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TAGHCONIC
THE ROMANCE AND BEAUTY
OE THE HILLS.
BY GODFREY GREYLOCK ^'±dL
" Thou Shalt look
Upon the green and rolling forest tops,
And down into the Focrets of the glens
And streams, that with their bordering thickets strive
To hide xheir windnigs. Thou shalt gaze at once
Here on white villages and tilth and herds,
And swarming roads, and there on solitudes
That only hear the torrent and the wind,
And Eagle's shriek."
Bryant.
BOSTON :
LEE AND SHEPAKD, PUBLISHERS.
NEW YORK : PITTSFIELD:
Charles T. Dillingham. S E. Nichols
1879.
UBRARV
UNiVERSiry OF
MASSACHUSEnS
amherstTmass.
TREASURE R06M
COPYRIGHT
BY
J. E. A. SMITH,
1879.
ALBANY, N. Y.:
J, MUNSELL, PllINTER,
82 State Street.
o<;
EPISTLE DEDICATORY.
^ti Rummer lanidbUr^ m iU "gzxW^xxt %m.
Friends : —
From Vermont upon the north to Connecticut
upon the south, for fifty miles along the eastern
border of New York, extends Berkshire, the most
western county of Massachusetts. It is a region of
hill and valley, of lake and stream, of woodland,
farm and field. Its beauty is world renowned; for
the pens of Cullen Bryant and Catherine Sedgwick
early made it their favorite themes, and in later years
Holmes and Longfellow, Hawthorne, Melville and
Thoreau have invested it with the halo of their
genius. Within its limits lie Monument Mountain,
Icy Glen, the Stockbridge Bowl, Green River, Octo-
ber Mountain and a thousand other scenes of storied
or of unsung loveliness.
Bounding the valley on the north, from innumera-
ble points of view, the double peaks of Greylock
rise majestically three thousand five hundred feet
into the air, the mountain summit of the Common-
wealth. Along its western bordm-s, in curves of
marvelous grace, lie the dome-like hills of the Tagh~
2 EPISTLE DEDICATORY.
conic range. Less graceful in outline, but even
more romantic with broken and precipitous ascents,
wild glens and tumbling brooks, the Hoosacs shut out
the world upon the east. Within this mountain-
walled amphitheatre lies cradled the upland valley
of the Housatonic, with all its fertile farms, its man-
sion homes, and frequent villages. Somebody has
called it the Piedmont of America. I do not know
how just the appellation may be, but I do know that
if Piedmont can rightly be called the Berkshire of
Euroi)e, it must be a very delightful region.
What we most admire in Berkshire scenery is its
freshness, boldness, and variety. Our hills boast no
astounding grandeur; there is nothing about them of
an Alpine character; they possess few scenes which
can properly rank with the sublime. The highest
mountain tops, the most precipitous cliffs — sutHcient
to claim our admiration, wild enough to be the mar-
vel of tourists from the tame coast country — cannot,
for a moment, compare with similar scenes among
the White Mountains, or the Alleghanies — not to
mention more unapproachable wonders of Nature.
Our deepest ravines, often penetrated by smooth,
flower-bordered roads, are very different things
indeed, from the earthquake-rifted chasms of other
lands.
If the traveller seek some object for a day's or a
week's wonder, some tremendous cataract or " Heaven
piercing Cordillera," he must seek it elsewhere. But
if he asks for a retreat among wild and picturesque
Bcenery, adorned by much that is pleasant and re-
EPISTLE DEDICATORY. 3
fined in his city life, but far removed from its heat
and turmoil; where he can draw closer the silken
cord of social intercourse, and yet throw loose some
of its galling chains; where nature ennobles by her
greatness but never chills with a frown, he may find
it all amid the varied beauty of the Berkshire Hills.
The inexhaustible variety of our vistas is wonder-
ful. It is marvellous in what an endless series of
combinations, mountain, valley, lake, stream, rock,
field and wood, present themselves. Wherever you
go, you meet a constant succession of changes which
at once charm the eye and delight the heart. At
every turn
"You stand suddenly astonished,
You are gladdened unaware."
Through the long summer months you may daily
seek, and not in vain, some new object of beauty or
of romantic interest. But it may chance that you
will not. It often happens that a few spots become
so dear that one revisits them again and again, leav-
ing others of equal or surpassing charms for tliose to
whom they have become like a familiar friend.
So profusely indeed ha^ nature scattered her
wealth of beauty in this fair county that, to many,
it seems a useless labor to search out her more choice
and hidden gems; and they remain concealed from
those who pass their lives within a rifle-shot of
them.
The traditions, too, which used to attach to most
of these scenes are rapidly fading with the fading
years of grey-haired men. " Yes, there was a story "
4 EPISTLE DEDICATORY.
I have been often told, " Old Deacon Whitehead or
old Captain Grey used to tell it; but they are dead
and my memory of it is dim." *******
And now to you, whom I have presumed to call
my friends, and for whom these brief pages were
more particularly designed, I commend for your
kindness what is done. Every word was written in
sympathy with your admiration of these glorious
hills; a sympathy which seemed to ripen into per-
sonal friendship with yourselves. If I shall point
any of you to scenes of Nature's gladness, to which
you would otherwise have been strangers ; if I shall
contribute one moment of happiness to your summer
hours; if I shall hereafter recall more vividly to your
mind tliese rural scenes, when they shall be a little
faded, I shall be amply repaid; how much more, if I
shall add one pleasant thought to mingle with your
own, as you gaze upon the grand, the noble, or the
beautiful, in our dear mountain valley.
Old Feiends : —
Many years ago, in words like the above I ad-
dressed to you a little volume, which, somewhat
changed in form, but • not one whit in sentiment, I
now offer to you again. If the words I then wrote
were warm with the glow of first love, they seem
tame to express the affection which, in the inter-
course of years, has been inspired by each fair scene,
each now familiar mountain peak; so many of them
now inseparably associated with pleasant or tender
memories.
Do vou remember — it was but yesterday — stand-
EPISTLE DEDICATORY. 6
ing on the beetling cliff's of Monument Mountain;
clambering through the rock-cumbered recesses of the
Icy Glen; lingering in pleasant Mahaiwe, blest of
nature and of art; watching the moon and the sun-
rise on the shaggy shoulders of Greylock; wading
and stumbling through the rushing brook up the
marble ravine that leads to the Natural Bridge;
dazed by the superb over-view from Perry's Peak;
climbing the cliff wood recesses of South Mountain;
letting the long summer days melt deliciously away,
with discourse of books and nature, on the leafy sum-
mits of Osceola and Yocun's Seat; in storm on
Otaneaque, in sunshine on Constitution Hill; floating
half sadly on Lake Onota or the Stockbridge Bowl;
in merry masquerade on Pontoosuc or the Lily Bowl;
Hstening to the lonely dash of Wahcoiiaii's Falls, or
the mirth-mingled murmurs of Lulu Cascade ; watch-
ing the summer-flash of life and fashion into the
romantic solitude of Lebanon; puzzling over the
potent charms of Lenox, loved of the literati;
rapt in the noble memories of old Stockbridge on the
Plain, and the no less noble memories of Poontoosuc,
home of patriots; lingering in many a nameless nook
or shaded woodroad, to be, perhaps, thenceforward
dearer than all ? You cannot have- forgotten all
this, for you know it was but a little, a very little
while ago when it all happened.
And of tale and tradition; how have they on
every hand answered to our seeking, and clothed
every scene anew, Avith old life. To be sure, I have
not deemed it necessary to severely criticise every
6 EPISTLE DEDICATORY.
tradition that has been preserved. Enough that it
accorded with the spirit and the customs of the day
of which it was related, and did not knock its brains
out against some hard and ugly fact. Nay, I will
even make a more startling confession. When in
some dry old documentary history, or original docu-
ment yellowed by age, I have found a glimpse of
real life and real story, I have not been ashamed to
call in the spirit of any old fellow, whom I supposed
cognizant of the facts, to help me fill out the chroni-
cle. Living for years half buried in accounts of
these departed heroes and among the papers which
they Wrote — all the while striving with all my might
to do justice to their memories — I should have
thought it hard indeed if they could not now and then
tell me a little story at midnight, when other spirits,
bestow their time so freely upon those who have no
claim at all upon them. My old heroes were not so
ungrateful. It does not seem best, however, to quote
these spiritual authorities in foot notes, as e. g.
interview with Capt. Konkapot and Wampenuin.
'^ Spirits of Captains Aupaumut and Solomon.
^Tliiis Coochecomeek, but Mahtookamin seems to think
otherwise ; however, M. did not seem perfectly en rapport.
I am afraid this sort of thing would not do at all
for the Methuselah Society for the Perversion of
History. Nevertheless the testimony of eye-wit-
nesses of, or actors in, scenes which took place,
over two hundred years ago, is very satisfactory to
right-minded people; and if they are willing to leave
their happy hunting grounds or other places of com-
EPISTLE DEDICATORY. 7
fortable spiritual abode and pleasure, to tell old tales
of their old home, I for one am grateful. If you
think otherwise, we will not quarrel about it: you
shall have the stories all the same, just as the dusky
shades of the heroes already quoted, and also Unka-
met, Honasada, Wanaubaugus and the gentle Wah-
conah, told them to me.
But, from whatever sources I may di*aw the inci-
dents and legends associated with the scenery of
Berkshire, I shall endeavor that none are inconsis-
tent with the most accurate history; that nothing
shall be told, but which at least " might have been."
And I trust that none of my readers will be so
dull as not to be able to detect what is literally
true and what partakes of the infirmities of tradi-
tion. In the description of scenery my aim will be
in all cases, without affecting any Pre-Raphaelite
precision, to paint a faithful likeness. If I err it
will not be in the intention.
I said that I address these little sketches to those
to whom they were first dedicated; but, with the
words, comes the thought that, of those favoring eyes
to which I should have looked for the kindliest judg-
ment, many have closed forever on the scenes of
earth; that there are some spots, once the most
joyous, which if we visit them for the purposes of
mirth, seem strangely changed:
" Happy places have grown holy ;
If we went where once we ^went,
Only tears would fall down slowly,
As at solemn sacrament."
8 EPISTLE DEDICATOET.
And yet we know that those whom we miss
would have grieved sorely had they believed that
their departure would leave ^ shadow, their memory
could not brighten, upon the scenes that we enjoyed
together. For us who remain, it would have been
their wish that that memory should shed upon each
spot with which it is associated, a purer and holier,
but not less gladsome, light. To the living who
have lingered with me in loving admiration among
the hills of our dear old Berkshire, and to the memo-
ries of our dead, I then dedicate these pages.
We are most of us, still far from having lived out
the life which it is appointed for man to live; still
farther perhaps from having thoroughly earned the
grave which we would not willingly owe to the charity
of a soil to which we have given less than we have
received from it. And upon him whose duty it
is to live and strive, rests equally the obligation to
enjoy; for he who works sadly, works at ill advantage;
nor without enjoyment can there be any genuine and
heartfelt gratitude for the gifts of the Creator — of
which none speak more directly of Him than these
grand mountains, these noble hills, these fair and
fruitful valleys; among which let us hope that our
rambles are not yet ended.
Godfrey Greylock,
PiTTSFiELD, June 1st, 1879.
TAGHCONIG.
I.
OUR TOWN.
** Mine, and mine I loved, and mine I prized.
And mine iliat I was proud on : mine so much
That I was to myself not mine."
To be sure, the first claim which our town has
to notice is that it is ours. The propria affords
a paramount and never-to-be-disputed title to our
affections. That, all clear-sighted persons admit*
The very idea of property is genial to our hearts,
even if it be only in the travelled streets of a town,
with so much of Heaven's universal gifts as one can
there possess, use and enjoy, in common with some
thousands of copartners. Says Thoreau, with philoso-
phic acumen — and Southey has the same idea, some-
what enlarged, in " The Doctor " — "I think nothing
is to be hoped from you, if this bit of mold under
your feet is not sweeter for you to eat than any
other 11 this world — or any other world." " Mine '*
and more intensely " mine own," are terms of super-
lative endearment in the patois of the novel writers.
10 ^ TAGHCONIC.
So inherent indeed in the human heart, is this cor-
respondence between ownership and affection, that
no sooner do we conceive a liking for our neighbor's
house, horse, or, anything that is his, than an uneasy,
feverish desire to transfer the possession betrays that
our hearts are out of unison with the harmony of
nature.
Nowhere is this natural law of relationship more
religiously honored than in the love which the good
people of Pittsfield bear to their beautiful town.
But, waiving this claim, which is in its terms not
binding upon a stranger, our town has a title to
affectionate admiration, Avhich not the most crabbed
traveller ever yet desired to impeach.
It is indeed a fair town; and, standing in the cen-
ter of that magnificent panorama of hills which en-
compasses the county of Berkshire, it is embosomed
in beauty — in beauty, whose excess and overwhelm-
ing profusion, in some of its broader and more compre-
hensive presentations, often raise it to the level of the
sublime. Branching from its central elm-shaded
green, delightful avenues invite into the most pictur-
esque regions. Through long vistas of elms, lindens
and maples, you look longingly away to tree-flecked
and grove-checkered hillsides, dappled also, it may be,
with passing cloud-shadows; to wooded mountain
tops, the nearer brightly green, the more distant some-
times dimly, sometimes darkly, blue, as the fickle
powers of the air may ordain. Over valleys lying
in goldenest sunshine, you look away to glens deepen-
ing into mysterious gloom, and — yet beyond — to
OUR TOWN. 11
pastures, stretched at intervals along the topmost
heights, upon whose bright verdure the sunlight
lingers longest. Enchanted land, you will think
those Hoosac pastures, when, after a summer shower,
the rays of the setting sun suddenly burst upon
them, while they are overhung by such a rainbow as
is possible only among the mountains; its glorious
arch, gemlike in the living depths of its color, resting
upon pillars of -shadowy splendor which find their
bases among the foundations of the everlasting hills.
Regions these, one would say, in which much of
man's and much of nature's story must lie hid.
Very enticing regions they are in truth; the whole
broad landscape one grand volume of song and
legend, bound in the most gorgeous green and gold.
But, before we permit it to lure us away, I have a
story or two to tell, which must be told right here,
under this little cluster of elms; and nowhere else.
u.
STORIES OF A TREE, AND OF ITS PRE-
SERVERS.
" Wise with the lore of centuries.
What tales, if there were tongues in trees.
That giant Elm could tell 1 "
You must have heard of the old Ehn of Pitts-
field Park. It has its place of fame among The Trees
of America; and has had this many a year. It is
not long since it rose here, among the young green
growth, the scarred and seared veteran of centuries.
Straight into the air it sprang, one hundred and
twenty-six feet; a tall grey pillar, bearing for sole
capital a few green branches, and a few withered,
shattered and bare limbs. From Greylock to Monu-
ment Mountain there was no inanimate thing so
revered and venerable. Nor had it grown thus with-
out a story, and one with which the stories of other,
and human, lives were closely entwined.
When it stood, a graceful sapling, in the forest,
wherein as yet no white man had his habitation, the
spot which is now our peaceful green, with a little
neighboring territory, was an upland wood sur--
'•ounded, except for a narrow space upon the north,
STORIES OF A TREE. 13
by impenetrable swamps: a most defensible camping
ground; such as the red engineers knew well how to
select.
And here the St. Francois war parties, returning
from their merciless raids into the valley of the
Connecticut, were wont to bivouac, binding their
way-worn and woe-worn captives to the lithe but
firm-set young trees. Many a sorrowful sight must
have been witnessed by that lone oasis among the
hemlock thickets, but one tradition only speaks of
individual suffering and adventure.
Peril the First.
Once — as this half forgotten old story goes —
there came, among a group of captives, the daugh-
ter of one of those God-fearing pastors who, rather
than bow the knee to Baal and Archbishop Laud,
forsook their quiet and comfortable livings in Old
England to become the living springs of the New
England churches. Fair with the light of " Sunny
Devon by the sea," and graced by culture imbreathed
with the odor of honeysuckles and roses in the old
moss-covered rectory, Isabel Walton carried sun-
shine, melody and joy into the bare log cabin pre-
pared by the puritanic settlers for her widowed
father, in their narrow forest clearing.
But, one murderous night, torn from the dead
body of that father, and spared by the caprice oi
avarice of the savages, she was brought thus far on
her way to Canada. Here, broken with grief and
fatigue, she was doomed to death, as an encum-
14 TAGHOONIC.
brance to their march, and to death by fire. She
was ah-eady bound to the sapling Elm, and the
faggots piled about her feet, when, happily, the party
was joined by a small detachment of French sol-
diers under the command of a young lieutenant.
Touched by the maidenly modesty, as well as by
the brave and almost saintly bearing, of the victim,
this officer interposed so vehemently that, partly by
threats and partly by pledges of ransom, she was
rescued; and with her the young Elm escaped its
first peril at the hand of man. Supported with ten-
der care and reverent regard by her manly preserver,
Isabel reached Montreal in safety. And the garru-
lous old tradition, after the absurd manner of such
ancient chronicles, thinks it necessary to add that
weak, captive, and bereaved, as she was, she did not
find the long march altogether without its consola-
tions, or indeed at all tedious. I preserve this ad-
dendum solely for the benefit of elderly philosophers
in search of psychological data. I am quite sure, at
least, it will not be needed by any of my fair readers
who ever passed an October day in Berkshire woods,
rustling through the crisp carpet of many colored
leaves, tumbling over criss-crossed and tangled roots,
lunching sociably in sunny glades, climbing paths
so arduous that the liberal support of strong arms
was not to be dispensed with; and withal perform-
ing feats which would have made their teacher of
calisthenics open her pretty eyes very wide.
And now I must tell you of one thing which I
fear some of you will not so well like. But, ah me !
STORIES OF A TREE. 15
in any veracious narrative unpleasant facts will out.
Naturally there came a time in their wooing when
Pierre and Isabel spoke together of their difference
in religious faith. This was certainly after their
betrothal, but I think the weight of evidence indi-
cates that it was before their marriage; which the
records of the cathedral church fix with great pre-
cision at just one year after their arrival at Montreal.
The anniversary is a holiday with their descendants
even yet. But, whatever may have been the pre-
cise time when the lovers ventured upon this deli-
cate topic, it was not until Isabel had become so
accustomed to yield to the persuasive tones of her
preserver and guardian, that the protestant pastor's
daughter forsook the faith for which her father
suffered — for which she, as well, was ready to
suffer — and adopted that in whose communion she
could walk with her husband. Mightier than Laud's
power of prelacy, or fiercest Torquemada persecu-
tions, are the soft persuasions of love. I beseech
you not to think too unf orgivingly of the young bride
for this love-led back-sliding of hers. Rather than so,
I coujd wish you to disbelieve the story outright;
although that, besides being painful to my own feel-
ings, would be deemed impolite by the whole long
descended Lanaudiniere family of Montreal, whs
would consider it little that their great-great-great
grandfather — be the degree of his grandf athership
more or less — had rescued their grandmother in
like degree, from the flames of savage torture, had
he not also saved her from more enduring torments,
16 TAGHCONIC.
Should you visit them — these ancient Lanaudi-
nieres — in their ancient Montreal home, they will
show you, in a richly gilt frame, still more richly
adorned with the precious tarnish of two hundred
honorable years, the portrait of a young woman with
very blue eyes very widely expanded; with very
yellow hair, and plump cheeks, in which very red
roses meet the very white, but very, very decidedly
refuse to mingle. A silver crucifix, or it may be of
ivory — envious time has here blurred the coloring a
little — rests upon a very full and a very fully dis-
played bosom; while the faint suspicion of a halo,
half retiring into the obscure back-ground, as if
doubtful of its right to be there, hovers above the
yellow hair.
You will ffuess this remarkable picture to be
enlarged from a saintly feminine figure in the old
family missal; the "specimen piece" perhaps, of
some accomplished Lanaudiniere damsel of an elder
generation ; or possibly, a study by some artistic cadet
of the house, turned monk. Lacking the corrective
contemplation of living models, the imagination of
the cloistered artists, in their lonely cells, was wont
to play strange freaks with saintly personages of the
gentler sex; not excepting her lovely majesty, the
Queen of Heaven, herself.
But your guesses will be all wrong; as my friends,
the Lanaudinieres, will tell you, as politely as the cir-
cumstances will admit. And they will add, with
half offended pride, that this is the portrait of grand-
mother Isabel : a o-if t to orrandf ather Pierre from a
STORIES OF A TREE. 17
renowned Jesuit missionary, who painted it with his
own pious hand, that the world might not lose the
memory of the miracle of a New England Puritan
converted to the old faith. Many a year of patient
and fruitless labor among hundreds of that stiff
necked race, " captivated " and brought to Canada,
had taught the good father what a miracle that was.
He believed that it was, and would be, unique. But
you must remember that he was a celibate.
This preposterous painting is prized beyond mea-
sure by the present generation of Lanaudinieres,
although, in their hearts, they know as well as I do,
that it is not in the least like gentle grandma Isabel;
save perhaps in the modest halo, which may indeed
have glimmered above her golden hair, if saintly
heads are ever crowned with such manifestations of
Divine favor.
The neighbors of the owners of this portrait — the
Protestant neighbors I mean — maliciously aver that
the last genuine likeness of their ancestress departed
from the Dominion of Canada, when, after a cere-
mony that was not performed cathedral-wise, another
Isabel Lanaudinere sailed away, the bride of a young
lieutenant-commander in Her Britannic Majesty's
Sloop of War, The Whirligig — The Whirligig of
Time, the Protestant wits of Montreal called it. It
will be considerate in you when visiting these really
excellent, but rather over-sensitive, people, to avoid
all allusion to Her Majesty's naval service. I trust
to your discretion, also not to repeat, what I mention
in the strictest confidence, that their much prized
Jesuitical portrait is but a sad caricature of features
18 TAGHCONIC.
even too delicate for perfect beauty; of eyes as
guiltless of a stare as the violet's; of cheeks which,
never round or rosy, paled more and more to her
young dying day.
Alas, not all the endearments of husband and
children, not the fond affection of new friends, nor
the charms of a new home, could altogether banish
the memory of what had been in Old, and New,
England.
Meanwhile, troubled by no memories, the young
Elm grew and flourished. Memory never troubles
things of growth and living verdure. If it should
seem to you that any of the woodland scenes to
which I am leading you back, are " sicklied o'er" by
any " melancholy cast" of that kind, be assured it is
but a sickly fancy of your own. Take boldly with
you those to whom you have loved to forecast their
charms. They shall tell you, the hills of Taghconic
are as green, the sheen of their lakes as sunny, the
echoes of their valleys as joyous, as even you can
have portrayed them. The woods remember little
of last year's wild flowers — nothing at all of those
which perished long ago. It is the stern old rock,
wrinkled by the convulsions, hardened by the fires,
and furrowed by the storms of infinite cycles, which
forgets not the most gossamer-like veining of the
slender fern which, in his far off youth, lay upon
his bosom and faded there.
But, unmindful even of the buried leaves which
nourished its young life, the Elm, quivering with
new joy in the new verdure of each new year, grew
in beauty and in stature.
STOKIES OF A TREE. 19
" How Straight it grows ! " said the Mohegan
maiden.
" Straight as an arrow ! " echoed the young war-
rior, himself almost as arrow-like.
Peril the Second.
But not the young Elm only, grew and exulted in
the strength of its youth. The young common-
wealth — the Province of Massachusetts Bay — also
grew apace. And, by and by, some century and a
quarter ago, the white man got himself sufficiently
established in the Indian's Poontoosuck, to think of
clearing the highways, which, many tumultuous
years before, had been laid out very broad and
straight; as the Great and General Court at Boston
prescribed.
Here was indeed danger for our Elm. On this much
tyrannized globe, there is not another despot so ob-
durate to every appeal for justice or mercy, as that
enemy of the vested rights of nature in her own
loveliness — the old-fashioned New England high-
way surveyor: of whom too many yet remain, to
cumber the earth, and scrunch out her delicate graces
with their hobnailed heels. Witness a thousand
turf -robbed, shade-bereft waysides, whose dust this
torrid summer shall rise up in judgment against
these ruthless ravagers of their comeliness — these
soulless deformers of the lawn-like knolls, which
nature, with all her marvelous forces, had toiled for
a myriad years to round into perfect grace.
Remorseless rascals, they were, for the most part,
80 TAGHCONIC.
those old tyrants whose resistless scepter was that
hideous relic of barbarism, the ox-goad: and totheJf
most legitimate rule, our dear young Elm was as
clearly subject as ever hapless ward to heartless
Suzerain. Something savoring of the miraculous
was needed to save it alive; and something very like
a miracle happened.
He to whom that cruel, proding scepter was first
confided in the young plantation of Poontoosuc —
so they called then, what is Pittsfield now — was a
stout farmer from Wethersfield in Connecticut, who
had become lord of some thousands of acres scattered
here and there among the green hills. Tradition has
preserved a world of racy and romantic stories about
him, which we must not now stay for. In the
Indian wars then just ended, he had been a stout
soldier; and, afterwards, when the time for that
came, he was as stout a patriot; bold alike to resist
the encroachments of kingly power and the crude
license of a newly enfranchised people. Honor,
always, to his memory for these things; but, here
and now, chiefly that, one summer day — doubtless
one of those perfect June days, which still come in
Berkshire, bringing all that is best in a man to the
surface — with that sweet summer day softening the
harshness of his rude work, he saw reverently, what
in those forest-hating years, it required a rare eye to
see, even with the aid of the most heavenly light,
that God had made this tree passing fair; a thing co
be loved and honored of many generations, and not
to be rooted up like a pestilent weed.
STORIES OF A TREE. 21
Shall we praise such a man as this under a pseu-
donjon ? Leave him a mere backwoods tiominis
umbra — an unsubstantial ghost of a name; to
wander, as dimly remembered, in the dim shades of
forgotten forests ? I trow, not we ! Honor then to
the name of Captain Charles Goodrich !
As was fitting, he had honor; had it for many a
year after that genial June day when he saved the
Elm alive; until, well nigh a century old, he died,
and was borne under its shadow to his neighboring
grave. But long before that, the tree had met its
Peril the Third.
From which, to use the pious phraseology of that
day. Providence again raised up for it a worthy pre-
server.
In that grand year, 1775, the most soul-stirring in
all Massachusetts story, a gallant and spirited youth
was enrolled, among the students of Harvard college,
as John Chandler Williams; a name indicating his
kinship with two families of considerable standing
in the scale of the Provincial gentry. Any quiet
study was at that time sadly unattainable in the
classic shades on the banks of the Charles; but the
young gentlemen were not, on that account, neces-
sarily idle. In fact, several of them were notably
busy, one well remembered April day; having found
occupation with some, thenceforward world-re-
nowned, farmers.
Young Williams was among them; and must in
some way have distinguished himself; for, not many
22 TAGHCONIC.
days after, he was summoned to the Provincial
Congress, then in session at Cambridge; by whom
he was as speedily dispatched, with a single com-
panion, upon a secret and delicate mission; every
friend of the liberties of the Province being officially
enjoined to help him on. This mission was no less
than to secure the correspondence of Governor
Hutchinson with the enemies of those liberties on
both, sides the Atlantic.
These important documents, having been left with
singular carelesness in Hutchinson's country-house at
Milton Hill, it required only a rapid and secret
movement to secure them; and they revealed all His
Excellency's secrets, about which the congressmen
had so lively a curiosity.
The congressmen were delighted; thanked their
messenger warmly; voted him the liberal and precise
sum of £4. 4s. Qd.; and then probably thought no
more of him. But he, poor fellow, had brought to
light other, and more, revelations than he looked for ;
as you shall see.
Student- wise, John Chandler loved his cousin; a
fair and stately cousin, who was daughter to a
grand and stately old father. Now this father —
Colonel Israel Williams of Hatfield, once a famous
commander of the Indian-fighting militia on the
Western Border, and afterwards Chief Justice of the
Common Pleas for the old county of Hampshire —
had, before the open rupture with the King's Go-
vernor, and indeed afterwards, been one of the few
friends of Parliament in the General Court. None
STORIES OF A TEEE. 23
of the acts of government which had surrounded
him with a population of enraged and rebellious
Whigs, had served to shake his own loyalty to the
British crown; so that, in the year previous to his
kinsman's exploit at Milton Hill, Governor Gage ap-
pointed him one of his thirty-six councillors. Man-
damus councillors, they were called, being created
by the Royal writ, and not elected by the Represent-
atives of the people, as was the old charter privilege.
Thus, nothing was more hateful to the patriots than
a Mandamus councillor. Resolved that their vene-
rable judge should not become this odious thing,
they — as a mild form of persuasion — shut him up in
a small school house, closed the windows, built a
huge pitch-pine fire in the ftmple fire-place, and then
blocked the chimney -top. The judge, although a
brave, and withal an obstinate man, succumbed —
as who would not ? — and signed a renunciation of his
ofiice, with whatever other pledges his tormentors
saw fit to dictate.
There were a good many hesitating persons made
excellent Whigs by processes like this. But Judge
Williams was not a hesitating person; and, having
settled it in his judicial mind that pledges made
under duress were not binding, he, like a prudent
judge, reserved his decision, and went on his way,
but covertly, the same old servant of King George.
Trumbull has commemorated his pertinacity in his
queer old Hudibrastic, " McFingal," where he makes
that hero taunt his persecutors with the futility of
theu- methods:
24 TAGHCONIC.
" Have you made Murray look less big.
Or smoked old Williams to a Whig ?
Did our mobb'd Oliver quit bis station,
Or heed his vows of resignation ?"
Hutchinson's unfortunate letter-book rendered
Judge Williams's prudence of no avail, and made it
apparent that he had furnished the royal governor
with the most dangerous information, and, still
worse, had urged the severest measures against the
unruly provincials.
The Whigs can hardly be blamed that, upon this
discovery, they threw him — even him, one of the
" River gods" of the Connecticut — into Northamp-
ton jail. It is what follows, that shows us how even
zealous patriots, and possibly, although that is not
fully established, gallant soldiers, may come short
of being in the least chivalric gentlemen, or even
passable Christians. The jails of a century ago
were miserable places at the best: not at all like the
comfortable structures in which modern criminals
recruit their exhausted energies, and take lessons of
infinite value in their after-rascal-life. The most
favored prisoner could not congratulate himself on a
prolonged residence in the Northampton jail of 1775 ;
and Judge Williams was not a favored prisoner.
We might forgive that, too, remembering the fate
which he had contemplated as .fitting for his jailors.
In our distant, latter-day view, it would no doubt
have been well had his venerable years and many
services to his people softened resentment a little;
nay, even turned aside a little the severity which the
STORIES OF A TREE. 25
safety of the country seemed to require against those
whose loyalty was not towards her. But we will
not complain that the rigors which he would have
visited upon others, recoiled upon his own head.
The something which will not be forgiven while the
story lives, lies beyond that also.
His fair and stately daughter, for all her beauty
and all her stateliness, was as loyal to her father as
he to his king. Proud, brilliant, and with a wit
which could be grandly used in wrath when the oc-
casion demanded wrath, towards him she was gently
and devotedly affectionate as only a strong warm-
hearted woman can be. With her Roman name —
have I said that she was called, Lucretia ? — she had
some noble qualities of the Roman dames.
Daily, after the incarceration of her father, this
noble and beautiful girl visited him in prison and
ministered to his wants. And daily, as she passed
to and from his place of confinement, she was sub-
jected to taunts, and insulting threats against him
she loved so well, from the baser fellows who, either
in official positions or as loiterers, hung about the
jail. The favorite councillor of the renegade Gov-
ernor Hutchinson, and the chief Tory of Western
Massachusetts, could not have looked for extraordi-
nary leniency from the exasperated partizans who
held him in their power; but ^Northampton was the
home of Hawley and other of the more high-bred
and courtly leaders of the people, who could hardly
have known and sanctioned the unmanly treatment
to which those who had such claims upon their
8
2G TAGH CONIC.
courtesy as the Tory chief aaid his daughter, were
subjected. I believe that, after awhile, they did
interfere. The judge was liberated; and, under the
surveillance of some local Revolutionary committee,
was permitted to live, with such comfort as in that
way he could, until the close of the war; and after-
wards, for some years, in peace and freedom.
In the western counties it was too much the cus-
tom to leave the "handling of the Tories," — as
proceedings against the loyalists were quaintly
called, to violent partisans, who, well knowing that
the powers above would never finally consent to ex-
treme punishments, were accustomed to provide for
their prisoners a little purgatory, by placing them in
the custody of coarse and vindictive jailers, who
were glad to undertake the ungracious task in order
to gratify some ancient pique — as often of a private
as of a public origin. It was not alone in Revolu-
tionary France that, under the cloak of patriotic
zeal, vulgar envy sought, in its coarse way, to humi-
liate those who had been its social superiors, and low
crime to avenge itself of its high-born judges.
What was the exact nature of the insults heaped
upon the proud Judge Williams and his prouder
daughter in Northampton jail, we can only con-
jecture. Whatever was their character, the latter
curbed her resentment for the time, for her father's
safety, but it never ceased to rankle in her heart.
To her the name of Whig was always hateful; the
glorious Revolution was always the " Rebellion," and
the theme of her bitterest wit; and, to her life's end,
STORIES OF A TREE. 27
she proclaimed herself the loyal subject of whatever
"Sacred Majesty " filled the throne of Great Britain.
How, in this temper, she arranged matters with
the lover kinsman who had so large a share in
bringing about her family misfortunes, the parties
interested discreetly kept to themselves : as I had oc-
casion to remark, a few pages back, love has his own
way out of all perplexities. But we hear of no more
patriotic exploits recklessly performed by the young
John Chandler, who went sedately back to college;
graduated with high honors in 1778; studied law with
the Honorable, and very conservative — John Worth-
ington at Springfield; and, in 'due time — himself
became a conservative counsellor, and Federal poli-
tician at Pittsfield. — And yet the spirit which led
him to Lexington and Milton Hill was not quenched;
years afterwards, among his fellows of the bar, he
was still " Mad Chandler, the Wild."
The offended, but tender-hearted, Lucretia, of all
the world, understood perfectly the nature of the
change which had come over the young man; and
she must have considered it as meeting her at least
half way. At any rate, they commenced married
life, about the year 1783, in the fine old gambrel
roofed mansion — then fresh from the hands of the
carpenters — which you still see among the Elms,
across the park; still in all its pristine dignity. And
there they lived, happy and prosperous; there died
honored and lamented by all around them, notwith-
standing the lady's political idiosyncj-asy.
If you ask, " what has all this to do with the perils
of The Old Elm ? " I answer, " Much every way."
28 TAGHCONIC.
You will infer with me that such a woman as
Lucretia Williams would love bravely where she
loved warmly, even though the object of her affec-
tions were but a rock or a tree. She was indeed a
true lover o£ the beautiful in nature ; and its un-
daunted defender, as well, against all the evil fashions
of her day. To her we owe yonder cathedral-like
colonnade of elms, with whose long succession of
gothic arches she surrounded her home; first reso-
lutely levelling the poplar grenadiers, whose stiff
plumes, being of the latest importation, were a-la-
mode for all courtly court-yards. Perhaps they re-
minded her unpleasantly of militia sentinels pacing
around Northampton jail.
For seven long years, however, she consoled her-
self, for looking through these objectionable bundles
of lank twigs, by the luxuriant foliage and graceful
form of the fair elm on the green beyond. She had
learned to love it well; and the better after Captain
Goodrich — a frequent and congenial visitor at the
conservative Williams fireside — had told her some-
thing of its story. Then, in the seventh year — or,
to be precise, Anno Domini, lYQO — came the Elm's
Third Peril.
The town had hitherto worshiped in a little brown
meeting house, rich in grand memories, but poor as
it well could be in every other respect. Now they
resolved to build anew, in splendor commensurate
with their increased wealth and larger figure in the
world's eye. A famous Boston architect — one
Colonel Bulfinch — furnished a most ornate design
STORIES OF A TEEE. - 29
evidently suggested by Faneuil Hall, but intended
to eclipse that renowned edifice: and, after the man-
ner of his craft, sent a superbly colored representa-
tion of it, with a profusion of scrolls, brackets,
pillars, arches and what not, which at the sugges-
tion of Dame Prudence were largely omitted in' the
completed structure.
When this astonishing " design " was handed
around among the congregation at the next Sabbath
nooning, the admiration was so intense that there
was danger lest, as in some modern instances, the new
building would become a House of Worship in an
equivocal sense. But the immediate, the " imminent
deadly," peril was to the Elm. There was then
around it neither park nor public square — nothing
but a little grass plot, kept from the public travel
in the broad street by immemorial custom. On the
outer edge of this green, and well into the legal
highway, by the grace of God inspiring Captain
Goodrich, the Elm still kept its place, with the little
old meeting-house almost, or quite, under the shade
of its spreading branches. It was intended to place
the new building upon the site of the old; but, with
the excitement created by its architectural promise,
came a desire for a more conspicuous location.
A large share of the more resplendent glories of
the proposed edifice were concentrated in the tower
and belfry; and these, it was discovered, would de-
light a majority of the citizens when on their way
to church or market, if only they were thrust a few
feet into the highway. True, this would mar the
80 TAGHCONIC.
fair proportions prescribed for the street by the
esthetic old legislators at Boston, and, what at this
distance seems quite as bad, would involve the de-
struction of the Elm. But, then, incontestibly, the
street would still be wide enough for all the purposes
of travel; and were there not innumerable elms in
the near forest ? We have lately cut oif the superb
vista of the same street by an ugly brick railway
station house; and it will hardly do to call that
vandalism in the fathers which must be taste and
culture in the sons. At any rate, whatever we may
call it, the people, in town meeting assembled, de-
termined to make the sacrifice; although not without
stout opposition from Captain Goodrich, " Squire"
Williams, and others who held God's beautiful crea-
tions to be esteemed beyond man's fairest handi-
work. If the Elm's indwelling dryad had not before
been, exorcised by the prayers or frightened away
by what passed for music in the old church, she
must have shuddered in the deepest recesses of its
trunk, at the horrid speeches and resolutions of
that town meeting.
In the Williams mansion there was grief, con-
sternation, lamentation, indignation; and then a
determined purpose to resist the barbarous edict, so
far at least as it concerned the Elm. Madam
Williams did not melodiously request the woodmen
to spare her favorite tree; partly, perhaps, because
there was no ballad to that effect in her repertoire ;
but chiefly, no doubt, that such was not the lady's
manner of aiding her friends in their extreme dis-
STOEIES OF A TREE. 31
tress. It is of tradition that once in her girlhood she
threw herself, with triumphant daring, between her
father and a raging mob of exasperated Whigs.
The story is not verified beyond historical doubt,
but it is likely enough to be true. By a resort to
similar feminine tactics, she certainly saved the Elm;
placing herself resolutely before it when the ax men
came to perform their fell task.
Here was a curiously sad dilemma for the puzzled
executors of the town's wicked will. Had almost
any other woman thus stood in the path of municipal
wrong-doing, she would have been thrust aside with
small ceremony; if not with a sharp threat of some
of those ingenious and highly civilized punishments
contrived by the keen-witted New England fathers,
lest the impulsive sex should rush madly from their
sphere.
But with a lawyer's spouse it was quite another
matter; that is, if man and wife were in perfect ac-
cord, as the Williamses were to a proverb. In those
superstitious days, a gentleman of the green bag was
held a most uncanny person to deal with at odds.
It was grewsome to think what dread processes he
might evoke from the mystic depths of that weird
receptacle .of the law's imperious dicta and scripta ;
or from the still more occult and awful recesses,
where he sat, among massive and inscrutable tomes,
well known by their potent words to have charmed
many a man out of a fair estate, and into a foul jail.
Not that Squire Williams was known ever to have
wrongfully used his abstruse learning. On the con
32 TAGHCONIC.
trary he was counted a rather benevolent sort of
dealer in the law's black art; given to the defense of
the poor, the protection of the widow and the father-
less, and to bringing the counsel of the wicked to
naught: still there was no telling what latent fiend-
ishness might be developed even in so benevolent a
wizard; for was he not an attorney after all ?
There were therefore none to lay violent hands
upon Madam Williams, even with the town's most
puissant warrant. Nay, even the Selectmen felt that
a dreadful weight was lifted from their mighty
breasts, when they found that the Squire would take
only a generous advantage of their ludicrous pre-
dicament.
As I have said, there was, around the Elm, no
green or public square, such as adorned a few of the
more aspiring villages of the Commonwealth; but a
vision of such a glory had danced before the eyes
of some of the more ambitious citizens ; and especially
dazzled the not inconsiderable number who held com-
missions in the militia, and already in imagination
saw themselves resplendent upon a parade ground
worthy of their most gorgeous array. The un-
sophisticated chieftains would have stared at the
suggestion of coping and curbing it into an out-of-
door parlor.
Mr. Williams shrewdly seized the opportunity to
offer for a village green, so much of his land south
of the Elm, as the town would devote to the same
purpose from their domain on the north, used for a
meeting-house site and burial ground. Under tliese
STOBIES OF A TREE. 33
conditions, it would be hard to guess how far the
new church would have receded, had not a great
part of the burial-ground been already well filled
with graves. The old puritanic folk held it idle, or
worse, to consecrate their cemeteries; nor did they
cover them with conservatories, or convert them into
driving parks. I fancy they would have eschewed
the word, cemetery, as savoring of paganism. But
they held sacred so much at least of the dust in their
plain grave-yards as had once been animated by
living spirits; and they shrunk from making money,
or saving it, by secularizing the soil with which the
ashes of their dead were inseparably mingled. So
they were fain to content themselves, in this instance,
with a village-green of moderate dimensions.
It chiefly concerns us, however, that, by the
bravery of Madam Williams and the timely gene-
rosity of her husband, the Elm was again saved.
And now the love of the people began to go out
more and more towards it. Fond associations
clustered faster and faster around it; growing more
tender, and gaining a richer flavor with age — as
may always be expected of such luxuries, as well as
of others of a less sentimental caste. Children pur-
sued their noisy sports under the tree's expanding
shade, pausing often to form fabulous estimates of
its size and centuries; which, for the most part,
their later years never found time to revise. In the
near academy, the village boys ,and girls played
their pretty prelude to life's drama. Here were the
athletic ofames whose best remembered feat — en-
84 TAGHCONIC.
titling the youth who performed it to a place in the
town's little Valhalla — was to hurl a ball over the
Elm's loftiest branch. Here lovers lingered a pre-
cious moment in their moonlight walks. Here were
the Fourth of July celebrations, the cattle shows,
and all the country gala-days which bring boyhood
back to the most prosaic citizen who has a heart in
him; even if it glow only at these long intervals —
as some fanciful people aver that comets periodically
revisit the sun to replenish their stock of " caloric,"
wasted by measureless wanderings in coldest space.
And, while the noble tree was thus sending its roots
deep down into the hearts of the town's-people, it
was also growing up to fame; for travelers celebrated
it in their books, and poets in their verse.
And thus it came about that when any " to
the manor born" went out into the great world
beyond the mountains, the Old Elm was the center
around which clustered all their memories of home;
and when any stranger visited the village, it was the
first object of his search — unless, as was most likely,
it had been the first to greet his approach.
Doom.
But, escaping all peril, to trees as to men, comes
at last that which is not danger, but doom. And,
as with man, so with the tree to whose mortality the
sacred writers so often liken our own, the life which
aspires the most loftily best chances to meet a noble
death. It so happened with our Elm. A thunder-
bolt fell crashingly upon it, and darting straight
STORIES OF A TREE. 35
down its tall trunk, ploughed a wound of ghastly-
whiteness from stricken bough to seared root. The
fiery fluid dried up the juices in its old veins, and
the whole tree, although cared for with almost filial
tenderness, began slowly to perish. But, even in
its death it was fortunate. The long white streak
pencilled by the scathing lightning in its smooth
bark, caught the eye of Herman Melville, who, in
his wonderful story of "The White Whale," thus
interwove it in his strong-lined portrait of Captain
Ahab:
"Threading its way out from among his grey
hairs, and continuing straight down one side his
tawney scorched face and neck until it disappeared
in his clothing, you saw a slender, rod-like mark,
lividly whitish. It resembled that perpendicular
seam sometimes made in the straight, lofty trunk of
a great tree, when the upper lightning tearingly darts
down it, and without wrenching a single twig, peals
and grooves out the bark, from top to bottom, ere,
running off into the soil, leaving the tree still greenly
alive, but branded."
There you have a graphic picture of the old Elm
in its decay. And thus in its death-stroke, it found
a new life: as the ancients fabled that they who
were slain by Jove's thunderbolts thereby became
immortal.
The brave old tree had clearly received his death
wound, and remained " greenly alive" but for a
space, and only as to a few scanty boughs. Still,
grandly wearing this meager coronal, and erect as:
36 TAGHCONIC.
when tke Indian maiden likened it to her warrior
lover, it looked as if proudly conscious of the vene-
ration which it inspired; as I have seen some white-
haired citizen walking beneath it, in a vigorous old
age, full of the memories of a gracious youth and a
beneficent manhood. And, each spring when the
young grove about it began to put forth its buds,
the question, " Will the old Elm survive this year
also ? " was anxiously asked by a whole people
whose love for it in its grand decrepitude and decay
exceeded even that of Lucretia Williams for its
leafy prime.
Twice again it " midway met the lightnings," and
then, one summer morning, the whisper passed along
the street that the Elm was bending to its fall.
The axe — in kindness now — gently aided its slow
descent, until in the afternoon it lay prostrate ; while
men whom the world does not accuse of immoderate
sentimentality, stood aloof, literally weeping; and
the more mercurial crowd rushed eagerly to secure a
chip, a leaf, a twig, a branch — any relic of their
old friend. Soon wherever they who had held it
in reverence were scattered abroad, bits of its wood
set in gold, appeared among their richest jewels; or,
in less costly guise, were treasured in the most sacred
reliquaries of their thousand homes.
And, lo, when the tree's inmost heart was laid
open, there preserved, were found the tokens of its
earliest perils and, pervading its whole tissue, the
unbroken memories of all its summers, and all that
they had done for it. Said I that the woods remem-
ber nothing ?
STORIES OF A TREE. 37
THE GREY OLD ELM OF PITTSFIELD PARK.
Tell U8 a tale, thou grey old tree,
A tale of thy leafy prime ;
For thine was a home in the forest, free.
Ere our bold forefathers' time.
