HISTORY OF WILLIAMSTOWN, MASSACHUSETTS
From Lanesboro two roads lead toward Williamstown which are rivals in romantic beauty; the old stage-road through New Ashford and lovely valley of South Williamstown was preferred by Samuel Bowles on his annual trip to Commencement at Williams College. New Ashford lies in a picturesque gorge between Saddle Ball and the Taconics at the headwaters of the west branch of the Housatonic. For several miles a deliciously cool stream parallels the road and in the north part of the town is a wild chasm close to the highway, with the ruins of the old saw-mill, a scene for a painter. Baker's Cave is another curious abyss with a cold spring at the bottom. In this fair country one recalls Wordsworth's
"Up! up! my Friend and quit your books; ON TO WILLIAMSTOWN VIA CHESHIRE The other Old Path to Williamstown is far more rugged; it vaults through Cheshire and along the valley of the Hoosac River byway of Adams to North Adams, and passes within view of Fort Massachusetts on the Harrison flats. Cheshire is oddly planted among the unaccountably irregular mountains of the south spur of the Greylock group. President Jefferson's huge Cheshire cheese was created from the curds gathered together from the mountain farms by one of his most ardent admirers, the eccentric and celebrated preacher, Elder Leland, who escorted it to the White House in person. The first Baptist church in Berkshire stood on Stafford's Hill (of glorious views); here built the pioneers of 1766 from Warwick, Coventry, and Newport, R. I. To the southern part of the town came settlers from Swansea, Mass., whose ancestors removed to Old Rehoboth from Wales in 1663. The saunterer through Pork Lane discovers charms which belie its prosaic name. A favorite road to Adams is through the " Pumpkin Hook" neighborhood. From Cheshire a wood-road leads up Greylock. Another road to the summit is from the town of Adams to which Greylock belongs. Adams was founded by the Uptons and other Quakers. Familiar names are Fisk, Anthony, Richmond, and Dean. The town's fine statue of McKinley is a memory of his week's visit here. The first attempt to wrest yellow gold [1] from Greylock was made from Adams, by the historic Bowerman family. The famous Old Notch road will carry you to North Adams. Excursions are in order to every point of the compass from the "Tunnel City"; first to obtain a bird's-eye view, at sunset, of Greylock and the inter-clustered mountains. Then a mile northeast to the Natural Bridge on Hudson Brook with its marble pool (a remarkable pot-hole) described by Hawthorne. Hudson Brook flows into the Mayunsook, or Little Deerfield, a wild highland rivulet, which endows North Adams with a wonderful water-power. North Adams stands at the west door of Hoosac Tunnel by means of which the riches of western fields are carried direct to the Massachusetts seaboard. The Indian's For- bidden Mountain is of such a flinty heart that twenty millions of " very hard cash" was needed to pierce it effectually. An intimate book [2] of the Hoosac Valley, and a delightful companion for a tramp across the pastures of Northwestern Berkshire or by the fireside, is that by Grace Greylock Niles; she knows the secrets of marble-caverns, of sweet paths that will lead you away from the footsteps of man to Aurora's lake, under the rude brow of the Hoosac, still haunt of the pale Pink Moccasin-Flower, the wake-robin, and marsh-thrush; or, let us tramp afield and cross the border into Vermont to search for treasures in Rattlesnake Swamp, Mount CEta. You can drive up Greylock on the highway beneficently accomplished by the Greylock Park Association; but you will prefer to take fisherman's luck through The Notch, Bohemian fashion, scrambling up ragged glens of misty cascades with mural decorations of hemlocks and vine. Is it not better-if one may-to go a-gypsying for a season, cut the wood for the camp-fire to set the pot a-boiling, rest on pine boughs, and watch the sky with a lover's look to know whether it will smile or frown, than to be merely a tame duck; or, as Dr. Van Dyke says, one of " the people who always live in houses, and sleep in beds, and walk on pavements, and buy their food of butchers and bakers. . . . boarders in the world " ? Thoreau attained Greylock's summit and found himself in the dazzling halls of Aurora playing with the rosy fingers of the Dawn, and not a crevice through the clouds from which those trivial places of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Vermont could be seen." Was it not the Mist of our Berkshire Highlands which inspired Thoreau:
"Low-anchored cloud, I had a view of Williamstown from Greylock summit," says Hawthorne, " a white village and a steeple in a gradual hollow with huge mountain swells heaving up like immense subsiding, waves far and wide around it." These mountains by which an ideal New England town is hemmed in, are intimately associated by name with the history and traditions of Williams College. The twin peaks of Mount Hopkins - 2790 feet high - are named for President Mark Hopkins and Professor Albert Hopkins; and Mount Fitch, Mount Griffin, and Mount Chadbourne in honor of three other Presidents of the College. There is a choice of four passes across the Taconics into New York State, the Petersburg, Berlin, Kidder, Johnson Passes. A monument unique is that to the memory of the Haystack, in the shade of which was founded the American Board of Foreign Missions; students' meetings were also held under an ancient willow near the old home of Professor Arthur L. Perry, for years President of the Berkshire Historical Society, and the historian of Williamstown. His son Bliss Perry was called from Williams to Princeton, and to the Editor's Chair of The Atlantic Monthly, and is the successor of James Russell Lowell at Harvard. Although Thanatopsis was written at Cummington following Bryant's seven months at Williams College, tradition associates with Flora's Glen the lines:
“…for his gayer hours In 1818, the Baptist church was organized through the efforts of Dr. William H. Tyler and Governor Briggs," says the Rev. C. J. Palmer in his History of the Town of Lanesborough. [1] Gold-Hunting in Berkshire," a sketch in The Berkshire Hills of June, 1902, edited by Colonel William Phillips. [2] Bog-Trotting for Orchids, G. P. Putnam's Sons.
Old Paths of the New England
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