USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > Pittsfield > The history of Pittsfield (Berkshire County), Massachusetts, from the year 1734 to the year 1800 > Part 4
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Pittsfield has already been described as of moderately uneven surface, and nearly surrounded by mountains, through which, by convenient passes, narrow but rich valleys stretch away to the extremities of the county.
The lakes and streams with which it abounds have as yet been, equally with its central position, the sources of its material pros- perity ; and we shall give them our next attention.
Six lakes or lakelets lie wholly or in part within the town : all of them beautiful, and some of them noted for their graceful out- lines and the delightful combinations which they form with the surrounding mountains. All more or less directly feed streams which furnish motive-power to large manufactories; and four have had their capacities for this purpose artificially increased.
Fanciful legends attach to some of the prettiest; and all have a veritable history of their own.
Pontoosuc, the second in size, lies upon the northern border of Pittsfield, Lanesborough claiming more than half its surface. Previous to its enlargement, which took place in 1867, it was a mile and a quarter long, and at its broadest point three-quarters of a mile wide; covering an area of four hundred and twenty-five acres. It now covers five hundred and seventy-five ; the increase being chiefly in Lanesborough.
Before this change, two little islets dotted its bosom ; and the highway, after passing a noble grove of pines, - the relie of one of the finest forests which ever grew in Berkshire, - and some much admired isolated trees of deciduous growth, skirted close along the graceful windings of the whole eastern shore. The
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view from the southern approach was one to be remembered for its beauty, and was not deficient in grandeur as the eye, glancing across the quiet lake with its twin islets and grove-shaded banks, took in Constitution Hill, -its crown shaven like a monk's, - and then swept on through a vista of twelve miles formed by Prospect, St. Luke's, and Pratt's Hills, Round Rock, and other noble eleva- tions, to that grand background of so many Berkshire views, -
" where look majestic forth From their twin thrones the giants of the north, On the rude shapes, that, crouching at their knees, Stretch their broad shoulders, rough with shaggy trees." - HOLMES.
On the west, some two miles away, lay globe-crested Mount Hon- wee and other Taconic summits, often reflected by the glassy lake in mirror-like perfection, and if it chanced to be of a clear, still day, after the mountain sides had put on their October hues, presenting a spectacle of rare gorgeousness. Pontoosue Lake, as it was, is a pic- ture - nay, a cabinet of pictures-which lives among the choicest memories of thousands. It is, perhaps, not less lovely now ; but all the nearer charms of the landscape are changed, and even the more distant assume a new aspect. Island and pillared grove are gone, submerged by the rising waters; and the traveller passing over the highway, now made to climb the neighboring hill, finds new beanties, but not the same. The landscape. may in time become even more charming than it was of old ; although neither the eye of man nor the dashing of the wavelet can at once accus- tom itself to the new demarcations.
But the Pittsfield lakes, great as have been the changes in their outlines, have been still more unstable in their nomenclature. Thus, the Mohegan name of Pontoosuc was Shoon-keek-moon-keek ; and it was so designated in the deeds which conveyed its shores to their first white occupants. Some settlers from Middlesex County having planted New Framingham, Shoon-keek-moon-keek was, in accordance with the common fate of Indian names, soon lost in Framingham Pond. The plantation developing into the town of Lanesborough : then came Lanesborough Pond; although by the matter-of-fact people of Pittsfield, who always took their bear- ings from their meeting-house, it was often styled the North, as other sheets of water were called East, West, and South Ponds.
But, in 1824, the Pontoosuc Woollen Manufacturing Company
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purchased the water-privilege and adjacent lands at its outlet, upon which they built the mill whose products have since made its name familiar, at least in commercial circles, the country over ; and naturally Shoon-keek-moon-keek received probably its final transformation into Pontoosuc Lake.
One of its appellations has, however, been omitted from the catalogue; it having been for many years in familiar conversation called "Joe Keiler's Farm : " from the anecdote that a wag of that name once bargained it away, and actually made a deed of it, to a New-York citizen, who mistook it, when covered with snow and ice, for a level expanse, and had the good taste to be charmed with the singular and romantic situation of its broad surface among the hills.
