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For more than one hundred years, Ocean Grove New Jersey has provided a retreat to those wishing to return to a life of religious renewal and recreation by the shore.

In 1869, a group of ministers and religious faithful established a permanent Methodist camp meeting community on the North Jersey shore. A state charter was issued one year later, and the community of Ocean Grove was born. Following the example set by other camp meetings, Ocean Grove became a center for religious revivals. The town continued to flourish as railroad and steamship lines transported passengers eager to escape the nearby crowded cities. For more than one hundred years, Ocean Grove has provided a retreat to those wishing to return to a life of religious renewal and recreation. Ocean Grove is a detailed look at the growth of this unique seaside community. Home to the largest aggregate of Victorian and early-twentieth-century structures in America, Ocean Grovecontinues to provide its visitors with a glimpse into the past. Ocean Grove has maintained its custom of holding summer camp meetings for over one hundred-thirty years. These annual revivals have attracted such notable speakers and guests as William Jennings Bryan, Booker T. Washington, and Presidents Grant and Roosevelt to the Great Auditorium. Since its conception, Ocean Grove has been home to an uncommon history, making Ocean Grove a treasure.

Volume II takes readers on a journey through the business, transportation and sports history of the ""City of Firsts.""

Images of America: Springfield Volume I gave readers a photographic history of the city's ethnic populations and religions. It also told the story of education and public service in the ""City of Firsts."" In Springfield Volume II, author Ginger Zabecki Cruickshank takes readers on a second journey through the past to the origins of the city's many businesses, transportation systems, and social agencies, such as the YMCA and local hospitals that have served the people of Springfield, as well as some of the best sports stories in the city's history. The stories and early photographs of well-known companies including Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company, Friendly's Ice Cream Corporation, and Merriam-Webster are shown in this striking volume. All have roots in Springfield, as do Milton Bradley and Smith & Wesson. The famous Knox automobiles and the Peter Pan Bus Company are brought to life with other stories in the fascinating development of transportation in the area. As the city has adapted and grown with the population and changing economic times, it has built a tradition of citizens succeeding despite great obstacles. It is that tradition that has made the city what it is today.

Founded in the eighteenth century, Millville began as a South Jersey hub of commercial and industrial activity.

The hum of machinery in the mills, glasshouses, and foundries meant prosperity for the young town, which would eventually become the second-largest producer of glass in the country. Through the years, Millville residents maintained a proud tradition of hard work and family involvement, and they sought to preserve their community's rural charm. In leafing through the pages of this volume, old-timers will fondly reminisce about the heyday of the town when grand Victorians, an opera house, and a popular amusement park existed. Newcomers will marvel at the way things used to be, noting also certain unmistakable similarities. While the landscape has changed, the small-town traditional values and community pride remain.

Over 200 rare and vintage photographs document the beginnings and transformations of this area in The Communities of Western Aroostook County.

The beauty and strength of the landscape of northwestern Maine is reflected in the people who have lived here since the area was first settled in the mid-nineteenth century. Arriving from as far away as Sweden and as near as the next village, the first pioneers transformed a hard and often unforgiving land known as ""the last frontier"" into settlements, farms, and homes. These settlements are still with us today: Ashland, Castle Hill, Crouseville, Mapleton, Masardis, Oxbow, Perham, Portage, Sheridan, Wade, Washburn, and Woodland. The settlers and their descendants earned a reputation for honesty, thrift, dependability, tenacity, and hard work which spread far beyond Western Aroostook County itself. Over two hundred vivid photographs show the way life used to be. We meet loggers and farmers, hunters and guides, and innkeepers and blacksmiths, while also getting a glimpse into the daily lives of the rich variety of people that make the western area of Aroostook County so unique. Whether pictured bustling down Main Street, enjoying Christmas sleigh rides, mourning a departed relative, hauling logs, or tending the farm, our forebears reach out to us across the decades in this fascinating book.

From early homesteads to coke ovens to Lake Forest Park and the YMCA, journey through over 200 years of Scottsdale and Everson's history in this photographic tale.

