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St. Albans Vt.

A Tour of New England’s Uncommon Town Commons

New England has no shortage of town commons, as many communities were laid out with a parcel specifically reserved for the meeting house. The yard of the meeting house generally evolved into the common.

In the earliest European settlements of New England, colonists built their businesses and homes next to commons. They kept their livestock on them at night and when they closed off the town for fear of attack.

One of the oldest of them all, Boston Common

But there is no single story behind the New England town common. Each developed along its own lines, once launched by the original settlers. Later, large landowners gave commons to towns as donations.

Early Town Commons

Generally they had trees on them, and often turned into dumping grounds and nuisances. Cattle were often placed on them to keep down the grass. In areas where people were most leery of the state embracing a religion, the meeting house (and the attached common) were far less common.

Over the centuries many have been modified to fit the times. In the earliest days, the commons often became a home to cemeteries. In the middle and late 1800s, it became fashionable to plant, landscape and manicure the commons. Many were trimmed to make way for a paved street. And in more recent days, they’ve played host to baseball or soccer fields. In some cases, they were outright destroyed.

Connecticut’s Lebanon Green was used during the American Revolution. It reminded us of just how many greens and commons remain in New England and how they are a good jumping off point for some interesting visits to the less-traveled areas of the region.

In Connecticut, there’s the aforementioned Lebanon Green. Another old favorite is Litchfield Green in Litchfield, Conn., which has served many purposes over the centuries. Dating to 1720, the green has been home to the town’s meeting house, a school and courthouse. It was also a recruiting spot for soldiers during the Civil War. Today visitors to the green are more likely to be shoppers rather than soldiers.

New Haven Green with the Center Church in the background.

A much more well-traveled common is the New Haven Green, a privately owned park once the center of the original Puritan settlement.

Connecticut’s Trust for Historic Preservation maintains a website with information about all the state’s town greens.

Vermont’s Town Commons

The State of Vermont also has created a website that provides some details about many of the state’s commons.

In St. Albans, Vermont, the common goes by the name Taylor Park. It was donated to the city in 1799 by Col. Halloway Taylor, and it’s rather ornate. The St. Albans Historical Museum fronts on it. Though in the upper third of Vermont, New England history lovers will want to clear a few days in their calendar to visit this tiny city. It boasts some of the most remarkable stories of New England’s past, including a rich history of smuggling during the embargo leading up to the War of 1812, a nearby naval battle in which a band of Vermonters vanquished the invading British, an unlikely (and unsuccessful) attempt at conquering Canada and the northernmost battle in the Civil War.

As you’re as far north as St. Albans you might as well travel through Bridport. As opposed to St. Alban’s fanciful park, Bridport’s common probably looks more like it did in colonial times, laid out at the center of the farming community. On the route to nearby Crown Point you’ll travel the roads where Ethan Allen and Eli Roberts fled an attempt by British soldiers to capture him in 1772 and cross the path Thomas Jefferson took through the state (before it was a state) in his northern tour.

Craftsbury Common

And to see Vermont’s most photographed common, you can visit Woodstock. There an 1830s vintage common sits quaintly in the middle of the picture-perfect, upscale shopping and dining center. Or you could just rent the classic film, The Trouble With Harry, and view another quintessential New England common in Craftsbury.

Maine’s Town Commons

In Bethel, Maine, the Town Common is the centerpiece of many activities. Visitors in July can watch the Molly Ockett Days festivities, names for an Abenaki healer from northern Maine and New Hampshire.

A short drive away is Paris Hill, Maine – which could be correctly described as Maine’s political capital. Paris Hill was established as the county seat in 1805. The tiny village produced congressmen, governors, a senator and vice president (Hannibal Hamlin). When the county seat was moved, Paris Hill was left behind in time. Its common sits at the center of a remarkably well-preserved historic district that includes Vice President Hamlin’s home.

In 1714, the Pejepscot Company formed out of the Plymouth Colony and bought a large area of land in Maine from the Native Americans. Today it comprises Brunswick, Topsham and Harpswell. The purchase would set off disputes for more than 100 years between American Indians and other settlement groups. They all questioned the validity of its boundaries..

Ultimately, the Pejepscot Company prevailed. One of the early acts of the company, in 1719, was to establish common land. Unlike most town and village commons at the center of the town, the Pejepscot group chose to set aside an enormous tract of 1,000 acres as the commonage. Walking the common today is more like hiking a forest than strolling most preserved, pastoral commons. But it is a look at Maine’s past. Brunswick Commons, for example, has pine barrens once numerous in the state.

