US Route 1

Key West (48 miles from Marathon)

2006-06-26T15:51:00.001-07:00

Marathon is the last incorporated town before Key West, but is separated from the last town on our route by some unincorporated localities. To wit: Bahia Honda State Park, Big Pine Key, Cudjoe Key, Perky, Bay Point, Big Coppitt Key, and finally Stock Island.

Bahia Honda State Park is located on Bahia Honda (Spanish for 'deep bay'), a virtually uninhabited island at mile marker 37 and at the west end of the Seven Mile Bridge, some 19 km south of Marathon. Most of the island (2,1 sq. km) is taken up by the State Park, founded in 1961 and protecting several rare and endangered plants.
Henry Flagler's Florida East Coast Railway once ran through the present parkland to Key West. Built between 1905 and 1912, it was destroyed by the severe Labor Day Hurricane of 1935. Later, the railroad bridge foundations were used to build the Overseas Highway, which became U.S. Route 1. Part of the old Bahia Honda Bridge is accessible from the park, and offers a panoramic view of the islands.

Big Pine Key (25,3 sq. km land area) is home to (2000 census) 5.032 people, and to the Key Deer, a highly endangered species. 'Big Pine', as it is known for short, was almost uninhabited up until the aftermath of WWII. A 1627 Spanish document mentions it as 'Cayos de Cuchiaga', after an Indian name cited by Hernande d'Escalante Fontaneda, who was shipwrecked on the 'Florida' in the Lower Keys from 1549/50 (at age 13) until 1566.
It is later mentioned as 'Cayo Pinero' by British surveyor William Roberts in 1763 - a pinero being Spanish for a grove of pines. In 1772, however, British surveyor Gerand de Brahm names it 'NewCastle Island'. Only circa 1848-49 does it first receive the name 'Big Pine Island', in a journal entry of F.H. Gerdes.
A word on the use of the term 'Key' for 'island' in this region: most believe that it began by the Spanish adapting the word "cayo' from the Taino Indians of Hispanola and Cuba referring to small islands. The Spanish normally used 'isla' for island and 'islet' for small island. At least in the New World, they appear to use 'cayo' and 'cayuelo' for a very small island. The English used 'Cay' or 'Kay' such as Cay Sal Banks.

After Big Pine Key follows Cudjoe Key, which, as a census-designated place, has an area of 14 sq. km and a population (in 2000) of 1.695, 96% of whom are white, less than 1% being either African American, Native American or Asian American. Hispanics of any race accounted for almost 6%. Sailing high above Cudjoe Key is the blimp commonly called "Fat Albert." There are two Fat Alberts, actually, one on the ground while the other is in the air. Fat Albert is used by the U.S. government for several purposes, including radar for aircraft and boat traffic (especially for drug enforcement) and weather. The blimp is also used to broadcast "TV Marti," a U.S. television station targeted toward an audience in Cuba. These blimps are also used along the Mexican border.

Key West is an island and a city at the western extremity of the Florida Keys, at the southernmost tip of the continental US. The Southernmost City is also known as the Conch Republic. It’s the southern terminus of US Route 1. Key West is 240 km southwest of Miami, 145 km north of Havana, Cuba.
Key West is a top tourist destination, as port of call for many cruise ships and a prime gay and lesbian location. It also boasts an international airport. In the middle of the 20th century, it was the winter location of president Harry S Truman’s ‘Little White House’.

Cayo Hueso
Previous to European incursion, Key West was inhabited by the Calusa, a warlike tribe of natives who held sway over much of present-day southern Florida (the name Calusa in fact means ‘fierce people’). Juan Ponce de Leon visited in 1521. Under Spanish rule, a small fishing and salving village with a garrison was established on the island, which was named ‘Cayo Hueso’ (‘Bone Island’). Its subsequent anglicization to ‘Key West’ is a good example of what linguists call ‘false friends’. The bones refer to human bones found in mangrove clumps on the island.
When Great Britain took over Florida in 1763, the inhabitants of Cayo Hueso – Spaniards and natives alike – were moved to Havana. Spain did not resettle the island when it retook Florida 20 years later. Neither Spain, the UK or later the US claimed the island, although fishermen from the three nations used it informally.

Matthew C. Perry
In 1815, the Spanish governor in Havana deeded the island to Juan Pablo Salas of Saint Augustine. Salas sold the island to US businessman John W. Simonton for $2.000 in 1820 after Florida was transferred to the US. Simonton was interested in the strategic location of this ‘Gibraltar of the West’, with its deep harbour and its proximity to the shipping lanes in the Straits of Florida.
On March 25, 1822, Matthew C. Perry, sailing on the schooner Shark, planted the US flag on Key West, claiming it as ‘Thompson’s Island’ (after the then Secretary of the Navy Smith Thompson) and the harbour as ‘Port Rodgers’ (after John Rodgers, a hero of the War of 1812). The move was made to counter piracy in the area. In 1823, Commodore David Porter of the US Navy West Indies Anti-Pirate Squadron took charge of Key West, which he ruled as a dictator, under martial law.

Conchs
In earlier times, the Bahamian immigrants in Key West were known as Conchs. In the 20th century, the term was self-applied by all KW’ers, with the distinction between fresh water and salt water conchs, for people born outside or in KW.
KW once was the largest and richest city in all of FL. In 1860, wrecking made KW the wealthiest town per capita in the whole US. The town was noted for the fine furniture and chandeliers, salvaged by the locals from the many shipwrecks on the nearby reefs. Other industries included fishing, salt production and cigar making.

U.S. Civil War
Although FL seceded in the Civil War, KW remained in Union hands because of Fort Zachary Taylor, an important naval base. Fort Jefferson (109 km further, in the Dry Tortugas) served as prison for Dr Samuel A. Mudd, convicted of conspiracy for setting the broken leg of John Wilkes Booth, president Lincoln’s assassin. Cuba’s unsuccessful war for independence in the 1860s and 1870s brought many Cuban rebels to KW.

Overseas By Rail and Road
In 1912, KW was linked up to the mainland via Henry M. Flagler’s Overseas Railway, an extension of the Florida East Coast Railway. The Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 destroyed most of it, killing hundreds of residents in the process – including 400 WWI veterans living in the camps, working on federal roadbuilding and mosquito control projects in the Middle Keys.
The FEC couldn’t afford to rebuild, so the federal government did. Completed in 1938, it wouldn’ be used for rail but for cars – the Overseas Highway becoming an extension of US Route 1. President FDR toured the road in 1939.

Winter White House
A neighbourhood in Old Town (KW) is still called the Truman Annex, as it’s the location of president Harry S Truman’s Winter White House. The annex was part of Fort Zachary Taylor from 1845 onwards, eventually taken over in 1947 as the ‘Fort Zachary Taylor Annex’ to the KW Naval Station. The primary Naval Air Station operates 5 km northwest, on Boca Chica Key.
The house was originally waterfront when it was built in 1890 as the first officer's quarters on the naval station. In the beginning of the 20th century, the home was converted into a single family dwelling to house the base commandant and additional land was filled in front of the house. The waterfront view was eventually blocked by a new building at the station.
President Truman visited his Little White House for 175 days on 11 separate visits during his presidency. During the Truman visits, Cabinet members and foreign officials were regular visitors for fishing trips and poker games. Truman visited Key West shortly after his 1948 re-election and Division Street was renamed Truman Avenue in his honor. After Truman left office he returned to Key West several times and stayed at various other places.
Other famous visitors:
• Thomas Edison resided in the house during WWI while donating his services to the Navy.
• In 1948-49 General Dwight D. Eisenhower held a series of meetings that resulted in the creation of the Department of Defense. He returned in 1956 as President to recuperate from a heart attack.
• President Kennedy and British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan held a one day summit here in 1961. President Kennedy made a second visit in 1962 immediately following the Cuban Missile Crisis.
• The house served as the Naval Station commandant's house until 1974. In 1991, it opened as a state historic site & museum. Former President Jimmy Carter and family had a reunion here in 1996.
• In April, 2001, Secretary of State Colin Powell opened a week of OSCE peace talks, led by Minsk Group Co-Chairman Carey Cavanaugh between President Robert Kocharian of Armenia and Geidar Aliyev of Azerbaijan.

Ernest Hemingway
‘Hem’ wrote A Farewell to Arms while living above the showroom of a Ford dealership at 314 Simonton Street in KW while awaiting a Ford Roadster bought by an uncle of his wife Pauline in 1928. Or so legend has it. Hemingway learnt deep sea fishing from hardware store owner Charles Thompson, member of a group of fisher friends among which ‘Sloppy’ Joe Russell – reportedly the model for Freddy in ‘To Have and Have Not’ (set in KW and the only of Hem’s novels to be set in the US). Parts of the manuscript were found at Sloppy Joe’s Bar after his death. It’s this group of fishing friends that gave him the nickname ‘Papa’.
Pauline’s uncle – a certain Gus Pfeiffer – bought the house at 907 Whitehead St in 1931 as a wedding gift for her and Ernest. Legend has it Hemingway had a swimming pool installed in the late ‘30s for the then whopping sum of $20.000 (roughly equivalent to $250.000 in 2006 money). Hem put a penny in the concrete, saying “Here, take the last penny I’ve got!” The penny is still there…
Hem wrote or worked on following novels while in KW: ‘Death in the Afternoon’, ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’, ‘The Snows of Kilimanjaro’, ‘The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber’.
The couple divorced in 1939, and Hemingway only occasionally revisited KW thereafter. In Hem’s day, the streets were roamed by six-toed cats. These polydactylous animals still are around.

Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams is reputed to have written a first draft of A Streetcar Named Desire while staying at the La Concha Hotel in 1947. Having first visited in 1941, Williams bought a modest bungalow in Key West in 1949 and listed it as his primary residence up to his death in 1983. The Academy Award–winning film version of his “The Rose Tattoo” was shot on the island in 1956. The Tennessee Williams Theatre is located on the campus of Florida Keys Community College on Stock Island. Even though Hemingway and Williams were in Key West at the same time, they reportedly only met once -- at Hemingway's Cuba home Finca Vigia.

Cuban Connection
KW is closer to Havana than to Miami, and has a special bond with Cuba. In 1890, half of KW’s 18.000 inhabitants was of Cuban origin. The town often had Cuban mayors. Cubans were actively involved in reportedly 200 factories in town producing 100 million cigars annually. Jopsé Marti made several visits to seek recruits for Cuban independence starting in 1891.
The Battleship USS Maine sailed from Key West on its fateful visit to Havana where it blew up igniting the Spanish-American War. Crew men from the ship are buried in Key West and the Navy investigation into the blast occurred at the Key West Customs House.
JFK was to use "90 miles from Cuba" extensively in his speeches against Fidel Castro. Kennedy himself visited Key West during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Prior to Fidel Castro there was regular ferry and airplane service between Key West and Havana.
Key West was flooded with refugees during the Mariel Boatlift. Refugees continue to come ashore and sometimes fly hijacked Cuban Airlines planes into the city's airport.

Conch Republic
In 1982, a US Border Patrol blockade of US1 at the northern end of the Overseas Highway (near Florida City) in response to the Mariel Boatlift led to a 17 mile traffic jam, vigourous protests and eventually the declaration of independence of the ‘Conch Republic’ (i.e. Key West). This secession was all in jest, but survives as a popular souvenir subject (“we seceded where others failed”)

Key West Naval Air Station
KW sits at the northern edge of the deep water channel connecting the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico via the Florida Straits. This strategic position has earned the city the nickname ‘Gibraltar of the West’ – and made it the target of military ambitions such as Fort Taylor. The adjacent small naval base was the departure point for USS Maine, whose demise in Havana was the start of the Spanish-American War.
At the start of WWII, the Navy increased its presence from 50 to 3.000 acres (including all 1.700 acres of Boca Chica Key, and Fleming Key, which was constructed from landfill). At its peak, the base housed 15.000 military and 3.400 civilian personnel.

Port of Key West
In 1969, the Sunward was the first cruise ship to dock at Navy Pier in the Truman Annex. In 1984 the city opened a pier right on Mallory Square. The decision was met with considerable opposition from people who felt it would disrupt the tradition of watching the sunset at Mallory Square. Cruise ships now dock at all three piers.

Demographics
Key West has (census 2000) 25.478 people, with a density of 1.653/km2. The city was 85% white, 9% black, 2% mixed-race, 1,3% Asian, 0,4% native and 16,5% Hispanic (of any race). The ancestries most reported in 2000 were English (12.4%), German (12.2%), Irish (11.3%), Italian (6.8%), United States (6.0%), and French (3.6%).

Gay Destination
KW is a popular gay and lesbian holiday destination, and has a large gay population. ‘Non-straight’ tourism has a long history in KW. The KW Business Guild claims to be the US’s first and oldest continuous gay and lesbian chamber of commerce. Each Saturday, the Guild sponsors a tour of the ‘historic gay’ sites of the city. Even the Village People have a song entitled ‘Key West’.
In the 1980s, almost all the bars on Duval Street catered to gays. Nowadays, dedicated gay bars are mostly found in the city’s west side. Atlantic Shores, and other guesthouses, are giving up their gay-only policy. KW is diversifying its tourist base up to the point that the NY Times asked in November 2005: “Is KW going straight?”
It would seem so, as the KW Gay & Lesbian Museum & Archive has opened in June 2006 (at 513 Truman Street). It featurres memorabilia and papers of Richard A. Heyman, one of the first openly gay mayors, dying of AIDS in 1994.

Geography
Key West is located at 24°33′33″N, 81°47′03″W (24.559166, -81.784031)GR1. The maximum elevation above sea level is about 16 feet (5 m), known as Solares Hill. Key West Island is about 4 miles (6 km) long and 2 miles (3 km) wide; since the late 20th century it has been artificially expanded to the north.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 19.2 km² (7.4 mi²). 15.4 km² (5.9 mi²) of it is land and 3.8 km² (1.5 mi²) of it (19.73%) is water.

Old Town
Key West has an east-west orientation rather than north-south as many mistake when they drive down Highway 1 from Miami since the highway enters the island on the northeast corner.
The original Key West neighborhood in the west (although perceived as south) is called "Old Town." It includes the major tourist destinations of the island including Mallory Square, Duval Street, the Truman Annex and Fort Zachary Taylor. It is where you find the classic bungalows and guest mansions.
Generally, the structures date from 1886 to 1912. The basic features which distinguish the local architecture includes wood frame construction of one to two-and-a-half story structures set on foundation piers about three feet above the ground. Exterior characteristics of the buildings are peaked "tin" roofs, horizontal wood siding, pastel shades of paint, side-hinged louvered shutters, covered porches (or balconies, galleries, or verandas) along the fronts of the structures, and wood lattice screens covering the area elevated by the piers.

New Town
The island has more than doubled in size via landfill. The new section on the east (perceived as north) is called "New Town." It contains shopping centers, strip malls and the island's commercial airport. Its most famous resident was Tennessee Williams whose house is privately owned and not open to the public.
The dividing line between the two is White Street.
MTV's The Real World: Key West airing in 2006 was based on Raccoon Key[7] and was east of Key West.

Gulf of Mexico/Atlantic
Key West (and most of the rest of the keys) are on the dividing line between the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. The two bodies have different currents with the calmer and warmer Gulf of Mexico being characterized by great clumps of sea grass. The area where the two bodies merge between Key West and Cuba is call the Straits of Florida.
Southernmost City
One of the biggest attractions on the island is the buoy at the corner of South Street and Whitehead which claims to be the southernmost point the contiguous 48 states (see Extreme Points for more information.) It would seem every building nearby lays claim to "southernmost..." The claim is not quite accurate. Florida's southernmost point is Ballast Key, a privately owned island just south and west of Key West. Signs on the island strictly prohibit unauthorized visitors. Land on the Fort Taylor property just west of the Key West landmark is actually slightly further south but it has no marker.

Climate
Key West claims to be the only city in the lower 48 states never to have had a frost. The record for coldest temperature was set at 5°C on January 12, 1886. Heat record (36,1°C) was set on July 19, 1880 and again on August 26, 1956. The period of December through April is abundant in sunshine, representing only 25% of annual rainfall – usually in advance of cold fronts in a few heavy or light showers. June through October is the wet season, representing 53% of annual rainfall – on almost every day of the season, mainly in the early morning.

Hurricanes
Hurricanes regularly hit Key West but the island has been relatively lucky.
Locals say that Hurricane Wilma on October 24, 2005 was the worst storm in memory. The entire island was told to evacuate. The six to nine foot surge flooded more than half the island including much of Duval Street with more than two feet of water. The storm destroyed the piers at the clothing optional Atlantic Shores Motel and breached the shark tank at the Key West Aquarium freeing its sharks. Damage postponed the island's famous Halloween Fantasy Fest until the following December. MTV's The Real World: Key West was filming during the hurricane and deals with the storm.
In March 2006, the NOAA opened its National Weather Forecasting building in the Truman Annex. The building is designed to withstand a Category 5 hurricane and its storm surge.
The previous big hurricane was Hurricane Georges in September 1998. The storm obliterated Houseboat Row in the Cow Key channel on the northwest corner ending the era of houseboats on Key West.

Attractions, events, recreation, and culture
Many visitors rent a bicycle and explore the history and architecture of Old Town Key West. Walking tours, including a tour of the unusual Key West Cemetery, are available. The Sunset Celebration at Mallory Square is a daily spectacle for visitors and residents. Boat excursions and tours provide a great way to view Key West from the water. The Duval Street bar and restaurant district includes many different entertainment options, all within walking distance of each other. The Tennessee Williams Theatre is a performing arts center, a civic center, and a community center.
The Key West Botanical Forest and Garden is an excellent, frost-free arboretum and botanical garden containing a number of "champion tree" specimens.
Nancy Forrester's Secret Garden is a one acre (4,000 m²) garden resembling a lush, predominantly green, rainforest. It is an exhibit of wild nature’s artistry in a woodland garden.
The Key West Butterfly & Nature Conservatory features a 5,000 square foot (460 m²) glass-domed tropical butterfly habitat. The Mel Fisher Maritime Museum showcases gold, silver, and treasure recovered from shipwrecks around the world. Some tourists mingle with the locals, shop, and dine at the Key West Historic Seaport at the Key West Bight. The Key West Lighthouse and Keeper's Quarters Museum preserves the history of the Key West Lighthouse built in 1847. Nobel Prize-winning author Ernest Hemingway's former home is now open to the public as a museum, populated by as many as sixty descendants of his famous polydactyl cats.
PrideFest is seven days of events, presented by the Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Key West the first week in June. The schedule includes the Pride Follies talent extravaganza; contests to select a Mr., Ms. and Miss PrideFest; parties, a tea dance; and the PrideFest Parade down Duval Street. Key West was the first American city to openly recruit gay tourists.

Marathon (50 miles from Key Largo)

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Key Largo is where - I guess - the Overseas Highway starts, a small strip of concrete connecting dots of land between the brilliant blue waters of the ocean. US1 connects Key Largo to Sunset Point, Tavernier, Plantation Key, Islamorada, Matecumbe, Lower Matecumbe Beach, Layton, Conch Key and Valhalla.

Found no info on Sunset Point, and just a little on Tavernier, a town of 2.173 (2000 Census) on an island named Plantation Key.

The racial makeup of the CDP was 96.78% White, 0.83% African American, 0.46% Native American, 0.32% Asian, 0.05% Pacific Islander, 0.78% from other races, and 0.78% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 19.51% of the population.

Key Largo (31 miles from Homestead)

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After Homestead, US1 moves through Florida City, the last place along the way before the first town of any significance in the Keys. First, it runs straight through the Everglades, being at this point a very narrow artery into the Keys - well patrolled by state troopers, which seem to stop cars every other mile. Garden Cove is a small town forming the corner of the road, where US1 takes the last big turn of its run, from a largely north-south orientation to a broadly east-west layout, dictated by the geography of the Keys. Anglers Park is the only locality on the way to Key Largo - one of the few places in the world named after a movie, instead of the other way round...

Homestead (29 miles from Miami)

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Miami (28 miles from Fort Lauderdale)

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Fort Lauderdale (59 miles from Jupiter)

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Jupiter (55 miles from Vero Beach)

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Vero Beach (73 miles from Titusville)

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Titusville (47 miles from Daytona Beach)

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Daytona Beach (23 miles from Bunnell)

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Bunnell (31 miles from St Augustine)

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St Augustine (38 miles from Jacksonville)

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Jacksonville (43 miles from Folkstone)

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At last, the state of Florida

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On April 2, 1513, Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León, looking for the Fountain of Youth, landed on the coast of this state, naming it after the religious festival of Easter, which is celebrated with flowers: Pascua Florida.

The state consists almost entirely of a large peninsula of the North American subcontinent, dividing the Gulf of Mexico from the Atlantic Ocean, extending into a panhandle along the northern Gulf coast. It is bordered in the north by Alabama and Georgia and is separated by short distances of ocean from Cuba and the Bahamas.

Britton Hill is the highest point of the state, but at 105 m, it’s also the lowest highest point of any state. This hill is situated in the panhandle. Highest point in the peninsula is Sugarloaf Mountain (95 m) in Lake County.

Florida’s humid subtropical climate – bordering on the true tropical in the Keys – is tempered by the proximity to water, more precisely by the moderating influence of the Gulf Stream. The state averages 300 sunny days per year, the seasons being determined more by precipitation than by temperature: warm and dry autumns and winters alternate with hot, wet springs and summers. Temperature records vary from –2°C to 43°C, with a summer average of 32°C and a winter average of 4-7°C (northern FL) to 13°C (southern FL).

Although FL carries the nickname ‘Sunshine State’, Floridians are no strangers to extreme weather. FL has the highest average precipitation of any state and leads the US in tornadoes/sq. km, although they typically never are as intense as in the Midwest. Central FL is the ‘lightning capital’ of the US. Storms occur frequently due to collisions of airflow from the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean, but can be over in a jiffy – a violent interlude in an otherwise gorgeous day.

Snow is very rare in Florida, although a blizzard occurred in 1899, thereafter known as the Great Blizzard of 1899. It’s the only time in recorded history that the temperature in Florida dropped below –18°C (0°F). In February of 1978, snow fell over all of Florida as far south as Homestead. ‘Cold Sunday’ ruined that year’s orange crop.

A more familiar form of ‘extreme’ weather are hurricanes. Hurricane season lasts from June 1 to November 30 – outside this period, sea temperatures are too low to facilitate the formation of hurricanes. Evidence seems to indicate that recently, hurricane season has been getting worse due to global warming. In 2004, FL was hit by a record 4 hurricanes. Katrina had passed by FL and Rita hit the Keys when we were in the States, although fortunately we were way up north, in Maine. Most destructive of recent hurricanes was Andrew, who caused more than $25 billion in damage when it struck on August 24, 1992.

FL, the 4th most populous state, is the 5th-largest producer of greenhouse gases. Whether climate change is actually happening and how much of it is man-made, remains open for debate – although an increasing number of scientists agree that change is happening and that it is man-made. Fact is, FL has been experiencing more and stronger hurricanes than ever before in recorded history. Research does show that global hurricane intensity has increased, with a doubling of the number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes between 1970 and 2000. That increase coincides with a rise of nearly 1 degree Fahrenheit in ocean surface temperatures. Florida's state climatologist, James O'Brien, argues the increase in stronger storms is merely part of a natural cycle.

History

Indigenous peoples inhabited FL for thousands of years prior to European settlement, with the largest tribes bein the Ais, Apalachee, Calusa, Timucua and Tocobago. Juan Ponce de León made landfall at FL on April 2, 1513, whereafter the territory was known as ‘La Florida’. Ponce de León may not have been the first European to reach FL, though, as at least one Indian he encountered could speak Spanish.

In the course of the following century, French and Spanish intruders established competing footholds in the peninsula, with Spaniards establishing Pensacola in 1559 as the first European settlement in the continental US (only to abandon it again by 1561; it would not be re-established until the 1690s). French Huguenots established Fort Caroline in 1564 in the area of modern-day Jacksonville, only for it to be conquered by Spanish forces from St Augustine the following year. Most of the Huguenots were slaughtered. Survivors of a wrecked French punitive fleet were massacred beside a river thenceforth known as Matanzas (‘killings’).

The Spanish exerted a tenuous hold on Florida at best, relying on the converted chieftains of local tribes (the ‘Caciques’) for the exertion of their power. Spanish Florida diminished in surface with the establishment of British colonies to the north and French colonies to the west. The British and the Spanish alike would encourage native tribes under their control to fight with tribes loyal to the opposing empire, the British supplying firearms to their Creek allies and burning St Augustine to the ground several times. The Spanish established a buffer zone north of St Augustine, where they encouraged the settlement of slaves who had run away from British territories. These freed slaves (who were converted to Catholicism) in Gracie Real de Santa Teresa de Mose constituted the first completely black settlement in the US.

In 1763 through the Peace of Paris, Britain gained control of Florida. Britain tried to encourage agriculture via immigrants from Crete and Menorca, but this experiment failed. In 1783, after Britain’s defeat at the hands of the nascent US of A, Spain regained Florida only to cede it to the US in 1819 in exchange for the US renouncing any claim to Texas.

Florida became the 27th state of the Union on March 3, 1845 only to secede from it on January 10, 1861, before the formal outbreak of the Civil War. Ten days later, Florida became a founding member of the Confederate States of America. On June 25, 1868, Florida’s congressional representation was restored.

Florida was the least populous Southern state until well into the 20th century. Due to the invention of air conditioning, and thanks to the industriousness of businessmen who thought the land perfect for tourism, a large migration from the colder, industrial north to Florida has been ongoing since the middle of the previous century. Today, Florida is the fourth most populous state in the US, second only to Texas in the South.

Demographics

During Slavery and Reconstruction, African-Americans made up 50% of the population. Today, they maintain a strong presence in the north, with Jacksonville having over 250.000 black residents, more than New Orleans (even before Katrina). The city is slated to become majority-black by 2025. Many blacks in the south, esp. in Miami, are of Haitian origin.

Hispanics in Florida are mainly Cuban (Miami, Tampa), Puerto Rican (Tampa, Orlando) and Central American (West-Central and Southern Florida). The Hispanic community continues to grow in size and affluence, with Lee County in Southwest Florida having the fastest Hispanic growth rate of any county in the US between 2000 and 2004.
Whites in inland and northern Florida are culturally aligned with Southern culture. Apart from these ‘Florida Crackers’ of mainly British descent, whites are present everywhere in the state, with large German and Italian communities in Southwest Florida and Miami respectively.

Languages

In 2000, almost 77% of over-5s spoke English at home, 16,5% speaking Spanish. Third language is French (2,2%), followed by German (0,4%) and Italian (0,4%). English was adopted as the official language of the state in 1988, following an initiative petition.

Religion

As throughout the South, FL is a mainly protestant state with a growing catholic minority. Unique to FL is the sizeable Jewish community. Religious statistics are as follows. Christian: 82%, of which 54% protestant (19% baptist, 6% methodist, 4% presbyterian, 3% episcopal, 3% lutheran, 3% pentecostal, 16% other) and 26% Roman catholic and 2% ‘other’. Non-christian: 18%, of which Jewish 4%, other 1% and none 13%.

Government and law

FL’s governor is Jeb Bush, none other than the son of former president George H.W. Bush and consequently also brother of current US president George W. ‘Dubya’ Bush. Like his kin, Jeb is a Republican. At one time, as many as 68,5% of all Floridians were registered Democrats. But these socially conservative Democrats were gradually alienated from the progressive policies of the national Democratic party. This, and the influx of non-Democrats from other states, has turned the balance in Florida, as it has in most other Southern states, to the favour of the Republican Party – although registered Democrats still outnumber registered Republicans in Florida.

The partisan side of Florida politics burst upon the world stage at the time of the extremely close 2000 presidential election, which eventually was decided by the votes in Florida – Bush winning with the slightest of margins, contested by his opponent (but not vigourously enough, according to some in his party).

