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BERKSHIRE
TWO HUNDRED YEARS IN PICTURES
Copyright @ 1961 by The Eagle Publishing Company Pittsfield, Massachusetts All rights reserved Library of Congress catalog card number: 61-13809 First printing, June, 1961 33,000 copies
WHY THIS BOOK?
THIS BOOK exists because we think it has to. Rarely do a newspaper's home city, namesake county and that county's second largest town simultaneously observe their 200th birthdays. The Berkshire Eagle over the years has sporadically ventured into public service projects outside the scope of issuing a daily newspaper. Thus, 1961's triple Bicentennial seemed to command us to this book-publishing enterprise, our first venture into this field.
We present "Berkshire: Two Hundred Years in Pictures" as The Eagle's salute to Berkshire County, the City of Pittsfield and the Town of Great Barrington. We take pride in the book's all-Berkshire nature. It was printed in North Adams on paper made in Dalton and Housatonic; its cover drawings are by Norman Rockwell of Stockbridge, and even the title lettering is native - reproduced from an 1829 map in the first history of Berkshire County.
Any profits from the sale of this book will be given to further the preservation of Berkshire history, either through existing organizations or through a county historical society, which doesn't exist but should. It is our hope that such a society will be born by means of our book, with the result that the life and times of Berk- shire, now and past, may be systematically recorded for posterity.
DONALD B. MILLER, Publisher LAWRENCE K. MILLER, Editor
THE BERKSHIRE EAGLE
BERKSHIRE
TWO HUNDRED YEARS IN PICTURES
1761 1961
Compiled, Designed and Edited by
WILLIAM H. TAGUE and ROBERT B. KIMBALL
Text by RICHARD V. HAPPEL
"Monument Mountain, Berkshires," painted in the 1870s by Asher B. Durand. Courtesy Detroit Institute of Arts.
Prologue
AN EXTRAORDINARY history distinguishes the first 200 incorporated years of Berkshire County, Massachusetts. This history has developed in the green hills and valleys defined on the west by the Taconics and on the east by the Berkshire Barrier, sentineled to the south by Mount Everett and to the north by Greylock, as though mountains were the book covers of history. Between these natural ramparts flow the Hoosic River northward and the Housatonic southward, with their many tributaries, like streams and themes of history.
From my window in the smallest town in the Commonwealth, I can look across some cleared acres that were the first pages of this history in 1692, when a few Dutch settlers from the Hudson Valley established farms in the "hideous, howling wilderness." Some of their de- scendants still live on this land. And herein lies part of the mysterious charm of the Berkshires: they tend to remain their serene same. Yet superimposed on that natural sameness is the spirit of many individuals who were born here, entered, or departed to influence the county, the Commonwealth, the country, and even the world. Paradoxically the Berkshires are universal and provincial, changing and changeless at the same time. The rivers flow, and the mountains remain.
We can mention some of these paradoxes, and this book reveals many more. Berkshire patriots have courageously resisted outsiders such as the French and Indian invaders, Livingston land claimants, British redcoats, and Hessian mercenaries. Yet they have sometimes turned on their own government, being first in the Colonies to defy the Crown courts, then refusing to allow state judges to be seated, and finally marching with Daniel Shays in rebellion against their own courts, heavy taxation, and centralized government.
A Sheffield town meeting, foreshadowing the Declaration of Independence, resolved in 1773 that "the late acts of the Parliament of Great Berton [sic] for the express purpose of rating and regulating the collection of revenue in the Colonies are unconstitutional. .. Mankind in a state of Nature are equal, free and independent of each Other, and have a right to the undisturbed Enjoyment of their Lives, their Liberty and Property." After Berkshire minutemen and militia had helped cast off English rule, the people of Lenox, disliking Boston rule almost as much, voted unanimously that they would ask to be incorporated into some other state, if a constitu- tional convention were not held. This pride of individualism is characteristic of county history.
Notable also has been the healthy diversity of thought and opinion, as opposite as saintly Jonathan Edwards' cold logic of Calvinism and Mother Ann Lee's gentle-handed Shakerism, or Elder John Leland's Jeffersonianism and the rifle-ready Washington Benevolent Society.
