Arcadia Bestsellers

Maine's Hunting Past captures the pursuit of wild animals through a century of documentation. Since about 1850, animals have been taken for sport, for food, and for their hides. Hunting has long been not only a sport but also an industry, resulting in the increase and growth of sporting camps and an expanding number of guides. Maine's Hunting Past highlights favorite regions, featuring famous sporting camps and well-known guides. Big game, small game, upland birds, waterfowl, furbearers, and numerous photographs of trophy animals and large bag limits are all included.

Far on the northeastern coast of Maine sits a small island whose size belies the depth of its storied past.

Over the course of its existence, Eastport has been a part of the ancestral homeland of the Passamaquoddy, seized from American hands by the British, who would occupy it for four years, and ground zero for the North American sardine industry. Its remote location and stunningly rugged environment make it appealing to a wide variety of people, from fisherfolk and sailors to artists and performers from all over the world. Once serving as the stomping grounds of Benedict Arnold (having gone from traitor to trader), it was later frequented by a young Franklin D. Roosevelt, who became enchanted by its coastal charms. Habituated to facing periods of strife and of runaway success alike, the story of Eastport is one that changes as steadily as its momentous tides.

Lura Jackson was raised in Eastport. She became an award-winning community journalist writing for the Quoddy Tides and the Calais Advertiser and developed a strong passion for local history after becoming involved with the St. Croix Historical Society. She holds a master's degree in peace and reconciliation from the University of Maine. Hugh French, director of the Tides Institute & Museum of Art, provides the foreword, while the institute provided dozens of rare photographs to the book's interior.

Down East Maine is well known for its breathtaking scenery and art museums. However, much of the history in the traditional mining and fishing area of Rockland and St. George remains untold.

Hanson Gregory from Clam Cove invented the donut. Mary Brown Patten sailed a clipper around Cape Horn. Captain Albert Keller was shipwrecked on Easter Island and Effie Canning of Rockland composed the lullaby "Rock a Bye Baby.'? Captain Charles Holbrook of Tenants Harbor and his ship, the Hattie Dunn, fell victim to a German U-boat in the Atlantic.

Local author Jane Merrill uncovers the forgotten stories and personalities that bring this unique area's history into focus.

Connecticut's witch hunt was the first and most ferocious in New England, occurring almost fifty years before the infamous Salem witch trials.

Between 1647 and 1697, at least thirty-four men and women from across the state were formally charged with witchcraft. Eleven were hanged. In New Haven, William Meeker was accused of cutting off and burning his pig's ears and tail as he cast a bewitching spell. After the hanging of Fairfield's Goody Knapp, magistrates cut down and searched her body for the marks of the devil. Through newspaper clippings, court records, letters and diaries, author Cynthia Wolfe Boynton uncovers the dark history of the Connecticut witch trials.

The lure of beachcombing in New England has been around since Colonial times. From shipwrecks, relentless storms and spooky maritime mysteries, pieces of sea glass are tumbled treasures speaking to us about our past.

Many frosty cobalt blue shards come from medicine bottles from the early 20th century and can be found on beaches surrounding Boston Harbor. The seaside town of Rockport, where Hannah and the Hatchet Gang launched a destructive raid on liquor, still holds brilliant fragments of the past. The treasures of Captain Kidd are rumored to be hidden somewhere in Jamestown, Rhode Island, while lost seaside amusement parks in Connecticut produced shimmering treasures now rolling in the tides.

Roxie Zwicker reveals the secret clues hidden in the colorful glass, their origins, and the best places to discover them.

The House of the Seven Gables is an American icon. It is one of the nation's oldest homes and one of its first historic house museums.

Built in 1668, it is a unique and well-restored first period house displaying many preserved 17th- and 18th-century architectural features. Three generations of the seafaring Turner family lived in the home before the American Revolution. In the 19th century, the author Nathaniel Hawthorne was hosted in the house by his cousin, and the setting encouraged his literary genius. After this famous association, the house attracted tourists even before it opened to the public when the artistic Upton family called the mansion home. In 1910, Caroline Emmerton, an enterprising philanthropist, opened the home to raise money to help local immigrants. She restored the structure and brought other historic houses from Salem to the property.

From the driver's seat, author and guide Edward Morris provides a diverse collection of biographical sketches that reveal the outrageous and opulent lives of some of America's leading entrepreneurs.

Newport, Rhode Island, was the summer playground of the Gilded Age for the Astors, Belmonts and Vanderbilts. They built lavish villas designed by the best Beaux Arts-style architects of the time, including Richard Morris Hunt, Charles McKim and Robert Swain Peabody. America's elite delighted in referring to these grand retreats as ""summer cottages,"" where they would play tennis and polo and sail their yachts along the shores of the Ocean State. The coachman had an important role as the discreet outdoor butler for Gilded Age gentlemen--not only was he in charge of the horses, but he also acted as a travel advisor and connoisseur of entertainment venues.

Sitting on a hillside overlooking a spectacular lake and mountains, Burlington was destined to attract greatness, although much of its history has remained hidden.