Economy

The gross state product of Florida in 2003 was $599 billion. Personal income was $30,098 per capita, ranking 26th in the nation. FL relies heavily on tourism, drawing in 60 million visitors every year. They come to visit the beaches and theme parks such as Walt Disney World Resort, actually a mega-resort consisting of four theme parks. Other major industries are citrus (fruit and juice), banking and phosphate mining (in the Bone Valley region). An aerospace industry has developed around Kennedy Space Center.

Historically, Florida's economy was based upon cattle farming and agriculture (esp. sugarcane, citrus, tomatoes, strawberries). In the early 1900, land speculators discovered Florida, and Plant and Henry Flagler developed railway systems, which led people to move in, drawn by the weather and local economies. From then on, tourism boomed, fueling a cycle of development and tourism that overwhelmed a great deal of farmland.

In 2004 and 2005, key industries along the west coast—commercial fishing and water-based tourist activities (sports fishing and diving)—were threatened by outbreaks of red tide, a discoloration of seawater caused by an efflorescence of toxin-producing dinoflagellates.

Florida is one of only 9 states not to impose a personal income tax, levying a state tax on ‘intangible personal property’ such as stocks, bonds etc. In April 2006, the state legislature was considering a repeal of this tax. The state sales tax is 6%.

Spring training

Florida is the traditional home for Major League Baseball spring training, with teams informally organized into the ‘Grapefruit League’.

Auto-racing tracks

Florida is home to two well-known Speedways, at Daytona and at Homestead-Miami.

State symbols

· Nickname: "The Sunshine State"
· State Bird: Mockingbird
· State Flower: Orange blossom - (Citrus sinensis)
· State Insect: Zebra Longwing Butterfly [11]
· State Song: "Old Folks at Home (Suwannee River)" by Stephen C. Foster
· State Tree: Sabal Palm
· State Reptile: American Alligator
· State Animal: Florida Panther
· State Marine Mammal: West Indian Manatee
· State Saltwater Mammal: Dolphin
· State Drink: Orange juice
· State Fruit: Orange
· State Shell: Horse Conch (The great band shell)
· State Saltwater Fish: Sailfish
· State Freshwater Fish: Florida Largemouth Bass

Folkston (35 miles from Waycross)

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Waycross (29 miles from Alma)

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Alma (70 miles from Lexsy)

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Lexsy (41 miles from Louisville)

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Louisville (45 miles from Augusta)

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Augusta (9 miles from Clearwater)

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The state of Georgia

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Clearwater (39 miles from Batesburg)

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Batesburg (32 miles from Columbia)

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Columbia (32 miles from Camden)

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Camden (42 miles from Patrick)

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Patrick (22 miles from Everetts Mill)

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The state of South Carolina

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The Province of South Carolina was one of the original 13 colonies to secede from Britain, in fact the very first to declare its independence. It was also the first to secede from the US to form the CSA (Confederate States of America). The state was named after King Charles I of England. Capitol of the state is Columbia (from 1760 to 1789 it was Charleston). Columbia also is the biggest city. Biggest metro area is Greenville. SC is ranked 40th in size (82.965 km²) and 21st in population density.

Geography

SC, hemmed in between North Carolina, Georgia (across the Savannah River) and the Atlantic Ocean, consists of four distinct regions.

·The Coastal Plain (a.k.a. the Lowcountry) is flat, partially swampy and otherwise excellent farmland. The coastline contains many salt marshes, estuaries and Carolina Bays (possibly the result of an ancient meteor shower).
·The Sand Hills just west of the Just west of the Coastal Plain might be ancient coastal dunes from a time when the sea level was higher.
·The Piedmont area contains the roots of an ancient, eroded mountain chain. Hilly and hardly farmable, much of it has been reforested. At the edge of the Piedmont is the fall line, where rivers drop to the coastal plain. The fall line was an important early source of water power, and mills built to harness this resource encouraged the growth of several cities, including the capital, Columbia. The larger rivers are navigable up to the fall line, providing a trade route for mill towns. The upper part of the Piedmont is also known as the Foothills.
·Highest in elevation is the Upcountry, containing an escarpment of the Blue Ridge Mountains, which continue into North Carolina and Georgia, as part of the southern Appalachian chain. Sassafras Mountain, South Carolina's highest point at 1,085m is located here.

State emblems

State Nickname: the Palmetto State
State Capital: Columbia
State Motto: Dum spiro spero (“While I Breathe I Hope”)
State Song: Carolina
State Tree: Sabal palmetto
State Flower: yellow jessamine
State Bird: Carolina wren
State Wild Game Bird: wild turkey
State Dog: boykin spaniel
State Hospitality Beverage: tea
State Animal: white-tailed deer
State Reptile: loggerhead sea turtle
State Amphibian: spotted salamander
State Fish: striped bass
State Insect: Carolina mantid
State Butterfly: tiger swallowtail
State Fruit: peach
State Beverage: milk
State Gemstone: amethyst
State Stone: blue granite
State Popular Music: beach music
State Dance: shag
State Snack: boiled peanuts
State Craft: sweetgrass basket weaving

History

·In 1670, the Lords Proprietors sent the first English settlers, followed by French Huguenots. The upcountry was settles mainly by Scotch-Irish from Pennsylvania and Virginia.
·In 1712, North Carolina was separated.
·In 1729, Carolina (South and/or North?) became a royal colony.
·On March 15, 1776, South Carolina declared its independence from Great Britain and set up its own government.
·On February 5, 1778, SC became the first state to ratify the first constitution of the US, the Articles of Confederation.
·On May 23, 1788, SC became the eighth state.
·On December 20, 1860, SC was the first state to secede from the US.
·On April 12, 1861, Confederate batteries began shelling Fort Sumter (on an island in the Charleston harbour), which was occupied by Union forces. This was the beginning of the Civil War. The First Shot of that war is attributed to a Edmund Ruffin.
·After reincorporation into the US (the ‘Reconstruction’ period), SC became a hotbed of racial and economic controversy in the late 1800s (cf. the ‘Populist’ and ‘Agrarian’ movements).
·In the 20th century, SC developed a thriving textile industry, switched from cotton to more profitable crops and attracted large military bases and European manufacturers.

Demographics

In 1790, SC had a population of just under a quarter of a million souls. By 1850, this had doubled to just over half a million, to reach its first full million somewhere after 1880. Between 1940 and 1950, SC reached its second million, hitting its third right before 1980. The year 2000 saw SC’s fourth millionth inhabitant. As of 2005, the US Census Bureau estimates SC’s population to be over 4.225.000, up 6,1% from 2000. IN 2000, SC ranked 26th in population.
The racial makeup of the state is 66% white, 30% black, 2,5% hispanic and 1% Asian. The largest ancestry groups are African American (30%), ‘American’ (14%), German (8%), English (8%), Irish (8%). For most of its history, black slaves have been the majority (up to 75%).

Religion

This is the ‘buckle in the bible belt’, with a lot more Protestants and a lot less atheists than elsewhere in the States. Christians consitute 92%: 84% Protestant (Baptist 45%, Methodist 15%, Presbyterian 5%, Other 19%) and 7% Roman Catholic. ‘Other Christian’ and ‘Other Religion’ each constitute 1%, Non-Religious make up 7%.

Economy

SC has a gross state product (in 2004) of $136 billion and a per capita income (in 2000) of $24.000, 81% of the national average. Major agricultural output includes tobacco, poultry, cattle, dairy, soy and hogs. Industrial output includes textiles, chemicals, paper, machinery, tourism.

Famous people from South Carolina

* William Westmoreland: (°Spartanburg County, 1914-2005): at one point commander of all US ground forces during the Vietnam War and Chief of Staff of the US Army.

* Ben Bernanke: (°1953) replaced Alan Greenspan after 18 years as Chairman of the Federal Reserve on January 31, 2006.

* James Brown: (°Barnwell, 1933) legendary singer known as the ‘Godfather of Soul’.
Chubby Checker (°Spring Gulley): singer, born Ernest Evans.

* Joe Frazier (°Beaufort, 1944): 1964 Olympic heavyweight champion, world heavyweight champion 1970-1973.

* John Birks ‘Dizzy’ Gillespie (°Cheraw, 1917-1993): possibly the greatest jazz trumpeter of all time.

* Andrew Jackson (°Lancaster, 1767-1845): hero of the battle of New Orleans and 7th president of the US.

* Jesse Jackson (°Greenville): democratic presidential candidate (?), civil and social rights politician.

* Jasper Johns: one of the most important American painters of the 20th century.

* Frances Marion (°Georgetown, 1732-1795): a.k.a. the ‘Swamp Fox’, this brigadier general in the Revolutionary War was the basis for Mel Gibson’s character in the movie The Patriot.

* Andie McDowell (°Gaffney): model and actress, best known for her roles in Four Weddings and a Funeral, Groundhog Day and Green Card.

* Dr Ronald McNair (°Lake City, 1950-1986): one of seven astronauts who died in the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger.

* John Phillips (°Parris Island, 1935-2001): founder of the ‘60s band The Mamas and the Papas.

* Chris Rock (°Andrews, 1965): comedian and actor.
Strom Thurmond (°Edgefield, 1902-2003): SC governor (1947-’51), only US Senator to be elected by a write-in vote (1954), oldest and longest-serving US Senator (from 1997 onwards), retired from public life at age 100, after his eighth term. Died in his hometown.

* John B. Watson: psychologist and father of Behaviorism.

Alcohol laws

Wine and beer you buy in grocery stores. Hard liquor, you can only get in the State Liquor Store (ABC’s if I recall correctly). In most of SC, you can’t get any alcohol on a Sunday – meaning that bars will kick you out at the stroke of midnight on Saturday night. Bars that are too close to a church can’t even sell hard liquor. Before 2006, bars couldn’t serve hard liquor from ‘free pour’-bottles, but had to stock airline-style mini-bottles. IN SC, it’s illegal to be grossly intoxicated in public, which is an arrestable offence.

Everetts Mill (42 miles from Southern Pines)

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Southern Pines (67 miles from Raleigh)

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Raleigh (65 miles from Palmer Crossroads)

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The state of North Carolina

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NORTH CAROLINA

North Carolina is one of the original 13 states of the US, home to the first English colony in America. It was also the place where the Wright Brothers successfully flew the first heavier than air flying machine. Capital is Raleigh, although biggest city is Charlotte.
At 139.509 km², NC is ranked 28th in area. With a bit more than 8 million inhabitants, it ranks 11th (17th qua density). Highest point is Mt Mitchell (2.038 m). NC was admitted to the Union on November 12, 1789. Nicknames: Tar Heel State, Old North State. Motto: Esse quam videri.

Geography

NC is a South Atlantic State bounded by Virginia (N), the Atlantic Ocean (E), South Carolina (S) and Georgia and Tennessee (W), consisting of three distinct geographic sections, east to west:
The Coastal Plain (45%), Piedmont (35%) and the Appalachian Mountains and foothills (20%).
· The Coastal Plain begins in the east as a chain of narrow, sandy barrier islands, the ‘Outer Banks’, separated by the two largest landlocked sounds in the US (Albemarle and Pamlico) from the flat, rich soils ideal for growing tobacco, cotton etc.
· Along the ‘fall line’ (the elevation at which waterfalls first appear on streams and rivers, making them unnavigable), the Coastal Plain turns into the Piedmont: gently rolling countryside (although now heavily populated) broken by hills or isolated mountain ridges.
· The Appalachian part of the state in the west is dominated by the Great Smoky, Blue Ridge, Balsam, Pisgah and Black Mountains. The former are the highest in the eastern US, with Mount Mitchell (2.037m) being the highest point east of the Mississippi.
History
Native Americans and Lost Colony
Not only, most famously home to the Cherokee, NC was also inhabited by the Tuscarora, Cheraw, Pamlico, Meherrin, Coree, Machapunga, Cape Fear, Waxhaw, Saponi, Tutelo, Waccamaw, Lumbee, Charie and Catawba tribes of native Americans. NC also was the site where the English first attempted to colonise the Americas. Sir Walter Raleigh, after whom the state capital is named, chartered two colonies in the late 1580s in what was then known as Virginia. Both attempts failed.
Most appealing to the imagination of later generations was the disappearance of the so-called ‘Lost Colony’ at Roanoake Island. The first English child to be born in North America was born in NC: Virginia Dare.
Colonial period and Revolutionary War
Rapid growth of the English colony in Virginia caused settlers to move from there to NC, one of the first being Nathaniel Batts, who settled south of the Chowan River and east of the Great Dismal Swamp in 1655. Full-scale English settlement of the ‘Province of Carolina’ was well under way by 1663.
The province of Carolina was given by Charles II to the Lords Proprietors, a group of noblemen who had helped restore him to the British Throne in 1660. In 1712, NC became a separate colony, becoming a ‘royal’ colony 17 years.
On April 12, 1776, NC became the first colony to instruct its delegates to the Continental Congress to vote for independence from the British Crown. A pivotal battle in the Revolutionary War was fought on March 15, 1781. RI native General Nathaniel Greene, with 4.400 troops, routed 1.900 British troops under General Cornwallis at the Battle of Guilford Court House (inside present-day Greensboro).
NC ratified the Constitution on November 21, 1789 to become the 12th state in the Union. It did so only after demanding a Bill of Rights be added to the Constitution.
Civil War
Although a slave state, NC refused to join the Confederacy until president Lincoln ordered it to invade its sister state SC. Thereafter, it provided 125.000 troops to the South, more than any other state. Approximately 40.000 of them died.
After Robert E. Lee’s surrender in April 1865, a small guerilla force of white and Cherokee confederates kept fighting under William Holland Thomas. This ‘Thomas Legion’ remained undefeated and actually fired the ‘last shot of the war’ on May 6, 1865 at White Sulphur Springs.
Demographics
As of 2005, NC has a population of 8.683.242, an increase of 7,9% since 2000. Three metro areas each have a population of over one million: Charlotte/Gastonia/Salisbury (NC and SC): 2 million; Greenboro/Winston-Salem/High Point (the Piedmont Triad): 1,5 million; Raleigh/Durham/Cary: 1,5 million.
The state is 70% white, 22% black, 1,4% Asian, 1,2% Native and 1,3% Mixed. Hispanics comprise 4%. Africans are the largest (22%) ancestry group, followed by Scots-Irish (14%), English (10%), Irish (7%).
African-Americans
African Americans concentrate in the eastern Coastal Plain, in parts of the Piedmont Plateau where plantations were dominant.
European-Americans
NC-ians with Scots-Irish and British ancestors live in the western mountains, coastal areas and rural areas of central Piedmont. German-Americans also in the Piedmont, throughout but in smaller numbers. Winston-Salem and surroundings is home to many of Czech ancestry, dating from Moravian immigration in the 18th century.
Native Americans
An estimated 110.200 North Carolinians (1,3%) are of Native American descent (in 2004). Only California, Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Texas have larger Native American populations – meaning NC has the highest number of Natives of any state east of the Mississippi. Incidentally: the total for the US is 0,95% which equals 2.825.000 individuals. NC recognises 8 tribal nations, being:
1. The Lumbee: largest tribe east of the Mississippi, ninth largest tribal nation US-wide, largest non-reservation, non-federally recognised tribe. Population stands at around 53.000, with Lumbee living in Robeson, Hoke, Scotland and Cumberland counties. The Lumbee were recognised by NC in 1885.
2. The Cherokee (Eastern Band): federally recognised in 1868, recognised by NC in 1889. Population around 13.400, mainly in Graham and Jackson counties. Most Eastern Cherokee live on the Qualla Boundary reservation, slightly more than 56.000 acres.
3. The Haliwa-Saponi: state recognition in 1965, comprising 3.900 members in Halifax and Warren counties.
4. The Waccamaw Siouan: almost 2.000 members in Bladen and Columbus counties, received state recognition in 1971.
5. The Coharie: received state recognition in 1911, rescinded in 1913 and reinstated in 1971. About 1.800 members, in Sampson and Harnett counties.
6. The Sappony: recognised by NC in 1911, 850 members in Person county.
7. The Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation: 800 members in Orange and Alamance counites, recognised by NC in 2002.
8. The Meherrin: an Iroquian-descent tribe in Hertford, Bertie and Gates counties, pop.: 560.
Hispanic and Asian-Americans
The state has one of the fastest growing Hispanic and Asian populations in the country; the populations have nearly quintupled and tripled respectively between 1990 and 2002.
Religion
As a Southern state, NC has an overwhelmingly Protestant tradition, dominated by the Baptists. An influx of Northerners and of (Catholic) immigrants is changing the equation. Current affiliations:
Protestant: 77% (of which 40% Baptist, 10% Methodist, 3% Presbyterian and 24% ‘other’); Catholic: 10%; other Christian: 1%. Other religions: 1%. Non-religious: 11%.
Economy
In 2003, NC had an average per capita personal income of $28.071, ranking 38th in the US – making it a rather poor state. NC’s total gross state product for 2004 was $336 billion. NC has an important agricultural output (poultry, tobacco, livestock, soybeans) but also ranked 8th in the nation in industrial output. NC unfortunately also is the state most affected by outsourcing: 1 in 5 NC manufacturing jobs has been lost to ‘overseas’.
Some positive points, though: the Research Triangle Park between Raleigh and Durham; Charlotte, the 2nd largest banking centre in the US, after NYC; and NASCAR, whose Hall of Fame will be built in Charlotte and whose many races in the state contribute to the economy. NC also is the largest film making state outside of CA and NY, with studios in Shelby, Raleigh, Durham, Charlotte, Asheville and Wilmington.
Law and government
2005 saw the State Legislature’s decision to implement a state lottery, going against NC’s rep as an ‘anti-lottery’ state. Owning a lottery ticket, even if it originated in another state, once was a felony.
Although beer and wine can be sold by retailers, NC remains a control state, one of 19 states that maintains a monopoly on the sale of (some) alcoholic beverages, following the end of Prohibition.
Professional sports teams
Despite its relatively large population, NC hasn’t got a single major professional sports league in baseball, football or hockey. This is due to the distribution of population into three relatively small metropolitan areas.
Miscellaneous topics
Fort Bragg, near Fayetteville, is the US’s largest military base and HQ to the XVIII Airborne Corps, the 82nd Airborne Division and the US Army Special Operations Command. Right next door is Pope AFB. NC also houses the Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune. When combined with nearby Marine bases MCAS Cherry Point, Camp Geiger, Camp Johnson, Stone Bay and Courthouse Bay makes up the largest concentration of Marines and sailors in the world.
Interesting city names
Bat Cave – Bear Grass – Big Lick – Booger Mountain – Climax – Frog Pond – Frying Pan Landing – Fuquay-Varina – Half-Hell Swamp – Kill Devil Hills – Lizard Lick – Red Bug – Rich Square – Soul City – Welcome – Whynot – Erect.
North Carolina State Symbols listed in the order adopted by the North Carolina General Assembly:
State motto: Esse quam videri ("To be, rather than to seem"), adopted 1893
State song: "The Old North State", adopted 1927
State flower: Dogwood (Cornus florida), adopted 1941
State bird: Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis), adopted March 5, 1943
State colors: The red and blue of the Flag of North Carolina and Flag of the United States
State toast: see North Carolina State Toast; adopted 1957
State tree: Pine tree, adopted 1963
State shell: Scotch Bonnet, adopted 1965
State mammal: Grey squirrel, adopted 1969
State salt water fish: Channel Bass, adopted 1971
State insect: Honey Bee, adopted 1973
State precious stone: Emerald, adopted 1973
State reptile: Eastern box turtle, adopted 1979
State rock: Granite, adopted 1979
State beverage: Milk, adopted 1987
State historical boat: Shad Boat, adopted 1987
State dog: Plott Hound, adopted August 12, 1989
State military academy: Oak Ridge Military Academy, adopted 1991
State vegetable: Sweet potato, adopted 1995
State red berry: Strawberry, adopted 2001
State blue berry: Blueberry, adopted 2001
State fruit: Scuppernong grape, adopted 2001
State wildflower: Carolina lily (Lilium michauxii), adopted 2003
State christmas tree:Faser Fir, adopted 2005
State carnivorous plant: Venus Flytrap (Dionaea Muscipula), adopted 2005
State Dance: Clogging;The Shag adopted 2005
Public/Military Figures
NC produced three presidents: Andrew Jackson (1767-1845), Andrew Johnson (1808-1875) and James K. Polk (1797-1849), resp. the 7th, 17th and 11th presidents of the USA. Other politicians of note are Hiram Revels (1822-1901), the first African-American member of the US Senate and John Edwards (1953), former US Senator and 2004 vice-presidential candidate.
Entertainment
NC was home to moviestar Ava Gardner, and music stars Ryan Adams, Tori Amos, George Clinton, John Coltrane, Ben Folds, Roberta Flack, Ben E. King, Thelonious Monk, Nina Simone and Loudon Wainwright III.
Sports/Athletics
Professional boxer Sugar Ray Leonard (1956) won Olympic gold in 1976.
Other
Caleb Bradham invented Pepsi Cola, Virginia Dare was the first English person born in America, Billy Graham is a world-famous evangelist, Conrad Reed found a gold nugget while fishing, instigating the first gold rush in NC.
North Carolina residents born elsewhere
The ‘original’ Siamese twins, Chang and Eng Bunker, performed for audiences throughout the world in the 19th century beofre settling in the mountainous west of NC, marrying two local sisters. Their descendants live there to this day.
Edward Teach (1680-1718), better known as Blackbeard, was a pirate who kept his hideout in the harbour of Ocracoke Island on NC’s Outer Banks.
Richard M. Nixon (1913-1994), president of the US, graduated from Law School at Duke University (Durham) in 1937.

Palmer Crossroads (93 miles from Richmond)

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Richmond (55 miles from Fredericksburg)

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Fredricksburg (52 miles from Washington DC)

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The Commonwealth of Virginia

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Washington DC (10 miles from College Park)

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The federal District of Columbia

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College Park (30 miles from Baltimore)

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Baltimore (25 miles from Marywood)

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Marywood (24 miles from Sylmar)

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The state of Maryland

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Sylmar (52 miles from Philadelphia)

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Philadelphia (32 miles from Trenton)

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The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania

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Trenton (44 miles from Elizabeth)

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Elizabeth (22 miles from Fort Lee)

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Fort Lee (8 miles from the Bronx)

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The state of New Jersey

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The Bronx (18 miles from Greenwich/Byram)

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The great state of New York

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Greenwich (48 miles from New Haven)

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New Haven (63 miles from Westerly)

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The State of Connecticut

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Westerly (47 miles from Providence)

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After Providence, US-1 moves South through Cranston, Warwick, East Greenwich, North Kingstown, South Kingstown, Narragansett, South Kingstown, Charlestown and finally Westerly, the last city on US-1 in Rhode Island.

Right after Providence, we enter the city of Cranston (pop.: 79.269 in 2000), which consists of many separate neighbourhoods and villages with a suburban character, such as Auburn, Edgewood, Fiskeville, Howard (home to RI's State Prison, now called the Maximum Security Building), Jackson, Knightsville, Meshanticut, Oaklawn, Thornton, Garden City, Dean Estates, Arlington, Eden Park, Pawtuxet Village ('pawtuxet' means 'Little Falls' in the Narragansett language. Here, in 1772 RI patriots took the first organized military action towards independence by attacking and burning the hated British revenue schooner, HMS Gaspee. This was "America's First Blow for Freedom" that led directly to the establishment of permanent Committees of Correspondence, unifiing the individual colonies, and starting the process of the American Revolution) and Woodridge.
Cranston was (in the 2000 census) 89% white, 4% black, 0,30% Native American, 3% Asian and 3,5% "mixed or other". Hispanics constituted 4,5%. It's home to the first auto race track in the USA, Narragansett Park, which opened in September 1986 in Knightsville and to the Budlong Pool, one of the largest outdoor swimming pools in the country.

US-1 winds its way south through Warwick, the second largest city in the state (85.808 inhabitants in 2000). It was founded in 1642 by Samuel Gorton, was decimated during King Philip's War (1675-76) and was the site of the first shot fired of the American Revolution against the British schooner Gaspée. Warwick is also the home of revolutionary war general Nathaniel Greene, George Washington's second-in-command, and the Civil War hero of the battle of Gettysburg, General George S. Greene.

Warwick was founded in 1642 by Samuel Gorton when Narragansett Indian Chief Sachem Miantonomi agreed to accept 144 fathoms of Wampumpeague (a sort of cloth the Indians regarded as sacred; LOOK UP) for what was known as "The Shawhomett Purchase". This included the present day towns of Coventry and West Warwick. In 1648, Gorton was granted a Charter by Robert Rich, 2nd Earl of Warwick. Because of this, the name of the settlement was changed from Shawomett to Warwick.
In 1772, Warwick was the scene for the first violent act against the Crown when, in what was to be called the Gaspée Affair, local patriots boarded the British HMS Gaspée, a revenue cutter charged with enforcing the Stamp Act 1765 and Townshend Acts in an area where smuggling was common, the Narragansett Bay. It was here that the first blood of the American Revolution was spilled when the commanding officer of the Gaspée, Lt. Duddingston, was shot while resisting the taking of his ship. The Gaspée was stripped of all cannon and arms before being torched.
During the Revolution, Warwick Militiamen participated in the battles of Montreal, Quebec, Saratoga, Monmouth, Trenton, Rhode Island, and were present for the surrender at Yorktown.
After the war, Warwick and the rest of Rhode Island voted against ratification of the Constitution as it lacked a "Bill of Rights" as was found in Rhode Island's State Constitution. Thus, when the newly inaugurated President George Washington left New York City to travel to Boston, he was required to detour around "The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations" as it was an "Independent and Sovereign Republic".
The following villages are located in Warwick: Hillsgrove (site of TF Green Airport), Norwood,Warwick Neck, Conimicut, Cowesett (home of actor James Woods), Hoxsie, Apponaug (Narragansett for 'place of oysters'), Oakland Beach, Gaspee, Pilgrim, Buttonwoods, Potowomut ('Land of Fires', birthplace of general Greene and an exclave of Warwick, only reachable by US-1, which doubles as the Post Road here), Greenwood, Pontiac, Lakewood, Pawtuxet, Wildes Corner and Nausauket.

Next up is East Greenwich (pop. 13.000 in 2000), known as the Birthplace of the American Navy and the wealthiest municipality in RI - and also (some might say: consequently) one of only two Republican-majority towns in RI.

On 12 June 1775, the Rhode Island General Assembly, meeting at East Greenwich, passed a resolution, which created the first formal, governmentally authorized navy in the Western Hemisphere: “It is voted and resolved, that the committee of safety be, and they are hereby, directed to charter two suitable vessels, for the use of the colony, and fit out the same in the best manner, to protect the trade of this colony... “That the largest of the said vessels be manned with eighty men, exclusive of officers; and be equipped with ten guns, four-pounders; fourteen swivel guns, a sufficient number of small arms, and all necessary warlike stores. “That the small vessel be manned with a number not exceeding thirty men. “That the whole be included in the number of fifteen hundred men, ordered to be raised in this colony... “That they receive the same bounty and pay as the land forces...”
Wasting no time, on 12 June 1775, the same day as the above resolution, Governor Nicholas Cooke signed orders addressed to “Captain Abraham Whipple, commander of the Sloop Katy, and commodore of the armed vessels employed by the government…” A number of other towns also claim to be the birthplace of the American Navy, but none are as early, and none involve specific government authorization.

North Kingstown (pop. 26.326 in 2000) is followed by, unsurprisingly, South Kingston (pop. 27.921 in 2000), which is, area-wise, the largest town in Rhode Island (206,6 km²). There are several villages within the town, most notably: Wakefield, Peacedale, Kingston, West Kingston, Matunuck and Green Hill.

