USA > Massachusetts > From the Hub to the Hudson : with sketches of nature, history and industry in north-western Massachusetts > Part 7
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103
A BRAVE DEED.
falling timbers of the building; and by a terrible hail of steel drills precipitated into the shaft when the plat- form gave way; others, perhaps, were suffocated by the bad air, and others possibly were drowned by the rising water, after the pumps stopped working. The next morning, as soon as the smoking ruins could be cleared away, a brave miner named Mallory was lowered by a rope around his body to the bottom of the shaft, and found there ten or fifteen feet of water on the top of which were floating blackened timbers and debris from the ruins, but saw no traces of the men. It was impossible even to rescue their bodies. · The water was rapidly filling up the shaft, and new buildings must be erected and proper machinery pro- cured before it could be removed. It was not till the last days of October, 1868, a full year after the accident, that the bottom of the shaft was reached and the bodies were secured.
On this bleak, rough mountain top, lies all that is inhabitable of the town of Florida. There are a few good grazing farms, but grain has a slim chance be- tween the late and early frosts. The winters are long and fierce. During the Revolutionary War a body of troops attempted to make the passage of this moun- tain in midwinter, and nearly perished with cold and hunger. Jim can tell you some large stories, if he chooses, about the storms and drifts of last winter. Passing on the left a dilapidated old tavern, where none but a stranger will be likely to get taken in, and on the right, as we ascend the western crest, a smooth
5*
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FROM THE HUB TO THE HUDSON.
surface of rock with furrows chiseled in it by primitive icebergs, there suddenly bursts upon us a scene whose splendor makes abundant compensation for the dreari- ness of the last three miles.
In the center of the picture rises Greylock, King of Mountains ; about him are the group of lesser peaks that make his court. On the north, Mount Adams, a spur of the Green Mountain range, closes the scene. Between this and the Greylock group the beautiful curves of the Taghkanic range fill the western horizon. From the north flows down, through the valley that separates the mountain on which we stand from Mount Adams, the north branch of the Hoosac river; from the south, through the village of South Adams and the valley that lies between us and Greylock, comes the other branch of the river; right at our feet and fifteen hundred feet below us lies the village of North Adams, packed in among its ravines and climbing the slopes on every side ; and here the two branches of the Hoosac unite and flow on westward through the other valley that divides Greylock from Mount Adams. Williams- town lies at the foot of the Taconic Hills, just behind the spur of Mount Adams. The straight line of the Pittsfield and North Adams Railroad cuts the southern valley in twain ; the Troy and Boston railroad bisects the western valley ; and the twin spires of little Stam- ford in Vermont brighten the valley on the north. These three deep valleys, with the village at their point of confluence, and the lordly mountain walls that shut them in, give us a picture whose beauty will
105
PROSPECT ROCK.
not be eclipsed by any scene that New England can show us. If it should fall to your lot, good reader, as it fell to the lot of one (whether in the body or out of the body I cannot tell) to stand upon the rock that overhangs the road by which we are descending, while the sun, hiding behind amber clouds in the west, touches the western slopes of the old mountain there in the center with the most delicate pink and purple hues,-while the shadows gather in the hollows of its eastern side,-and the sweet breath of a summer even- ing steals over the green meadows where the little river winds among its alder bushes,-if this should be your felicity, you will say, and reverently too: "It is good to be here ; let us make tabernacles and abide; for surely there shall never rest upon our souls a purer benediction !"
People often debate whether this view from the western crest be not finer than that from the eastern ; but with many the preference always rests with that which they have looked on last.
Down the steep zigzags we go steadily, round the hills and through the gorges we wind merrily, past the mills and tenements of the upper village we clatter briskly, and soon the stages halt before the imposing front of the Wilson House; in which, unless we pre- fer the less spacious but comfortable Berkshire House across the way, we shall find quarters, if we are wise, for more than one night.
CHAPTER IV.
UNDER THE SHADOW OF GREYLOCK.
