Historic Towns of New England

Historic Towns of New England

FROM the earliest days of the New England Colonies down to the present time, those European analysts of our national life, whose opinions have been based on personal observation, have usually conceded that in New England towns and villages one might, at almost any period of their history, find a higher average degree of physical comfort, intelligence and mental attainment, and political liberty and power than was or is to be found in any other communities of Christendom. Thus Alexis de Tocqueville, in 1835, wrote: If this be true, the question inevitably arises, how has it come to pass? New England, as a whole, is far from fertile. Its winters are long and severe. Of mineral wealth it has little. The raw materials for its countless factories and mills, the fuel for its factories, homes, and railroads, must be obtained in the territory south and west of the Hudson River. The cereals which furnish the staple diet of its people{3} come from Western plains. Its best blood and brawn have gone to found commonwealths ranging from the Alleghany to the Sierra Nevada mountains, and, into towns once populated and dominated by the purest of English stock, there have come Irish from Ireland and Canada, French by way of Canada, Portuguese, Italians, and Jews from Russia, so that, in 1890, the alien male adult population of the several States was found by the Federal census takers to be, in Maine, 51.43 per cent.; New Hampshire, 50.5 per cent.; Vermont, 41.25 per cent.; Massachusetts, 46.10 per cent.; Rhode Island, 49.78 per cent.; Connecticut, 36.52 per cent. And yet, notwithstanding these economic disadvantages, this depletion of a population inheriting noble ideals, and the infusion of a class of settlers holding, in many instances, political and religious convictions quite at variance with those of the founders of the colonies, the type persists. The New England towns are still unlike, and in some respects superior to, those of other sections of the country. The New England States still lead in reformatory legislation. New Englands approval or disapproval of ideas affecting national{4} destiny still has weight with Congress and Presidents altogether disproportionate to the number of her representatives in Congress or her votes in the Electoral College. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 49067
Author: Powell, Lyman P. (Lyman Pierson)
Release Date: May 28, 2015
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Editor: Powell, Lyman P. (Lyman Pierson), 1866-1946