BOSTON – The New England Newspaper Association on Friday honored four New England newspapers as recipients of its annual “Publick Occurrences” awards for courage and independence.

The association also cited nine daily and Sunday newspapers and two weeklies as newspapers of the year in their circulation categories, and presented its Allan B. Rogers editorial award to The Eagle-Tribune of Lawrence, Mass.

The “Publick Occurrences” awards were established in 1991 to mark the 300th anniversary of Publick Occurrences Both Foreign and Domestick, the first newspaper published in the United States.

The Maine Sunday Telegram of Portland was honored for a series about the lives of teen-agers; The Sunday Telegraph of Nashua, N.H., for “Managed Care and Mental Health”; The Eagle-Tribune of Lawrence, Mass., for a 10-day series examining potential solutions for community problems; and The Telegram & Gazette of Worcester, Mass., for coverage of the deaths of six firefighters.