Thou sawest the wild-wood all alight
With the bale-fire's direful glare.
Where now the murkiest gloom of night.
Our household fires make fair.
Then tell us a tale, thou grey old tree,
A tale of thy leafy prime,
Of the wild-eyed red man roaming free.
Or our fathers' deeds sublime 1
Say, when the gorgeous laurel tiowers
And sweet-briar's bloom were gay
If here, in the forest's fragrant hours,
Some dusky loves would stray !
Sadly, we know, the captive's sigh
With thy murmuring sound was blent :
Oh tell of the love and the courage high
That the captive's bondage rent.
Ay, tell us a tale, thou grey old tree,
A tale of thy leafy prime,
Of the wild-eyed red man roaming free,
Or our fathers' det-ds sublime !
Tell us the tale how the forest fell
And the graceful spire arose ;
And, charmed by the holy pealing bell,
How the valley found repose.
Our heritage here, with the blow and prayer.
Was won by the good and brave.
While over their toils, like a banner in air,
They saw thy branches wave.
4
88 TAGHCONIC.
Then tell us a tale, tliou grey old tree,
A tale of thy leafy prime,
Of the wild-eyed red man roaming free.
Or our fathers' deeds sublime 1
Ah, dearly we love thy wasting form.
Thou pride of our stern old sires,
Though torn by the rage of the darting storm,
And the lightning's scathing fires ;
And dearly the sons of the mountain vale
Wherever their exile be,
Will thrill as they list to the song or tale
If it speak of their home or thee !
Then tell us a tale, thou grey old tree,
A tale of thy leafy prime.
Of the wild-eyed red man roaming free.
Or our fathers' deeds sublime I
m.
ANOTHER STORY.
What came of, aitd to, Chandler Williams's
Village Green.
" For tlie soldier's trade, verilv and essentially, is not slay-
ing, but being slain. This, without well knowing its own
meaning, the world honors it for. A bravo's trade is slaying;
but the world has never respected bravos more than merchants ;
the reason it honors the soldier is because he holds his life at
the service of the state. Reckless he may be — fond of
pleasure or adventure. All kinds of bye-motives and mean
motives may have determined his choice of a profession, and
may affect (to all appearance exclusively) his conduct in it ;
but our estimate of him is based on this ultimate fact — of
which we are well assured — that, pat him in a fortress breach,
with all the pleasures of the world behind him, and only
death and his duty before him, he will keep his face to the
front ; and he knows that this choice may be put to him at
auy moment, and l as before hand taken his part — virtually
takes such part continually; does in reality die daily." —
And, of the spot whereon the Old Elm once stood,
what ? Other stories, and grander than the simple
tales, I have ventured to tell, early ennobled it; but
must nevertheless have the briefest narration here.
Near yonder very prosaic brick corner, bounding
40 TAGHCONIC.
one of the most park-like, and least prosaic of streets,
stood, a hundred years ago, the quaint old gambrel-
roofed tavern of Colonel James Easton; the com-
mander of the Berkshire Militia, and Ethan Allen's
lieutenant in the capture of Ticonderoga. And, to
its hospitable door, late on the dark and rainy evening
of May-day, 1775, came Captain Edward Mott and
his little band of sixteen Connecticut men, stoutly
resolved, by the Grace of God, and with the help
assured them among the Green Mountains, to wrest
" the Key of North America " from the grasp of
Great Britain. At midnight in the most secret
chamber of the old inn, although the bar-room had
long been emptied of its tonguey revellers — while
the great raindrops dashed and spattered against the
pigmy window-panes, and a generous tankard of
aromatic punch steamed before each wet and wearied
guest — the Connecticut leaders held council with
five or six bold and true men of the vicinage; among
them their host, and his neighbor. Ensign — after-
wards Colonel — John Brown; a member of the Pro-
vincial Congress, who, being specially charged by
that body with efforts for the acquisition of Canada,
was the projector of this present expedition, as well
as of many another daring adventure afterward.
Before dawn, not to endanger the secresy of their
plans by adding to their company here, Easton and
Mott crossed the Taghconic ridge, and passing up
the secluded and romantic valley of Hancock (it
will well repay you to do the same, ev.en with a much
less stirring errand) they were joined by twenty-
THE VnXAGB GEEEN. 41
four stalwart minutemen, with Capt. Asa Douglas —
a " Douglas, trusty and true " — at their head. In
the meanwhile, Ensign Brown and the remainder of
the party, starting also under cover of the darkness,
drove up the Berkshire valley to Williamstown,
where they were joined by fifteen other bold and
trusty yeomen. Then all began their march to join
Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys. All the
world knows how that march ended. The spot where
the men of Massachusetts and Connecticut first met
in council concerning it, in the home of one of the
earliest, the bravest, and the truest of Revolutionary
patriots, should be held as sacredly memorable as
those resting places in old, renowned pilgrimages
which royal piety marked with monumental crosses.
And, on yonder other corner, where, among ances-
tral trees, a massive mansion marks the site, stood the
modest dwelling in which lived and died the Parson
of Bennington Field. In the little brown meeting-
house under the branches of the Elm, year in and
year out, he preached that the Gospel of Liberty
was part of the Gospel of Christ; and much fruit
came of it : sweet and bitter, but for the most part
wholesome. Potent to-day beyond much which
struggles visibly — and all too audibly — for power,
his spirit still lives and walks abroad among these
hills: and not here only, but far away in ever-ex-
tending paths.
A hundred years ago the pulpit of the little meet-
ing house was indeed the seat of power; so that
wlien the patriot soldiers gathered on the narrow
42 TAGHCONIC.
green before its door, it seemed as if their hearts
had been verily touched with a live coal from its
altar. And, from this holy rallying place, inspired
anew by solemn prayer and fervent exhortation,
they marched away to Canada, Bennington, Sara-
toga, Stone- Arabia, or wherever else Berkshire blood
flowed for freedom.
Where they thus assembled, the national inde-
pendence which they helped to achieve had been com-
memorated, with rural, but not unmeaning, pomp,
for well nigh a hundred years, when treason as-
sailed the nation's life. Then, on the same spot
where the fathers met to consecrate their lives to
the service of their country, the sons assembled for
the same holy purpose. Even while the tall Elm
still waved its branches — a tattered banner — above
them, the minute-men of 1861 responded to the first
note of alarm as eagerly and promptly as the
minute-men of 1'775 sprang to arms when the
reveille, beaten by drums as far away as Lexington
Common, announced the dawning of the Revolu-
tion.
The old tree fell: but, year after year, often and
often, the peal of other than church-going bells, and
other music than that of the organ and the choir,
deepened the solemnity of the Sabbath, and sum-
moned the people to high conference in the young
grove which succeeded to its honors. How vivid is
the memory; yet how distant seem those strangely
awful Sabbaths, and those anxious nights when the
lurid glare of torched fitfully lit up the over-hang-
THE VILLAGE GEEEN. 43
ing foliage and the endangered flag, while eloquent
voices from some rude rostrum, told the danger of
the hour to those whose souls were already heavy
with the consciousness of it.
At hours like these, or when, at busy noon, the
clangor of bells and trumpets hushed the more sordid
sounds of trade and traffic, what new and conflict-
ing emotions struggled in every breast, as those most
full of life and life's longings were adjured to risk
all in the defence of that which was dearer than all.
Duty, religion, a pure patriotism, a noble ambition ;
how fervently each was urged in its turn. What
promises of life-long honor, and tender regard, to be
shared by none — what prophecies of enduring fame,
glowed upon the lips of the orators ! And, ever
and anon, as the young and faithful-hearted — glori-
fying the plain tables at which they sat into sacredest
altars — enrolled themselves in the Grand Army of
the Nation's Defenders, how the ringing plaudits,
bursting from the full hearts of the people, seemed
borne by the rolling echoes of drums far into the
promised future.
What other memories, in the lives of any of us
who did not share in the actual conflict of arms, can
compare in grandeur, with the recollection of those
sublime moments; and of others, intermingled with
them, when regiment after regiment with sad, but
proudly unregretful, farewells — and not without
solemn prayer and fervent exhortation, as of old,
from reverend lips — marched hence to do or to suffer
that for which they had set themselves apart ?
44 TAGHCONIC.
Then, whatever gloom might overhang the hour,
we knew that the old heroic spirit, which, in the
foolishness of our hearts, we had thought passed
away forever, had come again in all its fullness;
and that the old triumph was assured.
Here and there a taint of mean ambition, or
meaner avarice, you may have detected in those who
received these plaudits, although I hope that you-
were better minded than to be seeking for it. An
army of purely unselfish men, marching in any array,
were conceivable only in an age which shall be free
of all armies; in that, namely, when nations "shall
beat their swords into plough shares, and their spears
into pruning hooks."
For this present, be content that, as to all who
enrolled themselves, and — with whatever ulterior
reward in view — did become actual soldiers, we
come, at least, if to nothing better, to Mr. Ruskin's
" ultimate fact " of the soldier's soldierly fidelity to
the state under whose flag he has enlisted.
But, on the other hand, in how many did you dis-
cover a purity of purpose and of soul, a stern sub-
jection of self to duty, an unboastful heroism so
unlooked for, an intellectual strength in quarters so
unsuspected, that they seemed like a new and sudden
inspiration from Heaven. So illy do we read that
which lies behind the eyes into which we daily look.
Nay, the revelation vouchsafed to our great need,
seems in these less exalted days so incomprehensible
that we are fast losing it in clouds and doubt.
Yet surely such men were — and are — and they
THE VILLAGE GREEN. 46
did in verity shed a luster upon our arms beyond
that of conquest. They did exist; enough of them
in almost every New England village, to ennoble its
name — if their story could but be worthily told.
Their ideal, but deeply truthful, type, wrought in
enduring bronze, surmounts- yonder monument, the
memorial of those who marched hence, to sacrifice
their young lives in the defence of their country. I
pray you mark that statue well: it is no common
work; but the tribute of genius, to heroism, patriotic
devotion, and much else. It represents simply a
color-sergeant of the Union army, standing in line-
of -battle, and looking eagerly and thoughtfully into
the distance. The figure is erect, but slightly sup-
ported by the staff of the colors, which it grasps
with both hands — the right also gathering the flag
into graceful folds. The work is correct in detail
as well as truthful in its grand effect; but these are
its minor and prosaic merits; there is more in it than
these. Both face and figure are of a peculiar military
type — as unique and readily recognized as that of
the French Zouave or the Cossack trooper — which
the war for the Union developed from material which
it found rough-moulded in every Northern village.
You will see, as you study his work, that the
sculptor's ideal was a bold, frank, generous man;
resolute rather than defiant, of valor without ferocity,
of gentle heart, without weakness; self-reliant, but
modest; capable of either commanding or obeying;
looking into the future as well as the distance; a
man with such stuff in him as poets and orators and
statesmen, as well as conquering soldiers, are made of.
46 TAGHCONIC.
They dedicated this memorial one genial Septem-
ber day, with much memorable eloquence, and much
military and other pomp, of which I will only here
recall, that, among those who had large part in it by
word or work, was he
" As Galahad pure, as Merlin sage ;
What worthier knight was found
To grace in Arthur's golden age
The fabled Table, round?
A voice, the battle's trumpet note,
To welcome and restore ;
A hand that all unwilling smote.
To heal and build once more.
A soul of fire, a tender heart
Too warm for hate, he knew
The generous victor's graceful part,
To sheath the sword, he drew.
The more than Sidney of our day,
Above the sin and wrong
Of civil strife, he heard alway
The angel's advent song."
J3?m, I may single out, not invidiously, from those
who on that September day joined in consecrating
this monument to its hallowed purposes; for, even
while mingling his monitions to his surviving com-
rades, with laudations for the dead, his enfeebled
frame prophecied but too truly that his life, too,
would soon be added to the great price of the na-
tion's unity.
But you are restless, that I detain you so long
upon this contracted spot; and we will leave it;
taking with us, however, as I hope, this lesson; that
THE TILLAGE GREEN. 47
he who, like Captain Goodrich and Chandler Wil-
liams, graciously preserves a thing of mere grace
and beauty, may well expect that, in due time, much
of the grandly and nobly useful — nay, much of
sublime human action — may cluster around it, and
mingle their memories with his own.
IV.
REMINISCENT.
The memory of great men is the noblest inheritance of their
country. — Blackwood's Mag.
You have been very patient with me — have you
not ? — in my long-time weakness of lingering by this
old park; and perhaps I ought to reward you with
an excursion to the lake-side or mountain-top. But
I pray you to be patient yet a little while, as we take
a walk among the pretty village houses, with their
luxuriant gardens, and court yards green with
shrubbery — a delightful summer promenade. To
the towns-people the older of these dwellings are all
pregnant with associations of the past; each has its
story. They tell you — these good citizens — as you
pass along, now pleasant, gossiping histories; now low-
hissed scandals, mouldy and soured, which ought long
ago to have been in their graves; and occasionally,
you hear a tale of open or proved guilt such as
you would rather not believe could have its dwelling
m such innocent-looking homes.
You hear them speak names which call up no
image in your mind, and which have long since
ceased to receive an answer in these streets. They
KEMIXI5CEXT. 49
call places by appellations unfamiliar to your ears.
The iron horse has brought new wealth, prosperity
and hope to the thriving town. There are groceries
where there used to be gardens; mansions where
there used to be meadows. The town is richer and
handsomer than it was; but in many hearts, for
whom the old quiet used to be full of joy and peace,
the new wealth and crowd and noisy prosperity can-
not but sometimes awaken painful longings. In the
stillness of the evening — when the shrill cry of the
steam- whistle pierces the ear and goes echoing into
the breathless distance, like the shout of a drunken
man on the solemn midnight — you listen to their
touching reminiscences of the past, and are moved
by laments for which the eager, throbbing heart of
common life has no chord in unison.
But, for the present, we will pass scandal and
retrospect, except so far as the latter recalls the
memory of two men whose wide-spread fame has
become identified with that of their homes, and
whom I have not mentioned with others who have
brought honor to it — George Nixon Briggs and the
Rev. Dr. John Todd. Whether there is romance
in the lives of either of them or not, there is cer-
tainly beauty in their memory, among the hills; and
beauty that is seen afar off. I need not speak in
detail of either. Their memoirs, written with rare
ability, have been long published to the world; and
I only desire here, by a few reminiscences of their
lives, to give a pleasant tinting to our scenery.
And, first, of the much-loved Governor Briggs,
50 TAGHCONIC.
whose beautiful tomb in our beautiful cemetery is
the spot there most sought by the visitor. You will
observe that, conspicuous upon it, is a large white
marble cross. He loved well that simple symbol of
the Christian faith, so long proscribed in New Eng-
land; and it was his influence which placed it on the
spire of the village Baptist church in which he
worshipped. But I shall only have room to give you
a few reminiscences, illustrating one of the qualities
which won for the good governor so universal popu-
larity, and which were remarkable as mostly referring
to incidents which occurred within the compass of
a few days.
In the spring of 1851, 1 chanced to occupy, one day,
a seat with Governor Briggs in th^ cars of the Boston
and Albany Railroad. The train was excessively
crowded, many being compelled to stand; and when
we reached Westfield there entered our car, at the
door most distant from us, two women evidently
much wearied; one of whom carried a child. None
of the gentlemen in their vicinity seemed to notice
their condition; but Governor Briggs went forward,
invited them to our seat, and aided the one with a
child to reach it. Instantly many seats which had
not been vacated for the weak and tired women were
placed at the service of the Governor of Massachu-
setts; but he remained standing, talking kindly to
the women and at times soothing the child which
had been made restless by its unaccustomed position.
There was nothing in this, you may say, more than
any true-hearted gentleman ought to have done.
REMINISCENT. 61
True; but, out of a whole car-full, Governor Briggs
was the only one to think of doing it.
We passed on, and as we approached the Brook-
line Bridge, near Boston, found that a collision had
taken place upon, it, blocking the passage with the
wi'eck of two trains, which hung by a fearfully pre-
carious hold over the water. It was necessary for
the passengers to clamber over and through the
wreck, to reach the relief train, while their baggage
was sent to the city by the highway. But, among
them, was an old Irish woman, one of those wrong-
headed, as well as ignorant, people who can never
be made to see the necessity of anything out of the
ordinary course. She would not and could not be
separated from her trunk — a rude, hair-covered
chest. Most men would have been merely amused
by, at least indifferent to, her troubles; but ludi-
crous as was her grief, it was piteous and real, and
such, however uncouth and groundless, never failed
to touch the heart of the governor. So when, hav-
ing passed from one to another, imploring aid, she
came to him, perceiving at once the uselessness of
attempting to reason with her, he quietly took hold
of one end of her trunk, and helped her carry it over
the tottering wreck. The profuse and quaintly ex-
pressed thanks of the woman, and her still more
profuse and quaint apologies — when, with all her
old-world awe of dignitaries, she found whom
it was she had made play the porter for her — were
extremely amusing. But there were few who wit-
nessed the scene who did not envy Governor Briggs
62 TAGHCONIC.
his satisfaction in relieving the distress of even so
rude and uncouth a creature, by so simple a piece of
thoughtful kindness.
Leaving the governor at Boston, I pursued my trip
to Martha's Vineyard, where I employed a man to
carry me from point to point in search of certain
varieties of clay — a plain, but intelligent and quick-
witted person, of much shrewdness and criticism,
which he applied freely to public men, as we rode
along. But, happening to learn incidentally that I was
from Pittsfield, he checked his horses suddenly, and
exclaimed. "Pittsfield; why Governor Briggs lives
there ! " Somewhat surprised at his apparent emo-
tion, I assented; and he continued: " I love that man;
I always shall. You know I am a Democrat; but I
always put in my vote for George N. Briggs. He's
got a heart — he has ! " I asked him how he found
that out; and he replied, that once, when the go-
vernor was reviewing the militia at New Bedford,
he was standing directly behind him, with his little
daughter in his arms. The child begged hard to
see the governor and the troops, while the crowd
and his position made it difficult to show her either
to her satisfaction; but the governor, happening to
hear her entreaties, turned around, took her in his
arms, and placing her before him on his horse, showed
her the soldiers, and then, with a kiss, returned her
to her father — a pleased child and a grateful father,
you may well believe. " I have loved him for that,"
he said, " ever since;" and I always shall."
At a later time, arriving at Pittsfield with a
REMINISCENT. 53
travelling acquaintance from the west, he asked me,
while the train was accidentally delayed for a few
moments, to show him the residence of Governor
Briggs, who had then been some months dead; and I
took him to a point where he obtained a view of the
trees which conceal it. As he seemed deeply inter-
ested in the view, I remarked carelessly, " So you are
a hero- worshipper." "No," he replied with evident
emotion, " I loved the man — I had good reason to ! "
I had no time to learn the cause of this feeling — ■
whether it arose from some of those minor acts of
kindness, such as I have related, and such as the
governor was constantly performing — or from some
grander benefits, for which occasion more rarely
presents itself: but the tone and manner of the
speaker were more earnest than would probably
have been caused by any trivial beneficence.
How many friends would be made by a public man
whose life was filled with acts of kindness like those
I have mentioned, and governed always by the spirit
manifested in them, I leave you to judge.
You will pass the Governor Briggs homestead on
your way to Lebanon or Lake Onota, a little way
beyond the Railroad Station in Pittsfield ; a hand-
some mansion with fine grounds, and rich in portraits,
busts and relics of its former owner.
The parsonage, once the home of Dr. Todd, is not
very far from the Park ; but it is so changed from
what it was that it hardly suggests a memory of him.
When I first came to Pittsfield, the first thing I
looked for was the author of " "The Student's
54 TAGHCONIC.
Manual ; " and I had no difficulty in singling him out
from a number of distingui figures in the village
streets. He was the homeliest good-looking man, I
ever laid eyes on ; and, withal was unmistakably
marked with the impress of thought and feeling.
Mindful of certain ridiculously ineffectual attempts to
mould myself upon the systematic model prescribed
by his famous book, I held him in almost grewsome
awe ; and it was a great consolation to find after-
wards that he was not nearly so formal a man as I
dreaded, but one who did an immense amount of
work, simply by attacking it lovingly, and with a
loving purpose. You may recollect that he became an
author, so that he might add to his means of support-
ing an aged and infirm mother.
He was the most contented man I ever knew.
Livfng comfortably and handsomely, if not luxuri-
ously ; loving and loved, not only by his own people,
but by the whole community ; glorying in and en-
joying the natural beauties and the pleasant fortunes
of his home ; surrounded by a social circle perfectly
adapted to his tastes ; honored at home, and famous
abroad ; with admirers to welcome him, wherever he
went ; with the means and the taste to fill up his
vacations with healthful woodland sports : Thus
favored of fortune, there was no good reason for dis-
content, and Dr. Todd was not the man to seek evil
ones. Of sorrow and pain, he, like other men, had
more than enough ; but they were the incidents of his
manhood, not of his position in life. They might be
sources of grief and bodily agony ; but not rightly
of discontent.
REMINISCENT. 55
Seeing the man thus living and, as it seemed to me,
living beneficently, and in the tenderest love for all the
world, I came — although I had little sympathy for
what I supposed to be his abstract theological opin-
ions — to share in the kindly feeling which he in.
spired in all about me. In this comfortably Christian
mood, I was shocked to find the truculent Theodore
Tilton, who had been taken somewhat sharply to task
by the good doctor, going about insisting that the
following lines, by Longfellow, were intended as his
portrait :
" The parson, too, appeared, a man austere.
The ingtinct of whose nature was to kill ;
The wrath of God he preached from year to year,
And read, with fervor, " Edwards on the Will ;"
His favorite pastime was to slay the deer
In summer on some Adirondac hill.
E'en now, while walking down the rural lane,
He lopped the wayside lilies with his cane."
"Good lack ! " I thought, "can this be the man
who, to our uninspired eyes, seemed the very soul of
gentleness ? who seemed to have a child-like love for
the meanest flower that blooms ? who sorrowed
for a loved tree, as for a friend ? Where had that
austerity been hid for so many years; that it never
scared the village children who hung upon his smile
just as though it was benignant. Had all oi us
really been, for near forty years, ascribing the
kindest of humane souls to one whose instinct was to
kill, and who did not even spai-e the lilies in the
Berkshire lanes — if any grow tHere; which I very
much doubt, unless somebody, like Dr. Todd, has
66 TAGHCONIC.
planted them for the wicked pleasure of cutting them
down. There really seemed to be a sad misconception
on somebody's part — Mr. Tilton's, as I hoped, since
it could not much harm him.
But let us see, item by item, wherein the likeness
of the picture to the Pittsfield pastor consists. Item
first: The scene of the poem is laid in the village
of Killingworth; and Dr. Todd was born in the
village of Killingworth in Connecticut, but was never
pastor there. Item second : The Killingworth parson
was a " man austere ; " there the likeness fails alto-
gether — Dr. Todd was anything but that. Item
third : This austere parson " preached the wrath of
God from year to year ; " and I suppose that, like
thousands of other ministers of religion, the world
over. Dr. Todd preached upon that theme as often as
he thought it to be his duty ; which was certainly
not " year in and year out " — for he delighted much
more in preaching the Creator's tender mercies, that
are over all his works. He rested firmly upon the
orthodox Congregational creed — the faith of his
fathers — and died steadfast in it ; but he loved best
to repose upon its sunny side ; and, ever, as his
religion ripened with his mellowing years, his charity
grew broader, and his appreciation of God's loving
kindness keener and deeper. Item fourth : The
poet's objectionable preacher read with fervor " Ed-
wards on the Will: " Dr. Todd was at one time pastor
of a church in Northampton which was an off-shoot
of that which in 1750, by a majority of one hundred
and eighty, refused utterly to have the stern Calvin-
BEMIinSCENT. 67
istic moralist any longer to be their servant — or, as he
■would have had it, their master — in the Lord. How-
ever, the children had long ago repented of the sin
of their fathers — the offending minister having risen
to a great height in the esteem of his co-religionists.
And so, when they sent out a colony to found a new
church, they called it " The Edwards ; " and Dr.
Todd, who became its first minister, gave the same
name to his first-born son. Doubtless he held his
celebrated predecessor in reverence ; but I had it from
his own li^js that he deemed, not only the much ob-
jurgated and much-admired Treatise on the Freedom
of the Will, but all metaphysical theology whatever,
unprofitable reading, while we have the Bible, and
the great book of Man and Nature is spread wide-
open at its less abstruse pages. I do not believe that
he read a page of "Edwards on the Will," with fervor
or otherwise, after he left the Theological Seminary.
Item fifth : The favorite pastime of the Killing-
worth Cruelty was to slay the deer in summer, out in
the Adirondack country. And so did Dr. Todd love
to hunt the deer there, and elsewhere ; as hundreds
of very worthy people still do. The pleasures of the
chase would bring little but pain to myself ; and the
cold-blooded ruthlessness with which Kingsley in his
" Idylls " gloats over the skillful " killing " of trout
ruins half my pleasure in that otherwise charming
book. But that, I take to be a constitutional pecu-
liarity ; and it would be absurd in the extreme for me,
on the strength of it, to assume a^ virtue above that
of Canon Kingsley, Isaack Walton, Shakespeare, Adi-
58 TAGHCONIC.
rondack Murray, and a host of other renowned trout-
killers and deer-slayers, lay and clerical.
But, to be fair, I suppose that the gist of Mr. Long-
fellow's accusation, if it be an accusation, lies in the
innuendo — " in summer " — intending thereby that
the reverend defendant slew the deer, out of season,
wantonly, and contrary to the recognized although
unwritten laws of venery. And Dr. Todd did pursue
the chase on the Adirondack hills in summer. He
could not well have done so at any other season ; but
he obeyed the law in its spirit, if he broke it to the
letter : for he scrupulously refrained, however much
in need of venison, from firing upon a fawn or a nurs-
ing doe, and never at any season killed for the
pleasure of killing, but rather with pity for the pain
inflicted.
There seem to be some wide divergences between
Mr. Longfellow's portrait, and its assumed original ;
but there is sufficient vraisemblance to justify the as-
sertion that Dr. Todd was the clergyman whom the
poet had in his mind, when he wrote " The Birds of
Killingworth ;" and it seems equally certain that he
was misled by the reports of certain jealous and
rascally Adirondack guides — as is very well shown
by Dr. Todd's biographer. And it is to be mourned
that the most amiable and gentle of our great poets —
one to whom the love of all English-speaking people
gives such power of reproof and condemnation —
should have allowed himself to be led into injustice by
such base and vulgar slanderers. I will not believe
that he was the more readily induced to give them
REMINISCENT. 59
credence by the memory of Dr. Todd's old polemical
pastorate — a half a century ago — in Groton. The
odiuni theologicum could hardly rankle so long as
that in the celestial mind of the author of so much
noble and manly verse. But well says old Selden,
speaking of judges who hold the power of life and
death : " Let him who hath a dead hand take heed
how he strikes."
Here have I been spending this time which w^e
might have given to pleasant reminiscences of Pitts-
field's great pastor in a probably needless defence of
him against a random and unworthy charge : but
perhaps I have been able in this way, as well as
another, to show how he appeared to one out of his
own theological pale. How he looked to one of his
own household, both in the faith and according to the
flesh, is graphically painted in the full and frank
biography published by his son.
V.
PONTOOSXJC LAKE.
The memory of one particular lioui
Dotli here rise up against me. — Wordsworth.
Oh, thou most rare day in June, whose rain of
golden moments fell so preciously by the green
borders of Pontoosuc; there shall be few like thee
in the gladdest summer month !
With L. and two other friends from the dear
tri-mountain city, and with one laughing daughter of
the Berkshire soil, I went that faultless morning, to
pass the " lee long summer day "by the clear waters
of our favorite lake : the popular favorite, although,
fair as it is, I confess that it has a rival in my own
esteem. But this is lovely enough to satisfy any
reasonable craving. And so is the approach which
brings us to it. Passing the neat and tasteful fac-
tory village, whose busy wheels have been turned by
the waters of the lake for more than half a century,
you enter a piece of winding, willow-shaded road^ on
the left of which the ground descends abruptly to the
rocky bed of the Housatonic river, which issues from
the lake a few rods above. Just below, it falls in a
cataract, whose worst fault is that it is artificial.
PONTOOSUC LAKE. 61
Alas, on this whole romantic stream, from the
mountains of New Ashf ord to The Sound, there is not
one waterfall which has not been disturbed by art.
But water, and especially dashing, sparkling, foaming
water, is always beautiful, and this broad, smooth
sheet of crystal, rolling over its table of massive
marble, to be broken into infinite sparkling drops
thirty feet below, is worth at least a passing glance.
If you so honor it, you will observe that the smooth
water, at frequent intervals in its fall is bent, across
its whole width, into rippling curves parallel to its
upper surface. The cause is simple enough, but it
took us, bright ones, a long while to hit upon it that
June morning. No, I shall not tell it here; for it is
the prescriptive privilege of the Berkshire friend
who first drives you that way, to propound the prob-
lem for your bewilderment.
Before you have solved it, a slight rise in the road
will bring in view the blue surface of the lake, in
glassy stillness or sparkling in broken light, dotted
only with two emerald islets. Mere dots, now : in
that elder day, before the dam-builders — observe
that, as I spell it, dam is a noun substantive — before
the dam-builders had raised the surface of the lake
and sj)oiled some of its prettiest outlines, these islets
were quite conspicuous islands; the commodious re-
sort of frequent jolly chowder-parties. At a still
earlier day, as you will see by and by, they had a story.
You catch your first glimpse of the water between
gentle declivities covered by a fine growth of pine,
with, here and there in the intermediate opening, an
6
^2 TAGHCONIC.
elm, a hemlock or a beech. As you pass through
these woody portals — or better, if you stand in the
grove on the southern bank — the view expands.
The farther shores rise gradually to hills; to moun-
tains. Not far off, in the west, they terminate in
the ever-graceful Taghconic domes; every summit
of which, in a calm clear day, is mirrored by the un-
ruffled lake. You should see them on such a day in
their brave June verdure, or in their October
splendors, every height, every hue, glowing double,
hill and shadow, as perfectly as ever Wordsworth's
swan.
On the north, the long valley, a little broken by
the bold, fair hills of Lanesboro', stretches away until
it finds its barrier in that superb culmination of so
many Berkshire landscapes, grand and graceful
Greylock.
You would pause, as we did, to admire the almost
artistic arrangement of the stately grove of pines,
the single elms, and beeches, and the twin hemlocks
scattered along the lawn-like slope between the road
and the lakeside ; but I know not how much of all
these the encroaching waters will leave for the de-
lectation of future visitors. There was a very
joyous and soothing beauty in the scene as, driving
slowly along, with the gently rippling waters upon
our left and the cool evergreen grove on our right,
we stopped here and there; now to gather splendid
bouquets of the rich red columbine, which then grew
here in profusion, and now to try, for the most part
in vail), to catch a glimpse of the birds, who from
PONTOOSUC LAKE. 63
their hiding places, joined with most melodious
energy in the carolings of M. and F.
Dismissing our carriage at the northern end of the
lake, we sauntered back, lingering by the pebbly-
shore, where the dashing of the wavelets reminded
us all of the great billows that beat upon the Atlantic
beach one other summer day. It was strange this
mimicry of the great sea by the little mountain loch.
F. said she had once been startled in the same way
by recognizing the tones of a great orator in the
lispings of his infant grand-child. Such are the
trifles of which talk is made on summer excursions.
Then we sat awhile under the great pines, and let
that mischief of a Grace — she of the Berkshire
Hills — inveigle every one of us into a promise to
read there, on our return, verses in their honor, com-
posed during the day. I confess that I was, for
a reason which will appear by and by, the first to
assent to this nonsense. But, having assented to it,
our wisdom recovered itself, and espying across the
lake, an inviting grove familiar to all our lovers of
picnic, we determined to make it our camping ground
for the day. I have since seen a fanciful array of
gaily bannered barges moving thither in long pro-
cession bearing the semblance, at least, of kings and
queens, cavaliers and court ladies, priests and bandits,
harlequins and columbines, monks and outlaws,
clowns, savages, fairies and all the masquerading
fraternity, while pealing music echoed among the
astonished hills, and the dwellers omthe farther shore
wondered what on earth was coming now.
64 TAGHCONIC.
In our time the lake fleet was somewhat more
scanty ; but, by the courtesy of the gentlemen of the
neighboring factory, we were enabled to reach the
haven where we would be in a luxurious boat, once the
property of Audubon who had used it in his studies of
the rich ornithology of the Berkshire lakes. We were
soon quite at home in a nice nook of the grove, where,
by the aid of L's flute, F's guitar, the fun of the
madcap Grace, a book or two of poetry, and a plenti-
ful supply of cold chicken and other " creature com-
forts," we passed hours which are not lightly to be
forgotten in lives which have few such.
Then, too, there were rough rambles, to the grievous
detrijuent of Grace's flimsy drapery ; although, on my
soul, I believe the gypsy tore that gown with malice
prepense, for the sole purpose of bringing an unhappy
victim within range of her wit. At any rate he came,
and, as she was repairing damages with an infinitude
of pains and pins, impertinently asked what she was
about ? " Collecting my rents, stupid ! " And as
Grace was the owner of houses and lands in quantities,
we all laughed. It is so easy to be witty at picnics.
" And to laugh at the wit of an heiress any where,"
do I hear you add ? Well, perhaps, Monsieur Le Sauer;
but that has nothing to do with our lake-side merri-
ment. You haven't an idea what a balm there is in
woodland odors. I half believe a day or two in these
Berkshire woods would take some of the grimness out
of even your visage. The experiment is worth trying,
for the curiosity of the thing, if for nothing more.
I wonder how you would look with a gleam of real
PONTOOSUC LAKE. 65
genuine happiness in your eye. So come right along,
old fellow, and we'll take you all about : make a new
man of you as like as not.
There are fanciful legends about this Pontoosuc lake;
among them an old tale that a shadowy bark with a
shadowy boatman is often seen to flit over its midnight
waters, as if in quest of that which it is doomed never
to find. What it is this restless phantom seeks, whether
lost love or hidden foe, I do not know that legends tell.
I have often passed that way at the accredited witch-
mg hour : sometimes when the pale moon shed a very
ghostly light upon the waters, while the shrieks,
screams and bowlings that hurtled discordant upon
the air, defied all my 'ologies to assign them to any
known beast, bird or reptile ; sometimes when only
the lurid lightnings fitfully lit up the night, and shim-
mered a thin and sulphurous blue from shore to shore ;
sometimes when fisher's skiffs, a red torch glowing at
every prow, looked sufiiciently infernal ; but neither
in ghostly moonlight, by lurid flash, or by glare of
torch, can I rightly say that I ever caught sight of
his flitting ghostship.
" You never did ! well that shows how much of
a seer you are. Now, that ghost's as real as —
as real as anything. Why there are two of them."
It was that saucy Grace who said this, when she
read my humiliating confession. The simple fact is
that Grace belongs to one of the old story-telling
Berkshire families. One of her ancestors was prime
chum to Hendrick Aupaumut, tr edition-keep er-in-
chief to the Mohegan nation, almost two hundred
66 TAGHCONIC.
years ago ; and that veracious chronicler indoctrinated
him in all the legendary lore of which he was master.
Of course his pretty descendant has a tale to fit
every romantic scene among her well-loved hills. I
do not know that any of her story-telling ancestry
were ever guilty of fathering the wild children of
their imagination upon old Aupaumut. If they did,
nobody suspected them of it; for they were all
" honorable men," or at least were always so desig-
nated in the political columns of the county news-
papers. I have, however, sometimes suspected that
their quick-witted daughter, rather than let any
favorite spot go unstoried, would on the instant in-
vent a tale to meet its exigences; and if a ghost were
needed would e'en haunt it herself. I have gleaned
from her a good deal of the material for the Indian
legends of this volume; but in order to secure the
accurate truthfulness, which, as you perceive, charac-
terizes them, I have been obliged to correct her
vivacious narration by the aid of graver authorities;
frequently summoning Hendrick Aupaumut from
the Happy Hunting Grounds for that purpose, and
sometimes consulting the historical collections of
Dry-as-Dust LL.D.
In most cases I have thus scrutinized her stories
so closely as to leave little doubt of their perfect
truth; but in this Pontoosuc affair, I shall devolve
that task upon the reader, and tell the tale just as it
was told to me.
PONTOOSTJC LAKE. 67
Shoon-keek-Moon-keek.
" She loved her cousin ; such a love was deemed
Bj the morality of these stern tribes
Incestuous." — Bryant.
In the first place you must know that Pontoosuo
was not the aboriginal name of the lake now so
called. That is a corruption of the Mohegan word
Poontoosuck — "a field for the winter deer," by
which the tribe called all the Pittsfield valley^ indi-
cating that it was their abundant hunting ground.
When the factory of which I have spoken was built,
it received the name, simplified for the sake of
convenience, and it was gradually extended to the
lake itself.
The Mohegans, who loved the lake well, called it
Shoon-keek-Moon-keek. Why they did so, you will
find out if you listen with a little better attention
than you gave those phantom voices across the water:
loons, herons, owls and foxes, I haven't a doubt.
Although at certain well-defined seasons of the
year, this valley, in the old Mohegan times, used to
be all alive with hunters and trappers, its permanent
population was exceeding scant. The Indians did
not greatly affect solitary wigwams, but the little
clusters which passed with them for villages were
small indeed; and it was one of the smallest which
stood in the sunny recess among the hills, seventy
or eighty rods below the lake and on the west side
of the outlet. You can hardly mistake the spot.
They found some ghastly relics of the aboriginal
68 TAGHCONIC.
owners not far from the site of their village, not
many years ago.
The great men of this little community were two
brothers, probably not very conspicuous in Mohegan
annals, for their very names are forgotten now; and
all else concerning them except this faint legend. It
happened one bright day in June, three hundred
years ago, that to one of these brothers was born a
son, and to the other a daughter; the prettiest little
papooses that ever came to light in all that region.
Their names, Shoon-keek for the boy. Moon-keek for
the girl, seem to have signified their parent's ap-
preciation of that pleasant fact, although I cannot
give you a literal translation of the words.
One shudders to think of the barbarous physical
and moral training those young things underwent.
No boarding school miss ever had her back straight-
ened by such heroic processes as gave uprightness to
the children of the woods, and I dare say the mental
and moral processes were equally rude and effective.
The motto was "kill or cure; " the weaklings always
gave in, before they made much trouble in the
world. As the cousins did not die, the presumption
is that they graduated, perfect specimens of the
Indian youth and maiden: indeed the tradition hints
as much.
The other result might have been better for them;
but no such gloomy premonition overshadowed their
joyous childhood.
" The morning of our days
Is like the lark that soars to heaven, all happiness and praise ;
The earth is full of beauty, rose bloom is on the sky,
And hope can never fail us, and love can never die."
SHOON-KEEK-MOOX-KEEK. 69
And so Shoon-keek and Moon-keek revelled to-
gether in all the joys of childhood; gathered for each
other the arbutus in spring, the laurel in summer,
and all pretty wild flowers in all flowery months ;
together filled their birchen baskets with the luscious
berries of the- woods, together chased birds or but-
terflies; and as they grew older fished on the lake
in the same birch canoe.
It was very pleasant for the fathers to see the
children thus absorbed in each other — just brother
and sister, as it were : which, considering the stern
moral law, I have quoted above from Bryant's famous
poem, seems to me much like playing with edge tools ;
cousins are so liable to discover that they are only
cousins. Not that any consciousness of wrong
disturbed the pure happiness of Shoon-keek and
Moon-keek: even when they were both thrown into
consternation by the matrimonial advances made by
divers young men of the tribe to the maiden, they
did not suspect the nature of their common grief.
Little the simple ones deemed that the affection which,
in those pleasant places, had grown up as sweetly and
naturally as the may-flower and the violet mingle
their perfumes, was unholy.
So natural and so innocent was their intercourse
that, not until the keen eye of jealousy discovered
and its subtle tongue pointed it out, did the fathers
of these poor children suspect the love, which theji
called guilty; nay, not till the voice of j^arental
authority had forbidden their precious meetings did
70 TAGHCONIC.
the lovers learn the nature and ardor of their own
passion.
Parental authority had some rather effective means
of asserting itself among our predecessors in this
valley. But not for that did the cousins consent to
forego each other. The means of evading parental
oversight were also abundant in those thick-wooded
days. There were hidden recesses in the islands
of the lake, in its sedgy shores, in its inlets and out-
lets, all very tempting to opposed lovers who could
both speed the light' canoe. Then, as now, at night
as well as by day, the surface of the lake was con-
stantly dotted by the little skiffs of the fishermen —
and iisherwomen. And then as nov/, the busy plyers
of the hook and line little noted at night if one or
another skiff, dipping its torch quietly in the wave,
suddenly darted into some narrow hiding place. But
then it unfortunately happens that all who go down
upon the lake in little boats are not busy plyers of
the hook and line, but sometimes, rather, busy-bodies
in other men's matters : a sort of people, who, though
specifically classed by Holy Writ among the wicked,
persist in existing in all ages. And they always
make mischief wherever you find them. Nockawando
was the mischief-maker on Pontoosuc Lake three
hundred years ago; and as he was, not only a prying
busybody, but also a jealous lover of the pretty
Moon-keek, you may be sure he was not long in
making known to her father the secret of her clan-
destine nocturnal meetings with her forbidden cousin:
and a pretty lecture the old fellow read her ; with a
SHOON-KEEK-MOOX-KEEK. 71
promise of such further measures as on examination
he might find the case to demand.
My dear young lady reader: that threat suggested
something much more serious than being locked up
in your own room, even on a meagre diet of bread
and water. But, if love laughs at locksmiths, what
could be expected of a flimsy wigwam, without so
much as a latch to rattle or a hinge to creak, in the
way of restraining a brave girl's wayward fancies ?
The lovers had planned a meeting that very night
upon the island in the lake; and they had it. They
had before determined to fly from Mohegan-land
and ask adoption into some eastern tribe whose
marriage code was less absurd than their own ; pre-
cisely as an Englishman, resolved to marry his
deceased wife's sister anyhow, just takes her across
the Atlantic. The idea was a* capital one; and,
under the pressure of Xockawando's terrible dis-
covery, they determined to carry it out the very next
night. They should have started right off on the
instant. I wish they had, even if the lake had waited
to this day for a story and a name. But, even with
the primitive wardrobe and diet which prevailed
three centuries ago in Mohegan-land, some little pre-
paration seems to have been needful. And, then,
Moon-keek's stern parent had intimated that he
would wait the return of his brother from Esqua-
tuck, before proceeding to extreme measures.
But delays are dangerous, as even our sanguine
lovers seem to have been aware; for they made sad
provision for the possibility of failure. They had
12 TAGHCONIC.
not faith enough in the moral code of their nation,
to make themselves mangled martyrs to it, like
Bryant's monumental maiden, by jumping down a
five hundred feet precipice into a hugh pile of
jagged and splintered flint rocks. They declined
martyrdom singly, even in the milder form suggested
by the deep waters of the lake. But, however re-
bellious against the more austere deities of their
nation, they were sworn subjects of whatever imp
in their mythology played the role of Cupid.
Before leaving the island, they, therefore, solemnly
pledged themselves, that, if any fate should interpose
to prevent their flight, and threaten to separate
them forever, they would meet beneath the cool
waters, and part no more. It was a fearful vow;
and yet lovers, educated in a more enlightened faith,
have been known to make, and faithfully perform,
essentially the same. There was nothing in it, save
the cousinly relation of the parties, that was re-
pugnant to the superstitions of the forest. Yet hear
what befell those who preferred the worship) of the
little god, Cupid, whatever may have been his Mo-
hegan name, to the behest of the Great Manitou.
You will have anticipated that fatal disaster befell
the cousins in their proposed flight: fatal indeed
it was, and fearful; but it may be briefly told.
Shoon-keek, gliding stealthily across the waters to
his island rendezvous, died by a treacherous arrow
from the bow of Nockawando ; and his body, pitching
from the canoe, sank with strange swiftness. No
breath of life, no spark of soul, lingered to buoy it
SHOOX-KEEK-MOOX-KEEK. 73
for an instant; but the shadowy semblance of him
who had sat there, kept his seat, and the skiff sped
on, faster than when driven by mortal arms —
towards the island, past the island, into the dim night.
The expectant maiden discerned it as it passed,
and the piteous tone in which she shrieked the name
of her lover pierced the heart even of I^ockawando
who was approaching the point upon which she
stood. The response came back as piteously, from
afar, " Moon-keek ! " The lover — now a phantom,
could then hear and answer the loved voice; but,
though his arm seemed to drive on the skiff, another
power inexorably guided its course.
It needed but this, and the sight of the murderer, to
tell the frantic girl all that had happened. Nothing
remained but to fulfil her vow. Springing into her
canoe, she darted it madly from the shore, singing a
wild and plaintive death-song. Nockawando hastened
to pursue ; but, as he drew near, the song ceased and
such a supernatural silence prevailed that, in the terror
of a guilty soul, he would have fled; but flight was
no longer possible. He came nearer still: the maiden,
like her lover, was a shade. What more he saw or
heard, was never known, except that, as he looked
the canoe of Moon-keek, without apparent motion,
was afar off. He returned to the village, a gibbering
idiot. Neither hunting-ground or war-path ever knew
him more. The dusky maidens gazed upon him,
shuddering — but pitiful ; and he fled from them as
from some remembered horror. The tribes-men dealt
1
74 TAGHCONIC.
cKaritably with him as with one stricken of hoaven;
but he went ever feebly moaning strange syllables:
the wise men said, they were the parting words of the
phantom maiden.
Death at last- came to his relief. But not so ended
the punishment of those who loved not wisely ; that
is, not according to the traditions of their people. K
legends do not lie, it was decreed of Manitou, that
so long as the lake shall dash its waves, so long shall
their restless shades flit over them with responsive
but bewildering and illusive call and response, while,
led by the hope that maketh the heart sick, they
nightly seek that meeting, no more to part, to which
they impiously pledged themselves in the madness
of unlawful love.
With rightly attuned ears, you may, on almost
any night when the lake is not frozen, hear those
piteously plaintive voices, calling to each other from
ever-changing points, and if you are a right ghost-
seer — a sort of gifted folk much more rare than
they used to be — you may sometimes faintly discern
a shadowy canoe flitting, spectre-like, over the waters;
vanishing here, appearing there, in an altogether
supernatural way: like an aboriginal Flying Dutch-
man in miniature. Such are the phantoms of the
Mohegan's Shoon-keek-Moon-keek, and our Pon-
toosuc.
