Colonial America

Warfare in the Wilderness

Few images reflect the character of hardy New Englanders like that of the eighteenth-century colonial ranger. Rugged characters such as Robert Rogers, Israel Putnam and John Stark spent much of their lives carving a living out of the harsh wilderness of the region, while later proving themselves in battle against seasoned Abenaki warriors. The Wright and Porter families fought throughout western New England, from skirmishes in Charlestown, New Hampshire, to climactic battles on Lake Champlain and Lake George. From the bloody King Philip’s War battlefields of Massachusetts to the fight for the wilderness of New Hampshire and Vermont, author Anthony Blasi explores the journey from frightened homesteader to toughened wilderness warrior.

Death in early New England came early and often during those harsh first decades of settlement.

Epidemics, hunger, accidents and childbirth contributed to a heavy toll in New England. Disease in some cases erased entire families, and almost always affected the majority of individuals in the communities. For most families, death was still a private affair. Traditions brought over with European customs and others that were strictly American were eventually interwoven, and these ceremonies, tokens and portraits of remembrance became part of these rites and rituals of mourning. Other forms of remembrance were carved into stone with heart-wrung epitaphs, the cause of death and brief biographies. Burial sites themselves evolved from family plots and church graveyards to public, garden-like cemeteries.

Historian Robert A. Geake explores the development of rites and rituals of death in this New World. 

Connecticut's witch hunt was the first and most ferocious in New England, occurring almost fifty years before the infamous Salem witch trials.

Between 1647 and 1697, at least thirty-four men and women from across the state were formally charged with witchcraft. Eleven were hanged. In New Haven, William Meeker was accused of cutting off and burning his pig's ears and tail as he cast a bewitching spell. After the hanging of Fairfield's Goody Knapp, magistrates cut down and searched her body for the marks of the devil. Through newspaper clippings, court records, letters and diaries, author Cynthia Wolfe Boynton uncovers the dark history of the Connecticut witch trials.

New England food and drinks writer Corin Hirsch explores the origins and taste of the favorite potations of early Americans and offers some modern-day recipes to revive them today.

Colonial New England was awash in ales, beers, wines, cider and spirits. Everyone from teenage farmworkers to our founding fathers imbibed heartily and often. Tipples at breakfast, lunch, teatime and dinner were the norm, and low-alcohol hard cider was sometimes even a part of children's lives. This burgeoning cocktail culture reflected the New World's abundance of raw materials: apples, sugar and molasses, wild berries and hops. This plentiful drinking sustained a slew of smoky taverns and inns--watering holes that became vital meeting places and the nexuses of unrest as the Revolution brewed.

A fascinating history of the landmarks and architecture that serve as the remnants of Rhode Island's colonial past.

Roger Williams purchased the fertile Aquidneck Island from the Narragansett tribe in 1637. The intrepid dissenters of Rhode Island Colony saw their community flourish with the founding of Portsmouth and Newport townships. It was here that Anne Hutchinson, along with William Coddington and other colonists who had been banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony, found shelter from persecution. The Battle of Rhode Island was the only clash between American colonials and the British on Rhode Island soil during the Revolutionary War. From the mercantile success of the Atlantic triangle trade routes to the establishment of the United States Navy, noted historian Richard V. Simpson brings these and other stories from the Ocean State to life. Join Simpson as he explores the landmarks and architecture of the period to discover the remnants of Rhode Island's colonial past.

Carved out of a rocky wilderness, Marblehead grew to become one of the most important significant in the British Empire.

Far from the religious hysterics associated with their Salem neighbors, Marbleheaders earned a reputation as a hard-drinking and godless people--people who nonetheless played a significant role in establishing the colonies' independence. In addition to being the fishing capital of Massachusetts, Marblehead is also often referred to as the birthplace of the American Navy, and even the site of George Washington's famed crossing of the Delaware River. In Colonial Marblehead: From Rogues to Revolutionaries, historian and Marblehead resident Lauren Fogle records the story of this grand old town's birth and its significant role in building a nation.

Nestled in the town square of Concord, Massachusetts, the windows of the Colonial Inn have gazed upon more than three centuries of bloodstained history.

Known for its role in the American Revolution, the Inn was originally built as three separate buildings with the oldest section of the property dating back to 1716. A stone's throw from Old North Bridge, the Inn is notoriously haunted by the ghosts from its Revolutionary War past. Guests report phantom footsteps, disembodied voices, and spirited soldiers lurking in the shadows of the labyrinthine hallways and empty rooms of this infamous inn.

Local author Sam Baltrusis has worked the graveyard shift at Concord's Colonial Inn trying to unravel the chilling mysteries and lingering legends associated with one of the country's oldest and most haunted hotels.

Greenwich in the seventeenth century was a lost world with tythingmen and meeting warners, wild horse hunters, herdsmen, townsmen, pounders and planters.

Faced with an ever-changing environment, citizens set many new-world boundaries. Farmers created common fields along the coast and redesigned wilderness. They balanced religious and civic authority, private and common interests and financial inequities across communities. The first comers found it more challenging to please their own than it was to please their God. Their departure from the past fashioned an idealized, yet still imperfect, new society the Puritans proudly called the Greenwich Plantation. Author Missy Wolfe details the strategies and setbacks of creating community in colonial America's First Period.