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Cahawba's Changing Landscape

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Alabama, Dallas County, Cahaba

In 1818, Alabama's first governor carved the capital city of Cahawba out of the wilderness. In less than 50 years, Cahawba grew from a frontier capital full of log cabins to one of America's wealthiest communities, with some of the finest mansions in the state. Then abruptly, after the Civil War, it was abandoned.

Today Cahawba is a ghost town, an important archaeological site, and a place of picturesque ruins. Ironically, in 1818, Cahawba's landscape was also full of ruins—the remains of a village constructed by prehistoric mound builders who abandoned the site in the 16th century.

As you look east down Capitol Street toward the Alabama River, you're looking directly at the site where an immense earthen mound, centerpiece of the mound-builder village, once stood—the same site Governor Bibb envisioned for Cahawba's statehouse. in 1858, Cahawba residents used the soil of this prehistoric mound to build an embankment for their new railroad.

Freeman's 1818 Map

In 1817, settlers were anxious to move into Alabama's frontier, and surveyor Thomas Freeman was responsible for creating maps necessary for orderly land sales. Just below the confluence of the Cahaba and Alabama rivers, Freeman observed and recorded the ruins of an old abandoned Indian village. The houses and the semi-circular palisade that surrounded the village had long since turned to dust, but the ceremonial earthen mound in the center of the town and the moat that surrounded the palisade wall were still visible in 1817 (recorded as an "Ancient Indian Work" on this map.)

Governor Bibb's 1818 Map of Cahawba

In 1818, when the federal government granted Governor William Wyatt Bibb land at the confluence of the Cahaba and Alabama rivers for Alabama's seat of government, the Territorial Assembly authorized Bibb to layout a town plan. If you compare Governor Bibb's 1818 town plat, to Freeman's 1817 map, you can see that Bibb planned to give the statehouse of his new city prominence by sitting it atop the old Indian mound. He also planned to surround the capitol grounds with the moat that had been dug three centuries earlier. Funding shortages and his untimely death prevented Bibb fromfully realizing his plan.

(Antebellum South, US • Notable Places • Settlements & Settlers) Includes location, directions, 7 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

Holocaust Survivors

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New York, Oswego County, Oswego
From 1944 – 1946 Fort Ontario
served as a haven for
982 survivors of the
European holocaust.
Erected October 25, 1981 by
Syracuse Pioneer Women/NA’AMAT
and the Jewish community
of central New York

(Notable Events) Includes location, directions, 3 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

The British Army

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North Carolina, Davie County, Mocksville

The British Army led by General Cornwallis crossed Dutchman's Creek at this point Feb. 6, 1781

(Colonial Era • War, US Revolutionary) Includes location, directions, 1 photo, GPS coordinates, map.

From the Hearth of America Come the Heart of America

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New York, Oswego County, Oswego
This hearth is dedicated to the women and children of all races who lived and died on the colonial frontier. It was built by their grateful descendants in the bicentennial year of Our Lord One Thousand Nine Hundred and Seventy Six.
Where they walked, the United States of America began.

(Colonial Era • Settlements & Settlers) Includes location, directions, 5 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

Township of Belfast World War I Memorial

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New York, Allegany County, Belfast
In honor of the men of the Township of Belfast who served their country in the Great War for world-wide liberty, 1917 - 1919.

(War, World I) Includes location, directions, 4 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

Belfast World War II, Korean Conflict, Vietnam Memorial

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New York, Allegany County, Belfast
We dedicate this memorial to those who served in World War II, Korean Conflict and Vietnam, especially those who died for our freedom.

(War, Korean • War, Vietnam • War, World II) Includes location, directions, 4 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

The Robert R. McComsey Career Development Center at the Allen-Steinheim Museum

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New York, Allegany County, Alfred
Dedicated October 6, 1997.
The Allen-Steinheim Museum was built between 1876 and 1890 by Alfred University's second president, Jonathan Allen. A natural history museum, the Gothic ediface was built from approximately 8,000 different specimens of rock collected in the Alfred area and 700 varieties of wood. It originally housed the collections of Jonathan and Abigail Allen.

