The History Press [New Releases]

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.

The lure of beachcombing in New England has been around since Colonial times. From shipwrecks, relentless storms and spooky maritime mysteries, pieces of sea glass are tumbled treasures speaking to us about our past.

Many frosty cobalt blue shards come from medicine bottles from the early 20th century and can be found on beaches surrounding Boston Harbor. The seaside town of Rockport, where Hannah and the Hatchet Gang launched a destructive raid on liquor, still holds brilliant fragments of the past. The treasures of Captain Kidd are rumored to be hidden somewhere in Jamestown, Rhode Island, while lost seaside amusement parks in Connecticut produced shimmering treasures now rolling in the tides.

Roxie Zwicker reveals the secret clues hidden in the colorful glass, their origins, and the best places to discover them.

From the driver's seat, author and guide Edward Morris provides a diverse collection of biographical sketches that reveal the outrageous and opulent lives of some of America's leading entrepreneurs.

Newport, Rhode Island, was the summer playground of the Gilded Age for the Astors, Belmonts and Vanderbilts. They built lavish villas designed by the best Beaux Arts-style architects of the time, including Richard Morris Hunt, Charles McKim and Robert Swain Peabody. America's elite delighted in referring to these grand retreats as ""summer cottages,"" where they would play tennis and polo and sail their yachts along the shores of the Ocean State. The coachman had an important role as the discreet outdoor butler for Gilded Age gentlemen--not only was he in charge of the horses, but he also acted as a travel advisor and connoisseur of entertainment venues.

Sitting on a hillside overlooking a spectacular lake and mountains, Burlington was destined to attract greatness, although much of its history has remained hidden.

It was the territory of the Alnôbak, who lived in concert with nature for thousands of years, and later the swashbuckling Green Mountain Boy Ethan Allen and his kin. Self-made tycoon Lawrence Barnes helped make the city the third-largest lumber shipping port in the country. The resilient Fanny Penniman created the first herbarium, and her daughter inspired a nineteenth-century hospital. Bootlegger Cyrus Dean was convicted of murder and publicly executed in the hill section. Irish, French Canadian, Jewish and Italian neighborhoods all combined to give a unique character to the city.

Join author and historian Glenn Fay as he reveals stories and images of Burlington's forgotten past.

Go off the beaten path and explore the captivating history of one of the Granite State's most remarkable places.

For two centuries, Mount Washington has been the object of countless writers' wonder and fascination. In this volume, more than twenty previously written pieces inspired by New England's highest peak have been carefully selected, and collectively these cover nearly every aspect of the mountain's storied past. Tag along on early explorations of the White Mountains and its fabled Presidential Range. Follow the history of the nation's first mountain-climbing train and witness many of Mount Washington's tales of human tragedies. Editor and area historian Mike Dickerman uncovers the fascinating history of one of the New Hampshire's most renowned natural wonders.

Down East Maine is well known for its breathtaking scenery and art museums. However, much of the history in the traditional mining and fishing area of Rockland and St. George remains untold.

Hanson Gregory from Clam Cove invented the donut. Mary Brown Patten sailed a clipper around Cape Horn. Captain Albert Keller was shipwrecked on Easter Island and Effie Canning of Rockland composed the lullaby "Rock a Bye Baby.'? Captain Charles Holbrook of Tenants Harbor and his ship, the Hattie Dunn, fell victim to a German U-boat in the Atlantic.

Local author Jane Merrill uncovers the forgotten stories and personalities that bring this unique area's history into focus.

There is nothing funnier to a Bay Stater than hearing those from out of town trying to pronounce tongue-twister town names.

Leo-Minster? Who’s Leo? Quin-zee? There’s no Z in there! As it turns out, these towns with funny names are full of wonderful, surprisingly untold stories. Some are hilarious: a landlocked sailing-themed amusement park run by a man who built himself a house that looks exactly like a boat. Some are inspiring: a city’s outpouring of support for enslaved people fighting for their freedom. Others are simply delightful: two women rejecting oppressive Victorian social standards and embarking on a joyful, long-distance adventure.

Local author Amanda Rotondo offers this amusing collection of place names and stories, providing a window into the worlds of the fascinating people who helped make these towns the unique places they are today.

The salty waves and sandy beaches of majestic Cape Cod disguise its fascinating and nearly forgotten history.