Prior to the Great Depression, coal mines and coke ovens made Scottdale the wealthiest community in Westmoreland County. Once part of a region that was known as the world's largest producer of metallurgical coke, the area's prosperity created a thriving business district on the road to Pittsburgh, lined Chestnut Street with elegant Victorian mansions, and provided a home for a baseball farm team affiliated with the St. Louis Cardinals. Immigrants from Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean joined earlier Scotch Irish and German settlers to create a rich cultural heritage. Around Scottdale and Everson celebrates this ethnic diversity. Pictured within are views of early homesteads, coke ovens, mills, and places where residents lived, shopped, worshiped, and played, including Lake Forest Park and the YMCA. Although recent economic growth shifted to nearby interstate highways, Scottdale and Everson occupy a strategic gateway to the Laurel Highlands, which promises to attract new immigrants preferring to live near open spaces and in neighborhoods without strangers.

Settled in the 1840s, incorporated as Niles Centre in 1888, German and Luxembourger immigrants founded Skokie and created a rural community of farms and greenhouses.

A short-lived real estate boom in the 1920s gave Skokie its current boundaries, streets, and sewer systems. Due to the Great Depression, however, these paved roadways remained vacant until after World War II.  Aided by the construction of the Edens Expressway, Skokie experienced tremendous growth and became a bustling suburban community. Many of the families that settled in Skokie during this time were Jewish. In the last quarter century, other families moved to the suburb, many with Indo-Asian origins, leading to the ethnically diverse community that Skokie has become today.

Once part of Newark, Nutley has grown from a weekend getaway for tired New Yorkers and a permanent home for artists and writers into a charming small city.

Though only three square miles in area, Nutley boasts over 125 acres of park land, as well as the beautiful Third River which runs through the town. In Nutley, town historian and author John Demmer presents a fascinating look at the changes the town as undergone, as well as the life of its residents through the years. Demmer also illustrates Nutley's earliest commercial industry, the brownstone quarry, as well as the textile and banker's safety paper industry.

Keyport documents the early businesses and architecture of this town, chronicling its history from 1860 through the 1970s.

During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Keyport neighborhoods of Browns Point, Lockport, and Mechanicsville had distinct commercial and industrial districts that have all but disappeared today. Timothy E. Regan's new book on Keyport offers a glimpse into the lives of these early businesses and the citizens who created them, along with a look at the remarkable architecture of this bayside town. This fascinating overview of life in Keyport from 1860 through the 1970s also includes an in-depth look at the men and machines of the Keyport Fire Department, one of the oldest and proudest fire departments in New Jersey. Dedicated civil servants like the firemen have worked together with skilled tradespeople and entrepreneurs over the years to make Keyport a wonderfully dynamic and vibrant place to live, and Mr. Regan's book honors the commitment and the memory of these people.

This marvelous collection of more than two hundred rare images celebrates Trousdale County's rich history and highlights some of the major industries and events that shaped the area.

Trousdale County has a history as fascinating as it is long. The region's early reputation stemmed from its well-known race track, a forum that attracted to town such notables as Andrew Jackson and Sam Houston. In the turbulent Civil War years, Confederate General John Hunt Morgan staged the most successful cavalry raid of the war in Hartsville, overwhelming a larger Union force and capturing over two thousand men. During Reconstruction, tobacco emerged as a major crop for the area and today Hartsville boasts one of the top tobacco markets in the state. The history of the county is not all famous names and dramatic events; in many ways the most interesting tales are about the ordinary folks and the way they lived their lives. From the time of the earliest settlers, who forged the Immigrant Trail through Trousdale County in the late eighteenth century, to the present, this area has been home to the humble and the great, the freeman and the slave, the patriot and the soldier, the laborer and the businessman. Combining rare images with a wealth of historical information, this delightful volume brings to life the past of a traditional, yet dynamic, region of Tennessee. Most assuredly, this book reaches deep into the area's soul, offering up a multitude of strong images and valuable insights for resident and visitor alike.

Discover the resilience of a community with an unusual proclivity towards natural catastrophes and its citizens' unwavering strength.

