Revolutionary War Veterans Reminisce (And Get Their Pictures Taken)
During the Civil War, a Connecticut minister named E. B. Hillard went on a quest to collect the reminiscences of the Revolutionary War veterans still alive. They had fought as teenagers and lived a...
View ArticleThe Civilian Conservation Corps, a Young Man’s Adventure
During the depths of the Great Depression, a 17-year-old boy from Warren, R.I., enlisted in the Civilian Conservation Corps. He did it to help support his family, but his time in the Civilian...
View ArticleThe Tariffville Disaster Inspires the First Emergency Phone Call
The Tariffville disaster, a train wreck near Hartford, prompted the first-ever emergency telephone call when a doctor summoned help from a local drugstore. The disaster made big news, providing...
View ArticleHigley Copper Coins: Connecticut’s Rare, Exciting and Historic Penny
According to the legend of the Higley copper, a Connecticut doctor with a powerful thirst and a copper mine minted the colony’s first copper coins. Dr. Samuel Higley frequently patronized the local...
View ArticleWhen Massachusetts Was a Paradise for Tramps
So many tramps rode the rails into Massachusetts after the Civil War that in 1899 a group of charity administrators published a manual, The Best Methods of Dealing with Tramps and Wayfarers. Most...
View ArticleSeven Fun Continental Army Facts
Certain Continental Army facts are implanted in the minds of U.S. schoolchildren at a young age: How patriot farmers dropped their plows and picked up their muskets to fight. How soldiers suffered...
View ArticleJames Somerset, the Boston Runaway Who Ended Slavery in England
In 1771, James Somerset languished in an English prison ship that would soon set sail for Jamaica. There, James Somerset would be sold to a sugar plantation owner who would probably work him to death...
View ArticleWhen Massachusetts Abolished the State Police
In 1875, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts abolished the state police department. It was only 10 years old, the first state police force in the country, but Massachusetts had had enough. Attitudes...
View ArticleThe Irish-American Army That Attacked Canada from a Vermont Farm
Alvah Richard couldn’t believe that fanatical Irish-American army was back. For the second time in four years, the self-proclaimed Irish Republican Army had come tramping through his Franklin, Vt.,...
View ArticleThe She-She-She Camps of the Great Depression
The Civilian Conservation Corps gave millions of young men a job and their families a lifeline with money they sent home every month. The much-admired and much-studied CCC also had a much-derided and...
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