From Provincetown to Falmouth, the Cape's fifteen towns offer a plethora of hidden and enchanting tales. Learn why one of the most famous rescues in Coast Guard history spent nearly fifty years in the shadows without public notice. Discover which wild creature went from the nineteenth-century soup pot to enjoying conservation protection under state law. Historian Theresa Mitchell Barbo explores these mysteries and more, from the lost diary of a nineteenth-century schoolteacher to the reason Cape Codders call their lunch the noontime dinner. Join Barbo as she lifts the lid on the quirky and remarkable character of Cape Cod and its forgotten happenings.

The opulent facades of the City by the Sea concealed the scintillating scandals, eccentric characters and unsolved mysteries of its wealthiest families.

Newport, Rhode Island, is renowned for its stunning cliff-side vistas and the luxurious summer homes of the Gilded Age elite. Learn how Cornelius Vanderbilt III was cut out of the family's fortune for his unapproved marriage to Grace Wilson and how John F. Kennedy's marriage to a Newport debutante helped to secure his presidency. Travel to the White Horse Tavern, where a vengeful specter still waits for his supposed murderer to return to the scene, and discover the mysterious voyage of the "Sea Bird" and its missing crew. Historian Larry Stanford searches the dark corners of Newport's past to expose these scandalous tales and more.

Marblehead’s fishermen, merchants, slaves and heroes are buried in graveyards throughout this historic town.

There are thirteen burial sites, including large cemeteries and small family tombs. Old Burial Hill was established in 1638, and the “new” Waterside Cemetery was opened in 1859.

Revolutionary War hero General John Glover, famous for rowing General Washington across the Delaware River in 1776, is buried at Old Burial Hill. The final resting place of an enslaved woman, marked simply “Agnis Negro” was recently reproduced and rededicated. Green Street holds the graves of Elisha Story, who took part in the Boston Tea Party, along with Josiah Cressy, record-breaking captain of the Flying Cloud clipper ship. Mary Alley, who left property to establish the town’s first hospital, is buried at Harborview Cemetery. Local author Pam Matthias Peterson reveals five centuries of history behind these markers of the past.

Over fifty thousand Connecticut soldiers served in the Union army during the Civil War, yet their stories are nearly forgotten today.

Among the regiments that served, at least forty sets of brothers perished from battlefield wounds or disease. Little known is the 16th Connecticut chaplain who, as prisoner of war, boldly disregarded a Rebel commander's order forbidding him to pray aloud for President Lincoln. Then there is the story of the 7th Connecticut private who murdered a fellow soldier in the heat of battle and believed the man's ghost returned to torment him. Seven soldiers from Connecticut tragically drowned two weeks after the war officially ended when their ship collided with another vessel on the Potomac. Join author John Banks as he shines a light on many of these forgotten Connecticut Yankees.

J.H. Hall has been fishing most of his life and fly-fishing Maine rivers and ponds for over thirty years.

In his book, he has brought together some of his favorite fly-fishing experiences that go beyond morning excursions on a river's banks. He uses his fishing trips as the platform to introduce the reader to the people and the rivers that color his life and Maine, bringing all of us engaging life lessons and new experiences.

The islands of southern Lake Winnipesaukee have a rich and diverse history.

The first summer home on Sleepers Island was Hale’s castle, a replica of a medieval castle constructed by the same stone masons who built Castle in the Clouds in Moultonborough. An indigenous archeological site and other relics have been uncovered on Rattlesnake Island. Treasure Island and Cub Island were originally developed as a boy’s summer camp. Diamond Island was a stop for the steamboat Lady of the Lake, and the Diamond Island House was cut in half and moved across the lake to become the Hotel Weirs. In later years, the U.S. Navy established a research station on the island.

Local author and islander Stephanie Erickson shares the history of the islands and how they have shaped the culture of the islanders today. 

Cape Cod may be a popular tourist destination, but it has more than its share of strange and unique history.

The Pukwudgies were two- to three-foot beings with smooth gray skin, hairy faces and horns. These shape-shifting, mischievous little people are connected to Wampanoag Indian mythology. Edward Rowe Snow, a New England historian who was also known as the Flying Santa, delivered Christmas presents to lighthouse keepers and their families. Jeremiah's Gutter was a canal in Orleans and the first Cape Cod Canal. Join author Robin Smith-Johnson as she uncovers the secrets behind many unique places, remarkable events and fascinating people of Cape Cod.

The ruins of Daniel Shays's fortified settlement reveal the hidden story of the famous rebellion.