Often Berkshire County has been ahead of the times, as in 1781 when Colonel Ashley's slave, Bett, was set free in the county courthouse in Great Barrington, the first such judicial de-
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cision in America. Often it has been backward, as indicated by a remark of Horace Mann on the same town in 1839: "To make an impression on Berkshire in regard to schools is like attempt- ing to batter down Gibraltar with one's fist." Yet Williams College had been founded in 1793, and later became "the log" with President Mark Hopkins on one end and student James A. Garfield among those on the other. Last year Berkshire Community College was born, the first of a planned network new to Massachusetts. But spanning these dates, some one-room school- houses still persist, as do such archaic town officers as field drivers, fence viewers, and measurers of wood and bark. Always there has been some flow, some status quo in Berkshire ideas and ideals.
So also in her industry and invention. William Stanley first lighted the main street in Great Barrington in 1886, but his alternating current encircled the world before it reached my hill-town only 12 miles distant, and 64 years later. The Stanley Electric Co. in Pittsfield employ- ing 16 men grew into the General Electric Company employing 10,000, while little industries like an old whip core factory continue on at a horse's pace. The Atlantic Cable and the Western Union telegraph to California were the work of two Berkshire natives, but there are others too reticent to talk to their neighbors. Perhaps within sight of the experimental lines in Lenox and Lee carrying 750,000 volts, one may still find a farmer plowing with horses. The Massachusetts Turnpike rushes people through the Berkshires, blindfold as it were; but the dirt roads and wood- land trails exhibit nature's secrets and vistas everywhere.
These hills and valleys clothed by turn in seasonal dress of misty purple, green, gold, or white have fostered expression to an unusual degree in literature, art and music. Indeed the county has justifiably been called "the American Lake District." Here Bryant, Longfellow, and Holmes wrote poems. Here Hawthorne and Melville wrote The House of the Seven Gables and Moby Dick simultaneously, and only 7 miles apart. Here worked Edith Wharton, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Daniel Chester French, Sinclair Lewis and Serge Koussevitzky. Today the tradition is carried on by men like James Gould Cozzens, Stefan Lorant, Norman Rockwell and Charles Munch. There are many others, and there will be more, art being a corollary of nature.
Within these mountains, as within these pages, is the pageant of the abiding past and the unfolding present. More than that, there flows a river of history that could have arisen no- where but in the Berkshire Hills.
Mount Washington, Massachusetts June 1961
MORGAN BULKELEY
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In his 1735-1749 missionary career in Stockbridge, John Sergeant converted 218 Indians, among them Chiefs Konkapot and Umpachene, shown with tribal children. Painting: Mission House
The Island Frontier
CERTAINLY there was reason enough for the Berkshires to be settled later than the adjacent country. So long as there was accessible valley land open to the pion- eers they could hardly be expected to struggle into the mountain wilderness, crossed only by Indian trails. But as available open land decreased and population increased, it became more attractive to many pioneers to breast the near-by hills rather than set out on the long haul to open land far to the west. Early in the 1690s a few Dutch- men from the Livingston tract near the Hudson River moved in. Later, others came over from Northampton and from Westfield to the east. Grants were made
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Maple sugar, long made by the Stockbridge Indians, entered recorded history in the 1753 "Historical Memoirs' of the Rev. Samuel Hopkins of Springfield, friend of John Sergeant. The Hopkins work is the earliest Berkshire book.
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Berkshire towns started showing up on Colonial maps as early as 1752, including Sheffield, first to be named. Williams College Library
by the General Court, which required payment of 30 shillings for each 100 acres parceled out. From this fund the Indians were paid for their lands, and their claims to it "extinguished." The pioneers found life here just as hard as they had feared. The French and Indian War inflamed the Red Men, and the settlers often were under fire. Many gave up and returned to civilization. Others fought it out, and still others, like the Rev. John Sergeant of Stockbridge, made friends with the Indians, and converted many to Christianity. But until the French-Indian War was won in 1761, orderly settlement of the Berkshires was out of the question.
The Mission House in Stockbridge; built 1739, restored 1929, now open under public trusteeship. Kalischer
Replica of typical pioneer dwelling, the 1753 House, Williamstown, constructed for the town's 1953 Bicentennial. Tague
Colonel John Ashley House, Shef- field, oldest (1735) house in Berk- shires; now open to public. Tague
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Asking annexation to Massachusetts in 1752, Dutch farmers of Mt. Washington testified (note fifth column) that they had been cultivating their land as long as 60 years. From the Massachusetts Archives
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One of the fireplaces in the Mission House, Stockbridge. Palme
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When General Amherst captured Crown Point from the French, one of his soldiers made this powder horn, long a Richmond heirloom, now owned byDeanW. Colton.
Col. Ephraim Williams Jr., member of a famous and powerful family, was shot and killed in September 1755 in the Lake George battle near Crown Point. Williams, who had commanded Fort Massachusetts, pro- vided in his will for a free school in West Hoosac, where he owned land. The community renamed itself Williamstown, as he wished, and his school became Williams College. Painting: Glens Falls Insurance Co.
