1.
Vermont
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Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It borders the other U. S. states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to the north. Lake Champlain forms half of Vermonts western border with the state of New York, Vermont is the 2nd-least populous of the U. S. states, with nearly 50,000 more residents than Wyoming. The capital is Montpelier, the least populous state capital in the U. S, the most populous municipality, Burlington, is the least populous city in the U. S. to be the most populous within a state. As of 2015, Vermont continued to be the producer of maple syrup in the U. S. It was ranked as the safest state in the country in January 2016, for thousands of years inhabited by indigenous peoples, including the Algonquian-speaking Abenaki and Mohawk, much of the territory that is now Vermont was claimed by Frances colony of New France. France ceded the territory to Great Britain after being defeated in 1763 in the Seven Years War, for many years, the nearby colonies, especially the provinces of New Hampshire and New York, disputed control of the area. Settlers who held land titles granted by New York were opposed by the Green Mountain Boys militia, ultimately, those settlers prevailed in creating an independent state, the Vermont Republic. Founded in 1777 during the American Revolutionary War, the republic lasted for 14 years, aside from the original 13 states that were formerly colonies, Vermont is one of only four U. S. states that were previously sovereign states. Vermont was also the first state to join the U. S. as its 14th member state after the original 13, while still an independent republic, Vermont was the first of any future U. S. state to partially abolish slavery. It played an important geographic role in the Underground Railroad, sights in Vermont Vermont is located in the New England region of the northeastern United States and comprises 9,614 square miles, making it the 45th-largest state. It is the state that does not have any buildings taller than 124 feet. Land comprises 9,250 square miles and water comprises 365 square miles, making it the 43rd-largest in land area, in total area, it is larger than El Salvador and smaller than Haiti. The west bank of the Connecticut River marks the eastern border with New Hampshire. 41% of Vermonts land area is part of the Connecticut Rivers watershed, Lake Champlain, the major lake in Vermont, is the sixth-largest body of fresh water in the United States and separates Vermont from New York in the northwest portion of the state. From north to south, Vermont is 159 miles long and its greatest width, from east to west, is 89 miles at the Canada–U. S. Border, the narrowest width is 37 miles at the Massachusetts line, the states geographic center is approximately three miles east of Roxbury, in Washington County. There are fifteen U. S. federal border crossings between Vermont and Canada, the origin of the name Vermont is uncertain, but likely comes from the French les Verts Monts, meaning the Green Mountains
2.
Marlboro, Vermont
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Marlboro is a town in Windham County, Vermont, United States. The population was 978 at the 2000 census, the town is home to both the Southern Vermont Natural History Museum and Marlboro College, which hosts the Marlboro Music School and Festival each summer. The town was surveyed in 1762, and 64 equal rights were created, first settled in 1763, the town grew rapidly between 1764 and 1770 with emigrants from Massachusetts and Connecticut. By 1799 there were 313 children registered in the towns schools, the towns population peaked in 1820 with 1300 people, the subsequent decline caused by immigration to the west and a downturn in the areas economy. Although the terrain is mountainous, the soil is rich and deep, when the population was 896 in 1859, the community was almost exclusively agricultural. Located on the Town Common are the Town House, used for meetings, the Town Offices and Post Office building, the Marlboro Meeting House Congregational Church. The towns first church was organized in 1776, and put up at the top of Town Hill in 1778. In 1820, it was replaced by a newer structure nearby, and timbers and board from the old church were used in 1822 to build the Town House, which was also located in the vicinity. Between 1836 and 1844 both of these buildings – the church and the Town House – were moved down the hill to about their current locations on the Town Common. The church burned down in 1931 was replaced by the current one, which is roughly a reproduction of its predecessor, except slightly smaller. After the move down the hill, Town House was on the east side of South Road, the Whetstone Inn was built around 1775 by Deacon Jonas Whitney, who arrived in Marlboro in 1773. Over its history, it has various used as a courthouse, church, tavern, dance hall. In 1946, Marlboro College was founded on the site of three farms by Walter Hendricks, for returning World War II veterans, with poet Robert Frost as its first trustee, the Marlboro Music School and Festival, founded in 1951, is headquartered on the campus. According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has an area of 40.7 square miles. Marlboro is drained by the branch of the West River, Whetstone Brook. The town is crossed by Vermont Route 9, also known as the Molly Stark Trail, as of the census of 2000, there were 978 people,330 households, and 215 families residing in the town. The population density was 24.3 people per square mile, there were 497 housing units at an average density of 12.3 per square mile. The racial makeup of the town was 96. 32% White,0. 20% African American,0. 20% Native American,1. 02% Asian,0. 41% Pacific Islander,0. 72% from other races, and 1. 12% from two or more races
3.