One hundred pounds of trade goods was the price paid to the Lenape Indians in 1681 for the land where Bound Brook now stands. The town slowly took shape and by the time of the Revolutionary War, it had grown to 35 families. Toll roads, railroads, canals, industry, and commerce all began to evolve in Bound Brook which by 1891, had an established town government, as well as a swelling population and economy. Along with this tremendous growth, a library, a hospital, schools, churches, and hundreds of homes were built to accommodate the ever-increasing number of residents. Sadly, however, natural disaster tended to disrupt what was normally a prosperous but quiet life in Bound Brook. When the Raritan River flooded nearly every year, it caused severe damage to the center of town. In 1881, a disastrous fire destroyed all the buildings in one Main Street block. In 1896, flooding caused the lime at the L.D. Cook lumberyard to ignite by spontaneous combustion. Fortunately, after each disaster Bound Brook survived and rebuilt, emerging stronger and more united. Its history, people, and spirit have made Bound Brook one of the best places to live in New Jersey and havemade Bound Brook an inspiring and unforgettable book.

The articles presented here are an excellent introduction to the history of one of the nation's most historic towns, from the Spanish explorers and early settlers to Revolutionary War battles and the area's unique architecture. Residents and visitors alike are sure to enjoy these delightful pages from Beaufort's past.

From Swamp to Paradise, this book recounts the history of the City of Palm Coast using vintage images and illustrations.

What is paradise? Before 1969, land that would eventually become the City of Palm Coast was considered by some as nothing more than a ""big pine-covered swamp."" But when the corporate eyes of ITT/Levitt and Sons looked upon the virtually uninhabited land, they saw 22,000 acres of golf courses, marinas, oceanfront motels, scenic drives, and house lots awaiting the arrival of sun-seeking ""pioneers."" Marketing strategies targeting urban residents in the North and Midwest offered slices of land cut out of miles of forest, and soon a 500-mile infrastructure of roads, utilities, and sewer lines bound Palm Coast to a future that included becoming the largest planned unit development in Florida history.

With 85 percent of its buildings on the National Register of Historic Places, Galena truly is a place drenched in history.

From the ancient burial mounds crowding the high banks of the Mississippi to the home of President Ulysses S. Grant, the Illinois town's rich past is everywhere on display. Follow Diann Marsh in her dogged pursuit of that fascinating heritage and catch glimpses of unforgettable incidents like the courageous defense put up by a handful of Galena settlers during the Black Hawk War or the monster flood that turned a day in 1892 into a bridge-snapping spectacle. Fortunes are won and lost within the space of a page, but the legacy left by Galena's determined citizens and cared for by passionate guardians like Marsh is one that is sure to endure.

Suffolk and Nansemond County are steeped in a rich heritage and form an extraordinary locality in southeastern Virginia.

With a history dating to pre-colonial times, Nansemond County was formed from one of the original shires established by colonists. Many of the first settlers were attracted to the abundant rivers and woods that offered a grand supply of food and sport. They learned to farm the bountiful land and established the crop that would make them famous. The peanut became the cash crop for Suffolk, and it drew the railroads and businesses needed to sculpt the city into a commercial success.

This photographic history pays tribute to a brief but important portion of the people and places that comprised what was known as Nansemond County and is now the City of Suffolk. It provides a visual story of a community that has weathered three major fires as well as the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and both World Wars. These images offer readers the chance to experience the ways in which generations of families have lived, worked, and played, and they portray many of the houses and establishments that have been transformed or are completely gone. Look back to the first Peanut Festival in 1941, see how school children dressed in the 1930s, and view Main Street when it was at its height of popularity.

Bedford-Stuyvesant details the evolution of this Brooklyn neighborhood, home to the nation's second largest African American community.

The heart of Bedford-Stuyvesant is still found in the near-forgotten settlement of Brooklyn's Bedford Corners, a Dutch township colonized in 1667, where ancient Native American trails determined its now major thoroughfares, and where Colonial patriots fought the British in the country's struggle for independence. Bedford-Stuyvesant remained a quiet farming hamlet until the 1880s when rapid subway transportation, construction of the Brooklyn Bridge, and the burgeoning population of Manhattan combined to forge one of America's first and finest suburban communities. Bedford-Stuyvesant details the evolution of this neighborhood, home to the nation's second largest African American community, and it documents how this urban center is now finally enjoying new regard for its wealth of architecture and its notable place in American history.