Robert R. McComsey received a Bachelor of Science degree in ceramic engineering from the New York State Collage of Ceramics at Alfred University in 1966. His gift to renovate the Allen-Steinheim Museum reflects Alfred University's commitment to provide students with superior career services.

(Notable Buildings) Includes location, directions, 5 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

Second Court House of Somerset County

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New Jersey, Somerset County, Millstone Borough
To mark the site of the second court house of Somerset County in this place then called Hillsborough. Built in 1738 - Burned October 26, 1779 by tory raiders under Lt. Col. Simcoe of the Queens Rangers.

This tablet was set upon by the Society of Colonial Wars in the state of New Jersey. The Society of Sons of the Revolution in the state of New Jersey. The Somerset County Historical Society.

(Colonial Era • War, US Revolutionary) Includes location, directions, 2 photos, GPS coordinates, map.


Millstone

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New Jersey, Somerset County, Millstone Borough
This millstone was found on the Jacob Van Doren farm 1000 feet south of this church, on site of large Indian village. Presented by Manning Wikoff to Hillsborough Reformed Church in 1927. Plaque 1946.

(Native Americans) Includes location, directions, 3 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

Silver Spring B & O Railroad Station

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Maryland, Montgomery County, Silver Spring
One of the most significant reasons for Silver Spring's growth was its location along the Metropolitan Branch of the B&O Railroad. The railroad line stimulated the development of outlying commuter suburbs. It also allowed the County's agriculture products to be transported to market with greater speed and ease.

The trains began operation on the B&O line in 1873 and the original Silver Spring train station was built in 1878. This ornate building, designed by E. Francis Baldwin, stood until 1945 and was replaced the a station in the Colonial Revival Style.

(Railroads & Streetcars) Includes location, directions, 6 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

The Town House of Plymouth

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Massachusetts, Plymouth, Plymouth
On this site until 1749 stood
The Government House
Of the old Colony
In that year this building was erected
By the county for a court house
It was used jointly by the county
And the town until 1820
And then became the property of the town
And has ever since been used as a Town House

(Colonial Era • Notable Buildings) Includes location, directions, 4 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

Plymouth Waterfront

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Massachusetts, Plymouth, Plymouth
You are standing at the corner of Leyden Street and Water Street. Leyden Street is the first street laid out in Plymouth and the location of the first Pilgrim homes. From this location one can see Cole’s Hill, the Waterfront and Leyden Street leading to Town Square and Burial Hill.

Plymouth Harbor
The English settlers chose this area for their new settlement after three days of surveying along the coast. Plymouth’s protected bay and the fresh water of Town Brook made the location a good choice. The settlers officially disembarked on December 21, 1620.

The landing on Plymouth Rock- Painting by Michele Felice Corne (circa 1752-1845), 1809. One of the earliest representations of the landing, after the engraving by Samuel Hill, 1800. Note the Billings canopy in the foreground is the second photo of this display.
Courtesy of Pilgrim Hall Museum 75 Court Street, Plymouth

Plymouth’s fishing fleet and Plymouth Rock, circa 1870. This fishing schooners shown here were the backbone of Plymouth’s commercial fleet. James Baker

Plymouth Rock
Plymouth Rock is one of Plymouth’s most famous attractions. It is traditionally said that the Pilgrims first set foot at the site of Plymouth Rock, though no historical evidence can support this claim. The first identification of Plymouth Rock as the actual landing site was made in 1741 by 94-year old Thomas Faunce, whose father had arrived in Plymouth in 1623, three years after the arrival of the Mayflower. The rock located roughly 650 feet (200m) from where the initial settlement was built.

