Sights in New England
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Shelburne Museum
On a 45-acre estate, 7 miles south of Burlington in Shelburne, the Shelburne Museum boasts a stellar collection of American folk art, New England architecture and, well, just about everything. The wildly eclectic collection ranges from an early American sawmill to the Lake Champlain side-wheeler steamship Ticonderoga. How's that for lawn decor?
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Copp’s Hill Burying Ground
The city’s second-oldest cemetery – dating to 1660 – is named for William Copp, who originally owned this land. The oldest graves here belong to his children. An estimated 10,000 souls occupy this small plot of land, including more than 1000 free blacks, many of whom lived in the North End. Near the Charter St gate you’ll find the graves of the Mather family – Increase, Cotton and Samuel – all of whom were politically powerful religious leaders in the colonial community. Find the grave of Daniel Malcolm, whose headstone commemorates his rebel activism. British soldiers apparently took offense at this claim and used the headstone for target practice. Across the street, 44 …
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Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology
The centerpiece of the Peabody is the impressive Hall of the North American Indian, which traces how native peoples responded to the arrival of Europeans from the 15th to the 18th centuries. As such, it addresses how these cultures have adapted to European influences and how they have maintained their own traditions and customs. Other exhibits examine indigenous cultures throughout the Americas, including a fantastic comparison of cave paintings and murals of the Awatovi (New Mexico), the Maya (Guatemala) and the Moche (Peru). Founded in 1866, the Peabody Museum is one of the world’s oldest museums devoted to anthropology. The price of admission includes entry to the Harv…
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Old City Hall
This monumental French Second Empire building is now office space with one fancy restaurant, but this site has seen its share of history. Out front, a plaque commemorates the site of the first public school, Boston Latin, founded in 1635 and still operational in Fenway. The hopscotch sidewalk mosaic, City Carpet, marks the spot where Benjamin Franklin, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Charles Bulfinch were educated. Statues of Benjamin Franklin, founding father, and Josiah Quincy, second mayor of Boston, stand inside the courtyard. They are accompanied by a lifesize replica of a donkey, symbol of the Democratic Party. (‘Why the donkey?’ you wonder. Read the plaque to find out.) Tw…
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Fairbanks Museum of Natural Science
In 1891, when Franklin Fairbanks’ collection of stuffed animals and cultural artifacts from across the globe grew too large for his home, he built the Fairbanks Museum of Natural Science. This massive stone building with a 30ft-high barrel-vaulted ceiling still displays more than half of Franklin’s original collection. Over 3000 preserved animals in glass cases can be seen, including a 1200lb moose shot in Nova Scotia in 1898, an American bison from 1902 and a Bengal tiger. There are planetarium shows at 1:30pm ($3 per person), and also in July and August at 11am.
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MassArt
More formally known as the Massachusetts College of Art, this is the country’s first and only four-year independent public art college. In 1873 state leaders decided the new textile mills in Lowell and Lawrence needed a steady stream of designers, so they established MassArt to educate some. The South Building houses over 9000 sq ft of exhibit space in the Arnheim, Bakalar and Paine galleries, while the Tower also houses the President’s Gallery. There’s always some thought-provoking or sense-stimulating exhibits to see.
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Walden Pond
Thoreau took the naturalist beliefs of Transcendentalism out of the realm of theory and into practice when he left the comforts of town and built a rustic cabin at Walden Pond. The glacial pond is now a state park, surrounded by acres of forest preserved by the nonprofit Walden Woods project. The site of Thoreau’s cabin is on the northeast side, marked by a cairn and signs. To escape the crowded summertime beach, follow the path along to the other side of the pond. Parking costs $5.
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Libby Museum
At the age of 40, Dr Henry Forrest Libby, a local dentist, began collecting things. In 1912 he built a home for his collections, which later became the eccentric little Libby Museum. Starting with butterflies and moths, the amateur naturalist built up a private natural history collection. Other collections followed, including Abenaki relics and early-American farm and home implements. It lies 3 miles north of Wolfeboro.
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Popham Beach State Park
The 6-mile long, sandy Popham Beach State Park is one of the prettiest in the state, with views onto offshore islands and the Kennebec and Morse Rivers framing either end. Lifeguards are on hand, but the surf is strong, with undertows and riptides. It’s located off ME 209, about 14 miles south of Bath.
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Jasper Beach
Don't miss Jasper Beach, a bizarre mile-long beach consisting entirely of polished red jasper stones. As the waves wash in, the rocks slide against one another, creating a rather haunting song. It's one of two such beaches in the world (the other is in Japan). To reach it, head down Machias Rd toward the village of Starboard.
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Harvard Museum of Natural History
This esteemed institution is famed for its botanical galleries, which feature more than 3000 lifelike pieces of handblown glass flowers and plants. At the intersection of art and science, the collection of intricately crafted flora is truly amazing. Kids and casual science buffs might prefer the more modern exhibits, like Arthropods: Creatures that Rule, which uses innovative multimedia presentations to explain how insects and arachnids have evolved into such a dominant phylum. The zoological galleries house an unbelievable number of stuffed animals and reassembled skeletons, as well as an impressive fossil collection. And the mineralogical and geological galleries conta…
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ECHO Lake Aquarium & Science Center
- Burlington, USA
- Sights › Zoo
The ECHO Lake Aquarium & Science Center, on the waterfront, will delight youngsters with its aquatic habitats wriggling with creatures and hands-on interactive exhibits illuminating Lake Champlain's ecological wonders.
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1712 Ebenezer Clough House
Behind the Paul Revere Mall in the North End. Ebenezer Clough, a Sons of Liberty member who participated in the Boston Tea Party, was a mason who worked on the adjacent Old North Church.