Take a journey through Muhlenberg county's rich history, hometown to the Everly Brothers and Warren Oates, in this this fascinating visual tribute.

Muhlenberg County has been famous for its record-setting coal production since 1890. But as the county grew and the coal piled higher, another kind of energy began to flow from the depths of the mines. Songs like ""Sixteen Tons"" and ""Paradise"" spotlighted the lives of the bent and bowed coal miners and put the county on the map. With the addition of the world's largest power plant and the world's largest coal shovel, tourism increased as visitors came to see the hometowns of the famous Everly Brothers, James Best, Warren Oates, and Merle Travis. The Duncan Cultural Center and Museum, a gift from Hamilton Duncan, is a beautiful gathering place where people today can enjoy music and art and learn about Muhlenberg's coal legacy and rich history.

John DeFerrari investigates the bygone institutions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries with an engaging collection of new vignettes and reader favorites from his blog "The Streets of Washington."

Washington seems the eternal and unchanging Federal City with its grand avenues and stately monuments. Yet the city that locals once knew - lavish window displays at Woodies, supper at the grand Raleigh Hotel and a Friday night game at Griffith Stadium - is gone. From the raucous age of burlesque at the Gayety Theater and the once bustling Center Market to the mystery of Suter's Tavern and the disappearance of the Key mansion in Georgetown, DeFerrari recalls the lost Washington, D.C., of yesteryear.

Uncover the history of Cambridge, Massachusetts through vintage images in this pictorial history.

Settled as New Towne in 1631, Cambridge was referred to by Wood, a seventeenth-century chronicler, as ""one of the neatest and best compacted towns in New England."" The founding of Harvard College in 1636 was to ensure the town's notoriety, as it was the first college in the New World. Harvard gave Cambridge a cosmopolitan flavor, but the town retained its open farmland and its well-known fisheries along the Charles and Alewife Rivers for nearly two centuries. By the early nineteenth century Cambridge saw tremendous development, with industrial concerns in Cambridgeport. New residents swelled Cambridge's population so much that it became a city in 1846. These changes, which included horse-drawn streetcars and, later, the Elevated Railway that is today known as the Red Line, made Cambridge a place of convenient residence. With the large-scale development in the late nineteenth century, Cambridge became a thriving nexus of cultural diversity.

Listen to the whispered legends of spirits, heroes and traitors hidden in one of New York's most captivating regions.

Like the region's first inhabitants, the ""Cat People,"" who made clothing from the mountain lions and panthers that they hunted, Western New Yorkers still savor the tradition of storytelling. Tales such as the ""Mail-Riding Mamma"" of Chautauqua County, who carried both the post and her infant child above her head as she journeyed across perilously-flooded creeks, and the Ossian Giant, who at age 19 stood 7 feet, 6 inches tall and weighed 385 pounds, are vividly narrated by Buffalo storyteller Lorna MacDonald Czarnota.

Detroit's Corktown documents and celebrates the history of Detroit's oldest neighborhood, detailing its history of diversity.

Detroit's Corktown celebrates the history of Detroit's oldest neighborhood. Many of their shotgun homes are still occupied, and many commercial buildings have served the community for decades. From Irish immigrants in the 1840s to urban pioneers of the 21st century, this community has beckoned to the restless of spirit, the adventurous, and those who have sought to escape poverty and oppression to make a new life in America. While the city of Detroit has undergone tremendous change over the years, Corktown has never forgotten the solid working-class roots established by brave pioneers in the mid-19th century. Today the neighborhood is the scene of increasing residential and commercial development and has attracted attention throughout the region. No longer exclusively Irish, the community has also been important historically to the large German, Maltese, and Mexican populations of Detroit. Today it is a diverse and proud community of African Americans, Hispanics, working-class people of various national origins, and a growing population of young urban pioneers. It is still the sentimental heart of the Irish American community of metropolitan Detroit, and the Irish Plaza on Sixth Street honors the city's Irish pioneers and their 600,000 descendents living in the region.

A reflection of the community through the eyes of this fourth-generation resident, Long Hill Township chronicles the area's history from the Civil War through the early 1970s.