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Sir Francis Bernard, governor of Massachusetts in the 1760- 1768 Colonial era. Athenaeum
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Gen. Joseph Dwight (1703-1765), who married John Sergeant's widow, was a respected judge when county was formed in 1761. He was moderator of the first town meeting in Great Barrington.
Settling Down
WHEN THE BRITISH defeated the French at Quebec, the Indians lost their sponsors, and peace came to the Berkshires, at least for a time. The pioneers took heart, settlements spread, and Pittsfield's incorporation papers were signed April 26, 1761, by the royal gov- ernor, Sir Francis Bernard. He named Pittsfield after British Prime Minister William Pitt. Great Barrington was incorporated June 30, probably named after Viscount Barrington, British secretary of war. The next day, July 1, Berkshire County was established by striking it off from Hampshire County, and was named by the Governor after his home county in England. Progress now took a familiar form. Gone was the dangerous, heady pioneering period. Reli- gion became a powerful factor in the life of the settlers. It was tax- supported, and early pastors ruled with an iron hand. The Rev. Jonathan Edwards dominated life in Stockbridge, and in 1754 wrote the first book to be composed in the Berkshires: The Freedom of the Will. He was succeeded by the Rev. Stephen West, who carried on Edwards' Calvinistic theology, while the Rev. Samuel Hopkins, another disciple of Edwards, held the line in Great Barrington. During this time, agriculture was the chief and almost only industry here. But in 1773 marble quarrying started in Lee, and a few sawmills were running. Then on Aug. 18, 1774, in a prelude to the Revolution, 1,500 men gathered at the Great Barrington Courthouse and prevented the Royal judges from sitting -the first open resistance to British rule in America.
A careful and ftrict
ENQUIRY
INTO The modern prevailing Notions OF THAT
FREEDOM of WILL, Which is fuppofed to be elfential TO
Moral Agency, Vertue and Vice, Reward and Punifoment, Praife and Blame.
By JONATHANEDWARDS, A.M. Pafor of the Church in Stadiruge.
Rom. ix. 16. It is not ef bim that willetb-
BOSTON, N. E.
Printed and Sold by S. KNFELAND, in Qgeen-(trem, MECCLIV. 1
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First building of First Congregational Church, Great Bar- rington, built 1743; Samuel Hopkins pastor. Mason Library
First building of the First Congregational Church, Pittsfield, was built in 1761-62. In the center is the famous old Pittsfield elm.
Rev. Jonathan Edwards
Rev. Stephen West
Rev. Samuel Hopkins
First house in Stockbridge, built about 1736, was oc- cupied first by John Ser- geant, later by Jonathan Ed- wards. Now torn down, it looked like this to a Har- per's 1871 wood engraver.
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Col. John Paterson of Lenox, the most distinguished Berkshire man in the Revolution, commands his troops on the battlefield. From the National Cyclopedia of American Biography
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As Berkshirites grew more unhappy under British rule before Lexington and Concord, a mob in Great Barrington chased the bewigged Royal judges from the courthouse. That day, Aug. 18, 1774, marked the first open resistance to British rule in America.
Col. Benjamin Simonds of Williams- town led the Berkshire regiment that fought at White Plains, then garrison- ed Ticonderoga in the 1776-77 winter.
Revolution
BERKSHIRE ENTERED the Revolution head-on, and no nonsense. Col. John Paterson of Lenox had been training a regiment of young men a year before the Battle of Lexington for just such an emergency. He led them east at dawn April 21, 1775, following word of the battle, and his company was first in the field after the Cam- bridge engagement. Paterson served with distinction throughout the Revolution, taking part in most major battles and crossing the Delaware with Washington Christmas Eve, 1776. He was an adviser to Washington, spent the fierce winter at Valley Forge, and took part in the surrender of Burgoyne. Retiring from the Army in 1783, he was called back to head the Berkshire militia in 1785 to put down Shays' Rebellion. Of less heroic dimensions was Col. John Brown of Pittsfield who de- nounced Benedict Arnold as a potential traitor four years before Arnold was exposed. Col. Brown was a brilliant tactician, but lost his life when a detachment he led was
Company roster of Capt. James Denison Colt of Pittsfield listing "Serjt." Oliver Root, later an officer with Col. John Brown when the latter was ambushed and killed by Indians at Stone Arabia, N. Y. Berkshire Museum.
