USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > Berkshire, two hundred years in pictures, 1761-1961 > Part 2
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13 /4 Copas.
MONDAY, AUGUST 10, 1801.
No.38 of Vol. 17-Whole No. Gre.
Chenare Land
+OL SALL
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شه٤ ٦ ٥ الدعيع بسيوهو أحد البدا
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Grand Ryforuni
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Front page of an 1801 Western Star founded 1789 in Stockbridge, first successful Berkshire news- paper, ancestor of The Eagle. Stockbridge Library
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D. HAMILTON's for af EN
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Berkshire Jubilee, 1844, drew 1,000 natives back home to sample simple rural virtues, and dine on food pre- pared in Boston, shipped in by rail for two-day event. Berkshire Jubilee
Cyrus W. Field, Stockbridge native, completed first Atlantic cable Aug. 5, 1858, became national hero and subject of popular songs. Cable failed in September. Praise turned to abuse until second, successful cable opened in 1866. Stockbridge Library
COROIMAY GIBICATID .O CYRUS W FIELD ESQ. OF NEW YORK
THE MARCH
An Island No More
TO AN OBSERVER of 1844, Berkshire must have appeared caught in a revolving door, going in two directions at once. The big switch from province to world-awareness was starting, but not unani- mously. That year the region sent George N. Briggs to Boston as governor, yet called back about 1,000 emigrated natives for the Berkshire Jubilee. This was a two-day old-home week, Aug. 22 and 23, in praise of provincial virtues, but food for the 4,000-plate banquet was prepared in Boston and brought in by train. In 1851 drills bit into the mountain barrier for the Hoosac Tunnel, and in 1853 the Laurel Hill Association was formed in Stockbridge to preserve the village. It was the first of its kind in the United States. The Berkshire Mutual Fire Insurance Co. started in 1835, and Berkshire Life Insurance Co. was formed in 1851 with ex-Governor Briggs as first president. Reaching into Berkshire was the world of letters. Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes came to Pittsfield in 1849 and other literary luminaries soon followed. Industrially, large woolen mills were built; Lee led the nation in papermaking, with 25 mills in 1857, and iron was mined in Lanesboro. Curiously, as industry throve, writers found Berk- shire a quiet retreat and that's a story in itself.
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George N. Briggs, first governor from Berkshire, carried all his possessions in a small trunk as he trudged into Adams at age 17 in 1813. Studied law, moved to Lanesboro, and in 1843 became governor. His inaugural speech included words that have become famous: "Public offices are public trusts." From Adams Free Library
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In 1856, Hiram Sibley, North Adams native, organized the Western Union Telegraph Co., and in 1861 built the first transcontinental telegraph line. Sibley was Western Union president 17 years. Berkshire Athenaeum
Nathan Willis, president of Berkshire Mutual Fire Insurance Co., from its founding in 1835 un- til 1850. He was also an incorporator of the Agricultural Bank, 1818.
Prominent in the view from Jubilee Hill, scene of Berk- shire Jubilee in 1844, was the Western Railroad, com- pleted in 1842 from Boston to Albany. Berkshire Jubilee
STRONGENZY
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The quiet life and lovely scenery of Berkshire were attractions that lured writers to the 'American Lake District' during the 1840s and 1850s. Nathaniel Hawthorne lived in the cottage seen in this view of Stockbridge Bowl and wrote "The House of Seven Gables."
Nathaniel Hawthorne as he looked at about the time he was living in Berkshire. The desk he used is on view in the Berkshire Museum.
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Herman Melville wrote his epic Moby Dick while living in Pittsfield from 1850 to 1863. This por- trait and his desk, left, are items in the collection of the Berkshire Athenaeum's Melville Room.