Long Hill Township, composed of five distinct boroughs located along the Passaic River, has existed for hundreds of years as a lush, vibrant community in northern New Jersey. Once the homeland of the Lenape Indians, the five boroughs of Long Hill Township (formerly Passaic Township) developed independently to support one another in the fields of industry, agriculture, education, and transportation, creating a bustling and eclectic small-town community in the midst of nature's splendor. From images of a leisurely buggy ride in the lazy afternoon sun to others of families working together in the fields or on the site of a new stone church, Mary Lou Weller's remarkable new photographic history of Long Hill documents the past of the township in moving detail.

Winner of the New Jersey Studies Academic Alliance Authors Award for Nonfiction

New Jersey's land records and deeds are unlikely sources for a thrilling tale but reveal little-known, fascinating history. A detailed story of the founding of the Garden State 350 years ago is preserved in these papers. The state's boundaries were drawn in such documents centuries ago, even if the authors never stepped foot in North America. The archives hide heroes, like the freed African Americans who fought for their right to own their piece of the state. And of course, there are the bizarre and mysterious tales, like the silk baron's castle and the assault against a sixteen-year-old maiden during the throes of the American Revolution. Join land title expert Joseph Grabas as he combs through these all-but-forgotten stories of the pursuit of happiness and property in early New Jersey.

Northeast Philadelphia chronicles this area's history of transformation, from scattered communities to an urban center.

Before the Consolidation Act of 1854 more than tripled the former capital's population, Northeast Philadelphia was a scattered group of pastoral communities just beyond the city limits. Holmesburg, Somerton and other small villages initially struggled but ultimately triumphed in their transition from rural townships to a bustling urban center. Dr. Harry C. Silcox has collaborated with Frank W. Hollingsworth to chart this fascinating evolution, from the demise of the family farm to neighbors uniting on the homefront during World War II. With such lively characters as Mary Disston, the founding mother of Tacony, and tales of the local effort for suffrage, Silcox and Hollingsworth create a brilliant and affectionate portrait of Northeast Philadelphia.

This third volume of Hartford celebrates the history of Connecticut's capital, featuring an exploration of citizens' everyday lives and a collection of the Hartford Times.

This third volume of Hartford continues the celebration and remembrance of Connecticut's capital that was started with Wilson H. Faude's first two highly successful volumes on the history of the city. This new volume features the hitherto unavailable collection of the city's evening newspaper, the Hartford Times. This third trip into Hartford's past takes us into the lives and celebrations of the city's residents. The fascinating images bring us into Hartford's unique celebrations, including Discovery Day and the Tobacco Festival. We also get a glimpse of how the city's residents interpreted traditional holidays, with photographs depicting St. Patrick's Day revelry and shoppers braving holiday retail madness. As you peruse the pages, remember the Times Carol Sing and the Times Camp; remember when presidential hopefuls spoke from the city's portico, vying for Hartford's support. It is all here in Arcadia Publishing's third volume of Hartford.

When Buffalo was incorporated as a city, the East Side represented a vast forested area and farmland that would one day be booming with industry.

By 1832, the beginnings of the major arterials of Genesee, Sycamore, Broadway, William, Clinton, and Seneca were there. These streets were laid out in 1826 and represented the seeds of the East Side's explosive growth. The development of railroads and the Buffalo Belt Line, constructed in 1883, created a semicircle pattern that outlined the East Side. Industries began sprouting up, eager to use their proximity to the belt line to transport wares all over the country. Immigrants from Germany, Poland, and Ireland, along with African Americans from northern and southern states, began establishing their lives around these industries. Access to land, water, roads, and rail lines and eager immigrants and natives looking for work led to the development of Buffalo's East Side industry, an immensely diverse industrial base and workforce.

With timeless images and a thoroughly researched and informative text, Patchogue is sure to be enjoyed by young and old, resident and visitor alike

As a continuation of the first volume, Patchogue Volume II returns to the beginning of the century to explore the town's development as a business center for the eastern region of Long Island and to provide another fascinating glimpse into the history of Patchogue and the lives of its residents. Patchogue Volume II serves as a legacy for future generations and a valuable tool in teaching the history of the town.