It was the territory of the Alnôbak, who lived in concert with nature for thousands of years, and later the swashbuckling Green Mountain Boy Ethan Allen and his kin. Self-made tycoon Lawrence Barnes helped make the city the third-largest lumber shipping port in the country. The resilient Fanny Penniman created the first herbarium, and her daughter inspired a nineteenth-century hospital. Bootlegger Cyrus Dean was convicted of murder and publicly executed in the hill section. Irish, French Canadian, Jewish and Italian neighborhoods all combined to give a unique character to the city.

Join author and historian Glenn Fay as he reveals stories and images of Burlington's forgotten past.

The stories, legends, and lore surrounding New England's most haunted places. A must-read for fans of the supernatural and New England history.

New England's history is marked with witch executions, curses and an untold number of cemeteries hiding mysteries beneath their stones. In this sometimes harsh landscape, the truth is often stranger than fiction. Examine the footprints burned into the ledge of Devil's Foot Rockin Rhode Island. Spend a night at the Kennebunk Innin Maine, where the mischievous specter of Silas Perkins still resides. Traverse an old dirt road near Sterling, Connecticut, where the Darn Man'sfrozen body was uncovered in 1863.

Authors Thomas D'Agostino and Arlene Nicholson uncover the history behind the region's best-kept secrets and lore. As you flip through these pages of New England's legends, tread lightly--you just might find a story that will follow you home.

Over fifty thousand Connecticut soldiers served in the Union army during the Civil War, yet their stories are nearly forgotten today.

Among the regiments that served, at least forty sets of brothers perished from battlefield wounds or disease. Little known is the 16th Connecticut chaplain who, as prisoner of war, boldly disregarded a Rebel commander's order forbidding him to pray aloud for President Lincoln. Then there is the story of the 7th Connecticut private who murdered a fellow soldier in the heat of battle and believed the man's ghost returned to torment him. Seven soldiers from Connecticut tragically drowned two weeks after the war officially ended when their ship collided with another vessel on the Potomac. Join author John Banks as he shines a light on many of these forgotten Connecticut Yankees.

Seal Harbor and Acadia National Park are areas rich with history and natural beauty.

Several hundred photographs, taken by Seal Harbor's original residents, inspired this pictorial history of the well-known resort and surrounding Acadia National Park. A perusal through Revisiting Seal Harbor and Acadia National Park will reveal to the reader the natural beauty of the area, through views that attracted early rusticators and created such dedication from the island’s summer and winter residents that Acadia National Park was born. The pages within trace the community’s history, from its humble beginnings as a small fishing hamlet through its metamorphosis into a Victorian-era summer resort, and on through the park’s development, an economic boon for the island’s residents. From images of a time filled with sweeping Victorian dresses, grand yachts, and wildwood hikes, to accounts of the area’s prosperity in the 1910s and 1920s when the area had become synonymous with the Rockefeller and Ford names, Revisiting Seal Harbor and Acadia National Park invites the reader to take a lingering look into the lives of early islanders and summer visitors.

Go off the beaten path and explore the captivating history of one of the Granite State's most remarkable places.

For two centuries, Mount Washington has been the object of countless writers' wonder and fascination. In this volume, more than twenty previously written pieces inspired by New England's highest peak have been carefully selected, and collectively these cover nearly every aspect of the mountain's storied past. Tag along on early explorations of the White Mountains and its fabled Presidential Range. Follow the history of the nation's first mountain-climbing train and witness many of Mount Washington's tales of human tragedies. Editor and area historian Mike Dickerman uncovers the fascinating history of one of the New Hampshire's most renowned natural wonders.

Cape Cod may be a popular tourist destination, but it has more than its share of strange and unique history.

The Pukwudgies were two- to three-foot beings with smooth gray skin, hairy faces and horns. These shape-shifting, mischievous ""little people"" are connected to Wampanoag Indian mythology. Edward Rowe Snow, a New England historian who was also known as ""the Flying Santa,"" delivered Christmas presents to lighthouse keepers and their families. Jeremiah's Gutter was a canal in Orleans and the first Cape Cod Canal. Join author Robin Smith-Johnson as she uncovers the secrets behind many unique places, remarkable events and fascinating people of Cape Cod.

Discover the history of Rangeley through historic photographs and how the town continues to draw thousands of visitors annually.

Rangeley, Maine, was settled in 1817 when Luther Hoar brought his family from Madrid to a log cabin he had built on the shore of Rangeley Lake. Several others families soon arrived, cleared land, and began farming. It was a small farming community only until the 1850s though. Lumber barons had arrived in the late 1840s, built dams, and started logging the vast timberlands. Soon after, fishermen from Boston, Philadelphia, New York, and Washington arrived to fish the multitude of lakes, ponds, and streams. By 1900, Rangeley was a bustling town with several hotels and two railroad lines. The big hotel era ended after World War II, and secondary residences began to dominate the scene.

Gary Priest has been recording the history of the Rangeley region for over 25 years. He has served on the board of directors of the Rangeley Lakes Region Historical Society (RLRHS) since 1999 and is currently its treasurer. This is his fifth book on Rangeley's history. His other works include History of Rangeley Hotels & Camps, Mingo Springs Hotel: The Early Days, The Gilded Age of Rangeley Maine, and Rangeley through Time.