Chapter 6

New England: Lower

  • township—political unit in colonial New England
  • Because no deep rivers cut through this high wall, New England has always depended on the Atlantic Ocean for travel and trade.
  • The first New England colony was built by the Pilgrims, who landed near Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts.
  • Because of it port, Boston became the largest city in New England. It is the capital of the Bay State.
  • West of the New England uplands are the Berkshire Hills, a low range of the Appalachians.
  • Textile mills in New England once produced more cloth than any other place in the world, and they are still important to Rhode Island.
  • Connecticut is nicknamed the Constitution State for two reasons. It was the first colony to write a constitution and the states met in 1787 to draft a national constitution.
  • A constitution is a set of laws describing and limiting the government’s power.
  • Eli Whitney, the inventor of the cotton gin, built a musket factory in Connecticut based on the new concept of mass production.
  • Jonathan Edwards, the greatest early American preacher, delivered a sermon that students still study in school today, entitled “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.”

New England: Upper

  • Upper New England refers to New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine.
  • Mountains dominate upper New England. All three states have mountains that rise above the timber line.
  • Everything above the timber line is called the alpine zone.
  • New Hampshire is the only Upper New England state that was one of the thirteen original colonies.
  • The Presidential Range is the most famous range in the White Mountains.
  • A notch is a low place on a ridge or mountain range through which a road can pass.
  • In the south New England uplands stands the solitary mountain, Mt. Monadnock.
  • Vermont has the lowest population in the Northeast.
  • The Green Mountains comprise most of Vermont’s portion of the Appalachian Mountains.
  • The fertile Aroostook Valley is now the nation’s largest producer of potatoes.

The Middle Atlantic

  • Swedes, Finns, and Dutch were the first to settle the Middle Atlantic. Large groups of Irish, Germans, and Italians have also settled here. Such diversity is just as much a trait of America as is its English heritage.
  • The Piedmont is a low plateau with hills, slightly higher than the coastal plain.
  • The Fall Line is the edge of the Piedmont, where the land drops to the coastal plain.
  • Suburb—residential community outside city limits
  • When we talk about a city, we often mean both the city and its suburbs, called the metropolitan area.

The Middle Atlantic: New York

  • Almost the entire north eastern seaboard has become one big megalopolis. A continuous chain of cities runs from Boston to Washington, DC with New York City at its heart.
  • The major of New York City is responsible for more people than the governors of forty-three states! New York City’s five districts, or boroughs, are almost as famous as the city itself.
  • The Erie Canal was a marvel of engineering. It turned New York City into the trade capital of the world.
  • Adirondacks is part of the largest state park in the nation.
  • The most prominent features of the Allegheny Plateau are the Finger Lakes.

The Middle Atlantic: Life on the Delaware River

  • The Delaware River forms the long boundary between Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
  • The nation’s two most important documents—the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution—were signed at the Pennsylvania State House.
  • Pennsylvania has the nation’s most extensive hard coal (anthracite coal) deposits.
  • Pennsylvania has inland sea ports on all three eastern waterways: the Atlantic Ocean, the Mississippi River, and the Great Lakes.
  • The Pine Barrens, a wooded and boggy wilderness, covers one thousand square miles of New Jersey’s coast.
  • New Jersey was nicknamed the Garden State because of its many small farms and roadside produce stands. Their farms are called truck farms because they can easily ship fresh products to the big cities by truck.

The Middle Atlantic: Two Border States

  • Maryland and Delaware are border states, located between the Northeast and the South.
  • The Delmarva Peninsula, the largest peninsula in the Northeast gets its name because it contains parts of three states: Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia.
  • The narrow strip of land that extends deep into the continent is called a panhandle.
  • Washington, D.C. is not part of any state, but an independent district run by Congress.
  • A republic is a government run by elected representatives of the people. A federation divides powers between state governments and a national government.
  • The Smithsonian Institution houses the largest museum in the nation.
Bookmark and Share

Comments are closed.