Next up is Narragansett (pop. 16.361 in 2000), a town incorporating the following villages and neighbourhoods: Saunderstown (shared with North Kingstown), South Ferry, Bonnett Shores, Narragansett Pier, Point Judith, Galilee, Salt Pond, and Jerusalem (shared with South Kingstown). Narragansett beaches are a popular holiday destination, offering 'the best beach activities in RI'.

Last but one town in Rhode Island along US Route 1 is Charlestown (pop. 7.859 in 2000). Charlestown is named after King Charles II, and was incorporated in 1738. The area was formerly part of the town of Westerly. It was in turn divided and the part north of the Pawcatuck River became the town of Richmond in 1747.

Since 1965 from Charlestown some sounding rockets were launched from 41°22′N 71°40′W. The biggest campaign took place on May 30th, 1965 in order to watch a solar eclipse.

Finally: Westerly. The last town in Rhode Island is a beachfront community of (in 2000) just short of 23.000 residents. The town was founded in 1669 by John Babcock, survives to this day on tourism and textiles but was famous once for its granite, mined from quarries in Bradford and Potter Hill. The Pawcatuck River separates the town and the state of Rhode Island from Stonington, which is in Connecticut. Westerly grantite is mined here, some of it even made the Georgia state house. Other villages are Watch Hill (home to the Flying Horse Carroussel, the oldest continuously operated carroussel in the USA), Misquamicut, Winnapaug, Weekapaug, Dunn's Corners, Bradford, Shelter Harbor, Avondale, Potter Hill and White Rock.

Providence (6 miles from Pawtucket)

2006-06-12T14:10:00.000-07:00

Providence is the capital of RI as well as its largest city, housing more than 178.000 (mid-2004 census), which is one sixth of the state’s entire population. The metropolitan area comprises 1.628.808 people (same census), making it the 34th largest metropolitan area in the country and the second-largest in New England after Boston. Nicknames: the “Beehive of Industry” (because of its early industrialisation) and, since the 1990s, the “Renaissance City”. Its actual name was given by founder Roger Williams in honour of “God’s merciful Providence” when finding this spot after being expelled by the Puritans from Massachusetts.

History of the city
Williams founded the city in 1636, after having secured title to the land from the Narragansett tribe and cultivated it as a refuge for religious dissenters. Much of Providence was burned down in King Phillip’s War (1675-1676).
The tradition of dissent – as well as the rocky terrain, making agriculture difficult – assured that Providence grew slowly for the first decades of its existence. In 1776, it counted 4.300 inhabitants and was a major commercial centre for fishing and maritime trade. The city managed to avoid British occupation during the Revolutionary War, switched to manufacturing thereafter – specialising in machine tools, silverware, jewelry and textiles. At one time, Providence boasted the largest steam engine factory in the US (Corliss), the largest silverware plant (Gorham), the largest machine tool plant (Brown and Sharpe), the largest file and rasp maker (Nicholson), and the largest screw manufacturer (American Screw).
The city attracted many immigrants, leading to white and black race riots in the 1820s. From 1854 to 1900, Providence and Newport were joint capitals of RI, Providence becoming the sole capital in 1900. However, the city was hit by a decline in manufacturing by the mid-1920s, by the New England Hurricane of 1938 and by the national downturn of major cities after WWII, due to suburbanization and highway construction.
From the 1950s to the 1980s, Providence was notorious as a bastion of the Mafia, or ‘The Office’ as it was locally known. It was run out of a small vending machine office on Atwells Avenue in Providence’s ‘Little Italy’ on Federal Hill. Its most notorious boss was Raymond Patriarca, at one time rumoured to be more powerful than the RI governor.
The city began to revive from the 1970s onwards, dubbed the ‘Providence Renaissance’ – even leading to plans for the completion of the Masonic Temple, abandoned during the Great Depression.

Downcity
The downcity area is home to the state’s tallest buildings: the former Industrial Trust Tower (currently Bank of America) at 130 metres is the talles, followed by One Financial Center. Many 19th century merchantile buildings in the Federal and Victorian architectural styles, as well as several post-modern and modernist buildings, are located throughout the Downcity area. The city's southern waterfront, away from the downcity core, is the location of many oil tanks, a docking station for a ferry boat, a decommissioned Russian submarine, bars, strip clubs, and power plants. Abandoned and revitalized industrial mills, triple and double-decker housing, a small number of high-rise buildings (predominantly for housing the elderly), and single family homes make up the majority of the cityscape. I-95 serves as a physical barrier between the city's commercial core and neighborhoods such as Federal Hill and the West End.

Demographics
Out of the almost 175.000 inhabitants, 55% are Caucasian, 15% are African American, 6% are Asian American, 1% are Native American and 17% are ‘other’, with 30% Hispanics of any race.

Economy
One of the first US cities to industrialise, Providence still has substantial centres for jewelry and silverware design and manufacturing. The Providence Place Mall is a major retail center in the city.

Government
Vincent Cianci Jr, often credited with the city’s renaissance in the 1990s, was Providence’s longest serving mayor. Nevertheless, in April 2001 he was indicted on various federal charges including racketeering, conspiracy, extortion, witness tampering and mail fraud. He is currently serving time in prison and was succeeded in 2002 by David N. Cicilline, the first openly gay mayor of a US state.

Education
Providence is home to a number of prestigious schools, including Brown University (Ivy League) and RI School of School of Design (one of the world’s top art colleges) and Johnson and Wales University (with a culinary programme considered to be one of the best in the world).

Culture
Apart from a rich mix of ethnic neighbourhoods (ranging from Italian and Irish to Dominican and Cambodian), Providence is home to a vibrant and growing Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender communities in the Northeast. Mayor Cianci instituted the position of Mayor's Liaison to the Gay and Lesbian community in the 1990s. There are numerous social and community organizations supporting the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community.
Providence has been the backdrop for several movies and tv series. Family Guy takes place in Quahog, a fictional suburb of Providence. The eponymous tv series Providence and the upcoming series The Brotherhood are set in the city. The Farrelly Brothers set several of their movies in Providence, notably Dumb and Dumber, There’s Something About Mary. The film Outside Providence is set in Pawtucket. Meet Joe Black was filmed on location in Providence.

Interesting locations
Providence’s East Side includes the largest contiguous area of National Historic Society-designated buildings in the US. The nearby Blithewold Mansion houses the largest sequoia tree on the whole East Coast. Providence is also home to the First Baptist Church in America, literally the oldest and first Baptist church in the US, founded by Roger Williams in 1638. The dome of the State Capitol is the fourth largest unsupported dome in the world, and the second largest marble dome after St Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Nibbles Woodaway, the world’s largest termite, is a roadside attraction in the city’s South Side. The Providence Athenaeum is the one of the oldest lending libraries in the world, regularly visited by Edgar Allan Poe.
Providence was home to, and is the burial site of, Stephen Hopkins, nine-time governor of the state and signatory of the Declaration of Independence.

Pawtucket (12 miles from North Attleboro)

2006-05-29T08:12:00.000-07:00

First Rhode Island town is the city of Pawtucket (almost 73.000 inhabitants in 2000), home to McCoy Stadium, where the longest professional baseball game in history was played. Pawtucket is also home to Hasbro, the world's second-largest toys and games manufacturer.

Another claim to fame is that of birthplace of the American Industrial Revolution, based on Slater Mill, built in 1790, the first commercially successful cotton-spinning mill with fully mechanized power in America. Pawtucket hosts a significant population from across the Portuguese Empire. The segment from Cape Verde Islands was featured in a Zip Code USA article from National Geographic magazine. Pawtucket is also one of the few areas of the US with a significant Liberian population, mostly refugees from Charles Taylor's regime.

Former overhead signs, with C sign at leftPawtucket's Downtown Circulator was a one-way loop through downtown; it is similar to British concepts of ring roads. A similar concept was also tried in Providence, Rhode Island with their Downtown Ring Roads. The Circulator used East Avenue, High Street, Summer Street, Goff Avenue, Dexter Street and Park Place West. Each half of the Circulator carried one direction of US 1; sections also carried westbound RI 15 and northbound RI 114. It was signed with a big 'C' on overhead signs. The circulator is no longer signed, though the road configuration remains. Providence's Downtown Ring Roads have suffered a similar fate.

Famous Pawtucketians:
Wendy Carlos, composer and electronic musician
David Hartman, former host of Good Morning America

Rhode Island, smallest state in the Union

2006-05-29T07:24:00.000-07:00

The size of Rhode Island

As in the British media, where comparisons to the principality of Wales (or, somewhat less frequently, the kingdom of Belgium) are used as an easy way of giving an idea of the size of a given area, the US media often uses Rhode Island for this selfsame purpose.
The sentence "last year, an area of Amazon Rainforest the size of Rhode Island was destroyed" will have greater impact than a reference to the exact equivalent of acres. Rhode Island is generally used for comparison to relatively small areas, for larger areas US media prefers the comparison to Texas, which, although it's only the second-largest state (after Alaska), has a reputation for everything larger than life and is responsible for the term Texas-sized, as referring to something larger than normal.

In the United States, newscasters similarly refer to the sizes of Texas (big) and Rhode Island (small) when discussing geographic areas, as well as an American football field when considering sizes related to structures. Texas is more than 33 times the size of Wales, while Wales is about 5 times the size of Rhode Island. (Although Alaska is larger than Texas in terms of size, Texas is commonly used due to its legendary "larger than life" reputation, and the term "Texas-sized" has entered the popular vocabulary to mean something larger than normal.) Some comparisons:

Rhode Island: 4.005 km²
(0,19 times the size of Wales, 0,11 times the size of Belgium, 0,01 times the size of Texas)

Wales: 20.779 km²
(5,19 times the size of Rhode Island, 0,59 times the size of Belgium, 0,03 times the size of Texas)

Belgium: 30.510 km²
(7,62 times the size of Rhode Island, 1,47 times the size of Wales, 0,04 times the size of Texas)

Texas: 696.241 km²
(174 times the size of Rhode Island, 33,5 times the size of Wales, 22,8 times the size of Belgium)

North Attleboro (31 miles from Boston)

2006-04-25T07:16:00.000-07:00

I'm afraid we lost US-1 somewhere in Boston, aiming mainly to get out of town in southernly direction. This is the way Route 1 follows anyway, so we unwittingly might have been on the right road all along, as we passed by the Boston suburbs of Roxbury and Roslindale, entering Dedham (where Washington Street turns into Providence Highway), passing by Islington, Ellis and Norwood, East Walpole, Walpole, Walpole Heights and South Walpole (by which time Providence Turnpike reverts to being Washington Street, and passes by Gilette Stadium), continuing past West Foxboro and Shepardville to reach North Attleboro and then Attleboro itself.

It's the general direction of US-1 and I think we covered most of it. But roads, towns, suburbs, and conurbation in general is such a jumble here, I can't be really sure...

Even Mapquest can't find US-1, preferring instead to follow the I-95 for most of the stretch. In actual fact (I've looked it up in an actual book), US-1 merges with I-93 from the centre of Boston onwards, taking a southernly direction close to the waterfront and actually passing by the Boston Tea Party Ship and Museum. This I-93 forms the southern half of the Boston Orbital Road, colliding with I-95 south of Dedham. A bit to the west is where US-1 comes back into its own again, puttering south, accompanied by I-95 somewhat to the west. North Attleboro is on the Route, and the last town of any significance before Providence, the capital of the state of Rhode Island - a state so small Providence makes up about a quarter of it...

US-1 (and I-93) runs through Dorchester, a large working class neighbourhood - still a centre of Irish immigration - named after the southern English market town of Dorchester, from which many Puritans emigrated.
Neighborhoods within Dorchester include Adams Village, Ashmont Hill, Cedar Grove, Clam Point, Codman Square, Columbia Point, Edward Everett Square, Fields Corner, Four Corners, Franklin Field, Franklin Hill, Grove Hall, Jones Hill, Lower Mills, Meeting House Hill, Neponset, Popes Hill, Port Norfolk, Savin Hill, and Uphams Corner.
The eastern areas of Dorchester are primarily ethnic white, Irish and Vietnamese, while the western half of the neighborhood is the center of Boston's African-American and Cape Verdean community.
In the summer of 1614, Captain John Smith of Virginia fame, entered Boston Harbor and landed a boat with eight men on the Dorchester shore, at what was then a narrow peninsula known as Mattapan or Mattahunts, and today is known as South Boston. The town was founded at what is now the intersection of Columbia Road and Massachusetts Avenue in 1630. Columbia Point is home to the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum and the University of Massachusetts, Boston Campus.
America's first chocolate factory opened in Dorchester, in 1765, and the Walter Baker Chocolate Factory operated there until 1965. Dorchester (in a part of what is now South Boston) was also the site of the Battle of Dorchester Heights in 1776, which eventually resulted in the British evacuating Boston. Dorchester was annexed by Boston in pieces, beginning in 1804 and completed in 1870.
In Victorian times, Dorchester became a popular country retreat for Boston elite, and developed into a bedroom community, easily accessible to the city -- a streetcar suburb. The mother and grandparents of John F. Kennedy lived in the Ashmont Hill neighborhood while John F. "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald was mayor of Boston.
The oldest home in the City of Boston, the James Blake House, built in 1648, is located in Richardson Square, a few blocks from the Dorchester Historical Society. The Boston Globe, the Franklin Park Zoo and the Erie Pub are also located in Dorchester.
About the Erie Pub - actually spelled the Eire Pub, but pronounced 'Erie': "In a city full of landmarks, the Erie Pub is to Dorchester what oxygen is to breathing, not a farm for miles, and always a show of support for the wheat hops and barley growers." The pub is famous nationally for being visited by Presidents Reagan & Clinton while they were in Boston, along with the fact that it's the place Ted Kennedy goes for a pint every election day with the CNN cameras following.

South of Dorchester lies the town of Quincy, settled 1625, incorporated 1792, pronounced 'Kwin-zee', population 88.025 in 2000. It's nicknamed the 'city of presidents", as it is the birthplace and burial site of two presidents, the only father and son to become presidents before Bush Sr and Jr: John Adams and John Quincy Adams. They're buried with their wives in a family crypt beneath the United First Parish Church.
Quincy was first settled by English immigrants in 1625, as Mount Wollaston (with a most unusual history), subsequently became part of Braintree, Massachusetts, was officially incorporated as a separate town in 1792, and made a city in 1888.
Among its several firsts was the Granite Railway, the first commercial railroad in the United States. It was constructed to carry granite from a quarry in Quincy to the Neponset River in Milton so that the stone could be taken to build the Bunker Hill Monument in Charlestown, Massachusetts. Quincy granite became famous throughout the nation, and stonecutting became the city's principal economic activity.
Second was shipbuilding. Sailing ships were built in Quincy for many years, and the final known clipper ship built was in Germantown in the 1870s. The Fore River area became a shipbuilding center in the 1880s -- originally owned by Thomas Watson of telephone fame -- and many famous warships were built at the Fore River Shipyard, including the aircraft carrier USS Lexington (CV-2), the battleships USS Massachusetts (BB-59) and USS Nevada (BB-36), and the USS Salem (CA-139), the world's last all-gun heavy warship, which is still preserved at Fore River as the main exhibit of the United States Naval Ship Building Museum. John J. Kilroy, the author of the famous Kilroy Was Here graffiti, was a welding inspector at Fore River.
Quincy was also an aviation pioneer; Dennison Field in the Squantum section of town was partially developed by Amelia Earhart. In 1910 it was the site of the Harvard Aero Meet, only the second air show in America. It was later leased to the Navy for an airfield, and served as a reserve Squantum Naval Air base into the 1950s.
Quincy was the birthplace of the noted minimalist artist, Carl Andre, presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams, and surf guitarist Dick Dale. Howard Johnson's and Dunkin Donuts also started here.

Quincy lies to the east of US-1, to the west is the town of Milton (settled 1636, incorporated 1662) with a population of (in 2000) just over 26.000. Milton's the home of the prestigious secondary school Milton Academy, the liberal arts college Curry College, and the birthplace of former President George H. W. Bush and Buckminster Fuller. Milton is also the most Irish town in the United States per capita, with 43% of its residents being of Irish descent. Other main ancestries: Italian (11.3%), English (8.6%), West Indian (4.8%), and German (4.7%).
Although the first English traders used Milton in the 1620's, the earliest permanent settlement occurred in 1634 when colonists created an agricultural community growing barley, rye and Indian corn. The town itself was incorporated in 1662. A powder mill established in 1674 is thought to be the earliest in the colonies, taking advantage of the town's valuable water power sites.
Boston investors, seeing the potential of the town and its proximity to the city, provided the capital to develop 18th century Milton as an important industrial site with an iron slitting mill, paper and sawmills, and the first chocolate factory in New England (the Baker chocolate factory) in 1764. Laying of streetcar lines fueled the rapid expansion of residential development.
The town was home to America's first piano factory, and America's first railroad ran through the town. Revolutionary Milton is the setting of the opening of the 1940 bestselling historical novel "Oliver Wiswell" by Kenneth Roberts. Curry College is located in the town, as is the Blue Hills Observatory, home of the nation's oldest continuously kept meteorological records. It's on Great Blue Hill, the highest hill within the Blue Hills Reservation at 635 feet (194 m), is the highest point within 10 miles of the Atlantic coast south of central Maine, making it an important weather observatory - in fact the oldest continuous weather records in North America, since 1885 - and radio/TV transmitter site.

Notable figures:
Dana Barros (former NBA star)
Mark Vonnegut (son of American author Kurt Vonnegut, and celebrated writer himself)
George Herbert Walker Bush (born in Milton 1924)
Jill Ker Conway (Australian-born novelist)

After Quincy and Milton, US-1 takes a sharp turn to the right, changing directions from South to West through the Blue Hills Reservation - the very same hills the state of Massachusetts was named for. Just south of Wigwam Pond, US-1 - having just exchanged I-95 for I-93- goes it alone again, due south, as the Boston Providence Pike / Providence Highway. The road skirts Westwood and Norwood, just to the west of it.

The town of Westwood (settled 1640, incorporated 1897) has a population of (2000) just over 14.000 and was ranked the 13th best place to live in the US in CNN/Money's ranking in July 2005. The town once formed part of Dedham, was once known as 'West Dedham' and was the last town to split from the original upon incorporation. Some interesting facts about Westwood:
* It has the remains of a cave along Route 109 that King Philip and his men hid in during King Philip's War. The massive rock that once contained the cave was known as the Oven's Mouth. It was blown up along with most of the cave in the 1950's in order to straighten out Route 109.
* Westwood was a dry town until 2005. Restaurants can now apply for liquor licenses.
* The award winning guitarist and rock musician, Jon Finn, grew up in Westwood.
* Seattle Seahawks quarterback, Matt Hasselbeck attended Xaverian Brothers High School in Westwood.
* Eliza (of the '90's pop group "Dream") lived in Westwood.

Norwood (settled 1678 by Ezra Morse, incorporated 1872, pop. 28.587 in 2000) was the long-time home of photographer and publisher Fred Holland Day. As a photographer, Day at one point rivalled Stieglitz in influence. The publishing firm of Copeland and Day was the American publisher of Oscar Wilde's Salome with illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley. The Day House is now a museum and the headquarters of the Norwood Historical Society.

A large cluster of automobile dealerships on Route 1 is known as the Norwood "Automile". The concept of having competing dealerships join together to publicize the "Automile" as an automobile shopping center was largely the work of the late Ernie Boch, famous in the Boston area for his ads urging people to "Come on down!" featuring local heroes including Kramer the Magical Donkey and Chico the Llama. The chain of Boch dealerships includes what is said to be, as of March, 2005, the world's largest Honda dealership.
Norwood's town square is dominated by its town hall, the Norwood Memorial Municipal Building. It contains a 51-bell carillon tower, one of nine carillons in Massachusetts. Built in 1928, the neo-gothic edifice is made of Weymouth seamed-face granite. Visitors often mistake it for a church or believe it to have been a church, but it never was; its stained-glass windows depict, not saints, but local patriot Aaron Guild.
"Guild," whose name appears in local street and building names, is pronounced with a long i, like the second syllable of the word "beguiled." Guild's significance is explained by an inscription on the Aaron Guild Memorial Stone, dedicated in 1903, which stands outside the Norwood public library. The inscription reads:

NEAR THIS SPOT
CAPT. AARON GUILD
ON APRIL 19, 1775
LEFT PLOW IN FURROW, OXEN STANDING
AND DEPARTING FOR LEXINGTON
ARRIVE IN TIME TO FIRE UPON
THE RETREATING BRITISH.

Guild and his oxen are featured in the town seal.

Next up is the town of Sharon (settled 1650, incorporated 1775, pop. in 2000 of just over 17.000), which has as town slogan: "A nice place to live because it’s naturally beautiful". In front of the Sharon Public Library stands a statue of Deborah Sampson, Sharon's town heroine. Deborah Sampson disguised herself as a man to fight in the Revolutionary War. Judging from her portrait, it can't have required much effort for her to disguise herself. The Unitarian Church in Sharon Center has a church bell manufactured by Paul Revere. There are 7 Jewish Houses of Worship and 6 Christian churches. In addition, there is a National Islamic Center (Sharon Mosque). Together, this adds up to 14 religious centers for the town of 17,000.

The town of Walpole (settled 1659, incorporated 1724, pop. in 2000 of 22.824) was named after Sir Robert Walpole and is known in Massachusetts as the location of MCI - Cedar Junction, a maximum security prison for males in Massachusetts. The prison was originally named MCI - Walpole, until town residents successfully lobbied in the mid-1980s for the change.

Foxboro, or Foxborough, as it is called officially, was settled in 1704, incorporated in 1778 and held 16.246 inhabitants in 2000. Foxborough, 32 km southwest of Boston, is best known as the site of Gillette Stadium, home of the New England Patriots of the National Football League and the New England Revolution of Major League Soccer. It was named in honour of Charles James Fox, Whig Member of the British Parliament, who was a staunch supporter of the Colonies in the years leading up to the American Revolution.

Wrentham (settled 1669, incorporated 1673, 10.554 inhabitants in 2000) was burned down during King Philip's War 1675-1676. It is known as the home of Helen Keller, and is the site of the Wrentham Village Premium Outlets.

The town of Plainville (settled 1661, incorporated 1905, pop. of 7.683 in 2000) is the youngest town by date of incorporation in Norfolk County and third youngest in the state.

North Attleboro - or, officially, North Attleborough - was settled in 1669 and incorporated in 1887. In 2000, it had a population of a bit over 27.000. It's an industrial town, in pre-colonial times the site of the Bay Path, a major Indian trail to Narragansett Bay, the Seekonk River and Boston. John Woodcock and family established a small settlement in North Attleborough in 1669, which subsisted on agriculture, fishing and hunting. By 1670, Woodcock had received a license to open a tavern. The settlement was attacked during King Philip's War, with two killed and one home burned, but the garrison house which Woodcock had built survived the attack. The Woodcock-Garrison house would go on to serve as sleeping quarters for George Washington on his army's march to Boston to rid the city of General Thomas Gage's troops. The Garrison house is still open for tours and is an especially popular destination for field trips by local school children.
By 1776, there were 2200 people living in North Attleborough. In about 1780, a French settler set up a forge for working brass and the industrial era arrived in North Attleborough. Englishmen brought with them British machinery from Birmingham in 1794 and designed American improvements in button making which they patented. During the 18th and early 19th centuries, small grist and sawmills were built along the Ten Mile River, and subsequently established nail factories were eventually eclipsed by cotton spinning mills. The development of cotton spinning was spurred by the embargo on imports resulting from the War of 1812. Textiles and jewelry manufacturing were the staple industries of the town by 1832 but buttons were king. By 1834, it was said that North Attleborough produced more buttons than anywhere in the United States.
Through the 19th century there was tremendous growth and innovation in the jewelry industry and the number of firms in the town increased sharply. By 1855 there were 24 shops making almost $1 million in jewelry in both Attleborough and North Attleborough. The American Civil War spurred their growth with profitable U.S. Army orders for badges and medals. In 1887, North Attleborough was officially incorporated as a town. Today it is a thriving center of business and commerce with a large industrial park and many shops and stores along US Route 1 which travels through the center of town.

Famous residents of North Attleborough include:
* Joseph W. Martin, Jr. (1884–1968), who was a Republican US representative and served as Speaker of the House of Representatives from 1947–1949 and 1953–1955. Today, the J.W. Martin Elementary School bears his name.
* Frank C. Whitmore (1887–1947), was born in North Attleborough. Whitmore would go on to be famous in the scientific field when he provided supporting evidence for carbocation rearrangements, an important process in physical organic chemistry.
* Chris Sullivan played football for the North Attleborough High School Rocketeers and went on to play tackle for the Super Bowl Champion New England Patriots and the Pittsburg Steelers; Sullivan has since retired from football.

Last town in Massachusetts is Attleboro (settled 1634, incorporated 1694, pop. 42.068 in 2000), not to be confused with Attleborough in Norfolk, England. It was incorporated in 1694 from part of Rehoboth as atttleborough and reincorporated as a city with the present, shorter name.
During the colonial period, Nathaniel Woodcock lived in North Attleboro. During the Native American insurgency Woodcock's son was murdered and his head was placed on a pole in his front yard. The house where Woodcock lived is now a historical monument.
It is rumored George Washington once passed through and stayed near the Woodcock Garrison House at the Hatch Tavern where he swapped one shoe buckle with Nathan Hatch, Revolutionary Soldier and new owner of the Garrison House.
The city became known for jewelry manufacturing, notably through the L.G. Balfour Company starting in 1913. However, the company has since moved out of the city, with the site of the former plant turned into a riverfront park.

Attleboro is the home of LaSalette Shrine. The shrine has one of the most spectacular Christmas light displays in New England.

All Saints Episcopal Church (1890) on North Main Street represents that traditional English presence in the community - though the church is now very diverse. Currently All Saints is in the proecess of separating from the Episcopal Church - USA (ECUSA) to become affiliated with an Anglican diocese under a bishop in Uganda.

Attleboro has an abnormally high incidence of cancer - particularly compared to neighboring cities and towns - including a surprisingly high number of residents stricken in recent years with glioblastoma, a deadly form of brain cancer that is almost always terminal. Some have speculated that the high cancer rate could be related to the city's years as a haven for industrial activity. It has come to light in recent years that many of the companies which operated in Attleboro disposed of toxic chemicals and other harmful materials in the city's rivers. Additionally, other forms of waste most likely seeped into the city's soil.
In late 2003, The Sun Chronicle reported that a state probe had been launched into the deaths of four city woman from glioblastoma. As of October 2005, however, no report has been issued, and the status of the probe is unknown.
Scorecard, Environmental Defense's online database of polluters, lists seven facilities contributing to cancer hazards in Attleboro, including Engineered Materials Solutions Inc., the worst offender in Massachusetts.

Boston (41 miles from Smithtown, NH)

2006-04-17T22:49:00.000-07:00

After Smithtown, US-1 continues as Lafayette Road into Massachusetts, and after Salisbury is called Bridge Road, as it crosses the Merrimack River into Newburyport. Hereafter, US-1 is the Newburyport Turnpike, passing by Knight's Crossing, South Byfield, Doles Corner, Kent Corner, Pinefield, Linebrook and Topsfield. Just beforer Hathorne, US-1 intertwines with I-95, passes West Peabody, loses I-95 again as the highway speeds away west and the Route continues south past North Saugus, Oakland Vale, Saugus, Revere, Cliftondale, Chelsea - where it crosses the Mystic River and Charlestown, which is separated from Boston proper by the Charles River.

The town of Salisbury (pop. 7.827 in 2000), first settled in 1638 and incorporated a year later, is a popular summer beach resort nowadays.

A bit further down the road is the city of Newburyport (pop.: 17.189 in 2000) , a historic seaport now also heavily reliant on tourism. Newburyport was settled in 1635, incorporated as a town in 1764 and as a city in 1851. Its location on the Merrimack once made it a whaling, shipbuilding and shipping town, with a silverware industry. Newburyport's economical importance declined after president Jefferson's embargo of 1807 and the War of 1812. Too bad for the contemporaries, but great for the tourists, as this decline helped preserve the historical town centre.

