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In 1801 Elias Hasket Derby Jr. leaves his two year retirement. His father, the country’s first millionaire, has left him a money pit that many would consider one of the nations first American Castles. The expense to keep up this mansion and his leisurely life style has forced Elias back into action. He will take command of the local militia to fill in the ponds in the Common as part of an elaborate plot. The plot would entail the beautification of this neighborhood and entice a series of merchants and ship captains to build a series of two grand brick mansions set apart at fixed distances around the new park. All attached to a series of smuggling tunnels that would lead from the wharf, to their stores, and the banks. An elaborate scheme filled with Masons,pirates, a Secretary of the Navy, Senators, Representatives, a Supreme Court Justice, Presidents, and a touch of murder! Dig into the tunnels of Salem and find the underbelly of our nation!

The clang of the first trolley bell in 1902 signaled the beginning of a century of excitement and celebrity that would transform the tiny town of Salem, New Hampshire, into a recreation destination for millions. With the trolley company's opening of Canobie Lake Park in August 1902 and "Bet a Million" Gates's big gamble on Rockingham Park in 1906, New Englanders, regardless of age, ethnicity, or social status now shared a recreational common denominator. At Canobie Lake Park, generations played, met, danced, and fell in love. Rockingham Park brought world-class horse and auto racing, the nation's first modern lottery, and a parade of Hollywood's biggest stars. The two parks hold fond memories for the millions who have passed through their gates, and for the thousands who have worked there over the years, their jobs at Canobie and Rockingham are often the ones they most fondly remember.

Award-winning historian Mary Beth Norton reexamines the Salem witch trials in this startlingly original, meticulously researched, and utterly riveting study. In 1692 the people of Massachusetts were living in fear, and not solely of satanic afflictions. Horrifyingly violent Indian attacks had all but emptied the northern frontier of settlers, and many traumatized refugees—including the main accusers of witches—had fled to communities like Salem. Meanwhile the colony’s leaders, defensive about their own failure to protect the frontier, pondered how God’s people could be suffering at the hands of savages. Struck by the similarities between what the refugees had witnessed and what the witchcraft “victims” described, many were quick to see a vast conspiracy of the Devil (in league with the French and the Indians) threatening New England on all sides. By providing this essential context to the famous events, and by casting her net well beyond the borders of Salem itself, Norton sheds new light on one of the most perplexing and fascinating periods in our history.

Presents an historical analysis of the Salem witch trials, examining the factors that may have led to the mass hysteria, including a possible occurrence of ergot poisoning, a frontier war in Maine, and local political rivalries.