Lake Onota, which lies in a pretty upland basin, a little more than a mile west of the Park, is the largest and most beautiful sheet of water in Berkshire; excepting, as regards size, one or two artificial reservoirs. Before its enlargement, which was made in 1864, it was a mile and three-quarters long, and three-quarters of a mile wide; having an area of four hundred and eighty-six acres, which is now increased to six hundred and eighty-three. The elevation of its surface caused great changes in the outlines of its northern and western shores; and destroyed its most marked feature, which was a division of its waters by a causeway into two independent lakes, of which the northern, and much the smaller,1 was formed by a dam thrown across its outlet by those industrious builders of a race now long extinct, in Berkshire, - the beavers. Traces of their workmanship were distinctly visible until they were recently submerged by the labors of engineers as indefatiga- ble and more Titanic than themselves.
On the western shore, the larger pebbles of the beach - some of which, indeed, might aspire to the title of boulders - were thrown up by the action of ice into a wall, which had all the sem- blance of a work of art. Indeed, it was the old-time faith of the neighborhood, that it was built by the Indians as a screen from behind which they might shoot the deer which were accustomed to resort to the lake, - not so much to drink, which they might have done as well at a hundred brooks, as to lie through the heat of the summer days in its cooling waves, with their nostrils, however, necessarily exposed. Certain it is, that this old wall was
1 It had an area of about thirty-four acres.
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used as a covert, not only by the aborigines, but by the deer-slayers among the early white inhabitants.
This curious illustration of the power of floating ice -like the causeway which used to divide the waters -is now hidden when the lake-surface is at its ordinary height; and possibly the same agency which built, may in time remove it to the new line of the shore.
But, great as have been the changes which Onota has undergone, they have affected its curious rather than its picturesque features; and its beauty is increased instead of being impaired. From the hill upon its south-western shore, which was fortified in the old French and Indian wars, a greater number of fine views are afforded than perhaps from any other spot of equal compass in Berkshire; and, of these, the most pleasing are those which em- brace the lake and the mountains, which, beyond it, stretch away to ever-present Greylock.
Richmond Lake, which formerly lay about equally in the town of that name and in Pittsfield, was originally of a nearly circular form, and had an arca of ninety-eight acres. In 1865, it was enlarged to two hundred and fifty, -the greater portion of the addition being in Pittsfield, - and lost that regular spherical figure by which it used to be pleasantly recognized from the moun- tain-tops. Upon the old maps, Richmond Lake is South Pond; and a small body near it, now long since drained, was designated Rathbun's Pond, in reference to Valentine Rathbun, who, about the year 1769, built clothiers' works near it.
Silver is the pretty but not over distinctive name of the pretty lakelet which the traveller over the Western Railroad observes, as, entering the village from the cast, he passes its northern verge. It now covers about sixty acres, having been enlarged in 1843, as one of the reservoirs of the Pittsfield cotton-factory. It was known among the first settlers as Ensign's Pond, from Jacob Ensign, who built the first fulling-mill in Pittsfield, and owned the land along the eastern borders of the lake. In later days, a hat-factory was erected on its northern shore, and it took the name of IIatter's Pond. But the hatters went elsewhere; and the name, having lost its significance, gave place to the present less ugly although not strikingly novel appellation. The secluded lakelet, of some thirty acres extent, about a mile east of Silver Lake, and, like it, connected by a short outlet with the eastern branch of the
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Housatonic, is laid down on Walling's generally very accurate map of Berkshire as "Sylvan Lake," although rarely so called. The meadow in which it lies was, on the earliest plans, named "Unkamet's ;" and the lakelet was perhaps entitled to the same appellation. But it was early known as Goodrich Pond, from one of the most noted settlers, who owned large tracts of land in that vicinity ; and there seems no good reason why the name of the stout old patriot and worthy magistrate should not continue to be preserved in the name of Goodrich Lake.
Last, and among the loveliest of the group, is Melville Lake, of perhaps thirty-five acres, lying east, a little to the north, of South Mountain, - a gem-like, crystal water, hidden among groves interlaced with frequent picturesque paths, that often debouch upon sunny lawns or gravelly beaches. It has for many years been a favorite haunt of some of the most celebrated men in politics and literature, while guests of the broad-halled mansion in whose grounds it is included, and which has been successively the hospitable home of Henry Van Schaack, Elkanah Watson, Thomas and Robert Melville, and J. R. Morewood. The lakelet has borne in turn the names of all these owners; but, on the county map, it appears as Lilly Bowl, an exceedingly descriptive although fanciful designation bestowed by the family of the present proprietor. The name of Melville is, however, surrounded by too many pleasant and honorable associations to be lightly abandoned ; and the people cling to it with a pertinacity which promises to be lasting. Melville Lake it will doubtless continue to be in ordi- nary usage ; while Lilly Bowl may be its pet or poetic title, - a result which is certainly not to be regretted æsthetically.