Notable inhabitants:
* "Lord" Timothy Dexter, eccentric merchant
* William Lloyd Garrison, abolitionist
* Francis C. Lowell, millowner
* John P. Marquand, author
* Donald McKay, shipbuilder
* Theophilus Parsons, jurist
* Benjamin Perley Poore, journalist
* Harriet Prescott Spofford, authoress
* George Whitefield, evangelist
* Andre Dubus III, novelist

Like many other U.S. cities, by the 1960s many of Newburyport's historic buildings had been allowed to fall into disrepair or were razed. By the early 1970s, however, a number of civic groups began to work to restore Newburyport's downtown to its original state. The 1975 completion of the Inn Street Mall, marked the final stage of the restoration of historic downtown Newburyport. The city is frequently cited as an example of how to preserve a city's historic architecture, while still allowing it to be liveable and functional.

"Yankee Homecoming" is the annual festival celebrating the first settlers to the Newburyport area. It begins on the last Saturday of July, and ends on the first Sunday of August. The first Sunday of the festival, known as "Olde Fashioned Sunday," is celebrated at the Bartlett Mall in downtown Newburyport, and features many activities, including an art show, an appearance by the city's oldest fire engine, the "Neptune," and the participation of many local businesses. There is also an antique car show. Other popular events include the "Bed Race" in which a bed, pushed by a few people, is rolled down Federal Street. Last year's winner (2005) was the Newburyport Lifeguard Association. There is also a fireworks show, and, most notable of all, the famous parade on the last Saturday of the festival. More recently, there are concerts every night at the waterfront park, and the 2 year old "Annual Boat Parade." Each Yankee Homecoming features a grand marshall and numerous street vendors. Newburyport's "Yankee Homecoming" is the oldest in the country.

Next big town on US-1 is Topsfield (pop. 6.141 in 2000), a 'dry' town. Topsfield was first settled in 1635 and was officially incorporated in 1650. Topsfield is the home of the Topsfield Fair, an agricultural fair founded in 1818. The oldest agricultural fair in America, it features carnival rides and games in addition to the more traditional attractions - exhibitions of livestock, rabbits and cavies, crafts, horses and produce. Most notable is the Giant Pumpkin competition. The 2004 winning pumpkin weighed 1,253 pounds and was grown by Steven Sperry of Johnston, RI.

Saugus (pop. 26.078 in 2000) is more populous than a lot of cities, but nevertheless still a town. It was first settled in 1629 and was officially incorporated in 1815. The Saugus Iron Works National Historic Site, in operation from 1646-1668, was the first integrated iron works in North America. It is now a National Historic Site. The Saugus Chamber of Commerce started in 1971 under the name of the Route One Businessmen's Association. It changed its name in 1988 to the Route One Area Business Association; it became the Saugus Chamber of Commerce in 1991. Saugus.net was founded in 1998 and exists independently of (but cooperatively with) the town government and other local organizations. The Theatre Company of Saugus, founded in 1968 as the "Town-Criers," produces several amateur plays each year. The TCS recently had the honor of performing the play Interview by Jean-Claude Van Itallie in Belgium.

The city of Revere, approximately 5 miles from downtown Boston, is home to 47.283 inhabitants (2000). The first inhabitants of the area were the Pawtucket tribe, known as the Rumney Marsh Indians to the first white settlers. They were decimated by an epidemic, possibly smallpox, sweeping the area in 1616. Their numbers further decreased after being confined to Deer Island during King Phillip's War. Nevertheless, they generally were on friendly terms with the whites, who enlisted them to defeat other warring tribes.

Farming was the main industry of the settlers in the Rumney Marsh area, which was annexed to Boston on September 25, 1634 - Boston itself having been named only four years before. The first County Road in North America stretched across Rumney Marsh from the Winnisemmet Ferry to Olde Salem in 1641. In 1739, Rumney Marsh, Winnisemmet and Pullen Point were set off from Boston and established as the Town of Chelsea.

Revere was the largest of the three settlements, and therefore was selected as the Town Centre. Revere played a role in the American Revolution as the site of the first naval battle in 1775 at Rumney Marsh. In 1852, Pullen Point was set off from North Chelsea and established as the Town of Winthrop. That same year, Chelsea became a city. In 1871, North Chelsea adopted the name of Revere. The population was 1.197. The name of the Salem Turnpike, which had been completed in 1803, was changed to Broadway.

Revere Beach is the oldest public beach in the United States. It has a fairly active beachfront district. From its inception, Revere Beach was "the people's beach", used mostly by the working class and the many immigrants who chose to settle in the area, complete with Wonderland, an amusement park and a greyhound racing track since 1934. It was the 'Coney Island of New England' and was the backdrop for the movie 'Next Stop: Wonderland', with Philip Seymour Hoffman.

The Beach began to deteriorate in the 1950s, by the early 1970s it had become a strip of honky tonk bars and abandoned buildings. The "Great Blizzard of '78"' proved to be the final death knell for the "old" Revere Beach, as many of the remaining businesses, amusements, pavilions and sidewalks and much of the sea wall were all destroyed. The Beach was the focus of a major revitalization effort by the Metropolitan District Commission and the City in the 1980s and was officially reopened in May 1992. It now boasts high rise housing units, a resanded beach, restored pavilions and a renovated boulevard. Revere commemorated the centennial of the first opening of Revere Beach on the weekend of July 19, 1996.

So we hit Boston, and plunge into the first really, really big city on US-1. From here, it’s one giant megalopolis all the way down to DC – the conurbation I remember as BosWash from school, though I doubt anybody who actually lives in the area refers to it thusly, save for the occasional overzealous geography teacher.
Boston is the capital city of Massachusetts and also the largest city and unofficial capital of New England. It’s one of the oldest, wealthiest and most influential cities in the whole USA. Heck, both ‘Cheers’ and The Pixies came from this town – shows my grasp of high culture… The Boston CMSA (Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Area – geography teachers must love that acronym) is the 7th largest of the US, also encompassing bits of New Hampshire, Maine, Rhode Island and Connecticut.
Boston has many alternative names:
Beantown: Early Bostonian merchants made beans with imported molasses.
City on a Hill: John Winthrop, first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, spoke of the goal to make Boston an ideal city based on the values of the Bible.
The Hub: short for Oliver Wendell Holmes’ phrase ‘the Hub of the Solar System’, now expanded to ‘the Hub of the Universe’.
The Athens of America: a reference to the more than one hundred institutes of higher learning in the greater Boston area, such as MIT and Harvard (although this is actually located in Cambridge, across the Charles River).
The Puritan City: the city was founded by the Puritans, whose religious ideals were crucial guiding posts in the early history of Boston.
The Cradle of Liberty: Boston played a major role in instigating the American Revolution, with famous events as the Boston Tea Party occurring here.

History: On a peninsula called ‘Shawmut’ by the original Native American inhabitants, English Puritans founded the city of Boston in 17 September 1630. The first name of the city was ‘Trimountaine’, but was renamed for the town in Lincolnshire (England) that several prominent ‘Pilgrims’ originated from. The first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, John Winthrop, expressed the religious outlook of many of the Puritan settlers when he gave a famous sermon entitled ‘A City on a Hill’, expressing the idea that Boston had a special covenant with God.
Puritan ethics were very important in establishing Boston as a stable, well-structured place with great emphasis on hard work, good morals and education. It’s no surprise that America’s first college, Harvard, was established here as early as 1636.
Boston is also the birth-place of the American Revolution, and the site of many early skirmishes and battles such as the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, the Battle of Lexington and Concord, the Battle of Bunker Hill and the Siege of Boston. During this period, Paul Revere made his famous midnight ride.
After the Revolution, Boston flourished as the world’s wealthiest port city. The old Boston families were regarded as the nation’s social and cultural elites, the ‘Boston Brahmins’ for short. By the mid-1800s, the city’s industry overtook the port in terms of economic importance. Literature, culture and abolitionism flourished in Boston.
The prosperous 19th century also brought massive immigration, which changed the complexion of the city dramatically. Irish and Italian immigrants made catholicism the city’s main religion. Boston Irish have played a major role in national politics, most notably the Kennedy clan, which produced a president with JFK.
To accommodate the burgeoning population, the city expanded into the water by land reclamation. Between 1630 and 1890, the city tripled in surface, also by annexing neighbouring communities.
By the early and mid-20th century, the city was in decline as factories became old and obsolete, and businesses moved out of the region for cheaper labor elsewhere. Boston responded by initiating various urban renewal projects. In the 1970s, Boston boomed after thirty years of economic downturn, becoming a leader in the mutual fund industry. Boston already had a reputation for excellent healthcare services. Universities such as Harvard attracted many students to the Boston area.
Over the past several decades, Boston has experienced a dramatic loss of regional institutions and traditions, which once gave it a very distinct social character. Boston has begun to resemble other parts of the continuous string of Northeast seaboard cities dubbed the BosWash Megalopolis. The city faces gentrification issues and exorbitant living costs. Regardless, throughout the past several decades, Boston has once again become a major hub of intellectual, technological, and political ideas.

Geography and ethnography: Boston covers an area of 232,1 km², 106,7 km² of which (46%) is water. It’s home to almost 590.000 people, a plurality of which are of Irish descent. Boston is often called the ‘Capital of Irish America’. Italians are another important component of the population, which is only 49,48% white. African Americans constitute 27,33% while Hispanics are 14,44%. That might be an underestimation, though, due to the large, and largely undocumented, immigration of Brazilians, who often don’t consider themselves to be Hispanic (or Latino, white or African). It’s estimated there are as many as 250.000 Brazilians in Massachusetts.

Culture: Boston is the focal point of New England culture, and even speech: Eastern New England dialect is called ‘Boston English’. The regional cuisine emphasises seafood and dairy products. Boston culture is to a great extent influenced by the Irish, to a lesser degree by Italian, Chinese and Hispanic groups. There’s a long list of Boston neologisms and Boston slang.
Boston includes a lot of ‘high’ culture, such as can be found at the many universities, in the abundant theatres and performing arts groups (such as the Händel and Haydn Society, the oldest choral company in the US) and at certain annual events, amongst which First Night (on New Year’s Eve) and Boston Pops. Boston is also home to a lot of ‘low’ culture, as one of the birthplaces of hardcore punk and a leading centre of ska music. Lots of college rock bands came from the area, most notably the Pixies in the late Eighties.

Sports: Boston is home to two major league teams: the Boston Bruins (National Hockey League) and the Boston Celtics (National Basketball Association), both based at the TD Banknorth Garden. The Celtics have the distinction of having more World Championships than any other NBA team with 16 championships from 1957 to 1986.
The Boston Red Sox are a baseball team associated with the American League of Major League Baseball. Their home at Fenway Park is the oldest ballpark in active use in the US. Boston was the site of the first baseball World Series in 1903, between the Boston Americans (currently the Red Sox) and the Pittsburgh Pirates. The city is also the site of two other major annual sporting events: the Boston Marathon, the world-famous 42 km (26 mile) run from Hopkinton to Copley Square in Boston, and the Head of the Charles Regatta rowing competition on the Charles River.

Transportation: Boston is served by Logan International Airport in East Boston, plus several smaller airfields in the vicinity. The streets of Boston appear unplanned, often it’s assumed they evolved from old footpaths – incorrectly. The city has no street grid and roads change names and lose and add lanes seemingly at random. In its March 2006 issue, ‘Bicycling Magazine’ named Boston as one of the three worst US cities for cycling. Boston’s Logan Airport is the eastern terminus of I-90, at 4.861 km the longest interstate in the US. Its eastern terminus is Seattle (WA). It’s known locally as the Mass Pike. I-95, also referred to by its historical state route numbering as Route 128, surrounds the city while US-1 runs north to south through the city. The most infamous portion, the Central Artery, runs through downtown Boston and was constantly prone to heavy traffic. Through the Big Dig the elevated highway was replaced with an underground tunnel.The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) operated the nation's first underground system. Collectively known as the "T", the MBTA also operates an extensive network of bus lines and water shuttles, and a commuter rail network extending north to the Merrimack River valley, west to Worcester, and south to Providence, Rhode Island.

Massachusetts, our third state in one day!

2006-04-15T12:24:00.000-07:00

Out west, the states are square. But over here in the old, eastern part of the country, it still feels like they were constructed not by mapmakers in an office but by surveyors on the ground, preferring the easy convenience of a river to set a state line, as between Maine and New Hampshire. No natural boundary between New Hampshire and Massachusetts though, at least not after Smithville. But no straight line either: a border almost as crooked as in Europe. Even the name of this state has an old world-feel to it: the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. After plodding through Maine for days on end, this is our third state within 24 hours.

Geography: Massachusetts state is also called the Bay State, in large part for the bay created by the arm-shaped peninsula Cape Cod. I guess the 'Arm-Shaped State' never was a popular option. The state's name derives from an that of an Algonquian tribe, the Massachusett. This name can be segmented into 'Mass' ('great'), 'achu' ('hill') and 'setts' (a locative suffix). Translations are 'at the great hill', 'at the place of large hills' or 'at the range of hills', referring to the Blue Hills (or Great Blue Hill in particular) to the southwest of Boston.

At the inmost point of Massachusetts Bay, at the mouth of Charles River, Boston is the first major city we encounter - a sprawling metropolis of 5,8 million people. The emphasis here being 'sprawling', as most of the metropolitan population lives in suburbs outside of the city proper, accounting for eastern Massachusetts' high population density. The so-called 'Pioneer Valley along the Connecticut River is the most densely populated part of the state. The western part of the state is much more rural.

History: in colonial times, coastal Massachusetts was the northern hub of the British toehold on the eastern seaboard of North America, centred on towns rather than farms, as it was in the South. Many early settlers were religiously inspired emigrés from Europe, notably the Pilgrims (in Plymouth) and the Puritans (in Salem and later Boston). Later on, the secularized Puritans became known as 'Yankees'.

The self-image of those Yankees, gradually seeing themselves distinct from the Englishmen of their home country, was an essential part in the fermentation process which led up to the American Revolution. The cue for this revolution were the so-called 'Intolerable Acts'. Fighting started around Boston in 1775, after such famous events as the Boston Tea Party (and such lesser-known events as the Boston Massacre). Massachusetts was the site of the Battles of Lexington, Concord and Bunker Hill. John Hancock, first governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, also was the US's first acting president. 'Put your John Hancock here', is still said in reference (reverence?) to his signature.

After the Revolution, there was another one: Shays' Rebellion, in which western Massachusetts rose against the war debts crushing small farmers. On February 6, 1788, Massachusetts became the sixth state to ratify the United States Constitution. Although apparently not illegal, Massachusetts in 1790 had a slave population of exactly zero. In 1820, Massachusetts lost the District of Maine, a non-contiguous part of the state that became a US state in its own right (the 23rd, to be exact) as part of the Missouri Compromise (Missouri could enter the Union as a slave state, if Maine would enter it as a free state). In the US Civil War, the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry was one of the first African-American regiments in the U.S. military.

The Central Artery/Tunnel Project (CA/T), known as the Big Dig to locals, it is the most expensive single highway construction project in the United States. The project began 1991, with final construction occurring in 2006. On November 18, 2003, the Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) ruled that the state could not deny marriage rights to same-sex couples under the state constitution. Same-sex marriage is currently legal in Massachusetts.

Massachusetts is quite important in sports history, being the birthplace of both basketball (in Springfield, 1891) and volleyball (Holyoke, 1895).

Population: In 1790, Massachusetts had a population of under 380.000, doubling in 50 years' time to almost 740.000 in 1840 and then again tripling in another 50 years to 2,2 million in 1890, doubling again in the next half century to almost 4,4 million in 1940. Population growth has been at a less dizzying pace after that, attaining 6,4 million in 2005 - a decrease of over 8.000 from the prior year. Most of Massachusetts lives in and around Boston - outside that metropolitan area, only 600.000 people live in the state.

The Bay State is only 82% white - quite a rainbow compared to the monotonous whiteness of Maine. Second biggest race are the Hispanics (almost 7%), having overtaken the African-Americans (5,4%). Asians constitute 3,8% and Native-Americans 0,2% (13.000 left). The present anxiety in the States over the wave of Hispanic immigration is a mirror of the anti-Irish sentiments due to the massive influx of Irish onwards from the mid-nineteenth century. Irish-Americans still are the largest (22,5%) ancestry group in the state, followed by Italian-Americans (13,5%), English-Americans (11,4%), French-Americans (8%) and German-Americans (5,9%). I italicised English-Americans, because I've never seen that racial epithet used - even though true-blooded WASPs now constitute a tiny minority and their cultural self-awareness and relevancy are almost as small, everybode else is still referred to by an epithet denoting their distance to them, the minority of reference in a country that doesn't even refer to Britain as the 'Old Country' anymore. Meanwhile, new minorities are making their place in Boston: Haitians and Brazilians, but also Cambodians - the second-largest concentration in the US outside of Long Beach, California.

Religion: Massachusetts was initially founded and settled by staunch Puritans in the 17th century and remained a majority-Yankee state for most of its history. Today Protestants make up less than one-third of the state's population, but have a prominent role in finance, big business, the arts, education, and cultural institutions. Catholics now predominate due to massive immigration from Ireland, Quebec, Italy, Portugal, and Puerto Rico. A large Jewish population came to the Boston area 1880-1920. Mary Baker Eddy made the Boston Mother Church of Christian Science the world headquarters. The descendants of the Puritans belong to many different churches; in the direct line of inheritance are the Congregational/United Church of Christ and Unitarian Universalist churches. Both of these denominations are noted for their strong support of social justice, civil rights, and moral issues, including strong and early advocacy of abolition of slavery, women's liberation, and (after 2000) legal recognition of gay marriage.

The religious affiliations of the people of Massachusetts (as of 2001) are shown in the table below:
Christian: 79%, of which 47% catholic. The protestants (31%) are divided among Congregationalists/United Church of Christ (4%), Baptists (4%), Episcopalians (3%), Methodists (2%), Pentecostalists (2%) and 'other/general' (16%). Too weird to be either protestant or catholic: Latter-Day Saints (1%) - that's Mormons to you and me - and 'other' (1%). The state counts 2% Jews, 1% Unitarians and 1% 'other religions', with 17% being non-religious.

Economy: Total state product in 2003 was $297 billion, per capita personal income in 2004 was $42.102 - the second-highest behind Connecticut. Massachusetts' agricultural outputs are seafood, nursery stock, dairy products, cranberries, and vegetables. Its industrial outputs are machinery, electric equipment, scientific instruments, printing, and publishing. Thanks largely to the Ocean Spray cooperative, Massachusetts is the second largest cranberry producing state in the union (after Wisconsin). Other sectors vital to the Massachusetts economy include higher education, health care, financial services and tourism.
Massachusetts has a flat rate personal income tax of 5.3 percent. The state imposes a 5 percent sales tax on retail sales of tangible personal property in Massachusetts by any vendor. All real and tangible personal property located within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is taxable unless specifically exempted by statute. The administration of the assessment and collection of all real and tangible personal property taxes in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is handled by the city and town assessor and collected in the jurisdiction where the property is located. Massachusetts imposes a tax on any gains from the sale or exchange of capital assets held for more than one year. The state also collects a 12 percent tax on interest (except interest from Massachusetts banks), dividends, gains from the sale or exchange of capital assets held for one year or less (short-term capital gains). There is no inheritance tax and limited Massachusetts estate tax related to federal estate tax collection.

Transportation: Interstate highways crossing the state include: I-91, I-95, I-495, I-93, and I-90. Other major state thoroughfares are Route 3 and Route 2. A massive undertaking to reroute I-93 in the Boston downtown area called the Big Dig has brought the city's highway system under public scrutiny over the last decade. Public transportation in the form of a Subway system and longer distance Commuter Rail is operated by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority but is mostly confined to the Greater Boston area.

Massachusetts Government: The Massachusetts Constitution was ratified in 1780 while the Revolutionary War was still in progress, nine years before the United States Constitution was adopted. It is the oldest written Constitution now in use in the world. It specified three branches of government: executive, legislative, and judicial.

The governor is head of the executive branch and serves as chief administrative officer of the state and as commander-in-chief of the Massachusetts' military forces. The current governor is Mitt Romney (Republican). All governors of Massachusetts are given the title His Excellency, a carry-over from the Commonwealth's British past, despite titles being uncommon in American political traditions. Responsibilities of the governor include preparation of the annual budget, nomination of all judicial officers, the granting of pardons (with the approval of the governor's Council), appointments of the heads of most major state departments, and the acceptance or veto of each bill passed by the Legislature. Several executive Offices have also been established, each headed by a secretary appointed by the governor, much like the president's Cabinet.
The Governor's Council (also called the Executive Council) is composed of the Lieutenant Governor and eight councilors elected from councilor districts for a two-year term. It has the constitutional power to approve judicial appointments and pardons, to authorize expenditures from the Treasury, to approve the appointment of constitutional officers if a vacancy occurs when the Legislature is not in session, and to compile and certify the results of statewide elections. It also approves the appointments of notaries public and justices of the peace.
"The Great and General Court," elected every two years, is made up of a Senate of 40 members and a House of Representatives of 160 members. The Massachusetts Senate is the second oldest democratic deliberative body in the world. Each branch elects its own leader from its membership. The Senate elects its President; the House its Speaker. These officers exercise power through their appointments of majority floor leaders and whips (the minority party elects its leaders in a party caucus), their selection of chairs and all members of the joint committees, and in their rulings as presiding officers. Joint committees of the General Court are made up of 6 senators and 15 representatives, with a Senate and House Chair for each committee. These committees must hold hearings on all bills filed. Their report usually determines whether or not a bill will pass. Each chamber has a separate Rules and a Ways and Means Committee and these are among the most important committee assignments.
Judicial appointments are held to the age of seventy. The Supreme Judicial Court, consisting of a Chief Justice and six Associate Justices, is the highest court in the Commonwealth; it is empowered to advise the Governor and the Legislature on questions of law. All trials are held in departments and divisions of a unified Trial Court, headed by a Chief Administrative Justice assisted by an Administrator of Courts. It hears civil and criminal cases. Cases may be appealed to the Supreme Judicial Court or the Appeals Court for review of law, but findings of fact made by the Trial Court are final. The Superior Court, consisting of a Chief Justice and sixty-six Associate Justices, is the highest department of the Trial Court. Other departments are the District, Housing, Juvenile, Land, and Probate Courts.
Massachusetts's two U.S. senators (since 1985) are Edward Kennedy (Democrat) and John Kerry (Democrat); as of the 2001 redistricting, Massachusetts has ten seats in the United States House of Representatives (all Democrats), giving Massachusetts the largest one-party delegation in Congress (i.e. twelve Democrats). The state legislature is formally styled the "Great and General Court" and is manned mostly by Democrats; the highest court is the "Supreme Judicial Court."

Politics: During the first half of the 1900s Boston was socially conservative, and strongly under the influence of Methodist minister J. Frank Chase and his New England Watch and Ward Society, founded in 1878. In 1903, the Old Corner Bookstore was raided and fined for selling Boccaccio's Decameron. Howard Johnson's got its start when Eugene O'Neill's Strange Interlude was banned in Boston, and the production had to be moved to Quincy. In 1927, works by Sinclair Lewis, Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos, and Sherwood Anderson were removed from bookstore shelves. "Banned in Boston" on a book's cover could actually boost sales. Burlesque artists such as Sally Rand needed to modify their act when performing at Boston's Old Howard. The clean version of a performance used to be known as the "Boston version." By 1929, the Watch and Ward society was perceived to be in decline when it failed in its attempt to ban Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy, but as late as 1935 it succeeded in banning Lillian Hellman's play The Children's Hour. Censorship was enforced by city officials, notably the "city censor" within the Boston Licensing Division. That position was held by Richard J. Sinnott from 1959 until the office was abolished on March 2, 1982. In modern times, few of such puritanical social mores persist.
Massachusetts has since gained a reputation as being a politically liberal state and is often used as an archetype of liberalism. Massachusetts is the home of the Kennedy family of political fame and routinely votes for the Democratic Party in federal elections. As of 2005, it is by far the largest U.S. state represented totally by one party in the U.S. Congress. Although Republicans have held the governor's office continuously since 1991, many of these (especially William Weld, the first of the recent lineage of Republican governors) are considered among the most liberal Republicans in the nation. Two of these governors, Paul Cellucci and Jane Swift, took office when their predecessors resigned to take other positions.
In presidential elections, Massachusetts supported Republicans until 1912, from 1916 through 1924, in the 1950s, and in 1980 and 1984. From 1988 through 2004, Massachusetts has supported Democratic presidential candidates, giving native son John Kerry his largest margin of victory among states with a 25 percentage point margin and 61.9% of the vote. (It should be noted, however, John Kerry's margin of victory in the District of Columbia was much higher in 2004.) Every county in the Commonwealth supported the Democratic candidate.
Following a November 2003 decision of the state's Supreme Court, Massachusetts became the first (and heretofore only) state to issue same-sex marriage licenses on May 17, 2004. See the articles on same-sex marriage in the United States and same-sex marriage in Massachusetts.

Education: Massachusetts is known for having one of the best public school systems in the nation. It has one of the lowest high-school dropout rates in the nation and is tied with New Jersey for having the 2nd highest percentage of students who go on to college after high-school. It is also one of the highest-scoring states on advanced placement tests. In 2004, Massachusetts' high school students ranked 1st in the nation for test scores relating to the fields of math and science.
Massachusetts contains only 2.5% of the U.S. population but is home to many of its most renowned preparatory schools, colleges, and universities. There are 62 colleges located in the greater Boston area alone. The population of metropolitan Boston, in particular, surges during the school year.

Well-known colleges and universities include: Amherst College, Brandeis University, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Tufts University, University of Massachusetts, Wellesley College.

Trivia: The Commonwealth's nickname is the Bay State. Other nicknames are the Old Colony State, and less commonly the Puritan state and the Baked Bean state. On December 18, 1990, the Legislature decided that the people of the Commonwealth would be designated as Bay Staters.
The front doors of the state house are only opened when a governor leaves office or a head of state comes to visit the State House. It is also traditionally opened for the return of flags from Massachusetts regiments at the end of wars. The tradition of the ceremonial door originated when leaving governor Benjamin Butler kicked open the front door and walked out by himself in 1884.
Every year, Boston has a St. Patrick's Day Parade that in recent years has tried to be ethnicly inclusive.
Massachusetts is the first state in the union to mandate health insurance for all its citizens.
The Boston Cream Donut is the official Doughnut of the Commonwealth.

Famous Massachusettsians:
* John Adams, 1st Vice President of the U.S., 2nd President of the U.S., 1800 Federalist presidential nominee
* John Quincy Adams, Congressman, Senator, 6th President of the U.S.
* Samuel Adams, Patriot in the American Revolutionary War (now also a famous beer brand)
* George H. W. Bush, 43rd Vice President of the U.S., 41st President of the U.S.
* Calvin Coolidge, 29th Vice President of the U.S., 30th President of the U.S.
* Michael Dukakis, Governor, 1988 Democratic presidential nominee
* Benjamin Franklin, Patriot in the American Revolutionary War
* Elbridge Gerry, Congressman, Governor, 5th Vice President of the U.S., namesake of gerrymandering
* John Hancock, Governor, President of the Continental Congress
* Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Supreme Court Justice
* Edward M. Kennedy, incumbent U.S. Senator, 1980 Democratic presidential candidate
* John F. Kennedy, U.S. Senator, 35th President of the U.S.
* Robert F. Kennedy, U.S. Senator (representing New York), 1968 Democratic presidential candidate
* John F. Kerry, Lt. Governor, incumbent U.S. Senator, 2004 Democratic presidential nominee
* Tip O'Neill, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives
* Paul Tsongas, U.S. Senator, 1992 Democratic presidential candidate
* Henry Wilson, U.S. Senator, 18th Vice President of the U.S.

