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Six Places Renamed Out of Spite

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

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

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

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

Pochoug, Conn.

The Patchogue River in Westbrook.

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

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

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

Gorgeana, Maine

Nubble Light in York, Maine

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

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

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

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

New Glasgow, Mass.

The White Church in Blandford, Mass.

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

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

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

Blandford didn’t get its bell.

Adams, N.H.

Jackson, New Hampshire

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

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

Haversham, R.I.

Westerly, R.I.

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

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

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

Sodom, Vt.

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

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

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

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

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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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The Oldest Bank in Each New England State

The oldest bank in a state isn’t necessarily the first one chartered. Banks have had their difficulties over the years and many failed or were swallowed up by other banks.

Bank of America, for example, started out as the Providence Bank in Rhode Island in 1791. It became the Industrial National Bank in the 1950s, morphed into Fleet Financial Group in the 1990s, bought Shawmut and BankBoston, and then was acquired by the Bank of America in 2004.

Here, then, are brief histories of the oldest bank in each New England state. If you know of other old banks with interesting histories, please include them in the comments section.

Liberty Bank

Historic Main Street district in Middletown, Conn.

In 1844, a young merchant from Old Saybrook named Frederick Sheffield rode his horse to Middletown, Conn., and deposited $8 in the Liberty Bank. Six months later he deposited another $18.

That $26 grew to more than $32,000 in 1994, when Sheffield’s descendants closed the account. It was the oldest individually owned savings account in America.

Liberty Bank was founded in 1825 as a mutual savings bank to help the poor and working class become thrifty. The bank’s headquarters complex includes its original location at Samuel Southmayd’s pharmacy on the corner of Main and Williams Streets in Middletown. They are part of the Main Street Historic District, and they include the former post office built in 1916, the Middletown Savings Bank built in 1928 and the Old Banking House Block built in 1796 and 1815.

Since 2000, Liberty Bank merged with several other smaller banks and is now the third largest as well as the oldest bank in Connecticut, with 56 branches and about 700 employees. It introduced a checking account to offer rebates of other banks’ ATM surcharges and built an affordable housing complex in Norwich, Uncas Condominiums.

Saco & Biddeford Savings Institution

Maine’s oldest bank, Saco & Biddeford Savings Institution was founded in 1827 as a social good, a way to encourage low-income people to save money.

The Saco & Biddeford Savings Institution was chartered during a flurry of charters for savings institutions along the East Coast. The first was founded in Boston in 1816, and within three years savings banks were incorporated in Philadelphia, Baltimore, New York, Hartford, Providence and Salem, Mass.

Today it has eight branches along the coast of Southern Maine, employs about 200 people and has assets of about $900 million.

State Street Bank and Trust

An early incarnation of the State Street Bank

Massachusetts Gov. John Hancock in 1792 signed the first charter for Union Bank, the forerunner of the State Street Bank and Trust Co. It was the third bank in Boston, located at the corner of State and Exchange streets. Its first president was Hancock’s lieutenant governor, Moses Gill.

The bank was tied to Boston’s shipping industry, and has always celebrated the city’s maritime history. The bank’s offices featured ship models, prints, harpoons and figureheads, and published about two dozen monographs about Boston’s shipping past.

The monographs, wrote one collector, “hold a unique place in Boston publishing history for a number of reasons, including their high level of scholarship, the elegant printing and presentation of the volumes, the very many rare photographs and illustrations first published therein, and the magnanimity of the great financial institution which made them available to the public.”

The bank’s interior was described as looking like a New England merchant’s counting house of the late 18^th century, including the period furniture.

In 1924, Massachusetts Investors Trust chose State Street Bank as custodian of the country’s first mutual fund. The importance of that development wouldn’t become clear until years later.