Plymouth Rock became internationally famous as the supposed landing place of the Pilgrims. In 1774, the Rock was split into two pieces during an effort to relocate it to a more prominent site at Town Square. The lower half of Rock remained in place on the waterfront, but the upper half was moved to Plymouth center and later to a fenced enclosure in front of Pilgrim Hall. The upper piece was rejoined with its lower half in 1880 and placed under a Victorian canopy designed by Hammatt Billings. The date 1620 was inscribed on the Rock at this time. The Billings canopy was open at street level and did no protect the Rock from souvenir hunters. The two sections were lowered to their original sea level position under the present canopy in 1921. Plymouth Rock is the centerpiece of Pilgrim Memorial State Park, the smallest park in the Massachusetts State Forest and Park System, but also the most heavily visited.

Mayflower II
Mayflower II is a full-size reproduction of the Mayflower, the ship which brought the Pilgrims to Plymouth in 1620. It is located at the State Pier in Plymouth Center. The ship is open as a museum about the Pilgrim’s historic voyage from Plymouth, England, and is considered a faithful reproduction of the original Mayflower. It is officially a part of Plimoth Plantation. The ship was built in Brixham, England in 1956, and sailed to Plymouth across the Atlantic Ocean in 1957 by famous mariner Alan Villiers. The ship is still seaworthy, and occasionally takes voyages around Plymouth Harbor.

Town Brook
Town Brook is a 1.5-mile stream that originates at the 269 –acre Billington Sea and flows through Brewster Garden into historic Plymouth Harbor. Town Brook was the source of freshwater that prompted the Pilgrims to settle in Plymouth. The brook sustained the early settlement through difficult times. The local Wampanoag Indians, namely Squanto, taught the settlers how to fish for herring and to use them as fertilizer for their corn crops. Later, Town Brook became the first center of industrialization as its water was used to power numerous mills along its course. Industries along Town Brook had a major impact on Plymouth’s nineteenth century history.

Plymouth Rock, the world’s most famous Dedham granodiorite boulder. The date “1620” was carved into it in 1880 when the two halves were reunited. James Baker

(Settlements & Settlers) Includes location, directions, 8 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

William Bradford

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Massachusetts, Plymouth, Plymouth
Governor and Historian Of the Plymouth Colony Born in Austerfield, England 1590 Died in Plymouth, New England 1657

(Colonial Era • Notable Persons) Includes location, directions, 4 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

Cole’s Hill

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Massachusetts, Plymouth, Plymouth
The hill rises up from the shores of Plymouth Bay near the foot of Leyden Street, principal thoroughfare of the original settlement. It was the traditional burial place of the Plymouth colonists, Pilgrims and others, who died during the “starving time,” the tragic first winter of 1620-21. The dead were reportedly buried at night, and their graves disguised to hide the dangerously weakened state of the survivors. In 1697 John Cole, who gave the hill his name, built a house on the northeast corner of the hill. Cannons were installed in earthworks on Cole’s Hill in 1742, during the Revolution and again in 1814 of protection of the town.

As shipping became less prosperous in the mid-nineteenth century, the Pilgrim Society (founded in 1820) was able to buy and remove eight of the old commercial establishments to create the smooth slope and stairway as the start of the present park in 1856. The slope all the way down to Leyden Street was done about 1911.

Sarchophagus
A the top of Cole’s Hill stands the memorial to the Mayflower Pilgrims, erected by the General Society of Mayflower Descendants. The first rediscovery of Pilgrim remains occurred in 1735 following a heavy rain which washed many of the bones down the hill and into the harbor. Remains found nearby during the digging of sewer lines in 1855 and 1883 were sent to Boston to determine if they were Europeans or Native. Pronounced European by Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., four skeletons were returned to Plymouth and placed in a led-lined casket in the top of the old Hammatt Billings canopy over Plymouth Rock in 1867. The casket was retrieved when the old canopy was torn down, and it was interred in the present memorial on May 24, 1921.

Massasoit Statue
Massasoit, the chief sachem or leader of the indigenous Wampanoag people governed a federation of autonomous Native American communities in the Plymouth Colony region.