New Hampshire

New Hampshire is also home to countless historic commons. Orford, New Hampshire has a beautiful six-acre common along Route 10. Just a couple miles north is the distinctive double commons at Haverhill Corner. A wonderful excuse to wind your way up through some of the rarely visited towns of the Connecticut River Valley.

Another favorite is the common at Walpole, N.H., in another of the state’s less-visited and less-congested corners.

The Green, Walpole

Bay State Commons

Massachusetts, of course, ranks right up with Connecticut in terms of the numbers of commons it houses. There are, of course, most famous ones at Lexington, Concord and Boston.

Lexington Battle Green

But some less famous ones that still retain charm and history are West Brookfield and Dogtown Common in Rockport.

Anyway, that’s a sampling of our favorites. We’re sure you’ve got your own favorites, too.

This story updated in 2022.

Images: Walpole Town Green By User:Ken Gallager – Self-photographed, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=84089424. Dogtown Common CC BY-SA 3.0, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8398833. Lexington Battle Green By Dudesleeper at en.wikipedia, CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11116213.

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The Fenian Brotherhood Tries To Invade Canada, Gets Sent Home

In the summer of 1866, more than a thousand ragged men who called themselves the Fenian Brotherhood arrived by train in St. Albans, Vt. They were mostly Irish-Americans and mostly Civil War veterans. They came to the northern Vermont town to invade Canada.

Canadian Home Guardsmen defending Canade from the Fenians, 1870.

Between 1866 and 1870, the Fenian Brotherhood thought it was a good idea to attack Canadians to pressure the British government to withdraw from Ireland.

It wasn’t.

Fenian Brotherhood

Many Americans held a longstanding antipathy toward the British, especially Irish-Americans. More than a million had immigrated to the United States during the potato famine of 1845-49, when the British government had let the Irish starve.

In 1844, President Martin Van Buren sent Gen. Winfield Scott to St. Albans, Vt., to talk to Town Meeting. The townspeople had flouted American neutrality laws by supporting opponents of the British government in Canada. The townspeople didn’t allow Scott to speak at the meeting.

Winfield Scott

The British didn’t help the cause of friendship with the United States by siding with the Confederacy during the Civil War.

The Fenian Brotherhood, founded in 1858, was a U.S. organization of Irish republicans, the sister organization to the Irish Republican Brotherhood in Ireland. It had a large pool of unemployed Civil War veterans from which to draw. Most had surplus weapons from the war. The Brotherhood claimed 200,000 supporters had taken the Fenian Oath.

Between 1866 and 1871, Fenians made sporadic attempts to invade Canada and pressure Britain to withdraw from Ireland.

The raids divided Catholic Irish-Canadians, though Protestant Irish supported the Canadian government.

Some of the raids bordered on farce. In the Dakota Territory, the Fenians captured a custom house and Hudson Bay post. Unfortunately for the republican cause, they were two miles inside the U.S. border.

The New England Raids

In April 1866, John O’Mahony led a Fenian war party of more than 700 men to Campobello Island on the border of Maine and New Brunswick. O’Mahony was a Gaelic scholar and founder of the Fenian Brotherhood. He believed that a raid on the disputed island of Campobello would draw the United States and Britain into war.

It didn’t go well.

Gunships from both Britain and the United States appeared and the Fenian dispersed. They had to beg their way home from the Campobello Fizzle.

Currier and Ives lithograph, ca. 1866

Two months later, more than a thousand Fenians crossed into Canada over the Niagara River at Buffalo. Several hundred Fenians deserted overnight, but the 600-700 remaining men engaged the Canadian militia. The Canadians killed some and wounded some, then cut them off from their supplies and reinforcements. They retreated to Buffalo, where they were arrested.

Another simultaneous action was planned to the east – from St. Albans. About 1,200 Fenians arrived in St. Albans by train. They camped on the green or slept in barns; then they marched north to Franklin, Vt., though some of their guns had been seized and ammunition had not been delivered. The next day they invaded Canada, setting up camp about 400 yards north of the border. The hungry Fenians raided some stores for food, fired a few shots and took the flag from the British custom house.

Aftermath

After they ate their plunder they got discouraged and marched back. Gen. George Meade met them with U.S. troops at St. Albans and sent them home by train. The U.S. troops camped on the park green for two weeks. The people of St. Albans enjoyed a side benefit — the Third Artillery band’s daily concerts.

Image courtesy National Archives of Canada.

The U.S. government’s role in the raids is still debated. President Andrew Johnson was believed to secretly support the Fenians because the British had supported the Confederacy during the Civil War. But then the British government paid $15 million in reparations. Johnson agreed to support the neutrality laws.

A few months after the 1866 raids the Canadian provinces unified under the British North America Act of 1867.

This story updated in 2023.