" If I were rich enough, I would have that cruel
lake drained," cried F., her blue eyes filled with tears.
" Don't," said the laughing story-teller, " It would
ruin some of the finest water-pt)wer in the county."
SHOON-KEEK-MOON-KEEK. 15
And yet one could see with half an eye, that she was
proud to have had one sympathetic auditor.
"And now," she continued, "now for the pine
grove and our improvisings ! "
Oddly enough no one owned to giving a thought
to that rash promise of the morning, except Grace
and my unhappy self — why unhappy, you shall see
by and by.
The pine is rather a rare tree in this region; but
there are a few fine groves; this by the lake-side
being the finest, although but a relic of that which
the records proudly boasted, a hundred and fifty
years ago. It looked very grandly as we paused on
our way home, to pay it our tribute of verse.
Grace, as the proposer, was first called upon for
her offering; and gracefully accepting the situation,
read:
Pmos loquentes semper habemus.
•* Lowland trees may lean to this side or to that, though it
is but a meadow breeze that bends them, or a bank of cowslips
from which their trunks lean aslope. But, let storm or
avalanche do their worst ; and let the pine find only a ledge of
vertical precipice to cling to, it will nevertheless grow straight.
Thrust a rod from its last shoot down the stem ; it shall point
to the center of the earth, as loug as the tree stands." * * * *
Other trees tufting crag and hill yield to the form and sway of
the ground ; clothing it with soft compliance, are partly its
subjects, partly its flatterers, partly its comforters. But the
pine rises in serene resistance, self contained. — Ruskin.
All hail to the pine, to the evergreen pine,
The pride of our forest, the boast of our story:
A health to his tassels ; still green let them shine.
76 TAGHCONIC.
To remind the new times of the old fields of glory !
'Twas he to our fathers, on Plymouth's bleak shore,
The first shelter gave and the first welcome bore :
Then a health to thy tassels our own native pine ;
A halo of glory, above us they shine.
All hail to the pine, o'er our heroes that waved,
Ere plumed was our Eagle or starry flags floated 1
On field and on fortress where tyrants were braved,
The pine on our banner the victor denoted.
It marched iu the van where our minute-men met.
Its folds with the blood of our Warren were wet ;
Proud voices of story are evermore thine,
And we thrill to thy murmur, 0, eloquent pine.
All hail to our-pine, fadeless type of the true 1
The changeless in beauty, unbending, undaunted ;
The banner of green, to the May breeze he threw.
In the gales of December as bravely are flaunted.
He meeteth the blast when the tempest is high,
Nor faints in the heat of the scorched summer sky.
Grand poet, pure teacher, high priest of truth's shrine,
Thou art evermore with us thrice eloquent pine 1
"When Grace rolled out that Latin quotation-title
in her fullest and richest tones I opened my eyes
wide and stared at her in a half dazed way — glared
at her, as she tells it; and got a provokingly saucy
smile for my pains. But, as she read on with melo-
dious calmness, my blood fairly tingled; partly with
amazement, partly with vexation and perplexity.
" There was nothing in the verses so startling as
that comes to," you remark.
Xo indeed ! but the fact is, I had spent some
weary hours, the day before, preparing to extem-
porize those very lines, which the minx was coolly
SHOON-KEEK-MOON-KEEK. 77
reciting as dashed off by herself in our pic-nio
hubbub. But scolding would have been absurd,
especially as, to tell the truth, she read my poor pur-
loined verses, so charmingly that they sounded
almost like real poetry. To make a formal claim to
the authorship was at least dangerous, in view of the
probability that this was the very ambuscade into
which my fair foe was trying to lead me, and once
there I should be at the mercy of her merciless wit.
There was only one road out of the scrape; and
luckily I took it — I overwhelmed her with the most
outrageous praises of her poem, and wondered that
it could have been written in the brief and broken
intervals of such a day. I had never suspected her
of such genius. Then I tore my own manuscript to
shreds, declaring that it should never be brought
into comparison with such a transcendent work.
The rest of the party, astounded at my extrava-
gance, fancied that I was crazed by love, or some-
thing else equally far from my heart; and even the
marvellous equipoise of Grace was a little disturbed.
But she quickly regained her composure, and we
both kept our counsel for that day.
Of course the truth came out in the end, and I
received the credit which that eloquent reading
gained for my verse. Now I am rash enough to
throw it away by printing the thing. I wont spoil
a story for relation's sake, even though the relation-
ship be so close as mine to myself. And, from the
first, I determined to describe this particular pic-nio
with reasonable fulness, just to show the uninitiated
78 . TAGHCONIC.
what a Berkshire pic-nic really is. I shall not need
to depict another so minutely, unless it be of a
different class. ^
But this is not yet ended. Some sunny hours of
the June day yet remained, and, as our party was to
be broken on the morrow, we were tempted to crowd
as much as possible of pleasant adventure into the
present excursion. We therefore resolved to extend
our ride to a wonderful rock of v/hich we had heard
much, and which could be reached by an additional
drive of perhaps two miles, around the north end of
the lake. There is a nearer road to it from Pittsfield
village; but this, by and around Pontoosuc, is far
the most picturesque.
The Balanced Rock.
Dropped in nature's careless haste. — Burns.
Passing again the lakeside, we turned, by a cross-
road towards the west, and rolled through a quiet
rural country, whose inhabitants, whose fields and
cattle, even; nay, whose very houses and barns;
seemed as much in exuberant enjoyment of the day
as ourselves.
" Every clod feels a stir of might —
An instinct within it that reaches and towers,
And, grasping blindly above it for light,
Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers ;
The flash of life may well be seen
Thrilling back, over hills and valleys;
The cowslip startles in meadows green ;
The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice,
And there's never a leaf or a bud too mean
To be some happy creature's palace." — Jjowell
THE BALANCED ROCK. 19
A hill on this road affords fine prospects in various
directions; especially looking backwards upon the
lake, which has a wilder picturesqueness than when
viewed from any other point. The Taghconics,
too, loom up grandly in front.
When the sun wanted an hour of his setting, we
passed a few scattered chestnut trees in a field, and
entered the grove which concealed our sphynx.
The Balanced Rock is a huge mass of white marble —
grey upon its weather-stained surface — weighing
many tons; rudely triangular, or still more rudely
oval, in its shape; and so nicely balanced on a pivot
of a few inches, that, although, by the aid of a lever,
it may be made to slightly oscillate, no force yet
applied — and it has been tried with more than rea-
sonable effort — has been able to overturn it. Of
course it is not impossible to accomplish this van-
dalism; but fortunately the means are not within
easy reach of ordinary wantonness. The great danger
is from greed; if this curious work of nature should
come into the possession of men of different charac-
ter from those who have hitherto owned its site. It
should be public property; and one of its recent
owners offered to make it so, with sufiicient surround-
ing land, on condition that the public would take
measures for its preservation.
The belief used to be that the mass was immovable,
which was an excellent reason for calling it the Roll-
ing Rock, by which name it was first introduced to
me. But I can bear witness that, on the occasion of
a certain notable visit to the spot by the combined
80 TAGHCONIC.
scientific associations of Troy, Albany and Pittsfield,
certain venerable savans, by the aid of a friendly
fence-rail, did obtain distinct vibrations.
The same learned gentlemen determined, rather
more doubtfully, that the great rock was not perched
up there — where it looks like the roc described by
Sinbad the sailor — as certain other huge boulders
were strewn about the county, by being thrown over-
board from ice-bergs or ice-floes, several million ages
ago. It seemed to them, on the contrary, that the
Balanced Rock grew where it stands, and that the
mass which originally enclosed it had been worn away
by innumerable floods. On the other hand, a more
recent geologist, after a more complete survey than
the pleasure excursions of science can afford, discards
all theories of floating ice, and holds that all these
boulders, the Balanced Rock included, were de-
posited by fields of ice, several thousand feet thick,
slowly grinding over the ancient surface of the
valley.
They appear to have done some thorough work —
those old ice giants — crushing, as in an emery milb
quartz, slate, mica, corundum, jasper, marble, horn-
blende, green-stone, iron, and every rock that could
be gathered from the neighboring mountains, into all
required sizes from that of the Balanced Rock and the
Alderman, to the dust that grits in your teeth and
sends a cold shudder through you when the ther-
mometer is raging among the nineties. You may see
fine specimens of ice-age-work carefully assorted in
the curious strata of any of our Berkshire gravel-
ATOTARHO'S DUFF. 81
beds; and it will be well worth your while to make
a study of them.
But, as these explanations of the phenomenon of
the Balanced Rock refer to obscure dates far back
in the infinite eons; and the record, whatever the
geologists aver, may not seem to you indisputable,
perhaps you may prefer something within the range
of authentic history, as related, for instance, by those
grave chroniclers, Hendrick Aupaumut and Grace
Scheherazade. And it is but reasonable that you
should have it.
I assume that you know something of the Ato-
tarhos of the Iroquois, or Six Nations; a line of kings
or emperors, of whom each, when he succeeded to the
office, took also the name of the founder of the
dynasty, just as the Roman emperors were all
Cffisars. Individuals of the line were gifted with
diverse divine, or at least supernatural, attributes and
powers; all being esteemed demi-gods of one estate
or an other. The first, a truculent old fellow, had a
complete table service made of the bones of his
enemies; and he had an imposing way of receiving
even friendly deputations, clad in an entire panoply
of living and venomous serpents. I have seen a
portrait of his majesty in that royal costume. Most
of his descendants, although invariably wise in
counsel and mighty in war, were of a more gentle
kind. The particular Atotarho, with whom we have
here to do, was ordinarily of even feminine beauty
and delicacy; and devoted himself to the cultivation
of the milder virtues among his people. A white
82 TAGHCONIC.
poet has even ventured to fable that this gentle ruler
was the daughter of Count Frontenac, stolen in her
infancy, and palmed oif on the confiding tribes by a
childless predecessor. But the Iroquois were not
the sort of people to see any divinity in a woman,
and they aver that, if occasion required, he could
assume gigantic proportions and unlimited strength.
And this assertion is fully borne out by the story of
the Balanced Rock.
I need not tell you that the Indian youth were
severely trained to athletic sports, — quoits, clubs and
the like, — and you may or may not, have heard
that a favorite game, was one which, under the name
of " duff," was a favorite also among my own school-
fellows, who played it with paving stones. It con-
sists in placing one stone upon another, and then
attempting to dislodge it, by pitching a third from
such distance as the player can; a feat which requires
more strength and nearly as much skill as the kin-
dred game of quoits.
It was a long, long while ago that a party of
Mohegan youth were excited over this sport in the
neighborhood of the Balanced Rock. Words ran
high and indeed blow^s seemed exceedingly imminent
when their attention was diverted to a slender
youth who stood leaning against a neighboring tree
in admiration of a sport in which he seemed ill
adapted to take part. Had the elders of the tribe
been present, doubtless the courtesy to a stranger
required by Indian etiquette would have mitigated
the rudeness of the youngsters' wit ; but, left to them-
83
selves, and taught to despise effeminacy, the strange
youth appeared to them a fair mark for their raillery,
and they did not spare him, notwithstanding his
modest and manly responses.
But the loudest laugh was when, as if provoked
beyond endurance, he accepted a taunting challenge
to a trial of strength and skill. The laugh was brief,
and changed to cries of terror, when they saw the
slender but lithe figure grow to giant size. Then
they knew the Atotarho of their masters, the Iro-
quois; and when he hurled the huge rocks about, as
you still see them, they would have fled had not his
glance held them fast. At last, seizing the largest
boulder to be found, as one would a pebble, he fixed
it where you now marvel, and^ the geologists
blunder, over it — the Balanced Rock.
Then, resuming the slender figure, to which the
frightened youth were now quite reconciled, he
gave them a lesson in manners and morals, which
was handed down through all after-generations of the
Mohjegans, whose tradition-keeper-in-chief yearly re-
peated it from the top of The Atotaeho's Duff.
Now, does not that sound a vast deal more sensible
and truthful than all that stuff about icebergs float-
ing round Perry's Peak, or glaciers five thousand
feet thick in the Housatonic valley? Methinks 1
hear you say ; " Now, actilly, donH it 9 "
Well, one thing is certain; whether this old rock
got its marvellous poise at the hand of enchantment
or by the still more wondrous w-orkings of nature,
we came to visit it, that June afternoon, with min-
84 TAGHCONIC.
gled merriment and astonishment. M. rushed to it
with a ringing laugh, declaring she would push the
monster from the seat he had kept longer than was
right. Her gay, fairy-like figure pressed against the
rude, grey mass with such mimic might, reminded
me of a task assigned, in some elfin tale, to a rebellious
hand-maiden of Queen Mab.
We had a little intellectual amusement in deci-
ohering the names of innumerable Julias and Caro-
Anes, Rosalinds, Janes, and " Roxany Augustys,"
inscribed by affectionate jack-knives, upon the bark
of the surrounding trees. Some classic gentlemen,
dolefully destitute of a doxy, had enrolled among
them the words, "Memnon," and "Peucinia." I
have since heard the story of the merry hour when
" Memnon " was inscribed by a hand which has
written many a witty and clever volume. Indeed,
indeed there must have been a deal of witchery in
the cunning priestess who made that stern old rock
breathe such mysterious and enchanting music.
" Can any mortal creature of earth's mould
Breathe such divine enchanting ravishment ? "
I should think not. Was it a wood-nymph then
with her music box ! Was there ever anything in
that broken champagne bottle at the foot of the
sphynx ? And do wood-nymphs drink champagne ?
This grove is very questionable and full of marvels.
When we had clambered with a world of pains on
to the top of the rock, we, too, had music — merry
and sad — " music at the twilight hour." Then, as
the evening shades deepened in the wood came low-
THE BALANCED EOCK. 85
spoken words of memory and of longing for those
far away. Alas ! if all whom Ave invoked had
come, the grave and the sea must have given up their
dead.
With voices softened and mellowed by deeper
feeling, my companions sang an " Ave Maria," and
we bade farewell, not gaily, to a scene mysteriously
consecrated by memories not its own. So, often, in
scenes and hours when we invoke the ministers of
joy, other spirits arise in their places, and we do
not bid them down.
VI.
LEBANON SPRINGS — A DASH AT LIFE
THERE.
So when, on Lebanon's sequestered liight, .
The fair Adonis left the realms of light,
Bowed his bright locks, and fated from his birth
To change eternal. — Darwin's Botanic Garden.
Down in the hilly valley, beyond the Taghconics,
is Lebanon — New Lebanon: the capital of the Shaker
world, the seat of the mineral springs, the most de-
lightful of watering places, the birth-place of Samuel
J. Til den, and our Gretna Green. All the world
knows Lebanon, but much of it about as accurately
as the knowledge-seeking traveller who, on the morn-
ing after his arrival, desired to be shown the cedars
for which he was told the place was famous. Lest
any of you should waste your time in antiquarian
research for the point where " the fair Adonis left the
realms of light," I may as well tell you at once that
it was the door which opens from the gay parlors of
Columbia Hall out upon the long balconies on a
moonless night. Lebanon Adonises " bow their
bright locks '' t<) the brighter eyes of the belle of the
season; and, as there is likely to be a new one every
two or three months, they are fated to eternal change.
That explains the fable.
LEBANON SPRINGS. 87
The Springs are a very Mecca for summer pilgrims.
The first June heats bring the habitues with their
quiet quite-at-home air. A little later, others, catch-
ing a feverish impulse from the city miasma, rush
away like mad to flirt awhile with Nature and Hy-
geia among the mountains. Still others take a season
here after their Saratoga; like hock and soda-water
after champagne. At all seasons — midwinter
even — the people of all the region-round-about love
their little trips to The Pool.
"The Pool: " that was the neighborhood name in
the simple days of old. Catharine Sedgwick, who
then, and always, well loved this resort, delighted to
speak of it as The Pool, and that is what Miss Warner
also calls it in her charming novel, Queechy. Queechy
Lake, by the way, is one of the prettiest features in
Lebanon scenery, and the ride to it is a favorite drive.
This valley was the Wyomanock of the Mohegans,
and the name still clings to the stream whicii flows
through it. Very lovely are both vale and stream.
If natural beauty were the sole test of excellence few
watering places would riral Lebanon Springs, But
they have other merit than this. It is claimed that
they are the oldest watering place in America; and
village tradition will tell you that, a hundred ai:d
seventy years ago, or about the close of the last French
and Indian war, a certain Captain Hitchcock, then
stationed at Hartford, finding himself afiiicted with
a grievous malady, was induced 'to try these waters.
" He came," says an interesting lo^cal writer, " with
ono servant and a company of Indian guides, and
88 TAGHCONIC.
was carried from Stockbridge to the Springs on a
litter, and by an Indian trail, there being no roads.
He found a large basin filled with water, and, from
appearances around it, judged it to be a bathing place
for the natives." Captain Hitchcock camped for
several days near the springs, and received great
benefit from their use. After the peace he returned
to New Lebanon as a permanent resident, and his de-
scendants still live there.
Before the Revolutionary war, the Springs had
become noted. In the early part of the present
century they continued to grow in repute, and
towards its middle, society there was subjected to
the praises of Nat. Willis, the sarcasms of Mrs.
Trollope and the judicious criticism of Miss Sedgwick,
But why bother with the old life at the Pool while
the living world of the Sj)rings so provokingly
challenges us to read it — if we can. It were an
infinitely curious study to enquire what brings each
individual into the respectably-motley throng; but,
unfortunately for psychological science, the so-
journers at fashionable hotels are the most incommu-
nicative of beings; reticence being the primal law
of society — technically so called. Lamentable as
that fact is, we need not, however, despair; having
a ready resource in that supreme faculty of guessing,
which makes us, Yankees, from Emerson to Andrew
Jackson Davis, the incomparable philosophers, we all
are.
It is a pleasant and profitable recreation to ex-
ercise this precious and peculiar faculty, of a lazy
LEBANON SPRINGS. 89
summer a;fternoon, on the long verandahs of Columbia
Hall. Laziness is the mother of at least one school
of philosophy, and guessing at the foibles of one's
friends is always delightful: their virtues, I take it,
guessing j)hilosophy generally leaves to be proved.
There are some hundreds of human beings about
the huge hotel, most of whom may be supposed to
have some motive, not of a purely sanitary character,
in coming here; and to have also some notion, more
or less definite, of the nature of the place and the
part they are to play in it. In the old times of the
Pool, we might have gone straight to the point, and
asked people what they thought of things in general,
and themselves in particular; but, since Mrs. Trollope,
Capt. Hall and the Dickens have snubbed inquisi-
tiveness out of American manners, that won't do at
all. It might reap the reward of impertinence.
No matter; a tolerably shrewd guess may do as well.
Let us guess then.
It would not require a Connecticut Solomon to
discover that the student-looking young man, with
an orange-colored face and sea-green spectacles,
thinks himself in an enormous hospital, or perhaps
only a mammoth apothecary's shop. I dare say he
spends his most contented hours in the famous
medicine factory of the Tildens, two miles down the
street. He deems those gorgeous, flaunting dames,
of whose bright j)resence he is rather vaguely con-
scious, of no more real value — since they will not
nurse his invalidship — than the colored waters in
the apothecary's window opposite.
90 TAGHCONIC.
Those gay ladies themselves, of course, view the
matter in a very reverse light. Take one of them,
for example — that flirting, chatting, jewelled thmg,
Madame, the wife of the Wall Street millionaire.
With both those clear-orbed eyes wide open, she can
see little in this magnificent panorama of hill and
valley, and this, its life-throbbing heart, more than
a splendid ball room or gorgeous saloon; as indeed,
for that matter, she would like the wide, wide world
to be — and is vastly annoyed that misery, with
her discordant shrieks and disgusting deformities,
should presume to spoil the music and mar the deco-
rations.
That blinking exquisite in those outrageously
stunning habiliments — him with the eye-glass pain-
fully squinnied in between bloated cheek and villan-
ously low forehead; him with his nose turned up,
as if in scorn of the poor moustache struggling for
life in the exhausted soil below it : he has gradu-
ated from Paris; and the dazzling, dancing dames
hold l;iim a prodigy of intellect. But you note that
he has all the external symptoms of being a thorough-
bred donkey; and I think a practiced guesser would
have little difficulty in making him out a weak cadet
of one of those families to whom the Jenkinses of
the New York press have given brevet rank as
" aristocrats."
Look again. You would call yonder a frank, free-
hearted, undesigning girl. Hear with what joyous,
summerly f orgetf ulness she throws off those snatches
of unstudied song; and see how ingenuously the
LEBAXOX SPEIXGS. 91
blusli rises in her cheek, now she remembers that she
is not alone. You would not dream now — would
you ? — that she looks upon this fair spot only as a
mart in which she is to dispose of that dear little
commodity — herself — to the best possible advan-
tage ? Yet I'll wager you a small farm I have in the
clouds, that every note of that outgushing melody
was aimed, point blank, at the handsome gentleman
who has been conversing, these two hours past, with
the pale girl in black. I only hope the minstrel will
not be malicious enough to say, the pale girl is
" setting her cap" for the handsome gentleman.
Why don't she turn her thought to drive away
the cloud which has settled in the eye of the gloomy-
browed man who is pacing the verandah so heavily ?
Bless us ! the summer sunshine glances off from
him, and leaves not a trace of light; he has never
sold his shadow to Satan. Yet I misdoubt; and so we
go on, doubting and misdoubting, guessing and mis-
guessing: sure enough — if we would consider it —
of two things; that we shall always hit wide enough
of the mark, and never too near the charitable side
of it. " Wise judges are we, of each other's
actions ! "
This Lebanon is not without its vein of romance.
How could it be, when youth and age, folly and wis.
dom, joy and sorrow, love and hatred, life and death,
make it their yearly rendezvous ? How strange a
rendezvous, oft-times ! Of those who seek here new
thought, new hope, new feelings, how many find
only what they bring — a jaded mind and a palsied
heart ?- Mind cramped to the puny pursuit of puny
92 TAGHCONIC.
things will not always, upon the mountains, expand
and glow with the widening horizon and the purer
sunlight. Passion, born luxuriously in the crowded
city, grows and strengthens, and will not die, in the
bracing upland air. Yet is there forgetfulness of
lighter woes and less corroding cares, in the gay
saloons and woodland drives, as well as marvellous
virtue for the diseased body in the bubbling waters
and fresh breezes. Care-worn men and women
worn with ennui, do get new elasticity of thought
and frame; but in what do they seek a balm for
the wounded spirit, who bring hither the broken
hearted also — like thee, fair and gentle L. — or was
it that thy pure sj)irit might wing its way to Heaven
through purer skies than overhang thy native city ?
I said Lebanon had its vein of romance. A
bachelor friend of mine, who has been a lounger at
Columbia Hall every summer these ten years past,
has a rich fund of stories — humorous, melo-drama-
tic, and tragical — about those who have fluttered,
flattered, flirted, and flitted here in that time. With
him, half the demoiselles who have " made their
market " under his eye, are heroines of a quality
which would surprise themselves not a little to know,
and their husbands a good deal more. It is often a
matter of discussion with us, whether, among other
connubial revelations, the arts and devices whereby
he was entrapped are usually disclosed to the husband.
In the absence of data from which to conclude, we
always end in the same mists in which we set out.
One of my bachelor friend's stories I will venture to
93
repeat, although I perceive it loses half its flavor,
for lack of the gusto with which he would dwell
upon it.
She Would be a Gentleman's Wife,
" More beauty than ever at Lebanon this year,"
I remarked to my friend, as we sat together one even-
ing, about a year since; it was a common observation,
and I thought myself particularly safe in repeat-
ing it.
" Hey ! what's that you say ? " he ejaculated,
after a pause, in which it seemed my words had been
following him far down into the depths of reverie.
" More beauty than ever ! Let me tell you, my
dear fellow, that you know nothing at all of the
matter. It's one of the stupid common-places of
stupid common people."
I bowed to the compliment, and the bachelor went
on with a half sigh, " Ah ! you should have known
us in the reign of the bitter and beautiful Lizzie B.,
or in that of the wonder-working Mrs. M."
Here the bachelor again relapsed into reverie, and
I had time to remark to myself that this hankering
after faded flowers, when the world was full of fresh,
was an ugly symptom that my friend's own hey-day
of beaudom must be on the wane. When people
begin to complain that they can find no beauty, now-
a-days, like that which they used to meet, look if
they don't wear wigs, and other falsities of decora-
tion.
"But the most charming season," resumed the
94 TAGHCONIC.
bachelor, emerging again into the present, " was that
of 185-, when Kate L. was in the ascendant. She
was far enough from beautiful, was Mrs. L., but such
a winsome way she had with her that we all, to a
man, acknowledged her sceptre — and the most
dazzling belle in her realm was ready to die with
envy: envy, by the bye, was a vice Mrs. L. was es-
pecially free from. Never was woman more ready
to recognize and exhibit the charms of her rivals.
She surrounded her throne with a constellation of
lovely women from far and near, and would let none
be eclipsed. A kind-hearted creature was she, and a
sensible to boot; a tithe part the jealousy we en-
dured from the splendid Lizzie B. would have made
Kate look as ugly as a Bornese ape.
" But it was of her throne-maidens that I was going
to boast. I wish you could have looked in upon one
of our gala nights; we have none such now — (that,
entre nous, was a fib of the bachelor's). There was
a floral ball we had one night in July — I have some
reason to remember it, but no matter. Mrs. L. had
made more than usual exertions in getting up this
festival, which was the opening one of the season.
The arrangements were perfect; — the floral decora-
tions unique and profuse; the music superb; and the
supper just what it should be. But our Lady
Patroness was too true a genius to give to these con-
comitants the monopoly of her attention. With a
magic little crow-quill by way of wand, she sum-
moned from all manner of retreats, the most brilliant
assemblage of fair women and distinguished men
OUE feiend's stoey. 95
that I have ever beheld among these hills ; and when
Mrs. L. summoned youth and beauty, you might be
sure there was something to be done. I am going
to leave them to do it, while I tell you of my cousin
Ellen, the fairest of them all.
" You remember Nell — my uncle Fred's Nell —
the merriest girl that ever hid deep design under
careless laugh. Uncle Fred.,> you must know, left
her an orphan at twenty — with exquisite accomplish-
ments, unrivalled tact, and four thousand dollars,
with which to make her way in the world, as she best
might. Her guardian — a staid, business-like old
gentleman, guardian to half the heiresses in the
county, as well — when her year of mourning was
over, advised her to buy a share in a boarding-school,
and earn her living by teaching. ' With your accom-
plishments and talents, my dear,' — the good, fatherly
old man was goiiig on, when he was astonished to
find his pretty ward cutting short his speech with —
" ' With my accomplishments and talents, my diear
guardian, I don't intend to squeeze my brain like a
lemon, to give flavor to some insipid school-girl, while
I might as well be rivalling her mamma. No ! I'll
invest in — a husband ! ' — and here her little foot
came down with a will.
" The guardian stared; but he was too sensible a
man to oppose a woman whose will was up; and so,
under the nominal chaperonship of his wife, Ellen
opened her first campaign at Lebanon.
"That night of the floral fete^ she stood, the
centre of an admiring group — a slight, aerial figure,
96
TAGHCONIC.
but full of elastic life and vigor; her face transparent
with changing light, and her eye overflowing with a
flood of love and laughter. She was di-essed with
wonderful artistic skill; for the life of me I could
not imagine how she contrived to arrange her mist-
like drapery so that she seemed always on the point
of rising into air. I have since heard that it is no
mystery among mantua-makers. Among the crowd
of women, laden and over-laden with all kinds of
flowers, native and exotic, Nell had only twisted in
her hair a few snowy, star-shaped blossoms — the
spoil of a mountain excursion. Not a fold of her
robes, not a tress on her head, but seemed too spiritual
for mortal touch. I have since learned that the
artistes call this style of dress, la Gahrielle. It is
a triumph of genius; but I would not advise any
lady weighing over two hundred to attempt it.
"Frank Leigh was conversing with my etherial
eousin in a composed tone, and with a gaze of mere
earthly admiration which I could not then have as-
sumed for the world, although Nell and I had been
playmates from infancy. I almost shuddered — so
strangely had the fancy possessed me — when Frank
took her hand, to lead her to the piano, lest she
should indeed prove a spirit, and dissolve into thin air.
" ' Ellen should be a gentleman's wife,' said a pretty
and brilliant widow by my side.
" Wife ! so she was human. ^ A gentleman's wife,'
I repeated aloud, * and pray what is a gentleman ? —
and why should Ellen, more than another, be a gentle-
man's wife ? '
97
" * Why,'* replied the widow laughing, * a gentle-
man, in Ellen's vocabulary, is a man of elegant
manners, with at least one hundred thousand dollars,
and a disposition to spend his income in graceful and
fashionable follies. Ellen's expensive tastes demand
such a husband — and I hope she may get him.'
" * Oh, now I am enlightened,' I said.
" ' I am glad to hear it,' rejoined the widow,
merrily. ' But come with me out into the balcony,
and I'll let you into a secret or two.'
" Of course, such an offer was not to be resisted;
and before we returned, I was put in possession of
much recherche gossip, known only to the initiated.
" There had come that year to the Springs, a fine
looking young man — generous, spirited, of captivat-
ing address, and great reputed wealth — Frank Leigh
by name; the same who was in attendance upon my
cousin Ellen at the floral fete. Of course such a
god-send was not to be neglected by anxious mothers,
and daughters no less anxious. Mrs. L., finding him
clever, fond of sport, and prompt to forward all her
gay schemes, had taken him up at once, and installed
him her prime minister. Ellen, I need not say, was
quite as ready to acknowledge his merits.
" Frank was universally declared to be a * sweet
man,' in the ball-room and drawing-room; but he
was not a bit of a dandy; there was nothing of the
exclusively ladies' man about him, nothing effeminate
in his habits. On the contrary, his tastes were emi-
nently manly. He had yachted "on the Atlantic
coast, hunted moose in a Maine Winter, and even
9
98 TAGHCONIC.
taken a run after buffaloes into the Sioux country.
Here, among the quiet hills, his exuberant spirits
found vent in a passion for wild horsemanship.
Jehu was a child to him, with the whip ; he was sure
always to choose some unmanageable foal of gun-
powder, that nobody else would come within a rod
of; men, even of strong nerves, were of opinion that
safer pleasures existed than a seat beside Frank
Leigh, on one of his break-neck drives; and as for
the women, not a soul of the dear creatures, who
would have given their eyes to secure him for a
partner at the last night's ball, could be persuaded
to trust their ivory necks with him and his ' Light-
ning ' next morning.
" To all this was one most remarkable exception —
my brave cousin Nell, who had come out all at once
a perfect Dl. Vernon. Ah ! but it was an inspiriting
sight, to see her mounted on her brown steed, lead-
ing her panting admirers an aimless race over fields,
brakes, briers, and fences, till half the chase foreswore
all pursuit of her thereafter.
"But Nelly's favorite seat was in Frank's light
buggy, of which she enjoyed undisputed possession —
her rivals thinking it a particularly ' bad eminence.'
Of course she was the consta77t companion of our
Jehu, and a fit one, as it looked. Travellers marvelled
enviously, as Frank's chariot dashed by them, to
hear Nelly's clear, ringing laugh, or rattling song;
or even at times to see her slight figure braced back,
her loose curls flying, and her little hands holding
OUR friend's story. . d9
fast the ' lines,' while she urged the foaming horses
to yet more impossible speed; —
' Like a dream doth it seem.
When I think of the past ;
Up the road gallantly dashing along,
Driving two noble steeds, square built and strong ;
Firmly her little hands grasping the reins,
Held them as firmly as lovers in cbains.'
" I think the echoes of her merry voice must linger
yet among the old woods which skirt the Hancock
road. Sure I am that the dwellers in the road-side
farm-houses yet remember Frank Leigh's dashing
equipage, and the gay couple with whom it used to
fly by their doors, at such flashing speed.
" Beside his equestrian fancies, Frank was exceed-
ingly prone to romantic excursions, and by the aid of
the good-natured Mrs. L., who was nothing loath, led
us upon a hundred wild adventures among the hills,
to the great detriment of patent leather and super-
fine broadcloth. Here, too, Nell was the co-leader
with the rattle-brain heir ; never a ramble ended
until she had joined him in one mad-cap feat or
another.
" All this you may be sure gave ample room and
verge enough for bitter tongues; but the sage con-
clusion of one shrewd lady, that * some folks could
do what other folks couldn't,' soon came to be in sub-
stance the universal sentiment. Indeed, with all
Nelly's faults and follies, it was impossible, when you
knew her, to think her capable of anything very
wrong.
100 TAGHCONIC.
" One opinion, at least, every body held, and that
was, that she was just the girl to charm Frank Leigh —
and that she had charmed him to some purpose.
Every body but my friend the widow, who, while
she admitted the boldness and vigor of Ellen's attack,
had a doubt or two as to its success. ' Ellen,' said*
the widow, * has a splendid genius f Ox' business, but
very little experience. Do you not notice that Frank
of late has another companion sometimes on his
rides ? '
" * What ! the timid and femininely delicate Miss
P.?'
" * The same — and with what tender care he curbs
his speed when she is his companion ? '
" * It is very kind and considerate of him; the jolts
and racing in which Ellen delights, would be the
death of Miss P. I am sure it is good in him.'
" ' Oh, very ! And yet is it not possible that she
who tames the steed may tame the master ? '
" I admitted the noteworthiness of the fact, but
trusted to the genius and address of my fair kins-
woman for a successful issue of her sumnler cam-
paign. Indeed, as the season waned, her star seemed
to rise yet higher into the ascendant, while she re-
laxed no whit of her zeal, but cut madder freaks,
rode more daringly, was more than ever the constant
companion of Frank, who, although he daily took a
quiet drive with Miss P., seemed more than ever de-
voted to her dashing rival. Everybody said Frank
had proposed, was about to propose, or at least was
in honor bound to propose, to my cousin. He was
OUR friend's story. 101
set down as certain of the fair hands which so grace-
fully reined in his fiery coursers. Only the widow
shook her curls and Miss P. said nothing.
"One bright morning in September, just before
the close of the season, Ellen was sitting in the draw-
ing room, surrounded as usual by a group of loung-
ers — among whom were Mr. Yinton, a gentleman
of singularly reserved and quiet manners, and said to
be very timid — and a Miss Phoebe N., a young lady
who, in spite of nose and eyes equally awry with her
temper, was supposed to be about to seize the quiet
gentleman, vi et armis.
" * So Frank Leigh has taken us all by surprise,
and married,' said some one, joining the group.
" ' Married ! ' * No ? ' * You don't mean it. ' How ! '
* When ? ' * To whom ? ' exclaimed a dozen voices
at once — the speakers, of course, fixing their eyes
considerately upon Nell: except Miss N., who was
enabled to turn only one of hers that way, but an-
swered:
" ' Oh, to that stupid Miss P. I saw them depart
this morning.'
" * I am sure you would not so speak, if you knew
her,' said Ellen, indignantly. * On the contrary, she
is a sweet, sensible, and witty girl.'
" ' Rather too quiet for me,' mildly remarked the
very quiet Mr. Vinton.
" *I don't see why you should defend her,' snarled
the amiable Phoebe to Ellen. ' She has carried off
the prize we all assigned to you.'
" ' To me ! ' exclaimed Ellen with real laughter
102 TAGHCOlSnC.
and well affected surprise; *I am sure I am much
obliged to you all. Frank is a noble fellow; but do
you know, I should have an unconquerable aversion
to being rivalled by dogs and horses ? — and of
course ' Lightning' and ' Ney ' will hold equal place
in Frank's heart with his wife.'
" * But we,' began Miss N., with a malicious look —
" * But me no biits ! ' exclaimed Ellen, interrupt-
ing her; * I would sooner marry a cobbler than a
horse-jockey, be he never so rich ! '
"Mr. Vinton looked radiantly happy; Miss Phoebe
darkeningly the reverse, for it was her ' one woe of
of life ' that her father had begun his ascent to wealth
in the respectable calling of a cobbler. ^ Ellen saw
where her shot hit, and then cast a penetrating
glance at Vinton, in whose face she read more than
she had suspected."
Here the bachelor paused for breath. " And so,"
said I, " Miss Ellen lost her summer's work."
"Not at all," he replied resuming; "you shall
hear. Frank Leigh did not choose to fall in love
with a woman who rivalled him in the accomplish-
ments of which he was most proud. Even so sensi-
ble a fellow as he had a spice of human vanity —
quite enough to cause him to prefer Miss P., who
admired his daring feats, to Nelly, who demanded
that he should admire hers, and showed, moreover,
to all the world that they were not beyond the attain-
ment of a very slight-framed woman. Besides, he
could too readily understand all that Nell felt, said,
and did; it is not the near view which charms.
103
" Poor Vinton, however, looking on from a dis-
tance, became every day more enamored; — the
qualities which Ellen displayed proved so much the
more fascinating from their very strangeness to his
own nature. But it is in vain to philosophize about
these matters; Vinton, like many a sensible fellow
before and since, contrived to get hopelessly into the
meshes before he thought of asking how; and the
moment he saw the field clear, resolved to occupy
the vacant lovership.
Our light-hearted Ariadne I suspect was secretly
piqued at her desertion; at all events, she gave the
new lover a world of encouragement. Indeed, so
rapidly did affairs advance, that the same afternoon
Mr. Vinton, in a tremor of fear, made a formal pro-
posal — and was at once accepted. Still more to his
joy, Ellen consented — if Miss Phoebe is to be be-
lieved, proposed, that the union should take place
that same evening. So soon after the demolition
of her hopes, Ellen reached their consummation,
and was a * gentleman's wife.' "
" A queer wooing," I said, when the bachelor had
concluded. " Was the result happy ? "
" Why, the chances were rather against it," he re-
plied; " but fate often treats us better than we de-
serve. The result, I believe, was happy for both."
" And how about the widow and yourself ? "
" Is not that the moon rising yonder ? " said the
bachelor.
VII.
ON PERRY'S PEAK.
Profit and pleasure, then, to mix with art,
T'inform the judgment, nor offend the heart,
Shall gain all votes. — Anatomie of Melmicholy.
Of all pic-nics in which many people join, com-
mend me to a scientific field-meeting. I do not
compare that, or anything else, with hours like those
we passed by the lakeside. The things are too diverse
for comparison. Nor do I mean to say that, for once
in a while, a merry masquerade in the glamour of
the woods, or among the weird rocks of Icy Glen,
has not unique charms. But a little science gives a
zest always fresh, and a flavor always piquant, never
cloying, to the enjoyment of large bodies of fairly
well-educated excursionists.
To go out with a multitude in the vague expecta-
tion of a day's pleasure, even in the most romantic
regions, often results in pure weariness of spirit.
We are all true heirs of the old hunter races. Our
joy is in pursuit; and the more definite the object of
the chase, the keener the pleasure. That is what
makes him who has an aim in life the happy man.
That is what inspires alike the gold-hunter in the
106
sands of California and the planet-seeker among the
stars of heaven. It is the old instinct inherited
from Nimrod and his fellow huntsmen. Or shall we
trace it, far back of these, to progenitors in the Dar-
winian eons ? Surely my highly civilized cat shows
indications of sharing it, when she leaves the rodent
trophies of her chase untasted, to partake of my own
meal. Clearly her enjoyment is more purely in the
pursuit, than is his who kills the deer, and eats the
venison.
But the point from which I have wandered, is this;
an excursion-pic-nic should, if we would gain the most
and the highest enjoyment from it, have a more dis-
tinct purpose than the mere passing of a few hours
among pleasant or romantic scenery.
I have already attempted to paint the delights of
the genial, unrestrained social intercourse of a few
friends in the freedom of the woods; but in a multi-
tudinous picnic there is no place for that — every
hindrance to it. The snobs who aifect it are mere
kill- joys and mar-plots. The pic-nio excursion should
have an aim common to all its members; and all
should join in it. I will take it for granted that you
would not desire that aim to be attendance upon a
cock-fight, a pugilistic mill, a horse-race, or a Fourth
of July celebration. A camp-meeting might do;
but even if one were at hand, the spirit is not always
willing, however it may be with the flesh: just re-
versing the scriptural dilemma. The field-meeting,
as conducted by the scientific associations of several
New T ork and New England towns and cities, seems
106 TAGHCONIC.
to meet the want precisely, furnishing interesting
objects of pursuit to all intelligent persons, and, for
the most part, eliminating all others from the pic-nic.
This is a peculiarly American device, essentially
differing from the lawn-meeting of an English village
institute, as described by Tennyson in his introduc-
tion to The Princess: And the difference well illus-
trates that in the genius of the two nations. The
associations under whose auspices our field-meetings
are held do not seek a patron in any neighboring
great or rich man; nor are their pic-nics designed to
teach the rudiments, or exhibit the common wonders,
of science to rustic villagers. The leaders are often
leaders, as well, of scientific opinion, investigation
and progress, while their associates are generally-
qualified to aid intelligently in their labors.
These field-meetings — designed partly as a relaxa-
tion in the intervals of more severe study, and partly
to keep alive a popular interest in science — are held
in neighborhoods where there is a chance that new
facts may be elicited, or which present features, in-
timate acquaintance with which is in itself culture:
which contain spots either picturesque, possessed of
interesting historical associations, or inviting as a
field for scientific research. Generally they combine
all these attractions.
The addresses which close and crown the day, are
no dry rehearsals of book-lore, but vivacious descrip-
tion and discussion of what the day has brought to
light. There is of course no time for minute investi-
gation or profound study, but clews are struck, to
perry's peak. 107
be followed up afterwards, valuable collections are
made; and, above all, "thought is quickened and
awakes."
Doubtless there is also a great deal of fun and
flirtation not strictly scientific; nor yet, perhaps,
wholly otherwise: ending sometimes, I am sure, in
the illustration of an entirely natural science, to which
so renowned a philosopher as Plato long ago gave
his best thought, and a name which is too often taken
in vain. But when were hundreds of people, mostly
young men and women, ever thrown together in
pic-nic, even of the Sunday-school variety, without
something of that kind happening ? It was said of
old:
** Who marks in church time others symmetry,
Makes all their beauty, his deformity."
And yet I have heard of rash young men, even in
New England, " making eyes " across the most Puri-
tanic of meeting-houses at blushing girls who, blush-
ing*, made eyes back again: both utterly reckless of
any resultant ugliness.
But, so far from there being any precept against
love-making at a scientific pic-nic, there is absolutely
a formula provided, suited to the occasion:
" I love thee, Mary, and thou lovest me,
Our mutual love is like the aflBnity
That doth exist between two simple bodies:
I am potassium to thy oxygen. —
'Tis little that the holy marriage vow
Shall shortly make us one. Tliat unite
Is, after all, but metaphysical.
Oh, would that I, my Mary, were an acid,
108 TAGHCONIC.
A living acid ; thou an alkali.
Endowed with human sense, that brought together
We might coalesce into one salt,
One homogeneous crescile.* * ^t * * *
An4 thus, our several natures sweetly blent
We'd live and love together until death
Should decompose this fleshly tertium quid,
Leaving our souls to all eternity
Amalgamated. Sweet, thy name is Brown,
And mine is Johnson, wherefore should not we
Agree to form a Johnsonate of Brown ?"
The scientific field-meeting being a pot-pourri of
solid meats, rich juices and spicy relishes, you will
readily believe is among the choicest of our Berk-
shire pleasures; especially when it is enjoyed in such
good fellowship as the famous Essex and Albany Insti-
tute and the Troy Scientific Association can furnish.
The meeting to which I am going to invite you,
however, shall consist of only our own home asso-
ciation, with a few pleasant friends from Stockb ridge,
Le.iox, and Richmond: a sort of family dinner
as it were.
Perry's Peak is the highest summit of one of the
largest mountain masses in the Taconic range, which,
like many of the others, has several minor promi-
nences. It rises one thousand and thirty feet from
its base, which itself has an altitude of one thousand
and fifty feet above the sea level. A large part of
the upper surface of the mountain, including the
peak, is bare of trees, and often of soil also; and as
the neighboring hills do not press very close upon it,
it affords some of the broadest, grandest, and most
109
picturesque views to be witnessed from any point in
Berkshire, extending to Greylock on the north, Mt,
Washington on the south, the Catskills on the west
and the Hoosacks on the east.
In the south the Taghconics proudly raise their
noble dome against the sky, while nearer, for an in-
terval, they present the appearance of pyramidal
summits, the conventional form in which the ab-
stract mountain range is represented, but which this
rarely assumes to the eye, and never in reality. The
far-off Catskills can sometimes hardly be told from
the massive clouds which overhang and mingle with
them. You will be told that, from the Peak, steamers
can be seen passing on the Hudson : but, for that pur-
pose, you may as well be provided with a good field-
glass; and, unless the day be very favorable, with the
eye of faith also. No doubt it is well to keep the
latter aid to vision in constant practice : you will find
it as needful at a field, as at a camp, meeting. But
I see little good in straining the natural eye in an
attempt to discern, doubtfully at best, objects of
merely curious interest, when such a grand and beau-
tiful world lies within its easy range.
For example, here at the western foot of the moun-
tain gleams Whiting's Pond, better known to " the
wide- wide world" as Queechy Lake, one of' the
prettiest lakelets among the hills. Upon the other
side we look down upon Richmond Lake, another
pretty sheet of water, and moreover a favorite of
sportsmen. Eight miles away we see the spires of
Pittsfield. Scattered all about are points of indi-
10
110 TAGHCOiflC.
vidual interest; but it is the grand coup d"^ oeil^ which
it affords' in several directions, that gives Perry's
Peak its celebrity.
Until recently one could easily and safely drive to
the very topmost summit ; but a few years ago a sum-
mer tempest sent raging torrents down the mountain-
side,cutting huge ravines out of the road, and burying
acres of meadow under barren gravel-heaps: an in-
teresting study for one inquisitive as to the Berkshire
drift system, but distressful to the industrious farmer
and the lazy excursionist. There is still, however, a
tolerable road for the greater part of the height, and
you may accomplish the rest without much trouble
by driving " across lots." For equestrians, there is no
difficulty. As I once approached the top of the Peak
it was crowned by a well mounted group whose
graceful figures "darkly painted on the clear blue
sky " made a striking picture which I should be sorry
to think it impossible to repeat.