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Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream Factory
Get the inside scoop at Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream Factory, where tours and a moo-vie about the hippie founders are topped off with a taste tease of the latest flavor.
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York’s Wild Kingdom
If you have children, you may want to visit York’s Wild Kingdom, the state’s largest zoo.
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Peabody Museum of Natural History
Wannabe paleontologists will be thrilled by the dinosaurs at the Peabody Museum of Natural History.
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Mystic Seaport Museum
From simple beginnings in the 17th century, the village of Mystic grew to become one of the great shipbuilding ports of the East Coast. In the mid-19th century, Mystic’s shipyards launched clipper ships, many from the George Greenman & Co Shipyard, now the site of Mystic Seaport Museum. Today, the museum covers 17 acres and includes more than 60 historic buildings, four tall ships and almost 500 smaller vessels. Some buildings in the museum were originally here, but, as with Old Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts, many were transported from other parts of New England and arranged to recreate a resemblance to the past. Interpreters staff all the buildings and are all to…
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Old Sturbridge Village
During the first half of the 20th century, brothers Albert and J Cheney Wells lived in Southbridge and carried on a very successful optics business. They were enthusiastic collectors of antiques – so enthusiastic that by the end of WWII their collections left no free space in their homes. The brothers bought 200 acres of forest and meadow in Sturbridge and began to move old buildings from the region to this land. Old Sturbridge Village opened in 1946, creating a mythic version of a New England town from around the 1830s, with 40 restored structures filled with the Wells’ antiques. Rather than labeling the exhibits, this museum has ‘interpreters’ – people who dress in…
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Coolidge Homestead
The 30th president of the USA was born in Plymouth, Vermont, and attended Amherst College in Massachusetts. He opened a law practice in 1898, in Northampton, Maine, and then ran for local office. Following election, Coolidge served as state senator, lieutenant governor and governor of Massachusetts. Elected vice-president on the Warren Harding ticket in 1920, he assumed the presidency upon Harding’s death in 1923. Vice-president Coolidge was visiting his boyhood home in Plymouth when word came of Harding’s death. His father, the local justice of the peace, administered the presidential oath of office by kerosene lamp at 2:47am on August 3, 1923. Known for his simple, fort…
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Bread & Puppet Museum
Rolling though the Northeast Kingdom, it’s easy to become jaded at the sight of yet another barn. One in Glover definitely warrants a detour – not for its livestock but for the cosmological universe of the Bread & Puppet Museum, lurking within. Formed in New York City by German artist Peter Shumann in 1963, the Bread & Puppet Theater is a collective-in-training that presents carnivalesque pageants, circuses, and battles of Good and Evil with gaudy masks and life-size (even gigantic) puppets. The street theater of its early performances gave voice to local rent strikes and anti–Vietnam War protests as well as an epic parade down Fifth Ave in the early eighties to prote…
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King’s Chapel & Burying Ground
Bostonians were not pleased when the original Anglican church was erected on this site in 1688. (Remember, it was the Anglicans – the Church of England – whom the Puritans were fleeing.) The granite chapel standing today was built in 1754. If the church seems to be missing something, it is: funds ran out before a spire could be added. The church houses the largest bell ever made by Paul Revere, as well as a historic organ. Note the prestigious Governor’s pew, once occupied by George Washington, who came to hear a concert. Request a brochure to take a self-guided tour of the church’s architectural and historical highlights. After the revolution, King’s Chapel became the fi…
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Rough Point
In 1889, Frederick W Vanderbilt built Rough Point in the tradition of English manorial estates on a rocky piece of land jutting out into the ocean. Later purchased by the tobacco baron, James B Duke, the mansion fell into the hands of Duke’s only daughter, Doris (aged 13 years). She left the estate to the Newport Restoration Society upon her death. While the splendor of the grounds alone is worth the price of admission, Rough Point also houses much of Doris Duke’s impressive art holdings, including medieval tapestries, furniture owned by French emperors, Ming Dynasty ceramics, and paintings by Renoir and Van Dyck. These and other extraordinary objects formed the backdrop …
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Harvard Yard
Founded in 1636 to educate men for the ministry, Harvard is America’s oldest college. (No other college came along until 1693.) The original Ivy League school has eight graduates who went on to be US presidents, not to mention dozens of Nobel laureates and Pulitzer Prize winners. It educates 6500 undergraduates and about 12,000 graduates yearly in 10 professional schools. The geographic heart of Harvard University – where red-brick buildings and leaf-covered paths exude academia – is Harvard Yard (through Anderson Gates from Mass Ave). The focal point of the yard is the John Harvard statue, where every Harvard hopeful has a photo taken (and touches the statue’s shiny shoe…
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Salem Maritime National Historic Site
The witch phenomena obscures Salem’s true claim to fame: its glory days as a center for clipper-ship trade with China, started by Elias Hasket Derby. The Salem Maritime National Historic Site comprises the customhouse, the wharves and the other buildings along Derby St that are remnants of the shipping industry that once thrived along this stretch of Salem. In all, the site comprises ten different historic locations within a two-block area. Start at the visitors center to pick up a map and to see the informative film To the Farthest Ports of the Rich East. Of the 50 wharves that once lined Salem Harbor, only three remain, the longest of which is Derby Wharf. Visitors ca…
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Rocky Neck Art Colony
The artistic legacy of Gloucester native Fitz Hugh Lane endures, as Gloucester still boasts a vibrant artists community at Rocky Neck Art Colony. The association operates the cooperative Bryan Gallery in a beautiful space overlooking Smith Cove.
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