'American Lake District'
IN THE MIDST of industrial Berkshire growth there occurred a remarkable golden age of literature that flourished 20 years. There was a parallel with the English Lake District, which resembled Berkshire in scenery and resident writers. This led historian Richard D. Birdsall in his book, Berkshire County, a Cultural History, to call this the American Lake District. The golden age started in 1844 when Samuel Gray Ward of New York moved to Lenox for his health, farmed a little, translated Goethe and wrote essays. He became an ardent promoter of the region. Pretty soon sev- eral top-drawer authors also settled here. Another part-time farmer, Herman Mel- ville, bought Arrowhead, and Hawthorne moved into the Little Red House at Tangle- wood, both in 1850, and the two became close friends. Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes built Holmesdale, Pittsfield, in 1849, coming from Boston, and quipping, "The best of all tonics is the Housatonic." He spent "seven blessed summers" here. In 1847-1848, Longfellow was here two summers, and before that in 1843, was inspired during a brief visit to write "The Clock on the Stairs." Catherine Sedgwick continued to write novels in Stockbridge until her death at age 78 in 1867. A brief visitor in 1851 was incredibly prolific English author George Payne Rainsford James who in 18 months at Stockbridge wrote seven novels. Dashing actress Fanny Kemble was a popular social catalyst among this learned company. Dr. Charles Parkhurst and the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher with wide reputations, literary, clerical and other- wise, also lived here. A climax occurred Aug. 5, 1850: a literary outing on Monu- ment Mountain, with Hawthorne, Melville, Dr. Holmes and several friends. A thunderstorm drove them into a sheltering cave, but didn't spoil the fun, "with puns flying off in every direction, like sparks among the bushes," says one account. By the early 1860s the sparks had died, the literary giants had moved away, and the golden age of Berkshire letters came to a close.
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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, in his early 40s when he spent the summers of 1847-48 in Pittsfield, stayed at the house above on East Street, now the site of Pittsfield High School.
Arrowhead, the home of Melville in Pittsfield where he wrote and farmed, as it looked in the late 1930s. The house has been remodeled a number of times. Gravelle
Oliver Wendell Holmes was 40 when he arrived in Pittsfield in 1849. He spent "seven blessed summers" at Holmesdale, left, writing "The Wonderful One Hoss Shay" among many other poems. The or- iginal shay is in the Berkshire Museum.
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Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, who lived several summers in Lenox, dis- penses words of wisdom to some admirers. He wrote "Star Papers" in Lenox, extolling the benefits of rural vacations. Later he became involved in a scandal with a female parishioner in Brooklyn.
Charles Sedgwick, clerk of court in Lenox, brother of Catherine and of literary inclination him- self, was a link between authors and their Berkshire neighbors.
Fanny Kemble first visited Lenox in 1836, and in 1851 bought property there and made it her home. For 40 years in all, the famous English actress was a familiar, dashing figure in and out of Berk- shire literary circles. Her fan (above), portrait and other memorabilia are now in the Lenox Library.
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In 1853, when bare-knuckle fighting was illegal, a clandestine but well-attended heavyweight bout was fought in a field in Berkshire's remote and unpoliced Boston Corner. Two rugged New Yorkers, James (Yankee) Sullivan and John Morrissey battled for 36 bloody rounds with Morrissey winning a disputed decision and the crowd of thousands rioting in protest. The fight was billed as the first world's heavyweight championship. Etching done by Harold T. Dennis from 1853 eyewitness accounts. From Peter Helck
Folk medicine was popular. Many remedies were highly al- coholic. Stockbridge Library
DR. A. HARVEY, THE CELEBRATED Indian Doctor.
HAS cugaged rooms at George C. Bancroft's Hotel. Curtisville. until the first of May. where he may be found and consulted from 9 th 12 A. M. and from 1 to & P. M., and Sundays from 9 to 10 A. M. and Irum 5 tar P. M.
Dr. Harvey nords nothing more than a fair trail. to test the "certain effects of his medicines, " Daring the month of March Iv treated over THREE HUNDRED PATIENTS, ont humulred and fifty heard from who are rapidly recovering from difficulties that have affected them for years. For the pressat Dr. Harvey will not charge any thing for medi- cine.
EXAMINATION ONE DOLLAR. Curtisville, April 19, 1847.
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Oldest known photograph of North Street, Pittsfield, was taken in 1850. Looking north, the view includes area from Eagle Street at right to Young Ladies Institute, upper right, and open country beyond.