Melville Lake sends its surplus waters to the Housatonic through Wampenum Brook, a little stream, which, on its passage from above, touches its northern edge.
This brook, rising .in the meadows on the north-west of South Mountain, passes through a little pond of the same name at the foot of the mountain, and crosses the highway a little south of the Housatonic Railroad. It furnishes a small water-power, but is here chiefly noted as a convenient landmark for future reference. It derives its name from Wampenum, who, with Mahtookamin and Cochecomeek, claimed the soil upon which Pittsfield is built, and leased it to Col. John Stoddard. By the terms of the lease, the land would have long since reverted to its red owners and
.
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their heirs; but the revival of a long-dormant interest in the name of these little waters is all they are likely to recover. Let us not begrudge them that.
The forks of the Housatonic River unite in Pittsfield, two miles north of the Lenox line, and a few rods south of the Pittsfield Cot- ton Factory. The eastern, formerly known as the main, branch has already been described, with its chief tributaries, Silver and Goodrich Lakes and Unkamet Brook. In addition to these it receives, from the eastern hills, Barton Brook at Coltsville, and Brattle near Goodrich Lake. The western branch rises in New Ashford, passes through Lanesborough, and enters Pittsfield in Pontoosuc Lake, which is properly an expansion of its waters. Issuing thence, it runs southerly, almost in a direct line, to Pom- eroy's factories, where it turns abruptly to the south-east, and, after the passage of about a mile, joins the main stream. This branch was laid down on some of the old maps as the Pontoosuc River. Three-quarters of a mile north of the Park, it receives the waters of Lake Onota through Onota Brook, a beautiful streamlet which flows through the Pittsfield cemetery. A few rods south of Pom- eroy's factories, it is joined by Shaker Brook ; which rises in several fountains among the Taconics of Richmond and Hancock, and is swollen on its way by the drainage, through a canal, of Richmond Lake, and by the accession of several minor tributaries.
Down each of the Taconic gorges rushes a mountain brook, often of sufficient power to run a saw-mill ; but, in order to give an intelligible delineation of these, it will be necessary to interrupt our tracing of the streams, that we may first fix the locations of the mountains, valleys, and opes, from which they flow.
Mount Honwee is the name given, on the authority of an Indian lease in which it is so called,1 to the large rounded summit, - con- spicuous in the Pittsfield view of the Taconics, - which, lying almost entirely in Hancock, juts into the little oblong notch in the north-west corner of the town boundaries. The word Honwee in the Iroquois tongue signified "men," and, as here used, is perhaps a fragment of the term Ongwe Honwe, -men surpassing all others, - a title which the Iroquois arrogated to themselves, and may have bestowed upon this eminence in token, that as the mountain of the Iroquois surpassed the neighboring hills in magnitude and symmetry, -in compactness as well, -so the nation excelled others
1 Williams Papers.
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in the same qualities. But, whether the name was assigned for this or some other reason, it would be in vain now to speculate. Writers of deeds in the busy times of Old-Hampshire land specu- lation were wont to mutilate names more destructively than by the clean elision of one half a cumbrous compound.
The mountain immediately south of Honwee was christened in this quaint wise : it was a part of the lands bequeathed by the founder of Williams College; and while, during the proceedings necessary to a legal transfer of the property, the title of the trus- tees was inchoate, they bargained with Capt. John Churchill to convey this hill to him, for a stipulated consideration, as soon as their interest in it was perfected. Capt. Churchill, in his turn, made similar agreements with his neighbors as to portions of the tract ; and, the law's delays proving more tedious than had been anticipated, the mountain acquired, among the impatient expect- ants, the name of " The Promised Land;" which it still retains.