Thus easy of ascent, and temptingly accessible from
Lenox, Lebanon Springs and Pittsfield, it is no wonder
that the Peak has long been a favorite mountain re-
sort, although it has no such romantic interest as that
with which Bryant has invested Monument Moun-
tain, nor such poetic fame as Dr. Holmes, Mrs.
Kemble and Thoreau, have conferred upon Greylock.
It remains unsung, although a poet of no mean
powers and with hereditary obligation to do it honor,
was born almost at its foot. The reason possibly is
that its charms are in the views from, not of, it.
Its individuality, although decided, is not of the
perry's PEAK; in
character which at ouce strike either the eye or the
imagination.
The celebrity of the Peak is in the worki of science,
and there it has hardly a rival among the hills of
New England; its fame however, to confess the
truth, being less due to any startling wonders of its
own than to the puzzling geological phenomena of
the region of which it is the conspicuous head and
centre.* It was these, together with its superb over-
views, which led our Scientific Association to select
Perry's Peak as the theater for their celebration of
the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of Alex-
ander Yon Humboldt. Think of a celebration which
extended from the crowded capitals of Europe to
the lonely mountain tops of New England. When
did kingly conqueror have glory like that ?
The most uniformly delicious week in the Berk-
shire year is the second in S^tember. " Then, if
ever, come perfect days." And the day of our anni-
versary — the fourteenth of the month, was absolutely
perfect. The universal voice proclaimed it entitled
to the biggest boulder of the purest quartz on Crystal
Hill, if ever day deserved to be " marked with a
white stone."
By the courtesy of the occasion, the party which
ascended the mountain, that bright September day,
was presumed to be an intellectual one, but it required
no presumption to pronounce it a glad company,
and the merriment was no worse for the attempt to
give it a learned flavor. The result, whether a failure
or a success as to the original intention, was always
112 • TAGHCONIC.
funny enough to provoke a laugh that was genuine,
if the wit was not.
Reaching the summit we assembled on a spot
marked by the coast survey, as 20S9 feet above the
sea level. All around us the bare ledges were scored
with parallel groovings on broadly polished surfaces
and bore other distinct marks of glacial action.
Within a few rods were strewn those wonderful
boulders whose story has puzzled so many learned
heads. • And there, with the tumbled ridges of four
grand mountain-chains in view, and the purest of
sapphire skies over-hanging all, we found as fitting
a spot as could be desired to commemorate the cen-
tennial birthday of the great naturalist.
The formal exercises of the celebration, if they
could be called formal, were brief and simple. Pro-
fessor William C. Richards — poet, orator and
naturalist — displayed a superb photograph of Hum-
boldt — taken at Berlin and approved by its subject —
and, with a brief introduction, read an appropriate
ode full of poetic thought and feeling.
Then, after an inspection of the evidences of
glacial action on the Peak, we betook ourselves to a
cool and pleasant grove, in which lay one of the
largest of the famous Richmond boulders: and there,
with appetites of mountainous proportions, discussed
our pic-nic dinner.
While thus agreeably engaged, we learned that
the Peak took its name from the Rev. David Perry,
who owned lands here and elsewhere in the town of
Richmond, in which he was the second ministei
perry's peak. 113
of the gospel. Mr. Perry was rather a liberal as
liberality went with the New England clergy of hie
day: that is, although a Federalist, as it was natural
for a Massachusetts Congregational minister to be,
he kept on good terms with his clerical brother of
the next town, who was a flaming Democrat; I have
no doubt that he could, and did often, dine with the
only Episcopalian rector in the county, without any
conviction of a neglect of duty in failing to smother
him in his own popish surplice. Nevertheless, I
fancy it would have given the good old gentleman a
strange sensation could he have dreamed that profane
philosophers would come from the ends of the earth
to find, in his own personal and ecclesiastical domain,
evidence that the world was no more made in six
days than Rome was built in one; and I do not know
what would have happened to him had he foreseen
that one of his own descendants, in no very distant
generation, would give himself to conducting a news-
paper so devoted to the fleeting pleasures of this life
as the New York Home Journal. It is fortunate,
after all, that even ministers are but short-sighted
mortals. I dare say that, if the sainted pastor is now
able to look down and see all that has come about
so strangely, he regards it with the same equanimity
which his successors in office manifest.
The dinner over, we devoted ourselves to the more
strictly scientific work of the day, first listening to
the story of the boulders from the lips of their vene-
rable discoverer. But, as I purpose to go into that
story somewhat at large, I will make it the subject
of another section.
vm.
THE RICHMOND BOULDER TRAINS.
** One must go back to an age before all history ; an age
which cannot be measured by years or centuries; an age
shrouded in mysteries and to be spoken of only in guesses.
To assert anything positively concerning that age, or ages,
would be to show the rashness of ignorance. * I think that
I believe,' ' I have good reason to suspect,' * I seem to see,' are
the strongest forms of speech which ought to be used, over a
matter so vast and as yet so little elaborated." — Kingdey's
Idylls.
TEN MILLION TEARS AGO.
It may have been only one million years ago that
the events I am to speak of occurred; but I put it at
ten to cover accidents. It may have been less, or
perhaps more; the record is not so precise as could
be wished if title to real estate depended upon it.
But for our present purpose the * vague mea^surement
of the unnumbered eons of geology gives a more ade-
quate conception of their immensity than could be
obtained from the most definite statement in num-
bers, even if we knew it to be exact: the mind is so
apt to fancy it has a full appreciation of such a
statement whereas it really has not the slightest.
Let me give you a general outline of the physical
THE RICHMOND BOULDER TRAINS. 115
geography of our hills as described by Dr. Palfrey
in his History of New England, on the authority of
Professor Guyot.
" Only moderate elevations present themselves along the
greater part of the New England coast. Inland the great
topographical feature is a double belt of highlands, separated
almost to their bases by the deep and broad valley of the Con.
necticut River, and running parallel to each other, from the
south-south-west to the north-north-east,till, around the sources
of that river, they unite 'in a wide space of table land, from
which streams descend in diflPerent directions."
" To regard these highlands, which form so important a
feature in New England geography, as simply two ranges of
hills, would not be to conceive of them aright. They are vast
swells of land, of an average elevation of a thousand feet above
the level of the sea, each with a width of forty or fifty miles,
from which asfrom a base, mountains rise in chains or isolated
groups to an altitude of several thousand feet more."
•'In structure the two belts are unlike. The western
system, which bears the general name of the Green Mountains,
is composed of two principal chains [the Taghconics, or
Taconics, on the east, the Hoosacs on the west], more or less
continuous, covered, like several shorter ones which run along
them, with the forests and herbage to which they owe their
name. Between these, a longitudinal valley can be traced,
though with some interruptions, from Connecticut to Northern
Vermont. In Massachusetts and Connecticut, it is marked by
the Housatonic [and the Hoosack] ; in Vermont by the rich
basins which hold the villages of Bennington, Manchester and
Rutland, and farther on by valleys of less note. * * *
" The mountains have a regular increase from south to
north. From a height of less than a thousand feet in Con-
necticut, they rise to an average of twenty-five hundred feet
in Massachusetts, where the majestic Qfeylock, isolated be-
tween the two chains, lifts its head to the stature of thirty-five
hundred feet. In Vermont, Equinox and Stratton Mountains
116 TAGHCONIC.
near Manchester are thirty-Be ven hundred feet ; Killington
Peak, near Rutland, rises forty-two hundred feet ; Mansfield
Mountain, at the northern extremity, overtops the rest of the
Green-Mountain range with an altitude of forty-four hundred
feet.
" The rise of the valley is less regular. In Connecticut its
bottom is from five hundred to seven hundred feet above the
level of the sea. In Southern Berkshire it is eight hundred
feet ; it rises thence two hundred feet to Pittsfield, and one
hundred more to the foot of Greylock ; whence it declines to
the bed of the Housa tonic in one direction and to an average
height of little more than five hundred feet in Vermont on the
other. Thus it is in Berkshire county that the western swell
presents, if not the most elevated peaks, yet the most compact
and elevated structure."
Besides the shorter ranges, mentioned by Dr.
Palfrey as lying along the Taconics and Hoosacs, the
Berkshire valley is everywhere broken by spurs from
the main chains and by hills, often of magnitude.
The mass of up-tumblings and down-pullings which
meets the eye that looks down upon it from some
elevated point, is a marvel and a joy to the geologist.
We have locally been accustomed to regard the un-
derlying rocks — chiefly mica schists of different
grades, crystaline limestones, quartzite and green-
stone — as belonging to the very earliest formations.
Thirty or forty years ago. Professor Emmons
maintained a hard fight against cruel odds, to es-
tablish that theory, and we fancied his victory com-
plete. But now comes a newer, and very high, au-
thority, Professor Dana, and relying upon the evidence
of certain Yermont fossils, denies to our rocks any
THE RICHMOND BOULDER TRAINS. 117
antiquity greater than the earliest period of the older
Silurian epoch; not much, if at all, more than a hun-
dred million years: and that likely to be fearfully
cut down if certain still later theorists upon the ages
prevail.
I suppose I shall be told that we must submit to
be thus deposed from our high estate and ranked
among comparative parvenues; mere rocks of the
second order. But
"On wliat compulsion must we? Tell me that."
The newest geologist is only infallible, while he is
the newest ; an arrant brevity. Kever, within all the
borders of Berkshire, in schist or quartz, in marble or
greenstone, in dyke or bed-rock, ice-ground gravel or
unburied boulder, was there ever found the slightest
trace of organic forms, animal or vegetable: and
shall our pure azoic rocks be robbed of their virgin
fame because the Rev. Augustus Wing has detected
the slip of a frail distant relative up in Vermont, a
hundred million years ago ? Worse accidents than
til at happen in the most primitive families.
To be sure, our rocks have been greatly meta
niorphosed, and there is indisjiutable evidence of
violent heat in their impressible youth; but does thai
])rove that their metamorphoses were like Ovid's :
My Berkshire blood is up, and, if I were younger, ]
would myself ride a geological tilt in their defense
as it is, I summon some youthful champion to put ol
his armor of proof, and try a joust ^ith this renownecl
knight of the hammer. Let him show that oar old
mountain ridges are the very "bones of time;" not
118 TAGHCONIC.
fossil bones by any means, but the veritable rock-
ribs of mother earth. But, until such champion shall
appear, we will, for the sake of peace, and in sub-
mission to the geologic ruler of the hour, admit that
we are only Silurians. It might have been worse;
for, after all, the Welsh is a good old stock.
At any rate, the rocks are there in very palpable
mountains. Azoic or Silurian as you please; and they
are covered far up their sides, if not to their very
summits, by immense deposits of drift, composed of
rounded and rolled fragments of all sizes from the
huge boulder to the finest sand. The same drift
covers the valley ; stones of all sizes and of every
variety which could be torn from the neighboring
hills, being jumbled together in utter confusion as
to size, the largest often being at the top; as you
may see finely exemplified on Jubilee Hill in Pitts-
field and elsewhere. But, with regard to the pre-
vailing rocks which compose it, the position in which
they lie, and in other particulars, you will find the
drift of different localities marked by distinct indi-
vidual characteristics. Even in regard to size, con-
fusion is not absolutely universal : you will find many
gravel beds beautifully strati^.ed in this respect: but,
as compared with the great mass of drift, these are
exceptional. These queerly tumbled beds and piles
of drift afford an altogether curious study; and one
in which there are few adepts. I commend it to you
as a summer recreation on the whole preferable to
trouting; although, if you persist in gratifying your
THE EICHMOXD BOULDER TRAINS. 119
murderous propensities, you may pleasantly com-
bine the two.
Scattered all over this loose, stony formation,
which clothes the rocks of hill and valley as muscles
clothe bones, is still another deposit of boulders,
generally of considerable size and often very large.
They are easily distinguished from the underlying
drift; not being, like it, either buried, smoothed or
rounded, but exposed, rough and angular, except
when sometimes, their upper surface is worn to a
rude dome shape. Neither the boulders or the drift
are at all peculiar to Berkshire. Similar formations
cover a large portion of the Northern hemisphere.
The phenomenon which has drawn hither so many
eminent geologists is the occasional arrangement of
the exposed boulders in well-defined trains; which
is exceptional, if not unique, so far as observations
have been made and published.
These remarkable trains were discovered, about
the year 1840, by Dr. Stephen Reed, who, as Pre-
sident of our Scientific Association, led our field-
meeting on Perry's Peak. When the feast was over,
that day, and we had fraternized with our genial
and hospitable Richmond hosts, we listened to local
story, told by venerable speakers from Lenox and
Stockbridge, concerning Parson Perry, the second
minister, and his parishioner, Col. Rossiter, who, as
second in command of the Berkshire militia at the
Battle of Bennington, did good service; recalling his
men from plundering to fighting, and thereby saving
120 TAGHCONIC.
the day which was well nigh lost after it had been
once won.
When we had thus done due honor to some of the
old-time local worthies, our venerable president —
who might well have served the most fastidious
painter as a model for " an old geologist " — told the
story of his discovery, illustrating his method very
simply. " If," said he " you should see a cart loaded
with apples of a peculiar variety, which, dropping
from a leaky tail-board, were strewn all the way
back to a certain orchard which alone bore that
kind of fruit, you would have no difficulty in deter-
mining where that apple train came from."
By a similar process it is easy to trace the princi-
pal, and most perfect, of the Richmond Boulder
Trains to its source; since it is an exceedingly well
defined and nearly continuous succession of large
angular masses of a peculiar chloritic schist, wholly
unlike the general bed-rocks of the vicinity, and also
differing totally from most of the neighboring
boulders.
Following up this train. Dr. Reed found it termi-
nate, three miles north-west of the Richmond meet-
ing-house, on the summit of Fry's Hill, the highest,
and almost the central point of the Canaan Mountains
in Columbia county, N. Y. ; one of the short ranges
which run along the Taconics. The top of this hill
is composed of a chloritic schist, precisely like that
of the boulders, and unlike any other bed-rock in all
that region. Of course no doubt remained of the
source of that train, and its discoverer, retracing his
THE EICHMOND BOULDER TRAINS. 121
steps, continued his investigations until he had
followed it in the opposite direction across the towns
of Richmond, Lenox and Lee, some ten or twelve
miles in all. He believed that it reached still further,
and perhaps even to Connecticut. I think he after-
wards obtained some evidence that this supposition
was correct, but of how conclusive a nature I cannot
say. Subsequently he found another train of the
chloritic schist, originating, like the first, on the
Canaan Mountains, and five of limestone derived
from the Taconic range; but none so complete as
the first.
In 1842, Dr. Reed published an account of his
discovery in the "Lenox Farmer," predicting for
the boulders a host of distinguished visitors and a
wide fame; a prophecy which has been amply veri-
fied; for during his life he piloted among them,
Dr. Birney of Boston, Professors Chester Dewey,
Hitchcock, Hosford, Hall and the Brothers Rogers,
Sir Charles Lyell, Count Pourtales, and Professor
De Saurre.
Dr. Reed, in his first paper at least, contented
himself with simply describing the boulder train.
The apple-cart by which it was strewn had long
disappeared, and he did not attempt to restore it
from his imaginings, doubtless knowing full well
that, if he did, the next geologist who came along
would make it his first business to upset it.
Some of his visitors, however, were not so discreet,
and the result has been a dozen or more learned
11
122 TAGHCONIC.
essays, ot which the most interesting are those of
Sir Charles Lyell and Rev. John B. Perry.
Lyell in his " Antiquity of Man," gives a spirited
account of his visit and a graphic description of the
rocks, making some very fascinating reading. His .
theory, to use the condensation of another, is that
" at the time of the drift period, the highest points
of the Canaan, Richmond and Lenox ranges formed
chains of islands in an ocean; and that the gaps in
the Richmond an*d Lenox ranges were straits through
which floated ice-bergs bearing, the chloritic blocks
from the exposed parts of the Canaan range, and
dropping them in their present positions." So
strongly -did this notion impress itself upon Sir
Charles, that he illustrated his work with a view of
the islands, and the rock-laden ice-floes — not ice-
bergs — floating between them. He has also given
views of some of the larger boulders, and a diagram
of the seven trains.
Mr. Perry " divides the boulders which rest upon
the surface of the drift into two classes, according as
they are rounded or angular: those which make up
the trains being rounded, while the angular are
distributed without definite arrangement. He con-
siders that the trains owe their formation to the move-
ment of the general ice-mass which rested upon the
region during the glacial period; the boulders, which
are found in trains; and which he believes to be
rounded [dome-topped ? ] having been torn from pro-
minent peaks, and forced along under the ice-sheet,
while the scattered ones were transported to their
THE RICHMOND BOULDER TRAINS. l--i
present position much later, when the ice-mass had
become so much reduced in thickness that the peaks in
question projected above the surface, so that masses of
rock could be lodged upon the ice as well as dragged
along under it.
Since Dr. Reed's death, which occurred in 1SV6,
Mr. E. R. Benton, of Boston has made an exhaustive
survey of the locality of the boulders and a thorough
study of their phenomena, and has published the
result in a pamphlet of forty-two pages, forming
Kumber Three of the Fifth Volume of the Bulletin
of the Harvard College Museum of Comparative
zoology. Odd, is it not, that of the three best
treatises upon these rocks — which, however we may
class them, show not the slightest vestige of animal
or vegetable life — one should be found in a work
upon the antiquity of man, and another in a bulletin
of zoology ? Is then the absence of life the com-
plement of its presence, as well before as after its
existence upon this earth ?
But, wherever we may find Mr. Benton's paper, let
us be thankful for it: for it is the most complete,
satisfactory and philosophical essay upon its subject,
which we have, or are likely to have, unless he him-
self pursues it further.
Having given a concise resume of the statements
and opinions of his predecessors, Mr. Benton pro-
ceeds to a geological and topographical description
of the Boulder Region, which is illustrated by maps
showing the contours of the hills, their bed rocks and
124 TAGHCONIC.
the course of the trains. I condense his description
of the principal and best defined train.
The crest of Fry's Hill in the town of Canaan, has
an elevation of six hundred and twenty feet above the
track of the Boston and Albany railroad in Rich-
mond, which is one thousand and fifty feet above the
level of the sea. This crest, extending one hundred
and fifty feet down from its summit, is composed of
a fine-grained foliaceous mica chloritic schist, very
tough and of a green color. It is identical with the
boulders of the main train, is of narrow extent here,
and has been found, in place, in only one other locality
on the range. To its limited extent Mr. Benton attri-
butes the distinctness of the train, whose width varies
from two hundred and fifty to five hundred feet; the
difference being caused apparently by the varying
contours of the hills in its path.
From the summit of Fry's Hill the train descends
in a south 54° east direction; then bends gradually
to the southward till, at the base of the range, it
has a south 27° east direction. Thence it extends
just south of the North Family of the Shakers, and
up the face and along the crest of a westerly spur
of the Richmond range, called Merriman's Mount,
to the crest of the western branch of the range.
In so doing it gradually changes its direction, to
south 68° east; and so crosses the Haskell valley and
begins the descent of the Richmond range. In
making this descent, it bends considerably to the
south, crossing the main road in Richmond two
miles north of the railroad station, till it attains a
THE RICHMOND BOULDER TRAINS. 125
Bouth 25^ east direction, where it crosses the railroad.
From the railroad the train continues on across the
Richmond valley, but curves to the eastward as it
mounts the western slope of the Lenox range
crosses its two parallel ridges and descends into the
Lenox and Stockbridge valley, where its direction is
south 50° east. A half a mile south-east of Mr.
Luther Butler's house, near the Lenox and Stock-
bridge line, the train seems to lose its continuous
character; the chloritic schist boulders in the same
line, to the south-east, being few, small, and widely
separated.
Far the largest boulders of the train, averaging
fifteen feet in length — are found on the eastern
slope of the Canaan range; two of them measuring
ninety and one hundred and twenty-five feet in cir-
cumference respectively, and being about thirty feet
in hight. On the western slope of this range there
are no chloritic schist boulders. Near the Lebanon
Shakers they average twelve feet in length; one
having a circumference of seventy-five feet. Lyell
mentions two with circumferences of seventy and
one hundred and twenty feet respectively, and a
hight of twenty feet above the soil, lying two miles
north of Richmond station. Thence there is a con-
stant diminution in size until, in the Lenox and
Stockbridge valley, the average length does not ex-
veed two feet.
By the Richmond range, Mr. Benton means that
portion of the Taconic Mountains which lies in
Richmond and the adjoining town of Canaan on the
126 lAGHCONIC.
west; and is separated by a narrow valley from the
Canaan or Columbia range. Fry's Hill is two and
lialf miles south of Douglas Knob, the picturesque
elevation which almost overhangs Columbia Hall,
and forms the northern terminus of the range.
The Lenox range is a spur thrown off by the
Taconics at Egremont, which, broken by the Williams
River at West Stockbridge, extends north=eastward
to Pittsfield, where it terminates in South Mountain
and Melville Hill. Its domes and peaks form some
of the most striking and beautiful features in the
views, looking north from the Lenox, and south from
the Pittsfield valley; while its southern extension,
reaching to Stockbridge, is filled with the most de-
licious scenery.
But to return to the Boulder trains; Mr. Benton
examined three others, all less continuous and com-
posed of smaller blocks than the first; but he failed
to find the chloritic schists, in place, upon the
points in the Canaan range to which they led, and
this, as well as the imperfection in the trains, he
attributed to the early exhaustion of the knobs of
this rock which formerly crested this ridge at in-
tervals, but were of inferior thickness to that on the
summit of Fry's Hill.
He speaks generally of certain other curious but
promiscuously scattered boulders, and of limestone
trains; but appears to have been discouraged as to
the latter by the inaccuracies of previous writers.
All the three ranges mentioned exhibit marks of
ghicial action wherever their beds are exposed; but
THE RICHMOND BOULDER TRAINS. 127
none of them send out trains of boulders except the
Canaan, as few others anywhere do. The explana-
tion is found in the sharpness and narrow limits of
Fry's Hill, and of the other, now obliterated, knobs
of chloritic schist, in which the trains, undoubtedly
had their origin.
In accountiiig for the transportation of the boul-
ders to the positions in wh'ch they are now found,
Mr. Benton discards Lyell's theory of floating ice,
since it implies that, during the period in which they
were deposited, the level of the ocean stood above
the crest of the Canaan range, or sixteen hundred
and fifty feet higher than it now does. Other
writers have shown that the same line of reasoning
which leads to Lyell's conclusions would require a
depression of parts of the glaciated region to a
depth of five thousand feet below their present
level: a depression which all the evidence indicates
did not exist.
Mr. Benton's own solution of the problem is
based upon the fact, now generally admitted by
geologists, that in the Post-Pliocene age, this
region, in common with a large part of the northern
hemisphere, was covered with an ice-sheet several
thousand feet thick, which had a slow motion in
this district from the north-west to the south-east.
But he shows that the boulders could not have
rested, and been borne along, upon the upper sur-
face of this ice-sheet; since that pre-supposes cliffs
upon the Canaan range which towered above that
surface, whereas an ice-sheet which could move
128 TAGHCONIC.
across valleys six hundred feet deep, without being
materially deflected from its course, must have
covered the highest land to the depth of many hun-
dred feet. Nor could the boulders have been dragged
along under the ice-mass, without leaving marks of
abrasion of which none are to be seen.
It is probable, he thinks, that the boulders were
torn from their original bed by the ice sheet, and
became imbedded in its mass instead of being dragged
along under it. The sharpness of the knob called
Fry's Hill favors this supposition, since boulders torn
from its upper part would be at least one hundred
feet above the lower surface of the ice along the
neighboring parts of the crest; and the mass, closing
again as soon as it had passed the sharp knob, would
hold many of them firmly in its grasp, without al-
lowing them to reach the rocks below, until the ice-
sheet had ceased its grinding march and was in
process of dissolution. Nevertheless, under the in-
cessant influence of gravity, the imbedded fragments
would be constantly working their way downward,
and many of them, finally reaching the under surface,
would be ground up by the crunching, superincum-
bent, moving mass; and the farther from the source,
the greater would be the amount of material lost to
the trains, and added to the underlying gravel beds.
In condensing a portion of Mr. Benton's essay, I
have occasionally departed from the order of arrange-
ment pursued by him, and have interpolated, now
and then, matter of my own, but I believe that I have
given correctly the facts and theories presented by
THE RICHMOND BOULDER TRAINS. 129
him, so far as I have attempted to give them at all;
often using his own language. But he enters much
more into detail than it would be possible or proper
for me to do here, and touches upon some allied topics
to which I have not even alluded. His pamphlet
should be in the hands of every student of the boulder
phenomena, or of the superficial geology of this
locality.
The boulder and drift deposits in the valley at the
base of the Taconics, north of Richmond, offer a
fresh and interesting field of investigation. At
some points there are indications of arrangement in
trains; but, whether or not if followed up those in-
dications should lead to discoveries of that character,
they could not fail of valuable and curious results.
Some of the local deposits of boulders are strikingly
suggestive. I have already spoken of the Balanced
Rock group. In the romantic town of New Marlboro',
next east of Great Ban'ington, is another rocking
stone, quite as firmly based, and with a more pro-
nounced and easy oscillation. Between Onota street
and Lake Onota, in Pittsfield, some most singular
boulders are strewn. One variety is composed of
what appears upon the surface to be a net work, but
in reality is a honey comb, of quartz cells filled
with a hard schist. Sometimes cells, which were
probably filled with a softer rock, are empty, leavmg
a skeleton of quartz walls. Another variety of soft
rock encloses rounded pebbles sometimes six or
eight inches long. I think some summer or autumn
days could be pleasantly passed in tracing these
130 TAGHCONIC.
queer erratics to their source, and trying to imagine
how they were made; and when; and why.
I fear I may have wearied some of you by dwell-
ing so long upon a theme in which you perhaps take
small interest. But, when you think of it, is it not
after all a wondrous thing ? As strange as any martel
of the genii and, at the same time, if we can rightly
read it, telling a tale as true as Holy Writ. If Sir
Thomas Browne could properly call the moor-logs
and fir trees found under ground in many parts of
England, "the undated ruins of winds, floods and
earthquakes," of what are these Berkshire boulders
the ruins; and where is their date recorded?
And now, one word more; that I may have the
credit of, for once, closing a story with a sound moral
lesson. The study of these rocks will aid you in the
clear and conscious recognition of a truth, which I
dare say you know already, but perhaps only in a
dreamy, unthinking way. It is this, that in those
immeasurable ages, matter was composed of the same
elements and obeyed implicitly the same laws, which
at this moment compose and govern it, both on this
little spot of earth and in the illimitable heavens.
Whether there were intelligent eyes to watch them
or not, rising and setting suns measured the days;
and, if not here, by reason of cold, yet at our anti-
podes, the procession of the Seasons marked the
coming and the going of the year. For as yet we
have only begun to approach that epoch, when science
and revelation alike require us to believe that the
earth was without form a^nd void, and darkness was
upon the face of the deep.
IX.
THE WIZARD'S GLEN.
Eight well I wote, most miglity soveraine,
That all this famous antique historie
Of some the abundance of an ydle braine
Will judged be, and painted forgerie.
Rather than matter of just memorie. Fairie Queene.
A four miles' drive from our \nllage brings the ex-
cursionist to a deep gorge, now called the " Gulf,"
but known in the earlier and less sceptical days of
the settlement as the "Wizard's Glen." It is the
wildest scene in our immediate neighborhood. A
narrow valley is enclosed by steep hills, covered far
up their sides with the huge rectangular flint rocks
which mark this whole mountain range. You see
them scattered everywhere, from Greylock to Tagh-
conic; but nowhere else — unless, perhaps, at Icy
Glen or Monument Mountain — piled up in such
magnificent and chaotic profusion. It is as though
an angry Jove had here thrown down some impious
wall of the Heaven-defying Titans. Block lies heaped
upon block, squared and bevelled, as if by more than
mortal art; for of such adamantine hardness are they
that never hand nor implement of man could carve
them into symmetry.
132 TAGHCONIC.
In their desolation they seemed charmed to ever-
lasting changelessness; storm and sunshine leave fe^v
traces upon them; the trickling stream wears no
channel in their obdurate surface; only a falling
thunderbolt sometimes splinters an uplifted crag, and
marks its course by a scar of more livid whiteness.
No flower springs from, no creeping plant clings to,
them for support, save when the rare Herb Robert
would fain cheer them with his tiny blossom; or
some starveling lichen strives to shroud the livid
ghastliness of their hues.
It is a stern-featured place; and yet of a warm
summer afternoon, one — no, not one, it is too in-
tensely sombre for that — but a party can pass a
merry hour there, in the cool depths of the ravine.
There are some books too, written in a spirit akin to
the fantastic and demoniac grandeur of the place,
which can be read there with a double zest. Perched
in the angle of a cleft boulder, I once keenly en-
joyed some scenes in "Faust." "Manfred" would
not be out of place there, nor would some parts of
" Festus."
But the best is, to mark how the most humanly
merry laughter and the gentlest of gentle voices
catch a fiendish echo from the rocky hollows. There is
diablerie in the very air; the fairest form I ever knew,
as it rose from behind one of those enchanted rocks,
looked weird as Lilith, the first wife of Adam. He-
cate herself could not have emerged from Hades
with half the infernal grace and beauty; I am sure
the place is bewitched.
133
Tradition indeed says that, before the decay of
the native tribes — of whom a scanty remnant were
found by the white man in the valley of the Housa-
tonic — this used to be a favorite haunt of the
Indian priests, or wizards. Here, it was said, they
wrought their hellish incantations, and with horrible
rites offered up human sacrifices to Ho-bo-mo-ko,
the Spirit of Evil. One broad, square rock, which
chanced to stand alone in the midst of a conveniently
clear space, had the credit of being the Devil's altar-
stone. Some crimson stains marked its upper surface,
upon which the earlier settlers could not look with-
out a shudder. They were believed to come from
the blood of frequent victims — although, now-a-
days, a sceptic with no analysis at all would find
little difficulty in resolving them into " traces of
iron ore." For my part, until the analysis is made,
I hold fast to the older and better opinion of those
who believed that around this ensanguined shrine a
spectral crew of savage wizards nightly reenacted
the revolting orgies of the past.
I met, not long since, an old man of ninety
winters — perhaps the last believer in their super-
stitions. He had heard the story of the shadowy-
sacrifices from an eye-witness, and related it with a
credulous simplicity very difficult to gainsay.
Not far from the year 17V0 (as he said), one John
Chamberlain, a brave man and a mighty hunter, of
Ashuelot (now Dalton), at the close of a hard day's
chase, overtook and slew a deer, somewhere within
12
134 TAGHCONIC.
the Wizard's Glen. While he was dressing his
quarry, a terrific storm of thunder, lightning, and
hail arose — as Chamberlain averred, with superna-
tural celerity, as such often seem to do among the
mountains. A thunder-storm, even in the ordinary
course of nature, is not just the thing to be coveted
in this place, by the hardiest deer-slayer; but come
what will deer-slayers -must make the best of it.
Seeking out, therefore, a spot where the rocks were
piled one upon another, with cavernous recesses that
formed a sort of natural caravansary beneath, he
drew his deer under one boulder and ensconced him-
self snugly under the shelter of another.
Thus protected, he betook himself to such slum-
bers as he might get, which turned out to be not the
most peaceful. The thunder crashed, the lightning
glared and the wind howled in a manner which seemed
to our poor John altogether demoniacal. Sleep, in
such a hurly-burly of the elements, was out of the
question ; so, raising himself up, he looked out among
the rocks, as he could very well do by the aid of
the scarcely intermittent- lightning.
You may be sure that, with all his courage, our
hunter was not quite pleased to find himself in full
view of tUe Devil's altar-stone. It was an ugly pre-
dicament, to say the least of it; but there was no
help in the case, and he had only to make the best
he could of this also: which turned out to be bad
enough again. His eyes once fixed upon it, the
haunted spot kept them riveted by a terrible fascina-
tion, while Chamberlain reflected upon his position
135
in a state of mind which was doubtless far enough
from that of philosophic calmness.
Very soon, however, his reflections were inter-
rupted b^f a wilder rush of the storm, and a yet
broader and more vivid flash of lightnings which
illumined the whole valley and revealed the horned
Devil himself, seated upon a broken crag and clothed
in all the recognized paraphernalia of his royalty.
Chamberlain thought him a very Indiany-looking
devil indeed, which rather pleased him afterwards
to tell, for he was no lover of the Indian race.
This was aj^parently a gala night with Satan,
although none of the guests were yet arrived. He
was not now going to battle or to work, but rather
to hold a royal drawing-room, by way of enjoying
himself and receiving homage. His sable majesty
has been too long intimate with earthly majesties
and their courts, not to recognize the value of a
becoming stateliness on the part of those who rule
states, whether their capitals be here or below:
tlieir subjects civilized or savage. He sat, therefore,
on this occasion enthroned with a very commanding
and royal grace, while the arrowy lightnings shot in
circles around his head — very much, I judge, as you
may have seen the swallows dart and soar of a sum-
mer evening, around an old church steeple.
His Majesty had not long to wait for his loving
lieo:es, for suddenly from the darkness a huge,
gaunt-framed wizard leaped out and mounted the
altar-stone. If Chamberlain has not painted him
blacker than he deserves, this high priest of Satan
136 TAGHCONIC.
was a most villainous-looking rascal. His raw-
boned and ghastly visage was painted in most blood-
thirsty ugliness; scalps, dri]3ping with fresh blood,
hung around, his body in festoons; on his own scul],
by way of scalp lock, burned a lambent blue flame;
his distended veins shone through the bright copper-
colored skin as if they were filled with molten fire
for blood — and, as for his eyes, they glowed with a
fiercer light than those of the arch-fiend himself;
whence Chamberlain maintained that an Indian priest
was at least one degree more devilish than the Devil
himself.
The present was evidently a very potent magi-
cian, for at his call a throng of ghastly and horrible
phantoms came pouring in from every nook and
cranny of the valley — each with a shadowy toma-
hawk and. a torch, which did not burn with the
honest and ruddy glare of pitch-pine, but with a
blue color ard sulphurous odor, that revealed un-
mistakably at what fire they had been lighted.
Every ghost, as he came, made a profound obeis-
ance to the rock-throned Satan, and then took his
place in the circle around the altar-stone. By and
bye, the chief priest set up a wild, howling cnani,
and away went the whole rabble rout, yelling and
rushing round the altar in a mad, galloping sort of
dance, in which they lifted their feet all the while,
as if treading upon burning coals or red-hot iron —
a step w?iich is only learned in the dancing-schools
down below. Many more such diabolical antics
they cut, which, as they would neither be profitable
137
by way of example or warning, it does not matter
to tell
At last they paused, and Chamberlain thought it
about time for them to take themselves off. But they
were far enough from that: on the contrary, two
barbarous looking phantoms — who might in life
have been familiars to a savage inquisition — pre-
sented themselves, leading between them a beautiful
Indian maiden, robed only in her own long black
hair. At another moment the beholder might have
admired her graceful proportions and regular fea-
tures — as he did when he afterwards remembered
them — but now his senses were too much absorbed
by horror. Not a word the poor girl spoke, but,
stupified and silent, looked around from one unrelent-
ing face to another, as if at a loss to comprehend
what it all meant. Alas ! she soon knew; for one
of the familiars, seizing her rudely around the waist,
placed her upon the altar-stone before the priest.
Then she shrieked — so wildly that the hunter de-
clared the echo never ceased ringing in his ears to
^is dying day; — what part she had to perform there
was no longer doubtful. But she shrieked not again
nor spoke — only looked up into the fiery eyes of the
priest so piteously that it seemed his heart should
have melted, had it been formed even of Hint like the
stone on which he stood; but it had been hardened
in more infernal fires.
So he took up his demoniac howl again, and went
capering madly around the maiden. Then, suddenly
pausing before her, he raised his hatchet and the
138 TAGHCONIC.
whole phantom circle gathered closer around him,
as if to gloat more nearly over their victim's pangs.
It seemed the sacrifice was about to be consummated;
but as the weapon was raised, the maiden's eyes
(averted from it) met those of Chamberlain. The
kind-hearted hunter, in whom compassion had over-
come fear, could no longer restrain himself; so,
taking out his Bible, he 2:>ronounced thegreatNAME —
and witli a terrific crash of the elements the whole
scene vanished, leaving him in impenetrable dark-
ness — for although the lightnings ceased, as if they
had accompanied th'eir master in his flight, yet the
rain fell faster than ever.
When the morning came, Chamberlain would have
taken it all for a dream, for, exhausted with fatigue
and excitement, he had fallen into a deep sleep; but
he found that the wizards, unable to harm him, while
protected by the holy volume, had revenged them-
selves by stealing his deer, and perhaps givmg it to
their familiars, the bears — for there were bears in
those days — so that there can be no manner of doubt
as to the truth and accuracy of Chamberlain's story.
There is many another legend of this haunted dell;
as for this, I hope you place the same implicit confi-
dence in it which my old informant did.
Passing through the gorge very late, one piercing
cold winter night, the place looked very weird to
me. The frozen air was still as death; the white
moonlight was reflected from the snow, as I fancied
with more of pallor than of brightness, and I heard
a shriek which I tried to believe came from the
wizard's glen. 139
maiden victim. But it may have been the scream
of some far-off locomotive. Confound those "re-
sonant steam eagles ! " — there's never a shriek,
from Cape Cod to the Taghconics — though with
the ghostliest ring to it — but they get the credit.
X.
UNDIIsrE'S GLEN.
Page — Apelles, you must come away quickly, with the
picture. The king thinketb, now you have painted it you
play with it.
Apelles. — If I would play with pictures I have enough at
home.
Page. — None perhaps you love so well.
Apelles. — It may be I have painted none so well. [Exit
page.]
* * * Campasne, I have painted thee in my heart ; painted I
nay, contrary to my art, imprinted, and that in such deep
characters that nothing can rase it out, unless it rub my heart
out. — Alexander and Campasne.
It had been a week of rare sultriness with us — the
fierce dying flicker of summer's life-flame. The maple
leaves had lost the last remnant of their glossy fresh-
ness; the cattle stood cooling themselves under the
willow trees in the still pools of the river; long ago
the birds had ceased their songs and fled into the
deeper recesses of the woods; we, human idlers, lay
listlessly under the shade of the nearer groves in
dreamy reveries, or feeble speculations upon the
destiny of some little cloud which might chance to
speck the horizon — the forlorn-hope of* a thunder-
shower. At evening we broached the mildest possible
undhhe's glen. 141
topics of conversation. The nearest app»'oacli we
made to vigorous effort was when a necessity aros>e
for throwing cold water upon any chance theme or
project which might heat the blood.
On the most fiery day of that fiery seven, came a
friend who, then of all times, must climb to Wash-
ington Mountain. No flaming sword of the elements
could fright him from his purpose, and all the chivalry
of friendship forbade me to leave him to the chances
of being roasted, alive and alone, on some sun-burnt
exposure of quartzite: a very possible fate for him
who in his scientific ardor lingers too long on those
natural gridirons. My friend had passed the livelong
summer in New York, and minded our mountain
heats no more than Monsieur Chaubert did a furnace
only heated three times, instead of seven.
Washington Mountain is the higher portion of
that part of the Hoosac range which lies in the town
of Washington, and is to be carefully distinguished
from Mount Washington, the grand mass of Taconic
hills in the south-western corner of the county. The
point which we were to visit, was the shore of a pretty
and lonely mountain lake, which lies seven miles east
of Pittsfield and seven hundred feet above it, or seven-
teen hundred above the sea-level. The bed-rock
here is pure quartz, which is a good thing for the
Pittsfield people, who get their luxurious abundance
of pure water from the lake, and from mountain
streams which flow over the same insoluble formation.
It takes here the form of granular quartz — which
mineralogists, absurdly to 'my thinking, nickname
142 TAGHCONIC.
quartzite. When distintegrated, naturally or arti-
ficially, it becomes the silicious sand of the glass
manufacture. A very valuable bed of this sand lies
on the eastern shore of the lake: of which, more by
and bye. I mention it now, merely to confess that
it was some speculative interest in the money-value
of its contents, and not any fanatical devotion to
mountain scenery which led us to undertake that
j)ilgrimage which threatened to'be so like that from
Morocco to Mecca: what ever of a romantic character
finally attached itself to the excursion, was purely
subsidiary. But in Berkshire, if there is any sus-
ceptibility to the romantic in you, you can hardly go
to market for a pig without its betraying itself.
Thinking to escape the more violent heat, we set
out at a very early hour, but the air was already in-
tensely sultry, and, still worse, was filled with a fine
white dust, that completely penetrated eyes, nose,
and mouth. We could neither see, breathe, nor
speak, with comfort; and the gritty particles between
our teeth sent a nervous shudder through the whole
frame. As we ascended the mountain we came upon
a tine breeze which never fails there, and which at
the same time aggravated the plague of the dust,
and inspired us with vigor to devise and execute a
remedy.
Ever and anon, by the road-side, appeared glimpses
of a deep, rocky gorge. Up this, L. proposed to
ascend the mountain by a path familiar to him, and,
accordingly, sending our horse forward by a willing
youth — who, I rather doubtfully hope, did not seize
irtfDINE's GLEN. 143
this rare opportunity to violate the precepts of the
society for the prevention of cruelty to animals — we
plunged down a steep descent, thick beset with
brambles. At the bottom, a little brook came
tumbling and purling down the hill, and, yielding to
its suggestions, we indulged in a series of luscious
ablutions. None but those who have experienced
the like, can know the thrilling vigor and elasticity
which penetrated us with the cool mountain air when
the burning and inflammatory dust was once re-
moved from the pores.
Filled with new life, we push-ed eagerly up the
brook, now clambering over huge angular blocks of
flint rock, now sauntering along smooth patches of
green sward, and anon pushing our way through a
thorny hedge of blackberry bushes, hanging full of
the ripest fruit. Still L. led on, till we came to a
little level spot of green sward, around which the
brook swept in a graceful curve, while a thick leaved
maple overhung it. We were here shut out from all
sight of human habitation. The only traces of
man's ravages were the weather-beaten stumps,
which stood, ghastly memorials of his parricidal
war with nature, like the bleached sculls which the
ploughman turns up on an ancient battle-field. The
precipitous hills, on either side, were yet shaggy,
although not as of old, with the maple, the beech,
the fir, and the hemlock. Just up the gorge, the
streamlet leaped down a black ledge in a silver white
column; while, beyond, the glen was dark with nar-
rowing cliffs and over-hanging trees. Bravely, but
144 TAGHCONIC.
in vain, the gorgeous sunshine darted its arrowy rays
into tliat Thermopylae of gloom.
L. flung himself at full length beneath the maple,
and I was glad to follow his ex-ample. " Do you
know," he said, " this is Undine's Glen ? Shall I
tell you the story of how it got its foreign name ? "
One day in June, some ten years ago, there came
to the village hotel in Pittsfield two ladies; the one,
Miss Helen Y., an heiress, and what was more, a
spirited, brilliant, and natural girl. The other was
her maiden aunt, Miss M., neither young nor pretty,
yet a little romantic and not a little stiff in her
manners. Miss M. held moreover the responsible
office of guardian to her niece, which that young
lady took the best care should be anything but a.
sinecure.
Riding, walking, and reading, the lone dames
whiled away a week or two; when, provokingly
enough, just as the last page of their last light read-
ing was cut, there came a rainy, dreary day, as such
days will come, even in June. At such desperate
junctures, solid literature and re-readings, are not to
be thought of; so recourse was had to the land-
lord. That functionary was anxious to serve his
fair guests, but unfortunately his shelves were but
meagerly filled. Suddenly his face brightened with
a new idea. Among his boarders was one Dr. M.,
who, to enliven his hours in the country, had brought
with him from New York a curious library. This
gentleman was summoned, and made his appear-
ance — a very personable young gentleman, and a
145
clever. The wants of the ladies were made known to
him, and he invited them to examine his library for
themselves, and some pictures which he prized, as well.
Helen was delighted, although she did not exactly
say so then; Miss M. hesitated, with some secret
misgivings, but finally, overcome by the fiend ennui,
and the frank bearing of M., she, courteously enough,
accepted the invitation. Evening was upon them
before they had completed the survey; for, besides his
paintings by other artists, M. modestly displayed his
own portfolio, filled with sketches of foreign as well
as neighboring scenery. Helen eagerly turned them
over, and M. had an enthusiastic word for many a
remembered scene. After Miss M. had several times
reminded her of her prolonged stay, Helen se-
lected De La Motte Fouqu^'s delightful romance of
" Undine " from the library, and that evening M.
read it aloud to them in their parlor. Before they
parted, the ladies had consented to accompany him
on the morrow to this spot, of which he was going
to complete a sketch. So does friendship ripen
when the right sun-light falls upon it.
They came hither; the artist fixed his easel and
wrought upon his sketch. Helen, seated at the foot of
this maple, read " Undine " to her aunt. But both
found an interval to wander up the glen; so with
reading, sketching, romancing, — and most likely
eating — the day wore away and the night came, —
a moonlight night and a moonlight, ride home.
Some days passed, in which M. gained hugely in
13
146 TAGHCONIC.
the good opinion of his fair friends, who continually
teased him for a sight of his sketch — which he de-
clared should not be seen until it was completed.
Thus, something of an air of mystery had woven
itself around the picture when at last he brought it
out, altogether with the air of a man who knows he
has done a nice thing, and is rather proud to have
the world see it.
Never was pride more completely dashed, or
lover more completely puzzled. Helen blushed and
smiled, but looked strangely and heartily vexed.
The guardian aunt frowned unequivocally — not to
say scowled. Poor M. turned from one to the other
in most innocent and ludicrous bewilderment; but
finally settled down into a fixed consideration of the
cloud which had so suddenly gathered on the old
lady' s brow — as a summer storm sometimes will
over the placid surface of Lake Ashley. The sum-
■ mer storm is transient, but Miss M. seemed to have
an inexhaustible magazine of wrath behind her
wrinkled forehead. So, taking a hint from Helen's
eye, at the first growl of the thunder, M. fled.
The tempest was brewed in this wise. The good
old lady, with all her romance and stateliness, had a
spice of puritanism about her, and the special phase
in which it showed itself was a prudish modesty in
the matter of pictures. Why it took this form, more
than any other, might be discovered, perhaps, if we
could pry into the crooks and crannies of her early
history. At present it only concerns us to know
that it was there, and that in consequence of it she
U1
issued a husky edict for M. to " take his vile picture
hence."