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Pass the Tourtiere, C’est Le Reveillon!

For many, many years, le reveillon was the way Franco-Americans ushered in New Year’s Day in New England’s Little Canadas.

Berlin, N.H., millworkers’ homes. Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

The reveillon is a long, late dinner preceding a holiday. Tourtiere is central to the meal. The celebrated meat pie, cooked and eaten during the shortest days of winter, often accompanies traditional Franco-American foods such as peas or pea soup, head cheese, croquignoles and ragout.

During the first half of the 19^th century, when the first wave of immigrants arrived, New Year’s Day exceeded Christmas in importance. On January 1, Franco-Americans exchanged small gifts, and children found presents under the tree or near the manger in the parlor. Sometimes their parents told them the presents came from le Pere Noel (a skinny version of Santa Claus) or l’Enfant Jesus.

Family and friends visited each other over the holidays, which stretched from Christmas Eve to January 6, the Feast of the Epiphany or la Fete des Rois. Franco-Americans would go to house parties in their neighborhoods in Nashua, Berlin and on the west side of Manchester, N.H. Other cities with vibrant Franco-American neighborhoods included Lewiston and Biddeford, Maine; Warwick and Woonsocket, R.I.; Fall River and Lowell, Mass.; St. Albans and Burlington, Vt.; and Bristol and Waterbury, Conn.

Historian Yves Roby noted that New Year’s was often a sad day for the Quebecois newcomers who worked in the mills. Because it wasn’t a federal holiday, the reveillon was replaced by a regular work day. Sometime before World War II, a Franco-American millworker complained,

Next Monday (January 1st), while our brothers and other relatives in Canada are celebrating New Year’s Day, we shall be going about our daily occupations.

Holy Day of Obligation

The Roman Catholic parish was central to life in New England’s Little Canadas, and New Year’s Mass was central to the holiday.

On the last Sunday of the year, the local church auctioned off unrented pews and parishioners elected new churchwardens, known as marguilliers.

St. Ann’s Church in Woonsocket, R.I.

Catholics celebrate the ‘Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God’ as a Holy Day of Obligation on New Year’s Day. At the end of the New Year’s Mass, the outgoing officer, along with an altar boy or the sexton holding a lighted candle, led his successor to the marguilliers’ pew.

Sometimes parishioners made a special door-to-door collection for the poor on New Year’s Day.

Many Franco-American families gathered before the reveillon for a solemn and emotional moment. They came to the home of the grandparents or parents, and the oldest son asked for the blessing. In The French-Canadian Heritage in New England, Gerard Breault wrote in 1986,

Everyone knelt before the grandfather who gave a benediction similar to that of the priest at the end of mass. As he made the sign of the cross over everyone, or each individual, he said: “Que Dieu vous benisse au nom du Pere et du Fils et du Saint Esprit. Amen.”

Always the tourtiere.

Then, wrote Breault, the blessing was followed by the classic Franco-American New Year’s wish: Je vous souhaite une bonne et heureuse annee, une bonne sante, et le paradis a la fin de vos jours! , or

I wish you a prosperous and happy New Year, good health, and eternal bliss when you pass on.

After the blessing, everyone stood up, kissed or shook hands and wished each other good fortune.

The Reveillon

Not quite a reveillon: Franco-American potato farmer and his family eat dinner in Wallagrass, Maine. Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

Le reveillon, translated, means ‘the awakening.’ For some, that signifies a religious awakening. For others it means staying up all night for neighborhood house parties during the holiday season.

In the early 20^th century, Franco-American families in Winooski, Vt.., celebrated New Year’s with le reveillon. They ate tourtiere, head cheese, pea soup, pickled beets, roast beef and dumplings boiled in maple syrup. For dessert, they had pies and fudge. But always the tourtiere.

“Reveillon had to have tourtiere. That was a must,” Claire Chase, 91, told the Burlington Free Press in 2011.

Then came the late-night parties, called veillees.

There were sets carres – traditional dances — often accompanied by a fiddler, an accordionist, or maybe a piano, a mandolin, or a mouth organ. Family and friends would sing traditional songs like Minuit Chretien and Alouette. Maybe they’d have a glass of dandelion wine.

The traditional reveillon began to vanish after World War II. Today, even the last vestiges are disappearing.

With thanks to The French-Canadian Heritage in New England by Gerard J. Brault and Franco-Americans of New England: Dreams and Realities by Yves Roby. Tourtiere by Mack Male. This story was updated in 2022.

Images: Franco-American flag By Robert Couturier (image JPG), Ec.Domnowall (modifications & vectorisation SVG) – francoamericanarchives.org, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15705488. St. Ann’s By John Phelan – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18819427

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