When the Pilgrims arrived his people were recovering from a terrible epidemic that wiped out entire communities (such as Patuxet where Plymouth is today). The powerful Narraganset tribe, which has not suffered such losses, was demanding that Massasoit become their vassal and the Wampanoag territory be subject to their rule. Massasoit instead chose to ally with the Pilgrims and preserve his people’s independence. After Edward Winslow saved his life in 1622, the made Wampanoag leader made a personal commitment to the good relations between the English and the Wampanoag. Together Bradford and Massasoit maintained a sometimes-uneasy peace between the two people that lasted over half century.

The Bridal Tree
At the top of Cole’s Hill are the remains of an ancient linden tree known as the “Bridal Tree”. The tree had been planted in a nearby yard by a young couple on their engagement in 1809. However, the marriage never took place, and the young woman in question pulled the sapling up and threw it into the road. It was found by William Davis, who lived on the hill, and he dug a hole with his heel and stuck it in the ground. It survived and has been known as a local landmark for many years.

The 1809 “Bridal Tree.”
The ancient linden tree as it appears today on the northeast corner of Cole’s Hill

(Colonial Era • Notable Places) Includes location, directions, 6 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

1630-1930

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Massachusetts, Plymouth, Plymouth
To Honor and Perpetuate the Memory of John Eddy and Samuel Eddy Arrived at Plymouth on the “Handmaid” Oct. 29, 1630 Sons of Rev. William Eddye, B.A., M, A. Cambridge, England Vicar of St. Dunstan church, Cranbrook, Kent 1591-1616

John Eddy
Born at Cranbrook, March 1507 – Died at Watertown, Oct. 1684 Freeman, First Town Clerk and Selectman of Watertown

Samuel Eddy
Born Cranbrook, May 1606 –died at Swansea, Nov. 1687 Freeman of Plymouth – one of the first purchasers of Middleboro

As a tribute to our pioneer ancestors This tablet is dedicated on the 300th anniversary of their landing

(Colonial Era • Settlements & Settlers) Includes location, directions, 2 photos, GPS coordinates, map.


Leyden Street

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Massachusetts, Plymouth, Plymouth
Leyden Street, originally known to the first settlers as First Street, Great Street or Broad Street, is where the Pilgrims began building their houses in the winter of 1620-21, and it has been the heart of the town ever since. Extending from the harbor at its eastern end to Burial Hill on the west (and including Town Square), Leyden Street is the oldest continuously occupied street in British North America.

Current building and history
Although no 17th century structures survive on the street, the existing homes are a assortment of 18th and 19th century houses that front directly onto the sidewalks. They stand close together on small lots that are roughly 49 ½ feet deep, as was allotted in the first division in 1620.

Town Square
Unlike many New England communities Plymouth has a market square rather than a green at its center. Town Square occupies the upper end of Leyden Street and is surrounded by three prominent buildings. The 1749 Courthouse on the corner of Market Street occupies the south side of the square; the stone First Parish Church (Unitarian) is at the west end and the white wooden church of the Pilgrimage (Congregational) is on the north side. A stairway up Burial Hill can be found at the northwest corner of Town Square at the entrance to School Street.

Burial Hill
Burial Hill, also known as Fort Hill, is located at the east end of Leyden Street. This was the highest hill in the area, about 130 feet above sea level, with a good view of the harbor. The Pilgrims build their fort upon the top of this hill, and in the earliest years of Plymouth there were six cannons mounted on the fort. They used the fort for their church house as well. In 1675 and 1676, the residents of Plymouth built a smaller fort in the location shown in the picture below, to protect themselves from attack. After the end of the war, tradition says the wood form the fort was sold and used to build the Harlow House, still standing at Plymouth. Shortly before King Phillip’s War, the hill began to be used as a cemetery. The earliest gravestone it is claimed that some of the Mayflower passengers were buried on the hill including the supposed gravesite of William Bedford, who died in 1657. There is no original gravestone for Bradford, and the tall memorial was placed there in the 19th century. Town square -1828 print by Benjamin Parris Barlett. A man is seating his young son on the upper half of Plymouth Rock, moved to this spot from the waterfront by Colonel Theophilus Cotton.