Now this vile painting was neither more nor less
than a simple and spirited sketch of this scene, into
which the artist had interwoven a portrait of Helen
in the character of Undine. All very well — only
the painter, with the modest assurance of his art, had
changed the maiden's chaste garb for a bit of flimsy
drapery, which displayed the ivory neck and swelling
bosom, the taper leg and rosy foot, as circumstantially
as though he had had the original all the while be-
fore him for a model. O fair and false imagination,
to steal away so fair and true a reality !
Miss M. would have thought her ward's character
irreparably compromised by interchanging a word
more with the immoral young man M. had proved
himself, in her estimation. Helen thought quite
otherwise. Fortunately for M. there was another
difference in their notions. The aunt loved her
morning pillow — the niece her morning walk — and
this taste of the damsel's now acquired a. new strength
that would have charmed Dr. Alcott. In another
point of view these sunrise excursions to South
Mountain and Mellville's Lake might have been
thought alarmingly frequent. The young lady could
not have been expected or desired to make her walks
solitary, but one who saw how demurely they met at
the breakfast table would not have surmised that the
painter had been her companion an hour before.
But the end was not yet; walking, it seems would
not content them — they must ride as well. So one
148 TAGHCONIC.
balmy morning in the gray twilight, a pair of spirited
greys were reined up at the south door of the Berk-
shire House, while our young friends took their
places behind them; and then, heigho for Lebanon !
*' They'll have fleet steeds that follow, quoth young
Lochinvar." Gallant champions of Love, those same
fiery greys ! Before then, and since, they have borne
beating hearts up the hills and down the valleys of
that seven miles of Hymen's highway which lie be-
tween the jurisdiction of the puritan publishment
laws and the marriage-encouraging state of New
York. I wonder if any where in this western world
more visions of happiness have been dreamed, more
passionate pulsations throbbed, than between the tall
Elm of Pittsfield and the all-curing Springs of Le-
banon. The very murmurs of the groves have caught
the soft tones of lover's vows; the sparkling streams
reflect the ardent gleam of expectant bridegroom's
eyes.
Over this hymenial highway, that balmy morning,
our happy couple were rapidly whirled, and before
the sun was up, the words were said which bound
them in that union which no words can unloose. I
doubt if their steeds were urged as impatiently on
their return, but they reached their hotel again while
the careless guardian, fatigued with the last night's
novel, yet slept. How they ever reconciled matters
with her I never heard; but it was done, for last
week she sat quietly by, while M., in a little recessed
back parlor in Brooklyn, told me the story of his
wooing. On the wall, too, he pointed out to me the
TrNDESTE'S GLEN. 149
identical "vile painting;" and by her mother's side
a little Undine of eight summers shook her sunny-
curls and laughed. I don't think the painter ever
regretted his day's sketching in the wild glen he
christened " Undine's Gorge."
" Can you believe the doctor was ever guilty of
such nonsense as that ? " said JMi'S. M., laughing and
blushing, as she handed me a delicately tinted and
perfumed paper. It was one of her husband's
effusions in the days of their courtship, and I
noticed that his nonsense had been carefully copied
in her own neat penmanship. " And will you be-
lieve that those silly lines .once had the power to
make me tell my poor aunt a little fib, and then walk
half a mile to meet the saucy fellow, by Elsie's
Haunted Pool ? What weak things gii'ls are ! "
Of course I could but beg a copy of the verses;
and here they are:
Geeen Hjlls of Taghconic.
All sounds are hushed to silence,
Save tlie insect's lulling drone
And the murmur of the brooklet
O'er its bed of pebbled stone.
Far off, the green hills of Taghconic
In the glow of the sunset lie,
Entwined with a chaplet of roses
And clasped in the arms of the sky ;
For, round as the bosom of beauty,
They swell from the vale i_^n the west,
And, catching the rose hue of twilight,
Seem blushing to be caressed.
150 TAGHOONIC.
One wreath of a silvery vapor
That awhile on the hill-top hung,
Like a gossamer scarf by a maiden
O'er her ivory shoulders flung,
Is gone ; for the sky — a right lover —
The beautiful wearer kissed,
And drew to himself for a token
The scarflet of silvery mist.
But lo, for the token he taketh
A token more fair he bestows,
For, see, on the brow of the mountain
A starry diamond glows.
To-night by earth and heaven
Alike is love-lore taught,
And the air witii the sweetest wisdom
Of happiness is fraught.
Then come to our tryst in the gloaming,
Our tryst by the whispering beech,
And we'll con the lessons duly
That the sages of nature teach ;
While near us the clear Housatonic
Meandering flows to the sea,
And sounds, with the silence harmonic.
Are blended in melody.
The story told, and a bumper drained to the
health of the heroine — again up, still up, the cool
gorge, till it diverged to the north, while our path
lay southward.
XI.
WASHINGTON MOUNTAIN AND LAKE
ASHLEY.
** A lonely mountain tarn.'*
Emerging from Undine's Glen, and reclaiming our
carriage, we soon reached the shore of Lake Ashley,
a pretty sheet of water, but more remarkable for its
elevation, its loneliness and its unrivalled purity,
than for any beauty of contour. The cold, pure
serenity of its dark waves, as we looked upon them
that day, was indeed exquisite. Lined on all sides
but one by unbroken woods, fed only by fountains
which gush from below, with neither speck nor boat
on all its tranquil surface, it seemed, as we rode
along its eastern border, the very waters of solitude.
It should be so, for since the Indian's graceful bark
is gone forever, there remains none which would not
disturb the calm beauty of the scene.
In long delicious draughts of the cool, sweet
wave, we drank deep to the mountain maids, and
certain maids of the valley: to the spirits of earth,
air and water — to all kindly spirits whatever; not
forgetting those who were then planning the grand
project, since grandly perfected, of teaching these
152 TAGHCONIC.
solitary and secluded waters to thread their way
through the homes, and sparkle in the fountains of
thirsty Pittsfield. They are as refreshing there as a
lively, bright-eyed country girl in a Fifth Avenue
parlor. Bless them both, girl and mountain stream !
And then we got down — or, rather, up — to the
solid business of the day. Washington Mountain,
as I have said, is composed largely of quartzite.
On the western slope it lies in laminated strata, of
which some, from three to six inches thick, are
quarried for flagstones and like purposes. -
In the earlier days of the settlement they were oc-
casionally used for grave-stones, although of such
adamantine hardness as almost to defy the sculptor's
most irresistible chisel. You may see, in the " Pil-
grim's Rest " of the Pittsfield cemetery, some curious
specimens, a hundred years old, on which the in-
scriptions, whose depth is almost imperceptible to
the eye, yet look as fresh as if cut yesterday; so
little has a century done to smooth the thin, white
roughening, the painstaking old sculptor was able to
effect.
From these rude quarries, the people of old time
called this " Rock Mountain; " a name quite as dis-
tinctive and appropriate, to say the least, as that
which it now bears. In other parts of the mountain
the quartz is of finer grain, and not stratified. Still,
like the quartzite boulders you find all the way from
the Canaan range to the Hoosac, it appears compact;
but, crush it under a hammer or in an iron mortar —
or throw a heated fragment into water — and you
WASHINGTON MOUNTAIN. 153
shall see it fly into a sand identical with that used
by the glass-makers.
In Cheshire, Lanesboro', and other localities along
the Hoosac range, this quartzite is found naturally
disintegrated, in immense and valuable beds, from
which large quantities of silicious sand are annually
taken for the local glass-works and for exportation;
for it is very widely used. It is altogether probable
that the light by which you read these words comes
to you through material which once lay in our
Berkshire sand-beds, now transformed to window
glass and lamp chimneys. I had learned that one of
these precious deposits lay under a little well-wooded
noppit which rose not far from the eastern shore of
Lake Ashley. It supplied silicious material for glass-
works during the war of 1812, but afterwards fell
out of use, and almost out of mind. There was now
a new demand for it; and hence our haste in seek-
ing it that torrid summer day. A small recess in
the side of the noppit was the only trace which re-
mained of the labors of the old miners; but there
were sufficient indications of a rich deposit. I shall
have more to say hereafter of the beautiful and
curious quartz formations of Berkshire; but for the
present it is enough to add, concerning this peculiar
bed, that the indications of its wealth were not de-
ceptive. It proved among the best in the country,
both as to extent and quality; and has long been the
source of supply for the famous glass-works at
Lenox Furnace.
Such investigations as we had the means for mak-
164 TAGHCONIC.
ing were soon finished, and we had still time to seek
for an extended mountain view. Knowing nothing
of the region, we found this a task of no small diffi-
culty; but there was a great reward. By mere ac-
cident we came upon an outlook open on every side
to the surrounding mountains, but cutting off every
glimpse of valley.
" Nunc coelum undique et undique" montes!
Although there are many similar views' among our
Green Mountains, there are few in which the seclu-
sion of sky and mountain-tops is so complete as in
this. To the north-east a wild billowy sea of moun-
tains stretched far away — a taller peak sometimes
dashing its splintered crest into the sky, and a white
village spire, or a red farm house, appearing here and
there, a floating waif upon the waste. Upon a
lofty point, miles away, the pretty village of Mid-
dlefield glittered in the light of the setting sun.
On the north and on the south as far as the eye
could reach, extended the long, rolling, billowy swells
of the Hoosacs. On the west, the ever beautiful
Taconics; and, looming far beyond them, the shadowy
Catskills, looking like huge ghosts of perished moun-
tains — long ago murdered by crashing earthquakes
or smothering ice-sheets.
The fastnesses of Washington Mountain were
among the last strong-holds in Massachusetts where
the defeated, but not yet wholly desperate, insur-
gents of the Shay's Rebellion took refuge; and met
with new disaster. The sad case of men "who
have been in arms against the government," and by
WASHINGTON MOUNTAIN. 155
failure are placed at the mercy of insulted and vin-
dictive law, has long been one of the most touch-
ing themes of historical romance. In this instance,
to be sure, the triumphant government, doubtless
conscious that it was itself not without sin in giving
cause for the revolt, was more merciful to the trea-
son than it had been to the poverty which provoked
it; but at the time of the rally on the heights of
the Hoosacs, this clemency was by no means well
assured, and I doubt not that there was enough
of dread and suffering and sorrow there, to touch
our deepest sj^mpathies could we but recall their
story.
An excellent road — the old Boston and Albany
highway, leads to " Washington Center," and thence
another runs southward along the crest of the moun-
tain, through a level pastoral country, affording a
charming, invigorating drive with frequent bold and
striking prospects. If your imagination is potent to
bring back a ragged squad or two of those forlorn
old rebels, to enliven the foreground, it will im-
prove the picture. In default of that, a trim school
mistress in a jaunty hat, a bronzed and bright-eyed
ploughman, and perhaps a grim and grizzled wood-
chopper, must serve.
xn.
MARVELS OF THE TUNNEL CITY.
Make straight in the desert a highway for our God :
Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain shall be
made low ;
And the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places
plain,
And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed. — Isaiah.
The chariot shall be with flaming torches, in the day of his
preparation ;
And the fir trees shall be terribly shaken ;
The chariots shall rage in the streets ;
They shall jostle, one against another, in the broad ways ;
They shall seem like torches ; they shall run like lightnings.
Nahum.
Whither shall we go this fine morning ? For one
I am inclined to extend our rambles a little: and an
hour or so on the rail will enable us to spend a long
day in any of those delightful localities, brimful of
interesting objects and associations, which cluster
thickly around Williamstown and North Adams on
the north, Sheffield, Great Barrington and Stock-
bridge on the south, and in the rich mineral fields of
the Corundum hills on the border of Hampshire
county. Or we may take the wings of " the resonant
steam eagles," and fly away to towering, sparkling,
TUITNEL CITY. 157
splashing, darkling, Bash-Bish. But I think bright,
busy, bustling dashing North Adams, with its lively
streets and peculiar surroundings, will show off well
in this cool, clear atmosphere: hot and hazy, or wet
and misty, days do not favor them much.
To my mind, the most notable thing in this fine
old town, or its bright new village, is the people:
not to disparage some very noble scenery, or perhaps
the most remarkable natural curiosity in the common-
wealth ; and, least of all, to speak lightly of the grand
Tunnel. But North Adams is, I verily believe, the
smartest village in " the smartest nation of all crea-
tion:" the concentrated essential oil of Yankeedom.
As you pass through its streets, you see the evidence
of this great truth everywhere; in the shops, in the
manufactories, in the hotels : and, if these do not con-
vince you, there will be no room for doubt when you
come to the Hoosac Tunnel, which is almost as much
a North Adams product, as the shoes made by the
aid of Chinese cheap labor, or the textile fabrics
woven by more costly imported help.
We look with admiring awe upon the engineering
skill and persistence which penetrated from side to
centre of that enormous mountain-mass, in exact
conformity with their intention; but not less skillful
and persistent was the engineering which carried the
Tunnel measures through that solid, but ever-fluctuat-
ing body, the Great and General Court; which,
like the demoralized rock of the Hoosac Mountain,
was all the more difficult to manage for the insta-
bility of its constituent material. You think that
14
158 TAGHCONIC.
the waters of the Deerfield river generated the power
which bored the Tunnel. Doubtless, in a secondary
way, it did; but not until a rill from the state treasury
had become a helpful tributary of the Deerfield.
The primary motive force was furnished by that
bold engineering which dammed the treasury, and
turned a golden stream Tunnelward; and North
Adams furnished the engineers.
Do not misconceive me. I do not use that word,
engineering, in an offensive sense, although I admit
it to be, in some sort, slang. Slang is often, as in
this instance, only metaphor vulgarized by the news-
papers. Every public movement must be engineered;
not one, that I know, was ever so non-antagonistic
to private interests, or so self -evidently for the
common good, that it would engineer itself — move
off spontaneously; and, by virtue of its own native
goodness, finish its course triumphantly. Even a
revival of religion is not achieved that way; and I
seem to have read somewhere that our American
Revolution was adroitly " worked up." As for those
who, by engineering or otherwise, helped on the bor-
ing of the Hoosac Tunnel, I fully believe that they
deserve, and will in due time receive, the gratitude
of every unselfish well-wisher of the commonwealth.
Having read in the old records that, after the
Boston and Albany Railroad was opened, its mana-
gers were in great doubt whether freight enough
would ever be offered, to require the use of the two
locomotives which they had placed between Spring-
field and Pittsfield, I have the courage to find, in the
TUNNEL CITY. 159
great traffic which already seeks an avenue through
the Tunnel, the promise of an adequate direct return
for the State's vast expenditure there. But, even if
that promise fail, I have the faith in reserve that the
deficiency will be more than made good, indirectly,
by increased wealth and population.
But what have we to do with profit and loss, in
our search for romance and beauty ? Of romance, we
shall surely find enough in the undertaking and ac-
complishment of that stupendous Tunnel enterprise;
and, if there be any lack of beauty — of which I am
not sure — it will find abundant compensation in
the grandeur of the work; a much more rare attribute
of Berkshire marvels.
The Tunnel, however, as well as the glories of the
scenery around North Adams, has been celebrated
by a pen so much more competent than mine, that
it would be presumption for me to attempt more
than the briefest glimpses at them; a barley-corn of
quit-rent, as it were, in acknowledgment of homage
due.
The Hoosac Tunnel project is of no recent birth.
It is more than sixty-five years since the Massachu-
setts people, provoked to good works by the success
of the Erie canal, conceived the idea of making the
Hudson River climb over the Berkshire Hills and
run down to Boston; or if, under the protection of
certain laws not subject to repeal by the General
Court, or to be evaded by its engineers, the waters
of the great river obstinately refused to run up hill,
then to take from them the ever-iiicreasino- burdeji
160 TAGHCONTC.
of western commerce, which they perversely carried
to New York, and turn it eastward by means of a
little Yankee Hudson — to wit, a canal — to be manu-
factured, until it crossed the Hoosacs, out of the lakes
and streams of Berkshire.
One proposition for carrying out this scheme, was to
follow nearly what is now the route of the Boston and
Albany railroad ; but there was some doubt whether
Pittsfield and the neighboring heights could furnish
an adequate sujDply of water; and, besides, as one
can readily believe, the " rocky nature of the ground
between Pittsfield and Blandford was discouraging."
On the route now followed by the Troy and Boston
raih'oad, the engineer found no very troublesome
obstacles, except that, immediately east of North
Adams, the Hoosac Mountain reared a barrier fifteen
hundred feet high, and, at his very moderate com-
putation, four miles thick.
Here was something that, even with our advanced
scientific and material engineering facilities, would
give the boldest projector pause; but if it intimi-
dated those old enthusiasts at all, it must have been
only for a brief space. Late in the winter of 1825,
Governor Eustis appointed Nathan Willis of Pitts-
field, Elihu Hoyt of Deerfield and H. A. S. Dearborn
of Boston, commissioners, and Colonel Laomi C.
Baldwin, engineer, to consider the possibility of the
scheme for a canal from the Hudson to Boston; and
in January, 1826, they reported it to be perfectly
practicable, by means of a tunnel through the Hoosac
Mountain, nearly at the point occupied by the pre-
TTJNKEL CITY. 161
sent tunnel. The proposed dimensions were four
miles in length, twenty feet in width' and thirteen
and a half in height; requiring a total excavation of
two hundred and eleven thousand cubic yards.
The elevation of the mountain ranges which still
remained was to be overcome by a series of locks,
whose total rise and fall were to be three thousand
two hundred and eighty-one feet. The commis-
sioners estimated the cost of the canal, one hundred
and seventy-eight miles long, at about six million
dollars, including that of the tunnel which they put
at less than one million.
Colonel Baldwin was probably the daring spirit
who first conceived the idea of this gigantic under-
taking — far more gigantic than he, in his profes-
sional philosophy, dreamed. But, whoever was
father to the thought, the people of the Tunnel
Region eagerly adopted it; and, though for a time
it seemed to others to die, they knew that it only
slept; and never lost sight of it until a locomotive,
instead of a canal boat, emerging from the bowels
of the mountain, rejoiced their waiting eyes.
In 1826, a Boston newspaper-writer demonstrated,
to his own satisfaction at least, that, on the commis-
sioner's own showing, it would require fifty-two
years to complete the proposed excavation. Never-
theless, had it not been for the timely introduction,
at that very moment, of steam as a motive power on
railroads, there is much reason to believe that the
state would have undertaken the tunnel. It is cer-
162 TAGUCONIC.
tain, at least, that there would have been a strong
party in favor of its so doing.
And now, if you will consider what chemical and
mechanical appliances were at the command of the
engineer in 1825; what was the cost of labor, and
what the pecuniary resources of the state, I think
you will concede some grandeur to the courage that
did not flinch from a work which has since, under
far different conditions, almost frightened some very
solid economists from their propriety.
The successful use of steam on railroads effectually
cured the canal fever, which was raging with symp-
toms very threatening to the public purse; and
attention was diverted from the Hoosac Mountain —
the highest mass of the Hoosac Range — to the more
moderate grades of the same chain in Central and
Southern Berkshire ; which, at no ruinous cost, could
be made available even with such locomotive power
as the skill of that day was able to provide.
The tunnel project, thus put to rest, slept an
unquiet slumber, until it was re-awakened in 1848,
by the charter of the Troy and Greenfield railroad
with a capital of three million five hundred thousand
dollars. A proposed capital only; for the arbiters
of finance did not look kindly upon the scheme, and
it languished — in a morning nap perhaps — until its
friends, in 1854, secured a loan of two million dol-
lars from the commonwealth.
The tunnel work was begun with energy in 1856.
But I am not going to attempt the story of its
troubles and its triumphs. What with demoralized
TUNNEL CITY. 163
rock and demoralized legislators; with the rudest
inexperience to be transformed to accurate practical
knowledge; with useless, followed by the most effi-
cient, machinery; with inadequate, and then with
almost too violent, rending power; with sad waste
of treasure; with still sadder sacrifice of life — there
was enough, both of obstacle and the overcoming of
it. But the final victory came at last; and, as I think,
that first locomotive which, on the first of March,
1875, thundered through the vanquished mountain,
was the proudest triumphal car that had ever cele-
brated conquest.
If. you think my estimate exaggerated, what will
you say of Rev. Dr. Todd, Pittsfield's quaintly elo-
quent, but thoroughly orthodox, divine, who found
in our railroad era the fulfilment of the sublime
prophecies which I have placed at the head of this
article? This was in that glow of feeling excited in
the warm-hearted pastor by his official participation
in the golden welding of those iron bands by which
the Pacific railroad binds together the east and the
west; and I am not sure whether he counted his
words well grounded doctrine, or merely the play of
his bold poetic fancy. But you and I have heard
many a less plausible interpretation of prophecy
gravely propounded by reverend lips.
Well, there the Hoosac Tunnel is — not at all the
visionary thing it seemed to many eyes, even a
quarter of a century ago; but a very palpable fact;
BO palpable indeed that you can feel the darkness
within it. You may visit it; but, before you do so.
164 TAGHCONIC.
consider well the strength of the old Titanic moun-
tain wall, which, so far as it was a barrier to com-
merce, it has thrown down; consider the wealth of
treasure and of intellect, of human labor and human
life, which have gone to its construction; get some
conception, if you can, of the mighty flood of travel
and traffic which rolls through it in ever-swelling
volume. Thus prepared, you may feel the grandeur
of the Tunnel; otherwise you may almost as well
spend eleven minutes in your coal-cellar. Unless,
indeed, you chance upon an hour when the cavernous
walls are, for some special purpose illuminated; then,
I dare say, you will experience some curious sensa-
tions; it may be of an exalted nature.
And now let us return to the Tunnel City: where,
however, I shall not attempt to paint for you Mount
Hawkes, Williams, Adams or any of the grand hills
which look down upon it. They have already been
gladdened by a more golden light than I could throw
upon them. But I cannot resist the temptation to
repeat a visit which I made many years ago to The
Natural Bridge: a piece of carving by the Water
Nymphs, which I do not find surpassed by any thing
which Dame Nature's eccentric work-people have
effected anywhere in New England.
Some years ago I took a walk, with a noted tra-
veller, along the bending valley of the Hoosac, to
North Adams and Williamstown; thence to the
summit of Greylock, down its most precipitous side
into one of its* wildest recesses; and down the valley
of the Housatonic to Pittsfield. You will wander
TUXXEL' CITY. 165
long before you meet another route so rich in ad-
mii-able landscape or in objects of marked individual
interest; but none of them were impressed on my
memory so vividly and pleasantly as this bridge, and
the ravine by which it is best approached.
Reaching the vicinity by a winding road which
afforded superb views towards the south and east,
we entered the ravine at its lower terminus. We
made no measurements, but the following description,
furnished by Rev. John W. Yeomans for the " His-
tory of Berkshire" published in 1829, perfectly ac-
cords with my impressions.
" About a mile north east of North Adams village, Hudson's
brook has worn a channel thirty rods long, and in some places
sixty feet deep, through a quarry of white marble. The ledge
terminates at the south in a steep precipice, down which it
seems the water once fell ; but, finding in some places natural
fissures, and in others wearing away the rock, it has formed a
passage from thirty to sixty feet below its former bed, and with
a mean breadth of fifteen feet. Across this chasm, two masses
of rock — one ten or twelve feet above the other — lie like
bridges. The upper is now much broken : under the lower,
which is beautifully arched, the stream has sunk its bed nearly
fifty feet."
The walls of the ravine are perpendicular cliffs of
pure white marble, highly crystaline in coarse granu-
lation — a dolomite, if I recollect rightly, susceptible
of a fine edge under the chisel. They are mottled
all over, from top to bottom with indentations of
various shapes and sizes: but oftenest circular
and concave, like a saucer, with ^ an average dia-
meter, at a rough guess, of eight or ten inches:
making a very pretty Arabesque fret work. But,
166 TAGHCONIC.
small or large, the indentations were evidently made
by rolling pebbles kept in motion by the waters of
the sinking stream. Frequently one of the niche-like
recesses has almost its exact counterpart precisely on
the opposite side of the chasm; as though a marble
mass — in which was a hollow space, like an inverted
cauldron or old-fashioned dinner-pot — had been
sharply rent in twain, and the sides withdrawn fifteen
feet apart: ah explanation which has sometimes been
rashly made. The phenomenon seems rather to in-
dicate where a ledge of fixed rock extended nearly
across the bottom of the brook, forcing the grinding
pebbles against the wall on each side.
Ask the sculptor who makes gravestones of that
marble, how long he thinks it took the water nymphs
to carve out that ravine and fret its walls so curiously.
Entering the lower opening of the ravine, we waded
squarely into the brook, which we found easily
fordable; and as it was a warm summer day, we weat
merrily splashing our way almost to the bridge;
whereby we got the best possible appreciation of
the whole thing. And a high appreciation it was,
as my companion expressed it in an animated
speech when we had ensconced ourselves in opposite
niches in the marble walls.
XIII.
LANESBOROUGH SUNLIGHT AND SHADOW.
Man has two minutes and a half to live — one to smile, one
to sigh, and a half to love : for in the midst of this we die.
But the grave is not deep ; it is the shining footprint of the
angel who seeks us; and when the unknown hand throws the
fatal dart, man boweth his head, and the shaft only lifts the
crown of thorns from his wounds. — Jean Paul Richter.
Nestled closest in the bosom of our hills lies the
little village of Lanesboro' — the very fondling of
Nature. Thither turns never the good mother her
wrinkled front; near pressing as the mountains clasp
the narrow valley, you must not look among them for
frowning precipices, or earthquake-rifted chasms.
High into the air their summits press, but not in
jagged peaks — only with the full, round swelling
of loving breasts, upon which you may repose, if you
will, in the gentlest of summer reveries.
There is one eminence — in patriotic gratitude
they call it Constitution Hill — with such a winsome,
neighborly look to it, that in our streets, miles
away, it seems near as your own garden. If you
have in you any yearnings at all after beauty, I am
sure you cannot look upon, and not be irresistibly
drawn to it, to be lifted up gently and humanly,
168 • TAGHCONIC.
above the baser things of earth. Lying under its
druidical oaks, or seated, farther up, upon a pearl-
white quartz rock, in the shade of a whispering birch,
you will see below you, groves and farms, and broad,
fresh meadows, with laughing lake and winding
rivulets — like silver embroidery on the green ban-
ner of Erin.
Many fair villages, as well, wiU dot the scene,
whose names — if you do not know — I hope you
will never ask, but be content to remember, that
under each roof of them all, human lives are wear-
ing themselves out. Then let your own heart in-
terpret for you what the overlooking woods whisper.
If you know well the story of one hearth-stone,
think what a thrilling tale it is; and if, in your re-
veries upon the hill-tops, you multii^ly that marvellous
but common story into the thousand dwellings of
the valley, the resultant mass shall be mightier than
the mountains which encompass it.
I could point you to an antique mansion — a grey
spot it appears in the far distance, with no over-
hanging cloud to distinguish it — at whose story I
am deeply moved, as often as I look upon it. The
splendors and the shadows, which have by turns
darkened and illumined its chambers, pass and repass
in spectral reiteration, over my spirit. Whether I
will or not, come the ghosts of fleeting joys, irradi-
cable sorrows; the loftiness of human pride and
the lowliness of pride's abasement, which have passed
and left no record there; and yet that grey old
homestead is no accursed roof, devoted to misery
LANESBOKOUGH. 169
from its foundation, but one even such as its fellows
are. Ah ! if we could look within the seemly exte-
rior of any home — if we could penetrate the heart's
chambers of any man, w^hat might not meet us there ?
Those glowing windows which gleam so cheerily on
our evening path, by what funereal torches may
they not be lighted? Those radiant faces which
meet us smilingly in our noonday walk by what in-
fernal passions may they not be driven on ? So,
under the green and smiling earth, lie pent the hidden
fires, and help the genial sun to quicken the blossom
and ripen the fruit.
This Constitution Hill must be a great promoter
of reverie. I have a friend — a bachelor Jriend —
who, no sooner is he seated upon it, than off he goes
dreaming over the whole valley, in a very marvelous
way. I do not believe there is a dwelling in sight,
from Greylock to Yocun's Seat, that he has not, at
some time, made hmi^Qli pater faniiUas in it. Bring
him up hither, and his respect for the Tenth Com-
mandment vanishes like the mist of the valley.
Another friend -of mine — an artist — never looks
down from this hill, but — presto ! change ! — the
hard work of a century is all gone, and the i*ed
Indian comes back again, with wild-wood and wig-
wam, council fire and hunting ground. So you, if you
come wdthin the charmed circle of our hill's shaven
crown, may, perchance, work some wonderful phan-
tasmagoric changes.
I do not know how it all comes about. Perhaps
some good genius has cast a spell upon the sjiot — a
15
170 TAGHCONIC.
mode of solving such difficulties to which I confess
myself prone, being naturally of a superstitious as
well as lymphatic turn of mind.
It may be only another fancy of mine, but the
leaves here seem to have a perfection of beauty not
attained elsewhere. Nature's work is finished with
more care; the curves are cut with a more accurate
grace, and the green more faithfully laid on. In the
Fall, too, the rich enamellings are done with greater
depth of coloring, and without shrivelling u]d the
work in the process, as the careless elves are very
apt to do in other groves. The specimens of their
workmanship which I have seen here were perfect
gems in their way. You shall not desire to see a
more gorgeous sight than Constitution Hill in Oc-
tober.
Just on the western declivity is a good sized cavern,
which, a witty lady thinks, may be the home of these
elfin workmen; but in spite of the high authority, I
must doubt; such underground tenements are more
fit dwelling places for bears, wolves, and such like
ugly gnomes, than for any gentle "spirits whatever.
No, ours are
" Some gay creatures of the elements.
Who in the colors of the rainbow live
And play 'i the plighted clouds."
Descending from the hill, you may wander up the
stream which flows at its base. If a follower of the
" gentle craft of angling," you will not neglect to lie
awhile where some thick-leaved maple overshadows a
LANESBOROUGH. 171
deep pool, where you may drop your line with the
reasonable hope of bringing to shore a dozen fine
figh __ perhaps even the " Hermit Trout " himself who
is believed to haunt these pools, and only dimple the
shallows in the pale moonlight; — a wary old fellow he,
•' Too shrewd
To be by a wading boy pulled out I "
But I^ trust you are no patron of this treacherous
sport. You were better to sit on some warm bank
of green-sward, or dangling your feet over some
rustic bridge, to watch the smoothly gliding current,
and
" The shadows of sun-gilt ripples
On the pebbly bed of a brook."
There is no wine, or oil of gladness, which has
such a balm for the wounded spirit as the soft mur-
murs of a rural brooklet.
Wandering on, you may, if you are fortunate as I
have been, sometimes catch a glimpse into dream-
land — like a vignette to an old romance, of a youth
'seated under a spreading elm, with a guitar in his
hand and a maiden by his side; or even catch Titania
shooting grasshoppers with elfin arrows among the
ox-eyed daisies and buttercups. When I was a citizen
I used to think such things confined to poetry and
Spain; but here, in the quiet days of summer, things
often occur which convince one of the truth of Hood's
remark, tliat '* it is dangerous to sw^ar to the truth
or falsehood of a romance, even of one's own making."
172 TAGHCONIC.
On a gentle hillock, by whose side the stream flows
in deep willow shade, is the village grave-yard. Do
not fail to enter it. Among its thick-clustering
monuments you can linger with best profit, undis-
turbed by quaintly ludicrous epitaphs, or monstrous
heraldries of death. The touching inscriptions on
the simple marbles bespeak alike the chastened spirit
and the cultivated mind. What wild woe — paternal,
filial, fraternal, and conjugal — this narrow spot has
witnessed, I shrink from recalling. The marble bears
record only of the subdued grief and the Christian
hope; the story of the early woe, when the one joy
of life perished — when " the young green bole was
marked for f ellage," is not told to the stranger's eye,
and is sacred from the stranger's pen. Yet, for that
stranger is the place deeply consecrated; how holy,
then, to those whose best of earth is mingled with its
dust. I am here often reminded of a beautiful
thought of Richter: "The ancients had it, that not
even the ashes of the dead should be embarked with
the living, for fear of the storm which would be sure
to follow. We have learned better, and know th?t.
to be accompanied on the voyage of life by the
memory of the dead brings calm and not storm; he
who always feels one loss, will be less accessible to
new sorrow."
The Old Worshippee.
In this grave-yard I once witnessed a scene, so
touching and solemn, and yet so far removed from
any agon}^ of woe, that to speak of it can open anew
THE OLD WORSHIPPER. 173
no half healed wound. It was one of those occasions
when the sorrows of earth are so gloriously trans-
muted into the joys of Heaven, that we, who remain
" of the earth, earthy," look upon the transfiguration
in far-off wonder; while philosophy strives in vain
to characterize emotions, in which the consoler,
Christ, enables the mourner to mingle — as in His
own mysterious nature — so much of human sorrow
with so much of Divine confidence.
Not far from the village grave-yard, is the church —
a modest gothic structure, built of the grey stone of
the country. This was once, for many months, my
own place of worship; and still, on a pleasant
Sabbath morning, I love to stroll to it. The bracing
walk of some half dozen miles, through a delightful
region, is no unworthy preparation for the devotions
of the sanctuary; and, through the day, the voices
of woods and waters seem to mingle with the deep
responses of the congregation. Nature, with her
thousand voices, joins in the jubilant chorus, and in
subdued tones echoes the supplications of the solemn
litany.
The first morning upon which I entered this
church I was struck with the venerable figure of an
old man, who sat in front of me, completely absorbed
in worship. Never had my ideal of Christian de-
votion been so completely filled; no painter could
have desired a finer model. His whole soul seemed
informed and penetrated with the spirit of the
liturgy, in whose eloquent words he poured forth
his soul to God.
174 TAGHCONIC.
His veteran form was tall and martial in its bear-
ing; in the deep lines of his countenance you could
not mistake the characters of strong intellect, self
respect, and unbending firmness of purpose. You
would say he was one not likely to yield much ob-
sequious homage to his fellow man; but here, in the
presence of Jehovah, his whole bearing was con-
formed to the most lowly, yet manly, humility.
Nothing could be more impressive than the earnest
tones with which he joined in the services of the
church.
Sabbath after Sabbath, my eye sought and found
him — the most noticeable figure in the room —
until one summer's day, when I entered, the people
were waiting, in that hush of expectation which in
a country congregation tells one that a funeral is
about to take place. On my way to the church I
had lingered a few moments, as was my wont, in
the grave-yard — and had found an open grave in
the lot of the venerable worshipper. I now looked
to his pew; it was vacant; and I at once guessed
that it was he who was about to enter the sacred
portals for the last time. But it was not so: a
whisper from a neighbor informed me that it was the
wife of the old man who was no more — the wife of
his youth.
Presently, as the procession entered, I saw the
widowed husband following close behind the coffin,
his head a little bent, as if to approach nearer the
form of the sleeper, and his voice a little more tremu-
THE OLD WOESHIPPEK. 1V5
lous than usual, as he joined in the Scripture ap-
pointed to be then read.
The coffin was laid before the altar, and the old
man took his seat, with that forced calmness where
the quivering lip shows the struggle hardly yet over,
and the victory only half won.
As the sublime promises of future reunion were
read; as the sympathizing tones of consolation fell
from the lips of the preacher, I thought the few re-
maining clouds vanished from the aged face, and a
perfect serenity overspread it. When the sermon
was ended, with an aspect almost cheerful, he rose
up, to follow to her burial-place all that remained on
earth of her, with whom, for more than fifty years,
he had walked, in sunshine and in storm. What
emotions were at work within, none could read —
the fixed eye, the firm-set lip, revealed nothing —
the prying eye of curiosity, the anxious gaze of
friendship, returned alike baffled. And yet, with
what overwhelming power must the busy memory
of that lonely old man have brought back the thick-
crowding events of half a century, from the first
thrilling meeting to this last brief parting ! It is
such moments which must disclose most viv'dly to
the mind of Eld what this life is, which passeth like a
dream. Such might have been the retrospect of the
mourner of three score years and ten, as he took his
few brief steps from the temple to the tomb — or,
perchance, his better spirit reached forward to a
glorious meeting in that home to .which sorrow and
parting can never come.
176 TAGHCONIC.
The coffin was lowered to its place; the people
gathered around. The pastor began that beautiful
service, in which the church commits earth to its
kindred earth, and proclaims the spirit returned to
the God who gave it. There, at the clergyman's
side, stood the tall and veteran form of the mourner,
his thin grey hairs streaming in the mountain wind,
as he repeated, firmly, the proper responses. For a
while he looked steadfastly down into the grave —
but as the pastor read: " And the corruptible bodies
of those who sleep in Him shall be changed and
made like unto His own glorious body," the de-
pressed eyes were raised to Heaven with an expres-
sion of most triumphant and joyous hope. The
struggle was over. The grave had lost its sting;
"Death was swallowed up in victory." It was a
spectacle most touching and sublime.
Yet a few moments, and the grave was closed;
the people separated to their homes — and the
mourner, likewise, departed to his — but for not long.
He was soon missed from his accustomed seat in the
sanctuary. With the fall of the leaf, he went down
into the grave — and the grass which in the spring
grew upon his wife's mound, waved over two.
There is another and older graveyard in the town,
white with its multitude of marble testimonials.
Here there used to be a tomb, carved with masonic
symbols, and having a heavy iron knocker on its
door. Here, often at midnight — whether the still
moon shed her pale light on the ghastly tombstones,
or the dark and howling temj^est was on — a criazed
THE OLD WORSHIPPER. 177
woman used to enter the grave-encumbered ground,
and strike such a peal on the ringing iron that the
sleepers in the near dwellings started trembling -
from their slumbers. There is something terribly
significant to me in that gloomy visitation of the
tomb. What earnestness of agonized longing for
their repose, may have impelled that wild nocturnal
summons to the dead. " Wake ! wake ! ye peace-
ful dwellers in the tomb," perhaps that weary,
brainsick woman said: " Open your dark jjortals and
give me rest beside ye. Wake ! — the living turn
from me, and do you also spurn me ? — me, who
shudder not at any loathsomeness of yours ? "
But cheerier thoughts for the cheerful light of
summer — and, passing the mildewed realms of
death, do you hie away to some beautiful hill —
Pratt's, Prospect, St. Luke's, or ''The Noppit;" or
to some fair valley — whither I may not stay to ac-
company you.
Lanesboro was the birth place of that queerest
and wisest of humorists, the Yankee Solomon, Josh
Billings: 7iee Henry Savage Shaw. The people of
the village used to affect a certain rural English
style, and the older inhabitants still love to speak of
it as " The Borough." Hon. Henry Shaw, the father
of our humorist, and one of the ablest statesmen
who have represented Berkshire in congress, was
the Lord of the Manor, and quite held his own in
most of the traits which are conventionally ascribed
to that class of gentry in Englanxl. But there was
one notable variation; he was no Episcopalian, but
178 TAGHCONIC.
always occupied with his family, the square and
spacious pew of state in the Congregational meeting-
house.
The rector of St. Luke's, although bearing the
same name as the squire, was proud of his descent
from the old Brentons, and clung fondly to the
customs of his ancestral church, as well as to its
doctrines. Overflowing with genial wit, charitable,
given to hospitality, and devoted especially to the
kindlier duties of his priestly ofiice, he might have
furnished Goldsmith or Praed, a model for their de-
lightful pictures of the English country clergyman.
A man greatly to be loved.
In matters of religious dogma and form, there was
not that happy accord between the squire and the
rector, which usually prevails between similar classes
in England; but, although both seemed to belong to
another state of society than that which prevailed
outside of the Borough, each seemed exactly fitted
for the niche in the great temple — the world — in
which it had pleased his Maker to place him. That is,
so far as his home in the Borough was concerned —
outside of that the squire, at least, who tot)k a large
part in public affairs, fared like others who mix in
the mad whii'l of politics and finance, and get more or
less of their deserts, as it may chance. But in their
retired niches at home, each would gladly have
preserved every dear antique ornament, however
grotesque, of the life which surrounded him. But
the well-born and polished clergyman and the stately,
courtly squire were not the only original characters
HENEY SHAW. 179
in the Borough : it was full of them, from these con-
spicuous specimens down to the sardonic dealer in
oysters and poultry — nay, to the very blackest
picker of black-berries in " The Gulf."
Such was the early home in which Josh Billings
meditated fun and — I have not a particle of doubt —
mischief. Here he made curious observation of the
odd people about the village, and perhaps treasured
up the wise and piquant sayings for which the squire
and the parson were renowned, the county over. I
will cite one of the squire's, which he ejaculated with
some emphasis, although he had the smallest possible
personal experience of its truth: " Confound " — that
is not exactly the word, but I translate — " Confound
poverty: it never did any body any good ! " What
do you think of that for truthfulness, compared with
the old sentimental philosophy on the same point ?
XY.
LAKE ONOTA AND ITS WHITE DEER.
Can I forget? no, never, sucli a scene;
So full of witchery — Roger^ Italy.
I said, the other day, that Pontoosiic is not quite
my favorite among our mountain lakes. Onota is.
Of all the hundred lakelets of Berkshire — exquisitely
lovely as many of them are — I think there is not
one which equals this in grace of outline, or in its
rich back-ground of wood, field and hill. It lies in
an elevated valley only two miles west of our main
street ; and, if you will come with me to the com-
manding elevation upon its south-west shore, and
look across its broad and tranquil surface, towards
Constitution Hill and Greylock, you will confess that
I have not too highly extolled its charms. I am
sure, at least, that I never heard such an admiring
.shout over any other piece of landscape as went up
from scores of Stockbridge and Albany field-meeting
visitors when this view was suddenly revealed to
them, one glorious summer day. I should have bid
you, as you approached the lake, take note of the
twin elms which crown the hill upon its eastern
side and form a perfect arch — St. Mary's Arch, they
LAKE ONOTA. 181
call it. But you may observe it from many points
in the village.
When I first wrote of this lake, I said with truth
" Of all our enticing groves, none are more perfect
than the woods upon the eastern shore of Onota.
Few have so hermit-like a solitude, yet none are so
far removed from a desolate loneliness. These
shades are sometimes very solemn, but one need not
be very sad in them. A merry company might be
very gay." As to a large extent of wood, this de-
scription still holds generally true, although costly
mansions have arisen by the lake-side, and streets
are creeping towards it. AYe must still ramble
through woods, and for a little space scramble
through brambles, to reach its northern shore.
But it is worth the trouble; for the view south-
ward is wild and picturesque. I have heard artists
commend it as the best to be had of the lake. I
cannot so think; but its peculiar formation is cer-
tainly here displayed to the best possible advantage,
and is very curious. At about one-quarter of its
length from its northern end, it is divided by a
narrow isthmus; the northern j^ortion being the
work of those industrious and skillful engineers, the
beavers — who formed it by building a dam across
a small stream which still runs through it, over-
flowing their embankment in sufficient quantities to
turn the wheels of large factories at some distance
below. The main or southern lake is fed by springs
and Taconic mountain-brooks.
The fringed gentian, the cardinal and other gor-
16
182 TAGHCONIC.
geous wild flowers, grow in profusion at the north
of the lake. The more pleasant resort, however, is
upon the south, where, of a dreamy summer after-
noon, one can recline in luxurious reveries, as he
watches the image of the mountains, sharply re-
flected in the clear waters; sometimes in the green
leafiness of June, sometimes in the melancholy gor-
geousness of autumn, or better still, when the haze
of the Indian summer invests them with hues of
pearly delicacy and richness.
Perhaps, while you look, a broad-winged eagle
will appear above you, soaring and sweeping in the
silent sky, till it vanishes into the heavens; or a blue
king-fisher will perch awhile upon yonder blasted
bough, and then suddenly darting into the water
bear away its writhing prey to some hidden haunt.
Other gentler birds will sit a-tilt on the lithe green
branches — and, if it be in early summer, serenade
your slumberous ear.
Near by, the cattle will stand in groups on a
pleasant point of land which runs out into the lake,
and which they seem to love better than other spots.
Around these shores were some of the earliest
settlements; and, before the intrusion of the white
man, they were the favorite haunt of the Indian. A
gentleman digging into a bed of peat and marl, upon
his farm on the east of the lake, found, at great
depth, stakes pointed artificially — evidently the
remains of wigwams built ages ago, when, perhaps,
the marl bed was a lakelet as crystal clear as Onota.
Remains of the rude arts of the later Indians used
LAKE ONOTA. 183
to be found in the neighboring fields; but now they
are rarely, if ever, turned up by the plough.
Upon the eminence to which I first took you, a
fort of some pretense was built, during the second
French and Indian war, for the protection of the
settlements at the south and east; and relics are
still occasionally found of the regiments which rested
here on their way to the campaigns which ended in
the conquest of Canada. There were four of these
forts in Pittsfield, garrisoned partly by soldiers sent
by helpful Connecticut; and partly by the settlers,
who, compelled to abandon their log cabins, took
their families with them to these places of refuge.
And a jolly time they seem to have had of it, shut
up there cozily together — a perpetual tea-party.
The commissariat accounts are, some of them, still
preserved, and afford us a peep at the housekeeping
on Fort Hill a century and a quarter ago. They
tell us that the larder of the garrison was plentifully
supplied with venison at five pence a pound; wild
turkey at a shilling, and beef at twelve pence.
Trout were to be had by the hundred for the catch-
ing, and partridges for the killing. But the old ac-
counts are chiefly occupied with charges for spirituous
liquors in drams of rum, bowls of punch and mugs
of flip. Persons of the lower rank took their drams;
their superiors revelled in punch; while the more
temperate, and the ladies, were generally content
with the mild beverage, flip. On some days merri-
ment grew merrier, as on a certain sfecond of Novem-
ber — perhaps thanksgiving day — when the gallant
184 TAGHCONIC.
Captain Hinman, of the Connecticut troops, is
charged with several punches for himself, and " a
mug of flip for Mrs. Piercy." And, just below, we
are startled by this entry : " The wife of Deacon
Crofoot, for a mug of flip — a kiss." A merry party
of fair women and brave men, there must have been
that chill November evening in the old fort; maugre
the possibility that a legion of Onuhgungo fiends
would be howling for their scalps before morning.