The ruins of Daniel Shays's fortified settlement reveal the hidden story of the famous rebellion. Shays and the Regulators founded the settlement deep in the Vermont wilderness after fleeing the uprising they led in 1787 in Massachusetts. Rediscovered in 1997 and under study since 2013, these remnants divulge secrets of Shays's life that previously remained unknown, including his connection to Millard Filmore and the Anti-Federalist lawyer John Bay. As the leader of the site's first formal study, Stephen D. Butz weaves together the tale of the archaeological investigation, along with Shays's heroic life in the Continental army, his role in the infamous rebellion that bears his name and his influence on American law.

In the 1950s and 1960s Concord was technically a city, but it more closely resembled a small town. Remote from the larger world, change was slow to arrive – the stunning death of a popular young President, and a war that would tear the country apart and reassemble it as something nobody recognized.

But those innocent decades were a seemingly endless summer, and young residents reveled in it. Riding bikes through the National Guard Armory grounds, hitching a snowy slide on the back of a mail truck and walking barefoot to the corner store for a Coke from the big red cooler. Entertainment was always free, from the Nevers Band to amateur fashion shows.

Author Kathleen Bailey and photographer Sheila Bailey unveil a portrait of a town during a simpler time.

Dave Brussat has made a significant contribution to the history of Providence. For those interested in that history, Lost Providence is a real find. Providence Journal

Providence has one of the nation's most intact historic downtowns and is one of America's most beautiful cities. The history of architectural change in the city is one of lost buildings, urban renewal plans and challenges to preservation. The Narragansett Hotel, a lost city icon, hosted many famous guests and was demolished in 1960. The American classical renaissance expressed itself in the Providence National Bank, tragically demolished in 2005. Urban renewal plans such as the Downtown Providence plan and the College Hill plan threatened the city in the mid-twentieth century. Providence eventually embraced its heritage through plans like the River Relocation Project that revitalized the city's waterfront and the Downcity Plan that revitalized its downtown. Author David Brussat chronicles the trials and triumphs of Providence's urban development.

Plymouth is known worldwide as America's Hometown, landing place of the Pilgrims in 1620 and home of the first Thanksgiving, but the real story of the town is a tale of grim beginnings.

A ghostly Victorian couple is known to wander Burial Hill, plague, desperation, massacre, murder and fear loom. A shocking crime on Leyden Street, one of the oldest streets in America, still haunts the area. The crew of the brigantine General Arnold, trapped offshore during an icy eighteenth-century blizzard, are suspected to haunt not one but three locations. Author Darcy H. Lee exposes the haunting acts that lie beneath Plymouth's cherished history.

Victorian Era Treasures

Once the center of bolt manufacturing in the United States, Southington has been affectionately called Connecticut’s “City of Progress.” At the center of this progress was Amon Bradley, an industrialist and philanthropist whose family legacy remains intact inside the Barnes Museum. Beginning as a six-room Greek Revival–style home, the Barnes Museum was built in 1836 for Amon and Sylvia Bradley and was lived in by the family for 136 years. The opulent seventeen-room homestead remains fully staged with the family’s impressive collection of Victorian antiques and more than one thousand pressed-glass goblets. Author and museum curator Christina Volpe reveals their unique collection of Civil War letters, family diaries, photographs and other historic treasures.

Uniquely New Hampshire

New Hampshire has always been fiercely independent, and its history, museums and festivals reflect that trait. Roy Campanella and Don Newcombe broke baseball’s color barrier with the Nashua Dodgers in 1946, and Holman Stadium is now a stop on the Black Heritage Trail. Three of the state’s historic mansions—the Fells, the Castle in the Clouds and the Saint-Gaudens historic site—remain as impressive today as when they were built. Portsmouth’s historic homes give a portrait of life in colonial and Revolutionary times. From the New England Telephone Museum in Warner to the Exeter UFO Festival, the state has a wealth of history on display.

Kathleen D. Bailey and Sheila R. Bailey lead a trip through the past and present of the Granite State’s most memorable sites.

Bar Harbor welcomes millions of visitors each year, and the popular seaside town is known for its hospitality. However, not many people know that Bar Harbor is one of the most haunted seaport towns on the coast of Maine, nestled at the edge of Acadia National Park. Ghostly sightings abound from the woods to the waters. Restless spirits like the Carpenter of Kennebec Street and the Caretaker join other souls from the Cottage Era, when people like the Astors, Vanderbilts and Rockefellers made the town their summer playground. Seafaring shadows and those lingering at the beautiful—but very haunted—Criterion Theatre create a space filled with souls both alive and dead.

Jennifer Pictou and D. Michael Fleming unveil a mysterious town where the sound of horse hooves can still be heard, along with the apparition of a much-beloved cow.

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.

The story of Vineyard transportation and the story of evolution and innovation.

