During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the town of Plymouth, Connecticut--formerly known as Northbury--was settled only by scattered groups of Indians and hearty newcomers from Europe. As time went on, however, the Town of Plymouth developed into an industrial community composed of nine organized districts: Plymouth, Greystone, Allentown, the Lakes, Pequabuck, Terryville, East Plymouth, and the Holt District. Residents of Plymouth were industrious and inventive from the very beginning. In 1793 Eli Terry founded the clock-making business that became the foremost enterprise in the town's history, and in 1854 the expansion of the Eagle Lock Company fostered the development of Terryville. During the course of the nineteenth century, a plethora of smaller companies developed along the town's many waterways, manufacturing everything from furniture to toys, plows, and hats. Plymouth, Connecticut chronicles the development of the town through the years with a remarkable series of vintage images and informative text.

Incorporated in 1795, Plymouth is known for its industrialists and innovations. A. Terry & Company was a pioneer in the industry of malleable iron, and Eli Terry was instrumental in the creation of interchangeable parts leading to mass production. Cooper Oven Thermometer designed and created the first baking thermometers in the United States. Plymouth is also home to two sections of historic importance listed on the National Register of Historic Places: Plymouth Center, known as the initial center of town with locations on the Underground Railroad, and East Church, where a small group of Tories lived during the Revolutionary War.

Thomas Welles (ca. 1590-1660), son of Robert and Alice Welles, was born in Stourton, Whichford, Warwickshire, England, and died in Wethersfield, Connecticut. He married (1) Alice Tomes (b. before 1593), daughter of John Tomes and Ellen (Gunne) Phelps, 1615 in Long Marston, Gloucestershire. She was born in Long Marston, and died before 1646 in Hartford, Connecticut. They had eight children. He married (2) Elizabeth (Deming) Foote (ca. 1595-1683) ca. 1646. She was the widow of Nathaniel Foote and the sister of John Deming. She had seven children from her previous marriage.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1877.

Little attention has been paid to the settlement of Germans in Kansas, and Roberta Reb Allen’s Once We Were Strangers helps to fill that void. It is both the saga of an immigrant family told within the larger social, political, and economic context of the day and a scholarly exploration of the settlement patterns and the diverse choices made by German pioneers. Starting in the small village of Ebhausen in the Black Forest of the Kingdom of Württemberg in what is now Germany, Allen follows the fortunes of the Lodholzes, who journeyed across the Atlantic and eventually settled on the plains of the Kansas Territory in Marshall County. Based on nearly 200 family letters and documents translated from Old German, Once We Were Strangers chronicles, through the pens of ordinary people, the conditions in Württemberg that led to emigration and the sweep of American history from the 1850s to the nominal end of the frontier in 1890. In addition, Once We Were Strangers provides the unusual opportunity to follow a German immigrant family for an extended period, almost from cradle to grave. Using remarkably rare documentary evidence, Allen explores the largely untold story of German assimilation, uncovering the pressures the Lodholzes faced and how they responded to the antebellum Midwest. This family’s story is full of hardship, endurance, joys, and sorrows, and is interwoven with the history of westward expansion, German migration, and Kansas, with a particular emphasis on German settlement patterns prior to the Civil War.

In September 1776, two men from Connecticut each embarked on a dangerous mission. One of the men, a soldier disguised as a schoolmaster, made his way to British-controlled Manhattan and began furtively making notes and sketches to bring back to the beleaguered Continental Army general, George Washington. The other man traveled to New York to accept a captain's commission in a loyalist regiment before returning home to recruit others to join British forces. Neither man completed his mission. Both met their deaths at the end of a hangman's rope, one executed as a spy for the American cause and the other as a traitor to it. Neither Nathan Hale nor Moses Dunbar deliberately set out to be a revolutionary or a loyalist, yet both suffered the same fate. They died when there was every indication that Britain would win the American Revolution. Had that been the outcome, Dunbar, convicted of treason and since forgotten, might well be celebrated as a martyr. And Hale, caught spying on the British, would likely be remembered as a traitor, rather than a Revolutionary hero. In The Martyr and the Traitor, Virginia DeJohn Anderson offers an intertwined narrative of men from very similar backgrounds and reveals how their relationships within their families and communities became politicized as the imperial crisis with Britain erupted. She explores how these men forged their loyalties in perilous times and believed the causes for which they died to be honorable. Through their experiences, The Martyr and the Traitor illuminates the impact of the Revolution on ordinary lives and how the stories of patriots and loyalists were remembered and forgotten after independence.

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "A Brief History of the United States" by John Bach McMaster. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.