But antiquarian research dissipates any visions of
the " rosy juncture of four melting lips " as a result
of that charge against the Deacon's wife, by show-
ing that the good dame was then sixty-six years old.
Which doubtless is the reason that the account is
not recorded to have been ever liquidated.
There are a couple of legends about this Onota,
perhaps worth the telling. The first is well authen-
ticated, and the other not improbable, as legends go.
The Legend of the White Deer.
There is hardly a country where a deer ever trod
in which there does not linger some legend of one
or more of these graceful animals, either wholly or
in part of a supernatural whiteness. It is a fancy
which seems to spring spontaneously in the rich soil
of a woodman's imagination. The " White Doe of
Rylston," and Bryant's "White-footed Deer, will
occur to every one, as instances of the use to which
these forest tales have been put in poetry. Traditions
of a similar character are said to exist in many tribes
THE WHITE DEI;R. 185
of American Indians, and among others, those of the
Housatonic valley.
A gentleman tells me that in the old witch times —
long after the Salem delusion ended — there were no
firmer believers in that sort of supernaturalism than
the peoj^le who lived about Lake Onota; one of
whom was his own grand-father, of whom he relates
the following anecdote:
Coming in one day from an unsuccessful day's
hunting, he was surprised to see a white deer stoop-
ing down to drink at Point Onota — the little cape
which extends into the lake at its south end. In-
stantly his rifle was at his shoulder; but before he
could pull the trigger, his dog howled, and the
startled deer fled into the wood. The marvellous
story of the white deer of the Mohegans at once
occurred to him, and it entered into his head that
his dog was bewitched; or rather that an old hag
who lived in " The North Woods " — a section on
the north-western side of the lake — had assumed
his form; which, among other freakish powers, she
had the perilous reputation of being able to do. With
never a doubt, therefore, that he was all the while
belaboring the witch, our disappointed hunter waled
his poor hound till the woods howled again with his
piteous cries.
This done, he posted away in hot haste to the
cabin of the old crone, and demanded that she should
show him her back — never doubting that he would
find upon it the marks of the stripes he had inflicted
upon his miserable beast. Of course the old woman
186 TAGHCONIC.
was in a tempest of wrath when she learned the
errand of her visitor; and it is believed that he made
a retreat more discreet and rapid than valiant, under
a sudden shower of blows from that notorious article
of house-hold furniture which was supposed to serve
its mistress the double purpose of a broom by day
and an aerial steed by night, and which now answered
another very excellent turn.
Another gentleman, to whom I mentioned this
anecdote, tells me an aboriginal legend of this same
White Deer.
" Long before the Englishman set foot in the
Housatonic valley," he said, " the Indians used to
notice a deer, of complete and spotless white, which
came often, in the summer and autumn months, to
drink at Onota. Against this gentle creature, no red
man's arrow was ever pointed; for, in their simple
faith, they believed that with her light and airy step
she brought good fortune to the dwellers in the
valley. ' So long,' the prophecy ran, 'So long as the
snow-white doe comes to drink at Onota, so long
famine shall not blight the Indian's harvest, nor
pestilence come nigh his lodge, nor f oeman lay waste
his country.' In the graceful animal, the tribe re-
cognized and loved their good genius. He among
them who dared to harm her would have met swift
punishment as a sacrilegious wretch and traitor."
Thus protected by the love of her simple friends,
year after year, soon as the white blossoms clothed
the cherry, the sacred deer came to drink at her
chosen fountain; bringing good omens to all, and
THE WHITE DEER. 187
especially to the maiden wlio first espied her, glitter-
ing brightly among the foliage. Finally she brought
with her a fawn, if possible, of more faultless purity
and grace than herself; and that year more than the
usual plenty and happiness reigned around the lake.
Not long after this, the first French and Indian war
broke out, and a young French officer — Montalbert
by name — was sent to incite the Housatonic Indians
to join in the league against the English colonies.
In his sacred character as an ambassador, he was
welcomed to their lodges, had a seat at their council
fire, and listened eagerly to their wild and marvellous
tales. Among others, he heard the story of the White
Deer; and, however incredulous of her sanctity, suffi-
ciently admired the description of her beauty.
Among those reckless and ambitious adventurers
who set up the standard of France in Canada, it was
a passion to carry away some wonderful trophy of
the forest domain, to lay at the feet of their sovereign.
Even the persons of the savages had thus been j)re-
sented at the Court of Versailles, and royal favor
had not been niggard in rewarding the donors of the
more unique and costly troj)hies of barbaric spl«endor.
It was for such reasons that an uncontrollable de-
sire to possess the skin of the White Deer took pos-
session of Montalbert. He already enjoyed, in
imagination, the reward which could not fail him
who brought so rare and beautiful a peltry to the
splendid Louis.
Not fully aware of the veneration which the Deer
received from the natives, he first offered liberal
188 TAGHCONIC.
rewards to the hunter who should bring him the
coveted spoil. For half the proffered price, the chiefs
would, perhaps, have alienated their fairest hunting-
grounds; but the proposition to destroy their sacred
i)eer was received with utter horror and indignation.
It was gently hinted to Montalbert that a repetition
of the offer might ensure him the fate he designed
for the Deer.
But the Frenchman was not of a nature to be so
baffled. He had noticed that one of the native war-
riors — Wondo, by name — was already debased by
the use of the white man's fire-water, of which
Montalbert possessed a large supply. Concealing
his purposes for a time, the adventurer sought out
this Wondo, and shortly contrived to foment the
poor fellow's appetite to such a degree that he be-
came the absolute slave of whoever had it in his
power to minister to his desires.
When the hunter was thought to be sufiiciently
besotted, Montalbert ventured to propose to him a
plan to secure the skin of the White Deer. De-
praved as he had become, Wondo at first recoiled
from the thought, but appetite at length prevailed
and he yielded to the tempter.
Years of unmolested security had rendered the
Deer so confident in the friendship of man that, when
at last treachery came, she proved an easy victim.
Before conscience could awaken in the sacrilegious
hunter, the gentle animal was taken and slain, and
the ill-gotten fur was in the possession of the white
man.
THE WHITE DEER.
No sooner had Montalbert secured- his prize than,
concealing it in his baggage, he set out for Montreal;
but the legend hints that he never reached the
French border, and the beautiful skin of the Indians'
sacred deer never added to the splendors of French
royalty.
Among the natives, the impious slaughter was not
suspected until the fire-water of the slayer was ex-
pended, and a returning consciousness compelled
him to confess his deed of horror, and to meet the
speedy vengeance which atoned for it.
Long and earnest were the supplications which
the frightened natives sent up to the Great Spirit,
that He would avert from the tribe the punishment
due to such a crime; but its prosperity never again
was what it had been, and its numbers slowly
wasted away.
XVI.
ROARING BROOK AND TORY'S GLEN.
Fear God, honor the King. — JSt. Peter,
The powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever there-
fore resistetli the power, resisteth the ordinance of God ;
and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. —
St. Paul.
And what saith the Koran ? ' ' Speak truth to thy Prince." —
Blue Beard,
"Every state and almost every county of New-
England has its Roaring Brook — a mountain stream-
let, overhung by woods, impeded by a mill, en-
cumbered by fallen trees, but ever rushing, racing,
roaring down through gurgling gullies, and filling
the forest with its delicious sound and freshness;
the drinking places of home returning herds; the
mysterious haunts of squirrels and blue jays; tho
sylvan retreat of school-boys, who frequent it in the
summer holidays, and mingle their restless thoughts
with its restless, exuberant, and rejoicing stream.'*
Thus speaks Professor Longfellow of one of the
most charming features of our hillsides. Our Roar-
ing Brook, I think must be familiar to the poet.
Indeed, it is shrewdly suspected that it is the ori-
ginal of that where Churchill and Kavanagh passed
so delightful a day with Cecilia. Alice, and the
LONGFELLOW. 191
schoolmaster's wife. If not, it might well have been,
for the description is perfect; and there is every
reason to believe that the author was familiar with
the original. There is a shorter road to it now;
but that over which the author of Kavanagh must
have driven, is both so pleasant and so rich in me-
mories that I prefer it still; and so will you. We
will not hurry over it.
Passing down the broad elm-shaded, old-fashioned,
courtly street which leads east from the Pittsfield
Park, we come, at the distance of a few rods to a
bold and picturesque knoll, upon which stands one
of those square old dwellings, such as it was the
fashion of the New England gentry to build seventy-
five or a hundred years ago: and which still delight
their descendants, although, like antiques in other
branches of art, they seem to defy modern imitation.
This was long the country seat of Hon. Nathan
Appleton of Boston, whose wife was a daughter of
the builder of the mansion, and whose daughter be-
came the wife of the poet Longfellow. On the
landing of the broad stairs at the end of its long
entrance hall, stood the old clock so touchingly com-
memorated by him:
" Somewhat back from tlie village street
Stands the old fashioned country seat ;
Across its antique portico,
Tall poplar trees their shadows throw, —
And from its station in the hall
An ancient time piece says to all —
Forever, never, "
Never, forever."
192 TAGHCONIC.
The mansion, now the residence of Mrs. Thomas
F. Plunkett, has been to some extent remodelled ex-
ternally, but it preserves all the features noted in
Mr. Longfellow's poem.
A couple of miles further south, on what is known
as the old road to Lenox, is the villa built by Oliver
Wendell Holmes, in which he resided for several
years. Dr. Holmes had an hereditary interest in
Pittsiield; his great-grand father Col. Jacob Wen-
dell of Boston, with his kinsman, Philip Livingston
of Albany, and Col. John Stoddard of Northampton —
" the great New-En glander " — having been equal
owners of the township, six miles square, before its
division by sale among the first settlers. These
great proprietors — or at least Stoddard and Wen-
dell — reserved some of the best lands for themselves;
and Col. Wendell making choice of the farm on
which Dr. Holmes afterwards built, either he or his
son, Judge Oliver Wendell of Revolutionary fame,
erected a mansion upon it for a country seat. Li
the fierce political feuds, before and during the
war of 1812, Judge Wendell was a great stay and
consolation to the Pittsfield Federalists to whom he
gave much support, moral and pecuniary. The
First Church still cherishes among its precious relics,
a baptismal basin of solid silver, which he presented
to the Federal section when it was divided on poli-
tical issues. I will continue the story in the words
of Dr. Holmes's speech at the Berkshire Jubilee in
1844:
*' One of my earliest recollections is of an annual pilgrimage
BOAEING BEOOK. 193
made by my parents to the west. The young horse was
brought up, fatted by a week's rest and high feeding, prancing
and caracoling, to the door. It came to the corner and was
soon over the western hills. He was gone a fortnight ; and
one afternoon — it always seemed to me a sunny afternoon —
we saw the equipage crawling from the west towards the old
homestead ; the young horse, who set out so fat and pranc-
ing, worn thin and reduced by the long journey — the
chaise covered with dust ; and all speaking of a terrible cru-
sade, a formidable pilgrimage. Winter-evening stories told
me where — to Berkshire, to the borders of New York — to
the old domain ; owned so long that there seemed to be a sort
of hereditary love for it.
" Many years passed, and I travelled down the beautiful
Rhine. I wished to see the equally beautiful Hudson. I
found myself at Albany ; and a few hours t^-ought me to
Pittsfield. I went to the little spot — the scene of the pilgrim-
age — a mansion — and found it surrounded by a beautiful
meadow, through which the winding river made its way in a
thousand graceful curves. The mountains reared their heads
around it. The blue air, which makes our city pale cheeks
again to deepen with the hue of health, coursing about it pure
and free. I recognized the scene of the annual pilgrimage
and since that I have made an annual visit to it."
Three or four years after the Jubilee, Dr. Holmes
built, upon a round knoll or hill, near the old mansion,
a neat plain villa, commanding a fine view of the whole
circle of Berkshire Mountains and of the Housatonic
winding its serpentine way through the Canoe Mea-
dows; so-called because the Mohegan Indians used
to leave there their frail barks, perhaps to visit one
of their burial grounds in the vicinity, or perhaps
considering this the head of canoe navigation. The
knoll was barren enough when the poet-professor
17
194 TAGHCONIC.
bnilt upon it, but his liberal planting has covered it
with rich turf and an abundance of- trees and shrub-
bery. The place is however chiefly notable as having
once been the home of Oliver Wendell Holmes, and
the spot where he performed work, the fame of
whose results is now sure to be as lasting as it ii»
universal.
Some of these results are closely associated with
the name of Berkshire. Among those locally most
highly prized is Dr. Holmes's poem at the dedication
of the Pittsfield Cemetery: equally charming in its
way is "The New Eden," which was read before
the Berkshire Horticultural Society at Stockbridge,
in the September following, the excessively dry
summer of 1854, when
" We saw tlie August sun descend
Day after day with blood-red stain,
And the blue mountains dimly blend
With smoke-wreaths on the burning plain.
** Beneath the hot Sirocco's wings
We sat and told the withering hours,
Till Heaven unsealed its azure springs.
And bade them leap in flashing showers."
In a still finer vein is " The Plough-boy," which
was written for the anniversary of the Berkshire
Agricultural Society in October, 1849. Dr. Holmes
was chairman of the committee upon the ploughing
match; the large old church was, as usual on such
occasions, crowded almost to suffocation, and when
his turn came, he mounted half-way up the pulpit-
stairs and read a report of which I quote a part:
" Time and experience have sanctioned the custom of putting
OLIVER WEXDELL HOLMES. 195
only plain, practical men upon this committee. Were it not
so, the most awkward blunders would be constantly occurring.
The inhabitants of our cities, who visit the country during
the fine season, would find themselves quite at a loss if an
overstrained politeness should place them in this position.
Imagine a trader, or a professional man, from the capital of
the state, unexpectedly called upon to act in rural matters.
Plough-shares are to him shares that pay no dividends. A
coulter, he supposes, has something to do with a horse. His
notions of stock were obtained in Faneuil Hall market, where
the cattle looked funnily enough, to be sure, compared with
the living originals. He knows, it is true, that there is a
difference in cattle, and would tell you that he prefers the
sirloin breed. His children are equally unenlightened ; they
know no more of the poultry -yard than what they have learned
by having the chicken-pox, and playing on a Turkey carpet.
Their small knowledge of wool-growing is ]am(b)entable.
The history of one of these summer-visitors shows how im-
perfect is his rural education. ^ He no sooner establishes him-
self in the country than he begins a series of experiments.
He tries to drain a marsh, but only succeeds in draining his
own pockets. He ofiers to pay for carting off a compost heap ;
but is informed that it. consists of corn and potatoes in an un-
finished state. He sows abundantly, but reaps little or nothing,
except with the implement which he uses in shaving, a pro-
cess which is frequently performed for him by other people,
though he pays no barber's bill. He builds a wire-fence and
paints it green, so that nobody can see it. But he forgets to
order a pair of spectacles apiece for his cows, who, taking
offense at something else, take his fence in addition, and make
an invisible one of it, sure enough. And, finally, having
bought a machine to chop fodder, which chops off a good slice
of his dividends, and two or three children's fingers, he con-
cludes that, instead of cutting feed, he will cut farming ; and
so sells out to one of those plain, practical farmers, such as
you have honored by placing them on your committee, whose
196 TAGHCONIC.
pockets are not so full when ho starts, but have fewer holes
and not so many fingers in them.
It must have been one of these practical men whose love of
his pursuits led him to send in to the committee the following
lines, which it is hoped will be accepted as a grateful tribute to
the noble art whose successful champions are now to be named
and rewarded."
Dr. Holmes then read the poem now known to
fame as the " The Plough-man," which, in his read-
ing, all must have recognized as grand poetry. But
I suspect that not one of the applauding audience —
and probably not even the author himself — realized
that they were listening to what would afterwards
be recognized by the world's great critics as the
finest georgic in any living language, or perhaps in
any language whatever. I have my doubts if many
understood to the full even, the exquisite fun of the
** report."
Yielding to his own good nature and the soft
persuasions of a committee of ladies, Dr. Holmes
once contributed a couple of poems to a fancy fair
in Pittsfield. The writer does not gather them into
the fold of his published collection, and I do not
know that it is quite fair to print them here; but, of
course, they got into the newspapers of the day, and
I cannot deprive you of the pleasure of reading at
least one of them, even if the poet does consider it
a trifle, too light for preservation.
Each of the poems was enclosed in an envelope
bearing a motto; and the right to a first and second
choice, guided by these, was disposed of in a raffle,
to the no small emolument of the object of the fair.
EO-aJBING BEOOK. 19*?
I think that the two pieces are now represented by
at least a square yard of the quaint ecclesiastical
heraldry which illuminates the gorgeous chancel
window of St. Stephen's Church.
The motto of the first envelope ran thus:
" Faith is the conquering angel's crown ;
Who hopes lor grace must ask it ;
Look shrewdly ere you lay me down ;
I'm Portia's leaden casket."
The following verses were found within.
** Fair lady, whosoe'er thou art,
Turn this poor leaf with tenderest care,
And — hush, O hush thy beating heart ;
The One thou lovest will be there."
" Alas 1 not loved by thee alone.
Thine idol ever prone to range :
To-day all thine, to-morrow flown.
Frail thing that every hour may change.
** Yet when that truant course is done,
If thy lost wanderer reappear.
Press to thy heart the only One
That nought can make more truly dear ! "
Within this paper was a smaller envelope, con-
taining a dollar bill, and this explanation of the
poet's riddle.
" Fair lady, lift thine eyes and tell
If this is not a truthful letter ;
This is the one (1) thou lovest well,
And nought (0) can make thee k)ve it better (10).
Though fickle, do not think it strange
That such a, friend is worth possessing :
For one that gold can never change
Is Heaven's own dearest earthly blessing.
198 TAGHOONIC.
You see now, in part, why our people claim a sort
of joint ownership with Cambridge and Boston in
Dr. Holmes and his fame. They have moreover a
real affection for him, which leads them even to con-
done his irreverent sneer at Pittsfield's Old Elm, as
" sadly in want of a new wig of green leaves : " and
the charity which covers a multitude of sins could
stretch its skirts no further than that. He has so
much human nature in him that, in spite of some
social and educational impediments, he, every little
while, gets right down to the heart of things. That
is the Berkshire version of the " one touch of nature
that makes the whole world kin." And that is what
makes Dr. Holmes the most popular of scholarly
writers. Do you suppose the world would tolerate
so much learning in any body else ?
A very few rods beyond the Wendell Farms, we
come to Arrow-head, the fine estate formerly owned
by Herman Melville. Mr. Melville is a grandson of
that Major Thomas Melville, who, a few generations
ago, was known to all Bostonians as the last genuine
specimen of the gentleman of the old school left in
the city, the last wearer of the costume of the Revo-
lution, and the last survivor of the Harbor tea party.
His son, of the same name and rank, was commandant
of the military post at Pittsfield during the war of
1812, and, after the war, president of the Agricultural
Society, and otherwise a leader of men in Berkshire,
besides being a man of rare culture. AYith him, his
nephew, Herman, was domiciliated for a time, while
in his youth, he, played school-master in a wild dis-
trict — under the shadow of Rock Mountain, I think.
HERMAN MELVILLE. 199
It was probably the memory of this early experi-
ence which led Mr. Melville in 1850, in the first flush
of his literary success, to retire to Pittsfield, and soon
purchase a fine estate with a spacious old house; ad-
joining, in the rear, the farm of his early residence
with his uncle. This quaint old mansion, he made
the home of the most free-hearted hospitality; and
also a house of many stories — writing in it Moby
Dick and many other romances of the sea, and also
" The Piazza Tales," which took their name from a
piazza built by their author upon the north end of
the house, and commanding a bold and striking view
of Greylock and the intervening valley. " My
chimney and I, " a humorous and spicy essay, of
which the cumbersome old chimney — overbearing
tyi-ant of the home — is the hero, was also ^\Titten
here. And so, of course, was " October Mountain ,"
a sketch of mingled philosophy and word-painting,
which found its inspiration in the massy and brill-
ian" tints presented by a prominent and thickly-
wooded j^rojection of Washington Mountain, as seen
from the south-eastern windows at Arrow-Head, on a
fine day after the early frosts. Mr. Melville was
almost a zealot in his love of Berkshire scenery, and
there was no more ardent and indefatigable excur-
sionist among its hills and valleys.
And now, let us drive on to the Roaring Brook,
which — as you may possibly recollect — we set out
to visit. Our way lies through pleasant rustic scenes
and the pretty agricultural hamlet of New Lenox,
200 TAGHCONIC.
Passing this, and guided by the sound of the brook,
we come to the mouth of the Tory's Glen, through
which its waters leap, tumbling down.
From the broad summit of Washington Mountain,
the brook comes dashing down the deep ravine,
Bmiling in the rare sunshine, glooming in the fre-
quent shade, brawling with the impeding boulders,
toying in amber pools with the mossy banks; but
for the most part rushing impatiently from fall to
fall, for five restless miles, until, just without the
glen, it loses itself in the indolent curves of the
Housatonic, which here puts on its gentlest mood.
It must be a sweet relief to the water — vexed
and wearied by its rough passage among the sharp-
angled flint rocks, and by its arduous labors in turn-
ing mill wheels — thus to repose at length in the
flower-bordered bed of the river, and wander about
the meadows, in what leisurely and graceful curves
it will.
Just below the entrance to the Tory's Glen, at a
point in the road where it winds around the base of
Melville's grand October Mountain, the curves dis-
play themselves in a breadth of beauty which they
rarely exhibit north of Stockbridge, and help make
up a much admired view. It is the beginning of
that system of beauty which distinguishes the Stock-
bridge valley, and affords a kindly relief to the eye,
if it wearies of mountains, lakes and waterfalls.
One warm October day, many years ago, a three
miles walk in pleasant company, brought me to the
smiling and fertile valley, just without the glen.
BOARING BROOK. 201
and following directions given with kindly zeal, we
soon entered it mentally contrasting the courtesies
of rustic life in New Lenox, with the urbanities of
Broadway, not to any flattering extent in the interest
of the city.
You can see the black opening in the mountain
side which indicates the location of the glen from
many points in the village of Pittsfield, and if you
ask the people what it is they will perhaps tell you,
if they are of the fanciful sort : " Oh, that is the
Jaws of Darkness; " and you will reply, " Oh yes, I
see it is ! " And, although you would not be quite
correct, the contrast between the cheerful light of
the hamlet and the wild, sombre solitude of the
mountain gorge is strikingly impressive. From the
shadeless field, you enter upon overarched paths —
among mossy trees, along precipitous rocks, under
the shadow of overhanging mountains. The heart
feels the change instantly, and conforms itself in-
stinctively to it.
Here we find again those adamantine blocks of
flint-rock which characterize and rudely adorn this
whole mountain range. Sometimes they lie con-
fusedly upon the mountain's steep slope; then, again,
they impede the rushing course of the brook. In
the bed of the stream, the ever-rolling current, in the
course of ages, has polished the surface and rounded
the edges of even these obdurate masses. It is
startling to think by how many years of constant at-
trition the soft flowing wave accomplished its purpose.
How many centuries ago did the savage stoop to
202 TAGHCONIC.
drink at this mountain stream, and think of nothing
but the cooling draught — least of all that the
smooth, gliding fluid was bearing away a portion of
the solid rock whereon he stood, to form a soil for
a conquering race !
These rocks form the bed of the brooks; and are
piled up along its banks in mad confusion, with
crevices and dens between and beneath them, which
iu former days sheltered a tenement-house popula-
tion of wild beasts. In one cave which lies under
the road. Revolutionary tradition affirms that an
outlawed Tory, one Gideon Smith of Stockbridge,
once found refuge for weeks. It is a dreary habita-
tion — not in the ornamented style of grotto at all —
a couple of small rude chambers built of huge over-
lapping flint-rocks, without a pendent stalactite or
sparkling encrustation, nor even a grotesquely
shapen fracture, to relieve their barren walls. Not
a desirable residence, in any respect; and, since the
war has been ended for a hundred years, and it can do
the country no harm — and, especially, as he is dead
and it can do him no good — I sincerely pity that
hunted Tory, driven out to make his home among wild
beasts. Although, I dare say, he came out, as often
as he dared, to sun himself, as the t)adgers do, in the
openings of the wood, if he could find any in that
shady retreat.
I do not know what offense had made him espe-
cially obnoxious to the committees of vigilance, to
which the safety of the young republic was en-
trusted; but there is a touching anecdote of him,
Tory's glen. 203
which, if it was known, ought to have softened even
tne asperities of war times. It is to the effect that,
when concealed in some hiding-place at home, he
made his wife cause all his children to pass daily
before the crevice which supplied him with light and
air; so that he might see their innocent faces and
be comforted with the knowledge of their health and
safety. ISTot a bad man at heart, that !
Smith seems to have been often a " hunted " man.
In May, 1776, he harbored a certain Captain McKay,
a British prisoner of war, who had escaped from Hart-
ford, by the aid of John Graves, a Pittsfield Tory.
Smith's treasonable hospitality becoming known to the
committees, the hue and cry was raised against him;
and a party, of which Linus Parker, a famous Pittsfield
sharp-shooter, was one, repaired to his house. His
family reported him not at home, but the seekers,
confident that he was in the barn, summoned him to
surrender. He appeared at the half -open door, peered
curiously around, and, after some parley, gave him-
self up. Smith and Parker were nevertheless per-
sonally upon friendly terms; and after the war, the
former being, with his wife, on a visit to Parker's
house. Smith reverted to the incident described, and
said that when he opened the barn-door, being an
extraordinary runner, he felt certain of making good
his escape; but, seeing Parker with his famous rifle
in hand, he Tvas afraid to make the attempt.
" And now, Parker," he added, " I want to know
if you really would have shot me -? "
" As quick as I ever shot a deer ! " was the reply.
204 TAGHCONIC.
" Then it would have been all over with me," ex-
claimed his friend, feeling that he spoke in truthful
earnest, and trembling at the memory of the danger
which he had escaped.
Such are the amenities of civil war. There were a
good many Tories in Berkshire county, as in every
other; made so doubtless, as in all civil conflicts men
range themselves, both on the better and the worse
side, some from base and selfish, some from pure and
noble, but most from mixed, motives. The Tories
of Berkshire — it might be courteous to call them
" loyalists," but it would hardly be distinctive, since
loyalty to the crown meant treason to the people —
the Tories of Berkshire were mostly of the wealthier,
the magisterial, and the more refined, classes; and of
those in other grades of society who were bound to
them by one tie or another. Not that all, or even a
majority, of these classes failed under the test which
tried men's soula: but, as ever, wealth and ofiicial
position proved powerful persuaders against revolu-
tion: and, early in the war at least, the leading Tories
evidently believed in the prophecies which they ut-
tered so unctuously that, to Whig ears, they sounded
unpleasantly like threats: to wit, that the king's
generals would come down upon the rebellious colony
from Canada, with his resistless army and his savage
allies; and that Berkshire would be the first county
to feel his vengeance, as it had been the first to pro-
voke it by suppressing his courts. It was a prudent
error which made most of the Tories; they knew not
what this means: " he that seeketh his life, shall lose
toey's glen. 206
it " — lacked the virtue which risks all in conflict for
the right; and had neither the daring wisdom nor the
wise courage which plucks the flower, safety, from the
thistle, danger. Before the war was over, most of
them were — often by rather heroic remedies — cured
of their perversity — at least as to its external mani-
festation. I fear the cure was not always radical;
but it sometimes was, as in one instance which I am
going to cite for you.
No doubt, however, many were religiously sincere
in their loyalty: and all were able to make a very
plausible, even if hollow, defence from Holy Writ.
When a man has made up his mind to do a mean,
vicious or cruel thing in his own interest, a text of
scripture, which seems to commend or justify it, is
very soothing. I think some of us can recollect
when the garbled text " servants obey your masters,"
and St. Paul's injunction to a fugitive slave —
Onesimus by name — salved the conscience of almost
an entire nation, sorely lacerated by all the rest of
the New Testament, to say nothing of the Deca-
logue, the Declaration of Independence and the great
book of nature. The Tories could make out a much
better case than that; as you see by glancing at the
head of this article. Those of them who were, or
had been, magistrates or officers in the militia had
moreover taken the most iron-clad of oaths, not only
to bear faith and true allegiance to King George,
but to the best of their power, to defend him
against all traitorous conspiracies, and to make all
such known to him. " All these thinsjs," said the
18 •
206 TAGHOONIC.
subscribers to this oath, " I do plainly and sincerely
acknowledge and swear according to the express
words by me spoken, and according to the plain
conunon-sense and understanding of the same words,
without any equivocation or mental reservation
whatever: " and, however the majority of good men
might find that in the conduct of " the man George,"
which released them from the obligations of that
oath, and discharged them from all allegiance to
him, I hope that you will not bestow unmitigated
reprobation upon those whose tender conscience, and
the loyalty to " His Sacred Majesty," sedulously in-
stilled by education into their heart of hearts, re-
fused to be so relieved.
I am-speaking of moral condemnation only: how-
ever tenderly we may appreciate the sentiment of
natural, but mistaken, loyalty which governed the
conscientious adherent to the royal cause, the com-
mittees of safety and vigilance could take little ac-
count of it. Stern necessity, and duty to a holier
cause, imperatively demanded that it should be re-
pressed with a strong hand. And it was done;
harshly perhaps and unwisely at times; but effectu-
ally, and not with half the vindictiveness and cruelty
which would surely have been visited upon the
committee-men had the Revolution failed.
Pardon me for this prolixity; but I am heart-sick
of the overstrained magnanimity, falsely so called,
which concentrates all its charities and praises for
the defeated champions of the wrong, and reserves
all its censures and denunciations for the triumph-
CONVERTING A TORY. 207
ant defenders of the right. If I recall some of
the traits which relieve somewhat the odium justly
due to even conscientious support of tyranny and
antagonism to freedom, or something of the imper-
fections which marred the record of the patriots,
let me not be construed as denying that, to the
memory of the rudest sincere Whig, honor and glory
are due which that of the most refined and con-
scientious Tory must never share.
And now let me to my stories, the first of which
I heard from that best, and most abundantly sup-
plied, of all Berkshire story tellers. Governor George
N. Briggs; who, by the by, I am sure would have
sanctioned the sentiments I have just expressed.
In the early part of the Revolution there lived in
Lenox a staunch old Tory, who openly professed his
allegiance to King George, and his hostility to the
rebel cause; but, as he confined his opposition to
words, and was greatly respected and beloved by
his fellow citizens, for his many excellent qualities
as a friend and neighbor, he. was allowed for a long
while to enjoy his opinions unmolested. But the
contest between England and the colonies waxed
every day more bitter, and the Committee of Safety
began to be troubled with doubts if it were con-
sistent with their duty to permit one who so loudly
vaunted his toryism to live among them, and en-
courage others to commit outrages of which he
would not be personally guilty.
The matter was often a subject of deliberation,
but the committee were reluctant to act. At length,
208 TAGHCONIC.
however, in some dark and trying hour — perhaps
in the bitterness of defeat, perhaps after hearing of
the horrors of Wyoming — they resolved to move.
Or, perhaps, as happened in some emergencies, their
zeal was quickened by orders from head-quarters.
At any rate, paying a visit to the Tory, they in-
formed him, they had come to the conclusion that
his example was too pernicious to the cause of
liberty to be any longer permitted. They regretted
the circumstance, but their duty was imperative; in
short, he must take the oath of allegiance to the
colonies — or swing.
The oath was peremptorily and unhesitatingly re-
fused; and the next step was an extemporaneous
gallows, erected in the public street, beneath which
t£e recusant was placed, and the rope tightened
around his throat, but immediately loosened and the
oath again proffered, and again declined.
All arguments and threats proving abortive, the
contemptuous loyalist was again drawn up, and
left to hang until he became purple in the face —
care being taken to lower him and apply restoratives,
before life was extinct. Consciousness being once
more restored, the oath was again tendered, and he
was entreated to yield to the necessity of the case:
but his stubborn spirit was not ' yet broken; here-
fused to renounce his allegiance to the Crown.
Things had now come to an awkward pass; and
the committee, who possibly were by this time sorry
they had taken the matter in hand, retired to the
tavern for consultation. The New-England com
CONVEETING A TOBY. 209
mittee-man could no more deliberate without his
mug of flip than the New Amsterdam burgher with-
out his pipe of tobacco. But whatever counsels of
mercy there may have been under that genial in-
fluence (of which the prisoner was not denied his
consoling cup) it was flnally resolved that, having
put their hands to the plough, it would never do to
turn back. Regard for dignity and the authority of
the committee forbade' it. In short the good of the
cause required that the prisoner should take the oath,
or suffer death for his contumacy.
The loyalist received their decision with unflinch-
ing determination not to yield a hair's breadth in
what he believed to be the right. The committee
were equally resolved, and he was again drawn up —
perhaps with some angry violence. And at once it
seemed that the work of death had been too effectu-
ally done.
It may be that the committee had not designed to
carry their measures to so extreme a length. Pos-
sibly they doubted if the authority given them to
** handle the Tories " was sufficient to warrant them
in it, for, although the people of Berkshire, from
1774 to 1781, would admit no courts of law among
them — submitting only to their own committees —
there was a tacit exception of capital cases, which
were tried before the Supreme Court at Springfield.
But, whatever may have been the feeling or intention
of the committee in their anger, the sight they now wit-
nessed might well bring back their old affection for
a tried friend and kind neighbor. They hastened to
210 TAGHCOJSriC.
cut down the body, and use every effort to undo
their fatal work.
There seemed at first little hope of reanimating
the senseless clay; but at length the limbs slightly
relaxed their rigidity, the eyes moved, and the livid
hue began to disappear from the cheek. Conscious-
ness slowly and painfully returned; the victim sat
upright — and the question was again asked: "Will
you swear ? " " Yes," faintly responded the half -dead
convert to patriotism.
A few moments afterwards, as he was sitting be-
fore the tavern fire and a glass of steaming punch —
furnished by the order, if not at the expense, of the
committee — warming himself after his dangerous
exposure to the chills of the shadow of death, he was
heard to mutter thoughtfully to himself — " Well !
this is a hard way to make Whigs — but Wll do it I "
And, accordingly, from that day to the close of the
war, he was one of the most zealous and unwavering
of the patriots.
Another story illustrates still more remarkably the
same trait of unflinching integrity. It was told to
me by the late Hon. Henrj^ Hubbard, who was^well
versed in Berkshire traditions; but I remember to
have read it in my childhood, and, although I cannot'
recall the name of the book in which I found it, it is
likely that I have used some of the phraseology
which Avas impressed upon my youthful memory.
It seems that, at some time during the Revolution,
one Nathan Jackson of Tyringham — a romantic and
beautiful farming town of Southern Berkshire — was
A Tory's integrity. 211
accused of the crime of high treason against the
United Colonies, or States. The trial was to be at
Springfield, but the court did not sit for some weeks —
during which interval Jackson was confined in the
Berkshire county gaol, at Great Barrington, which
was in so dilapidated a condition that he might
easily have escaped at any time, had he not scorned
an act which might indicate cowardice, or reluctance
to suffer for his principles. Unwilling, however, to
waste his time in idleness, he applied to the sheriff
for permission to go out daily to work, promising to
return faithfully to the prison every night. So well
was his character for integrity established, that, al-
though he was committed on a capital charge, and
did not deny the facts alleged against him, the
sheriff did not hesitate to comply with his request.
And so well was that confidence deserved, that the
prisoner never failed to return to his quarters punctu-
ally every night to be locked up.
What follows is a still stronger proof of the re-
liance placed upon his word. The court was to be
held at Springfield, and the journey to it was then
a weary one, over rough forest-roads. Jackson was
the only prisoner to be carried on, and the sheriff
complained bitterly of the trouble to which he was
subjected, particularly at this busy season of the
year. The Tory told him that it was quite unne-
cessary for him to go — he could go just as well by
himself; and again he was trusted, and set out alone
and on foot, to go fifty miles through the woods to
surrender himself to be tried for his life, upon a
212 TAGHCONIC.
charge where he could not hope for an acquittal, and
by a tribunal whose right to judge him he could
conscientiously deny. Surely, if ever a man had an
excuse to palliate a violation of confidence, it was
he; the idea, however, seems never to have occurred
to him.
Luckily for him, on his way he was overtaken by
the Hon. Mr. Edwards, then a member of the Execu-
tive Council, to attend a session of which body h©
was then on his way to Boston. This gentleman
entered into conversation with Jackson, and, with-
out disclosing his own name or official position,
learned the nature of his companion's journey, and
something of his history. Pondering upon what he
had heard, Mr. Edwards pursued his way to Boston;
and Jackson, trudging on, soon reached Springfield,
and surrendered himself, was tried; did not deny
the facts alleged against him, and, as a matter of
course, was found guilty and condemned to death.
In due course the petitions for pardon of persons
under sentence of death, were considered by the
Honorable Council which then exercised the su-
preme executive authority in Massachusetts. After
all had been read Mr. Edwards asked if none had
been received in favor of Nathan Jackson of Tyring-
ham. The reply was that there was none; and a
member of the council, who had been present at the
trial, remarked that the case was one of such un-
doubted and aggravated guilt, and the attachment
of the condemned man to the King's cause was so
inveterate, that there could be no reason for granting
213
a pardon in this case, unless it was extended in
every other.
Mr. Edwards, in reply, related his adventure with
Jackson on the road, and also his story, which he
had taken pains to have substantiated by the sheriff
of Berkshire. A murmur of admiration went round
the council board; it was unanimously agreed that
such a man ought not to die upon the gallows, and,
after some brief discussion, an unconditional pardon
was made out and dispatchM to Springfield.
The stories suggested by the Tory's Glen have
led us far away from it; and we will return only for
the purpose of passing again through the pleasant
village of New Lenox and its sunny valley; and to
answer a question asked me by a companion with
whom I once rode through it: "Has so pretty a
place no story ? "
To be sure it has; but of that kind which is best
told in verse.
Sunnyvale.
One sunny summer afternoon,
The gladdest in all joyous June,
Happiest man beneath heaven's dome,
A farmer brought his young wife home ;
And, as they reached the mountain's brow.
And saw his cottage smile below,
He bade his bonnie bride mark well
How gaily there the sunshine fell.
June came again — a babe was born.
It came once more — the child was gone :
Yet, though the farmer's face grew sad.
214 TAGHCONIC.
A smile of new-found peace, it had.
He strove the mother's grief to calm,
And said the June days brought a balm ;
For something more than sunshine fell
From where their child had gone to dwell.
June came again — the farmer's wife
Was passing from our mortal life ;
They laid her in. our si. nniest glade
Before its frailest flowers could fade.
That year the farmer did not mark
If earth or sky were bright or dark,
Yet still the careless sunshine fell
Gaily, as if all things were well,
June cometh now. From scenes the dead
Had left too lone, the farmer fled ;
And strangers, from his lonely hearth,
Dispel the gloom with household mirth,
While not a tone in any voice
Says some have wept, where they rejoice;
And still the blithesome sunlight falls
As gaily round those cottage walls.
XYH.
BASH-BISH AND THE DOME.
** For here these pathless mountains free
Gave shelter to my love and me,
And every rock and every stone
Bare witness that he was my own." — GampbeU.
Doubtless the wildest and most awe-inspiriag
gorge among the Berkshire Hills is the deep and
shaggy recess in the western side of Mount Wash'
ington, into which the famous cascade, Bash-Bish
Falls, comes dashing in a striking series of bold
leaps and plunges. Speaking of the passage down-
ward, along the side of the little cataract, a writer
familiar with the Alps, but a little inclined to start-
ling statements, says ; " the descent over the rocks,
along the awful rent made in the mountain, was
wild as an Alpine gorge, and even more perilous."
Mount Washington is the huge mountain pile —
a portion of the Taconic Range, which fills the
south-western corner of Berkshire. In grandeur it
is rivalled by Greylock alone among our hills; the
inhabited portion having an elevation of from fifteen
hundred to two thousand feet abo^ve the level of the
surrounding valleys, while the summit rises to an
216 TAGHCONIC,
altitude five or six hundred feet greater. Its grand-
eur, however, comes from other peculiarities as well
as from its height. It has also long been famed for
scenes of picturesque beauty; and has of late gained
new renown and interest as the locality of Sky
Farm; the romantic home of the charming child-
poets, Elaine and Dora Goodale.
K you chance to be in the vicinity of Great Bar-
ington, or if you desire, and have leisure for, a pro-
longed drive, your better way to Bash-Bish is through
that town and Egremont, past Bryant's Green River
and over Mount Washington. That is certainly the
old fashioned poetic route; but I am going to tell
you how the falls looked, one day, to a field-meet-
ing of certain scientific associations of Troy, Albany
and Pittsfield.
Bash-Bish lies at an equal distance from Albany
and Pittsfield, and an hour's ride on the Boston and
Albany railroad brought the excursionists to Chat-
ham, midway between the two — while another
hour on the Harlem road carried the united party to
the pleasant village of Copake, renowned chiefly for
its iron works.
The location of the village is unique: with an out-
look over the smiling fields of New York, on the
west, while the frowning mountains of Massachusetts
almost over-hang it on the east.
The falls are about a mile and a half from the
village, and not many rods east of the state boundary
line. The road to them is delightful. Indeed the
first glimpses of it were so enticing that a majority
BASH-BISH. 217
of our party preferred to walk over it, although our
hosts — the Troy and Albany Associations — had
provided liberally for riding, and the kindly people
who welcomed us, gave warning that the ladies, at
least, should reserve all their strength for the falls.
After lingering awhile in the village, we moved
on, to the great stone stack of the iron blast-furnace:
the most picturesque of manufacturies, and the only
one which adds to, rather than mars, the attractive-
ness of a region like this.
A little further, and we came to the handsome and
finely located Swiss cottage of Mr. Alfred Douglas,
of New York, the proprietor of Bash-Bish and its
romantic surroundings; where, by his hospitable in-
vitation, we wandered at will through the spacious
grounds and deliciously-filled conservatories. Even
after leaving this charming resting place, most of us
did not heed the hurrying summons we began to hear
in the impatient roar of the cascade; but dallied
listlessly in the park-like groves, by the shady way-
side, or on the banks of the stream whose dashing,
flashing, gleaming rocks and amber pools reminded
us of our own Roaring Brook.
Still the day was not very far advanced when we
came where the gorge, widening a little, throws up
its barriers into bare cliffs and shaggy, precipitous,
or pillar-like, eminences. Through the top of the
central cliff, the stream has worn down its way,
leaving its walls on either side like huge horns. Be-
tween these in no very great volume — but snowy,
silvery, summer coud, foam-like — its waters come
19
218 TAGHCONIC.
down 111 a succession of bold leaps, divided midway
by a rocky shelf into " The Twin Falls." A column
worthy, almost, of the Alps or the Yosemite. One
peculiarity of the basin at the foot of the falls, is the
great variety of views which it affords of the cascade
and the rocks which mingle grandly or grotesquely
with it. And, wandering from point to point in
search of these — now standing on the rudest of
rustic bridges, and now on slippery rocks; here on
bare and gravelly beaches, and there under green
branches — scores of laughing groups helped to fill
up and enliven the landscape for each other. This
for half an hour, or more; then ambition seized them.
" By that sin fell the angels " — Shakespeare's angels;
and the danger seemed 'imminent that it would have
a similar result for ours. But the first effect was
quite the reverse: it carried them right up — almost
straight up — the steepest of all possible log-and-
rock-encumbered paths, to the Eagle's Nest, Prospect
Rock, and all manner of preposterous places. And
grosser mortals, whether laden with scientific lore or
otherwise, went along per-force.
It was impossible in the brief time of our visit to
make a thorough survey of the falls, and I there-
fore condense the detailed account of President
Hitchcock, who devoted three visits to it:
From a spot upon Mount Washinsrton whose beauty the
President glowingly euloofizes, one descends, two thousand
feet, to find himself by a noisy stream, about a rod wide,
which for a short distance, tumbles rapidly down between
perpendicular cliifs of talcose slate, a liuudred feet high.
Soon, striking a huge barrier of this rock, the brook turns, at
BASH-BISH. 219
right angles, to the left, and for fifty or sixty rods, rushes
down a declivity of eighty degrees. Here the water has per-
formed its greatest wonders. Sinking its bed for unknown
ages, and at the same time beating with its waters on the
edges of the slate, it has worn a dome-shaped cavity to the
depth of one hundred and ninety-four feet. At the bottom of
this cavity, one is at the foot of a vast wall of rock [the base
of " The Eagle's nest,"] which encloses him on the east,
south and west ; and as it rises, curves outward. So that,
looking upward, he sees it, at the height of nearly two hun-
dred feet, projecting full twenty-five feet from its base. From
the uppermost fall, the stream leaps in several smaller cascades
perhaps sixty feet in the aggregate, half hidden by huge
boulders and over-hanging trees. At length we arrive at the
principal fall. The water divided in twain by a huge boulder
poised upon its brink, falls over a nearly straight and per-
pendicular precipice, about sixty feet, into a deep basin. Anj
single view, as this detailed description shows, can take in
but a small portion of the scenery of Bash-Bish Gorge.
President Hitchcock estimates the perpendicular height from
the top of the highest precipice to the bottom of the lowest
fall at three hundred and twenty feet.
Among the striking prospects offered by these
stupendous heights, there was a very clear one that
some unfortunates would glance off the paths,
slippery with the needles of evergreen foliage, and,
going sheer down that fearful distance, get undis-
tinguishably mashed upon the bare rock beneath:
which, for the moment, would have been disagree-
able, however much of pleasing interest it might
have added to the scene for future visitors. But
the day passed with no more thrilling incident than
a sudden plunge from an insecure plank into the cold
220 TAGHCONIC.
stream. Never was so adventurous climbing with
so little of startling adventure.
As the afternoon wore to a close, we gathered for
the favorite landscape of the gorge: that from Sun-
set Cliff, which rises a few rods below the fall.
Here the view is down the gorge, westward. For a
mile, there is a wooded glen with the stream thread-
ing its silver way through it, while at its termination
two abrupt hills — Cedar and Elk Mountains — rise
on either side, like Herculean pillars, to the height
of more than a thousand feet. Near the end of the
glen we see the fitly placed cottage of Mr. Douglas,
with the American flag floating in grace and beauty
by its side. But this bold and pleasing picture is
only the foreground to the grand view of the Cats-
kills, which are seen to loom up in the distance
lofty, majestic, dim and cloud-like. In perfectly
clear days their outlines are sharply cut on the blue
sky or sunset clouds. One may doubt which of the
two aspects is the most to be enjoyed. We were en-
raptured with that which was vouchsafed us.
