Meadow River Lumber Company Shay #1 on static display at Steamtown
Steamtown, USA was a steam locomotive museum that ran steam excursions out of North Walpole, New Hampshire, and Bellows Falls, Vermont, from the 1960s to 1983. The museum, which was founded by millionaire seafood industrialist F. Nelson Blount, was operated primarily by the non-profit Steamtown Foundation following his death in 1967. Because of Vermont air quality regulations that restricted steam excursions, declining visitor attendance, and disputes over the use of track, some pieces of the collection were relocated to Scranton, Pennsylvania, in the mid 1980s, while the rest were auctioned off. After the move, Steamtown, USA continued to operate in Scranton but failed to attract the expected 200,000–400,000 visitors. Within two years the tourist attraction was facing bankruptcy, and more pieces of the collection were sold to pay off debt.
By 1995, Steamtown had been acquired and developed by the National Park Service with a $66 million allocation. Since the government acquisition, several more pieces have been removed from the collection. A part of the Blount collection is still on display at the Steamtown National Historic Site in Scranton, while several other pieces have been sold or traded and are located in various locations throughout the United States and Canada. (Full article...)
Francis and the Pixies headlining at the Brixton Academy, October 2009
Black Francis (born Charles Michael Kittridge Thompson IV) is a Massachusetts-born singer, songwriter and guitarist. He is best known as the frontman of the influential alternative rock band Pixies, with whom he performs under the stage name Black Francis. Following the band's breakup in 1993, he embarked on a solo career under the name Frank Black. After releasing two albums with 4AD, he left the label and formed a new band, Frank Black and the Catholics. He reformed the Pixies in 2004 and continues to release solo records and tour as a solo artist, having re-adopted his current stage name in 2007. (Full article...)
Image 19Indigenous territories, circa 1600 in present-day southern New England (from New England)
Image 20Certificate of the government of Massachusetts Bay acknowledging loan of £20 to state treasury 1777 (from History of New England)
Image 21Largest self-reported ancestry groups in New England. Americans of Irish descent form a plurality in most of Massachusetts, while Americans of English descent form a plurality in much of the central parts of Vermont and New Hampshire as well as nearly all of Maine. (from New England)
Image 29A political and geographical map of New England shows the coastal plains in the southeast, and hills, mountains and valleys in the west and the north. (from New England)
Image 31The MBTA Commuter Rail serves eastern Massachusetts and parts of Rhode Island, radiating from downtown Boston, with planned service to New Hampshire. The CTrail system operates the Shore Line East and Hartford Line, covering coastal Connecticut, Hartford, and Springfield, Massachusetts. (from New England)
... that Cora Agnes Benneson, one of the first female lawyers in New England, was rejected by Harvard Law School because "the equipments were too limited to make suitable provision for receiving women"?
... that Puritan Reverend John Wilson implored Mary Dyer to repent and not be "carried away by deceit of the devil" before her execution in Boston as a Quaker martyr?
Rhode Island was the first of the original Thirteen Colonies to declare independence from British rule, declaring itself independent on May 4, 1776, two months before any other colony. The State was also the last of the thirteen original colonies to ratify the United States Constitution.
Rhode Island's official nickname is "The Ocean State," a reference to the State's geography, since Rhode Island has several large bays and inlets that amount to about fourteen (14) percent of its total area. Its land area is 1,045 square miles (2706 km2), but its total area is significantly larger. (Full article...)
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