More about Massachusetts state symbols here

Smithtown (17,5 miles from Portsmouth)

2006-04-14T02:01:00.000-07:00

We drove through New Hampshire in total darkness, so we didn't get to see much of Elwyn Park, Breakfast Hill, North Hampton, Hampton, Seabrook or Smithtown, the last NH town before Massachusetts.

Straight out of Portsmouth, US-1 bears the name 'Lafayette Road', which it keeps all through NH. Just a random tribute to the famous French dude who helped the colonials in their struggle against the Brits, or did he actually follow the 'Route' here? Don't know...

The enigmatically named Breakfast Hill derives its name from the location of a band of marauding Indians and their captives, who were found eating their breakfast on June 26, 1696, following the attack at the Portsmouth Plains. When confronted by the militia the Indians made a hasty exit leaving the prisoners and plunder.

North Hampton (incorporated 1742, pop. 4.259, website: www.northhampton-nh.gov) was first settled in 1639 as the 'North Hill' or 'North Parish' part of Hampton. A separate township from Hampton was petitioned as early as 1719, but not granted until 1742, after separation of New Hampshire from Massachusetts. Little Boar's Head, a seaside promontory, became a fashionable summer resort in the 19th century. Notable inhabitants include: Henry Dearborn, general; Alvan T. Fuller, governor of Massachusetts; Ogden Nash, poet, buried in North Hampton.

The town of Hampton (settled 1638, incorporated 1639, population (2000) 14.937 is home to Hampton Beach State Park at Hampton Beach, a summer tourist destination. First called the Plantation of Winnacunnet (Algonquin Abenaki for "pleasant pines"), Hampton was one of four original New Hampshire townships chartered by the General Court of Massachusetts, which then held authority over the colony. The town was settled in 1638 by a group of parishoners led by Reverend Stephen Bachiler, who had formerly preached at the settlement's namesake: Hampton, England. Incorporated in 1639, the township once included Seabrook, Kensington, Danville, Kingston, East Kingston, Sandown, North Hampton and Hampton Falls. Construction of the railroad in the 1850s, as well as the Exeter and Hampton Trolley line, made Hampton's oceanfront a popular resort. Hampton Beach remains a tourist destination, offering shops, restaurants, beaches, and summer seasonal housing. Notable Inhabitants: Eunice "Goody" Cole, accused witch; Henry Dearborn, physician & general; Stephen Merrill, governor of New Hampshire; Jonathan Moulton, general.

Henry Dearborn

Seabrook (settled 1638, incorporated 1768, population (2000) 7.934) is noted as the location of the Seabrook Nuclear Power Station, the last nuclear power plant constructed in the United States.

Smithtown, the last NH town before Massachusetts, is a tantalizing blank on Wikipedia and Google. Its cemetery is right next to US-1, propped up against the state line. Bye bye New Hampshire, we hardly knew ye.

Portsmouth (2 miles from Kittery)

2006-04-14T00:42:00.000-07:00

Across the Piscataqua by dusk, and after a visit to a Salvation Army store and a Taco Bell, it's dark in New Hampshire. We've set out from Brunswick, having made into our second US state by nightfall. A lot slower than we expected, but we won't be sticking around to see New Hampshire by daylight. We're driving on towards Boston, across the approximately 20 miles of US-1 on NH territory. So no Hotel New Hampshire for us...

Portsmouth is a harbour town and the biggest city in Rockingham County (20.784 inhabitants in 2000). First known European explorer in the area was Martin Pring in 1603. First European settlement was Piscataqua in 1630, later renamed Strawberry Banke after their abundance along the Piscataqua River. Not berry-picking but fishing and shipbuilding were the main industries, though.

Strawberry Banke was renamed Portsmouth at its incorporation as a town in 1653 in honour of its founder John Mason, captain of the eponymous English port city. Portsmouth became capital of the colony and a refuge for exiles from the strict puritanism of Massachusetts. Paul Revere rode here in 1774, warning that the British were coming. The port's vulnerability to attack from the British navy cost it its status as capital, which was bestowed on Exeter, safely away further inland. Some local fortunes would be lost by withered trade during President Thomas Jefferson's 1807 embargo, and others gained by privateering during the War of 1812. In 1849, Portsmouth incorporated as a city.

Portsmouth once was one of the busiest ports and centres of shipbuilding in the entire US, a legacy still visible in the formidable architecture in Colonial, Georgian and Federal styles. But during the Industrial Revolution, Portsmouth's status diminished, mill towns like Dover, Manchester and Nashua being in the ascendancy. This did help to preserve the historic centre of town, however. The town boasts NH's oldest house, Jackson House (1664).

Although formally located on an island officially part of Kittery, Maine, the Naval Shipyard (the nation's first, est. 1800) is associated with Portsmouth and also carries its name. This ambiguous state of affairs serves as background to a territorial dispute between Maine and NH, which (unsuccessfully) claimed several Maine islands in the Piscaquat River as its own. The shipyard was the scene where president Theodore Roosevelt arranged the Treaty of Portsmouth (signed on Sept. 5, 1905), ending the Russo-Japanese War.

The further south we get, the white population starts to dip below the +95% average in Maine. Portsmouth is only 93,5% white, 2% black, 2,5% Asian and 1,5% Latino.

Notable inhabitants of Portsmouth include John Paul Jones, the "father" of U.S. Navy; Tobias Lear, secretary to George Washington; Richard A. Searfoss, astronaut; and William Whipple, signer of Declaration of Independence.

On entering New Hampshire

2006-04-13T10:51:00.000-07:00

Leaving Maine felt like a relief: it took us close to a week to fly out to Portland (via JFK) from Europe, drive up north to Québec, enter the US at Route 1's exact starting point in Fort Kent and then drive all the way down to the state line between Maine and New Hampshire. We were exhausted, having finished just one of the 14 states (plus one Federal District) traversed by US-1.

In New Hampshire, fortunately, we had a lot less ground to cover than in Maine. This New England state is a lot smaller than Maine, with a very short coastline. US-1 shadows the New Hampshire coast from a distance, covering barely 20 miles between Portsmouth and Smithtown, on the New Hampshire-Massachusetts border.

It was night when we crossed the Piscataqua River, the border between Maine and New Hampshire, the bridge that carries US-1 into its second state also crossing little Badger Island, still on the Maine side of the border. New Hampshire makes good use of its short shoreline: when you hit New Hampshire, the bleary-eyed both of us were immediately plunged into the many lights of Portsmouth, one of the few big, industrial cities in this state.

But before we go there, a little bit about the state of New Hampshire itself:

* State capital is the inland city of Concord. Its largest city, however, is Manchester. The state is known by several nicknames: the Granite State, the Mother of Rivers, the White Mountain State, the Switzerland of America. Size-wise, it's the 46th state, covering an area of 24,239 km². Which is a bit smaller than Belgium. But it's a lot less populated: only 1.235.789 inhabitants (2000). "http://www.state.nh.us" This is the state website.

* Geography: NH is part of New England, reaching from the ocean all the way up to Québec, therefore being the only land link between Maine and the rest of the Union. The state's icon is/was the Old Man of the Mountain, a rock formation still shown on coins, but sadly lost forever, as it crumbled in May 2003. The state is also home to Mount Washington, which, with hurricane-force winds every third day, claims to have the 'worst weather on Earth'.
The Piscataqua River form the state's only significant ocean port where they flow into the Atlantic at Portsmouth. The Salmon Falls River and the Piscataqua define the southern portion of the border with Maine. The state has an ongoing boundary dispute with Maine in the area of Portsmouth Harbor, with New Hampshire claiming dominion over several islands (now known as Seavey Island) that include the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard as well as to the Maine towns of Kittery and Berwick.
About 10 miles (16 km) offshore are the Isles of Shoals, nine small islands (4 belonging to the state) best known as the site of a 19th-century art colony founded by poet Celia Thaxter, as well as the alleged location of one of the buried treasures of the pirate Blackbeard.
It is the second-most-forested state in the country, after Maine, in terms of percentage of land covered by woods. This change was caused by the abandonment of farms by owners during the 20th century as many farmers took wage jobs in urban areas or moved to more productive areas. The return of woodlands from open fields forms the subject of many poems by Robert Frost, while the emigration is consistent with the results of New Hampshire native and newspaper legend Horace Greeley's famous advice: "Go west, young man."
The northern third of the state, locally referred to as "north of the notches" in reference to White Mountain passes that channel traffic, contains less than 5% of the state's population, suffers from relatively high poverty rates, and is losing population as the logging and paper industries decline. However, the tourist industry, in particular visitors who go to northern New Hampshire to take advantage of the lengthy ski season in the winter, have brought in revenue that helps to offset the losses from mill closures.

* History: NH, first explored around 1600, was first settled in 1623. By 1631 the Upper Plantation comprised modern-day Dover, Durham and Stratham; in 1679 it became the "Royal Province." Indian raids were a serious problem before 1763. NH was the first state to declare its independence from Britain in the American Revolution, but only one battle was fought here: the raid on Fort William and Mary, December 14, 1774 in Portsmouth Harbor, which netted the rebellion sizable quantities of gunpowder, small arms, and cannon. This raid was preceded by a warning to local patriots the previous day, by Paul Revere on December 13, 1774 that the fort was to be reinforced by troops sailing from Boston. This raid is widely regarded (outside Massachusetts) as the first battle of the Revolutionary War. According to unverified accounts, the gunpowder was later used at the Battle of Bunker Hill, transported there by Major Demerit, who was one of several NH patriots who stored the powder in their homes until it was transported elsewhere for use in revolutionary activities.
Since 1952, New Hampshire gained national and international attention for its presidential primary held early in every presidential election year. It immediately became the most important testing grounds for candidates for the Republican and Democratic nominations. The media give New Hampshire (and Iowa) about half of all the attention paid to all states in the primary process, magnifying the state's decision power (and spurring repeated efforts by out-of-state politicians to change the rules.)

* Population: As of 2005, New Hampshire has an estimated population of 1,309,940, which is an increase of 6.0%, since the year 2000. The racial makeup of the state is: 95.1% White, 1.7% Hispanic, 1.3% Asian, 0.7% Black, 0.2% Native American, 1.1% Mixed race.
The five largest ancestry groups in New Hampshire are: Irish (19.4%), British (18%), French (14.6%), French Canadian (10.6%), German (8.6%). People of old colonial ("Yankee") ancestry live throughout most of New Hampshire. The large Irish American and French-Canadian elements are the children and grand-children of mill workers, and they still live in the former mill towns, like Manchester. New Hampshire has the highest percentage of residents of French/French-Canadian ancestry of any state. The fastest growth is along the southern border, which is within commuting range of Boston and other Massachusetts cities.

* Economy: Per capita personal income in 2003 was $35,140, 7th in the nation. Its agricultural outputs are dairy products, nursery stock, cattle, apples, and eggs. Its industrial outputs are machinery, electric equipment, rubber and plastic products, and tourism.

New Hampshire experienced a significant shift in its economic base during the last century. Historically, the base was comprised of the traditional New England manufactures. The current New Hampshire economy is largely driven by fiscal policy. The state has no sales tax, no personal income tax (the state does tax, at a 5 percent rate, income from dividends and interest) and advocates a frugal budget, thereby attracting commuters, light industry, specialty horticulture, retail customers and service firms from other jurisdictions with higher tax policies, notably from neighboring Massachusetts, Vermont and Maine (and to a lesser extent, New York). Overall, New Hampshire remains ranked 49th among states in combined average state and local tax burden.

* Government: The New Hampshire General Court is a bicameral legislative body, consisting of the House of Representatives and the Senate. The House of Representative is the fourth-largest legislative body in the English speaking world with 400 members. Only the US House, the British House of Commons and the Indian Parliament are larger. Presumably because the position pays just $100 per year plus mileage, members are more likely to be retired. New Hampshire is an Alcoholic Beverage Control state.

* Politics: New Hampshire is internationally famous for the New Hampshire primary, the first primary in the quadrennial American election cycle. The primary draws more attention by far than all other primaries, and has often been decisive in shaping the national contest. Critics from other states have tried repeatedly but failed to reduce the state's primary clout.
New Hampshire has historically been dominated by the Republican Party, and is still considered to be the most conservative state in the Northeast; but in national elections it has become a swing state. The New Hampshire Constitution is the nation's only state constitution that allows the right to revolution, and one of the few that does not mandate the provision of a public school system. New Hampshire has the highest per capita elected and appointed Libertarians, and the highest density of Libertarian Party members in the nation.

* Interesting, bizarre or just plain weird: New Hampshire is host to the New Hampshire Highland Games. New Hampshire has also registered an official tartan with the proper authorities in Scotland, used to make kilts worn by the State Police while they serve during the games.
New Hampshire is the healthiest state in the nation, tied with Minnesota, as ranked by the United Health Foundation, 2003.
New Hampshire has the only piece of Interstate highway that is two-lane (a single northbound lane and a single southbound lane) with a cobblestone median. This was done to preserve Franconia Notch, the site of the Old Man of the Mountain, a former rock formation visible from Interstate 93 in Franconia.
In northern New Hampshire, the town of Dixville Notch is traditionally the first city or town in the U.S. to vote in presidential primaries. The few dozen residents of Dixville Notch all stay awake until after midnight to vote. State law grants that a town where all registered citizens have voted may close early and announce their results.
New Hampshire is the only state with no mandatory seatbelt law for adults, no motorcycle helmet law for adults and no mandatory vehicle insurance for automobiles.
New Hampshire is the destination of the Free State Project.
New Hampshire has the shortest ocean coastline of any coastal state: 18 miles (29 km), by state figures. (Under some federal definitions, Pennsylvania's coast is shorter).Footnote about coastline: Official figures recognize two coastal concepts: the coastline, and the shoreline, which includes offshore islands and other features such as inlets and rivers to the head of a narrow tidewater. Pennsylvania has no saltwater coastline, but has a saltwater shoreline of 89 miles. versus 131 for New Hampshire. Pennsylvania's number apparently comes because a portion of the Delaware River on its southeastern border is tidal. Source: U.S. Dept of Commerce, "U.S. Coastline by States" cited on Page 606 of the 2003 "World Almanac."
Its license plates boast the famous state motto: "Live free or die." Antebellum New Hampshire produced numerous youth who went on to become famous national leaders after moving to Boston or New York, including Senator Daniel Webster, editor Horace Greeley, and Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of the Christian Science religion.
Its state flower is the purple lilac. Its state bird is the purple finch. Its state tree is the American white birch, also called paper birch or canoe birch.
New Hampshire is home to the highest winds ever recorded (measured by an anemometer) on Earth: 231 mph in 1934, at the Mount Washington weather observatory in the Presidential Range.
In 2003, it gained international attention for having the first openly gay bishop of a large mainline Christian church, Gene Robinson, within the Anglican Communion (the Episcopal Church in the United States of America).
New Hampshire's recreational attractions include skiing and other winter sports; "leaf-peeping" or observing the spectacular fall foliage; summer cottages along many lakes; and the New Hampshire International Speedway, home of the Loudon Classic, the longest-running motorcycle race in the United States.
Killington, Vermont has twice voted to secede from Vermont and join New Hampshire—a largely symbolic act, since secession would require the agreement of both states' legislatures and the U.S. Congress. Supporters of secession note that almost all Vermont towns were first chartered by New Hampshire and point out that the two states already have some unusual cross-border links, including two of the rare interstate school districts in the United States (a third is shared by Oregon and Nevada).

* Granite State firsts:
From New Hampshire's official folklife website: http://www.nh.gov/folklife/
On January 5, 1776 at Exeter, the Province of New Hampshire ratified the first independent state constitution, free of British rule.
On June 12, 1800, Fernald's Island in the Piscataqua River became the first government-sanctioned US Navy shipyard.
Started in 1822, Dublin's Juvenile Library was the first free public library.
In 1828, the first women's strike in the nation took place at Dover's Cocheco Mills.
In 1845, the machine shop of Nashuan John H. Gage was considered the first shop devoted to the manufacture of machinists' tools.
On August 29, 1866, Sylvester Marsh demonstrated the first mountain-climbing "cog" railway.
Finished on June 27, 1874, the first trans-Atlantic telecommunications cable between Europe and America stretched from Balinskelligs Bay, Ireland, to Rye Beach, New Hampshire.
On February 6, 1901, a group of nine conservationists founded the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests, the first forest conservation advocacy group in the US.
In 1908, Monsignor Pierre Hevey organized the nation's first credit union, in Manchester, to help mill workers save and borrow money.
In July 1944, the Bretton Woods Agreement, the first fully-negotiated system intended to govern monetary relations among independent nation-states, was signed at the Mount Washington Hotel.
On May 5, 1961, Alan B. Shepard Jr. of Derry rode a Mercury spacecraft and became the first American in space.
In 1963, New Hampshire's legislature approved the nation's first legal state lottery.
In 1966, Ralph Baer of Sanders Associates, Inc., Nashua, recruited engineers to develop the first home video game.
Christa McAuliffe of Concord became the first private citizen selected to venture into space. She perished with her six space shuttle Challenger crewmates in January 28, 1986.

* New Hampshire in fiction:
New Hampshire is the home state of fictional United States President Josiah Bartlet on the television drama series The West Wing.
Peterborough is the inspiration for the town of Grover's Corners, in Thornton Wilder's play Our Town.
The novel Peyton Place was inspired by Gilmanton, New Hampshire.
Riverdale High, where the cartoon character Archie and the gang have their adventures, was allegedly based in part on Manchester Central High School.
Although every college claims to be the inspiration for the film Animal House, Dartmouth College has the strongest claim, because the scriptwriter went to college there.
Dogpatch, the fictional home of comic strip character Li'l Abner, is believed to be derived from Seabrook, where Al Capp would vacation with his wife.
John Knowles based the Devon School in A Separate Peace on the Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter. The prep school in John Irving's The World According to Garp was also based on the Phillips Exeter Academy. Irving's stepfather was a faculty member at the school, and Irving himself is an alumnus.
Joyce Maynard grew up in Durham, New Hampshire and based several novels on life in the Granite State, most notably To Die For, which is loosely based on the Pamela Smart murder case.

Maine roundup

2006-03-19T11:11:00.000-08:00

Leaving Kittery and leaving Maine, maybe it's time for a first roundup of the postings on this blog, enumerating things still to be done before we move on to the next state.

Things still to be done

1. find out how to insert posts in between previously added posts (by changing the time and date of the posts; saw the date marker at one point, didn't find it again...)
2. posts now consist mostly of short descriptions of towns visited, and some historical, economic or other context provided by Wikipedia or local websites. Is indispensible, but should be expanded to other themes, e.g. potato culture in Aroostook, presidential history at Kennebunkport or Campobello... Preferably in separate postings.
3. Find info on State of Maine (history, state flag, state emblems, etc.)
4. Collect info from other sources (2 US-1 books, other info from Highway Administration,...)
5. Use more own pictures, insert more own impressions...
6. After all this: rewrite posts so the lay-out matches up again...

List of stuff to insert

1. Republic of Madawaska (entry in Wikipedia, on the New England Journal of Vexillology website and on this website of an Australian 'honorary consul' of the Madawaskan republic.
2. Essential reading: www.maine.gov

Kittery (50 miles from Portland)

2006-03-07T00:57:00.000-08:00

The last stretch of US-1 in Maine, from Portland to Kittery, is about 50 miles long. It took us through: Ligonia, Cash Corner, Thornton Heights, Sunset Park, Oak Hill, West Scarborough, Saco, Biddeford, Five Points, Bartlett Mills, Kennebunk, Cozy Corners, Elms, Wells, Buffum Hill, Charles Chase Corner, Moody, Ogunquit, Cape Neddick, York, York Corner, Rermick Corner, Kittery and Oak Terrace.

The city of Saco was settled in the early 1600s as part of neighbouring Biddeford and became a separate town in 1762, named Pepperellborough in honour of the recently deceased William Pepperell. It was renamed Saco in 1805 and became a city in 1867. Saco's the hometown of singer-songwriter Catie Curtis (°1970) and of Samuel Brannan (1819-1889), who published the first newspaper in California and became the first millionaire of the great California Gold Rush in 1848. He did die penniless, however, after losing much of his fortune in a divorce.

Saco is home to the amusement park Funtown Splashtown USA as well as General Dynamics Armament Systems, a subsidiary of GDAS Burlington (Vermont) formerly known as Saco Defense. The plant is the home of the M60 machine gun, adopted by the US Army in 1957, widely used in Vietnam and now being phased out - but nowadays perhaps best remembered as Rambo's gun.

Next up is Saco's sister city (or rather, mother city) Biddeford (pop. 20.942 in 2000), settled in the 1620s and named after Bideford in the English county of Devon. Biddeford is the commercial and industrial centre for York County, having harnessed the Saco River waterfalls since the mid-1800s for textile mills along the riverbanks. At one time, these mills employed 12.000 people, many of which were French-Canadian immigrant workers.
Biddeford is home to major institutions including Southern Maine Medical Center and the University of New England. The city has emerged as one of Maine's fastest-growing commercial service centres, not in the least due to its excellent location close to Portland as well as Boston. In late 2006, a 500,000 square foot shopping center known as "Shops at Biddeford Crossing" is slated to open, with 20 stores and 5 restaurants. The facade of Biddeford's outlying areas is beginning to resemble Metropolitan Boston, whose influence has been creeping into York County for more than a decade. With Portland only 15 minutes north and the Massachusetts state line 45 minutes south, Biddeford is positioned for further economic and residential growth.

The next big town is Kennebunk (pop. 10.476 in 2000), named after an Abenaki Indian word meaning 'the long cut bank' - presumably the long bank behind Kennebunk Beach. The town is a popular summer tourist destination, with several fine beaches. Kennebunk contains fine examples of early architecture, the most noted of which is the "Wedding Cake House," a Federal-style dwelling extensively decorated with scroll saw Gothic trim. Local industry includes tourism, as well as the natural health-care product manufacturer, Tom's of Maine. In addition, many residents commute to Portland, to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, or even to Boston, Massachusetts.
Kennebunk claims to be 'the only village in the world so named', which is a bit puzzling, since the almost eponymous towns of West Kennebunk and Kennebunkport are just nearby. We diverted from US-1 to pay a visit to Kennebunkport, an enclave of sumptuous villas (and big fences) that became world famous for being the holiday home (or permanent home?) of George H.W. Bush, the father of current president Bush - also to be distinguished by the numbers 41 and 43, being their 'numbers' of president (Clinton having been #42).

The town of Wells (pop. 9.400 in 2000), a popular summer destination, was settled after 1641, when Thomas Gorges, cousin to the Lord Proprietor of Maine, granted planters permission to populate the land from northeast of the Ogunquit River to southwest of the Kennebunk River. Wells was named after an eponymous town in the English county of Somerset (it is striking that this town, as are many others in the area, is named after a town in the south-west of England - perhaps because these towns provided many of the original settlers). The Pennacook Indians called the area 'Webhannet', meaning 'at the clear stream'. Wells calls itself the friendliest town in Maine - a rather unverifiable claim (and therefore rather cleverly undeniable).

Formerly part of Wells, the town of Ogunquit (pop. 1.226 in 2000) has been a city since 1980 - avoiding such denominational dubiousness by calling itself 'Beautiful Place by the Sea'. The name itself is Abenaki Indian for 'coastal lagoon'. With weatherbeaten charm and a magnificent beach, the old village was discovered by artists and became an art colony. Particularly after 1898, when the Ogunquit Art Colony was established, it was not unusual to see artists and fishermen plying their respective trades around Perkin's Cove. Several grand seaside hotels and inns were built to accommodate a growing influx of tourists. Today, Ogunquit is a vibrant seasonal resort town, having separated from Wells in 1980. Visitors often arrive from great distances, many from Canada. Over the years, Ogunquit has also become a destination for gay and lesbian tourists, and features numerous gay-owned and operated hotels, restaurants and bars. Part of Stephen King's The Stand, published in 1978, is set in Ogunquit.

The town of York (pop. 12.854 in 2000), located on the York River and close to the Atlantic Ocean, is an important holiday destination. In 1636, settlers from Bristol (England) established the Plantation of Agamenticus on the site of present-day York. Agamenticus is the native Pennacook Abenaki word for the region, meaning 'small river other side of island' and still is the name of the highest hill in town. Two years later, the name was changed to Bristol and in 1642 it became the first incorporated city in America under the name of Gorgeana - after Sir Ferdinando Gorges, Lord Proprietor of Maine, who envisaged it as a great capital city of his province.

York was incorporated in 1652 from a portion of Gorgeana, two days after Kittery, making it the second oldest town in Maine. The town was attacked several times by the Indians, most notably in the Candlemas Massacre of 1692. The last attack occurred in 1723 in the Cape Neddick. Indian hostilities ended after the Battle of Louisbourg (as they were encouraged by the French).
York was a bustling port city before the Revolution, counting numerous merchants as its inhabitants, among which John Hancock - the first president of the United States of America. Jefferson's Embargo crippled trade after the Revolution and York, stripped of its status as capital city, withered away until it was saved by tourism, starting in the late 19th century. York would become, like Bar Harbor and Newport, Rhode Island, a fashionable summer resort, and today contains distinctive examples of Gilded Age architecture, particularly in the "Shingle Style."

Three communities are together identified by travel signs as "The Yorks": York Village (including the historic structures and upscale shops), York Harbor (with a number of resorts as well as elegant cottages on the water) and York Beach (with popular attractions such as arcades, souvenir shops and candy stores).

This interesting website links to stories about haunted York and other tales of ghostly presence along the Maine coast - to be elaborated upon by this blog...

Kittery (pop. 9.543 in 2000) at the mouth of the Piscataqua River, is home to the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, has a seaside district known as Kittery Point and is the last big town in Maine on US-1 before it crosses over into New Hampshire. Kittery's claim to fame is that it's the oldest incorporated town in Maine (in 1647, after being settled about 1623). One of its founders was Alexander Shapleigh, who hailed from Kittery Court manor at Kingswear in the English county of Devon. Shapleigh and other prominent settlers established fisheries offshore at the Isle of Shoals.
"Towns there are, are not many in this province. Kittery, situated not far from Passacataway, is the most populous," wrote John Josselyn in 1663. Kittery would become a centre for trade and shipbuilding, constructing the first vessels of the US Navy (among which John Paul Jones' 1777 Ranger) on Badger's Island. The Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, established on Seavey's Island in 1800 by then-president Thomas Jefferson, is the nation's oldest. PNS rebuilt the Constitution ('Old Ironsides'), built the Kearsarge (sloop-of-war of Civil War notoriety) and the US's very first nuclear submarine. After 1971, PNS repaired rather than constructed submarines. Some more notable facts about Kittery:

° All along US-1, and increasing in frequency the closer you get to the New Hampshire state line, a number of factory outlet shops has sprung up.

° Kittery was the location of the 1996 movie Thinner, based on the 1984 novel by Stephen King of the same name. King appears in a cameo role in this movie as Dr Bangor - the birth place and still present hometown of the famous horror author.

° Kittery was the home of William Dean Howells (1837-1920), the author, editor and literary critic. Though Howells was a proud Ohioan by birth, he loved the house he bought at Kittery Point in 1902.

° Another famous inhabitant, and this time by birth, is Sir William Pepperrell (1696-1759), who organised, financed and led an expedition to capture the French fortress Louisbourg (Nova Scotia) during King George's War, then the strongest coastal fortification in North America. After a siege of 6 weeks, the British captured the fort. Pepperrell was made a baronet in 1746, the only New Englander so honoured. The town of Pepperrell, Massachusetts was named after him.

° A third famous Kittery native is William Whipple (1730-1785), signer of the Declaration of Independence.