In the 1970s, State Street decided to move away from retail banking and commercial lending, and into the high-tech world of processing asset management, global custody, 401(k), retirement plan accounting, and trusteeship of debt securities

A series of mergers and moves resulted in the bank’s current structure. Today it is a subsidiary of the State Street Corporation, the third largest asset manager in the world with $2.45 trillion under management. State Street Corporation is responsible for the custody and administration of 11 percent of the world’s assets. It is the oldest bank in Massachusetts and the second oldest bank in the country next to the Bank of New York, founded eight years earlier.

Bank of New Hampshire

Bank of New Hampshire in Laconia, N.H.

In 1832, the Meredith Bridge Savings Bank in Laconia received its first deposit: $10.50. Its charter had been signed by Franklin Pierce the previous year. Thirty-eight years later it would change its name to the Laconia Savings Bank, and so it would remain until 2012, when it became the Bank of New Hampshire.

New Hampshire’s oldest bank was founded as a mutual savings bank, owned by its depositors, and it has remained that way ever since. In 1994, the bank began acquiring other banks, and today has 24 branches throughout the state.

The Bank of New Hampshire boasts of its support for such nonprofit organizations as the Laconia Public Library, Lakes Region Childcare, the Bedford Public Library and the Children’s Museum of Portsmouth. It has $1.5 billion of assets under management.

Washington Trust Company

Historic downtown Westerly, R.I.

The Washington Trust Company was chartered by the Rhode Island legislature in 1800 to furnish loans and savings options for residents of the Westerly area. More importantly, it also had responsibility for issuing bank notes. The federal government at the time did not issue currency as we know it today, and paper notes were from time to time in short supply. This made bank currency essential to a functioning economy.

Named for President Washington, the Washington Trust Company was known as Washington Bank. It became the first bank in the nation to issue currency that bore Washington’s portrait — a full 69 years before federal currency would bear his likeness. It was just the third bank chartered in Rhode Island history.

In the earliest days of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the bank insisted that its reliance on the values of Yankee thrift and frugality made it so sound that it had no need of FDIC insurance. Congress eventually forced all banks to participate in the insurance system, regardless of the health of their balance sheets.

National Bank of Middlebury

The State of Vermont chartered the National Bank of Middlebury in 1831. It operated out of the Middlebury Hotel until 1845 when it opened its first building. The bank became a federally chartered bank in 1865.

In 1885 the bank suffered a setback when an investment in the National Bank of St. Albans failed. The National Bank of Middlebury was among a group of banks that were shareholders who were asked to contribute funds to make good the deposits and debts of the St. Albans institution. The banks sued to escape liability, maintaining that they were not responsible for losses beyond their own investments. In 1888, however, the courts ruled that the National Bank of Middlebury, in addition to the others, must contribute to paying the St. Albans bank’s debts. Middlebury was ordered to pay $19,642 in the case.

After the banking crisis of 1933, during which Franklin D. Roosevelt closed the nation’s banks, the National Bank of Middlebury reopened and was declared one of the nation’s soundest banks. Today it is the oldest bank in Vermont.

Images: Liberty Bank, By Joe Mabel, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19384631; Westerly, R.I., By English Wikipedia user Daniel Case, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4422975

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Hurricane Carol, So Deadly Her Name Was Retired

Hurricane Carol, one of the worst to hit New England, was so ferocious the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration retired the name for a decade after it struck in 1954.

The Edgewood Yacht Club survived the storm surge

Strong, sustained winds swept through Rhode Island and the eastern parts of Massachusetts and Connecticut, killing dozens and destroying buildings, automobiles, boats and crops. The storm took out power for days, Gov. Dennis Roberts declared martial law in Rhode Island and called up the National Guard.

Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine suffered as well, though to a lesser extent.

On tiny Onset Island, the storm trapped more than a dozen families who had no warning of the approaching storm. Fifty people crowded into a two-story cottage, and their sheer weight held the house on its foundation. Women and children went upstairs, and the men downstairs took the windows out of their frames to let the waist-high water surge through the house.