N O one can say of this town of Adams, what the member from Essex spitefully said of one of the towns through which we have passed,-that it is like a growing potato-the best part of it under ground. Adams has not buried many of its heroes,-partly be- cause it has not had many to bury, and partly because it is a theory widely accepted in the town that the worst use to which talent can be put is to bury it. The town was born amid the throes of the Revolution; being in- corporated in 1776, and taking its name from the fa- mous Sam Adams. The first settlers were from Con- necticut; most of these died or removed, and their lands fell into the possession of emigrants from Rhode Island, many of whom were Quakers. The southern part of the town is now largely populated by the de- scendants of this peaceful sect; one at least of whom has made herself a national reputation. The clear- minded, large-minded, and by no means weak-minded Susan B. Anthony was born under the shadow of Grey-
107
A STIRRING TOWN.
lock. Some of the first families of Adams can trace the lines of their ancestry up to the Pilgrims who came over with Bradford and Standish in the Mayflower ; the rest are all descendants of the original passengers, who came over with Noah in the ark. The ordinary sort of aristocracy does not, therefore, prevail in Ad- ams to any alarming extent. There is wealth here, -- but all of it has been earned ; none of it was inherited. All the leading business men began life with no stock in trade but brains and courage. Out of this capital they have created fortunes for themselves, and have
. built up a flourishing town. The population of the town has increased with great rapidity during the last few years, and the appreciation of property and the increase of business have kept even pace with the growth of population. The value of goods manufac- tured in 1868, which was a dull year for business, is shown by the books of the Internal Revenue Depart- ment to be above seven millions of dollars. That is not an exaggerated statement at any rate. The town contains two calico printing establishments, twelve cotton mills, eight woolen mills, four shoe factories, one tannery, two carriage manufactories, three paper mills, two flouring mills, two sash and blind factories, and two machine shops. In these not less than thirty- five hundred operatives and mechanics find employ- ment, and the wages paid by manufacturers to their employes amount to more than a million and a quarter of dollars.
These statistics include both the north and the south
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FROM THE HUB TO THE HUDSON.
villages of Adams; North Adams having rather more than two-thirds of the population and the business.
It does not take the traveler long to discover that North Adams is a village of great vigor and enterprise. Capital is not suffered to lie idle in the vaults of banks ; it is constantly in motion. It is a thoroughly demo- cratic town. The factitious class distinctions so com- monly observed in the society of our larger villages are not very obvious here. There is a more thorough fusion of the various social orders than is usually found. At a reception in the spacious parlors of one of the wealthy citizens you will meet people of widely differ- ent stations and conditions, all on a footing of social equality. The morality of the town is considerably above the average of villages of its class. Manufac- turing communities as large as this are always far from perfect ; but in a town that votes as this one did last year, in a hotly contested struggle, three to one against the licensing of open bars for the sale of liquor, drunk- enness cannot be a very general vice; and it is fair to estimate the morality of the town in other respects by its vote on this question. It is quite common, in cer- tain quarters, for various reasons, to disparage the town of Adams, but readers of this little book will dis- cover after stopping a week at the Wilson House that there are many worse places.
A few elegant houses recently erected, three new churches, and a magnificent new school-house on the hill, in the centre of the village, which cost eighty thousand dollars, show that the attention of the people
109
THE STORY OF AN INVENTOR.
is being turned to architectural improvements. The Wilson House is quite a phenomenon in a village of this size, and visitors may be interested to know who built it, and how it happened to be built.
This hotel is the property of Mr. Allen B. Wilson, the inventor of the Wheeler and Wilson Sewing Ma- chine, now a resident of Waterbury, Conn. The story of his life, though wanting in tragic situations and re- markable feats, is worth reading. It is the same old story of struggle and want and ultimate triumph which has been told of so many American inventors.
Wilson was born in the town of Willett, Cortland County, N. Y. His father died in his early childhood, and at the age of fifteen he was bound out to a relative to learn the triple trade of carpenter, joiner and cabinet maker. This trade was supposed by his employer to include such work as mowing Canada thistles, milking cows and making maple sugar, at which Wilson was kept the greater part of the time. Not fancying these branches of the business, the apprentice ran away after two years to a safe place among the Catskill Mountains, where he hired out as a cabinet-maker. In 1847 he started westward as a tramping journey- man, in search of a fortune, working at cabinet-making and carving in Cleveland, Chicago and several other Western towns. At Burlington he was attacked and prostrated by the fever and ague, a disease that fol- lowed him for seven years, and nearly wrecked him. Slowly and sadly he made his way back to his country home in Cortland County, where he passed a miser-
IIO
FROM THE HUB TO THE HUDSON.