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The Rev. Thomas Allen of Pittsfield's First Congregational Church got his nickname, the "Fighting Parson," by leading men from his congregation to the Battle of Bennington, Aug. 16, 1777.
Rev. Thomas Allen, the "Fighting Parson"
ambushed by Mohawk Indians, at Stone Arabia, N. Y., Oct. 19, 1780. But no fighter was more colorful than the Rev. Thomas Allen of Pittsfield, known as the Fighting Parson. He accompanied local volunteers to Vermont and was said to have fired the first Berkshire shot in the Battle of Bennington in 1777. Col. Brown's disaster at Stone Arabia ended participation of Berkshire troops in the war. Three years later, in 1783, the John Chandler Williams house in Pittsfield (later called Peace Party House) was the scene of a lengthy feasting-and-dancing celebration marking the signing of the Treaty of Paris, which officially ended the war. Again peace beamed on Berkshire; industry began and political thinking matured; the economy strength- ened. The county found a sense of direction.
NEAR THIS SPOT STOUD EASTON'S TAVERN.
HERE ON MAY 1 IZZE, COLONEL
JAME'S EASTON AND JOHN BROWN
OF PITTSFIELD AND CAPTAIN EDWARD MOTT OF PRESTON CONN PLANNED
THE CAPTURE OF FORT TICONDEROGA,
WHICH ON MAY 10 SURRENDERED
TO THE CONTINENTAL VOLUNTEERS
UNDER ETHAN ALLEN WITH COLONEL EASTON SECOND IN COMMAND.
Site of Pittsfield's historic Easton tavern is marked by plaque near the Berkshire Museum.
Pittsfield's Peace Party House got its name from a big celebration there in November 1783 marking the end of the Revolutionary War through the Treaty of Paris. Built in 1776, it was razed in 1957.
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Henry Van Schaack, who led fight to end taxation for support of the Congregational Church, was a Tory (British sympathizer) during war.
That life was a rather stern business during Revolutionary times is re- flected in this fine portrait of Cal- vin Hall, proprietor of Hall's Tavern in Cheshire, who fought in the war. Rockefeller Folk Art Coll.
A
SERMON;
PREACHED IN LENOX, IN THE COUNTY OF BERKSHIRE, AND COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS; DECEMBER, 6th, 1787 :
AT THE EXECUTION OF
JOHN BLY, A N D CHARLES ROSE,
FOR CRIMES OF BURGLARY.
BY STEPHEN WEST, A. M. PASTOR of the CHURCH in STOCKBRIDGE.
Published at the Defire of a great Number of the Hearere.
[COMMONWEALTH of MASSACHUSETTS.] PITTSFIELD : Printed ly ELIJAH RUSSELL.
M,DCC.LXXAVIL
Title page of sermon delivered by the Rev. Stephen West at hanging in Lenox of two men for looting at time of Shays' Rebellion. From Stockbridge Library
The Knox Trail, now Route 23, earned its name in the winter of 1776 when Gen. Henry Knox struggled over the Berkshire Hills enroute to Cambridge with 78 cannons captured from the British at Ticonderoga. Joseph Dixon Crucible Company
Gideon Smith, Tory tavern keeper of Stockbridge, was strung up three times by angry patriots. Almost killed the third time, he switched alle- giance, became a patriot. Below is his sign. Stockbridge Library
ENTERTAI NMETGS N 1788
Lenox in 1839, looking north from present Courthouse Hill. On right, the Town Hall, Curtis Hotel, County Court House, and in distance the Congregational Church-on-the-Hill, which was built in 1805.
Growing Up
UNTIL ABOUT 1780, the energy of Berkshire settlers went almost wholly into the task of securing food, housing and keeping alive. But as the region prospered, small surpluses were created, and people were able to raise their eyes from the grind- stone and become aware of the world around them. Arts, letters and education be- gan to gain footholds, and interest in national politics grew. Theodore Sedgwick of Stockbridge served in both houses of Congress; he made national history by being the first to win legal freedom for a slave, Mum Bett, of Stockbridge. The Congrega- tional church began to lose its grip on the people. Baptists entered the picture, as well as the Shakers whose concept of communal life wouldn't have reached first base a
First legal freeing of a slave in the nation took place in Great Barring- ton in 1783. Elizabeth Freeman, known as Mum Bett, was mistreated by her owner, and fled. A lawsuit sought her return, but a defense by her advocate, Theodore Sedgwick of Stockbridge, won for her. Athenaeum
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Elkanah Watson, who intro- duced scientific methods of agriculture and Merino sheep to Berkshire, founded the Berkshire Agricultural Society, which presented the nation's first fair in 1810. Athenaeum
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With Congregationalism no longer monopolizing religious life, other denominations and sects began to emerge. By 1842, the thriving Hancock Shakers were holding this annual ritual on "Mt. Sinai." The People Called Shakers
Elder John Leland, Cheshire Baptist min- ister and staunch Jeffersonian Democrat, caused the making of the great Cheshire Cheese, weight 1,235 pounds, presented to Jefferson in 1801. Berkshire Museum
In War of 1812, Maj. Thomas Melville, uncle of Herman Mel- ville, headed a commissary in Pittsfield. He had taken part in the Boston Tea Party. Athenaeum
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The first Springfield-Albany train of the Western Railroad passed through Pittsfield in 1842.