“We could see and hear the funnel go right up Buzzards Bay,” remembered a cottager, 10 at the time. “After the water went down the men went out to try to find the baby that the mother lost hold of. The baby was found days later floating dead.”

In New England, Hurricane Carol killed 65 people and injured a thousand.

The Birth of Hurricane Carol

Hurricane Carol started on Aug. 25, 1954, as a tropical wave near the Bahamas, and strengthened as it moved northwest. On August 27, meteorologists clocked Carol’s winds at 105 mph. The hurricane then moved northeast, flooding the mid-Atlantic coast.

On August 31, Carol sped up and slammed into Old Saybrook, Conn. Rosemary Carpichio, then 10, remembered it well. Her family cottage on Cornfield Point stood only three houses from the beach.

“My father took me out during the eye of the storm when all was quiet and the sun was shining,” she recalled. “All of the roads were washed out and we were completely surrounded by water on the point. It was too late to evacuate.”

The next day, Carol morphed into an extratropical cyclone over northern New England.

Power Lines Sparking

Hurricane Carol crashes into Connecticut. NOAA photo.

At the storm’s height, winds gusted up to 125 mph, blowing roofs off houses in Rhode Island. The hurricane flooded downtown Providence with up to 12 feet of water. Winds on Block Island reached 135 mph, the highest ever recorded there.

The aftermath of Hurricane Carol in Westerly, R.I.

The storm washed away 200 homes in Westerly, R.I. In Newport, R.I., it damaged the Casino.

Ronald Guilmette was living in the Rogers Williams Projects in Providence. He and three friends had climbed a tree to see the storm better. “The tree was blown done and I broke my right arm,” he remembered. “To this day I don’t know how I got to Rhode Island Hospital where they repaired it.”

Narragansett Bay, Buzzards Bay and New Bedford Harbor suffered storm surges of more than 14 feet. Rod Sherman was at a family reunion in Little Compton, R.I. He remembered many trees down and power and phone wires dangling in the wind. He also recalled power lines sparking as they hit the wet ground and leaves stripped from trees.

Old North Church after Hurricane Carol got done with its steeple. Photo courtesy Boston Public Library, Leslie Jones Collection.

Old North

In Boston, Hurricane Carol tore off the spire of the Old North Church. Donations from children across America rebuilt it the next year.

Digital Equipment Corp. then occupied the Assabet Mills in Maynard, Mass. The company’s employees filled several thousand sandbags to protect the buildings that housed production equipment.

Hurricane Carol destroyed this boat in Marblehead Harbor. Photo courtesy Boston Public Library, Leslie Jones Collection.

National Guardsmen flew a planeload of dry ice to Boston for people who lost power and had no refrigeration. Gov. Christian Herter called up guardsmen in six Massachusetts towns to prevent looting. State officials then ordered the evacuation of Cape Cod, and 20,000 people left the peninsula.

Paul Phillips was an infant, staying with his mother and his grandmother in Dennisport at a cottage across the street from the ocean. His mother got him and his grandmother to higher ground and then helped to rescue more people. “A day or two later, there was a photo on the front page of the Cape Cod Times of my mom in the back of the truck, reaching out her hand to help someone get on board,” he remembered.

Damage from Hurricane Carol approximated $642 million, making it the costliest storm up to that point. The hurricane destroyed nearly 40 percent of fruit and vegetable crops — apples, peaches, corn and tomatoes. A third of New Englanders lost power, many for days.

Thousands of automobiles like this one were destroyed by Hurricane Carol. Photo courtesy Boston Public Library, Leslie Jones Collection.

Hurricane Carol destroyed thousands of automobiles like this one. Photo courtesy Boston Public Library, Leslie Jones Collection.

The Damage

The storm damaged more than 10,000 homes, completely destroying 1,545. Mary Willis Paquette lived with her family in a triple decker in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood.