able winter, very poor in purse, and nearly broken in spirit. In the spring of '48 he started, with very little money in his pocket, to work his passage to New York, designing thence to go to sea in the hope of mending his health. His first halt was at Homer, where he hired himself out as a machinist; and although it was a trade which he had never tried before, the discovery was not made in the shop that he was a raw hand. At Homer he remained, working for seventy-five cents a day, till he had earned enough to carry him to New York, making the journey by canal and steamboat. There he found a sloop in the coasting trade, upon which he shipped to work for his board, and paid his last quarter of a dollar to have his tool chest carried across the city. He remained on board this sloop nearly all summer, and in the autumn, being somewhat improved in health, found his way to Boston, where he engaged for a time in joiner work. But though he was a cunning workman in wood, an idea was brewing in his mind which must find articulation in iron, and he was eager to get into a machine shop. Finding a
place in the locomotive works of Hinckley & Drury, he started across the city with his tool chest-all his wealth-when he was suddenly attacked with home- sickness. The crooked streets of Boston looked un- speakably hateful to him ; he could not bear the thought of tarrying there another day ; and as he drew near the Western Railroad depot, he told the expressman with whom he was riding to stop and unload his chest on that platform. The first train carried him as far west
III
EUREKA!
as Pittsfield, and that was about as far as his money would go. Here he engaged in cabinet-making and carving, stipulating for his evenings ; for the idea which had been buzzing in his brain ever since that winter of 1847-8 must be caught and caged. Wilson says that the machine was invented during that enforced idle- ness in his own home in Cortland County, and that ill-health alone delayed its construction. Here, at Pittsfield, in the leisure of his evenings, he built the
· first machine. The dream was a reality. The reality was better than the dream. * From the start the machine worked beautifully. It could be improved ; but, just as it was, it was a triumph of mechanical genius. Parts of the first machine were made of wood, and Wilson wished to make it all of iron. The facilities for doing machinists' work were not good in Pittsfield; so he carried with him to North Adams the iron parts (which still remain in his possession), and hiring out again as a cabinet maker, employed his leisure in perfecting his invention. Mr. J. N. Chapin, of North Adams, entered into partnership with him in the construction of the machine, and several were built. Meantime trouble was brewing. Elias Howe, Jr., and Isaac M. Singer had produced sewing machines, for which they were endeavoring to obtain patents, and each claimed pri- ority of invention over the other, and over Wilson. Lawsuits were threatened, and Mr. Chapin, an excel- lent but cautious man, whose honesty and friendship Wilson never doubted, sold out his interest in the patent, and withdrew. While Wilson was in New York,
II2
FROM THE HUB TO THE HUDSON.
waiting for the issue of the patent, he invented the rotary hook, one of the most exquisite mechanical contrivances ever produced, and otherwise essentially modified his machine. Falling in with Mr. Nathaniel Wheeler, Mr. Wilson entered into partnership with him, and the improved machine took the name of the firm of Wheeler and Wilson.
There has been considerable controversy both in the courts and in the public prints about priority of invention, and the honor has commonly been conferred with some flourish of trumpets upon Mr. Elias Howe, Jr., but these two things are certainly true :
I. Mr. Wilson invented a sewing machine, without help or suggestion from Mr. Howe or anybody else, and without ever having seen or heard of a sewing machine. The idea was purely original with him.
2. The Wheeler and Wilson Machine was a practical success from the beginning, distancing the Howe from the start in the markets of the world. It was the first practical sewing machine ever made.
When Mr. Wilson left North Adams for New York with his model in his valise to secure his patent, in the spring of 1850, it is not likely that he, or any of those who knew him, expected that he would return, in the summer of 1865, with the Wilson House in his pocket. This massive pile of brick and iron is only a small part of the earnings of that cunning little work- man whose low song has cheered so many tired women. With a kindly feeling toward the town where the sun first began to shine upon him, and where the
HILTON HOUSE
SON HOUSE
ICHARDSUN.
WILSON HOUSE, NORTH ADAMS.
THE WILSON HOUSE AND ITS KEEPERS. 113
best of fortunes came to him in the excellent wife who has been to him a help-meet indeed in his subsequent career, Mr. Wilson resolved to devote a portion of his gains to the erection of this Hotel.