Colonial meeting house
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A colonial meeting house was a meeting house used in colonial New England built using tax money. The colonial meeting house was the point of the community where all the towns residents could discuss local issues, conduct religious worship. The origin of the meeting form of government, can be traced to meeting houses of the colonies. The meeting houses that survive today were built in the last half of the 18th century. The styles are similar, most were almost square, with a steep pitched roof running east to west. There were usually 3 doors, The one in the center of the south wall was called the Door of Honor, and was used by the minister and his family. The other doors were located in the middle of the east and west walls, a balcony would usually be built on the east, south, and west walls, and a high pulpit would be located on the north wall. Most of these structures that are still standing have been renovated several times to meet the needs of their owners and the styles of the times. In the early 19th century, people wanted modern churches that had one entrance on an end of the building, a long aisle to a pulpit on the other short end. The colonial meeting house was the focus of every New England town. These structures were usually the largest building in the town and they were very simple buildings with no statues, decorations, or stained glass. Crosses would not even hang on the walls, box pews were provided for families, and single men and women would typically sit in the balconies. Large windows would be located at both the floor and gallery levels. It was a symbol to have lots of glass in the windows - the glass was expensive and had to be imported from England. A pulpit window, between the levels of the floor and gallery windows, would typically be in the center of the north wall. This window is one of the hallmarks of a meeting house. At this time it was common to build steeples over the entrances. Many of the typical white New England church started out as a meeting house
4.
Seat of local government
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In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre, a guildhall, a Rathaus, or a municipal building, is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses the city or town council, its associated departments and it also usually functions as the base of the mayor of a city, town, borough, or county / shire. By convention, until the mid 19th-century, a large open chamber formed an integral part of the building housing the council. The hall may be used for meetings and other significant events. This large chamber, the hall, has become synonymous with the whole building. The terms council chambers, municipal building or variants may be used locally in preference to town hall if no such large hall is present within the building, the local government may endeavor to use the town hall building to promote and enhance the quality of life of the community. In many cases, town halls serve not only as buildings for government functions and these may include art shows, stage performances, exhibits and festivals. Modern town halls or civic centres are designed with a great variety and flexibility of purpose in mind. As symbols of government, city and town halls have distinctive architecture. City hall buildings may also serve as icons that symbolize their cities. The term town hall may be a one, often applied without regard to whether the building serves or served a town or a city. This is generally the case in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, english-speakers in some regions use the term city hall to designate the council offices of a municipality of city status. This is the case in North America, where a distinction is made between city halls and town halls, and is also the case with Brisbane City Hall in Australia. The great hall of the town-house or municipal building, now commonly applied to the whole building city hall. Conversely, cities that have subdivisions with their own councils may have borough halls, in Scotland, local government in larger cities operates from the City Chambers, otherwise the Town House. Elsewhere in English-speaking countries, other names are occasionally used, in London, the official headquarters of administration of the City of London retains its Anglo-Saxon name, the Guildhall, signifying a place where taxes were paid. In a small number of English cities the preferred term is Council House, this was also the case in Bristol until 2012, when the building was renamed City Hall. In Birmingham, there is a distinction between the Council House, the seat of government, and the Town Hall, a concert
5.