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Henry Wheeler Shaw, born in Lanesboro, won international acclaim in the 1850s as humor- ist "Josh Billings." Anna Peck
Mid-Century
AVENUES OF PROGRESS seemed to open up on many sides in Berkshire of the mid-1800s. Folks with vision and energy moved eagerly ahead. The S.N.& C. Russell cotton mill opened in Pittsfield in 1843, and the next year the county's first full- fledged public high school opened in Pittsfield. The town's first Catholic church was built where today's Notre Dame Church stands. The first fire house and Peck's woolen mill, which ran till 1910, were built in 1844. By 1846 the Pittsfield- Adams Railroad was finished at a cost of $450,000. First passengers were carried to the Pittsfield agricultural fair. Three years later the Berkshire & California Mining Co. was formed in Adams, its 20 members selling $300 worth of stock, and setting out for California. Paper pioneer Zenas Crane died in 1845, the year the E. D. Jones paper- machinery firm was launched in Lee. The James (Yankee) Sullivan vs John Morrissey boxing match at Boston Corner drew 6000 spectators in 1853, and Cheshire Glass Works rolled the first plate glass in the nation. The first half-mile track was laid out at the present Barrington Fair site in 1855, the same year that Marshall Field left his clerk's job in a Pittsfield dry goods store, moved to Chicago, and became a merchant prince. Then war again clouded Berkshire. The Allen Guards of Pittsfield, numbering 78 men, were the first from Berkshire called up in the Civil War; they left April 18, 1861.
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Mrs. Jael Edson Babbitt sat for her picture about 1850 in Adams. North Adams Library
Photography began in Berkshire in 1842 when inventor Anson H. Clark of West Stockbridge produced the above daguer- reotype of his home town. Clark (self- portrait, left) had an eye for beauty, too, and before 1850 took portraits of young women below. Stockbridge Library
Fred Ford Blackinton was five when this picture was taken in North Adams in 1853. His uncle, Sanford, owned the Blackinton mills. North Adams Library
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In 1854, the famous educator Mark Hopkins was midway in his 36-year tenure as Williams College president. Williams alumnus Pres- ident James Garfield once de- clared: "Education consists of a student on one end of a log and Mark Hopkins on the other."
Idyllic thoughts were reflected in mid-century art such as this romantic, hand-colored wood engraving of the Green River at Great Barrington. Lenox Library
Pittsfield was 100 years old in 1861 when the Berkshire House hotel occupied the corner of North and West Streets, later the site of the Berk- shire Life Insurance Company's 1868 office building. Berkshire Athenaeum
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Gen. William F. Bartlett's headquarters in July, 1865, during the battle of Petersburg, Va., in which he was captured. He then commanded the First Division, Ninth Corps. M. S. Wojtkowski
William F. Bartlett was a junior at Harvard when Ft. Sumter fell. He en- listed as a private and rose to Maj- or General before age 25. Wounded three times, he lost a leg at the Battle of Ball's Bluff early in war.
Gen. Barrlett, commander of the all-Berkshire 49th Regimenr, and his sraff. Seated, Barrlett and Maj. Charles T. Plunkett. Stand- ing, Samuel B. Summer, Great Barrington; Adjt. Frederick A. Francis, Pitts- field;and Surgeon Frederick Winsor from Boston.
Part of mess kit, hardtack and Derringer pistol used by Maj. Gen. William Bartlett during the Civil War. Berkshire Museum
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GREAT BARRINGTON NEED NOT SEND ONE CONSCRIPT TO THE FIELD! OUR YUUVG MEN ARE READY! SHALL WE NOT CHEER THEN ON! Shall we net Pay Them a Boasty !
Shall we not Ald our Brothers in Arms I Gos. Andrew Promises Stole Aid lo their Families THE SERVICE IS ONLY NINE MONTHS ! Ne-prud ali business and rally as sar mas,
ON TUESDAY. AUG. 19. 1562. AT TIE
TOWN HALL,
If pleasant the MEETING will be held in the open air. Come al 10 A. M. and bring your families. MAR GESTURES ARE ALREADY Lİ THERE » WHY STAND WE DERE ILLE?
HOR. S. W. Bowerwas,
Rov. Horace Winslow,
and others.