The Wilson House is, as you have already discov- ered, a first-class hotel. Eight large stores, a fine Public Hall, a Masonic Hall, a Manufacturers' Club Room, and a Billiard Room are included within its walls; and besides its spacious offices, its ample dining-rooms, its large and well appointed kitchens, pantries, store-rooms, its excellent baths, and its ele- gant parlors, it offers to guests a hundred airy and well-furnished chambers. The Post Office and the Telegraph Office are in the house; the two railroad stations are within three minutes walk; and the stages of the tunnel line leave its doors. Over it preside two genial and attentive landlords, of both of whom, if it were not too much like boasting of its friends, this little book could say a thousand things in praise. However, "good wine needs no bush," and a hotel as good as this needs no strenuous puffing.
WALKS.
After a bath and a breakfast, a walk to the Natural Bridge will be in order. Up Main street to Eagle street, then northward past the Eagle Mill and up the hill, turning first to the eastward, then to the north- ward, then, when the top of the hill is reached, into a cross-road running eastward. The view from this hill top is magnificent. The village, Greylock, the South
114
FROM THE HUB TO THE HUDSON.
Adams valley, and the Williamstown valley, are all in full view. The objects are the same that you saw from the top of the Hoosac Mountain, but you have given the kaleidoscope a turn and the new combination adds a new glory. There is hardly a better view of the Greylock group then you get at this point. Between the main ridge of the mountain and the southern val- ley there is a lower ridge ; the deep gulf that separates the higher mountain from the lower one is called the Notch; and the upper end of the Notch is the Bellows Pipe. Greylock proper, is the highest peak, just west of the Bellows Pipe. Mount Williams is the northern end of this high ridge, which overlooks the village; Mount Fitch is the elevation of the ridge, midway be- tween Greylock and Williams; and the western peak of the mountain, overlooking Williamstown, is Mount Prospect.
The cross-road that we follow eastward from the top of the hill leads us down into the ravine through which flows Hudson's Brook. Under the little wooden bridge the water roars and rushes down the narrow channel it has chiseled for itself in the limestone ; below the road is a chasm about fifteen feet wide, from thirty to sixty feet deep and thirty rods long, spanned by an arch of solid rock. Before the days of the white men, the water ran over this rock, and descended in a cascade into the gorge below; but finding some small opening under the rock which is now the Natural Bridge, it has gradually worn this channel to its present depth. In the soft limestone the swift water has done much beau-
115
THE CASCADE IN THE NOTCH BROOK.
tiful and curious carving. Just below the arch a well- worn foot-path will conduct you to a rocky prominence where you get an excellent view of the bridge and the chasm.
You can return by the road that follows the brook down to the lower Clarksburg road, and that will lead you past the Beaver and the Glen Mills, through Union street, back to your starting-point. The Natural Bridge is not more than a mile from the hotel, and is easily reached by carriages.
The Cascade in the Notch Brook is a mile and a half from the hotel ; and those who dare not venture upon so long a walk can ride up the Williamstown road, past the cemetery to the little drab factory village of Bray- tonville with its large brick mill, where a road running south past a long red school-house leads up to a saw- mill. Here alighting and fastening your steeds you have less than half a mile to walk. The path follows the Notch Brook through the fields up into a rough and romantic glen, along the sides of which a foot-path leads you till you are stopped by the precipice down which the water is plunging. The perpendicular de- scent of the water is less than thirty feet, but the walls of the chasm rise much higher. From the very brink of the precipice on either side spring stately forest ' trees that lock their branches across the abyss, and almost hide the sky. The jagged walls of rock are covered with beautiful growths of ferns and mosses and lichens. Climb to the top of the western cliff, and follow the foot-paths that will lead you to all the
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FROM THE HUB TO THE HUDSON.
best points of view; then lie down in silence upon some mossy bank in sight of the tumbling waters and yield yourself to the spell which the wild grandeur of the scene will work upon you.