Plymouth Town House, cica 1900, The 1749 Courthouse, subsequently the seat of town government from 1820 to 1953, is now a town museum. There was a market beneath the building year ago.

Site of old fort. Dr. James Thacher planted an elm tree a the center of the old fort’s foundation, which was later replaced with the marble “stool.”

(Colonial Era • Settlements & Settlers) Includes location, directions, 1 photo, GPS coordinates, map.

Three Sisters Islands

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New York, Niagara County, Niagara Falls


These picturesque islands have also been known as the "Moss Islands" because fine growths of moss once covered their rocks. The smooth surfaces of the rocks and the great number of potholes are clues that these islands were once submerged beneath the rapids. In recent years, the islands have increased in size because of the diversion of water upriver for the hydroelectric power plants.

The Three Sisters Islands were named for the daughters of Parkhurst Whitney, a local businessman and a decorated War of 1812 veteran. In the spring of 1816, when ice jams in the shallow rapids created natural bridges between the islands, Whitney took his three daughters on a walk out to the farthest island. Whitney was so proud of the success of their adventure, that he convinced Augustus Porter, the islands' new owner, to name them after his daughters. The nearest was named Asenath, the next, Angeline, and the farthest Celinda Eliza. The island adjacent to Celinda Eliza is called "Little Brother," after the Whitney daughters' brother Solon.

In 1829, Francis Abbott, a young Englishman, came to Niagara Falls on a visit and was so taken by the beauty of the area that he decided to stay. He took up residence in a small cabin on the mainland close to the American Falls. There he lived as a hermit, spending his days writing and painting. Abbott often bathed in the cascade between Goat Island and Asenath Island, thus its name, "Hermit's Cascade."

[Photo captions, from top left around to top right, read]
Parkhurst Whitney • Bridge to 1st Sister Island. "Hermit's Cascade" is in the background. • Asenath Whitney • Suspension bridge to 2nd Sister Island • Angeline Whitney • Goat Island and Three Sisters Islands looking from Canada, ca. 1868 postcard.

Images courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library.

(Environment • Settlements & Settlers • Waterways & Vessels) Includes location, directions, 8 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

Asher Freeman

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New York, Niagara County, Royalton
Early area settler. Born Dutchess County 1774. arived here 1813. Built log cabin and saw mill near here. Died 1853.

(Settlements & Settlers) Includes location, directions, 4 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

The Market Square & Stone House

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Maryland, Prince Georges County, Bladensburg
Christopher Lowndes, a prominent English merchant, constructed a small stone building here around 1760. Although he lived at Bostwick on the hill to the east, this property stayed in the Lowndes family until 1883. Over the past 250 years, Lowndes's stone building appears to have served as a post stop, a general store, and a domestic residence. During the 18th century people would have met in the space in front of the house, known as the "market square" to trade goods and visit with their neighbors.

Although free and enslaved people of African descent were part of the Bladensburg community, there is no evidence of them being bought and sold here. Indentured servants from Great Britain disembarked at the Port of Bladensburg, but slave ships from Africa were unloaded at Georgetown and Annapolis.

(African Americans • Colonial Era • Industry & Commerce • Man-Made Features) Includes location, directions, 10 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

Belva Lockwood

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New York, Niagara County, Royalton

[on post]
First Woman to argue before the U S Supreme Court, 1879. Presidential candidate, 1884 and 1888, for the National Equal Rights party. George E. Pataki, Governor

[on stone]
Near this spot stood the log cabin birthplace of Belva A. Bennett, 1830 - 1917. As Belva Lockwood, she became the first woman to practice law before the U.S. Supreme Court. She was also the first woman to run for the office of President of the United States in 1884 and 1888. Town of Royalton.

(Civil Rights • Politics) Includes location, directions, 10 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

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