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By 1832, Park Square in Pittsfield was ringed with buildings. At left, the famous Bulfinch Church, built in 1793; City Hall, 1832; Episcopal Church, and Berkshire Medical Institution, 1823. At right, the small building with star sign is the Agricultural National Bank, incorporated 1818. The famous Old Elm in the park, 128 feet tall, lasted until 1861 when it was cut down after being struck by lightning.
few years earlier. John Leland, a great admirer of Thomas Jefferson, dreamed up the fa- mous Cheshire Cheese as a gift to Jefferson on his election as President. The War of 1812 brushed Berkshire lightly, represented only by a prisoner-of-war depot and com- missary on North Street in Pittsfield commanded by Maj. Thomas Melville, uncle of author Herman Melville. A big step toward the outside world was taken in 1838 when the trains of the Hudson& Berkshire Rail Road reached West Stockbridge, which gave access to the Hudson River steamboats. Pure water and water power no longer went to waste. The first textile and paper mills started producing and shipping Berkshire products to the outside world.
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Zenas Crane, 24, with two other men began making paper in Dalton in 1801, selecting the site for pure water from the Housatonic. By the late 1800's (engraving at left) the Crane mills were becoming known nationally.
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Heavy industry, 1875. The Lenox Iron Works, formed in 1848, ran many years at Lenox Furnace, now Lenox Dale. Ore mined in Lenox.
Grandfather clock made by Philander Noble of Pittsfield in 1796. It tells time and phases of moon. Berkshire Museum
Hand loom on which Mrs. Miles Powell and daughters wove fringe for Clapp carriages built in Pitts- field, 1810-1870. Berkshire Museum
Lemuel Pomeroy came to Pitts- field in 1799, set up blacksmith shop, later made muskets.
Woolen mills sprang up throughout Berkshire shortly after the turn of the century. By 1832, Pittsfield had several, including the Stearns mill, in the area later known as Barkerville.
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Catherine Sedgwick of the distinguished Stockbridge family achieved international fame with her first novel, "A New England Tale," in 1822, and attracted kindred literary lights to come here. Lenox Library
William Cullen Bryant, poet, earned his living as an attorney and clerk of courts in Great Barrington, which he hated. Nonetheless, he wrote some of his best poems while there from 1815 to 1825. Stockbridge Library
Well-to-do Berkshire families patronized the Young Ladies' Institute in 1841-54, stressing music and the fine arts. Mrs. Rasmus Kristensen
Williams College in 1838
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Staffordshire china known as "Pittsfield Elmware" pictured the park of the 1800s. Berkshire Museum
Art in the home was represented by decorations like this 1834 painting on velvet done by Mary Bradley of Lee. Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Collection
Culture Commences
AS THE BERKSHIRE economy crept past the break-even point, culture crept with it. Private schools, academies and "gymnasiums" opened and prospered, as parents sought better education for their offspring than the poor public schools offered. Among the notable ones were Williams College which opened in 1793, Lenox Acad- emy in 1803, Berkshire Medical Institution in 1823, and Pittsfield Young Ladies' Institute in 1842. Miss Hall's School dates back to 1806 as Miss Nancy Hinsdale's school. The public took to lyceums vigorously, bettering their minds and cultivat- ing their taste by listening to all manner of erudite speakers. Writers emerged: Catherine Sedgwick in Stockbridge and William Cullen Bryant in Great Barrington. Newspapers started: the Western Star, forerunner of The Eagle; the Berkshire Courier in Great Barrington. For better or worse, Berkshire was about to join the world.
Hopkins Astronomical Observatory, second college observatory in the U.S., was built at Williams in 1837 from flintstone quarried near- by. It cost $2,075. Top-hatted students climb on it in this 1859 photograph. Williams College
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