“There were triple deckers facing ours, ” she recalled, “and one of two pine trees fell and sheared off our neighbors’ three back porches. My Dad ran out and yelled, ‘Is everyone OK?’, and thank goodness everyone was fine.” She said she’d always remember the smell of the pines and the fresh smell of the air after the hurricane.

Hurricane Carol wrecked another 3,000 boats and 3,500 automobiles. Carol caused such destruction that the weather service retired her name, the first ever for an Atlantic hurricane. It made a comeback 10 years later, only to be retired again.

Then 12 days later came Hurricane Edna. Edna killed 21 people, caused widespread power outages on Cape Cod, flooded roads and railroads in Main and forced evacuations throughout southern New England.

All in all, the 1954 hurricane season ranked as one of the worst in the 20th century.

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Read more about Hurricane Carol in “New England Weather.” Just published by the New England Historical Society. Click here to order your copy today.

This story was updated in 2024. You may also want to read about the Great New England storm of 1938 here.

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Duryea Bros. Build 1st US Motorcar, Despite Themselves

Frank Duryea and his brother Charles somehow managed to overcome their sibling rivalry to build the first gasoline-powered motorcar in America. Charles came up with the designs, while Frank turned them into reality. Then Charles got mad and went home.

Charles and Frank Duryea and their motorcar

They were born in Illinois, Charles in 1861, Frank in 1869. Charles moved to Washington, D.C., to work on bicycles and his brother followed him. Two moves in two years brought them to Springfield, Mass., where they studied the internal combustion engine at the Springfield public library.

Their first automobile was a buggy with an engine. Charles drew up the designs, found an investor and then stormed back to Illinois. Frank built the motorcar in an old machine shop. Along the way, he contracted typhoid fever, got married and spent much time begging investors for money. The result of his work was crude, but it ran. Frank successfully drove it down the streets of Springfield on Sept. 21, 1893.

The Springfield Morning Union was there to record the moment: Residents in the vicinity of Florence street flocked to the windows yesterday afternoon astonished to see gliding by in the roadway a common top carriage with no shafts and no horse attached. The vehicle is operated by gasoline and is the invention of Erwin Markham and J. F. Duryea… The vehicle, which was operated by Mr. Bemis, started from the corner of Hancock avenue and Spruce street and went up the avenue, up Hancock street and started down Florence street, working finely, but when about half-way down the latter street it stopped short, refusing to move. Investigation showed that the bearing had been worn smooth by the friction and a little water sprinkled upon it put it in running condition again. The rest of the trip was made down Florence and down Spruce street, to the residence of the inventors. They hope to have the vehicle in good working condition soon.

Frank built a second car, and in 1895 entered it in the Thanksgiving Day Chicago-to-Evanston-and-Back race sponsored by The Chicago Times-Herald. He entered the car against three Benzes and two electric cars. Charles helped, taking shortcuts in a horse-drawn sleigh to bring parts for repairs to the car. A snowstorm caused the cars to slide into snow banks and each other. Frank was the only one to finish the 54-mile race, averaging a speed of 5-1/4 miles per hour.

Two months before the race, Charles and Frank formed the first automobile manufacturing company in Chicopee, Mass., and called it the Duryea Motor Wagon Company. They sold 13 of their hand-built motor wagons, but the brothers argued and Charles went home again after three years. It was the first mass-produced car in America, if you could call it that.

Frank joined the Stevens Arms and Tool Company in Chicopee Falls, Mass. In 1904 he organized the Stevens-Duryea company and produced the first six-cylinder car in the U.S. The Stevens-Duryea Model Y and Big Six were popular cars manufactured until 1927. Charles tried various automobile ventures, never made much money at them and ended up as the editor of Automobile Trade Journal. He died Sept. 28, 1938 in Philadelphia.

Unlike his brother, Frank became rich from car making. He retired in 1915, spending his last 54 years semi-retired in Greenwich, Conn. He died in Saybrook, Conn., on Feb. 15, 1967.