Those who have left no steeds behind them will do well to follow the foot-path up the western bank of the ravine, through the woods into the pastures, where they will have a near view of the narrow trough between the mountains known as the Notch. Here they may cross the brook and follow the wood road on the eastern side, that will lead them through the woods and pas- tures, over the hill and down into the village. It is the road that passes the marble quarries, in full view from the village. The village is supplied with water from the Notch Brook. The dam is half a mile above the cascade, and the road by which we return passes the main reservoir on the top of the hill, and the distrib- uting reservoir upon the eastern slope. The lower res- ervoir is high enough to give the water tremendous force in the village, furnishing a valuable safeguard against fire. A hose attached to a hydrant will throw a stream through a nozzle an inch and a half in diam- eter to the height of one hundred and twenty-five feet. Two or three of these streams will drown the fiercest fire in a twinkling ; witness the numerous blackened frames about the village too well saved. Not only to these lower uses does this water minister. It feeds the little fountains that sparkle with what Mr. Poe would call " a crystalline delight" along the public ways in the village.
KILBURN-SC
CASCADE IN THE NOTCH BROOK, NORTH ADAMS.
II7 .
SHORTER WALKS.
As you descend the hill by this road, the view is charming. The town shows here to good advantage; the Hoosac Range is grandly outlined on the west- ern horizon, and the meadows above the village, through which the winding path of the little river is marked by the willows, are always delightfully fresh and green.
Colegrove's Hill is north of the village. At the head of Eagle street two roads diverge, both run- ning north. Take the right hand road, and at the end of it follow the path through a pasture, in which a clump of tall pines is standing, to the top of a round hill. The view is the same that you had on the walk to the Natural Bridge, but wider and more complete.
Mount Adams invites the pedestrian to climb its easy slope by various paths in view from the village ; and promises him an abundant reward for his toil.
Church Hill is at the upper end of Main street. It is quickly reached, and the views which it affords of the gorge through which the north branch flows, and of the South Adams valley, are both excellent.
In short, it may be said that while the streets of the village offer few stylish promenades, all men and women who have stout shoes, short skirts and a love of the beautiful may find, by climbing any hill road or mountain path in the region, a prospect that will de- light the eye, an appetite that will make the plainest food delicious, and that unfretted bodily fatigue which brings sweet and refreshing sleep.
I18
FROM THE HUB TO THE HUDSON.
DRIVES.
Now, good traveler, we can offer you an entertain- ment whose variety is almost unbounded and whose delight is perpetual. Perhaps you have heard other New England villages boast of the drives in their neighborhood. Each several town in this Common- wealth, if we may take the testimony of its inhabi- tants, is approached on every side by country roads of the most remarkable beauty ; affording splendid views, and leading through delightful places. Just as all parents believe their children to be the brightest and best of the race, so all New England villagers regard the drives about their several villages as the most beautiful in the world. Eyes that are anointed with love can see beauty in the face of the homeliest child, and discern untold dignity and worth in the dullest human soul ; and there is some excellent oil by which the eyes of men in every place are touched to an ap- preciation of the natural beauty that surrounds them. The added testimony of the villagers is a tribute to the glory of the creation. All these scenes are beautiful. Skies, forests, green meadows, fields of grain, hills and valleys, brooks and lakes and rivers are always beautiful; and they furnish to those who dwell among them, an enjoyment of which they never grow weary.
As for the children, however, you and I, my dear madam, are not surprised that Stubbs and his wife should think for themselves that their baby is beautiful,
119
BABIES AND THE BERKSHIRE HILLS.
but surely they cannot expect us to think so. It is natural for every parent to admire his own children; but it would be absurd for some parents to expect other folks to admire their children. However, there are some children, ours for instance, whom everybody must admire. No one can help acknowledging that they are the handsomest and most intelligent children anywhere to be found. That is too obvious to be ar- gued about. And in like manner, those of us who live in North Adams, do not wonder that the average New England villager admires, in a general way, the scenery of his neighborhood. It is quite commendable in him to do so. And yet, it would be absurd in him to insist that we should go into ecstacies over his frog-ponds and sheep-pastures. But our drives, of course, are quite incomparable. Everybody will say that there is noth- ing like them in Massachusetts. Which, my dear madam, there is not. You have heard of the Berk- shire Hills. These upon which you have been looking in your walks, and to which we shall further introduce you in your drives are the Berkshire Hills. And it is safe to say that until you came to North Adams you had never seen any Berkshire Hills worth mentioning, unless, indeed, you had visited Mount Washington, in the south-eastern corner of the county. People some- times go to Lenox or Stockbridge or Pittsfield, and imagine that they have visited the hills of Berkshire. Now these are all very respectable towns, and quite worth going to see ; but the supposition that one finds the Berkshire Hills within their borders is a very good
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