New England

The New England Portal

P:NEWENG

New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick to the northeast and Quebec to the north. The Gulf of Maine and Atlantic Ocean are to the east and southeast, and Long Island Sound is to the southwest. Boston is New England's largest city and the capital of Massachusetts. Greater Boston is the largest metropolitan area, with nearly a third of New England's population; this area includes Worcester, Massachusetts, the second-largest city in New England, Manchester, New Hampshire, the largest city in New Hampshire, and Providence, Rhode Island, the capital of and largest city in Rhode Island.

In 1620, the Pilgrims established Plymouth Colony, the second successful settlement in British America after the Jamestown Settlement in Virginia, founded in 1607. Ten years later, Puritans established Massachusetts Bay Colony north of Plymouth Colony. Over the next 126 years, people in the region fought in four French and Indian Wars until the English colonists and their Iroquois allies defeated the French and their Algonquian allies. (Full article...)

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Adiantum viridimontanum growing in a dunite roadcut

Adiantum viridimontanum, commonly known as Green Mountain maidenhair fern, is a rare fern found only in outcrops of serpentine rock in New England and Canada. The leaf blade is cut into finger-like segments, themselves once-divided, which are borne on the outer side of a curved, dark, glossy rachis (the central stalk of the leaf). These finger-like segments are not individual leaves, but parts of a single compound leaf. The "fingers" may be drooping or erect, depending on whether the individual fern grows in shade or sunlight. Spores are borne under false indusia (rolled flaps of tissue) at the edge of the subdivisions of the leaf, a characteristic unique to the genus Adiantum.

Until 1991, A. viridimontanum was grouped with the western maidenhair fern, A. aleuticum, which grows both in western North America and as a disjunct on serpentine outcrops in eastern North America. At one time, A. aleuticum itself was classified as a variety (A. pedatum var. aleuticum) of the northern maidenhair fern, A. pedatum. However, after several years of study, botanist Cathy Paris recognized that A. aleuticum was a distinct species, and that some of the specimens that had been attributed to that taxon (group of organisms) were a third, hybrid species intermediate between A. pedatum and A. aleuticum. She named the new species A. viridimontanum for the site of its discovery in the Green Mountains in Vermont; it has since been located in Quebec and in one site on serpentine in coastal Maine. (Full article...)

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Bannister, c. 1880

Edward Mitchell Bannister (November 2, 1828 – January 9, 1901) was a Canadian–American oil painter of the American Barbizon school. Born in Canada, he spent his adult life in New England in the United States. There, along with his wife Christiana Carteaux, he was a prominent member of African-American cultural and political communities, such as the Boston abolition movement. Bannister received national recognition after he won a first prize in painting at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition. He was also a founding member of the Providence Art Club and the Rhode Island School of Design.

Bannister's style and predominantly pastoral subject matter reflected his admiration for the French artist Jean-François Millet and the French Barbizon school. A lifelong sailor, he also looked to the Rhode Island seaside for inspiration. Bannister continually experimented, and his artwork displays his Idealist philosophy and his control of color and atmosphere. He began his professional practice as a photographer and portraitist before developing his better-known landscape style. (Full article...) (Full article...)

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John Shea

Credit: Michael Calas (2009)

