Over the course of New England history many thousands of workers were killed on the job. Some, like Vermont quarry workers, died a slow death from silicosis. Others, like Connecticut munitions workers, were killed suddenly in violent explosions. Carelessness killed ...

Dogs were said to go mad during the dog days of summer, and New Englanders have certainly done strange things in the hot, humid weeks of July and August. The ancient Greeks were said to have named dog days after ...

The Thoreau pencil was a triumph in Henry David Thoreau’s lifetime, overshadowed since by the posthumous fame of his books and essays including Walden, Civil Disobedience and the journals. The Thoreau pencil was the most popular American-made pencil in its ...

Blue Hill, Maine, in OctoberIndian summer has evolved over the centuries from a pioneer superstition to the poet’s best friend to the meteorologists’ whipping boy. It is a period of unusually warm, still days that follow a cold spell, the ...

The American Revolution probably wouldn’t have happened had it not been for the Revolutionary taverns where patriots and Loyalists gathered to talk politics. Sam Adams famously haunted the taverns of Boston, honing his political skills and making his political connections. His cousin John ...

The Cold Friday on Jan. 19, 1810 brought terrible winds and frigid temperature talked and written about for generations. Tales of the killer weather event made their way into town histories, journals and court records long after it happened. They ...

Henry David Thoreau was many things – a philosopher, poet, author, activist, and more – but no one would accuse him of being a ladies man. For one woman, however, he was an obsession. Sophia Ford wanted nothing more than ...

Around the time 27-year-old Henry David Thoreau moved to Walden Pond, the Fitchburg Railroad opened on its banks, about a third of a mile from his cabin. Thoreau wasn't happy about it. Nor would he have been happy about the ...

When Andrew Wyeth was born exactly 100 years to the day after the birth of Henry David Thoreau, his father was delighted. Henry David Thoreau was a favorite of the Wyeth family, which produced some of the best-known artists and ...

Harriet Hanson Robinson went to work as a Lowell mill girl when she was 10 years old. She grew up to write the mill girls' magazine, The Lowell Offering, publish books and lead the woman's rights movement. She was able to leave ...