Includes bibliographical references (page 549).

A true relation of the most prosperous voyage / James Rosier -- The landing at Plymouth / William Bradford -- Merrymount / John Lothrop Motley -- New England's plantation 1630 / Francis Higginson -- Sermon aboard the Arbella / John Winthrop -- Journal / Richard Mather -- Anne Hutchinson's exile / Thomas Welde -- Everyday life in Massachusetts Bay Colony / George Dow -- Repentant sinners and their ministers / Rev. Thomas Hooker -- Minister Hooker's Christianity / Timothy Dwight -- The Bay psalm book / Richard Mather -- Concerning the singers / John Cotton -- Dinner at the Winthrops / Catherine Maria Sedgwick -- New England's first fruits / Anonymous -- The covenant of Grace / Thomas Shepard -- The simple cobbler of Aggawam in America / Nathaniel Ward -- The clear sun-shine of the gospel breaking forth upon the Indians / Rev. John Eliot -- The Indians in New England / Daniel Gookin -- Grandfather's chair / Nathaniel Hawthorne -- The separation of Roger Williams / Nathaniel Morton -- The day of doom / Michael Wigglesworth -- Uncle Tracy's Thanksgiving / Traditional -- Last will and testament / Andrew Hodges -- Fast day and Thanksgiving proclamations / Massachusetts Bay Colony Records -- An essay for the recording of illustrious providences / Increase Mather -- A love letter to her husband / Anne Bradstreet.

Upon wedlock, and death of children / Rev. Edward Taylor -- A firsthand account of captivity / Mary Rowlandson -- The death of King Philip / Thomas Church -- Indian warfare in New Hampshire / Jeremy Belknap -- The New England primer / Anonymous -- Elegie on the death of Thomas Shepard / Urian Oakes -- The regicides in New England / Thomas Hutchinson -- Diary / Cotton Mather -- The revolt against Sir Edmund Andros / Nathaniel Byfield -- The courting of Madam Winthrop / Samuel Sewall -- A sermon by Cotton Mather -- The examination of Sarah Good -- A letter on witches' "puppets" -- Testimony against Bridget Bishop -- On the place of execution -- Confession of William Barker -- Magnalia Christi Americana / Cotton Mather -- The redeemed captive returned to Zion / Rev. John Williams -- Journey from Boston to New York / Sarah Kemble Knight -- The big snow of 1717 / Cotton Mather -- Autobiography / Benjamin Franklin -- Lovewell's flight / Anonymous -- The Puritan state and Puritan society / Perry Miller -- A narrative of surprising conversions / Rev. Jonathan Edwards -- A witch story of olden time / Francis Chase -- The ballad of the French fleet / Henry Wadsworth Longfellow -- On the righteousness of rebellion / Jonathan Mayhew -- Considerations on behalf of the colonists / James Otis -- John Adams' graduation from Harvard / Catherine Drinker Bowen -- The other Adams / Catherine Drinker Bowen.

The snare broken / Jonathan Mayhew -- The Boston massacre / The town of Boston Committee -- The future glory of America / Jonathan Trumbull -- The Boston Tea Party / John Andrews -- Recollections / George Hewes -- The rallying song of the tea party / Traditional -- Poem by a slave / Phyllis Wheatley Peters -- Boston beleagured and help sent / Peter Force -- Free America / Dr. Joseph Warren -- Paul Revere's own account of his ride -- Battle of Lexington / George Bancroft -- On Lexington / John Adams -- A pardon to the Lexington rebels / General Gage -- Diary of an American soldier / Simeon Lyman -- Bunker Hill / Amos Farnsworth -- Tory views of the American soldiers / Benjamin Thompson -- The capture of Ticonderoga / Ethan Allen -- The ballad of Nathan Hale / Traditional -- Boston evacuated / Timothy Newell -- John Adams and Abigail Adams / John Adams -- A New England minister on slavery / Samuel Hopkins -- Concerning Benedict Arnold / General Nathanael Greene -- The Yorktown surrender / James Thatcher -- President Stiles of Yale / Abiel Holmes -- Advice to the privileged orders / Joel Barlow -- A New England frolic / John Neal -- An old house in Boston / Edmund Quincy -- Sketches of a New England village / Eliza Buckminster Lee -- A new language proposed / William Smith Shaw -- The capture of the Guerri�ere / Anonymous -- The Federalists / Henry Adams -- The life of Oliver Hazard Perry / John M. Niles -- Thanatopsis / William Cullen Bryant -- Charge to a grand jury on slavery / Joseph Story -- The moral argument against Calvinism / William Ellery Channing -- Webster at Bunker Hill / Samuel Griswold Goodrich -- The frog catcher / Henry J. Finn -- An evening in New England / Lydia Maria Child -- An address / Edward Everett -- Edward Everett in 1820 / John Quincy Adams -- Recollections of Everett / Ralph Waldo Emerson -- The Boston lecture : its origin and evolution / Samuel Gardner Brake.