The explorations of the day over, carriages were
more in request than they had been in the morning,
although an enthusiastic minority preferred to stroll
back as they came. Then we dined luxuriously in
the rude but comfortable freight depot: the Albany
and Troy Associations still being our hosts; and Mr.
H. S. Goodale, of Sky Farm, adding to the fare two
fat turkeys, one of them including in its dressing a
witty poem of welcome, and the other a mineral-
BASH-BISH. 221
ogical tribute in the shape of a superb specimen of
kyanite.
Finally we gathered in the tasteful little church,
to ascertain what anybody had done for science
during the day. I had not observed that any soul
had cared for anything except, with might and
main, to enjoy the scenery, the scrambles, the ram-
bles, the climbing and all the rest of the woodland
jollity. Somebody has said that notes to a fine poem
are like an anatomical lecture upon a savory joint;
and I greatly feared that some such comparison
would fit a scientific report upon Bash-Bish. But
those field-meeting savans, with their eyes trained
to special observation, are at home everywhere
with their minute philosophy ; and everywhere find
sources of rare enjoyment which, however they
may have before been " caviare to the multitude,"
they contrive to make the multitude enjoy with
them.
In some departments, Bash-Bish had proved a rich
field. Professor Peck, the State Botanist of New
York, and a specialist in fungi, had detected in the
gorge five species which were new to him, as well
as some rare and beautiful varieties of the fringed
gentian. Mr. Homes,* the State Librarian, had made
a study of the peculiar and valuable hematite ores.
Others contributed their share of scientific dis-
cussion : so that the day was found to have been not
altogether squandered in pleasure.
The notes to the poetry of the occasion were
furnished, in anything but an anatomical style, by
222 TAGHCONIC.
learned and quaint Professor Tatlock of Pittsfield.
"They might be epitomized, said a writer in an
Albany newspaper, by the line of Horace:
NuUus argento color abdito m torris :
or, in other words, what is all the beauty of
nature that we have been admiring, without men
and women — and especially the Albany Institute
and their friends — to admire it ? "
There seemed nobody to say anything for the
really very interesting local history of Mount Wash-
ington and its vicinity. I might indeed, myself,
have told the little story which I am now going to
tell you; but there were reasons why I should avoid
doing so.
The Swiss Lovers.
You may have read — or, at any rate, whether you
have read it or not, it is true — that, at a very early
date, there was a Swiss colony of iron-makers upon
Mount Washington. Miss Sedgwick asserts that
they gave the name of Bash-Bish to the cascade —
that being the patois of their canton for a small water-
fall. But I have my doubts as to that: first, because
two or three Swiss gentlemen of whom I made inquiry
were not aware of anything of the kind; and,
secondly, because Dr. O'Callaghan, the New York
historian, once pointed me to an old vocabulary of
the language of some western Indian tribes — in
Illinois, I think — in which Bash-a-Bish is given as
signifying a water-fall. Still Miss Sedgwick may
be correct, as she had visited in Switzerland, and was
THE SWISS LOVEES. 223
the intimate friend of the historian, Sismondi, and
his family. A resident of one canton in Switzerland
is not necessarily familiar with the patois of another,
and makers of Indian vocabularies are a long way
from infallible, as I grieve to know.
But, however it may have been with regard to
Bash-Bish, Miss Sedgwick is certainly good authority
for the assertion that the Swiss colony gave the name
of Mount Rhighi to the locality where they settled,
in honor of the famous mountain they had left be-
hind. She was a descendant of the most prominent
of the early settlers of southern Berkshire, and was
likely to be well informed in regard to its history.
One more preliminary. The brown hematites,
which abound in Berkshire, from Mount Washington
to Lanesboro' and Cheshire — as well as here at Co-
pake, and in the neighboring Connecticut town of
Salisbury — are among the most precious of iron
ores. They are among the most beautiful, also, when,
as they often do, they assume the stalactical form.
The black and glossy bubbling shape of many speci-
mens gives the impression that they were made by
heat; but the real agency was water. The hematite
beds were certainly deposited from the decomposition
of primitive, or magnetic, ores which once lay at
points higher than they. Break one of those glossy
pieces, and you shall see the stalactical crystalization
in exquisitely delicate and symmetrical radiation. It
is worth one's while, even in the region of rarest
landscape, to stop curiously by the side of a rusty
ore-heap. There is nothing more admirable in the
224 TAGHOONIC.
painting of the loveliest flower, nothing more won-
derful in the upheaval of the mightiest hills, than you
may find in the formation of those myriad crystals,
about to be cast by rude hands into the seven-fold
heated furnace.
When the fields were first cleared these ores,
scattered in boulders over the surface, or not deeply
buried, were easily accessible, and iron works sprang
up everywhere: not the costly and massive structures
you now see, but forges, scarcely more in appearance
than expanded blacksmith shops; although they
made iron that was iron. It was this slightness of
structure and consequent change of location as often
as convenience required, that renders it impossible
for me to tell you precisely where the forge and iron-
master's dwelling of my story stood: but you will
observe that it could not have been far from the
Bash-Bish gorge; perhaps — who knows? — on the
very site of the present Copake furnace.
Doubtless you think this a queer, matter-of-fact
introduction to a love-story. But this will not be
much of a story, after all. You must recollect that
it might have been a field-meeting report. And,
moreover, the love-stories in this volume are, none
of them, mere things of fancy; but the genuine
growth of this Berkshire soil — or, at the least,
fixtures attached to the reality.
And there is poetry in the iron-master's trade,
Listen to but one verse of a spirited song put into
his mouth bv J. E. Dow:
THE SWISS LOVERS. 225
•* I delve in the mouutain's dark recess.
And build my fires in the wilderness ;
The red rock crumbles beneath my blast,
While the tall trees tremble and stand aghast.
At midnight's hour my furnace glows,
And the liquid ore in red streams flows,
Till the mountain's heart is melted down.
And seared by fire is its sylvan crown."
Yes, the monotony of woodland excursions by day
is grandly relieved by a visit to an iron furnace by
night. And the ladies should know that the light
from the glowing metal is a great intensifier of some
kinds of beauty.
And now to my story.
It must be more than a hundred years since there
lived near the base of the Bernese Jura, two men
quite opposite in character, and — as one of them,
at least, conceived ■ — of somewhat different ranks
in life. Peter Goubermann earned a moderate liveli-
hood in a narrow recess of the mountain, which,
besides the necessary room for his forge and dwell-
ing, had barely sjTace for a modest garden, and
pasturage for a single cow. It was a laborious and
humble life he led; but he had little ambition to
exchange it for one of more wealth and ease; and
none at all to rise in the social scale above the
station which liis fathers had occupied before him
for he knew not how many generations. Content
that he was secure in the reasonable comforts of his
home, and that it was safe from the terrors of the
avalanche — whose crash sometimes roused him from
his peaceful slumbers to utter a thankful prayer and
226 TAGHCONIC.
fall quietly asleep again — almost his sole pride was
in his forge, whose iron was unrivalled in the Berne
market, and his garden which, for its rods, had not
an equal in the canton.
But, if he exulted in these, his chief pride was
his pretty daughter, Annette; not his pride alone,
but the pride of the whole neighborhood; its pride
and flower, by the consenting voice of all, except
an envious few. And the envy must have been
base indeed, which could sour those whom it pos-
sessed against one so unspoiled by flattery as An-
nette Goubermann — the gentlest, kindliest and
most unassuming, as well as the most beautiful, of
Bernese maidens: as all accounts agree.
The moral antipodes of that Swiss Yalley-Forge
was only a mile and a half distant from it, where
the possessions of Anton Yon Stachel, the great
landed proprietor of that region began. The rich
man had commenced life with Peter Goubermann;
and as plain Anton Stachel, the poorer of the two.
But he was of that class against whom the prophet
Isaiah pronounced the curse:
** Woe unto them that join house to house,
That lay field to field, till there be no place,
That they may be placed alone in the earth,"
And he succeeded so well that it seemed as though
he would finally leave no place in his mountain mi-
crocosm for any neighbor. The superstitious peo-
ple said he had discovered the philosopher's stone,
or possessed some talisman of that sort: and so he
had; but it was only his own stony heart, that grew
THE SWISS LOVERS. 227
harder and harder every prosperous year. There
are many people who prosper under the same poten-
tial charm; but wise old Isaiah knew what he was
prophecying: it is but a bitter woe to them all
at last.
As the rich man grew in wealth, he increased also
in vanity, and either discovered, or pretended to
discover, some far-away connection with a gentle
German family; whereupon, assuming gentility to
himself, he jerked an aristocratic syllable into his
plebeian name, and became Anton Von Stachel.
That is, he so called himself; and all the neighbors,
who held him in awe* so addressed him, although the
high and mighty council of the canton contemptu-
ously persisted in enrolling him simply as " Stachel,
yeoman." And he almost bit his tongue through
with vexation when he was compelled to answer to
the humble patronymic of which his honest father
had been proud.
In republican Switzerland, the legitimate dis-
tinctions of social rank are not very marked; but, as
' in republican America, the craving for them, such
as they are, often half crazes the unfortunates upon
whose vanity it takes hold; and poor, rich, Stuchel —
now with, and now without, the " Von " — was a very
sad case of this mental malady. His social ambi-
tion possessed his soul almost equally with his
avidity to add field to field in^ what he called his
"domain." Indeed the two seemed only different
developments of the same consuming passion.
The gossips said, in whispers among themselves —
228 TAGHCONIC.
that he had worried his poor wife to death by his
attempts to make her conform lo his notions of
gentility, assume superiority over the friends of her
youth, and even half disown her own family rela-
tions. It is certain that, what with his vanity, his
tyranny and his absurdity, he led her a most un-
happy life, in a vain attempt to conquer her aver-
sion to falsehood and pretence, and check her
generous charities. It is certain moreover that,
with all due submission in things reasonable, she
made a brave, honest, and womanly resistance to
wrong and folly, while she could. And then she
died.
Whether the gossips were right as to the cause of
her death, I shall not at this distance of time pretend
to say; but in their mysterious female Vehme-
Gericht — that shadowy tribunal which j^revails in
all lands, and holding its secret sessions undetected
in the midst of crowds, deals doom to high and low,
as insidiously and irresistibly as the viewless angel
of the plague — in this grewsome conclave, the
gossips continued to mutter judgments. And none
among them was more positive than this; that
Madame Stachel had left a son who had a deal of
the mother in him — or, as the more emphatic put
it, " was all mother " — and that he would one day
worry the life out of the old man, unless he fore-
stalled him in that pleasing process.
As the boy, Hermann, grew up to be a fine, bold,
generous-hearted young man, it began to look as
though the doom pronounced by the feminine
THE SWISS LOVERS. 229
Vehme-Gericht against the house of Stachel, would
befall it. The whole neighborhood rang with stories
of the wrangles between the father arid the son; al-
though even the old man's most cringing adherents
were compelled to admit, when pressed to the wall,
that Hermann was disobedient only to his most
odious commands.
Of course in due time, the young man lost his
heart to the Pride of the Valley. There was nothing
strange in that; all the youth of the canton suffered
in the same way. The peculiarity of this case was
that the honest Annette, rather than Hermann should
be robbed, gave her own in exchange.
There was a little halcyon period of courtship;
but when the betrothal was fully determined upon,
neither Father Goubermann nor the young people,
were of the mind to make a clandestine affair of it.
That was not in their truthful natures. Perhaps,
too, they did not anticipate the stubborn and violent
opposition with which the elder Stachel received the
announcement of his son's intentions. To be sure,
the iron-master was not rich, and not even the prefix
of, " Von," could make the name of Goubermann
sound otherwise than peasant-like; but then he could
afford his daughter a decent dower; and, as for his
name, there was not one in all Switzerland which
stood higher for the integrity and sterling worth of
.its owner. And, then, everybody knew that An.
nette might have gone to the best mansion, or one
of the best, in the city of Berne,- as the bride of the
wealthiest young burgher there; and what was more,
20
230 TAGHCONIC.
a right worthy fellow. But the Yalley-Forge match
would have thwarted one of the fondest schemes of
Stachel's ambition, and he set his face against it as
flintily as though it had been his heart.
I need not tell in detail the story of the long
months of waiting and hoping, loving and hating,
threatenings and defiances. Suffice it, that Father
Goubermann would not hear of any marriage with-
out the consent of Father Stachel, at least until
further effort was made to obtain it; nor would he
listen to Hermann's plan of learning the iron-maker's
art, in order that he might make himself inde-
pendent.
Six or eight months had passed in this manner
when, in an interval of comparative peace — doubt-
less cunningly prepared — his father commissioned
Hermann to attend to some affair in connection with
his mother's family in a remote section of the con-
federacy; and, after a tender parting with his be-
trothed, he set out on his errand , without suspicion
of treachery. But he had scarcely crossed the borders
of the canton when the storm which had long
been brewing burst upon the household he loved so
well.
In his life-long course of evil-dealing, Stachel had
necessarily secured legal tools, as reckless of right
and mercy as himself; and now, having determined
to break off his son's marriage at any cost, he put
the business into the hands of one Beza, a weasel-
faced lawyer of Berne. Even the ferret-eyes of the
attorney, squinny them as he would, could discover
THE SWISS LOVERS. 231
nothing in the conduct of Annette upon which the
most harpy-like slander could fasten; and that resort
was speedily given over. Nothing remained but,
by some device, to bring the iron master into the
power of the oppressor; and the unimpeachable in-
tegrity of the man forbade all hope of effecting this
by criminal accusation, or by enticement into any
rash act. Thus far, the righteousness of the threatened
household was a wall of defence round about them.
But, almost mad with the ill success of his wicked
schemes — which did not even come to the knowl-
edge of those against whom they were plotted —
Stachel spurred on his agent with new promise of
reward: and not in vain. Beza discovered, or forged,
some flaw in the Goubermann title to the iron-works
and the land attached to them; and his employer
hastened to purchase the rights of the person in
whom the property would vest, if the flaw should
prove fatal: and no efforts were spared to make it
so. Before Hermann departed on his journey, the
new claim had become so well fortified, although no
hint of it had spread beyond the circle of the con-
spirators, that it seemed impregnable; and, as soon as
the young man was well out of the way, the masked
battery was uncovered.
The revelation came upon Father Goubermann like
a thunder-bolt from a clear sky. That he rightfully
and legally owned the property of which he had so
long held undisputed possession, he had no more
doubt than he had of his own existence: and that
any man should attempt to deprive him of it, seemed
232 TAGHCONIC.
to his simple and honest nature, too monstrous for
belief. But there lay, staring him in the face, a
formal — a very legally formal — demand that he
should, not only surrender it, but also account for
long arrears of rents — making an astounding sum
total. And the claimant was Anton Von Stachel, who,
more than once, had found means to wring from an
unwilling tribunal, a decision which, though legally
correct, the judges knew to be essentially unjust: a
man of many well concocted' appliances in resisting
the right, was Von Stachel.
That night, it needed no thunder of the avalanche
to rouse Goubermann from his slumbers : it found him,
for the first time, restless on his bed at midnight.
No sleep came to him; and, with the earliest dawn, he
startedf or the city, to consult an honest lawyer — his
long-time friend. He found small consolation there.
Herr Zwingli had no doubt that Stachel's claim was
fabricated and fraudulent; but to resist it would in-
volve a ruinous and doubtful law-suit. Nevertheless,
he advised resistance, as affording some small hope,
and at any rate postponing for awhile the ejectment
of the Goubermann family from their home. The ruin
of resistance could be no more complete than the
ruin of submission.
Stachel, who had anticipated this legal consulta-
.tion and its results, met his victim as he was return-
ing home, laden with this woeful counsel. He had
waited for this before seeking an interview; and now,
conscious that the hypocrisy of any attempt to give
his purpose a friendly coloring would be instantly
THE SWISS LOVERS. 233
detected, he came bluntly to his proposition, which
was substantially this : that the Goubermann family
should leave Switzerland at once, to remain for a
given number of years; that they should leave no
trace of their course, nor ever in any manner, com-
municate, so that it could reach Switzerland, the
place of their retreat. On these conditions, Stachel
offered to pay the iron master such a sum as would
enable him, in England or elsewhere, to establish
himself in a better position than he left, and con-
senting, moreover, that he might take with him
such personal property as would not betray his
course.
Goubermann listened to these cruel terms silently,
and as if in a dream; but they were stamped upon
his memory as if branded with a hot iron; and, no
less, the savage warning, uttered by his enemy as
they parted, of the probable consequences to his
invalid wife of a rejection of this his offer.
There was another sleepless night at Yalley-
Forge — a night of agony and prayer, in which the
daughter shared, but not the mother, who slept uncon-
scious of the impending evil. In bitterness of soul
the father wrestled with his own spirit, and sought
counsel of his God. What thoughts possessed the
. young girl, conscious that her innocent but unhappy
love had brought about all this misery, I leave you
to imagine; what rebellious thoughts to be crushed
back, what youthful longings to be repressed, what
pitying compassion for her lost lover; before the
victory was won. I do not say that Annette's
234 TAGHCONIC.
.dream of happiness and Hermann was altogether
dissipated by her silent vow; but she said quietly to
herself, " If it pleases the good God, it will all come
to pass yet; as for me I will perform this present
duty which He imposes upon me, without murmur-
ing." And then with a saintly smile, she said :
" Father, we will go."
The father half smiled, half sighed, his blessing
and his assent.
When Hermann returned from his journey, he
could learn little more from the sorrowing people of
the neighborhood than the deserted cottage had al-
ready told him. The Goubermann family had been
missed from their home, one morning, a week pre-
vious. They had departed without farewell or expla-
nation ; which was strange in such honest and kindly
folk, and only to be accounted for as the result of
something connected with Stachel's claim upon their
property, which Lawyer Zwingli made public with a
free expression of his opinions as to its rascality. It
needed but an incautious word, dropped by his father
in the heat of passion, to enable Hermann to divine
all the rest.
In looking for the success of his plot the father
had counted too little upon the depth and constancy
of his son's affection for the noble peasant girl, and
altogether failed to comprehend the strength and
faithfulness of his whole nature, as well as his quick-
ness of perception. His own experience in hearts
led him to believe confidently that, the object of
Hermann's youthful fancy, once sent away, would
THE SWISS LOVEES, 236
soon be forgotten, and the young man ready to re-
ceive the impression of new charms. It was not the
only mistake he made. In sending Hermann on that
trumped-up errand, he was the unwitting means of
his obtaining a considerable sum of money in hand,
and a large bequest afterwards, from a maternal
uncle who regarded him with affection for both his
moral and personal likeness to his mother. Hermann
now found this gift much to his purpose; and thus a
good Providence justified the faith of the pious and
submissive maiden, and made the device of the
wicked help to the very end it was intended to
prevent.
It was but a day after his return before Hermann
disappeared as secretly as the iron-master and his
family had departed. But the smiling and smirking
gossips made no ado in guessing upon what mission
he had gone. Nobody feared that he had plunged
rashly into the lake, or laid himself down in the
path of a glacier — as unhappy people, now-a-days,
do before a rail-road train.
Probably Stachel had counted as much upon his
son's inability to follow the exiles, as upon his
measures to conceal their route and hiding-place ; but
the uncle's gift — which the young man did not deem
it needful to boast of — was an obstacle to that ele-
ment in the plot.
In the region of passports and police with which
Switzerland is surrounded, there is no great difficulty
for one disposed to use money with moderate — not
to say lover-like — liberality, in tracing any body
236 TAGHUONIC.
whom the government is not disposed to hide. Still
it took the inexperienced youth some little time to
ascertain that the objects of his pursuit had passed
through France on their way to Great Britain. A
wearisome and heart-sickening search there ended,
by mere chance, in the discovery that — Father
Goubermann not taking kindly to the ways of his
rude English fellow -craftsmen — the family had
sailed for America. No one could tell him for what
port they embarked; but, by good luck, the first ship
up was bound for New York; and, impatient of
delay, he took passage.
,At New York, he was bewildered by the report
that little iron- works, like those I have described, and
similar to the well remembered forge in the Jura —
were springing up everywhere in the wild woods of
Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Massachu-
setts and other provinces. It was a discouraging
out-look; and, with a heavy though determined
heart, he resumed his loving pilgrimage, resolved
that it should end only with success or death.
But now, fortune — which, in storm and sunshine,
with his consciousness, or without it, had still been
urging him towards the haven where he would be —
again came visibly to his aid. As the sloop in which
he had taken passage lay becalmed on the Hudson,
a barge, heavily laden with iron from above, dropped
alongside; and the skipper, questioned as to the
source oi" his cargo, shouted: " From Mount Rhighi ! "
Hermann was startled almost into crying out : but
the barge floated out of hailing distance, and he was
THE SWISS LOVERS. 23";
only able to gather from the sloop's people that she
was from Kinderhook, and that Mount Rhighi must
be somewhere in the same vicinity.
Had he known the remarkable way New York
people had of appropriating foreign names, he would
have understood that the clew was of the faintesti
but, for once, ignorance helped him to a correct con-
clusion. The idea that this Swiss name would lead
him to a colony of his countrymen, and finally to
those he sought, seized upon him so forcibly that he
sprang on shore at Kinderhook with a lighter step
and heart than he had known for months.
The village was not large, and he easily found
Peter Van Schaack, the merchant who had shipped
the iron; a warm-hearted gentleman who listened
with sympathy to the broken English of the young
Switzer's story, and overwhelmed him with joy by
expressing his belief that a certain foreign family
who had, a few months before, passed through
town to Mount Rhighi, were none other than his
friends. Mr. Van Schaack pressed him to accept his
hospitality for a day or two, until he could have
conveyance to the iron-works; but he would not
have been the true lover he was, had he not set out
at once, and — since that was necessary — on foot,
to make his way through the wilderness.
On the second afternoon after this interview, An-
nette Goubermann was standing thoughtfully upon
the brow of Sunset Cliff in the Bash-Bish gorge.
Whether she had come down the mountain to enjoy
the sunny outlook, or had gone up the glen to revive
238 TAGHCONIC.
her Alpine memories, will be determined when some
field-meeting or other shall fix upon the locality of
the Goubermann forge. But, there, on Sunset
Cliff, she certainly stood, looking dreamily towards
the Catskills, and doubtless meditating such things
as befit such a maiden at such an hour and on such
a spot; when she suddenly uttered a piercing cry,
and fell, senseless, to the ground.
In an instant her lover was by her side, and, by
the aid of the appliances immemorial in such cases,
she was soon restored to consciousness: although it
was a long while before Hermann was sufticiently
sure of her full recovery to suspend the use of his
restoratives; and, even after that, imminent danger
of a relapse seemed frequently to recur. I count it
selfish on their part — -unless Annette's health posi-
tively compelled it ; which, Hermann admitted,
her complexion did not indicate — for the pair to
keep Father Goubermann and his good wife so long
from sharing their felicity; but the evening shades
had sent him in search of his daughter before they
thought of leaving their meeting place. The rock
which was their seat that evening, and many a
happy hour thereafter, is still there on Sunset Cliff.
The antiquarian may still detect it by the fact that
it is just long enough for two, and, unless time has
effaced it, by the inscription, Hermann Stein. If
it has become obscure with age, some " Old Morta-
lity " should restore it.
I need not paint for you the joyous meeting with
the father and mother, nor the mutual explanations
THE SWISS LOVERS. 239
which preceded the speedy nuptials of Hermann
and Annette. But I trust you will be glad to learn
that the whole family lived with delightful harmony
in their new home, that Hermann became a very
skillful and renowned iron-master; but took with
him father and mother, as well as his beautiful wife
and children, when he was called back to Berne,
to enjoy the property which became his by the
death of his father; including the old forge whose
fires were now relighted, not from necessity, but out
of love for the noble art,
Stachel fully intended to bequeath his whole es-
tate to some hospital or other public institution;
but, like all prosperous and self-important men, he
conceived that life would be long with him, and de-
layed his preparation for death until it came upon
him fearfully and suddenly: for he never recovered
from an apoplexy with which he was struck upon
learning that the supreme court of the canton had
adjudged a poor wretch, whom he thought in his
clutches beyond rescue, not bound to Anton Stachel
yeoman, by an obligation given to " Anton Von
Stachel, gentleman." Rank and name had real
meaning in those days. Lawyer Zwingli, who made
the point, had come so utterly to hate the old usurer
that he smiled, with grim satisfaction, when he
heard the fatal result of its success; but the gentle
Annette wept that her enemy was cut off in the
midst of his sins.
Such is one story of the Swiss occupation of
240 TAGHCONIC.
Mount Washington and the Alpine gorge of Bash-
Bish.
The Dome of the Taghconics.
While we are in this romantic mountain corner it
would be the most unpardonable lese-majesty, not to
pay our homage to the kingly Dome of the Tagh-
conics. And yet — I confess it with shame — never
having been presented at that court myself, I am
disqualified for introducing you, and. must request
Mr. Headley to act as usher, with that golden rod,
his eloquent pen:
"Two or three miles from Bash-Bish, is tlie Dome of
the Tagliconics, a lofty mountain risipg, precisely like a
dome, from the ridge of which it forms a part. It is in our
estimation, far superior to the Catskill, for you have from a
single spot, a perfect panorama below you ; you have only to
turn on your heel, and east and west, nortli and south, an
almost endless prospect spreads away on the vision. You are
the center of a circle at least three hundred and fifty miles in
circumference ; and such a circle ! The mountains that stretch
along the horizon between the Connecticut and the Hoosac
river on the north-east, fade away as the northern Tagliconics,
the Berlin and the Canaan Mountains greet you in the north-
west ; and these in turn are lorgotten as your eye falls on the
dark mass of the Catskill showing its huge proportions
against the weste n horizon.
" And then, between is such a wealth of scenery. The valley
of the Housatonic, for miles and miles, spreads all its loveli-
ness before you. There, too, are the two settlements of Canaan,
and, further up — a mere spot on the landscape — Sheffield ;
and, still farther up, Great Barrington, hardly visible amid its
forest of old elms, while the white cliffs of Monument Moun-
THE DOME. 241
tain shut out old Stockbridore from view, and the distant spire
of Lenox church closes the long train of villages.
" Old Saddle-Back of Williamstown (the Qreylock Range
in Adams, North Adams and Williamstown) stands up to ita
full height against the misty mountains that repose further
off in the horizon — a peculiar feature of tlife landscape. Egre-
mont stands alone in the valley of the Green River, but its
sloping land and swelling hills present a still lovelier variety.
A low line of mist is dimly seen stretching along the black
base of the Catskills, so indistinct that you would scarcely
observe it; and yet that is the lordly Hudson, heaving its
mighty tide seaward, laden with the commerce of a nation.
A mere pencil mark in the landscape, here, it gives no token
of the haste and busy lif(i on its surface. Close under the
foot of the mountain on the south, sleep the sweet lakes of
Salisbury, while other lakes dot the horizon in every direction.
" But I cannot tell you of the prodigality of beauty which
meets the eye at every turn. You seem to look on the outer
wall of creation, and this old dome seems to be the spot on
which nature set her great compasses when she drew the
circle of the heavens. A more beautiful horizon, I have never
seen than sweeps around you from this spot. The charm of
the view is perfect on every side — a panorama, which becomes
a moving one, if you will but take the trouble to turn round."
21
XVIII.
GREYLOCIC
Qreylock, cloud-girdled, from his mountain throne,
A voice of welcome sends ;
And, from green summer fields, a warbling tone.
The Housatonic blends.— Frances Ann Kemble.
Spirit of Beauty 1 Let thy graces blend
With loveliest nature all that art can lend.
*********
Come from the steeps where look majestic Jorth
From their twin thrones, the giants of the'north
On the huge shapes that, crouching at their knees.
Stretch their broad shoulders, rough with shaggy trees.
Through the wide waste of ether, not in vain,
Their softened gaze shall reach our distant plain ;
There, while the mourner turns his aching eyes
On the blue mounds that print the bluer skies,
Nature shall whisper that the fading view
Of mightiest grief may wear a heavenly hue. — 0. W. Holmes.
Greylock is the figure-head of the county of Berk-
shire. I might say that it is the figure-head of the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts, if some Boston
critic would not cry out that the hill-folk are
trying to run the ship of state stern foremost. But
the figure-head of the county, it plainly is; and a
GREYLOCK. 243
noble one. - What a grand terminal it affords for
the mountain bulwarks that so grandly sweep up to
it on either side the symmetrical valley. How
proudly it lifts itself against the northern sky; the
crested front of the mighty landscape !
We see it from a myriad points of view, varying
its aspect with the different stand-points of the
spectator, and with the perpetual changes of the
atmosphere; although the general directness of the
perspective from the south renders the apparent al-
terations in its contour, from change in the line of
vision, to be much less frequent than with most of
our mountain shapes.
The isolated mountain range between the Hoosacs
and the .Taconics, now generally known as the
Greylock Range, is not so much a chain as an inter-
twisted cluster of mountains in the towns of Adams,
North Adams and Williamstown ; from which a spur
strikes southward through New Ashford, Cheshire
and Lanesboro', to Pittsfield. The main cluster has
a length, from east to west, of about six miles, and
an average altitude of perhaps twenty-four hundred
feet above the surrounding valley. It consists of
six or seven distinct peaks and ridges rising above
a common base. The highest peak — the Greylock,
from which the cluster takes its name — is upon the
east, and has an elevation of thirty-five hundi-ed feet
above the sea level, or twenty-six hundred above the
valley of the Hoosac, at its base on the north and east.
The twin peak on the west, less in height than
Greylock by three or four hundred feet, commands
244 TAGHCONIC.
no view, being covered by woods and having its
nearer outlook cut off by surrounding summits. Nor
has it any generally recognized name. But it is
more conspicuous from the south, than its taller
brother, and, being of a graceful contour, will make
a capital monument, if nothing else; and, for one, I
heartily approve the proposition to christen it " Sy-
mond's Peak " in honor of the grand old Williams-
town Colonel who led the " embattled farmers " of
Berkshire in their glorious fight at Bennington.
The combination of these peaks in the view from
the south, bears a rude, but rather striking, resem-
blance to a saddle, which suggested to the early
settlers the name of Saddle-back Mountain by which
the cluster was long called; but the comparison was
prosaic ; and, besides, a similar likeness had caused
the same name to be given to mountain ridges in
more than one locality. A finer imagination early
seized upon the likeness to the grey locks of an old
man, which the top of the highest peak presents
when whitened by the snows or frosts of the late
fall or early spring, while the body of the hill is
clothed in dark forests; and that summit became
Greylock; one of the most poetic names which ever
added grace to the loveliness of nature.
The rudeness and lack of distinctive meaning of
the name " Saddle-back," as applied to the cluster,
have caused it to be gradually disused, and the pret-
tier designation has been extended to the whole group,
with the addition of "group," " range or "mountain;"
so that the name " Saddle-back " is rarely heard.
GREYLOCK. 24(5
except from lips which say " his'n " and " hern " for
"his" and "hers." But you will observe that there
is a difference between " Greylock " and " Greylock
Mountain " or " The Greylock Group."
You recollect Grace — the wild and witty Berk-
shire girl, we met one day down by the borders of
Pontoosuc Lake. Well, a while ago, a geologist
deeply enamored of her and Berkshire rocks, after
showing her a wonderful piece of contorted strata
by the road-side near the lake, was explaining that
it was really the most marvellous specimen he had
ever met: when the saucy thing threw him com-
pletely off his balance by exclaiming, with eyes dis-
tended in mock astonishment: " What a twdstification!
Isn't it nice, though ? It looks just like half -worked
molasses candy. Did you ever help pull candy,
professor ? Its awful jolly ! "
" Awful " and " jolly," I ought to explain, are
words which Grace reserves for the sole purpose of
extinguishing over-exquisite admirers; but I have no
doubt that, if I were to set her to explaining the
queer iuterlacings of the Greylock ridges, she would
dash me with something like this: "What a twisti-
fication ! Its just like one of cook's dough-nuts
Arn't there some in the lunch basket ? Let's have
them out ! " And I feel very much inclined to dis-
pose of the matter in the same way. In quiet earnest,
the peaks and ridges, the ravines and cascades, the
rugged notches and picturesque nooks of this, as yet
only half -studied, mountain group, are food for a
season, rather than a tit-bit for a hasty excursion.
246 TAGHCONIC.
They seem moreover to belong to the peculiar do-
main of the Williams College people, and the summer
denizens of Greylock Hall; to whom I commend
them, although it sounds very like a stranger com-
mending to a man, the charms of his own wife.
Such counsel is not always superfluous.
The rest of you, nevertheless, must come with
me through the more noted and striking scenes
whose beauty boldly challenges us on the peaks, or
lies hid in the recesses, of this loftiest and most pic-
turesque mountain of Massachusetts.
One who has not climbed to the top of Greylock
has taken no very high degree as a Berkshire ex-
cursionist; and, to be initiated into the highest, he
must pass a night there. If you are an invalid, or
have any other very valid reason for it, I will, how-
ever, help you to take your degrees by proxy:
although, for the more convenient connection with
what is to follow, I must give the story of my two
ascents of the great mountain in reversed order.
Night and Morning on Greylock.
It was a laughing, sparkling, companionable, well-
assorted party that, passably well supplied with
brains, and thoroughly well versed in the matter-
in-hand, met one evening in the most deliciously
comfortable of parlors, to organize — as the sum-
mons of onr queenly chief put it — f or a new^crown-
ing of Old King Greylock. There is much good in
thesfe preparatory meetings. In the first place a
Buccessful excursion must be organized by some-
NIGHT AND MORNING ON GEETLOUK. 247
body. However you may tumble into it at hap-bazard,
somebody has planned and prepared for it. The
victories which nobody organizes are no more to
be counted upon, in any undertaking, than the for-
tunes that fall to lucky people from forgotten Calif or-
nian uncles. And, least of all, can you trust to chance
for the successful issue of a day and night moun-
tain excursion, where a single fault in the commisa-
riat or the quarter-master's department may cause
infinite disaster. To be sure, some, considerate or
generous persons generally provide all things ne-
cessary; but it is every way better to do it in merry
committee of the whole.
If there were no other reward for this equitable
course, it is enough that it doubles your pleasure;
which you take in two installments; the first being
in hand, and sure: to whatever fate, foul weather or
other misfortune may bring the second. And, by
and bye, when both come to be alike far-off me-
mories, you may doubt which was the richer, and
more real. And then, again, in this cosy and infor-
mal preliminary gathering, you assimilate your party;
which — particularly if there happen to be new
elements in it — is very desirable. It saves much
delay and awkwardness on the morrow. Nobody is
distrait, as strangers are apt to be, when you meet
for the start; and sometimes very pleasant unex-
pected pairing results — permanent or otherwise.
Our council in preparation for Greylock had no
perplexing subject of debate. A railway ride
to Adams, where carriages to the mountain-top had
248 TAGHCONIC.
been engaged, disposed of the matter of transporta-
tion. Apparatus for open-air cooking, we always
had ready; and supplies of cold meats, boiled eggs,
sandwiches, fruits and all manner of pic-nic fare
were reported in quantities that only mountainous
appetites could expect to do away with. It only
remained to provide for protection against the night
dews, and the mists of the mountain top; and that
was soon carefully arranged. In view of the pro-
spective fatigu-es of the morrow, only a very small
allowance of dancing was allowed; and then, to
help our anticipations and dreams, Henry Thoreau's
graphic account of his night and morning on Grey-
lock was read. It is an episode in his charming
" Week on the Concord and Merrimac," from which
I shall presently quote a paragraph; but you should
read the story in full, with the characteristic moral
and philosophical observations of the great Secular
Solitary.
His conveyance and commisariat were even simpler
than ours, and much more self-reliant. " I had
come over the hills on foot," he writes, " on foot
and alone in serene summer days, plucking the rasp-
berries by the wayside, and occasionally buying a
loaf of bread at a farmer's house; with a knapsack
on my back which held a few traveller's books and
a change of clothing, and a staff in my hand. * * f
Reaching the mountain top, I had one fair view of
the country before the sun went down; but I was
too thirsty to waste any light in viewing the prospect,
and set out directly to find water. First, going
NIGHT AND MORNTING ON GREYLOCK. 249
down a well-beaten path through a scrubby wood,
I came to where the water stood in the tracks of the
horses which had carried travellers up. I lay down
flat and drank these dry, one after another — a pure,
cold, spring-like water; but yet I could not fill my
dipper, although I contrived little syphons of grass-
stems, and ingenious aqueducts on a small scale; it
was too slow a process. Then, remembering that
I had passed a moist spot near the top, I returned
to find it again'5 and here, with sharp stones and my
hands, in the twilight, I made a well about two feet
deep, which soon filled with pure water; and the
birds, too, came and drank at it. So I filled my
dipper, and making my way back to the observatory,
collected some dry sticks, and made a fire on some
flat stones which had been placed on the floor for
that purpose; and so I soon cooked my supper of
the rice I had bought at North Adams, having
already whittled a wooden spoon to eat it with."
With Mr. Thoreau's resources one could afford an
extended tour.
Mr. Thoreau ascended the mountain, from North
Adams through " The Notch,", a savage cleft be-
tween Greylock peak and a lower hill upon the east.
Through this rugged pass, dashes a crystal brook,
which supplies to the village waterworks, an abun-
dance of pure water; and also, with its foaming
cascade and other brookly beauties, affords an at-
tractive as well as accessible resort for citizens and
strangers. At its southern end,^ where the narrow-
ing notch " slopes up to the skies," it is called " The
250 TAGHCONIC.
Bellows-pipe." In our wild northern storms, the
fierce winds bellow through it in thousand-fold con-
centrated fury.
Our ascent, from Adams, was much more prosaic.
We sacrificed a little romance, for the sake of a
good deal of ease: still we we were often tempted
from our comfortable conveyances into groves, glades
and recesses among the rocks by the road-side. There
was no need of haste. Even after a socially pro-
longed dinner, enjoyed in full view of a magnificent,
but comparatively narrow, landscape, we had ample
time to ascend the observatory and enjoy the stu-
pendous scenery which presented itself in every
direction.
We were in rare good fortune. The atmosphere
was exceptionally pure, rendering the view as clear
and distinct as one of such vast proportions ever can
be. Approximately to measure that vastness in
your mind, consider that the diameter — not the
circumference — of the horizon revealed to you, is
some three hundred miles. Away in eastern Wor-
cester, you see Mount Wachusett; the Grand Monad-
nock in south-western New Hampshire; the lofty
peaks of the northernmost Taconics in Vermont;
the Adirondacs of New York in the north-west, and
the Catskills in south-west. In the south, the far-a-
way hills of Connecticut me.lt dimly into the Sound-
ward slope. From Mount Tekoa, Mount Tom, and
Mount Holyoke in the Connecticut valley, successive
ridges rise continually, to the Columbian Moun-
tains of New York; pile after pile in most admired
NTIGHT AND MORNING ON GRETLOCK. 251
disorder, for a breadth of more than sixty miles:
longitudinally, some seventy miles southward; and
northerly as far as the eye can reach.
Mr. Gladden, quotes President Hitchoock as say-
ing: "I know of noplace Avhere the mind is so
forcibly impressed by the idea of vastness, or even
of immensity, as where the eye ranges abroad from
this eminence: " and it is not for us, in the imme-
diate presence of this majestic over-view, to look for
a rival to it in Alps or Sierra.
The nearer and gentler, but still bold and com-
manding, view is close upon the south, where the
great Berkshire valley lies spread out before us: in
its centre the streets and spires of Pittsfield, with
their fair cordon of glassy lakes glittering around
them, and, on every side, half-hidden villages and
village churches gleaming white upon the verdant
back-ground of woods and fields; conspicuous among
them the fine old meeting-houses of Lenox and
Dalton — while, most distinct of all, almost under our
feet, and so close to the mountain's base as to seem
a very part of it, lies the thriving, busy and hand-
some town of Adams. A scene, take it all in all, to
be tenderly yearned over by the children of thai
glorious valley, and to be lovingly admired by the
merest chance-comer to the hill-top.
While we lingered dreamily over it, the sun went
down, leaving on that transparent sky, no such cloud-
shapes of fantastic gorgeousness as often veil his
parting; but, along the whole- western horizon, one
broad, uniform band of glowing light — softening,
252 TAGHCONIC.
from richest orange through all golden tints, until it
melted from liquid amber into crystal chrysoprase,
and then was lost in the prevailing azure.
The gold paled from the western heavens: and
then the grey was absorbed in the blue. The evening
shadesfilled the valley; crept up the mountain side;
enveloped grove and tower, and the little group who
silently awaited their coming.
" Darkness upon the mountain and the vale ;
The woods, the lakes, the fields are buried deep
In that still, solemn, star- watched sleep :
No sound, no motion, and o'er hill and dale,
A calm and lovely death seems to embrace
Earth's fairest realms and heaven's unfathomed space.
The forest slumbers; leaf and branch £ind bough,
High feathery crest, and lowliest grassy blade.
All restless, wandering wings are folded now,
That swept the sky, and in the sunshine played.
The lake's wild waves sleep in their rocky bowl :
Unbroken stillness streams from nature's soul,
And night's great star-sown wings stretch o'er the whole I"
Mrs. Kemble.
As was fitting, even in the merriest party, we
yielded for awhile to the solemn promptings of the
hour; but it is not fitting, even were it possible, that
they should long curb the glee of a mountain excur-
sion. The voice of our chief reminded us that we
had promised our friends at home to signal our
presence on Greylock by a blaze which they could
see. The appointed hour had come, and the beacon
was lighted. Our friends were kind enough to be-
lieve they saw it beaming like a star, or a light in a
NIGHT AND MORNING ON GEEYLOCK. 253
distant window. Perhaps they did. It certainly-
cast a strange, wild, red glare upon the old tower and
the overhanging foliage; and invested the ladies, who
gathered around it, with a weird, gypsy beauty that
was very enchanting.
The little grotto of light, we had wrought out in
the great darkness, had hardly disappeared, when
the white moon rose up the eastern sky, revealing
new realms of splendor. Little by little, the hills and
valleys emerged from the shadow ; reposing in the
pallor, or gleaming in the silver sheen, ©f the white
radiance. There was no longer any color in the
picture. It was drawn in crayon — all light and
shade. Nor was there day-light's sharpness of out-
line; the landscape lay in broad surfaces and heavy
masses, except in the close foreground. There is
something altogether delusive in the brilliance of
moonlight. ^ It dazzles, but cannot illuminate. It
will light you gaily to your serenade; but you can-
not read a sentence by it, at its brightest, as you
can by a very dim twilight. You need the yellow
rays of the spectrum for that; as you will discover
by attempting to read in a church whose " dim re-
ligious light " streams through stained windows, and
then in one where the garish light of day is ren-
dered still more garish, by being strained through
ground glass, which eliminates most of the yellow
from it. You will observe the same difference,
although in a less degree, between the yellow flame
of a kerosene lamp, and the white blaze of a gas-jet ;
22
254 TAGHCONIC.
the eye tiring much the quicker uuder the lattei.
But it was not dread of spoiling our eye-sight
which led our prudent chief to order us to our
couches. Indeed the glamour of that illusive splen-
dor seemed magically projected on the scene for our
immediate enchantment and witchery. But the
white mists which first traced, in delicate lines upon
the dark surface, the curves of the river and the
lurking places of the lakes, had filled the lower
valley, until as we looked down upon it, it lay out-
spread like a great snow-shrouded plain. And now
tall, ghostly, phantom-like shapes upreared them-
selves on the mountain ,side. We knew that their
embrace was uncanny, if not deadly, and we fled
before the advancing specters, screaming —r with
laughter.
The floors of the two stories of the tower had
already been spread with elastic boughs, of balsamy
odor, from the near woods: slinagy bear and buifalo
robes, army blankets and rubber coverings were now
liberally distributed. Generous draughts of hot
coffee were dealt out. Prayers were read. Then
stillness was enjoined upon the wakeful,and soon those
not too much excited b)^ the novelty of the scene
slumbered peacefully. Before morning all enjoyed
a healthful sleep, undisturbed except, once or twice,
by a fitful cloud-rack w^hich drifted through the open
windows — just to remind us how near we were to
heaven.
Before I tell you of our awakening, I will read you
what Mr. Thoreau says of his : •
NIGHT AND MORNIXG ON GREYLOCK. 255
'* I was up early and perched upon the top of the tower to
see the day break ; for some time readinpr the names that had
been engraved there before I could distinguish more distant
objects. An ' untameable fly ' buzzed at my elbow with the
same nonchalance as on a molasses hogshead at the end of
Long Wharf. Lven here I must attend to his stale humdrum.
As the light increased, I discovered around me an oce*an of
mist which reached up by chance exactly to the base of the
tower, and shut out every vestige of the earth ; while 1 was
left floating on this fragment of the wreck of a world, on my
carved plank in cloudland : a situation which it required
no aid from the imagination to render impressive. As the
light in the east steadily increased, it revealed to me more
clearly the new world into which I had risen in the night :
the new te7'ra firma perhaps of my future life. There was
not a crevice left through which the trivial places we name
Massachusetts, Vermcnt and New York could be seen ; while
I still inhaled the clear atmosphere of a July morning — if it
were July there. All around me was spread for a hundred
miles on every side, as far as the eye could reach, an undulating
country of clouds, answering in the varied^ swell of its surface
to the terrestrial world it veiled. It was such a country as
we might see in dreams, with all the delights of Paradise.
There were immense snowy pastures apparently smooth-shaven
and firm, and shady vales between the vaporous mountains ;
and, far in the horizon, I could see where some luxurious
misty timber jutted into the prairie, and trace the windings of
a water course, some unimagined Amazon or Orinoko, by the
misty trees on its brink.
As there was wanting the symbol, so there was not the sub-
stance, of impurity : no spot nor stain. It was a favor for
which to be forever silent to be shown this vision. The earth
below had become such a flitting thing of lights and shadows
as the clouds had been before. It was not merely veiled to
me ; it had passed away like the phantom of a shadow, crxio^
«vac:, and this new platform was gained. As I had climbed
256 TAGHCONIC.
above storm and cloud, so by successive day's journeys I miglit
reach tlie region of eternal day ; aye,
* Heaven itself shall slide,
And roll away like melting stars that glide
Alonff their oily thread.'