Great Barrington preferred its young men to enlist rather than be draft- ed. Poster for enlistment rally calls for bonuses. Mason Library
Civil War
In 1860, Abraham Lincoln campaigned for the presidency. His New Eng- land tour skirted Massachusetts, so his supporters staged rallies state- wide, like this one on Pittsfield's North Street. Berkshire Athenaeum
ty Eagle.
APRIL 18. 1861.
WHOLE NO. 1048.
Woodertal Cuccistico
CIVIL WAR BEGUN!
mir t wralo
Facts and fantics.
Fort Rumptar Canaocidad by Order
ILight Por Sot, GirlsP
find The maner of Selling's
Fralay coming In Seapor zriaund the
The weekly Berkshire County Eagle gave scant room to the start of the Civil War.
NO LESS THAN the rest of the country, Berkshire was caught up in the turmoil and emotions of the Civil War. Little else engaged the thoughts and energy of the people during the four wracking years, 1861 to 1865. The Union Mill in North Adams wove cloth for uniforms, and the P. Blackinton & Co. stone mill in Adams produced army blankets. But Berkshire's greatest contribution was her sons who marched away to war. Of these, three in particular earned high honors and brought great credit to Berkshire. Henry S. Briggs, Lanesboro native and son of Massachu- setts Governor George N. Briggs, commanded the Pittsfield Allen Guards, first Western Massachusetts company called up. Briggs fought in seven major battles, was wounded at Fair Oaks, Va., and was made a brigadier general. William F. Bartlett, who went to war as a private, was a captain when he lost his leg in the battle of Ball's Bluff, Md. After recuperating he joined the all-Berkshire 49th Regiment in Pittsfield in 1862 and was elected to head the regiment as colonel at the age of 22. He suffered a bullet shattered wrist in the siege of Port Hudson, La., in another battle was wounded in the head, was commissioned a major general at 24 and was captured by the South just before the war ended. After his release he returned to live in Pitts- field, where he died in 1876. The highest war decoration, however, went to Francis E. Warren, a Hinsdale boy, who won the Congressional Medal of Honor for bravery at the siege of Port Hudson. After the war he made a fortune in Wyoming, became its first governor and later U. S. senator, serving until his death in 1929 at age 85, setting a record for length of time in office. Peace settled over Berkshire, but an after-stroke of the war shook the county and the nation. Lincoln was assassinated April 14, 1865. Berkshire joined the nation's millions in mourning.
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Gen. Henry S. Briggs, Pittsfield, commander of the 10th Regi't, reviews his troops at Camp Brightwood, Wash- ington, D. C. The 10th had 400 men from Berkshire.
Gen. Henry S. Briggs of Pittsfield, led the Allen Guards, first unit from Western Massachusetts to answer Lincoln's call for volunteers. Briggs fought in seven major battles, and was seriously wounded in the battle at Fair Oakes, Va. Mathew Brady
Posing for photographs became popular dur- ing the war. This fine picture, apparently of an officer and his wife, is from album of Ellen S. Achmuty of Lenox. The "Napoleon" pose was typical. Lenox Library
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George W. Malcolm of Pittsfield enlisted at age 14 years, 10 months, believed the youngest from Berkshire. Photo taken after war. From Bruce Malcolm
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Somewhere in a relay camp during the Civil War. Seated on the ground are William and James McKenna. James became Pittsfield police chief in 1881.
Gen. J. G. Barnard, Sheffield native, fought in six major battles, superintended con- struction of Wash., D. C., defenses, and served on the staff of Gen. Grant two years.
Francis E. Warren, Hinsdale native, only Berkshire man to win the Congressional Medal of Honor. Later was U.S. Sena- tor from Wyoming for 37 years.
Lithographed cards titled "The Berkshire Boy's Return" were big post-war sel- lers, telling of a Lee farm boy, Charles Gates. who had enlisted over parental protests. He had vanished one morning after taking the cows to pasture. Three years later, one evening at "cow time," he reappeared and drove them home, according to a Springfield Republican 1865 item. Stockbridge Library
FUNERAL OBSEQUIES PRESIDENT LINCOLN.
lo consequence of the sedden and onexpected
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The bells will be tolled one hour, commencing
All Flags be draped and noforied al ball-may We are requested to add to this, a Notice of the
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JOHN C. WEST. HENRI VOLT.
