Map of New England by William Wood—the first printed map made by a colonist. 3,000 immigrants were coming into Massachusetts Bay and there were 13 English towns at the time, and three remaining Native American villages, represented by the triangles. This was the first time that the Merrimack River appeared on a map.

Samuel de Champlain's map of Malle Barre (Nauset Harbor, Cape Cod, Massachusetts), from 1605. Champlain was a French explorer who traveled south from New France along the New England coast. This clearly indicates several Native American villages and corn fields with wigwams and smoke holes. (B) indicates a French and Native American conflict and (G) is a fish trap. These villages were soon wiped out by epidemics of disease.

An engraving from John Underhill's News From America, published in London in 1638, illustrates the soldiers from Massachusetts and Connecticut firing their guns as they surrounded the Pequot village on the Mystic River in 1637. Native American allies form the outer ring, armed with bows and arrows.

The New England Primer (1683) was in use as a reading instruction text longer than any other book in American history.

A modern attempt at re-creating what 17th-century New England houses might have looked like.

The story and dying words of Protestant martyr John Rodgers, who was burned alive in England in 1555 on order of the Catholic Queen Mary. His advice to his children included, "Keep always God before your Eyes" and to "Abhor the arrant Whore of Rome, and all her Blasphemies." These words were reprinted for generations of New England school children in their school primers, and establishing a strong anti-Catholic sentiment in the region that lasted well into the 19th century.