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As a history major, I love American history, and I have been highly interested in it since high school. For fun, I decided to create an article naming historical figures from multiple states. Ideally, I would’ve chosen a historical figure from each US state and territory, but I have too much homework to have enough time to do that. Instead, I will list one historical figure from each state in New England, my home region. These states are Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
Connecticut’s Noah Webster
Noah Webster was born in West Hartford, Connecticut, in 1758. After briefly serving in the American Revolution and studying law at Yale, he became a lexicographer. Webster created dictionaries, such as the American Dictionary of the English Language, and books meant to teach English that were based on American colloquial English, including slang and jargon. These works helped legitimize the dialect as a legitimate form of the language rather than being inferior to British English. Webster also wrote essays about language, economics, physical science, and medicine. He also advocated for uniform copyright laws, as those of the time had little protection against plagiarism and piracy. Webster died in 1843 and was buried in a cemetery near Yale.
Maine’s Louis Francis “Chief” Sockalexis
Louis F. Sockalexis was an MLB player for the Cleveland Spiders. The Spiders, who are now known as the Cleveland Guardians, had Sockalexis as a player on their team between 1897-1899. Before becoming the first Native American player in the MLB, the Penobscot man was born in Old Town, Maine, on the Penobscot Indian Reservation on October 24, 1871. In college, he played baseball for Holy Cross College in Massachusetts and the Knox County League in Maine. He started playing for the Spiders in 1897. After 1899, the team released Sockalexis, and no other team was willing to hire him, which marked the end of his time in the MLB. He continued to play semi-professional baseball while working as a ferry pilot and then as a member of a logging crew. Sockalexis died of a heart attack on December 24, 1913.
In 1905, the Spiders renamed themselves to the Cleveland Naps after their former player-manager, Napoleon “Nap” Lajoie. In 1915, they once again renamed themselves, this time to the Cleveland Indians. Two decades prior, the team received the unofficial nickname of Indians during Sockalexis’s time playing for them. This has led to a myth claiming that the team was named after him. In 2021, the Indians were once again renamed, this time to the Cleveland Guardians.
Massachusetts’s Deborah Sampson Gannett
Deborah Sampson Gannett was born on December 17, 1760, in Plymouth, Massachusetts, as Deborah Sampson. At five years old, Sampson was sent to live with another family, since her father had died at sea and her mother became sick and could no longer take care of her. She worked for this family, the Thomases, in exchange for food and lodging until she was 18 years old in 1778. After some time working as a teacher, Gannett enlisted in the US military in 1782 under the false name Robert Shurtliff and became the first known female soldier in the US military. As women weren’t allowed to serve at the time, she disguised herself as a man. Near the end of the war, Sampson contracted malaria and required treatment. While unconscious, Dr. Barnabas Binney treated her and discovered that she was a woman. He chose to keep her true sex a secret.
By 1783, Gannett was no longer in the military. In 1792, Gannett received a military pension from the state of Massachusetts. In 1804, with help from Paul Revere, Gannett was finally given a pension by the federal government. In 1836, after Congress passed a law allowing the widows of soldiers to receive military pensions, Gannett’s husband, Benjamin Gannett, received a pension from the government due to his wife’s military service.
New Hampshire’s Alan B. Shepard Jr.
Alan B. Shepard Jr. was the first American to travel into outer space. Shepard was born in East Derry, New Hampshire, on November 18, 1923. He graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1944. That year, Shepard entered the US military, and he served in the Mediterranean in 1947 on aircraft carriers. In 1951, Shepard graduated from the United States Navy Test Pilot School and became a pilot for test flights.
In 1959, Shepard became an astronaut. On May 5th, 1961, he became the first American in space. The mission was successful, and he remained safe throughout it. However, Shepard wasn’t the first person in space. That man was Yuri Gagarin, a Soviet astronaut, who did so the month prior. In 1971, Shepard went to the Moon as part of the Apollo 14 mission. The mission lasted from January 31, 1971, until February 9, 1971.
In 1974, Shepard retired from both the Navy and NASA. Throughout his life, Shepard received multiple awards for his work at NASA. This included being one of the first people to earn the Congressional Space Medal of Honor. He died on July 22, 1998, at age 74.
Rhode Island’s The Public Universal Friend
The Public Universal Friend was a religious preacher. On November 29th, 1752, the Friend was born in Rhode Island to a Quaker family under the name Jemima Wilkinson. Their mother died when they were eight years old, and they were raised by their father, who never remarried. When the Friend was in their twenties, they encountered a religious group called the New-Light Baptists. They were an intensely religious and radical group who were a small part of the larger First Great Awakening, a movement of increased religious faith and the founding of new religious groups.
In 1776, the Friend caught a deadly disease. After they recovered, they claimed that they had died but God had resurrected them as a person who was neither female nor male. This view of their gender fits into the definition of nonbinary, which is a type of gender identity that is neither fully male nor fully female. They adopted the name the Public Universal Friend, stopped responding to their birth name, and started wearing both masculine and feminine clothes. Shortly after, they began to preach about their religious awakening. Their family’s Quaker Meeting refused to believe them, so they traveled the country and gained a small group of followers. These people were known as the Universal Friends. At its peak, the sect had a following of close to 200 people. In 1819, the Friend died, and the sect they founded ended a few years later.
Vermont’s Calvin Coolidge
Calvin Coolidge was the 30th President of the United States. Coolidge was born in Plymouth Notch, Vermont, on July 4th, 1872. In 1895, he graduated from Amherst College. He entered office as President of the United States (POTUS) in 1923. During his term, Coolidge didn’t attempt to place any pressure on Congress when they were passing laws. He cut taxes in order to boost the income of American citizens and businesses. He also opposed government involvement in big business. Coolidge utilized radio to his advantage. In 1923, his State of the Union address was the first one to be broadcast via radio. He regularly broadcast radio addresses and shared aspects of his personal life with the public, which caused Americans to be more likely to trust him. Coolidge left office in 1929 after serving two terms. On January 5th, 1933, Coolidge died from coronary thrombosis.