“Finns settled in three major regions of United States,” asserts one researcher, naming “the Northeast, upper Midwest, and the Pacific Northwest.” Another scholar was able to identify in the northeast thirty-eight Finnish Churches, Mission Stations, as well as six Preaching Stations. “Northeast” here means the States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts.
An inspection of state house records in the three northern New England states provides a sampling of scattered Finnish settlements and the dates of their Incorporated religious societies. As example follows in Maine: The Finnish Congregational Church of Harrison, organized August 9, 1920; the Finnish Congregational Church of SouthThomasto, December 24, 1921; and the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church, Suomi Synod, in Paris, April 25, 1924.
State documents further show two burial organizations, both in Maine, i.e., Finnish Lutheran Cemetery Association, Harrison, October 14, 1913 and the Finnish Cemetery Association, West Paris, June12, 1978. The only other groups that took pains to incorporate were: Finnish Progressive Society of Kingfield, Kingfield, Maine, April 6, 1929; Finnish Socialists, Milford, New Hampshire, September 29, 1913; a Finnish Society in Troy, New Hampshire, April 8, 1913; and Finnish Aid Society, Proctor, Vermont, October 14, 1912.
In all, fourteen Maine towns housed chapters of the Finnish Workingmen´s Association, usually of socialist bent. Twelve similar chapters arose in New Hampshire, nine in Connecticut, seven in Vermont, and three in Rhode Island. Massachusetts led with thirty-eight.
In Massachusetts, Kivisto mentions Finnish colonies in Worcester, Fitchburg, Gardner, Maynard, Cape Ann, and Lanesville. Labor historians know about Worcester Finns because of lively radical minority. Fitchburg was most likely the largest concentrated Finnish Settlement in the East, if not in the entire United States, known for its newspaper Raivaaja, begun as socialist voice 1905.