Portland (26 miles from Brunswick)

2006-03-07T00:49:00.000-08:00

For all of its 26 miles from Brunswick to Portland, through the towns of Deep Cut, Freeport, Todds Corners, Yarmouth, Cumberland Foreside, Falmouth Foreside and York Landing, US-1 is shadowed by I-295. Between Todds Corners and Yarmouth, just north of the Interstate lies the small but tantalizingly named hamlet of Sodom...

Freeport (pop.: 7.800 in 2000) is headquarters to L.L. Bean, location of numerous outlet stores and hometown to Joan Benoit Samuelson, former Olympic gold medalist in women's marathon. The town calls itself the birthplace of Maine and is an education centre, with 4 public schools and many private schools, among which L'école française du Maine, a French immersion school. Freeport has recently been experiencing a large amount of drug related expulsions. This has been attributed to the recent relaxation of U.S. border security along the U.S.-Canadian border in northern Maine.

In the US, L.L. Bean needs no introduction. For Europeans, it does. So here goes: L.L. Bean is a retail and catalog company based in Freeport, Maine, specializing in outdoor equipment and clothing. The company was founded in 1911 by avid hunter and fisherman Leon Leonwood Bean - born October 13 1872 in Greenwood, Maine - who had developed a waterproof boot he was selling to hunters. By 1912 he was selling the "Bean boot," or Maine Hunting Shoe through a 4-page mail-order catalog, and the boot remains a staple of the company's outdoorsy image. Leon L. Bean passed away February 5, 1967 in Pompano Beach, Florida.
Since its conception, the company has branched out not only to variations on its boots but to other outdoor equipment such as backpacks and tents, as well as producing a full line of clothing. In 2000, L.L. Bean formed a contract with Subaru, making L.L. Bean the official outfitter of Subaru, spawning an LL Bean edition Subaru Outback. Other Subaru vehicles featured LL Bean styling on latter models.
Along with a number of outlet stores, the company maintains its flagship store on Main Street in Freeport. This branch, originally opened in 1917, has been open 24 hours of every day since 1951, with the exception of two Sundays in 1962 when Maine changed its blue laws; a town vote reinstated the store's open-door policy. L.L. Bean has stores as far as Tokyo, Japan, as well as a large presence in its mail-order and online catalog.

Freeport is also the home of the Desert of Maine, a patch of Sahara in New England. Not literally, of course: that would be as improbable as the other way around. For starters, Maine's Desert isn't nearly as old. The 40-acre tract of exposed pine forest originated due to the farming methods of the Tuttle family, starting from 1797. Because they failed to rotate crops, cleared a lot of land and allowed overgrazing, the topsoil eroded rapidly, exposing a sand dune formed in the Ice Age 11.000 years ago, left behind by a retreating glacier. The area is now preserved as a natural curiosity, inevitably accompanied by a gift shop. If you ever see a stretch of sand dunes without a gift shop, you're probably in the real Sahara.

The town of Yarmouth (pop.: 8.360 in 2000), about 15 minutes' drive away from Portland, can be considered a wealthy suburb of said city. Yarmouth is notable for its annual Yarmouth Clam Festival in summer, and for Eartha, a large scale model of Earth, at the headquarter of the DeLorme mapping company. Actually, Eartha is the largest rotating globe in the world except for the Earth itself, weighing approximately 2,8 kilotonnes with a diameter of 12,5 metres. This gives a scale of 1:1.000.000, with one millimetre representing one kilometre. The globe was completed on July 23, 1998, and it uses a composite database built from satellite imagery, shaded relief, colored bathymetry, and information about road networks and urban areas.

When settlers arrived at Yarmouth's site in 1640, they found a fort already built, which had for some time been occupied by George Felt, who had in turn purchased it from John Phillips, a Welshman. In 1646, William Royall purchased a farm on the river which has ever since borne his name. This stream and its vicinity were called by the Indians, Wescustogo. John Cousins had arrived a year or more earlier than Royall, occupying the neck of land between the branches of the stream which has since been called Cousin's River, and owning the island now bearing his name.

In 1688, while the inhabitants on the eastern side of the river were building a garrison, they were attacked by Indians, and attempted a defense. They continued the contest until night, when the Indians retired. It was not long before they appeared again, in such force that the thirty-six families of the settlement were forced to flee, abandoning their homes.

It was not until about 1713 that settlers revisited their homes, when they found their fields and the sites of their habitations covered by a young growth of trees. Among the new proprietors at the time were descendants of the Plymouth pilgrims. Until after the year 1756 the Indians were again very troublesome. In 1725 William and Matthew Scales and Joseph Felt were killed, and the wife and children of the latter carried into captivity. A grandson of Felt, Joseph Weare, became a noted scout, pursuing the Native Americans with unrelenting hate at every opportunity. In August, 1746, a party of thirty-two Indians secreted themselves near the lower falls for the purpose of surprising Weare's garrison, killing Philip Greely, who came in their way. This was the last act of resistance by the indigenous people which occurred within the limits of the town.

Yarmouth constituted the eastern part of North Yarmouth until 1849, when it was set off and incorporated as an independent town; this split occurred because of a dispute over the purchase of a fire wagon. Said wagon would have benefited what is today Yarmouth greatly, as the houses were tightly clustered and could all be reached quickly by the wagon, but the more rural areas of the town (today's North Yarmouth) were too remote to have much use for the device. Unable to resolve this difference, the two halves of the town split, and have been separate ever since. (Interestingly, this is the reason that North Yarmouth Academy is thusly named while being in Yarmouth itself - it was founded before the split).

Today, Yarmouth is a small urban community approximately ten to fifteen miles from the nearest major city, Portland, Maine. The town is mostly residential, but with commerce scattered throughout the town, located on US Route 1 and Main Street (State Route 115.) The Royal River runs through the town, Cousin's River separates it from Freeport.

Every year in Yarmouth there is a three-day period in the middle of July where people from all parts of Maine flock down to attend the famous Yarmouth Clam Festival, an event that has taken place since 1965. The Clam Festival features a carnival, various fried food (especially fried clams), music, dancing, a parade as well as a five mile race and other attractions.

Next up is the biggest city in Maine, Portland (pop.: 64.250 in 2000, 63.882 in 2004). The seat of Cumberland County, Portland is also a popular tourist destination for its lively downtown area and its historic Old Port district along Portland Harbor at the mouth of the Fore River. The Portland Head Light in nearby Cape Elizabeth is a popular tourist attraction often used as a symbol of the harbor and surrounding towns. By its size, Portland has a 'metropolitan' feel that sets it apart from the rest of Maine.

When we were planning our trip, we booked a hotel in Portland over the internet (as we flew in to Portland International Jetport out of JFK, after which we headed north to Québec). Turns out we booked a room in Portland, Oregon, a couple of thousand miles to the west! That Portland apparently was named after this one, in times before the World Wide Web could cause this kind of confusion...

Portland (Maine) has a phoenix rising out of ashes on its city seal, which carries the motto 'Resurgam', in reference to the fires that ravaged much of the city at one time in history.

Portland was originally called Machigonne by the native people who first lived there. It was settled by the British in 1632 as a fishing and trading settlement and renamed Casco. In 1658 its name was changed again, this time to Falmouth.

In 1675 the village was completely destroyed by the Wampanoag people during King Philip's War. The city was rebuilt, to be destroyed by the same aborigines again several years later. On October 18, 1775, the city was destroyed yet again, bombarded during the American Revolutionary War by the Royal Navy under command of Captain Henry Mowat who while visiting the town on an voyage earlier that same year had been taken hostage at Marston’s Tavern, high upon Middle Street near the square (by the present day site of Longfellow Books) by rural renegades from Brunswick, Maine.

Following the war, a section of Falmouth called "The Neck" developed as a commercial port and began to grow rapidly as a shipping center. In 1786 the citizens of Falmouth formed a separate town in Falmouth Neck and named it Portland. Portland's economy was greatly stressed by the Embargo Act of 1807 (prohibition of trade with the British) and the War of 1812. In 1820 Maine became a state and Portland was selected as its capital. By this time both the Embargo Act and the war had ended, and Portland's economy began to recover. In 1832 the capital was moved to Augusta.

Portland was a center for protests concerning the Maine law of 1851 culminating in the Portland Rum Riot on June 2, 1855. On July 4, 1866, a fire ignited during the 4th of July celebration, destroyed most of the commercial buildings in the city, half the churches and hundreds of homes. More than 10,000 people were left homeless. After this fire, Portland was rebuilt with brick and took on a Victorian appearance. Citizens began building huge Victorian mansions along Portland's (now famous) western promenade.

The high quality of architecture in Portland is in large part due to the succession of talented architects who worked here. Charles A. Alexander (1822-1882) provided many of the designs for Portland's Victorian mansions. Henry Rowe (1810-1870) specialized in Gothic cottages. George M. Harding (1827-1910) designed many of the commercial buildings in Portland's Old Port as well as many of Portland's ornate residential buildings. Around the turn of the century Frederick A. Tompson (1857-1906) designed many of Portland's residential buildings.

But by far the most influential and prolific architects of the Western Promenade area were Francis Fassett (1823-1906) and John Calvin Stevens (1855-1940). In the 1870s Fassett was the undisputed leader in his profession. He was commissioned to build the Maine General Building (now a wing of the Maine Medical Center) and the Williston West Church as well as several schools and his own home. From the early 1880s to the 1930s Stevens worked in a wide range of styles from the Queen Anne and Romanesque popular at the beginning of his career, to the Mission Revival Style of the 1920s, but the architect is best known for his pioneering efforts in the Shingle and Colonial Revival styles, examples of which abound in this area.

The erection of the Maine Mall, an indoor shopping center established in the suburb of South Portland during the 1970s, has had a significant effect on Portland's downtown. Department stores and other major franchises either moved to the nearby mall or went out of business. This has been a mixed blessing for locals, protecting the city's character (chain stores are often uninterested in it now) but leading to a number of empty storefronts. Some residents lament at having to venture out of town for certain products and services no longer available on the peninsula.

Since the 1990s, Maine College of Art has proved to be a revitalizing force in the downtown area - bringing in students from around the country, and restoring the historic Porteous building on Congress Street as its main facility. The school has also maintained the Baxter building, once home to the city's public library, as a computer lab and photography studio.

After being destroyed four times, Portland is one of the most beautiful cities in New England. The Victorian style architecture, which was popular during Portland's rebuilding, has been preserved very well by the city's strong emphasis on preservation. Most cities have only small traces of architecture from this era. Portland's unique history and determination to survive have made it one of the best places to live and visit in the country. In 1982 the area was entered on the National Register of Historic Places. In modern lifestyle surveys, it is often cited as one of America's best small cities to live in.

Remarkably, Portland must be the only town in Maine, apart from the Indian Reservations, where the population is only 91% white.

The Downtown Arts District is home to the Portland Museum of Art, Portland Performing Arts Center, and the Portland Symphony Orchestra. Baxter Boulevard (Back Cove), Deering Oaks, Eastern Promenade, Lincoln Park, and Western Promenade are historical parks.

Other sites of interest include:

Casco Bay Islands, including the Casco Bay Ferry
Children's Museum of Maine
Eastland Park Hotel
East End Beach
Exchange Street
Longfellow Arboretum
Maine Mall
Maine Narrow Gauge Railroard
Martin's Point
Old Port
The Portland Club
Portland Conservatory of Music
Portland Financial District
Portland Head Light Lighthouse
Portland Observatory
University of Southern Maine (USM)
Victoria Mansion (Morse-Libby House)
Wadsworth-Longfellow House
Woodford's corner

Notable inhabitants of Portland include:

Cyrus Curtis, publisher and philanthropist
Neal S. Dow, Temperance movement leader
Kevin Eastman, co-creator of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
John Eder, only Green Party legislator in the United States
John Ford, director
Stephen King, writer (born here, now lives in Bangor, Maine)
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, poet
Joshua Chamberlain, civil war hero, Governor, served later in life as Surveyor of the Port, Portland. Maintained a house on Back Bay
Alex Arbuckle, artist
John MacVane, news correspondent
Bob Marley, comedian
Holman S. Melcher, mayor, Civil War hero
George Mitchell, US Senate Majority Leader, now Chairman of Walt Disney. Practiced Law in Portland 1965-1977, Assistant County Attorney; Cumberland County 1971.
Doug Morton, musician/producer
Judd Nelson, actor
Alexander Parris, architect
Thomas Brackett Reed, U.S. Representative
Liv Tyler, actress
Peleg Wadsworth, Revolutionary War general

Movies filmed in Portland:

The Preacher's Wife
The Man Without a Face
Message in A Bottle
Reindeer Games
Thinner

Brunswick (56 miles from Camden)

2006-03-06T04:52:00.000-08:00

By this time of night, and having set out all the way up in Presque Isle that morning, the string of villages following Camden - objectively pretty, I'm sure - presented itself as a monotonous litany of towns too small to include a decent roadside motel: Rockland, Thomaston, South Warren, Waldoboro, Harrington Corner, Damariscotta, Newcastle, South Newcastle, Fort Edgecomb, Wiscasset, Montsweag and Bath. We finally found a place to stay in Brunswick. It was two in the night. We were exhausted and somewhat disappointed to still be in Maine. No offence to the good people of that state, but the realisation that so many states remained ahead of us was a bit daunting.

Rockland (pop. 7.609 in 2000) is the county seat of Knox County. Like so many Maine coastal communities, its economic centre of gravity has shifted from fishery to tourism. Very helpful in that respect is that the city has the Knox County Regional Airport, is the departure point for ferries to the islands in Penobscot Bay and (starting in the summer of 2005) is the eastern terminus for the Maine Eastern Railroad, allowing for carless trips along the Maine coast in the tourist season.

Thomaston (pop. 3.748 in 2000) was home to the state prison until 2002, when it was moved to Warren, Maine. The prison was locally famous for its gift shop, featuring the handmade wares of the prisoners. The gift shop still exists today - and I think we drove by it: there was a threemaster in the window. Must have been made by a lifer, by the size of it...

Waldoboro (pop. 4.916 in 2000) is in Lincoln County. And that's about all the info I can find about it.

Next is the town of Damariscotta (pop. 2.041 in 2000), which derives its name from an Indian (Abenaki) word for 'river of many fishes'. The town's shaky claim to fame are the 2.500 year old oyster shell middens along the banks of the Damariscotta River, a tidal estuary of the Gulf of Maine. The Great Salt Bay, terminus for the river, is the northernmost mating area for horseshoe crabs in North America (pictured here). The villages of Damariscotta and of Newcastle are linked by the Main Street bridge over the Damariscotta River, forming the 'Twin Villages'. Damariscotta/Newcastle boasts a couple of noteworthy churches; among which are St. Patrick's Church, built in 1808: it is the oldest surviving Catholic Church in New England, and is known for its Paul Revere Bell. Another interesting one is St. Andrews Episcopal Church: the first church built by Henry Vaughn who later worked on the design and construction of the National Cathedral in Washington.

The town of Newcastle (pop. 1.748 in 2000) is notable for the picturesque village of Sheepscott on the Sheepscott River, which in 1978 was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Sheepscott Historic District. It includes 51 buildings in the Italianate, Greek Revival, and Federal styles, on 12,000 acres. (The USGS recognizes Sheepscott, Shepscooke, Shippscutt, and Shipscot as variants of the name Sheepscot.)

St Patrick's, New England's oldest catholic church, in Newcastle.

Fort Edgecomb is located on Davis Island in the town of Edgecomb. It was built in 1808-'09 as a two-storey octagonal wooden block house and is now on the National Register of Historic Places. The Fort was part of the US second line of defence against British attacks on American shipping, guarding the then-important port of Wiscasset.

Wiscasset (pop. 3.603 in 2000), first settled in 1663, sits on the tidal Sheepscot River. It was abandoned during the French and Indian Wars, resettled in 1730 and incorporated in 1760 as Pownalborough (after Governor Thomas Pownall). In 1802, it resumed its original Abenaki name, which means 'coming out from the harbour but you don't see where'. With its notable architecture, much of which is in the Federalist style, Wiscasset is often called 'Maine's prettiest village'.
Notable inhabitants of Wiscasset are rock singer and guitarist Juliana Hatfield (b. 1967), signer of the Declaration of Independence Matthew Thornton (1714)1803) and Cadwallader C. Washburn, businessman, politician and soldier (1818-1882).

With a population of about 10.000, Bath, county seat of Sagadahoc County, is a big city for Maine standards. Located upstream on the Kennebec River, Bath's been a centre of shipbuilding since colonial times. The Popham Colony, which preceded Bath, built the Virginia of Sagahadoc, the first ocean-going vessel built in the New World by English-speaking shipwrights. Today it is the location of the Bath Iron Works shipyard, which has built hundreds of wooden and steel vessels, mostly warships for the US Navy.

The last ship to be launched in the traditional way at Bath Iron Works was the destroyer Mason (DDG 87), sliding down into the Kennebec on June 23, 2001 along an incline. From then on, ships will enter the water via the yard's new Land Level Transfer Facility.

So we finally, finally arrive in a place that has enough coupons in the discount book to assure us that we can and will find a room for the night, or what's left of it. Brunswick! Home of the bowling ball! (not!) Land of the sleepy! But a jumble of roads keeps us going in circles, backtracking and getting lost. Desperation, and the possibility of having to spend the night in the car, sink in - Titanic-style. We finally do manage to find a motel on a semi-run-down strip of shops, motels and burger joints - the standard configuration of US-1 further south, but quite novel on our trip so far.

Brunswick (pop. 21.172 in 2000) must be the biggest town we've hit so far, but bigger doesn't mean better. Certainly not in the case of Brunswick. The Naval Airstation in town is closing, as well might the Bank of America Call Centre - wiping out many of the jobs in the area. The population will almost certainly decrease in the next decade, leaving Brunswick to be overtaken by the budding cities to the south, such as Saco, Scarborough, Biddeford, Westbrook and Sanford.

Settled in 1628, incorporated in 1738 and named after the British House of Brunswick, the city is home to Bowdoin College (chartered in 1794), linked to downtown by a grassy tree-lined mall. Industries include L.L. Bean, MBNA credit card company, fiberglass contruction material, electrical switches, Mid-Coast health services, and several facilities of Bath Iron Works.

Brunswick was the home of Civil War General Joshua Chamberlain who later served as Governor of Maine and as President of Bowdoin College. His home, located on the corner of Maine and Potter Streets, is now a museum open to the public May-October.

Bowdoin College at some point also was the home of Harriet Beecher Stowe (born Harriet Elizabeth Beecher; 1811–1896). Beecher Stowe was an abolitionist and writer of more than 10 books, the most famous being Uncle Tom's Cabin, which describes life in slavery, and which was first published in serial form from 1851 to 1852 in an abolitionist organ, the National Era, edited by Gamaliel Bailey. Her second novel was Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp: another anti-slavery novel.

She was born in Litchfield, Connecticut and raised in Hartfort, Connecticut. In 1832, her family moved to Cincinnati, where she gained first-hand knowledge of slavery and the Underground Railroad and was moved to write Uncle Tom's Cabin. In 1836 Harriet Beecher married Calvin Stowe, a clergyman and widower. Later she and her husband moved to Bowdoin College in Brunswick, when he obtained an academic position there. When Stowe met Abraham Lincoln in 1862 (during the Civil War), he reportedly greeted her, So you're the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war!

Camden (18 miles from Belfast)

2006-03-05T14:49:00.000-08:00

Only 18 miles from Belfast to Camden, but judging from the big houses flashing by while racing south on US-1, all prime real estate. US-1 passes by Bayside, Temple Heights and Crow's Nest, passes through Lincolnville and Camden, where we stopped at a gas station. A couple of cops had stopped there too for their late night donut and coffee and we were so fascinated by the proximity of these real US cops - such an iconic mainstay of US postmodern folklore (good cop, bad cop, and indeed there were two of them) that we were loath to pull away from the gas station before they did...

Camden (pop. 5.254 in 2000) is a picture postcard example of a scenic coastal Maine town, consequently it is full of B&B's, restaurants and sailboats in the harbour. Mount Battie, overlooking the Camden-Rockport coastal area, offers a great panoramic view. It's home to Bob Metcalfe, inventor of Ethernet (see also Metcalfe's Law). John Sculley, erstwhile president of Apple Computers and CEO of PepsiCo in the 70s and 80s. Sculley introduced the 'Pepsi Challenge', gaining market share over Coca Cola. lives in nearby Lincolnville. A technology conference named Pop!Tech takes place here every autumn.
Camden is the main location of the 1957 film 'Peyton Place'. It was also the hometown of Edna St. Vincent Millay - her relocated statue still looks out over the harbour, but is not easy to find.

Picturesque picture of Camden

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950) was a lyrical poet and playwright, and the first woman ever to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry (1923, for 'The Harp-Weaver and Other Poems'). She was known for het bohemian lifestyle, which included many love affairs with both men and women. She was born in Rockland and moved to Camden with her two sisters and mother when she divorced Edna's father. Her poem 'Renascence' (1912) awarded her fame and a scholarship to Vassar College. After graduation (1917) she moved to Greenwich Village in NYC. In 1923, she married Eugene Jan Boissevain with whom she lived at a farmhouse called 'Steepletop' in Austerlitz (NY). Their marriage was an open one, among her lovers was George Dillon, a poet 14 years her junior for whom she wrote some sonnets.

Her reputation was damaged by poetry she wrote in support of the Allied war effort during World War II. Merle Rubin noted: "She seems to have caught more flak from the literary critics for supporting democracy than Ezra Pound did for championing fascism." Boissevain died in 1949 from lung cancer. Edna St. Vincent Millay died about a year later of a heart attack. She was found dead on the stairs of her house, a poem clutched in her hand.

Thomas Hardy once said that America had two great attractions: the skyscraper and the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay. Her best known poem might be "First Fig" (1920):

My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends--
It gives a lovely light!

Edna St. Vincent Millay, photographed in 1933 by Carl Van Vechten

Rockland (65 miles from Ellsworth)

2006-03-05T08:52:00.000-08:00

We didn't stop in Ellsworth. Nor did we pause for too long in West Ellsworth, East Orland or Orland. All pretty nice towns, I'm sure. But after so much distance and time in Maine and so many states left to go, we were eager to get out of the state and onto the next one. So no stop either at Bucksport or Verona, both located at the mouth of the Penobscot River. Halfway to Searsport, US-A1 (Alt 1) connects up again to US-1, having diverted north to Bangor from Ellsworth. By this time (and since Bucksport), US-1 hugs the coastline again, winding southwest to Belfast, south to Lincolnville, Camden, Glen Cove and Rockland.

Colourful signs on a gas station near East Orland

The town of Verona is actually called Verona Island (pop. 533 in 2000), on an eponymous island in the Penobscot River. Once a shipbuilding community, it built Commodore Robert E. Peary's ship the Roosevelt in 1905 for his expedition to the North Pole. Verona Island was called Penobscot Island originally, but renamed Orphan Island when Henry Knox bequeathed it to his orphaned children. In 1839 it became Wetmore Island Plantation, changed to Verona upon its incorporation in 1861, finally becoming Verona Island after a referendum in 2004. Verona was connected to Prospect (Ferry) on the mainland in 1931 by the Waldo-Hancock Bridge, which carries US-1. This bridge is on the National Register of Historic Places but is in such bad repair that it is being replaced by the Downeast Gateway Bridge which is to open late 2006. The west pylon will accommodate an observation area at its top, and has been named the Penobscot Observatory Tower. More info on the bridge at www.waldohancockbridge.com/waldo-county-bridge.

Top view of work in progress at the Downeast Gateway Bridge, centred on the Penobscot Observatory Tower

Bucksport, right across the river from Verona Island, is a town of (US census 2000) 4.908 people. Right across the river is Fort Knox - not to be confused with the other Fort Knox in Kentucky, famous for being the repository of the US Gold Bullion Reserve (currently around 4.500 tonnes).

View of Bucksport from Fort Knox, across the Penobscot River

This Fort Knox was built after the US and Great Britain fell into argument over the border between New Brunswick and Maine in 1839: it seemed likely the British would sail up the Penobscot River and take control of Bangor, Maine's wealthy, unprotected lumber capital. This was far from unimagineable, as the British previously controlled the stretch of river up to Bangor during the American Revolution and the War of 1812. The fort, built from 1844 to 1851 and the first of many granite forts built in Maine, contained a military garrison from 1863 to 1866 during the Civil War and during the Spanish-American War of 1898. Both Fort Knoxes were named after the same man: Major General Henry Knox, Commander of Artillery in the American Revolution and the US's first Secretary of War. Knox spent the last years of his life in Thomaston, Maine.

Fort Knox, Maine's largest historical fort

Further south, Searsport (pop. 2.641 in 2000) is known as the 'home of the famous sea captains'. The town was named after Boston town financier David Sears. In the 19th century Searsport supplied 1 in 10 of the nation's Merchant Marine deep water captains. Searsport could have been the capital of Massachusetts: in 1847, when fire destroyed the Province House in Boston, general Samuel Waldo advocated such a move - unsuccessfully.

Darius Doak, one of the 19th century Searsport Sea Captains

Belfast (pop. 6.381 in 2000) is the seat of Waldo County and also was a shipbuilding centre for hundreds of three-, four- and five-masted ships. Belfast was ideally located for shipbuilding: sheltered but close to the ocean, and halfway between Boston and Bangor. At the turn of the 20th century and with the demise of the wooden-hull ship, Belfast switched to the refrigeration industry. Local seafood (lobsters, scallops, sardines, herring and mackerel) travels to Boston and NYC. Tourims supplements the local economy nowadays. That economy depends in no small amount on the artistic element in town, originally drawn by low housing costs in the depressed '60s and '70s of the previous century.

View of Belfast town centre

In the early 1990s, credit card giant MBNA established a large facility in Belfast. MBNA was instrumental in establishing the Hutchinson Center of the University of Maine, an outpost of the University of Maine System, less than a mile from the main MBNA campus. The explosion of jobs provided by MBNA has increased Belfast's population significantly. (MBNA was recently acquired by Bank of America.)
SailViVA also makes Belfast its home port. SailViVA is a unique non-profit organization dedicated to providing free sailing opportunities to connect people of all ages, abilities, and means to the world’s oceans through educational and recreational programs that stimulate individual growth and instill an enduring love and appreciation of the sea and to ensure that ViVA is maintained as an historic racing yacht for others to enjoy for all generations to come.

Ellsworth (60 miles from Machias)

2006-03-04T04:18:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since our trip and the details are getting fuzzy - I can't tell you a lot about the 60 miles between Machias and Ellsworth, for example. Probably because it was dark when we drove there, while we were still trying to decide whether we should take the US-1A that branches off at Ellsworth towards Bangor farther inland. After Machias, US-1 hugs the ocean, although less erratic than the rocky coastline. Passing through Jonesboro, Columbia Falls, Harrington, Cherryfield, Millbridge, East Steuben, Steuben, West Gouldsboro, Ashville, East Sullivan, Waukeag, Hancock and Franklin Road before reaching Ellsworth. The Mapquest image reproduced here gives the shortest route between Machias and Ellsworth, which doesn't completely follow US-1: between Harrington and Millbridge, it follows US-1A, which runs closer to the coast than US-1, which makes a detour via Cherryfield.

Towns are getting quite big here, further south: Ellsworth has 6.500 inhabitants. It is also the county seat of Hancock County. And apparently, the little town also has its very own, rather vindictive contributor to Wikipedia. This is the entry: "Ellsworth, as a tourist town, has much to offer visitors in the way of sights and shops: Prime examples are the Mill Mall, Ellsworth Sewage Treatment Plant, Woodlawn Museum (a.k.a the Black House) and Union River. It is locally known as "The Crossroads of Downeast Maine." Over the past 25 years, Ellsworth has become centered around the Maine Coast Strip Mall, where one can buy electronics, jewlery, and, in the parking lot, heroin. Teenagers, as well as adults who like a faster lifestyle, may fare better in Bangor or Portland."

