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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, and
enough confidence in the highest success of the series to be prepared to
waive any requirement of adequate pecuniary compensation. Space must be
apportioned with impartial but not unsympathetic hand, and the
illustrations selected with due discrimination. And, finally, publishers
were to be found willing to assume the expense required for the
production in suitable form of a series for which no one could with
accuracy forecast the sale.

The last and perhaps most serious difficulty was removed almost a year
ago when Messrs. G. P. Putnam’s Sons expressed a willingness to take the
commercial risk involved in publishing the present volume, which will,
it is hoped, be the first of a series. Contributors were then found
whose work has, I trust, secured for the undertaking an auspicious
beginning. Critics inclined at first glance to speak harshly of the
differences among the contributors in style and in literary method are
advised to withhold judgment till a closer reading has made clear, as it
will, the fundamental differences there are among the towns themselves
in history and in spirit. Adequate reasons which need not be stated here
have made it advisable to omit Lexington, Groton, Portsmouth, the Mystic
towns, and other towns which would naturally be included in a later
volume on New England Towns, in case the publication should be
continued.

So many have co-operated in the making of this book that I will not
undertake to name them all. But I cannot forbear to acknowledge the
valuable assistance I have received at every stage of the work from Mr.
G. H. Putnam, Mr. George P. Morris, associate editor of _The
Congregationalist_, and Miss Gertrude Wilson, instructor in history at
the historic Emma Willard School. The Century Company has, in the
preparation of the first chapter on Boston and the chapter on Newport,
kindly allowed the use of certain illustrations and portions of articles
on Boston and Newport, which have appeared in _St. Nicholas_ and old
_Scribner’s_ respectively. Some of the illustrations for the Portland
chapter have been furnished by Lamson, the Portland photographer.

The Essex Institute, with characteristic generosity, has loaned most of
the cuts for the Salem chapter. The Ohio State Archæological and
Historical Society has allowed the reproduction from _The Ohio
Quarterly_ of some of the designs in the Rutland chapter, while certain
of the illustrations in the