Lulu Ope lies between Mount Honwee and The Promised Land, and, with them, forms one of the most inviting regions in Pittsfield for the lovers of pic-nic. Having climbed to the western summit of · The Promised Land, the excursionist finds himself by Berry Pond, in Hancock, a miniature lakelet, noted for the purity of its waters, as well as for its romantic location and the beauty of the surround- ing landscape. It finds its outlet westward ; but, down Lulu Ope, pleasantly shaded wood-roads, opening at intervals upon fine bird's-eye views, follow on either side the course of a streamlet, that through amber pools and over silvery shallows, with musical noises, tumbles down the steep descent, until, near the entrance of the ope, it plunges over a sharp and rocky shelf, in Lulu Cascade, - a foam-white column, which finds its base in a circular pool of black and glossy surface, overhung by a gray old bowlder and by masses of tangled foliage.
Issuing from the ope, the waters chary of their maiden beauty, too suddenly exposed to the ardent sunlight, plunge down a narrow chasm, and wholly disappear for the space of half a mile or more, while they rumble among the loose bowlders, through which they have wrought a passage by washing away the lighter earth.
Seven of the brooks which flow from the Taconic Opes assume a subterranean character at the base of the mountains; and their courses across the fields towards Lake Onota are marked by lines
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of coarse bluish gravel and small bowlders, resembling the beds of summer-dried rivulets.
Next south of The Promised Land is the Ope of Promise; which, after penetrating a little way into the mountain, bends north-westward to the summit, and affords the most direct, although an arduous path to Berry Pond. Then come Arbutus Hill and Ope, so-called from the profusion of that " darling of the forest," the sweet flower of May, with which they are covered in the spring, when their woods are musical with the hum of young voices and the laughter of children. Behind and over- topping them lies "Old Tower Hill," named from its observatory, which commands superb views.
Farther to the south, again, we come to Pine Mountain, famed for the forests of white-pine trees with which the early lumbermen found it covered, and of which they have left considerable relics to their successors. Pine Ope intervenes between this and May Mountain, across whose southern base the New-Lebanon highway runs, through Lilly Ope. These latter names have not quite so flowery derivations as one would naturally infer; the mountain having been christened in honor of one of its proprietors, and the ope for withered Mother Lilly, who used to live far up its recesses, and objurgate the mischievous anglers who disturbed her ancient solitude. But, if oneinclines to romanticism, the Widow Lilly, like most widows and most lilies, "had once been fair."
South of the Lebanon Highway and Lilly Ope, swells the broad elevation known to fox-hunters as Doll Mountain, - derivation not traced. The Shakers, having appropriated a portion of it to their hill-top worship, call it Mount Zion; and "The World's People " often term it Shaker Mountain from the ownership of that peculiar sect. It is a favorite ground for fox-hunters and other sportsmen, and also for hunters of the precious metals ; gold having been found mixed with other minerals in the quartz veins with which this, like most of the Berkshire hills, is seamed.
Beyond and indenting Doll Mountain are several opes, in which most of the branches of the Shaker Brook take their rise.
To resume our tracing of the Taconic brooks : the Daniels rises north of Mount Honwee, and, after receiving the Churchhill, flows into Lake Onota. The same reservoir gets the waters of Parker Brook - which rises in the Ope of Promise, and is joined by the Lulu- and also of the Arbutus. But the Wadham's,
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from Pine Ope, unites with the Lilly, and goes to swell Shaker Brook.
.Of the tributaries to the Housatonic in Pittsfield, after the confluence of its branches, the most considerable is Sackett Brook, which comes in from Washington, having first received the Ashley from Lake Ashley, the fountain of the Pittsfield water-works. The Sackett, once a renowned tront-stream, is altogether ex- hausted by its too great reputation. The Seeley Brook is a branch of the Sackett, falling into it near its junction with the Housatonic ; just below which the latter receives the Cameron, the last to be named of the Pittsfield streams; that next to it southward being the famous Roaring Brook of New Lenox.
The principal fish inhabiting the waters thus described, with perhaps tedious minuteness, are the pickerel, trout, sucker, perch, bullhead, dace, sunfish, and eel. The pickerel are not native to Berkshire, but were introduced from Connecticut. Linus Parker, who is still an inhabitant of the west part, placed the first ever brought to Pittsfield in Lake Onota about the year 1810. A few already swam in Lake Mahecanak; 1 and Pontoosuc received them two or three years later. Before 1829, they had become abundant ; and they have since multiplied so prolifically that they not only afford a rich spoil for the angler, but contribute no mean addition to the resources of the table in an economic point of view.
