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[Illustration: Copyright, 1891, by A. S. Burbank.

_Frontispiece._ PLYMOUTH IN 1622.]




                        American Historic Towns

                            HISTORIC TOWNS

                                  OF

                              NEW ENGLAND

                               Edited by

                            LYMAN P. POWELL

                              Illustrated

                          G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
                           NEW YORK & LONDON
                        The Knickerbocker Press
                                 1898


                            COPYRIGHT, 1898
                                  BY
                          G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
                  Entered at Stationers’ Hall, London

                   The Knickerbocker Press, New York

[Illustration]




PREFACE


In July, 1893, while the first Summer Meeting of the American Society
for the Extension of University Teaching was in session at the
University of Pennsylvania, I conducted the students, in trips taken
from week to week, to historic spots in Philadelphia, the battle-fields
of the Brandywine and of Germantown, and to the site of the winter camp
at Valley Forge. The experiment was brought to the attention of Dr.
Albert Shaw, and at his instance I made a plea through the pages of _The
American Monthly Review of Reviews_, October, 1893, for the revival of
the mediæval pilgrimage, and for its adaptation to educational and
patriotic uses. After pointing out some of the advantages of visits paid
under competent guidance and with reverent spirit to spots made sacred
by high thinking and self-forgetful living, I suggested a ten days’
pilgrimage in the footsteps of George Washington.

The suggestion took root in the public mind. Leading journals commended
the idea. New England people, already acquainted with the thought of
local historical excursions, hailed the proposed pilgrimage with
enthusiasm. Men and women from a score of States avowed their eagerness
to make the experiment; and at the close of the University Extension
Summer Meeting of July, 1894, in which I had lectured on American
history, I found myself conducting for the University Extension Society
a pilgrimage, starting from Philadelphia, to Hartford, Boston,
Cambridge, Lexington, Concord, Salem, Plymouth, Newburg, West Point,
Tarrytown, Tappan, New York, Princeton, and Trenton.

The press contributed with discrimination the publicity essential to
success. Every community visited rendered intelligent and generous
co-operation. And surely no pilgrims, mediæval or modern, ever had such
leadership; for among our cicerones and patriotic orators were: Col. T.
W. Higginson, Drs. Edward Everett Hale and Talcott Williams, Hon.
Hampton L. Carson, Messrs. Charles Dudley Warner, Richard Watson Gilder,
Charles Carlton Coffin, Frank B. Sanborn, Edwin D. Mead, Hezekiah
Butterworth, George P. Morris, Professors W. P. Trent, William M.
Sloane, W. W. Goodwin, E. S. Morse, Brig.-Gen. O. B. Ernst, Major
Marshall H. Bright, and Rev. William E. Barton.

I had planned in the months that followed to publish a souvenir volume
containing the more important addresses made by distinguished men on the
historic significance of the places visited; but as the happy experience
receded into the past a larger thought laid hold of me. Why not sometime
in the infrequent leisure of a busy minister’s life edit a series of
volumes on _American Historic Towns_? Kingsley’s novels were written
amid parish duties, and Dr. McCook has found time, amid exacting
ministerial duties, to make perhaps the most searching study ever made
by an American of the habits of spiders. Medical experts agree
concerning the value of a wholesome avocation to the man who takes his
vocation seriously; and congregations are quick to give ear to the
earnest preacher whose sermons betray a large outlook on life.

A series of illustrated volumes on _American Historic Towns_, edited
with intelligence, would prove a unique and important contribution to
historical literature. To the pious pilgrim to historic shrines the
series would, perhaps, give the perspective that every pilgrim needs,
and furnish information that no guide-book ever offers. To those who
have to stay at home the illustrated volumes would present some
compensation for the sacrifice, and would help to satisfy a recognized
need. The volumes would probably quicken public interest in our historic
past, and contribute to the making of another kind of patriotism than
that Dr. Johnson had in mind when he defined it as the “last refuge of a
scoundrel.”

I foresaw some at least of the serious difficulties that await the
editor of such a series. If all the towns for which antiquarians and
local enthusiasts would fain find room should be included, the series
would be too long. A staff of contributors must be secured, possessing
literary skill, historical insight, the antiquarian’s patience,