• Abington, MA

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    Before the Europeans made their claim to the area, the local Native Americans referred to the area as Manamooskeagin, meaning "great green place of shaking grass". Two streams in the area were named for the large beaver population: Schumacastacut or "upper beaver brook" and Schumacastuscacant or "lower beaver brook".

    Wikipedia


    Twain canceled a lecture here for December 17, 1869 because of cold.

     

  • Achern, Germany

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    From Bædeker's  The Rhine - 1873: pp 200-1

    Stat. Achern (*Krone, or Post, carr, to Allerheiligen 7–8 fl.;*Adler, moderate; beer at Huber's and the Engel), a thriving little town, lies at the mouth of the Kappeler Thal. The market-place is adorned with a monument to the Grand Duke Leopold (d. 1852). In the vicinity is the admirably conducted Lunatic Asylum of Illenau, accommodating 400 patients. Hence through the Kappeler Thal to Allerheiligen.

  • Anaconda, MT

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    Anaconda was founded by Marcus Daly, one of the Copper Kings, who financed the construction of a smelter on nearby Warm Springs Creek to process copper ore from the Butte mines. In June 1883, Daly filed for a town plat for "Copperopolis", but that name was already used by another mining town in Meagher County. Instead, Daly accepted the name "Anaconda", suggested by the United States postmaster of the time, Clinton Moore.

  • Arkansas City, Arkansas

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    From 1879, Arkansas City grew into a thriving river city for the next forty years. It had a natural harbor for steamboats and two railways, as well as fourteen salons and three sawmills.

    An opera house was moved to Arkansas City in 1891. The building was also used as an unofficial "town hall"; at other times it became a ballroom, and citizens danced to music of groups from Memphis, Tennessee. The city then had several churches and two doctors.

  • Ashfield, MA

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    Ashfield was first settled in 1743 and was officially incorporated in 1765. The town was originally called "Huntstown" for Captain Ephraim Hunt, who died in King William's War, and who had inherited the land as payment for his services. The first permanent settlement was in 1745, by Richard Ellis, an Irish immigrant from the town of Easton. The town was renamed upon reincorporation, although there is debate over its namesake; it is either for the ash trees in the area, or because Governor Bernard had friends in Ashfield, England.

  • Aurora, Nevada

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    175.13 “Esmeralda” had just had a run] The principal town in the Esmeralda mining district was Aurora (claimed by both California and Nevada, until the resolution of the boundary dispute in the fall of 1863), which was located in the Sierra Nevada foothills about a hundred miles southeast of Carson City (see supplement B, map 3).

  • Austin, Nevada

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    The Austin area was originally occupied by bands of the Western Shoshone people. The city of Austin was mapped out in 1862 by David Buell. This was during the American Civil War, and the Union was eager to find new sources of precious metals, especially gold, to support the war effort. The city was named after Buell's partner, Alvah Austin, during a silver rush. The valued metal was reputedly found when a Pony Express horse kicked over a rock and observers noticed the silver. In 1862, it was designated as the county seat of Lander County.

  • Bad Nauheim

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    Town with saline thermal baths. Twain lived there with his family from June to September of 1892, although he returned alone to the States for several weeks.  The family moved to Florence, Italy at the end of September.

  • Battaglia Terme

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    The construction of the navigable Battaglia canal in the early 13th century brought traffic and growth to the town which commanded a central position at the confluence of several canals in the network of barge traffic that linked Este and Padua, the Adriatic, the Lagoon of Venice and the north by means of the Brenta Canal, the canalized Bacchiglione and the Adige.

  • Bellefonte, PA

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    The early development of Bellefonte had been as a "natural town." It started with one house and a crossroad, then iron was found and the town grew.

    As the years went by, Bellefonte boomed and soon became the most influential town between Pittsburgh and Harrisburg.

    Wikipedia


     

  • Bethany - al-Eizariya

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    "We stopped at the village of Bethany, an hour out from Jerusalem. They showed us the tomb of Lazarus. I had rather live in it than in any house in the town. And they showed us also a large "Fountain of Lazarus," and in the centre of the village the ancient dwelling of Lazarus. Lazarus appears to have been a man of property. The legends of the Sunday Schools do him great injustice; they give one the impression that he was poor. It is because they get him confused with that Lazarus who had no merit but his virtue, and virtue never has been as respectable as money.

  • Bethlehem, New Hampshire

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    Bethlehem is a hillside town in Grafton County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 2,484 at the 2020 census. It is home to Cushman and Strawberry Hill state forests. The eastern half of the town is within the White Mountain National Forest. The Appalachian Trail crosses a small portion of the town in the south.

  • Bluff, New Zealand

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    Bluff is a town and seaport in the Southland region, on the southern coast of the South Island of New Zealand. It is the southern-most town in New Zealand (excluding Oban) and, despite Slope Point and Stewart Island being further to the south, is colloquially used to refer to the southern extremity of the country (particularly in the phrase "from Cape Reinga to The Bluff").

  • Broadstairs, England

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    Broadstairs is a coastal town on the Isle of Thanet in the Thanet district of east Kent, England, about 80 miles (130 km) east of London. It is part of the civil parish of Broadstairs and St Peter's, which includes St Peter's, and had a population in 2011 of about 25,000. Situated between Margate and Ramsgate, Broadstairs is one of Thanet's seaside resorts, known as the "jewel in Thanet's crown". The town's coat of arms' Latin motto is Stella Maris ("Star of the Sea").

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