New England Is Not a State

New Hampshire isn’t Vermont nor is it Maine. The three are as different as granite, maple syrup and buttered lobster in a hot dog bun.

First off, New Hampshire and Vermont are geographically compact, whereas Maine sprawls. Compare Maine’s infinite coastline to New Hampshire’s 13 miles of seacoast and Vermont’s none at all. Once, at a Burlington restaurant, I noticed clams on the menu. Who on earth would order clams so far from the ocean? I wondered and ordered
the poutine.

Compare Maine’s 35,387 square miles to Vermont’s 9,249 and New Hampshire’s 9,615. If Maine was a basket, two Vermonts and a New Hampshire would fit inside, “Sure,” the person not from around here concedes, “Maine is bigger and wicked jagged on the edge, but the Green Mountain State and the Granite State are pretty much identical. Right?”

Wrong.

Check the map. Vermont is New Hampshire upside down. Big difference. If Vermont were a person, the blood would rush to its head. Also, Vermont’s mountains are, as the nickname suggests, green. New Hampshire’s are white and higher. Maine has mountains, too, but they get kinda lost amongst the potatoes.

What one U.S. state can you drive to only by passing through one other state? Maine. 

You can’t drive to Maine without passing through New Hampshire. If a Mainer wants to go to Vermont, same thing. Unless they take the long way around through Canada.

Physical characteristics aside, each state has a unique history that harkens back to before the stalwart Puritans claimed New Hampshire and the gentle Quakers settled Vermont. Maine’s indigenous tribes included Maliseet, Penobscot and Passamaquoddy. Vermont had Mahican. Pennacook and Abenaki spanned current borders. 

Different tribes, different traditions, different stories. Like the story of Passaconaway, the Fearless One, who united tribes in the face of European encroachment. Legend says he lived to be 120. As death approached, he rode a wolf-drawn sled to meet it atop Agiocochook (Mount Washington), where he burst into flames and ascended to his place among the stars. That’s a New Hampshire story if there ever was one.

We are our stories.

Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys loom large in Vermont history. In the 1700s, they fought off New York’s attempt to absorb little old Vermont. “Nope,” the Boys said, and prevailed. In New Hampshire, we think quite a lot of John Stark, the Revolutionary War general who penned this toast to be read at a Battle of Bennington reunion: “Live free or die: Death is not the worst of evils.” In 1945 New Hampshire adopted the Live Free or Die part as its motto. 

Controversial? 

You betcha.

Vermont’s motto: “Freedom and Unity.” Controversial? Course not. 

Maine’s motto, “Dirigo,” is a Latin metaphor. Big difference.

In conclusion, I offer this folk tale:
A Vermont farm snugged up to the New Hampshire border. When a survey revealed the boundary had been drawn incorrectly and the farm was actually in New Hampshire, the relieved farmer declared, “Thank God for that. I couldn’t stand another Vermont winter.” 

A related story begins: A Maine farm snugged up to the New Hampshire border … You know the rest.

In Orford, New Hampshire, on the Connecticut, I regaled an audience with Yankee humor — my specialty. One dour fellow sat quietly throughout, arms tight-folded across his chest. 

Afterwards, I approached him: “I noticed, sir, that during this humor program, you never once cracked a smile.”  He said, “I’m a fifth generation Vermonter. We don’t.”