With thanks to American Inventors, Entrepreneurs, and Business Visionaries by Charles W. Carey.

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George Washington’s Submarine: The Turtle, Made in Connecticut

New York Harbor — September 6, 1776, 11 p.m. At the foot of Whitehall Street in New York City, where the Staten Island Ferry departs the city today, two whaleboats slipped silently into the water under a moonless sky. Thus they launched the first military mission ever undertaken by a submarine. It was called the Turtle.

One of the most lethal and effective weapons of modern war started out that night as a wooden keg that looked like two huge turtle shells strapped together. And that’s what people called it: the American Turtle.

The 1st Turtle Mission

With only a few hours of experience navigating the submarine, the one-man captain/crew inside prepared for a preposterous mission. Ezra Lee, of Lyme, Conn., was to submerge the vessel under the water using the same basic water ballast system used today.

Once submerged in his airtight cocoon, he planned to take the submarine four miles into the harbor. He would use a propulsion system that consisted of oars and a treadle-powered screw propeller mounted on the bow of the ship. Then he would maneuver the tiny vessel aside the 64-gun frigate H.M.S. Eagle.

Nearly hemmed in on Manhattan, Continental Army Commander-in-Chief George Washington hoped the destruction of the Eagle, Admiral Richard Howe’s flagship, would help him hold the city.

The plan was straightforward. Using a screw that could be activated from inside the submarine, Lee would attach an explosive device and timer to the hull of the ship, pedal away and watch the ship explode.

On the night of the planned attack, the two whaleboats towed the American Turtle as near to the target as the men dared. With the help of the ship’s inventor David Bushnell, Lee sealed himself inside, flooded the ballast chamber and descended beneath the surface. He found the currents stronger than he expected. It would take two-and-a-half hours before he reached the Eagle, undetected.

The Science of Warfare

1800s Sketch of the American Turtle

The idea of the Turtle was inspired by another discovery that Bushnell witnessed while a student at Yale. A group of scientists working with black powder found they could successfully detonate it under water. The men immediately understood the applications for this knowledge.

With war breaking out in 1775, Bushnell set about building a submarine to attack the British ships then blockading Boston Harbor. Working at shipyards near his home in Saybrook, Conn., Bushnell began perfecting the mechanics behind his boat. In 1775 or 1776, Bushnell approached George Washington with his plan.

Washington funded the development of the vessel and provided material support. He would later recount, however, that before the attack on the Eagle, he had his doubts.

Washington’s Doubts

“Although I wanted faith myself, I furnished him with money, and other aids to carry it into execution,“ Washington later wrote of the Turtle. “I then thought, and still think, that it was an effort of genius; but that a combination of too many things were requisite, to expect much success from the enterprise against an enemy, who are always upon guard.”

Though Bushnell tried to keep the device secret, the people of Lyme and Saybrook knew of them.

Loyalist sympathizers informed the British Navy about the development of the Turtle, though they had few specifics as to Bushnell’s progress.

By the time the Turtle was operational, 1775 had turned into 1776. The British Navy had been expelled from Boston and sailed to New York Harbor, where it moored in the North River. Bushnell changed his target to New York.

Technological Marvel

As Lee cranked his way through the waters of New York Harbor, he controlled an ingenious craft. Just seven feet long and six feet high, the submarine consisted of hollowed-out oak banded together with steel. It was sealed with cork and pitch, and topped with a brass cap fitted with an air exchange so fresh air could be drawn inside while the submarine was near the surface.

The brass cap – a precursor to the modern conning tower — had glass portals so the pilot could watch where he was going while on the surface. Once submerged, the pilot would use a barometer to determine his depth and a lead sounder attached to a cord to sense the sea bottom. He also used a compass illuminated by foxfire, produced in certain decaying fungus. With a pump to draw in and expel ballast water, the craft could raise and lower itself to whatever depth the pilot chose.