On Ellsworth city council's website, there's a brief history of the town, made even briefer here:

After being settled and claimed by such savage tribes as the Passamaquoddy, the Penobscot and the French, the English settled the Ellsworth area from 1763 onwards. Two saw mills were established on the Union River, which was first bridged in 1793.
Visible from the Route 1 Bridge is the dam on the lower falls of the Union River, built in 1907. Not visible is the dam built at the southern end of Graham Lake in 1922-'23, which was breached in the year of its completion, carrying away the Route 1 Bridge and damaging or destroying most buildings on the east side of the river. Ellsworth suffered a second disaster in 1933, when a great fire consumed over 130 buildings, including City Hall.
Ellsworth has shed its past as a sawmill town and is now a major commercial and service centre, priding itself as the 'Gateway to Downeast Maine and Acadia National Park'.

A word or two about both:

° Downeast Maine: A geographical term peculiar to New England, referring to the coast of Maine from Penobscot Bay (close to Ellsworth) all the way up to the Canadian border, encompassing all the rural coastal communities of Hancock and Washington counties. If one uses the term 'Downeast' without Maine, it can refer to all of coastal New England. The term's origins were explained by Down East magazine: "When ships sailed from Boston to ports in Maine (which were to the east of Boston), the wind was at their backs, so they were sailing downwind, hence the term 'Down East.' And it follows that when they returned to Boston they were sailing upwind; many Mainers still speak of going 'up to Boston,' despite the fact that the city lies approximately 50 miles to the south of Maine’s southern border."

° Acadia National Park: Located on, and encompassing much of Mount Desert Island, Acadia National Park includes mountains, shoreline, woods and lakes. It also comprises much of Isle au Haut to the southwest and part of Schoodic Peninsula. Total area is 142 km², 123 km² of which is on Mount Desert Island. The park was created in 1916 as Sieur de Monts National Monument, became Lafayette National Park in 1919 and was renamed Acadia National Park in 1929.

The town of Bar Harbor (pop. 4.820 in 2000) on the northeast of Mount Desert Island is famous as a resort and upper-class summer colony. Before 1918, the town was known as Eden. At one time, Bar Harbor was the favourite watering hole for upper-crust families as the Rockefellers and the Astors. A 1947 fire destroyed many of these families' mansions.

Bar Harbor is the birthplace of Nelson Rockefeller, former governor of New York and US vice president to Gerald Ford. As vice president Ford replaced Nixon after his resignation following Watergate, Rockefeller was only the second vice president to be appointed rather than elected. Rockefeller was good at being second: he was also the second vice president ever (up til now) to be cremated - and the only one to have his ashes scattered. This might be connected to the circumstances of his death: he died while having sex with his mistress in a hotel room. Police didn't arrive until two hours after his death, possibly allowing for the location of his death to be 'sanitized'. In his will, he left his mistress Megan Marshak a town house and a sum of money. She has since (1979) dropped from public view.

Vice president gives finger: Rockefeller reacts to hippie hecklers during a public speech at Broome County Airport in Binghamton, NY. Alas the most memorable moment of his vice presidency.

Perry (2) FDR's holiday home at Campobello Island

2006-03-03T07:58:00.000-08:00

Richard M. Nixon was the first Californian to become President of the USA. His election was a watershed: from then on, the traditional East Coast aristocracy was no longer the 'natural' breeding ground for US presidents. There's a lot of presidential history along US-1, but due to the shift of the US political centre away from the Atlantic seaboard, it tends to be rather ancient history. Except in Washington DC of course, where US-1 passes within strolling distance of the White House.

The first main presidential site along US-1 is Roosevelt Campobello International Park, centred around the family holiday home of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the only president be elected three times (1932, 1936 and 1940) and, with his 'New Deal'-policies, the instigator of America's climb out of the Great Depression. He was Commander in Chief during World War II, but died some months before final Allied victory, succeeded by his vice-president Harry Truman. He is considered one of the greatest US presidents ever, and is equally famous by his acronym alone: FDR.

The Roosevelt Mansion on Campobello Island, now the centre of the park

Campobello (Italian for 'beautiful field') is not part of the US, but of the Canadian province of New Brunswick, although the island (70 km², pop. 1.195 in 2001), located in the Bay of Fundy near Passamaquoddy and Cobscook Bays, is connected to Lubec (Maine), close to Eastport.

The Passamaquoddy called the island 'Egabhuit', while early French explorers dubbed it 'Port aux Coquilles' ('Shell Harbour'). As of the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), the island fell under British sway as part of Nova Scotia. It was renamed 'Campobello' after the contemporary Governor of Nova Scotia, Lord William Campbell. The economy thrived, partly because of loyalists fleeing the American revolution. The US gave up its claim to Campobello (and two adjacent islands) only in 1817.

The little island of Campobello played a big role in the moulding of Canadian nationhood, originating from an aversion towards American agression. In 1866, a Fenian Brotherhood war party of 700+ members arrived at the Maine shore opposite the island with the intention of seizing Campobello from the British. The US government intervened and a military force dispersed the marauders. This action served to reinforce the idea of protection for New Brunswick by joining with the British North American colonies of Nova Scotia, Canada East, and Canada West in Confederation to form the Dominion of Canada.

Campobello has always relied heavily on fishing as the mainstay of the island economy, however the Passamaquoddy Bay region's potential for tourism was discovered during the 1880s at about the same time as The Algonquin resort was built at nearby St. Andrews and the resort community of Bar Harbor was beginning to develop. Campobello Island became home to a similar, although much smaller and more exclusive development following the acquisition of some island properties by several private American investors. A luxurious resort hotel was built and the island became a popular summer colony for wealthy Canadians and Americans, many of whom built grand estates there.

Included in this group was Sara Delano and her husband James Roosevelt Sr. from New York. Sara Delano had a number of Delano cousins living in Maine and Campobello offered a beautiful summer retreat where their family-members could easily visit. From 1883 onward, the Roosevelt family made Campobello Island their summer home. Their son, Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States, would spend his summers on Campobello from the age of one until, as an adult, he acquired a larger property - a 34 room "cottage" - which he would use as a summer retreat until 1936. It was here that Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr., was born in the summer of 1914.
During the 20th century, the island's prosperity from its wealthy visitors declined with the change in lifestyles brought on by a new mobility from automobiles, airplanes, and air conditioning in large inland cities. Nonetheless, for President Roosevelt, the tranquility was exactly what he and his family cherished and the property remained in their hands until Eleanor Roosevelt's death in 1962.

FDR holidaying at Campobello in 1904

The Roosevelt Campobello International Bridge, which connects the island to the U.S. mainland at Lubec, was built in 1962 and brought a tourism revival, particularly after the 11 km² (2,800 acre) Roosevelt Campobello International Park was created in 1964, following a gift from the Roosevelt estate to the Canadian and United States governments. The park was officially opened by U.S. President Lyndon Johnson and Canadian Prime Minister Lester Pearson when the two met in Canada in 1966.

In 1960, motion-picture producer Dore Schary and director Vincent J. Donehue made the film Sunrise at Campobello, based on Schary's Tony Award winning Broadway play of the same name. Starring Ralph Bellamy as Franklin D. Roosevelt, the film covered the years 1921 to 1924 at Campobello Island and events leading up to Roosevelt's nomination as the Democratic Party's candidate for President.

Machias (36 miles from Perry)

2006-03-02T07:27:00.000-08:00

After Perry, US-1 continues along the coast, now resolutely heading west. The route touches Cobscook Bay, passes through tiny Pembroke (pop. 880) and even tinier West Pembroke, Lower Dennysville and Dennysville itself. The route on the map below is the shortest - which obviously isn't US-1; after Dennysville, Mapquest recommends Maine Route 86 through Marlon to the west, taking Maine Route 191 south after Mud Landing, passing through Jacksonville to end up in East Machias. US-1 itself after Dennysville runs much closer to the coast, traversing the town of Whiting to end up in East Machias.

Dennysville has a couple of hundred inhabitants, and is remarkable only for a number of buildings listed on the National Register of Historic Places, among which Lincoln House, straight off US-1. It was named after Theodore, the son of general Benjamin Lincoln, who received the sword of surrender at Yorktown. Lincoln Sr. and two other men purchased the township in 1786 and he built this house for his son. The house would be home to three generations of Lincolns, well known for their hospitality, among others to John James Audubon.

After Dennysville, US-1 continues south-south-east, along Dennys Bay (and the town of Edmunds), which melts into Whiting Bay - both of which are parts of an intricate web of bays and inlets that eventually, via the Bay of Fundy, connect up with the Atlantic Ocean. Whiting Bay is a megaphone-shaped bay with the appropriately named town of Whiting at its narrowest end. This is about the only town on the Route between Dennysville and East Machias. Its woods, lakes and streams all the way - Orange River, Reynolds Brook, Lively Brook, Indian Lake, Holmes Stream and Gardner Lake. US-1 passes by Chase Mills, on the riverside, and unfortunately misses the intriguingly named Dog Town, just south of East Machias.

Right before we enter Machias, we have to cross the Machias River by bridge. Nothingness, bridge over river, town: this pattern will be repeated so often, especially in the northern states, that we wonder if there's any explanation. We still don't know. Machias had 2.353 inhabitants as of the 2000 Census, and was settled in 1763. It's home to Burnham Tavern, a historical museum which has mementos of the first naval battle of the American Revolution. This battle, in June 1775, in Machiasport led to the capture of a British ship. The University of Maine at Machias is located in the town. Machias boasts pga professional Jodi Hooper as a native. She brings the town much pride, according to Wikipedia.

Perry (20 miles from Calais)

2006-03-01T23:41:00.000-08:00

After running through Calais as Main Street, US-1 continues along the right bank of the St. Croix River, passing Whitlocks Mill, Red Beach and Robbinston, South Robbinston and North Perry. As we reach Perry, 20 miles from Calais, the river has tapered out into Passamaquoddy Bay, which is a capricious jumble of sweet and salt water, islands and peninsulas, Canada and USA.

Perry itself is a small town of (2000 census) 847 people, 86% White and 12% Native American. Dredging the internet doesn't produce much info on such a small town, but I managed to find some trivia:

° The median household income was $27.788, compared to the national average of $41.994;
° The town was named after Oliver Hazard Perry, Commodore and Hero of the War of 1812 with the British;
° Reported ancestries in order of importance: Irish (23.5%), English (21.3%), American Indian (12,8%), French (9.3%), Scotch-Irish (7.3%), Scottish (6.8%), German (5.3%).

Perry does have three (slightly) less trivial distinctions:

° On Route 190 just three miles outside Eastport but still in Perry is the Pleasant Point Indian Reservation, home of the Passamaquoddy tribe. It is a modern settlement with more than 700 descendants of the people who occupied this land before the first Europeans arrived in the 15th and 16th centuries. The reservation houses the Waponahki Museum, which preserves the history, culture and language of the Passamaquoddy tribe.

° The 45th parallel runs through it, meaning the town is equidistant from the North Pole and the Equator (although it feels al lot closer to the pole). Apparently, there's a red marker where US-1 intersects with the 45th parallel, which also runs through the Bordeaux wine region, the Crimean peninsula and the northern tip of Japan - it re-enters the USA at Lincoln City in Oregon, then traverses Halfway, Washington (named after its location on this latitude?), Yellowstone Park, the Wyoming-Montana-South Dakota tri-state corner and Minneapolis, Minnesota. To name but the most interesting ones...

° And it's the easternmost town on US-1 - not too far from Eastport, the easternmost town of the whole USA, off to the south-east on Route 190, less than 8 miles from Perry. Eastport is located on Moose Island, connected to the mainland via a short causeway.

If not for the fact that this place is the first to see the sunrise in the USA, Eastport (pop. 1.640) merits a detour for Old Sow, the largest tidal whirlpool in the western hemisphere and one of only five significant ones worldwide, the other ones being Corryvreckan (Scotland), Saltstraumen (Norway), Moskstraumen (Norway) and Naruto (Japan). Old Sow, whose name might derive from the pig-like noises it makes when churning or from a corruption of the word 'sough' (pronounced 'suff') which means a sucking noise or drain, exists due to the extreme tidal range of the Western Passage, where waters exchange between Passamaquoddy Bay and the Bay of Fundy. Its diameter has been measured as 75 metres, its water current speed as 27,7 km/h - making it almost as fast as the world's fastest at Moskstraumen. Due to this tremendous turbulence, smaller vessels are warned to avoid these waters when the tide is running. For lager craft, the Old Sow normally doesn't present any navigational hazard.

A bit more on Eastport, now.
° It's not only the easternmost US city, it's also the northeasternmost commercial shipping port in the US, shipping paper, logs and granite. It's also the birth place of the sardine canning industry - now defunct - and east coast centre of a still thriving aquaculture industry, producing millions of farm raised Atlantic salmon each year. During the nineteenth century, the port of Eastport was a major shipping center for the United States, rivaling the port of New York in the 1850's. Eastport's also home to a US military chemical warfare uniform production plant...
° Eastport is the only US owned principality that has been under rule by a foreign government. It was held from 1814 to 1818 by British troops under King George following the conclusion of the War of 1812.
° The town is home to a large community of artists and many art galleries.
° Eastport's National Historic Waterfront District extends from the Customs House down Water Street to Bank Square and the Peavey Library. The library displays the 1814 letter from Admiral Hardy demanding the citizens of Eastport swear loyalty to the British throne under threat from the cannons of his fleet. Later, downtown Eastport was severely damaged by fire in 1864 and 1886.
° Raye's Mustard Mill, Eastport. America's only remaining mill producing stone ground mustard, historically this mill served the sardine packing industry.
° St. Croix Island International Park (Overlook), Red Beach Community of Calais. In 1604, Samuel DeChamplain and Sieur DeMonts founded this French settlement. The severity of the winter climate (35 died from exposure and scurvy that winter) caused the colony to be abandoned the following spring. From the park the island is clearly visible.
° The St. Croix colony, near Calais, predates Jamestown by three years.
° The first naval battle of the American Revolution occurred just off what is now Machiasport.
° The tides in this area, at the mouth of the Bay of Fundy, are the greatest in the United States. Tides reach 25 feet or more during storms. These tides were to be harnessed for electric power in the failed Passamaquoddy Tidal Power Project of the 1930's. The Quoddy Maritime museum on Water Street has a working model of the dam on display.

Statue of the Old Fisherman (and his by now Very Old Fish) at the waterfront in Eastport

Calais (21 miles from Indian Township)

2006-02-27T16:55:00.000-08:00

Calais, a town of (2000 census) 3.447 people, was named after the eponymous northern French harbour, but its name is not pronounced CAL-lous and not cal-AY (as in French). Calais is located on the St. Croix River, right across from St. Stephen in New Brunswick.

A bit of history: the area was first explored by Samuel de Champlain, who wintered here in the early 1600s, but not settled until 1770. On June 27, 1789, the Massachusetts General Court sold the township to Mr. Waterman Thomas for 19¢ an acre. On June 16, 1809, the area was incorporated as a town. The city was given the name Calais after its ancient counterpart in France in honor of France's very significant contribution to American independence during the American Revolution. The State of Maine granted a City Charter on August 24, 1850.

Statue of George Washington, honoured as first President and as a Mason, overlooking Calais, Maine

Wikipedia lists one 'notable person' born in Calais: a certain Horatio Nelson Young, who like his British namesake proved his valour at sea. Young was born in 1845, travelled to Boston to join the US Navy following the outbreak of the Civil War and served aboard the USS Lehigh as an 18-year-old boy when on November 16, 1863, his ship ran aground in the Charleston, South Carolina harbor. In rough waters, and under heavy enemy fire trying to stop him, Horatio Young made several attempts until he succeeded in passing in a small boat from his ship to the USS Nahant with a line wrapped on a hawser that would enable the Lehigh to be freed from her position.
His courageous action saved the lives of many men aboard the helpless ship and he was awarded the Medal of Honor, the United States' highest military decoration. Horatio Young died in 1913 and was interred in the St. Stephen Rural Cemetery, in St. Stephen, New Brunswick, Canada surrounded by other Canadian and American honored war dead.

Indian Township (70 miles from Houlton)

2006-02-27T13:03:00.000-08:00

It looks like a big stretch of nothing when you zoom in to it on Google Earth, but the 70 miles of US-1 between Houlton and Indian Township are sprinkled with little villages - Hodgdon, North Amity, Orient, Weston, Danforth, Brookton, Topsfield and Waite, to be exact - and lots of majestically undulating nature; great clearings for the famous potato fields of Maine, woods, though less dense than further up north, and a couple of huge lakes. Right after Weston, there's a scenic view of the aptly named Grand Lake. Visitors can leave their impressions in a book that's sheltered from the elements by a fishing gear box. Just like that. No vandalism. Wouldn't last a week back home, a thing like that.

Hanne and I looking out over Grand Lake. The fish gear box is to the right on the wooden ledge.

Just north of Danforth, Aroostook county gives way to Washington county. Between Waite and Princeton lies Indian Township, a generically named indian reservation that reeks of centuries of defeat, poverty and neglect. No teepees, but single-storey brick houses. Indian Township is a reservation of the Passamaquoddy tribe, numbering 676 people as of the 2000 Census. The total area is 112,5 kmÂ², 97 kmÂ² of which is land.

The people are 83% Native American, 11,5% white and 5% mixed. The population's pretty young: 40% was younger than 18 years in 2000, making the median age 25 years. 24,6% of the population is below the poverty line. Out of the total population, 22.5% of those under the age of 18 and 27.8% of those 65 and older are living below the poverty line. With an average yearly per capita income of $10.808, Passamaquoddy ranks 531 out of 540 localities in Maine. On the tribe's website (www.passamaquoddy.com), there's an oblique reference to the reason why these people are in such dire straits: The first to see the rising sun each day, the Passamaquoddy and other peoples of the Dawnland - northern New England - were also among the first to feel the impact of Europeans. (EXPLORE website: Seven Fires Prophecy, maps of stolen land, mythical meeting place,...)

Here below's a summary of the history of the Passamaquoddy/Penobscot tribes, taken from the aforementioned website.

These tribes have lived in Maine and western New Brunswick since way back before recorded time, seasonally relocating to different family band camps to hunt, fish and gather for their survival. Their social structure was extremely fluid, consisting of a patriarchy allowing for multiple marriage and residence options, easy merging and dividing of social groups. This (probably) explains why Passamaquoddies and Penobscots speak mutually intelligible languages, although they respectively are related to the Maliseet and the Abenaki languages. Currently, most Penobscots reside on Indian Island in the Penobscot River, while the Passamaquoddies are divided between two principal locations: Pleasant Point on Passamaquoddy Bay, and Indian Township near the St. Croix River.

The Passamaquoddy and Penobscot Indians were among the first Native Americans to have contact with Europeans. The wide bays along the Maine coast attracted the attention of fishermen and explorers searching for a sea route through the continent as early as the sixteenth century. Some of these first encounters were friendly, such as Samuel de Champlain's exploration and settlement of the area in 1604, while others, such as Henry Hudson's bombardment and looting of a village on the Penobscot River in 1609, were not. Instead of finding the mythical city of Norumbega, reputed to be rich in gold, silver, and pearls, these Europeans encountered an Indian confederacy consisting of twenty-two villages throughout western and central Maine controlled by Bessabez (Bashaba) from his village on the Penobscot River. A series of attacks by Micmacs in 1615 resulted in the death of Bessabez and the collapse of his confederacy, but even greater devastation stemmed from a terrible pandemic in 1617 that wiped out over 75 percent of the inhabitants along the New England coast. The surviving Passamaquoddies and Penobscots traded furs with competing English and French traders until the French established dominance in the area in the 1630s. The growing dependence of these Indians on trade goods resulted in their involvement in the so-called Beaver Wars with the Iroquois in the 1640s, 1650s, and 1660s, but peaceful relations were maintained with the English until 1677, when a series of atrocities were committed against the Penobscots.

The Penobscots' and Passamaquoddies' conversion to Catholicism by French missionaries fostered friendly relations with French officials during the colonial period, and these ties were strengthened by intermarriages, the most famous being that between Baron St.-Castin and Pidiwamiska, a daughter of the Penobscot chief Madockawando, but the degree of French control has been exaggerated. Each of the five wars that occurred on the Maine frontier between 1689 and 1760 resulted from a combination of English insistence on sovereignty over the Indians, disputes concerning subsistence or land, and indiscriminate mutual retaliation. Most of the frontier incidents that led to the first three wars occurred to the west of the Penobscots and Passamaquoddies, but these Indians were included in blanket declarations of war against all "Eastern Indians." The third conflict, Dummer's War (1722-27), resulted in a significant merging of Abenaki refugees into the Penobscot and Passamaquoddy villages and the subsequent extension of English settlements into the Penobscot area. Although plagued by factionalism, these Indians attempted to remain neutral in the last two wars, but mutual distrust, disputes over treaty commitments, and attacks by English scalp hunters in 1745 and 1755 ultimately dragged them into the conflicts.

The strategic location of the Penobscots and Passamaquoddies during the colonial wars and their remoteness from English settlement expansion enabled these Indians to maintain their autonomy and almost all of their land until 1760. In the aftermath of the Seven Years' War, the English claimed all the tribes' lands "by right of conquest" because of their alliance with the defeated French, and English settlement quickly spread along the Maine coast. During the Revolutionary War, the Penobscots and Passamaquoddies helped the Americans defend their eastern frontier, but the Indians' loss of land continued, with large cessions by the Passamaquoddies in 1794 and by the Penobscots in 1796, 1818, and 1833. First Massachusetts, and then Maine after 1820, acquired this land and administered the affairs of these Indians by right of colonial precedent, ignoring federal law and the initial protests of federal leaders. During the 1820s, 1830s, and 1840s, the Penobscots and Passamaquoddies divided along kinship lines, producing two political groups: the Old Party and the New Party. Emotional disputes over education and traditional lifetime chiefs resulted in the collapse of tribal government, the imposition of state compromises, and a dramatic increase in state control over the Indians, which was not relinquished when tribal factionalism waned after 1860.

For the next century, a state agent handled Indian affairs in accordance with the Indian laws in the state legal code, and state policy was predicated on the assumption that the tribes would gradually disintegrate as individuals left the reservations. Tribal councils were not recognized, tribal governors were rarely consulted, and tribal decisions were thwarted. Additional land was lost as the state legislature reinterpreted treaties or granted long-term leases to non-Indians. Maine was the last state to grant reservation Indians the right to vote (1954), yet, since 1823 and 1842, respectively, the Penobscots and Passamaquoddies have each had a nonvoting representative in the state legislature to articulate their concerns. These individuals, along with tribal activists, ultimately reversed state policy by thwarting termination of the tribes in 1957, gradually increasing tribal authority in the 1960s, and prompting the creation of the first state Department of Indian Affairs in 1965. In the late 1960s, the Passamaquoddies and Penobscots initiated the Maine Indian Land Claims suit, claiming that the land cessions to Massachusetts and Maine had violated the Indian Nonintercourse Act of 1790. Several favorable court rulings prompted an $81.5-million settlement in 1980, which has enabled the tribes to buy land, develop tribal businesses, employ tribe members, and foster both goodwill and profits by providing investment capital to non-Indians. This legal precedent has provided the foundation for land claims by a number of other eastern tribes.

Paul Brodeur, Restitution: The Land Claims of the Mashpee, Passamaquoddy and Penobscot Indians of New England (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1985); David Ghere, "Abenaki Factionalism, Emigration and Social Continuity in Northern New England, 1725-1765" (Ph.D. diss., University of Maine, 1988); Kenneth M. Morrison, The Embattled Northeast: The Elusive Ideal of Alliance in Abenaki-Euramerican Relations (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984).
David L. Ghere
University of Minnesota

*** You've Gotten this Far...here's Some Humor ***

The Treaty of 1794 between the Passamaquoddy Tribe and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts conveyed the Passamaquoddy Indian Reservations in Washington County to the Passamaquoddy Tribe. This Treaty ratified by Massachusetts in 1795 and recorded in the Land Records of Washington County, conveyed lands in what is now Washington County. They are Indian Township, Pleasant Point, Pine Island, Nemcass Point, Lire’s Island and fifteen islands in the Schoodic (St. Croix) River.

Land has always been the Native people’s most valuable possession. It has provided the base for his existence, his religion and his society. Today with what little land the Native people own continues to serve at least as a Tribal center to which individuals can relate and thus maintain a sense of identity in an alien world which all too often has tried to take from Native people everything they possess including their identity.

The Passamaquoddy Tribe as well as other Native Tribes in the United States and Canada has had continuous land problems ever since the Europeans decided that by discovery they had a right to claim title.

Today the Passamaquoddy Tribe owns more than 200,000 acres of land in the State of Maine, in which they monitor and maintain.

Passamaquoddy of Indian Township live on the largest Indian reservation in the State, located on the west branch of the St. Croix River our ties to the Earth are interwoven with our culture. The population in our community now is at the 800 level.. Over 60 % of our population is under the age of 21. Our Grammar school has an attendance of 141 students. We have two community areas on our reservation, the Strip area, located along Route 1 and the Peter Dana’s Point located along the shore of Big Lake. Taken from May 2002 Newsletter.

Houlton (2): Samantha Smith

2006-02-24T05:37:00.000-08:00

Houlton is not famous for much, but it is the birthplace of Samantha Smith, who made the headlines in the early Nineteen Eighties. In the winter of 1982, when she was 10 years old, she wrote a letter to the new Soviet Number One, Yuri Andropov. Samantha was confused by an absurdity that grown-ups at the time considered quite normal - the Cold War.

"Dear Mr. Andropov," she began her letter, "My name is Samantha Smith. I am ten years old. Congratulations on your new job. I have been worrying about Russia and the United States getting into a nuclear war. Are you going to have a war or not? If you aren't please tell me how you are going to not have a war... God made the world for us to live together in peace and not fight. Sincerely, Samantha Smith."

For a long time after sending the letter, Samantha's life went on as usual, going to fifth grade at the elementary school in Manchester, close to the state capital of Augusta (and close to I-95). In april of 1983, she was called into the principal's office. A UPI reporter was on the line. Had she written a letter to Andropov? Apparently, her letter had appeared in the official state paper Pravda.

When she got home from school that day, Samantha sat down and wrote another letter, this one to the Soviet ambassador in Washington, D. C. She hoped that perhaps he could explain to her what was going on. A few days later, the ambassador called Samantha at home and told her that a letter from President Andropov was on its way. On April 25, Samantha and her father stopped by the post office. There, a letter addressed to Samantha was waiting.

By the time Samantha arrived home from school her front yard was crowded with news reporters and photographers from all over the country. As flashbulbs popped, they asked her about the letter she had written to President Andropov and his response.

President Andropov's letter to Samantha was more than two pages long. In it, he compared Samantha to the fictional character "Becky Thatcher" in Mark Twain's famous novel Tom Sawyer. He called Samantha "courageous and honest," telling her that the Soviet Union was "trying to do everything so that there will not be war between our countries." When asked by reporters what she thought of Andropov's response she said it read like "a letter from a friend."

Yuri Andropov (1914-1984)

But that wasn't what really excited Samantha. At the close of his letter, Andropov invited Samantha to visit the Soviet Union to see for herself what the people and the country were like. After thinking about it and talking it over with her family, she decided to go. In July, Samantha and her parents left for a two-week visit.

While she was in the Soviet Union, Samantha visited Moscow and Leningrad. She also traveled to the Artek Pioneer Camp where she met and talked with several children her own age who were attending summer camp there. The children were members of the "Young Pioneers," a youth group similar to the Girl Scouts and U. S. Boy Scouts. Staying in a dormitory with nine other girls, Samantha spent her time swimming, talking, and learning Russian songs and dances. She found that many of her new friends were also concerned about peace. Samantha realized that in many ways the Russian children were not all that different from her and her friends in the United States.