Getting to Martha's Vineyard has never been easy. Native Americans built canoes for the journey, and early settlers crossed Vineyard Sound in small sailing packets. Steamships dramatically changed island life. On the island, the horse-drawn trolley evolved into the electric trolley. Tourists and residents crowded railroads until they were replaced by the automobile. The story of Vineyard transportation is the story of an evolution of man and machine, of opportunity and necessity, of dependence and cooperative efforts. Join local historian Tom Dresser as he traces the changes in island living brought about by these transportation innovations.

Moosehead Lake is the largest lake in Maine, covering nearly 75,000 acres in the Highlands Region. Greenville, located on its southern shore, became the gateway to the lake early on because of its location and by being the last village to get supplies before the North Woods.

The area of Blair Hill in Greenville was at first the farm of early settler Edmund Scammon and his family, but it soon became famous for its view of Moosehead Lake. Successful business leaders like Victor Macfarlane and Andrew Jackson Sloper built summer homes on Blair Hill to enjoy the climate and scenery. The Highlands area on the southern side of Blair Hill was developed for vacationers and contained small affordable cabins as well as the famous Moosehead Coffee House. From stately mansions to simple cabins, the retreats constructed here were as varied as the people who built them.

Local authors Sean and Johanna Billings explore the fascinating history of this area and its people.

Founded in 1844, Laurel Hill Cemetery was one of the first to follow the rural cemetery movement that began with Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts. These park-like arboretums provided peaceful, natural places to bury and visit the deceased. Nearly everyone who played a significant role in local history, as well as numerous less well-known people who led typical but historically revealing lives, has a grave in the cemetery. Authors Leslie and Emory Rounds chronicle the history of the cemetery and the fascinating stories of those buried there.

These park-like arboretums provided peaceful, natural places to bury and visit the deceased. Nearly everyone who played a significant role in local history, as well as numerous less well-known people who led typical but historically revealing lives, has a grave in the cemetery. Authors Leslie and Emory Rounds chronicle the history of the cemetery and the fascinating stories of those buried there.

A History of Connecticut Food aims to acquaint the reader with the long and storied relationship of the state's people and their provisions.

Each chapter will focus on a different crop, livestock, game, or prepared dish that Connecticut has either pioneered or made its own. Along with these brief histories, the book will feature traditional and modernized recipes. In short, A History of Connecticut Food will both inform the people of Connecticut about their culinary past and inspire them to explore it.

Join Bielawa as he navigates a precarious path through the unforgettably macabre and scandalous misdeeds of Bridgeport.

Beneath the smokestacks of the gritty cityscape of Bridgeport, Connecticut is the shocking criminal underbelly of this New England community. Sin and vice have long had a home on the shores of the Long Island Sound, and Bridgeport's sinister past is littered with tales of pirates, mobsters, bizarre Victorian murders, and even rumors of a doctor's attempts to reanimate the dead. Historian Michael J. Bielawa investigates such bizarre crimes as the unsolved murder of philanthropist James Beardsley, and the grisly discovery in Yellow Mill Pond during the 19th century, which helped legitimize forensic science. Join Bielawa as he navigates a precarious path through the unforgettably macabre and scandalous misdeeds of Bridgeport.

Paddle from Enfield Rapids to Long Island Sound and travel down one of America's most famous waterways, the Connecticut River.

Its calm waters conceal an unruly past, where native tribes lost ground to Dutch and English colonists who vied for the river's immense economic power. The skyline of Hartford looms on the western shore, with the gold dome of the capitol as a remnant of this robust economy centered on world trade. Many have found a deep inspiration along the river, including Lady Fenwick, a local legend; David Bushnell, creator of the first American submarine; and even Albert Einstein, who contemplated the cosmos while relaxing on the riverbanks. Author Wick Griswold takes readers on a provocative journey as he traces the history of the Connecticut River.

Author Christopher Pagliuco reveals the all-but-forgotten stories of these Connecticut heroes.

When Puritans Edward Whalley and William Goffe joined the parliamentary army against King Charles I in the English civil wars, they seized an opportunity to overthrow a tyrant. Yet when his son, Charles II, regained the throne, Whalley and Goffe were forced to flee to the New England colonies aboard the ship Prudent Mary--never to see their families or England again. Even with the help of New England's Puritan elite, including Reverend John Davenport, they struggled to stay ahead of the authorities in Boston, New Haven, and the outpost of Hadley, Massachusetts. Though forced to live out the rest of their lives fugitives, these former major generals survived frontier adventures in seventeenth-century New England, and became embedded in early United States history.