Early nineteenth-century illustrations of Hartford, Connecticut, show church steeples towering over the Victorian homes and brownstone facades of businesses around them. The modern skyline of the town has lost many of these elegant steeples and their quaint and smaller neighbors. Banks have yielded to newer banks, and organizations like the YMCA are now parking lots. In the 1960s, Constitution Plaza replaced an entire neighborhood on Hartford's east side. The city has evolved in the name o...

Hartford, Connecticut, was settled as an agrarian society with fertile fields and abundant crops at the confluence of the Connecticut and Little (later Park) Rivers by Reverend Thomas Hooker and his Puritan congregation. Navigation on the rivers quickly established the city as a center for commerce. Author Daniel Sterner delves into the history of Hartford with tours from Bushnell Park to Asylum Hill and through Frog Hollow. Discover the many people, places and events that have shaped the ...

How much do you actually know about New York City? Did you know they tried to anchor Zeppelins at the top of the Empire State Building? Or that the high-rent district of Park Avenue was once so dangerous it was called “Death Avenue”? This lively and comprehensive guidebook brings New York’s fascinating past to vivid life.This narrative history of New York City is the first to offer practical walking tour know-how. Fast-paced but thorough, its bite-size chapters eac...

Discover one of America's most historic cities through 30 dramatic true stories spanning Boston's 400-year history, and then visit the places where history happened on walking tours of the city's historic neighborhoods. Boston expert Charles Bahne reveals some of the city's most shocking moments, from a murder mystery on the Harvard campus to the mistake that sent two million gallons of molasses pouring down Commerce Street. Other essays explore major historic events including the Boston T...

There is no better way to see America than on foot. And there is no better way to appreciate what you are looking at than with a walking tour. This walking tour of Frederick, Maryland is ready to explore when you are. Each walking tour describes historical, architectural landmarks, cultural sites and ecclesiastic touchstones and provides step-by-step directions.Every tour also includes a quick primer on identifying architectural styles seen on American streets.Established i...

The name "Luneburg" was coined for King George II of England, who was also the duke of Luneburg, Germany, in 1727. The final name, Lunenburg, was probably a result of misspelling in the early records of the town. On August 1, 1728, Lunenburg was officially granted township but, as early as 1726, a variety of industries had been started and twenty-six houses had been built. In the late nineteenth century, the town returned to predominately agriculture and, today, is a rural residential comm...

A close-up look at this historic Massachusetts landmark, including photos and illustrations.Though Salem is located on Massachusetts's scenic North Shore, its history has not always been picturesque. The "Witch City," as it is internationally known, is home to numerous landmarks dedicated to the notorious trials of 1692.Of these, the Witch House is perhaps most significant—the former residence of Judge Jonathan Corwin, whose court ordered the execution of t...

The great majority of the South's plantation homes have been destroyed over time, and many have long been forgotten. In Lost Plantations of the South, Marc R. Matrana weaves together photographs, diaries and letters, architectural renderings, and other rare documents to tell the story of sixty of these vanquished estates and the people who once called them home.From plantations that were destroyed by natural disaster such as Alabama's Forks of Cypress, to those that were i...

From the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century, African Americans in the Washington, D.C. area sought leisure destinations where they could relax without the burden of racial oppression. Local picnic parks such as Eureka and Madre's were accessible by streetcars. Black-owned steamboats ferried passengers seeking sun and sand to places like Collingwood Beach, and African American families settled into quiet beach-side communities along the Western Shore of Maryland. Author and public...

Unlike many small towns in the South that were occupied by the Union army, beautiful Staunton, Virginia, emerged from the Civil War largely unscathed. Join historianEdmund Potter on a walking tour through the many architectural gems and notable buildings of downtownStaunton�s five National Historic Districts. From thepicturesque Wharf Area to the birthplace of Woodrow Wilson to the town�s many historically African American businesses, A Guide to Historic Staunton offers visitors and reside...

A revealing tour of the opulent Newport Mansions where the Astors, Vanderbilts, and other Gilded Age families spent their summers.At the turn of the twentieth century, the wealthy families of New York would vacation at their summer homes in Newport, Rhode Island. Where the salty air once mingled with the laughter of society women in ball gowns, the houses of the Newport Cliff Walk still preside in grandeur over the crashing waves below. From the grand majesty of th...

Inns and taverns occupied a position of central importance in colonial American society. Rest stop, hotel, provisioning center, drinking saloon, dining establishment, center of news and gossip, quartering for soldiers'these retreats served an astonishing variety of roles. In Colonial Inns and Taverns of Bucks County, author Marie Duess filters the colonial andearly modern history of Bucks County through the area's wide array of stagecoach stops, grog shops and taprooms. These inns created ...