C. GOODRICH.
Pilisbeid, April 1%, INGJ.
Note to the Selecimen of. Putsfield.
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Marble quarried in Lee 1773-1943 went into the U.S. Capitol and other big buildings from coast to coast.
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BLOCK MATCHES
LEE MATON COMPANY, Lo Mans.
LEE
BLOCK MATCHES.
Small factories from the 1860s on made Berkshire industry diversified. Lee alone had plants turn- ing out wooden matches, paper-and-fabric inner- soles, 100,000 paper collars daily. Lee Library
COLBY
WORKS
LARESBORO, IRASS.
Theodore G. Ramsdell came Housatonic's Monument
to Mills as manager in 1864, stayed till he died in 1903.
Iron mining and smelting go back to 1740 in Berkshire, starting in Great Barrington. Lanesboro's Colby Ironworks in 1864 succeeded the Briggs Iron Co., which had worked ore beds there since 1847.
From Richmond's blast fur- nace (1829-1923) came high grade iron for train wheels, arms and finally autos. It went into Civil War guns, by legend those on the Monitor.
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Textile-making in North Adams got going in the early 1800s. As the industry grew, steam replaced water power; mills hugged the hills, like the Freeman print works in this 1885 boom view.
Industry Explodes
BERKSHIRE INDUSTRY boomed after the Civil War. The appetite of the war for manufactured products of all description had fostered fast growth of our existing industries and had given birth to a host of new ones. And with the adoption of the new machines and methods of the American Industrial Revolution, manufacturing in Berkshire entered an explosive phase that didn't abate until century's end and even later. The explosion reverberated in such Pittsfield companies as the Russell Manufacturing Co. (later Elmvale Worsted), J. & E. Peck Woolen Co. (later Berk- shire Woolen), Pontoosuc Woolen Co. (later Wyandotte Worsted), and the A. H. Rice Co., silk manufacturer. In Adams, it hit the L. L. Brown paper company and the Plunkett cotton textile mills; in North Adams, the Blackinton woolen mills and the James Hunter Machine Co. It shook up the lime industry: Lee Lime, Farnams Lime, and New England Lime in Adams; also the glass factories in Lenox Dale, Cheshire and Berkshire Village. In Housatonic, it was felt by the Housatonic Manu- facturing Co. (later Monument Mills) and in Hinsdale by the Plunkett mill, both textile makers. The boom spread to banking, which forged ahead with the Housa- tonic Bank in Stockbridge and the Pittsfield Bank (later Pittsfield National Bank). Many factories employed low-pay, immigrant workers, and labor trouble began in 1870 with a strike at the Sampson Shoe Co., North Adams, whose labor-saving stitch- ing machines had been invented eight years before by Gordon Mckay, a Berkshire borner who had moved away to become a multi-millionaire (United Shoe).
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In 1870, North Adams hailed Calvin T. Sampson's 12-year old mechanized plant (above) as a "model shoe factory." But his workers, fearing automation, joined a new union, the Knights of St. Crispin, and struck for more pay. Sampson (below) broke the strike by importing 75 Chinese who worked at bargain prices. Harper's
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In Hinsdale, members of the Hinsdale family named the town, opened the first (1800) female academy in this area, and headed the town's big industry, a woolen mill (1836-1930).
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AI MANDELMANNS, THE HARZ, GERMANY
A historic advance in papermaking was scored at Curtisville, now Interlaken, in 1867 when the first wood pulp mill in America (shown in model) was set up.
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Elizur Smith, Lee papermaker, built his plants and town in the mid-1850's to a position of national paper leadership.
Owen Coogan, with business and home on banks of the Housatonic, was Pittsfield's top tanner.
In South Lee, papermaking began about 1806, and by 1818 Thomas Hurlbut with a partner was in business with a two-vat mill. It became Hurlbut Paper Co., went into industrial specialties, in 1958 was bought by Mead Corp.of Dayton, Ohio.
