Arts and Leisure
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42John Greenleaf Whittier and the Real Maud Muller
New England's Quaker poet John Greenleaf Whittier wrote the sentimental and melancholy story of Maud Muller in 1854. The poem, one of...
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1Five Historic Thanksgiving Foods . . . That You Won’t Be Eating
The best food historians can say is that turkey probably has been on Thanksgiving tables since the beginning, and its been remarkably...
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1The Mysterious 1644 Portrait of Roger Williams
A portrait of Roger Williams is easy to sketch in words: Baptist minister banished from Massachusetts, founding father of Rhode Island and...
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Old New England Holidays We No Longer Celebrate
Early New Englanders, influenced by the Puritans, were reluctant celebrants for most holidays. Religious festivals, they felt, were un-Christian and pagan. Yet...
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32Nine Apple Cider Traditions That Are No Longer With Us
Today the roadsides of New England are littered with apples trees, often ignored or painted and photographed for their scenic charms. But...
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101Hell-Born Babes and Slubbers: Ten Ways to Call Someone Wicked in Colonial Times
Colonists coming from England had plenty of and informal and slang expressions to call someone evil. Here are ten of them: A...
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61How To Call Someone a Drunk in Colonial Times – From The Drinkers Dictionary
In 1737, at the age of 31, Boston-born Benjamin Franklin decided to point out the many phrases people used to describe drunkenness....
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Flattery Will Get You Everywhere: Ten Ways to Charm in 1780
Isaiah Thomas is best known as a newspapermen and supporter of the American Revolution. But as a printer and publisher he did...
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Chouses, Jigs and Fetches – Colonial Pranks You Never Heard Of
There have always been pranks and pranksters. In the early days of the New England colonies, life was largely spent tending to...
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21Scollay Square and Tales From The Crawford House
More than fifty years after their demise, Scollay Square and the Crawford House have taken on a mystique all their own. As...