Jon Marcus

Unknown New England Jon Marcus

Think you know New England? Think again. Sure, the area is home to many of America's most famous tourist destinations, but its woods, hills, craggy seacoast, and historic cities also hide these nearly 1,100 other extraordinary attractions that are just as?if not more?interesting than the places that get all the ink. A museum brimming with artifacts from the Titanic, for example, the site of the first liquid-fueled rocket launch, and the field where the first World Series was played. There?s the town in Vermont that was the site of a little-known battle in the Civil War, the only place in America shelled by enemy guns during World War I, and the real Pepperidge Farm. You can ponder the sites of presumed Viking settlements, Stonehenge-like ruins, ghost towns, graves of reputed vampires, and the tombstone of a 3,800-year-old Egyptian mummy?in a cemetery in Vermont. Or check out the town that was the model for Riverdale of the Archie comic books, Al Capone's bar, a ! Cold War-era nuclear missile silo, and the laboratory where Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone.

Many tiny New England museums are largely unknown, but their holdings are superlative, including the world?s largest collections of mounted dinosaurs, antique trolley cars, and Hollywood memorabilia. There?s a collection of postage stamps second in size only to that in the Smithsonian Institution, and the only museum in America devoted to indoor plumbing. Hidden in these small depositories are Marie Antoinette?s harpsichord, the case that carried Louis XV?s crown jewels, the world?s largest ring, a compass owned by Galileo, the skull of Blackbeard the pirate, the bones of a whale found mysteriously buried 150 miles from the ocean?even Elvis Presley?s gallstones.

So don?t wait. Discover the secrets of unknown New England