New Hampshire native, actor, and director John Shea

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The following are images from various New England-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1A classic New England Congregational church in Peacham, Vermont (from New England)
Image 21. Boston, Massachusetts (from New England)
Image 3Indigenous territories, circa 1600 in present-day southern New England (from New England)
Image 4New England is home to four of the eight Ivy League universities. Pictured here is Harvard Yard of Harvard University. (from New England)
Image 54. Springfield, Massachusetts (from New England)
Image 6The Hartford headquarters of Aetna is housed in a 1931 Colonial Revival building. (from New England)
Image 7New England regionalist poet Robert Frost (from New England)
Image 8An English map of New England c. 1670 depicts the area around modern Portsmouth, New Hampshire. (from New England)
Image 9A plowed field in Bethel, Vermont (from New England)
Image 10Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (from New England)
Image 11Map of the British and French dominions in America in 1755, showing what the English considered New England (from History of New England)
Image 12The Slater Mill Historic Site in Pawtucket, Rhode Island (from New England)
Image 13Southeastern New England is home to a number of Lusophone ethnic enclaves. (from New England)
Image 148. Hartford, Connecticut (from New England)
Image 15Alumni Hall at Saint Anselm College has served as a backdrop for media reports during the New Hampshire primary. (from New England)
Image 16A 1779 five-shilling note issued by Massachusetts (from History of New England)
Image 17Classic New England Congregationalist church in Peacham, Vermont (from Culture of New England)
Image 18First Boston Latin School house (from History of New England)
Image 19The New England Ensign, one of several flags historically associated with New England. This flag was reportedly used by colonial merchant ships sailing out of New England ports, 1686 – c. 1737. (from New England)
Image 20A 1638 engraving depicting the Mystic massacre (from New England)
Image 21Soldier and explorer John Smith coined the name "New England" in 1616. (from New England)
Image 2210. Manchester, New Hampshire (from New England)
Image 23The New Haven system (from History of New England)
Image 24A Hartford Line train at Hartford Union Station (from New England)
Image 25A portion of the north-central Pioneer Valley in Sunderland, Massachusetts (from New England)
Image 262. Worcester, Massachusetts (from New England)
Image 27New England's Siege of Louisbourg (1745) by Peter Monamy (from New England)
Image 28Certificate of the government of Massachusetts Bay acknowledging loan of £20 to state treasury 1777 (from History of New England)
Image 29Cambridge, Massachusetts, has a high concentration of startups and technology companies. (from New England)
Image 30Autumn in New England, watercolor, Maurice Prendergast, c. 1910–1913 (from New England)
Image 31Seabrook Station Nuclear Power Plant in Seabrook, New Hampshire (from New England)
Image 326. Stamford, Connecticut (from New England)
Image 33The White Mountains of New Hampshire are part of the Appalachian Mountains. (from New England)
Image 34Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom is set on a fictional New England island and was largely filmed in Rhode Island (from New England)
Image 35Phillips Exeter Academy and Phillips Academy are two prestigious New England secondary schools founded in the late 18th century (from New England)
Image 36Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in Boston and spent most of his literary career in Concord, Massachusetts. (from Culture of New England)
Image 37An illustration from Herman Melville's Moby-Dick (from Culture of New England)
Image 389. Cambridge, Massachusetts (from New England)
Image 39The Port of Portland in Portland, Maine, is the largest tonnage seaport in New England. (from New England)
Image 40Flag of the New England Governor's Conference (NEGC) (from New England)
Image 41Flag of New England flying in Massachusetts. New Englanders maintain a strong sense of regional and cultural identity. (from New England)
Image 42The 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)
Image 43A 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 44Boston's Symphony Hall is the home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra—the second-oldest of the Big Five American symphony orchestras. (from New England)
Image 455. Bridgeport, Connecticut (from New England)
Image 46Ethnic origins in New England (from New England)
Image 477. New Haven, Connecticut (from New England)
Image 48World's largest Irish flag in Boston. People who claim Irish descent constitute the largest ethnic ancestry in New England. (from New England)
Image 49Opera houses and theaters, like the Vergennes Opera House in Vergennes, Vermont, are popular in New England towns. (from Culture of New England)
Image 50Köppen climate types in New England (from New England)
Image 51Bread and Roses Strike. Massachusetts National Guard troops surround unarmed strikers in Lawrence, Massachusetts, 1912. (from New England)
Image 52Largest 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 53Montpelier, Vermont, is the smallest state capital in the United States. (from New England)
Image 54A New England town meeting in Huntington, Vermont (from New England)
Image 553. Providence, Rhode Island (from New England)

Did you know (auto-generated)

... that the first railroad in New England was powered by horses?
... that the tugboat R. B. Forbes was the first iron mercantile vessel built in New England?
... that Rockstar New England is based in Andover, Massachusetts, because it is the founder's "favorite place"?
... that the first time the New England Revolution competed in an international competition, they played their "home" match at their opponent's stadium?
... that the Chippewa have smoked the root of the New England aster in pipes to attract game?
... that Clayton Weishuhn set the New England Patriots single-season record of 229 tackles in 1983, a record that still stands?
... that Benjamin Tompson's poem "Harvardine Quils" called for writers in New England to memorialize the loss of "whole towns and Churches" in King Philip's War?
... 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"?

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More did you know...

... that Alvin Adams founded Adams and Company, forerunner to Adams Express Company, to haul express freight shipments by rail in 1840?
... that professional baseball player Terry Doyle works as a substitute teacher during the offseason?
... that Linda Bean, heiress to part of the L.L. Bean company, twice ran for the United States Congress?
... that Uncle Tom once led a professional baseball league in stolen bases?
... that American folklorist Helen Hartness Flanders recorded, transcribed and catalogued traditional ballads from New England at a time when people were ceasing to sing them?

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Flag of Maine

Maine
Incorporated 1820
Co-ordinates 45.5°N 69°W

Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost portion of New England. It is known for its scenery—its jagged, mostly rocky coastline, its low, rolling mountains, its heavily forested interior and picturesque waterways—as well as for its seafood cuisine, especially lobsters and clams.

As Maine entered the 18th century, only a half dozen European settlements survived. Patriot and British forces contended for Maine's territory during the American Revolution and the War of 1812. Maine was part of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts until 1820, when it voted to secede from Massachusetts. On March 15, 1820, it was admitted to the Union as the 23rd state under the Missouri Compromise. Maine is the 39th most extensive and the 41st most populous of the 50 United States. (Full article...)

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