The Turtle Had Firepower

The weaponry was no less complex. The Turtle carried three bombs, each with a timing mechanism developed by Bushnell and his colleagues. One was set to go off six hours after being armed, one eight hours after arming and the third 12 hours. The sub was outfitted with a screw that was to be augured into the side of the target vessel. The explosives, carried on the outside of the submarine, could be detached from the sub and attached to the vessel by hanging them on the screw. The action of detaching them from the submarine would initiate the timers.

Benjamin Franklin, who consulted on the project, concluded that the explosives contained three times as much powder as needed to destroy the largest ship afloat.

Using a system of oars rigged to the top of the submarine and the treadle-powered prop, the submarine could reach three knots. Armed and ready, Lee had propelled himself next to the unsuspecting Eagle.

Change of Plans

Portrait of Ezra Lee

Before Lee even entered the Turtle, the mission had already encountered a huge setback. Bushnell’s brother had originally been the designated pilot of the ship. He had made extensive training runs and used the intricate controls skillfully. Shortly before the mission, however, he fell ill – too ill to manage the exertions of powering the submarine.

Lee, who signed on to support the mission, was tapped to fill in just a few days earlier. He had little chance to train, but Bushnell – already exasperated with delays – wanted to wait no longer.

So, with light already showing in the sky, Lee arrived at the Eagle early in the morning of Sept. 7 after his two-and-a half hour journey underwater. He wasted no time in getting to work setting the explosives as he had practiced. But neither he nor Bushnell had anticipated the hull of the Eagle: It was sheathed in copper. The screws on the Turtle could not penetrate the hull.

After two tries, Lee, undoubtedly exhausted, decided he had to retreat. Making his way back across the harbor in the lightening sky, however, British officers observed him and put a boat in the water to chase him down.

The Great Explosion

With Lee pedaling and paddling furiously, the British gave pursuit. Fearing his capture, Lee released the charged explosives into the water in hopes of inflicting at least some damage. With his navigation equipment failing, Lee needed to keep surfacing to set his course.

The British grew suspicious of the odd craft they were pursuing. Suspecting they were being led into some sort of trap, they turned back. Lee was able to signal his comrades, who towed him back to land.

The charges Lee had set loose later exploded, sending columns of water surging into the sky. Franklin was correct in his estimation. The magnitude of the explosion astounded the British. As a precaution, they relocated their fleet outside the mouth of the harbor. And the first military attack by a submarine was in the history books.

The Turtle Sinks

The Americans tried two more times to use the Turtle, unsuccessfully. The British then sank the sub, though not in the water. They destroyed a vessel that carried it. Bushnell recovered it, but he attempted no more missions.

He turned his attention to developing mines that could be deployed in waterways. And he took part in the siege at Yorktown as a captain in the Corps of Sappers and Miners.

Lee went on to fight with Washington’s army in Trenton, Monmouth and Brandywine. At Brandywine, according to one story, the British shot away his sword handle and several balls penetrated his coat. He returned to Connecticut after the war and died in 1821 in Old Lyme.

A Curious Ending

Bushnell had a more curious ending. Following the war, he travelled to France. He attempted for many years to find backing for his submarine with the hope of improving it. But people viewed the submarine, at that time, as too experimental and not a likely success. Some even ridiculed the idea.

Modern replica of the American Turtle, George Washington’s submarine.

Frustrated by failure and low on money, Bushnell changed his name to Bush and moved to Georgia around 1795. A classmate helped him win a position as a schoolmaster, and he settled in Warrenton and practiced as a physician. For 40 years he lived there, his whereabouts unknown in Connecticut. He was only discovered upon his death when his will directed that a search should be made in Old Saybrook for any heirs.

The Turtle itself ended its life as scrap, its metal components used in the construction of clocks. Many replicas of the vessel have since been built. Though the submarine was not truly converted to a successful weapon until the mechanical age, people today view the Turtle as a military marvel.

This story about George Washington’s submarine was updated in 2022.

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