Massachusetts

Salem, Massachusetts, is a little city steeped in history. Known as the Witch City for the Puritan witchcraft trials of 1692, Salem boasts a rich heritage as a major East India seaport. Trading with China made Salem the richest city in America, generating a living architectural history. As Salem developed, it preserved much of its history.

Known as the Witch City for the Puritan witchcraft trials of 1692, Salem boasts a rich heritage as a major East India seaport. Trading with China made Salem the richest city in America, generating a living architectural history. As Salem developed, it preserved much of its history.

In an alternate universe, Boston's Dorchester neighborhood would be the Big City, as it was founded several months before the more famous Beantown.

Established in 1630, the population grew exponentially with the ease of transportation via the Old Colony Railroad revolutionized Dorchester in the period between 1850 and the Civil War. Primarily still a rural town with a population of about 12,000 by 1870, the town was annexed to the city of Boston, and by the turn of the century, Dorchester was one-fifth of the entire city. This fantastic collection places vintage images alongside contemporary photographs to explore the history of this community's public schools, places of worship, transportation, streetscapes, and historic houses, such as the "three-decker'? apartment building, a trademark of the Dorchester community.

Since Myles Standish and the Plymouth Colony pilgrims first set foot on the Hull peninsula in 1621, the town has undergone several significant identity changes.

At first a remote fishing village, Hull later became a military outpost, the first line of defense for the city of Boston during the American Revolution. After the Civil War, the residents of that city flocked to Nantasket Beach by the thousands each summer to partake of its health-giving ocean breezes and rejuvenating waters, helping to turn Hull into one of the most popular seasonal resorts in New England. Today, fishermen and summer thrill seekers alike can connect with the town's past at its many historic sites, where the past is brought up to the present day. Then & Now: Hull and Nantasket Beach carries us through nearly four centuries of change in one of America's oldest communities, where smoke-belching cannon once roared atop the empty ramparts that now form Fort Revere Park on Telegraph Hill, and Boss John Smith once ran his ""Old Ring"" political machine from the Old Town Hall that now serves as the Hull Historical Society Museum.

A fascinating visual history Arlington, a streetcar suburb of Boston.

Incorporated in 1807 as West Cambridge, the rural town of Arlington adopted its name in 1867, just prior to emerging as a streetcar suburb of Boston. Then & Now: Arlington commemorates this town's bicentennial by offering a visual journey through the many changes that have dramatically transformed the man-made and natural features of this community over time.

In his third book on South Boston, Anthony Mitchell Sammarco chronicles the changes that have taken place in this fascinating neighborhood.

South Boston, once a part of Dorchester, was annexed to the city of Boston in 1804. Previously known as a tight-knit community of Polish, Lithuanian, and Irish Americans, South Boston has seen tremendous growth and unprecedented change in the last decade.

Then and Now: Scituate connects Scituate's past and present in a way that no book has before. Nineteenth-century photographs lead to historic Front Street in Scituate Harbor, where shipping entrepreneur George F. Welch helped rebuild the town after the once prosperous North River shipbuilding era came to an end. In Then and Now: Scituate, Abigail and Rebecca Bates are commended for saving the town from a ransacking by the British during the War of 1812, and the grounds of Dreamwold are opened for a tour of the country's best-stocked Victorian-era farm.

Many of the older images in Then & Now: Concord have been given to the authors especially for this publication. Many are part of the Concord Free Public Library's Special Collection. Most of the modern photographs have been made by photographers Claiborne Dawes and Alice Moulton. Their images show such compelling comparisons as fathers and sons, old houses renovated or replaced with other structures, and the famous old authors with recent famous new ones. Then & Now: Concord will bring murmurs of reminiscence to residents and expressions of interest and curiosity to visitors seeking depth to their understanding of this important New England town.

Pirates? A disappearing island? A brand-new technology that would change the world? It isn't science-fiction, this is the history of Wellfleet, Massachusetts, and its neighbor, Billingsgate Island.

Originally settled by Europeans in the 1650s as Billingsgate, Wellfleet became a town with an important, if overlooked history, located between the "tip'? and the "elbow'? of Cape Cod. Today, the town may be famous for its oysters, but there is so much more to this small town than what may be immediately apparent. In 1717, the pirate "Black Sam'? Bellamy was sailing his ship nearby when it crashed, sending 4 tons of gold and silver, as well as 143 men, to a watery grave-- the shipwreck was discovered in 1984, the first of only two confirmed pirate shipwrecks ever recovered. By the time of the American Revolution, Wellfleet was well-known not just for their oysters, but their success in the whaling industry. As whaling declined in the late 19th century, it wasn't long before the spotlight once again shone on Wellfleet with Guglielmo Marconi built America's first transatlantic radio transmitter on the coastal bluff of South Wellfleet. Perhaps the most interesting story about Wellfleet isn't about Wellfleet at all, but Billingsgate Island. Generations lived there and built homes, wharves, a school, a lighthouse, and even founded a baseball team. By 1922, the sea swallowed this Wellfleet island, leaving nothing but a brick-strewn shoal, visible only at low tide. Sometimes called the "Atlantis of Cape Cod,'? locals can still access the island by boat on the occasions the tide leaves the land exposed, a perfect spot for picnics or shellfishing.