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 ...

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...

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...

George Washington's Mount Vernon brings together--for the first time--the details of Washington's 45-year endeavor to build and perfect Mount Vernon. In doing so it introduces us to a Washington few of his contemporaries knew, and one little noticed by historians since. Here we meet the planter/patriot who also genuinely loved building, a man passionately human in his desire to impress on his physical surroundings the stamp of his character and personal beliefs. As chief architect and plan...

Yes, they make rather an odd couple-but, truly, Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) and Fiske Kimball (1888-1955) are the Johnson and Boswell of the story of American architecture. If not for Dr. Fiske Kimball, we might never have known that Thomas Jefferson was an architect. Though he was hailed as a brilliant statesman, Jefferson was all but unknown as an artist and an architect for nearly a century. But Kimball, an industrious scholar with a keen eye, made a series of critical discoveries that...

A dual portrait of America’s first great architect, Henry Hobson Richardson, and her finest landscape designer, Frederick Law Olmsted—and their immense impact on AmericaAs the nation recovered from a cataclysmic war, two titans of design profoundly influenced how Americans came to interact with the built and natural world around them through their pioneering work in architecture and landscape design.Frederick Law Olmsted is widely revered as America’s first...

Oliver Wendell Holmes coined the Massachusetts State House as the �Hub of the Universe.� In Boston: A Historic Walking Tour, readers are guided on a series of downtown walking tours that radiate out from this Boston landmark. Featuring different excursions that explore Boston�s prominent neighborhoods and districts, visitors and natives alike will see how this city has become one of the country�s oldest cultural destinations. Boston�s growth and development in the 19th and 20th centuries h...

Life in colonial Charles Towne was dangerous--epidemic diseases, primitive medical practices, and a harsh environment led to the early demise of rich and poor alike. When Charleston's founders moved their settlement across the Ashley River to the peninsula in 1680, they hoped for protection from pirate and Native American attacks, as well as increased trade and healthier living conditions. While they were able to secure more protection for the residents and improve trade, health conditions...

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...

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 Princeton, New Jersey 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.The origina...

Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben was among the most important, yet underrated, players of the Revolution, and similar can be said for the town that bears his namesake in Ohio. If the name didn't give it away, von Steuben was a Prussian officer who aided the fledgling nation during the Revolutionary War, even serving as Gen. Washington's chief of staff in the war's final years, and in 1786, Fort Steuben was constructed to protect government surveyors of the Old Northwest Territory. In 17...

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. Whether you are preparing for a road trip or just out to look at your own town in a new way, a downloadable walking tour is ready to explore when you are.Each walking tour describes historical and architectural landmarks and provides pictures to help out when those pesky street addresses are missing. Every tour also includes a quick primer o...