William C. Plunkett, born in a log cabin in Lenox, taught in Lanes- boro, ran a store, then became a prosperous Adams textile tycoon.
The Byron Weston Co., "makers of papers for business records since 1863," was launched by Capt. Weston after he finished his Civil War service. His home and prosperous business in Dalton were in one elaborate layout.
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Hoosac Tunnel east portal during construction; employees' store is at the left. North Adams Library
In drilling blast holes and removing rock, Hoosac Tunnel crews worked on two levels simultaneously, as shown in Prof. Mowbray's 1872 "nitro" book. North Adams Library
The Tunnel
BUILDING the Hoosac Tunnel took so long and cost so much that it became an industry in North Adams. Work started in 1851, but the first train didn't steam through until 1875. During the 24 years between, $21,241,842 was spent and 196 lives lost in the struggle to bore 43/4 miles through a solid rock mountain. When completed, it was the longest tunnel in the country, second longest in the world, reducing the mileage and steep grades between Boston and Troy. The final eight years, progress was speeded when Prof. George M. Mow- bray built a plant near the west portal to make the new, treacherous nitro-glycerin. Nitro took many lives by premature explosion, frequently while be- ing carried in wagons or sleighs. A winter acci- dent to driver Nate Smith relieved this hazard. His sleigh overturned, but the nitro didn't ex- plode. It was frozen solid. Thereafter only frozen explosive left the plant. In 1911 the tunnel was electrified and Nov. 30, 1958, the last passenger train rumbled through, as this section of the B& M became an all-freight line.
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Prof. George Mowbray sped tunnel work in 1867 with his new Tri-Nitro-Glycerin, made in a plant near west portal.
Factory-type buildings clustered around the top of the 1080-foot-deep central shaft. A fire during construction dumped an avalanche of embers and equipment onto 13 men below, killing all. Trabold: North Adams Transcript
Lip of central shaft resembled well-top. At its bottom, crews drove east and west toward others drilling from east and west portals. Later, shaft became a ventilator. Trabold: North Adams Transcript
Henry L. Dawes as North Adams resident and state legislator worked for state loans to finance tunnel. Dawes later served in Con- gress. M. S. Wojtkowski
First engine to traverse the tunnel emerges into daylight through the west portal in 1875. North Adams Library
COSAC
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President E. H. Kennedy of the Berkshire County Wheelmen poses with the latest model high-wheeled bicycle in 1884.
A Stockbridge family poses in the yard of their Prospect Hill home in the 1870s. Mrs. George W. Bartini
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The good old days and the good old daisies appealed to these straw-hatted dandies, pictured in a field of blossoms during the 1890s. Trabold. North Adams Transcript
"It's your turn to walk the baby!" Fathers in the 1890s belonged to the cap and gown set.
The Good Old Days
WITH THE CIVIL WAR over, Berkshire settled down to a comparatively easy life, enjoyed to the hilt even by those less than well-heeled. People found time for fun and frolic. There were energetic square dances in barns and halls all over the county. Cattle shows began adding frivolous side attractions, such as carnival events. Folks formed bicycle clubs, or cycled unaffiliated; lawn croquet came into favor; boating on the lakes was popular, and so were band concerts and baseball. Homespun entertainment went over big - especially amateur theatricals, which were staged right and left, drawing crowds. More simple pleasures also came to the fore, espec- ially hikes along the woodland trails; courting couples were known to stroll through the night "to see the east pasture in the moonlight." Many local wits also emerged, their amusing philosophies and observations being circulated by word of mouth, and a few even turned up in the newspaper. One of these was a quip by stage driver Jerry Pratt, who was much annoyed by the heavy mists that often enwrapped his home in the Hoosac Valley. One afternoon he sent the other drivers into stitches by re- marking, "I was shingling a shed this morning, and it was so bad that I shingled over three feet of fog before I knew it." Levi Randall of North Adams once put off a dead beat who sought to borrow $5, promising to return it next day. After deep meditation, Levi said, "Here's a better way. Wait until tomorrow and borrow $5 off yourself." On the whole, few clouds marred the Berkshire skies through the 1800s.
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