By the time Samantha returned home, she had become an international celebrity. Over the next two years she balanced schoolwork, swimming, and playing softball with television appearances, speeches, and writing a book entitled Journey to the Soviet Union in which she described her visit. She also traveled with her mother to attend the Children's International Symposium in Kobe, Japan. There she gave a speech in which she suggested that Soviet and U. S. leaders exchange granddaughters for two weeks every year. She explained that a president "wouldn't want to send a bomb to a country his granddaughter would be visiting."

Gradually, Samantha Smith came to be recognized as a world-wide representative for peace. Tragically, in August 1985, however, Samantha and her father were killed in an airplane crash. The little girl who believed that "people can get along" was gone.

But Samantha will not be forgotten. The Soviet government issued a stamp in her honor, and also named a diamond, a flower, a mountain, and a planet after her. Samantha's home state of Maine also paid tribute to the diminutive ambassador. A life-size statue of Samantha releasing a dove with a bear cub at her side (the bear is a symbol for both Maine and Russia) was dedicated near the Maine state capitol in Augusta.

Samatha's greatest tribute came from her mother. In October 1985 the Samantha Smith Foundation was established. The organization is dedicated to encouraging friendship between children of all countries and teaching people about peace. The foundation has sponsored several activities, among them a student exchange program between the United States and the Soviet Union and conferences on peace education.

What would Samantha have thought of all this? Her own words provide a hint. "Sometimes I still worry that the next day will be the last day of the Earth," she once said, "but with more people thinking about the problems of the world, I hope that someday soon we will find the way to world peace. Maybe someone will show us the way." Samantha Smith was "someone" who showed many the way to create a more peaceful world.

Houlton (23,5 miles from Mars Hill)

2006-02-24T04:28:00.000-08:00

Mars Hill is where US-1A connects up again to US-1, which continues towards the coast. There's a slight bend eastwards towards the small town of Bridgewater, but for the rest, US-1's a straight, straight line south all the way towards Houlton, parallel to the US-Canadian border, some 2 miles east of US-1. After Bridgewater follow Jewells Corner, Monticello, Sharp and Littleton - all very small towns.

Houlton is listed in Wikipedia as being the terminal for US Interstate Highway 95, that fiendish competitor to US-1 that shadows the Route all the way down to Miami, before dissipating in the subtropical heat and allowing US-1 to win out on both ends: starts higher up north, ends farther down south. But maps show that I-95 starts further east that Houlton - on the US-Canadian border, actually, as an American continuation of the Canadian Highway that (probably not coincidentally) carries the same number 95.

In any case: I-95 might be younger, faster and carry more volume, it's mainly useful for fast transport, not for sightseeing. And that's what we're here for. So run away west, south-west and south, you foul Autobahn of a road, until we intertwine again (and again) further along the way...

A little bit about Houlton (pop. 6.500), condensed from Wikipedia.

Houlton was settled by and named for Joseph Houlton, who immigrated from Massachusetts in 1805. Houlton was incorporated as a town in 1835. Nowadays, it's the seat of Aroostook County (and almost the last town in that county, if you travel US-1 south) and therefore also known by its nickname of Shire Town. The town centre, only 3 miles from the Canadian border, is traversed by the Meduxnekeag River.

The 2000 census states Houlton as being overwhelmingly (94%) white, but interestingly with a relatively large (4,2%) share of Native Americans. Europeans like us associate American Indians with the 'Wild West', but even the east coast has its share of Indian Reservations. We'll pass through one further south, but still in Maine.

Houlton is also home to a Maine Visitor Center, a convenient way to pick up coupons (for motels mainly, but for everything culinary and touristy in the area as well) and get some road maps. Saw a nice map showing moose-car collisions in the State of Maine. Didn't ask for it then and am still a bit mad at myself for that...

Mars Hill (14,5 miles from Presque Isle)

2006-02-23T12:27:00.000-08:00

After a good night's sleep in a fifties style motel that charmingly hasn't gone overboard on the retro (the fifties stuff actually looks like it's fifty years old!), we recon the environment. Next to and to the back of the motel is a cemetery, one of countless many along US-1. There's something eery in placing graveyards right next to shops, motels, convenience stores etc. Too utilitarian, I guess, for our European taste. Makes death a bit too easily disposable. But it's like that all the way down to Florida, so I guess it is the American Way.

Gravestone of a World War I veteran at the Saint Mary's Cemetery in Presque Isle

Since Presque Isle is quite a large town, it also has a Walmart - our first on this trip. Walmarts are strange: inside, you wouldn't be able to tell if it's winter or summer outside. In fact, it's impossible to tell whether it's Maine or Hawaii outside. Well, almost impossible. The only thing that's not standardised in Walmart, are the customers. As we would experience further south, the customers aren't all as white as these Mainers.

Northeastern America is supposed to be more like Europe than the rest of the US, but religion is very present here as well, even on the Walmart parking lot

After not too long a while - we want to reach the coast of Maine, like, today - it's off to the next big town. But first a bit about the next small town on our way. Mars Hill consists of barely 1.500 souls and shares its name with a town in North Carolina (in the far west of that state; not on US-1. Pity), a couple of churches and is a synonym for the Aeropagus (literally 'Hill of Ares') in ancient Athens.

But it is interesting in its own right, as its name gave the University of Maine (astronomy department) a neat idea: to install a scale model of our solar system along US-1, thus instilling a sense of the enormous expanses they orbit in. The model is on a scale of 1:93.000.000, which still makes it 40 miles long. One mile corresponds to one Astronomical Unit (AU) - for the non-nerds among us, that's the exact distance between the Earth and the Sun, and a common unit of measurement out there.

This model of the planet Saturn is situated south of Presque Isle. The outer planet Pluto is to be found just outside of Houlton, further to the south.

Presque Isle (13 miles from Caribou)

2006-02-23T04:08:00.000-08:00

Presque Isle was the take off point for the Double Eagle II, piloted by Ben Abruzzo, Maxie Anderson, and Larry Newman. It became the first balloon to cross the Atlantic Ocean when it landed 17 August 1978 in Miserey near Paris, 137 hours after leaving Maine. In January of 2006, Presque Isle was host to the International Biathlon, in which dozens of countries were represented by their teams. Many of these athletes went on to participate in the Winter Olympics a month later. This is the first time ever that a Biathlon competition this large featuring international competitors was held in the United States, yet the event surprisingly received very little news coverage outside of Presque Isle. The event itself was held at the Nordic Ski Center.

Double Eagle II on the cover of National Geographic's December 1978 issue

Presque Isle is quite a big city, with 9.500 people on an area of 201 km². It has one television station, WAGM, which is noted for being in one of the smallest television markets in the United States. WAGM is the only television station north of Bangor. The city is also home to six radio stations: WUPI 92.1 FM, WQHR 96.1 FM, WBPW 96.9 FM, WOZI 101.9 FM, WMEM 106.1 FM, and WEGP 1390 AM. A weekly newspaper, the Star Herald, is also published in the Star City.

We drove down Presque Isle's Main Street (as in so many towns on our way, US-1 is synonymous with Main Street) and finally, thankfully found a nice, clean, reasonably-priced place to stay at Hedrich's Motel. The sign is cool fifties style - although I'm not sure in the States it's regarded as just plain old.

Caribou (23 miles from Van Buren)

2006-02-23T02:58:00.000-08:00

Northern Maine appears, to European travellers at least, empty. So at night, when we drove down to Caribou from Van Buren, it also appeared pitch black - lights of small communities along the way such as Acadia and Barretts notwithstanding. We were overjoyed at having reached a town of some circumference, for we were exhausted and desperate to find a place for the night. All we found, was empty streets, a Masonic lodge, a gas station and then the same empty streets again... We drove on. That was Caribou for us.

Masonic lodge in Caribou

Here's what Caribou means to Wikipedia:

US Census 2000 states Caribou as having 8.312 residents for a total area of 207,7 km². It is located near the geographical centre of Aroostook County.

Recent history of the area starts in 1807, when Charles Turner surveyed 10.000 acres of land in what was then still part of the state of Massachusetts. A year later, that selfsame area was deeded to captain William Eaton, as a reward for his victory over the Barbary Pirates. This 'Eaton Grant' is now the souteast section of Caribou. Settlers arrived from New Brunswick from 1824 onwards, settling on the north side of the Aroostook River.

In 1843, the present city of Caribou was established in 1843 and incorporated in 1859 as the city of Lyndon. State legislature renamed the town as 'Caribou' in 1877.

In Caribou and throughout Aroostook County, the two major agricultural crops are the potato and broccoli. Area farmers annually plant approximately 80.000 acres of potatoes. The chief varieties are Russett Burbank, Superior, Shepody and Atlantic. Aroostook County is renowned for its Round White potatoes. Our potato crop is used for seed, table stock, and processed potato products. Aroostook is the largest grower of broccoli on the East Coast.

Other important agricultural crops grown in our area include peas, hay, oats, and alternative crops on a smaller scale. The high volume of activity results in the growth of related agri-business. Farm implement sales and services and the development of several area processing plants are examples of the influence agriculture has on the local economy.

Our rich soil makes for bountiful home vegetable gardens and in the summer u-pick strawberry and raspberry farms offer the freshest, most delicious berries you’ll ever eat!

Aroostook County is widely known by sports enthusiasts for its well-groomed extensive snowmobile trail system; Caribou maintain 170 miles of Aroostook County’s 1.600-mile snowmobile trail system. Snowmobilers can venture out every day, choose a variety of routes and with the number of loop trails never cross the same trail twice. Many county communities are located on the Canadian border, making international travel by snowmobile convenient. Running through the heart of Aroostook County is the Northeast Snowmobile Trail (NEST), and International Snowmobile Trail System linking Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and the Province of Quebec.

Van Buren (25 miles from Madawaska)

2006-02-15T23:20:00.000-08:00

After Madawaska, we continued in darkness towards Van Buren, 25 miles east along the bank of the St John's. The river contains a couple of islands along the way, mainly US territory, notably Thibodeau, La Grande, Septiemel and Les Trois islands. US-1 merges into Van Buren's Main Street, which then transforms into US-1A. Route 1A follows the US-Canadian border more closely, continuing along the river until it reaches the almost straight north-south line that forms Maine's eastern border with New Brunswick. At Houlton, US-1A will rejoin US-1, which in Van Buren bends south on State Street.

Van Buren is a small town with under 3.000 inhabitants (2.631 according to the 2000 census, of which 0,72% are Hispanic - accounting for 17 cold and lonely Mexicans. At 0,11%, there are approximately 2,6 African Americans in town. Must be very hard on the guy who's 0,6 African American).

Like 5 other towns in Arkansas, Indiana, Missouri, New York and Ohio (and one county in Missouri), Van Buren was named after Martin Van Buren (1782-1862), the 8th president of the USA. Van Buren was the original organiser of the Democratic Party, the first president who wasn't of Anglo-Saxon descent and the only president whose native language wasn't English (but Dutch, being a descendent of the Dutch colonisers who founded New Amsterdam and New Netherlands). He was, however, also the first president actually born in the USA (after independence). One of his political nicknames (besides Martin Van Ruin, an epithet given him by his opponents) was 'Old Kinderhook', after the estate where he was raised. This spawned 'OK Clubs' across the country, manned by his political supporters. This has long been one of the explanations for the origin of the all-American expression 'Okay'.

Like many towns in northern Maine, Van Buren was first settled by French-speaking Acadian refugees in the late 1700's for their refusal to swear allegiance to the British Crown. After the settlement of the border disputes in the mid 1800's, the town up until then known as Violette Brook (after an early settler, François Violette) definitively came under American jurisdiction and was renamed after the American president (of that time?). The town website (www.vanburenmaine.com) rather despairingly notes that Van Buren "has significant potential for growth. There is ample land suitable for any and all purposes." Our most interesting experience in Van Buren was a stop at the Dollar Store.

After a little diversion on US-1A, we said goodbye to the river, accompanying US-1 like a dolphin sometimes shadows a ship, and headed south.

Madawaska (7,5 Miles from Frenchville)

2006-02-08T15:53:00.000-08:00

The river bends north after Frenchville, and so does US1. Darkness was falling as we drove by a sign marked with a French flag with a yellow five-pointed star in the top of the blue band (the Acadian flag?), proclaiming Madawaska the most north-eastern city of the United States - the top o' Maine.

WIth around 4.500 inhabitants, Madawaska is quite a big city for northern Maine (possibly the biggest?), but still a lot smaller than the Canadian town of Edmundston, just across the river in New Brunswick. Edmundston (originally named Petits-Saults) boasts 17.400 inhabitants and is 98% Francophone, making it the second biggest majoritarily French-speaking city in North America outside of Québec province. Edmundston is the birthplace of rock-crooner Roch Voisine, so we steered well clear of the town.

Unsurprisingly, Madawaska also has a large number of French-speakers. The city shares its name with Madawaska County in New Brunswick (which contains Edmundston), the Madawaska river (in Ontario, Canada) and the Republic of Madawaska, a fanciful piece of folk lore (about which more in a minute). The name derives from an Indian tribe of the Madoueskaks. Apparently, 'Madoueskak' is an Iroquois word for 'Land of the Porcupine'. At least that's one explanation. Another holds that the town derives its name from the eponymous river, the name of which means 'having its outlet among the reeds', or 'worn out grassland'. The river in Ontario derives its name from an Algonquin band of Indians calling themselves 'Matoueskarini', meaning 'people of the shallows'.

French Acadians settled here in 1785 after being forced to flee Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island because they would not pledge allegiance to the British Crown. A 14-foot white marble cross on the banks of the St. John River marks the landing site of the first Acadian settlers in Madawaska. The adjacent Tante Blanche Museum, named for a Madawaska woman whose legendary acts of kindness helped the community survive a 1797 famine, preserves the history and heritage of the settlers. Today, the town possesses a thriving potato industry, and local children are excused from school during harvest time to help with the work. The lights of Edmundston, New Brunswick can be seen across the river. The majority of Madawaska’s residents are of Acadian descent, and French is still spoken here — with a little Quebecois and English thrown into the mix. This unique blend of languages is termed “Valley French.”

Madawaska is the northernmost town of New England and of the Eastern Time Zone (excluding Michigan's Upper Peninsula), on a latitude similar to that of Seattle - although its winters are much colder. It was the centre of the bloodless Aroostook War and is home to the annual Acadian Festival, to be held this year on from June 29 to July 2. This is the State of Maine's largest cultural festival, including a reenactment of the first Acadian landing in northern Maine. Each year, an ancient Acadian family is honoured by having its reunion hosted at the festival. US-1 leads right through the town centre, where it is known simply as Main Street.

Frenchville (12 Miles from Fort Kent)

2006-02-08T15:27:00.000-08:00

After Fort Kent, US1 follows the winding St John's River due east through the little hamlet of Upper Frenchville (no sources via Google) to Frenchville, a town with a population of about 1.200 people. Text about the historical origins of Frenchville, taken from the Frenchville town website:

"Certainly long before the arrival of the white man, the Maliseets (a tribe of about 5000 total in the northeast; also called the "Etchemins") had hunted and fished the woods and streams of the St. John Valley for centuries, largely as nomadic groups or even as individuals. The very first permanent white settlers in the area, Pierre Lizotte and Pierre Duperre (SP?), who established a trading post near the mouth of the Madawaska River in 1783, found about 250 Indian families in the settlement there; by the time of the Deane and Kavanagh survey in 1831, only 5 or 6 Indian families were reported, with very little remaining of the original Indian village. Whether this decline was due to decimation by white man's diseases or by the Indians being inadvertently driven out by the influx of whites is uncertain, though reports from that time suggest early relations between the white immigrants and the Indians were peaceful and friendly, and in fact, the Indians frequently provided assistance enabling the settlers to survive the first few difficult winters."

"The first group of Acadian settlers arrived in June of 1785 from the lower St. John Valley (near Fredericton). partly from the invitation and information from Lizotte and Duperre; the first families settled in the St. Basile/St. David area. More families arrived the following year from the St. Lawrence Valley, settling in the vicinity of the mouth of the Madawaska River. At that time the region west of the Madawaska River was not considered to be under the jurisdiction of New Brunswick authorities, so was not included in the first land concessions granted by New Brunswick in 1790."

"As families grew and additional settlers arrived, settlement expanded in both directions along the St. John River, and by 1804 land was being cleared and settled in the area known as Chautauqua (now Frenchville)."

"At last, in 1869, the Maine Legislature - spurred by a committee that included Maj. William Dickey - encouraged the separate plantations of the former Madawaska Territory to incorporate, which they did -- Dickeyville, as well as Fort Kent, incorporated on February 23, 1869, and Madawaska on Feb. 24 (Grand Isle followed on March 2). But why Dickeyville and not Dionne Plantation or Chautauqua or some other name? - probably due at least partly to the jealousies and rivalries between those "d'en haut" versus "d'en bas". At any rate, a compromise was reached by honoring Major William Dickey, the colorful state legislator from Fort Kent."

"For whatever reason Major Dickey had been honored at the initial incorporation in 1869, the town reincorporated on January 26, 1871, as Frenchville, to honor the nationality of its citizens, choosing a name that few would see as controversial, considering the language and origins of the early settlers and the vast majority of the concurrent inhabitants. Interestingly, Dickey's arch rival, Republican Peter Keegan of Van Buren, pushed through the legislation that dropped Dickey's name and gave us Frenchville."

Fort Kent (3): the Aroostook War

2006-01-23T02:06:00.000-08:00

The Aroostook War, also called the Pork and Beans War, the Lumberjack's War or the Northeastern Boundary Dispute, was an undeclared, bloodless North American "war" that occurred in the winter of 1838 and early spring of 1839.

The Treaty of Paris in 1783 did not satisfactorily determine the boundary between the British colony of New Brunswick (now the Canadian province of New Brunswick) and the District of Maine (then a part of the state of Massachusetts). The boundary dispute worsened after Maine became a state in 1820 and, disregarding British claims, began granting land to settlers in the valley of the Aroostook River (the Aroostook is a tributary of the St. John River, which flows through the heart of New Brunswick, draining into the Bay of Fundy.)

The majority of early Aroostook River Valley settlers were from "over-home", that is, from the St. John River Valley and were typically British citizens. The population swelled in the wintertime when lumbermen were freed from farmwork to "long-pole" up the St. John River to the valley. These migrant lumbermen were a particular point of tension for the Americans. Some eventually settled permanently in the valley and improved their land claims. Most settlers found themselves too remote from the authorities to apply formally for land, and since the boundary was ambiguous it was uncertain which government was in authority, anyway. Disputes heated up as factions maneuvered for control over the best stands of trees in the valley.

In 1831 the members of the Maine Legislature became concerned over the growing Maine/New Brunswick boundary question and took action by sending John Deane and Edward Kavanagh to northern Maine to document the inhabitants and to assess the extent of trespass (from their point of view).

King William I of the Netherlands was asked to arbitrate the dispute in 1832. Although the British accepted the king's help, the U.S. Senate rejected it at Maine's request.

American woodsmen including John Baker, were sent to agitate against the British and press American claims. Both American and New Brunswick lumbermen were cutting timber in the disputed territory during the winter of 1838-1839, and in February, New Brunswick loggers seized the American land agent who was exercising illegal jurisdiction. The "war" was now under way, led by the governors of the respective sides, New Brunswick Governor Sir John Harvey and Maine Governor Edward Kent.

Maine and New Brunswick called out their militiamen, and the United States Congress, at the instigation of Maine, authorized a force of 50,000 men and appropriated $10 million to meet the emergency. Maine only committed somewhere between 3,000 and 10,000 troops to the conflict, and these never actually left their garrison at Hancock Barracks. Four companies of the 11th Regiment marched to the area from Quebec City to represent Canada's interests. Meanwhile, New Brunswick armed every tributary with regular and militia soldiers. Maine created an Aroostook County specifically to lay claim to the area. President Martin Van Buren dispatched General Winfield Scott and New Brunswick sent Governor Harvey to the "war zone," and the men arranged an agreement in March of 1839 between officials of Maine and New Brunswick that averted actual fighting. Britain agreed to refer the dispute to a boundary commission, and the matter was settled in 1842 by the Webster-Ashburton Treaty.

The compromise reached by Daniel Webster and Alexander Baring, 1st Baron Ashburton awarded 7,015 square miles (18,170 km2) to the United States and 5,012 square miles (12,980 km2) to Great Britain. Also given to the United States was an area that later was found to contain the Mesabi iron ore deposits in present-day Minnesota. Retention by the British of the northern area of the disputed territory assured them of year-round overland military communications between Lower Canada and Nova Scotia by way of the Halifax Road. The U.S. federal government agreed to pay the states of Maine and Massachusetts $150,000 each, and they were to be reimbursed by the United States for expenses incurred while encroaching on New Brunswick territory.

Webster used a map, found in the Paris Archives by the American Jared Sparks, and said to have been marked with a red line by Benjamin Franklin in Paris in 1782, to persuade Maine and Massachusetts to accept the agreement. As the map showed the disputed region belonged to the British, it helped convince the representatives of those states to accept the compromise, lest the "truth" reach British ears and convince the British to refuse a compromise. It was later discovered that the Americans had hidden their knowledge of the Franklin map. A map said to be favorable to the United States claims was apparently used in Britain, but this map was never revealed. Some claim the Franklin map was a fake created by Britain to pressure the American negotiators as their map placed the entire disputed area on the American side of the border (see John A. Garraty, The American Nation, Houghton Mifflin, p. 336).

The war, while avoiding actual combat, was not without casualties. Private Hiram T. Smith, from Maine, died of unknown causes while in service to his state. He is buried in Maine on the side of the Military Road (U.S. Route 2) in the middle of the Haynesville Woods. Several other Maine militiamen died of illness while on the Aroostook expedition.

The yellow line was the line the British claimed as the border.

The red line was the border claimed by the United States, on the basis of which it undertook various surveys and censuses (including the 1830 and 1840 censuses) of the north bank of the upper St. John River.

The green line was the maximum US claim until 1794, which was never actually acted upon.

All of these claims are based on the wording of the peace treaty signed at Paris between Britain and the United States in 1783 by which Britain recognized the independence of the United States. In the Treaty of Paris, in Article 2, the northeastern border of the U.S. was described thus:

"From the northwest angle of Nova Scotia, to wit, that angle which is formed by a line drawn due north from the source of the St. Croix river to the highlands, along the said highlands which divide those rivers that empty themselves into the St. Lawrence, and those which fall into the Atlantic ocean, to the northwestern most head of the Connecticut river."

Unfortunately, the meaning of this description was very unclear, because the vast interior of the region was not yet explored or mapped. The description thus was a reflection of ignorance of the actual geography of the region. This is a key point because it came to bear on the intentions of both sides in setting their border in 1783.

Fort Kent (2): bridge over the St John River to Claire (New Brunswick, Canada)

2006-01-23T00:26:00.000-08:00

The present-day steelbridge was built in 1929-’30 as a replacement for a cable ferry and cable suspension footbridge. It consists of three steel through truss spans of 73,15 m each for a total length of 221,93 m. It carries a two lane asphalt roadway measuring 6,10 m wide with a clear width of 6,43 m.
Major repairs were done on the first pier from the New Brunswick side in 1995. In 1997, the steel members under the deck in the first 1,5 spans from New Brunswick end were sandblasted then painted with a primer of Inorganic Zinc and two coats of Epoxy Mastic. In the same year the downstream exterior stringer in these 1.5 spans was replaced. In 1998, the downstream concrete curb in the first 1.5 spans from the New Brunswick end was replaced. In 2000, the New Brunswick end concrete abutment underwent a major restoration.
The bridge, each half of which is owned and operated by the province of New Brunswick (Canadian side) and the state of Maine (US side), witnesses about 280.000 vehicle crossings a year (2004 data).

Fort Kent (1): the town

2006-01-22T17:26:00.000-08:00

Here's a Buddhist-sounding question I put to the good people of the Federal Highway Administration in Washington, DC: Does US Route 1 start or end in Fort Kent? The answer was even more Zen: it both stars and ends there. It just depends on where you're going. So trips have beginnings and endings, US Routes (and Highways, I suppose) don't. But our trip didn't even begin in Fort Kent: we landed at Portland (Maine) a couple of days prior and drove up to Québec before heading to Clair, on the Canadian side of the border. Yet Fort Kent most definitely was the beginning of an adventure: our intention was to travel the whole of US-1 all the way down to Key West, driving across a huge cross-section of the USA. A cross-section that would include...

Road sign in Clair (New Brunswick) to Fort Kent (Maine), just across the river. US Route 1 starts in the middle of the bridge.

But let's start at the beginning. For us, US Route 1 (US-1 for short) started in Fort Kent, a small town with 4.200 inhabitants in Aroostook County (Maine) on the St. John's River, right across from the even smaller town of Claire, in the French-speaking part of 'Nouveau' Brunswick.

It's home to the northernmost campus of the University of Maine, an Olympic-level training centre for biathletes, the annual CAN-AM dogsled race, a cross country skiing event and the Fort Kent Blockhouse. This fort is a reminder when this quiet area was a source of great tension between two of the half dozen rivalling superpowers of that day, the US and Great-Britain. Named after governor Edward Kent, it was constructed to solidify the US's assertions over this part of North America during the Aroostook War (cf. inf.) and is a National Historic Landmark. It was designated an NHL on November 7, 1973. Its Statement of Significance read: "Constructed 1838-1840, this is the only extant fortification of the Aroostook 'War' (1838-1839), the conflict that climaxed the Northeast border disputes with Great Britain following the War of 1812. The controversy over the border began with the Treaty of Paris (1783) and was finally resolved by the Webster-Ashburton Treaty, signed in Washington in 1842. With the boundary settled, the fort was abandoned."
French is still spoken in Fort Kent, settled in large part by Acadian refugees from Canada, refusing to swear allegiance to the British Crown. Main industry is potato farming, the other one's textile. There's even a call centre in town. The University of Maine maintains the Acadian Archives at Fort Kent, helping to preserve the culture of "the Valley", local shorthand for the beautifully undulating St. John's Valley area.

The town is economically and culturally linked to the Canadian towns of Clair and Saint-François-de-Madawaska , both in Madawaska County, New Brunswick, right across the St. John River. Most children on the Canadian side attend school in French while their American counterparts attend school mainly in English. Despite this, many people in Fort Kent have French as a first language (official statistics unavailable) and the language can be heard everywhere. Many residents also have American-Canadian dual citizenship (official statistics unavailable), as Fort Kent has the closest hospital for many Canadian residents.

Until recently, it was significantly cheaper to live on the Canadian side. However, for those working on the American side (and receiving employer paid health insurance) there are major income tax savings to be had by living in the USA. Despite free trade (NAFTA), Canadian customs collects both federal (7%) and provincial (8%) sales taxes as well as duties (which can be as high as 15% on cloths made in China, for example) which significantly discourages legal cross-border shopping. Groceries (usually without sales tax) and gas are popular purchases for Canadian residents shopping in Fort Kent as they are significantly cheaper there.

Fort Kent residents cross over to the Canadian side to take advantage of cheaper labor costs (on haircuts, for example).

Fort Kent is artificially isolated from the nearest major cities (Quebec City and Montréal) by the land-owner cooperative known as North Maine Woods that bars "shortcut" international traffic on what would be a significantly shorter trip through western Maine. Aroostook County residents are therefore forced to go north through New Brunswick to go to the province of Quebec, their western neighbor.

Aroostook County has a total area of 17.686 km², which makes it the largest US county east of the Mississippi. It corresponds in size to the entire states of Connecticut and Rhode Island combined. Its name derives from an Indian word for 'beautiful river'. Aroostook contains 2 cities, 54 towns, 11 plantations and 108 unorganized townships, totalling a population of (US Census 2000) 73.938 people, which corresponds to 5,8% of the total state population for 21,6% of the state's surface. Aroostook County consists of 89% forest, 1% lakes, ponds and rivers and 10% cultivated farmland.