Trout were formerly extremely abundant. The Housatonic was alive with them.2 As late as the opening years of the present century, an hour's angling along this stream within half a mile of South Street was often rewarded by as many of this dainty fish as the sportsman could comfortably bear home. The stories told of Sackett Brook, although substantiated by the most reliable testimony, are almost incredible. Within thirty years, we are assured, the numbers of its trout were so incalculable that they were estimated by the " barrel-full ;" and one veteran angler thinks he has seen that quantity in a single one of its pools. Another still retains the profile traced with his pencil
1 Stockbridge Bowl.
2 Statements made to the contrary are completely overthrown by the evidence of gentlemen like James Buell and John C. Parker, Esqs., the late Messrs. Samnel A. Allen, E. R. Colt, and others, whose means of knowledge were as ample as their testimony is unimpeachable.
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around a trout caught in Onota Brook, which weighed when caught, some fifty years ago, five pounds and three-quarters ; and, going over the Waltonian reminiscences of half a century, recalls others nearly as magnificent, which answered to his rod at other points.
The voracious and fastidious appetite of the pickerel, which will be content with nothing less delicate than a troutling, has now rendered the still waters untenable, except by those which find protection in their size. And in the rapids, where superior activity and power to resist the current give the trout the advan- tage of their more sluggish enemy, the refuse of the factories has driven them from their old haunts. But even these destructive agencies have been less efficient, than excessive, and not always legitimate, fishing; the laws for the protection of trout having been violated with impunity. Still there are few localities, so thickly settled, where this favorite of the sportsman and the epicure is so abundant as in the mountain brooks near Pittsfield; while, in the lakes and larger streams, specimens weighing from two to three pounds are not rare. The enlargement of the lakes proves yery favorable to the increase of trout and pickerel, both in number and size.
The sucker, highly prized at certain seasons, is at others worth- less for the table, and, being thus protected by nature's game-laws, thrives and multiplies. Others of the fish named as inhabitants of the Berkshire waters are plentiful, but have nothing about them locally peculiar.1
The edible tortoise, common in the lakes, often attains the weight of twenty pounds. One weighing thirty-three pounds after the loss of his head and much blood was, a few years since, caught in Lake Onota with a hook and line aided by a hatchet. It fur- nished twenty pounds of excellent meat.
We have lingered to trace the picturesque and curious features of the lakes and streams which we set out to describe as sources of the material prosperity of Pittsfield (and by these qualities they do contribute in no light measure to its wealth and popula- tion) ; but let us return to a more economie view.
Shaker Brook has a fall of one hundred and forty eight feet from Richmond Lake to the dam at Oceola, the lowest upon it ; Onota
' In 1865, black bass and white fish were placed in Lakes Onota and Pontoosuc, but as yet without perceptible result.
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Brook descends ninety-two feet from the lake to its junction with the Housatonic; the fall of the West Branch of the Housatonic from Pontoosne Lake to Pomeroy's Factories is one hundred and twenty-eight feet : the comparison in each case being between the top of the upper dam and the foot of the lower.
The East Branch of the Housatonic- of which there are no complete measurements - descends about forty feet between its entrance of Pittsfield at Coltsville and its departure from it at New Lenox.
V It was in reference to the streams we have attempted to describe, that Rev. Thos. Allen, in a sketch of Berkshire published in 1810, foretold that Pittsfield, then mainly devoted to agriculture, would become a successful manufacturing town : although there was not so much prophetic inspiration in this forecast as might appear at first sight; for the town had already shown no little enterprise in that direction, having maintained several forges for the manufac- ture of maleable iron from the ore during the Revolution, and hav- ing been early noted for its fulling-mills, to which the spinsters of the neighboring towns resorted with the produce of their looms. In fact also, at the time of Mr. Allen's prophecy, Arthur Schofield was about to set up in Pittsfield the first broad looms ever used in America; being already engaged, as Mr. Allen expresses it, "in forming machines to expedite the labor of spinning," - making the carding-machines, to wit, which preceded the looms by two or three years.
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