Old Ship Church
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The Old Ship Church is a Puritan church built in 1681 in Hingham, Massachusetts. It is the only surviving 17th-century Puritan meetinghouse in America and its congregation, gathered in 1635 and officially known as First Parish in Hingham, occupies the oldest church building in continuous ecclesiastical use in the United States. On October 9,1960, it was designated a National Historic Landmark and on November 15,1966, the more familiar delicately spired white Colonial churches of New England would not be built for more than half a century. Within the church, the ceiling, made of oak beams, looks like the inverted frame of a ship. Built in 1681, it is the oldest church in use as a house of worship in North America. The most distinctive feature of the structure is its Hammerbeam roof, a Gothic open timber construction, some of those working on the soaring structure were no doubt ship carpenters, others were East Anglians familiar with the method of constructing a hammerbeam roof. The first minister of the Hingham congregation who built Old Ship was the Rev. Peter Hobart, natives of Hingham in the county of Norfolk in East Anglia, Peter Hobart, his father Edmund and his brother Capt. Joshua Hobart were among Hinghams most prominent early settlers, Edmund Hobart and his wife Margaret, said Cotton Mather, were eminent for piety. and feared God above many. Assisting Hobart in the foundation of the congregation was Rev. Robert Peck, Hobarts senior and formerly rector of St Andrews Church in Hingham, Norfolk. After 44 years of service, minister Peter Hobart died on January 20,1679, Hobarts diary of events in Hingham, begun in the year 1635, was continued on his death by his son David. By the time Old Ship was built, Harvard-educated Rev. John Norton, joshua Hobart, brother of Rev. Peter Hobart. Ultimately, the town appropriated £430 for the new building, said to be the equal of any in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the modern frame edifice, devoid of ornamentation, was raised in 1681, and accommodated its first worship service the following year. Old Ship, with its stark wooden pulpit and stripped-down interior, could not have been further from the houses of known to many of the East Anglians who settled Hingham. It was, in a sense, the anti-Wool church and it was a community undertaking and every freeman in the town had been assessed for the cost of the structure according to his worth, in amounts ranging from one pound to fifteen pounds. The John Leavitt pew in Old Ship Church, designated for the deacon, the current minister is Kenneth Read-Brown, a descendant of Rev. Peter Hobart. The congregation is Unitarian Universalist and is a Welcoming Congregation, Old Ship Church is surrounded by a large colonial graveyard amidst gently undulating hills. The graveyard, Hingham Cemetery, is called the First Settlers cemetery, though more commonly it is called Old Ship Church Cemetery. It was originally part of a 6-acre tract of land granted by the town to Thomas Gill, the oldest burials date from at least 1672, before the building of the current meeting house
6.
Hingham, Massachusetts
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Hingham is a town in metropolitan Greater Boston on the South Shore of the U. S. state of Massachusetts in northern Plymouth County. At the 2010 census, the population was 22,157, Hingham is known for its colonial history and location on Boston Harbor. The town was named after Hingham, Norfolk, England, and was first settled by English colonists in 1633, the town of Hingham was dubbed Bare Cove by the first colonizing English in 1633, but two years later was incorporated as a town under the name Hingham. The land on which Hingham was settled was deeded to the English by the Wampanoag sachem Wompatuck in 1655, the town was within Suffolk County from its founding in 1643 until 1803, and Plymouth County from 1803 to the present. The eastern part of the split off to become Cohasset in 1770. A statue of President Lincoln adorns the area adjacent to downtown Hingham Square, Hingham was born of religious dissent. Peck was known for what the eminent Norfolk historian Rev. Francis Blomefield called his violent schismatical spirit, Peck lowered the chancel railing of the church, in accord with Puritan sentiment that the Anglican church of the day was too removed from its parishioners. He also antagonized ecclesiastical authorities with other forbidden practices, Hobart, born in Hingham, Norfolk, in 1604 and, like Peck, a graduate of Magdalene College, Cambridge, sought shelter from the prevailing discipline of the high church among his fellow Puritans. The cost to those who emigrated was steep and they sold their possessions for half their value, noted a contemporary account, and named the place of their settlement after their natal town. While most of the early Hingham settlers came from Hingham and other villages in East Anglia. The early settlers of Dorchester, Massachusetts, for instance, had come under the guidance of Rev. John White of Dorchester in Dorset, prominent East Anglian Puritans like the Hobarts and the Cushings, for instance, were used to holding sway in matters of governance. Eventually the controversy became so heated that John Winthrop and Thomas Dudley were drawn into the fray, the bitter trainband controversy dragged on for several years, culminating in stiff fines. Although the town was incorporated in 1635, the colonists didnt get around to negotiating purchase from the Wampanoag, on July 4,1665, the tribes chief sachem, Josiah Wompatuck, sold the township to Capt. Joshua Hobart and Ensign John Thaxter, representatives of Hinghams colonial residents, having occupied the land for 30 years, the Englishmen presumably felt entitled to a steep discount. The sum promised Josiah Wompatuck for the land encompassing Hingham was to be paid by two Hingham landowners, Lieut, John Smith and Deacon John Leavitt, who had been granted 12 acres on Hinghams Turkey Hill earlier that year. Now the two men were instructed to deliver payment for their 12-acre grant to Josiah the chief Sachem, with that payment the matter was considered settled. The third town clerk of Hingham was Daniel Cushing, who emigrated to Hingham from Hingham, Norfolk, Cushings meticulous records of early Hingham enabled subsequent town historians to reconstruct much of early Hingham history as well as that of the early families. Cushing was rather unusual in that he included the towns gossip along with the more conventional formal record-keeping
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