One of New Hampshire’s colonial love nests.

When the cream of Portsmouth, N.H., society assembled at Gov. Benning Wentworth’s house in March of 1760, they had no idea they’d entered his love nest.

Wentworth had a surprise in store for his guests.

His maid entered the room, not to serve the meal but to get married – to the governor.

Wentworth, at 64, had been widowed and his two sons had died. He hoped to produce an heir.

Martha Hilton, 23, decided to marry the crotchety, portly, gouty Wentworth. The two tied the knot right there in the midst of colonial New Hampshire’s high society. They remained married, living in what is now the Wentworth-Coolidge House for a decade. The marriage ended with Wentworth’s death.

Wentworth-Coolidge House, 375 Little Harbor Road, Portsmouth, N.H. Open to visitors in spring, summer and fall.

Grace Vanderbilt

The most lavish of the love nests, it is now the Grace Vanderbilt. Photo courtesy Google Maps.

Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt, the third son of Cornelius Vanderbilt II, built the 33-room Newport mansion in 1909 as a love nest for his mistress, Agnes O’Brien Ruiz.

The affair caused a scandal, as Ruiz was married to the Cuban attache in Washington and Vanderbilt’s wife, the former Elsie French, had moved in with her brother.

The Vanderbilt family told Alfred he could have his money or his mistress, but not both. He chose the money. Ruiz committed suicide.

Vanderbilt remarried and died in the Lusitania sinking. The love nest became a luxury hotel, the Grace Vanderbilt.

You can stay at the Grace Vanderbilt at 41 Mary St., Newport, R.I.

Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller Farm

The Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller mansion is now part of a national park.

When he was 17 years old, Laurance Rockefeller developed his first crush on Mary French. She was the sister of his brother Nelson’s Dartmouth College roommate.

Nothing came of it until several years later, when he attended Harvard Law School and she studied sculpture in Cambridge, Mass. They married in 1934 in Woodstock, Vt., where they held the wedding reception at Mary’s family’s summer home.

They had a close partnership dedicated to philanthropy and conservation. In 1951, at the age of 41, Mary inherited her family’s Woodstock estate, which had originally belonged to environmentalist George Perkins Marsh. Her grandfather, railroad tycoon Frederick Billings, bought it and established a model farm on the property.

Their love nest became the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park when Mary and Laurance gave it to the federal government in 1992.

Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller Mansion, 54 Elm St., Woodstock, Vt.

* * *

Read more tales of true romance in the New England Historical Society’s collection of historic love stories. Available as an ebook and in paperback. Click here to order your copy today.

This story was updated in 2025.

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