The association man / William Channing -- Keynote of abolition / William Lloyd Garrison -- A New England boyhood / Edward Everett Hale -- Nature ; The rhodora ; The concord hymn ; Monadnoc / Ralph Waldo Emerson -- From his journal ; Conscience ; Independence ; A week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers / Henry David Thoreau -- Speech on abolition and freedom of the press / Wendell Phillips -- Background for "The wreck of the Hesperus" / Henry Wadsworth Longfellow -- Margaret Fuller's conversations / Thomas Higginson -- The well bred boy / T.H. Carter -- A temperance manifesto / J.W. Goodrich -- Brook Farm / Nathaniel Hawthorne -- Sonnets / Bronson Alcott -- The transient and permanent in Christianity / Rev. Theodore Parker -- Sonnet to Emerson / Ellen Hooper -- Questionings / Frederic Hedge -- The Lowell Mills / Lucy Larcom -- Deacon Giles's distillery / George Cheever -- Moby Dick / Herman Melville -- Richard Edney and the governor's family / Sylvester Judd -- Slavery and secession / Daniel Webster -- Thanksgiving / Harriet Beecher Stowe -- An autobiography / Lyman Beecher -- Skipper Ireson's ride / John Greenleaf Whittier -- The riven oak : John Brown / Daniel Ricketson -- Literary friends and acquaintances / William Dean Howells -- The autocrat and the Brahmin / Oliver Wendell Holmes -- Take the loan / Edward Everett Hale -- Lincoln in wartime / Nathaniel Hawthorne -- A Civil War diary / Charles E. Davis.

A hospital sketch / Louisa May Alcott -- The genesis of "The battle hymn of the Republic" / Julia Ward Howe -- A farewell to Agassiz / Oliver Wendell Holmes -- The lady who put salt in her coffee / Lucretia P. Hale -- Story of a bad boy / Thomas Bailey Aldrich -- Among the isles of shoals / Celia Thaxter -- Persons and places / George Santayana -- Talks on art / William Morris Hunt -- An international episode / Henry James -- The rise of Silas Lapham / William Dean Howells -- The town poor / Sarah Orne Jewett -- Mrs. Jack Gardner? / F. Marion Crawford -- With the first arbutus / Emily Dickinson -- Wreck of the S.S. Portland -- For those in peril on the sea / Rudyard Kipling -- President Eliot of Harvard / Mark A. DeWolfe Howe -- How to make Jonny-cake / Thomas Robinson Hazard -- On Louis Agassiz / William James -- The late George Apley / John P. Marquand -- Sacco and Vanzetti / Edna St. Vincent Millay -- The need of being versed in country things / Robert Frost -- Edwin Arlington Robinson / Amy Lowell -- Atavism / Elinor Wylie -- The Boston evening transcript / T.S. Eliot -- Cambridge ladies / E.E. Cummings -- Salt Water Farm / E.B. White -- Hurricane / John T. Winterich -- The proper Bostonians / Cleveland Amory -- Town report : 1942 / Malcolm Cowley -- Waking in the blue / Robert Lowell -- New England industry / John F. Kennedy -- Homage to New England / David McCord.