But when its ovn sun began to rise on tins pure world, I
found tuyself a dweller in the dazzling halls of Aurora — into
which poets have had but a partial glance over the eastern
hills — drifting among the saffron-colored clouds, and playing
with the rosy fingers of the Dawn, in the very path of the
Sun's chariot, and sprinkled with its dewy dust, enjoying the
benignant smile, and near at hand the far-darting glances, of
the god. The inhabitants of earth behold commonly but the
dark and shadowy under-side of heaven's pavement ; it is only
"when at a favorable angle of the horizon, morning and evening,
that some faint streaks of the rich lining of the clouds are
revealed. But my muse would fail to convey an impression
of the gorgeous tapestry by which I was surrounded ; such
as men see faintly reflected afar off in the chambers of the
east. Here, as on earth, I saw the gracious god
' Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye, * ♦ *
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy.'
Never here did ' Heaven's Sun ' stain himself. But, alas,
owing as I think to some unworthiness in myself, my private
sun did stain himself, and
Anon permit the basest clouds to ride
With ugly wrack on his celestial face ;
for before the god had reached his zenith, the heavenly pave-
ment rose and embraced my wavering virtue, or rather I sank
down again into that ' forlorn world ' from which the celestial
8un had hid his visage."
Mr. Thoreau, descending the mountain, soon found
himself in the region of clouds and drizzling rain;
and the inhabitants affirmed that it had been a rainy
and drizzling day wholly.
NIGHT AND MORNING ON GREYLOOK. 257
Our party, had a somewhat different experience,
yet Avith a general likeness. A bugle, surreptitiously
carried to the mountain top, roused us with pleasant
surprise by a wild reveille as soon as light began to
kindle beyond the Hoosacs. The surface of the
mist-sea w^hich filled the valley, lay calm and level
some tw^o hundred feet below the summit on which
we stood; everywhere dazzling- white, except upon
its extreme eastern verge which flushed with rose-
red — changing soon to gold, and then to golden
blaze. The sun came up and added new splendor to
the glowing scene before the morning breeze began
to disturb its serenity.
From the first, three or four distant peaks were
seen, like far-off islands in a foaming ocean. Now
the mist began to lift itself with the breeze, and roll
away into the blue sky; while new islands, promon-
tories, capes, began to appear, until the green earth
lay again beneath us, revealed in all its summer
beauty. So, to some angel, worshipping in awe and
wonder, the broad scene of creation may have been
revealed when God said, " Let the waters, that are
under the heavens be gathered into one place, and
let the dry land appear : and it was so."
I made an excursion to Greylock prior to the one
I have just attempted to describe; and I recall it
now for two specific pufposes. After the visit to
the natural bridge at North Adams, of which I gave
an account some while ago, my companion and my-
self walked to Williamstown, where we passed the
night. In the morning we walked to South Williams-
258 TAGHCONIC.
town, where, being told that the " Hopper " would
be intolerable on a day so intensely hot, we aban-
doned our intention of exploring that torrid gulf,
and went up the mountain. We had no guide, nor
any but very obscure directions as to the path we
were to pursue; and, making our way pretty much
at random, we found ourselves first upon Symond's
Peak. Rectifying our mistake, we reached the
tower on Greylock, at about one o'clock: not at all
fatigued by our tramp. Nor were we unpleasantly
wearied when we reached the hotel at New^ Ashford
in the evening, or after our walk to Pittsfield the
next day. I make this point to correct the impres-
sion that the ascent to Greylock is either difficult or
unduly fatiguing to persons of ordinary health and
powers of endurance.
I have also taken you to the top of Greylock
again, to tell you of our descent from it on that first
trip, and how it brought us into
The Heart of Geeylock.
It was not until the middle of the afternoon that
we yielded to the stern fact that lack of supplies
and camp equipage would repress our noble rage to
pass the night upon the mountain top; and we
shaped our course homeward, taking our bearings
solely with reference to diii'ectness.
" Straight is the line of duty,
Curved is the line of beauty;
Follow the first and thou shalt see
The other ever follow thee."
THE HEART OF GREYLOCK. 259
And that, we found true. Our straight course
brought us to the verge of a precipitous descent of
something more than a thousand feet, but with
sufficient inclination to give root-hold to a mod-
erately thick growth of trees.
Down this sharp descent, we dropped rapidly,
clinging for support to the branches and under-
growth, and deliciously refreshed by frequent
draughts of the cold and limpid water which gushed
from a thousand springs, and sometimes dripped its
coolness luxuriously upon our heated, upturned faces.
At the foot of the precipice, a brook brawled its
way between banks which afforded a narrow grassy
glade in the midst of the dark woods. As we stood
in this sunny opening, we gazed above and around
us in utter amazement and delight. The chasm into
which we had been chance-led, was, in shape, an
inverted cone, truncated at its reversed apex by the
little plain intersected by the brook. The walls, at
least a thousand feet in height, and all over en-
amelled with the richest forest green, appeared to
us as perfectly circular and their tops presented a
line as level against the sky, as though we had looked
up from within some unroofed round tower or cas-
tle — of the Titans, for instance. Lost in astonish-
ment at the strange beauty of the spot, and, still
more, that whisper of it had never reached us, we
pursued our way down the stream, to be still more
amazed when the people who lived near, told us that,
so far as they knew, it had neither^name nor renown.
Finding afterwards, however, that the persons of
260 TAGUCOXIC.
whom we sought information were not very intelli-
gent new-comers, I resumed my pursuit of know-
ledge, and finally learned from a good old family of
the neighborhood — besides some pleasant legends
which I have carefully stored away — that the names
we sought were " Money Hole " and " Money Brook,"
which were given in respect of a tradition that, in
Kevolutionary times, a gang of counterfeiters used to
haunt their obscure recesses. I do not know how
well founded the tradition is; but it is strongly for-
tihed by the fact that, half a century ago, the little
stream gained the soubriquet of " The Specter
Brook," because the ghosts of the departed rogues
were often seen keeping watch and ward at the en-
trance of the glen, while mysterious noises wei;e
heard wiihin. I can well believe the phantom part
of the story; for, to this day, the banks of all our
mountain streams are all alive, if that is not a
bull, with sheeted ghosts.
In the moonlit mist restoring
Vanished forms of long ago.
The roguish name assigned to what it seemed
should be rather a classic than a criminal haunt, did
not altogether please me, and I was glad to discover,
a year or two later, that Professor Albert Hopkins —
that gentle, but enthusiastic, spirit to whose fine
influence Williamstown and Williams College owe
so much of their esthetic interest — had christened
it " The Heart of Greylock."
I was told, too, at the same time, that, had we, on
BAU) MOUNTAIN. 261
our chance visit, followed the brook up, instead of
down, its course, we should have soon come to the
Eremite or Hermit Cascade — a waterfall at the
least as picturesque and wild as Bash-Bish, and which
I have since heard praised by other admirers in
similar exalted terms. As I have not yet seen it, my
memories of Mount Washington are not disturbed;
but, what with a Specter Brook and a Hermit Cas-
cade, the Heart of Greylock certainly offers a fine
field for an old-fashioned imagination.
If you are now ready to climb the mountain again,
I will take you to the summit whose shaven head
gives it the name of
Bald Mountain,
and also enables it to afford a finer view of the
Williamstown valley than can be obtained from the
higher peaks. Seven or eight years ago a party
composed chiefly, it seems, of college professors,
clergymen and other gravely-gay characters — such
as much affect Williamstown for a summer resort —
with a feminine element of the same caste, dwelt for
a while in leafy tabernacles in a sheltered nook of
this summit, and one of the party sent a spirited
account of their joys to the ISTew York Observer, of
all papers in the world: dating from "Camp Dew-
Dew " as if the reverend writer were wholly oblivious
of Don Juan and correct orthography. However,
his spectacles were good, and we will take a look
through them from the mountain top.
"Our camp lies in tliis slieltered spot upon Bald Mountain,
262 TAGHCONIC.
SO near the summit of Greylock that sunset and sunrise
parties go out daily, and our artists and botanists climb its
sides in search of views and botanical treasures * * * Select
what point you choose of these commanding hills, and below
you lies the wide valley, the faint blue line of the river wind-
ing past Williamstown, Blackington, and Adams — the whole
framed by the encircling sweep of the blue mountains; while
far away is the white shaft of the observatory on Mount
Anthony, ani farther in the distance still, overtopping all
nearer summits, loom up the dark hills of Vermont. And this
landscape is never twice the same : always bold and varied."
These views are not all to be witnessed from Bald
Mountain, which is over-topped on the north and
east by Prospect Mountain and Greylock. I did
not bring you here, however, for the sake of the
views; but that you might look down from its
northern edge into
The Abyss,
upon which the name of " The Hopper " was early
inflicted by that unimaginative imagination whose
horrid mission seems to have been from the first to
curse this picturesque mountain group with the most
common-place nomenclature. I grant that, as you
look down into the abyss, it has a striking likeness
in form to the hopper of a grist mill; and that this
comparison is the readiest mode of conveying to the
mind of a stranger some idea of its shape; but mere
form is not the most essential element in the de-
scription of any natural object; else were the old
likeness of the moon to a green cheese felicitous and
poetic. It seems to me that the one idea which that
THE HOPPER. 263
likeness of the abyss to a hopper ought to have sug-
gested was to cast headlong into it, the wretch who
first conceived the thought of making use of it in
naming this grand work of nature, and let him take
his chances of being well gi'ound up on the rough
mill-stones at the bottom.
You will start back in affright lest some such fate
may befall yourself, if you approach unwarned the
brink of the chasm on the edge of Bald Mountain.
Unless nature has favored you with firmer nerves
than she grants to most men, or you have plied some
such dreadful trade as the samphire gatherer's, it will
cost you some effort; with much probability of failure,
to prepare yourself to observe the abyss from above
with any calmness, or without absolute danger of
fatal dizziness. It is thus, however, that you best
comprehend the terrific grandeur of the scene.
Having obtained this apprehension, it will be as
well if you pursue your study of the place from be-
low. To do this, you will enter it from the Williams-
town road, passing through a narrow valley and
ravine, penetrated by a rocky brook, which, now I
think of it, used to furnish capital trouting. Reach-
ing the floor of the chasm, you will discover that it
does not come to a point, as distance deceived you
into, thinking when you looked from above, but
affords a level, though rock-cumbered, surface.
Hei'e you will find yourselves -surrounded by four
precipitous mountain walls over a thousand feet in
height, or more than twice as high as the crags of
Monument Mountain, although not, like them, abso-
264 TAGHCONIC.
luteiy perpendicular and bare. On these rough and
shaggy sides you will see here huge and bare cliffs,
there ragged trees clinging to steep ascents and
scanty soil, and there patches of richer wood, but
still of precarious foothold; here the broad path of
the land-slide, and there, piled and scattered below,
its mighty ruins. Vastness and desolation will be
every where about you; and, if you can rid yourself
of that disennobling association with a mill-hopper,
I think you will feel that this great abyss in Grey-
lock is both terrific and sublime.
King Greylock's Mountain Height.
With jollity, jollity, lio, to-niglit,
To scale King Greylock's mountain height 1
While many a wild recess profound
Sends, rattling back, the echoing sound.
As we startle the sleepy forest glades
With the joyous rout of our madcap maids:
F.OT never a merrier band than they
E'er climbed at eve this mountain way 1
Ohor. — Then, ho, on our rude, steep path, away 1
With the morrow's light on the topmost height.
We must hail the coming pomp of day !
Oh, whether the height in sunshine lie,
Or glamour moonlight cheat the eye,
'Tis a laughing light on the mountain side.
That owl-eyed care can never abide ;
And his worldly weight, that worldlings bear, *
Is loosed at the magical touch of our air ;
Earth's spell is broke — and the heart is free.
As childhood's in its frolic glee !
GREYLOCK. 265
Chor. — Then, ho, on our rude, steep path, away 1
With the morrow's light on the topmost height.
We must hail the coming pomp of day I
Our beacon fire this night shall glow,
A gem on the monarch mountain's brow,
Or far to our dear home valley gleam —
A new found love-star's gentle beam.
Then sweeter couch ne'er wooed to rest,
Than the springy boucfhs of the green hill's crest.
Whose leaves our fragrant bed shall be.
With the starry night for canopy !
(Jhor. — Then, ho, on our rude, steep path, away !
With the morrow's light on the topmost height,
We must hail the coming pomp of day 1
33
XIX.
WAHCONAH FALLS AND A TRADITION
ABOUT THEM.
How throbbed my fluttering pulse with hopes and fears.
To know the color of my future years. — Rogers.
A little way off the main road in Windsor, a plea-
sant farming town on the highlands, some ten miles
from us, are Wahconah Falls. I had heard their
praises spoken by one who had an affinity with
beauty which sought out its kindred in all hidden
nooks; and on a bracing Autumn day I sat out to
seek them.
There are few drives through a more agreeable
region. The villages of Dalton, through which you
pass, form a handsome town with a fine old meeting-
house on its ample, lawn-like green. You are en-
ticed to linger as well by the dark rushing river,
where you see the groaning locomotive toiling up the
steep ascent above you. And there, too, the quaint-
looking paper-mills by the river side, go far to make
up a pretty and novel scene. It is said, that as
bright glances are sometimes thrown from the win-
dows of these oddly shapen manufactories as from
any balcony, lattice or verandah whatever
The paper manufacture, a great leading interest of
WAHCONAH FALLS. 267
Berkshirej was here introduced into the county in
1799, by Zenas Crane, whose sons and grandsons
still carry it on, making among other styles the
paper upon which the bonds and bank bills of the
United States government are printed. One ol
them, Hon. Zenas M. Crane, is the proprietor of
Wahconah Falls, of whose romantic beauty he is
one of the most enthusiastic admirers. Leaving be-
hind us the pretty villages of Dalton, and its prettier
belles — a production for which it was famed long
before it gained renown for paper-making — we
soon come to The Falls, a romantic miniature cataract,
just far enough from the highway to be sheltered
from the too careless eye.
Wahconah Brook, one of the larger of the nu-
merous eastern branches of the Housatonic, here
pours through perpendicular cliffs of dark grey rock,
a considerable volume of water, which, in two or
three leaps, makes a descent of seventy or eighty
feet. The dark, precipitous cliffs form a striking
and sombre vista, and the black and glossy surface
of the water affords a fine contrast with the silvery
white of the foam into which it breaks. But the
peculiar charm which wins the place so many and
so constant admirers is indefinable.
One may be sure of passing a pleasant hour at
such a spot. The swift, smooth gliding of water
always brings a pleasurable sensation, and there is
rare music in the dash of a waterfall free from the
discordant clatter of machinery.. Alas, too rare in
manufacturing Massachusetts ! I confess to a malicious
268 TAGHCONIC.
joy in looking upon the blackened ruins of an old
mill which used to stand here, but perished long
a<ro in some fierce conflict with the insulted elements.
Heaven send thee no successor, thou grim and grin-
ning skeleton !
It is in such places as this, that sensible people
cut up all manner of boyish antics. Never be over
nice about dignity when in near pursuit of the
better thing, woodland or rural enjoyment; leave
gravity and etiquette at home, in your wardrobe,
with all other starched and flimsy articles of ap-
parel, and all the flummery of life. Get astride an
island rock, that midway divides the stream; where
the torrent shall throw its spray over you, and the
current dash by on either side your slippery foot-
hold. Shout ! Rival the noisy, angry stream at its
own game. Observe now how superior is organic
sound to any mere inarticulate noise: your voice
lost in the thunder of the cataract, so that you can-
not hear your own words, comes out clear and dis-
tinct, to your friends upon the shore. So the voice
of true and prophetic genius, lost now in the mad
roar of the multitude, shall ring its message clearly
in the ear of the listening future.
This cascade makes good its claim to be called
beautiful by gaining constantly upon your aft'ec-
tions. You come again and again to sit by its ebon
pools, and let your eye glide with the fall of its
glossy sheet, and sparkle with the glittering frag-
ments into which it breaks among the rocks. I like
these minor cataracts, which do not oppress you
WAHCONAH. 269
with their sublimity, where your soul Is not absorbed
by any awful grandeur. They are like those plesant
books where something is left for the imagination
of the reader. There is room for the delights of an
"if:" if it had been hung in air like the white
ribbon of a bridal bonnet; if it had been swollen to
mighty bulk, and curved like a horse shoe: if it
had fallen from so far that it had lost its way to
earth, and so flown back on iridescent wings to
heaven. Why, one has a whole cabinet of possible
picturesques in that little germ.
There is a tradition about these falls which I
heard, long years ago, from a young Indian of the
civilized Stockbridge tribe, who had come back
from the western exile of his people to be educated
at an eastern college. I hope it will please you.
Wahconah.
At the close of the great Pequot war in 1637, you
will recollect that the remnant of that gallant but
unhappy nation were driven from Connecticut, and
scattered abroad, as they plaintively said, " like the
autumn leaves which return not, though the tree
grow green again." In this sad exodus, a majority
of the fugitives went to swell the Onuhgungo and
other fierce tribes of Canada which afterwards took
such dreadful vengeance upon the western border
settlements of New England. But some bands
chose to pause by the way in the valleys of the
Housatonic and the Hoosac, where the brotherly
kindness of the Mohegans and the Mohawks granted
270 TAGHCONIC.
them homes in which game was plenty and hunters
were few.
One of these small parties, under the lead of a
young brave, called Miahcomo, built their frail
village in that part of the valley now called Dalton,
Here, for forty years, they lived in peace, and, be-
getting sons and daughters, increased in numbers far
beyond the red man's wont. The hill-side, where
they buried their dead; the glen, whose thick woods
reflected the red glare of their council fire, became
dear to them as home; but above all, the inaccessible
mountains were prized, as the hunted man only can
prize the strength of the hills.
Almost forty years had passed since the little tribe
fled from the flames of Fort Mystic, when the great
sachem of the Wampanoags came to them. A¥ith
strong logic, and glowing eloquence, he painted the
rapid encroachments of the white man, and passion-
ately besought them to join in that league which, in
the following year, well nigh swept the English
colonists from the soil of New England.
The young braves grasped their tomahawks as they
listened, and the sympathetic eye of woman kindled
with almost martial fire. But the rulers in savage,
as in civilized life, can sometimes be prudent men.
The chiefs crushed with cold words of sympathy the
hopes which had quickened in the smiles of the
people. Miahcomo — the same who had led the
tribe from the pursuit of the English — still ruled
them; and the young warriors muttered that the
horrors of the last night of Fort Mystic, had turned
WAHCOXAH. 271
his blood to water at the thought of the Long
Knives — although bold as an eagle towards aught
else. In more cautious tones they whispered, that
if ever a spark of the old fire rekindled in Miahcomo's
breast, the wily and cowardly priest Tashmu was
always at hand to quench it. Thus the mission of
Philip failed, and the tribe continued in peace.
In the early summer, nearly two years after the
visit of Philip, Miahcomo and his warriors were
summoned to meet the Mohawks — to whom they
had become feudatories — beyond the Taghconics.
Trusting to the quiet of the valley, the village was
left in charge of the women, and a few decrepit old
men. Among the former was Wahconah, the old
chief's favorite daughter, a young lady of singular
personal attractions, and skilled in all the fine arts
in vogue among her countrywomen — especially in
that of angling.
What with all these accomplishments, and the high
rank of her father, it is little wonder that Wahconah
was the idol of all the young men of the village, and,
although yet almost a child in years, had^ — so the
rumor ran — received offers matrimonial from a
certain mysterious Mohawk dignitary. This latter
worthy, the wigwam gossips unanimously agreed,
would carry off the prize, whenever he came in person
to claim it — for it was a thing unheard of in Indian
wooing, that a brave of fifty scalps should sue in vain.
The young gallants of the Housatonic did not,
for all this, remit one whit of their attentions, so
that, while they were over the border with her
272 TAGHCONIC.
father, the hours hung heavily on the hands of
Wahconah. It was, perhaps, to while away the
tediousness; perhaps to get a nice dish for her
lodge, that the maiden, one sunny afternoon in
June, took her fishing lines and wandered up the
river to our cascade. Before the sun went down,
her success had been abundant, and she only waited
for one more last prize — a habit which I notice is
still invariable with successful people, be they
anglers, speculators, or what not.
But Wahconah did not, after all, seem to have
fully set her heart upon this final prize. On the
contrary, she lay luxuriously back upon the soft
greensward, playfully twining a few scarlet colum-
bines in her dark hair, and smoothing softly down
the gay feathers of the oriole and blue bird that
decorated the edges of her white deer-skin robe —
a garment which, it must be confessed, was rather
excessive in its Bloomerism, considering the primi-
tive nature of the wearer's pettiloons; but that
was the fashion of the day, and no fault of Wah-
conah's.
The child-like maiden revelled in the very fullness
of delightful revery. "With a gentle, undisturbing
thrill, she felt the richly colored clouds fill her with
their delicious warmth; she dipped her little foot
in the stream and laughed aloud to feel the soft
caresses of the current; she mocked the black-bird
that sung upon the oak, and the squirrel that chirped
upon the hickory; she threw flowers and leaves upon
the wave, and smiled maidenly when two chanced
WAHCONAH. 273
to meet and float together down the stream — for
that was a love omen. That must have been a
pleasant sight in the summer twilight, almost two
hundred years ago.
Pity if it had been lost ! — as it was not; for all
the while a young warrior had been looking on,
from the shelter of a wood on the other side of the
stream. It was certainly indelicate in him to play
so long the spy upon a maiden's reveries, but one
cannot lind it in his heart to blame too severely,
when he considers the temptation; and, besides,
that the offender was but a mere savage, who
never had the advantage of the counsels of Chester-
field, Abbott, or any " Young Man's Friend " what-
ever. The promptings of nature, however, did at
last suggest to him the impropriety of his course;
or perhaps he grew impatient. At all events, he
hailed Wahconah, in the flowery language of Indian
gallantry, " Qua Alangua ! " that is to say, " Hail I
Bright Star ! "
Wahconah, startled at the sudden appearance of
a strange warrior, in the absence of her tribesmen,
sprang to her feet; but preserving .the calmness be-
fitting Miahcomo's daughter, replied " Qua Sesah ! "
that is " Hail ! Brother ! " " Nessacus," continued
the stranger, introducing himself, "Nessacus is
weary with flying before the Long Knives, and his
people faint by the way. Will the Bright Star's
people shut their lodges against their brethren ? "
Miahcomo has gone toward the setting sun,"
replied the maiden — who by this time had pro-
214: TAGHCONIC.
bably come to the conclusion that Nessacus was
a very handsome young man, and well behaved —
** but his lodges are always open. Let my brother's
people follow, and be welcome."
A signal from the young chief brought a weary,
travel-worn band to his side, and Wahconah led the
way to the village, while Nessacus related to her the
sad story of Philip's defeat and death. " They waste
ns," he said, " as the pestilence which forerun them
"Wasted our fathers."
" The Manitou is angry with his red children,"
said Wahconah; " He makes the white man mighty,
by the strength of the long knife and the fire bird."
" It is not that," responded her companion bitterly,
" but the traitor's tongue at our council fires, and the
traitor's arrow upon our war-path."
Wahconah remembered what the people whispered
concerning Tashmu, and was silent.
Thus they came to the village; but I must let pass
the welcome, and the housekeeping as well, until
Miahcomo's return. Sufiice it that in those pleasant
days in that moon of flowers, the young people did
precisely what you and I would have been likely to
do: fell violently in love; and, what was more, in
utter disregard of Indian notions of propriety, con-
fessed it to each other — a breach of aboriginal
etiquette, you will the more readily pardon, if you
know experimentally, as I have no doubt you do,
how dementing is the glance of a bright eye and the
bloom of a damask cheek in the soft light of a June
WAHCONAH. 275
evening, when your heart is as full of love as the air
is of fragrance.
Four suns had rij^ened the passion of our new
lovers, and a fifth was shining genially upon it, when
a messenger came in, announcing the near approach
of Miahcomo; and, as the custom was, all the people
went out to meet him. What visions of happiness,
our dreamers had built up in their barbarous way, I
cannot tell : nor do I know whether, as a rule, Indian
sires have such a fatal way of laying siege to air-
castles, as more civilized fathers use: so you can
guess as well as I, whether any tremblings troubled
the hearts of our young friends, akin to ivhat young
Squire Mansfield and old Banker Barker's daughter
might experience in corresponding circumstances.
But, remember, one love is much like another.
Wahconah and the chief of her guests stood to-
gether on a shaded knoll as, just up the valley, the
returning warriors came in sight. Their leader is
described as a fine old hero as one should desire to
see. His tall sinewy frame was scarcely bent by the
snows of seventy years; every wrinkle in his face
was firm as if it were a new sinew of added strength;
his eye, keen and piercing as that of his youngest
archer.
By the chief's side, walked a different figure;
meek even to cringing, with an uncertain step, and
weak, restless, unquiet eye. It was the priest, Tash-
mu — one of that strange caste, often hated, some-
times despised, but always feared by the aborigines.
This Tashmu was a constant attendant upon Miah-
276 TAGHCONIC.
como, and, it was said had acquired a mysterious and
powerful influence over the sachem's mind.
Wahconah shrank from the presence of the wizard
as the summer flower shrinks from the north wind;
but his, was, for once, not the most unwelcome figure
which met her eye. With her father and his spiritual
adviser, came a burly warrior, not positively old,
nor absolutely ugly — only a little smoke-dried or so,
and marked by transverse and obverse scars, which,
although doubtless honorable, might have been dis-
pensed with as matters of mere beauty. Grace would
have likened his face to a smoked ham ornamentally
slashed. He was evidently conscious of his renown,
and wore the scalps which hung dangling in pro-
fusion about him, as proudly as ever civilized hero
his jewelled star or blushing ribbon. Wahconah
guessed but too shrewdly, that this was her Mohawk
suitor — although he was far too dignified a character
to conduct his wooing in the unceremonious manner
which suited his young rival. Perhaps it had been
awkward work had he tried.
When the parties met, a few words explained to
the chief, the character of the strangers, and why
they were his guests; which ensured a hearty con-
firmation of the welcome extended them by his
daughter. Whatever may have been his medita-
tions upon learning the new disasters of his race,
and however bitter were the memories they recalled,
they did not hinder his holding high revel that
night upon the banks of the brook; where feasts
were celebrated and athletic games held in honor
WAHCONAH.
211
at once of all his guests. Such was the courteous
custom of the woods. I leave you to guess whose
eyes brightened as Nessacus carried off all the
prizes for daring feats, and skillful ; and whose
darkened as the brawny arms and square frame of
the Mohawk, Yonnongah, excelled all in their
marvellous strength. There was yet another eye
stealthily and intently watching every glance and
.motion, and divining the thoughts of careless hearts.
For Tashmu was already, by his evil instinct, the
enemy of the young exile.
Nessacus was no laggard in love nor in business.
Early on the morning after the feast, he repaired to
the lodge of Miahcomo, and the two remained long
in conference. The visit was again and again re-
peated, but still the nature of their consultations
did not transpire: only the name of Wahconah was
mixed in the gossip concerning them; and it was
surmised that the courtship of Yonnongah was
perhaps getting in a bad way. The young chief
was certainly gaining the favor of the old, and, as
the people hoped, undermining the influence of the
dread-inspiring Tashmu : love was casting out fear.
But the Mohawk was powerful and the priest crafty;
and both were busy and dangerous enemies. For
the present it was the part of the latter to discover
the desires and plans of Nessacus, and bring them
into the open day, where his ally could attack them
with his might.
There was no great difficulty in effecting the re-
velation; for there was no longer any purpose or
24
278 TAGHCONIO.
possibility of concealment. And two propositions
soon came to be national affairs, for discussion at
the tribe's council fires: the first was for the marriage
of Nessacus and Wahconah; the second for the
migration of the tribe to the west, beyond the reach
of the white man's encroachments.
To the first, Miahcomo gave his support; but he
clung to the spot where he had ruled so long and
so happily.
On the other hand, Yonnongah demanded the
maiden for his fourth wife, on the strength of some
ancient promise of her father ; and denounced the
far-reaching vengeance of his nation, if their tribu-
taries should attempt to migrate beyond their
jurisdiction. The amorous old warrior seemed im-
movably bent upon securing Wahconah' for his
lodge; alternately employing threats and those
sweet promises, of which even an Indian lover can
be so profuse — especially in the ripe experience of
his fourth courtship. This was no matter of jest
with the sorely perplexed father and sachem; for
Yonnongah was a man of might in his nation, and
would have scant scruples of delicacy in carrying
out his threats. All which, Tashmu lost no oppor-
tunity for urging upon his dismayed chief, to the
great detriment of our hero's suit.
Nessacus soon saw how matters were tending, and
took a bold, impetuous man's short way out of the
difficulty, by challenging his rival to decide the issue
by arms. Yonnongah, who, to do him justice, was
as fearless as Nessacus himself, closed at once with
WAHCONAH. 279
the proposal;* but the priest was not thus to be
balked of his chance for villainy. Signs and potents
multiplied marvellously: not a bird could fly, or a
fish swim, or a cloud float, but each and all were
pregnant with divine' prohibition of the proposed
duel. The powers above and below combined to
forbid it. The thuuder muttered the supernal veto;
the winds breathed it; the stars winked it. If one
could put perfect faith in Tashmu, never was such
a commotion in heaven and " elsewhere,'* as the
coming combat had created. The ordeal of arms
was abandoned.
It was only fair, since the gods had issued their
fiat against one method of solving the tribe's per-
plexity, that they should provide another. So
thought Tashmu, and exclaimed in the council,
" Let the Great Spirit speak ! "
" Let the Great Spu-it speak, and we will obey,"
repeated Miahcomo reverently.
And Yonnongah said : " It is well ! "
It was then proclaimed that Tashmu would, by
divination, enquire that night, in the Wizard's
Glen, how the will of the Manitou should be as-
certained; and a " bad spell " was denounced against
all who should disturb his incantations, by going
beyond the precincts of the village.
Many predicted ill to Nessacus from this com-
mittal of his fate to the hands of a well-known
enemy; but none ventured to remonstrate against
a decree recognized by law as heaven-inspired : and
still more venturesome would it have been to rebel
280 TAGHCONIC.
against the edict, if it emanated, as some believed,
from authority the reverse of heavenly.
A few rods below the cataract of Wahconah Falls
is, or was, a sharp rock which midway divides the
stream. At the date of our tradition, the current
flowed smoothly and evenly on the two sides of it,
and it had often been used, like the flight of birds,
the aspect of clouds and other simple objects in
nature, to ascertain the will of heaven. Upon the
night of Tashmu's supposed divination in the " Wiz-
ard's Glen," that respectable minister of religion
might, instead, have been seen here, assisted by the
stronger arms of his Mohawk friend, tugging away
at certain great rocks which lay near the shore, and
which they finally contrived to place in the water,
so as to impede the current upon one side.
At this same spot, by the river side, a day or two
afterwards, the tribe were assembled, and it was an-
nounced to them that Manitou had delegated the
spirit of the stream to settle their difiiculties. In
other words — a small canoe, curiously carved with
mysterious hieroglyphics, was to be launched midway
in the river and, as the current chanced to carry it
on one side or the other of the dividing rock, the
questions in dispute were to be decided. This was
a mode of solving knotty points by no means un-
common, and which, therefore, excited no surprise,
except that the priest's chances for trickery seemed to
be lessened. Simple souls ! who knew not that what
appears the fairest field often affords the best harveet
to accomplished knaves !
WAHCONAH. 281
An " era of good feeling " seemed now to dawn.
All parties hastened to adopt this as a " finality."
Tashmu, in oily words, wished well to his brother
Nessacus; and Nessacus resigned himself unreserv-
edly, to the care of his brother Tashmu. The priest
was as much puzzled as pleased at this sudden access
of confidence; but it, at least, made his part easy
to play.
A solemn feast was now held; and the magical'
bark, freighted with so many hopes, was then poised
in the middle of the stream. Miahcomo was placed
in savage state, at a conspicuous point, while Yon-
nongah and his rival were assigned separate sides of
the river.
"Let Manitou speak ! " exclaimed the priest; and
the sacred canoe, released from its moorings, floated
steadily down the stream — inclining now to the right
hand, now to the left. All eyes intently followed its
course, hardly doubting that, by some charm or other,
Tashmu would at last cause it to pass near Yonnon-
gah. You mil guess that none counted more con-
fidently on such a result than that worthy himself.
Still the bark floated regardlessly on, until it touched
the magic rock — hung poised there for a moment,
then seemed to incline toward the Mohawk; but, the
inconstant current striking it obliquely, it swung
slowly round, as upon a pivot, and passed down the
stream, by the feet of Nessacus.
" Wagh ! the Great Spirit hath spoken, and it is
good?" exclaimed Miahcomo; and the people whose
282 TAGHCONIC.
hearts the young chief had somehow gained, shouted
" Ho ! It is good ! "
The priest and his accomplice gazed at each other
in silent astonishment, that Heaven could possibly
decide against arguments of such weight as they had
used. The former, for a moment, began to suspect
that a great God might possibly, in reality, rule in
the affairs of men — making him to bless whom he
would have cursed. But the idea was too mighty
for him, and he recurred, naturally, to a suspicion of
treachery. I need not say, however, that he had his
own reasons for not pressing an immediate investiga-
tion. I do not know that it ever occurred to him
that Nessacus might have been a witness to his pious
midnight labors, and improving upon the hint, ren-
dered them abortive.
The assent of all parties was accordingly given to
the proposed marriage; and the time which inter-
vened between the trial and a " lucky day," was to be
filled up with feasting and revelry. The disappear-
ance of Tashmu from the scene added to the hilarity
of the occasion, and all was wild merriment.
But alarming intelligence interrupted their festi-
vities. The terrible Major Talcott, with his soldiers,
had pursued the brave sachem of Quaboag across
the mountains, and slain him with more than two
score of his best warriors, at Mahaiwe, on the banks
of the Housatonic, not thirty miles from the set-
tlement of Miahcomo. Even their temporary secu-
rity was gone; the mountain barrier was already
passed.
TVAHCOXAH. 283
The fugitives from the battle at Mahaiwe came
thronging in, but at last brought intelligence that the
invaders had returned. A party of them brought,
also, the missing Tashmu, whom they accused of
having offered to lead the enemy to the refuge of
Nessacus. The evidence of his guilt was complete,
and the fate of the criminal was not delayed by
any unnecessary judicial forms.
Only a want of provisions had prevented Major
Tallcott from accepting the wizard's kind offer,
and he might now return, at any moment, to profit
by it. The best haste was accordingly made in their
migration, and before the November winds blew,
Nessacus had led them to a home in the west, where
they became a great tribe, and flourished for many
generations, before they again heard the white man's
rifle.
As for Wahconah, the story of her happiness
comes down to us, through Indian traditions, faint
and far, but sweet as the perfume which a western
gale might bring from a far-off prairie.
XX.
MAPLEWOOD AND BERKSHIRE'S BEAUTY.
Strowed with pleasaunce, whose fayre grassy grownd.
Mantled with greene and goodly beautified
With all the ornaments of Flora's pride. — Fairie Queene.
It is like a picture in an old story book about
France la belle^ with arching trees in front, a temple
and chateau in the back-ground, and maidens and
peasant-girls in all — is the scene at our Young
Ladies' Institute, of a pleasant summer twilight.
All its light hearted inmates are out in full glee,
with circling games and ringing laughter — the
truest children of health, content, and innocence.
But all are not in the giddy group: some have
separated from it, and, in couples, with arms affec-
tionately inter-twined, are slowly walking down the
long paths, pouring into each other's ears the precious
secrets of maiden confidence — all the hopes, the
dreams, the fears which can find a lodging place in
pure hearts. Very precious are those hopes and
fears; although neither may ever be realized, yet
shall they be a part of life and a part of the woman
in all her future. In this life of ours, we pile dream
upon dream, effort upon disappointed effort, until
MAPLEWOOD. 285
the apparent fruitlessness attains to some sort of
fruition and reality. There are few things in poetry-
more beautifully and truthfully said, than these
lines of Henry Taylor:
" The tree
Sucks kindlier nurture from a soil enriched
By its own fallen leaves; and man is made
In heart and spirit from deciduous hopes,
And things which seem to perish."
Under the vine shaded bowers, or by the sparkling
fountain, sits here and there a solitary maiden, with
thoughts, perhaps, far away in a happy home;
striving to bring to her fancy the family group as
it is in the old homestead at the pleasant close of
day. She may well be pardoned if, even in this
pleasant home of learning, she steals a little while
from young companionship, to let the warm but not
bitter tears run freely down her cheeks. She will
soon rejoin the merry circle, not the least merry
there.
I used constantly to attend the examinations, ex-
hibitions and concerts in the pretty chapel. I don't
go so often now. The fact is the girls get my poor
mind into a fearful muddle with their sines, cosines,
sonata^, arias, ballads, tangents, French nasals, sub-
jectives, German gutturals, objectives, and all the
rest; till I go home and dream that "Ah, non
giunge " is Greek for the segment of a circle, and
that some delicious voice is trilling out in notes
that reach E alt., a + b — c ^ x f How it did wring
my heart one anniversary day — that is the feminine
286 TAGHCONIC.
of " commencement " — to see a venerable Doctor
in Divinity utterly non-plussed by a saucy Miss
wliom he had under cross-examination as to her
theology. " You did not learn that here ! " he ex-
claimed in astonishment at some startling hetero-
doxy." " Oh dear, no sir ! " was the pert response,
" I knew it a long while before I came here ! " The
good man laughed a polite little laugh; but he
looked much less the great divine he certainly was,
than his conqueror did the little divinity she very
possibly was not.
It was not so in the good old times; but now we
are required to believe that beauty and brains are
as natural concomitants as strawberries and cream.
" Well," as I once heard two astute politicians of
opposing schools, agree as they went out from one
of Wendell Phillip's lectures on Female Suffrage,
** Well, I suppose we must submit to the inevitable."
But they did not vote for it, nevertheless.
The grounds of Maplewood are very beautiful.
Nothing in our village is more fascinating to the
Stranger's eye than its lawns, groves and winding
avenues, with their rich ornamentation of bowers,
fountains, vases, and flowers; and, grouped in the
center of all, the classic chapel, the balconied dor-
mitories and the elephantine gymnasium. The
latter, by the by, was the grand old church in which
Thomas Allen, the Bennington battle-parson. Presi-
dent Allen of Bowdoin College, President Humphrey
of Amherst, Rev. Dr. John Todd and other noted
divines once preached as pastors, and in whio.h Dr.
MAPLEWOOD. 287
Holmes first read his " Ploughboy." Maplewood is
ilso historical in another point; occupying the
grounds which in the war of 1812 belonged to the
cantonment where thousands of national troops
gathered for the campaigns on the northern border;
and in which the prisoners of war, taken in those
campaigns, were confined: fruitful subjects for the
young ladies' themes, as it seems to me. After the
war, Professor Chester Dewey, the eminent natural-
ist, established here a boy's school of high reputa-
tion: and, in 1841, Rev. Wellington H. Tyler foun-
ded the present institute, and soon gained for it a
grand reputation.
The world has found out the picturesque charms,
and not unpicturesque comforts, of Maplewood; and
now, from June to October it is permitted to in-
vade the sacred precincts with its fashions and
pleasures. Even the dance— tabooed in term-time, or
masked as " steps and figures " — treads gently the
tempting floor between the Corinthian columns of
Gymnasium Hall; and serenades sweetly thrill the
balconies sacred from such follies for the rest of the
year. Maplewood Institute becomes Maplewood
Hall: just as you may have read in weird story of
enchanted persons who passed their lives alternating
between two widely different shapes.
It is all very odd, and it's all very charming; but
I did not bring you here on that account. You
asked me, sometime ago — yes : I am sure you did —
" What is it, after all, that makes this Berkshire so
very beautiful ! Now come to the tower of this
288 TAGHCONIC.
gymnasium, which stands practically in the center
of our glorious amphitheatre of hills, and I will
show you.
Yes, the views certainly are comprehensive and
superb: we will attend to them in a moment. But
first listen to Mr. Ruskin, whom I suppose you will
recognize as a competent interpreter of the laws of
beauty.
" That country is always the most beautiful which is made
up of the most curves."
That is the great teacher's absolute dictum di-
rectly applicable here : and listen to another, appli-
cable by indirection but clearly pertinent.
" In all beautiful aesig-ns of exterior descent, a certain regu-
larity is necessary ; the lines should be graceful, but they
must also balance each other, slope answering to slope, and
statue to statue."
And now observe what may be considered Mr.
Ruskin 's application of the first-quoted law. It
forms part of his ideal description or characteriza-
tion of " the picturesque blue country" of England;
that is, a country having a blue distance of moun-
tains :
" Its first and most distinctive peculiarity is its grace ; it is
all undulation and variety of line, one curve passinfr into
another with the most exquisite softness, rolling away into
faint and far outlines of various depths and decision, yet none
hard or harsh ; and, in all probability, rounded oflP in the
near ground into massy forms of partially wooded hill,
shaded downward into winding dingles or cliffy ravines, each
form melting imperceptibly into the next, without an edge or
Berkshire's beauty. 289
"Every line is voluptuous, floating and wavy in its form;
deep, rich and exquisitely soft in its color; drowsy in its
effect, like slow, wild music; letting tlie eye repose upon it,
as on a wreath or cloud, without one feature of harshness to
hurt, or of contrast to awaken."
I cannot quote the whole description ; but you
will find it in the Essay upon the Poetry of Archi-
tecture; and grand reading the whole book will be
for Berkshire summer days.
But look around you now. Mr. Ruskin might
have written the quoted passages sitting here upon
this tower; and been guilty of nothing worse than
almost Pre-Raphaelite precision. The landscape is
literally all curves: there is not a straight or un-
graceful line in it, except it be of man's making.
In what graceful sweeps those mountain walls were
thrown up. Into what an endless and infinitely
varied succession of interlacing loops and curves,
the old glaciers scalloped their crests and indented
their ravines. The meanderings of the countless
brooks, the serpentine windings of the Housatonic,
the wavy and sinuous contours of the lakes, soothe
the eye by the multitude of their luxurious curves.
The bare morains, the wooded knolls, the mossy
maple-groves and clumpy stretches of willow, are
all soft and rounded. The shadows which lie
under the solitary trees on the hill side, have no
harsher shape than that which the fleecy passing
cloud casts near them. Nay, Nature, compelling
man to her own sweet mood, forces him to bend his
railroads and highways gently around the circled
bases of her mountains. Even when he makes his
25
290 TAGHCONIC.
ways straight, " Nature soon touches in her pic-
turesque graces," and covers his streets and his habi-
tations with her swelling drapery. Berkshire, as you
see it here, surely answers well to Mr. Ruskin's de-
finition of " the most beautiful country."
And as to the demands of the second passage
which I have quoted, and to the general requisitions
of his essay; I repeat what I have said elsewhere:
" A lovelier landscape one mip^ht not desire to see ; and
when satiated with long luxurious gazing, the spectator seeks
to analyze the sources of his delight, all the elements of
beauty justify his praise. To the eye the valley here presents
the proportions which architects love to give their favorite
structures. The symmetry, too, with which point answers to
opposing point, exceeds the attainment of art.
" Variety, the most marvellous, but without confusion, for-
bids the sense to tire. Colors, the richest, softest and most
delicate charm the eye, and vary with the ever-changing con-
ditions of the atmosphere. Fertile farms and frequent villages
imbue the scene with the warmth of generous life ; while,
over all, hangs the subdued grandeur which may well have
pervaded the souls of the great and good men who have made
Berkshire their home from the days of Jonathan Edwards
down."
And now, in order that we may get back to the
Institute, and, as I am in moderately good humor
to-night — and moreover as it seems half-way per-
tinent to the subject — I will give the young ladies
a little sermon, upon a German text, or variation
upon a German theme — as they may elect to call
it — which I made a long while ago — in fact, before
any of them were born. It had a little adventure
once, which may improve its flavor. After it had
MAPLEAVOOD. 291
duly gone the rounds of the newspapers, and been
consigned, as I supposed, to its long home — the limbo
of fugitive verse — it suddenly reappeared; being
communicated to a " spiritual " journal by some great
departed, through a female medium of Chelsea. It
was tricked out in grave clothes of very flowery
prose, but I recognized the familiar thing in a
moment, and have restored it to its original versiform
dress. Still I beg that you will treat it with the
regard due to one who has come back from the tomb
for your instruction.
Scatter the Germs of the Beautiful.
" ©treat eifrig in empfdni]Hrf;e ©emut^er,
5)e§ ©uteii iinb be§ <£d)onen ©omenforncr,
©ie feimen imb erbliif^en bort ^u ^aiimeHr
3)ie Qolbiie '"^Jarabiefeefriirfjte tragen."
Scatter the germs of the beautiful ;
By the wayside let them fall,
That the rose may spring by the cottage side,
And the vine on the garden wall.
Cover the rough and the rude of earth
With a veil of leaves and flowers,
And strew with the opening bud and cup
The vath of the summer hours.
Scatter the germs of the beautiful
In the holy shrine of home;
Let the pure and the fair and the graceful tbeiv
In their loveliest luster come:
Leave not a trace of deformity
In the temple of the heart-,
But gather about its hearth, the gems
Of nature and of art.
292 TAGHCONIC.
Scatter the germs of tlie beautiful
In the temples of our God ;
The God who starred the uplifted sky
And flowered the trampled sod.
When he built a temple for himself,
And a home for his priestly race
fle reared each arch in symmetry,
And curved each line in grace.
Scatter the germs of the beautiful
In the depths of the human soul ;
They shall blossom there and bear thee firotti
While the endless ages roll.
Plant with the pure and beautiful
This pathway to the tomb,
And the pure and fair about thy path
In Paradise shall bloom
XXL
QUAINT OLD STOCKBRIDGE.
Of silence is the thunder born. — Gerald Massey.
So much has been written about the fair old
town of Stockbridge that the tourist finds almost
every rood of its soil already storied ground. Sel-
dom does genius owe so much to its dwelling place,
and still more rarely is the debt so richly paid.
The scenes which have received their fame at the
hand of Bryant or Miss Sedgwick need no new cele-
bration here; nor does the town which has been the
theater of so much curious history, and the home or
birth-place of so many men of intellectual power.
Yet the interest which already attaches to such
places communicates somewhat of its own zest to
whatever may be newly written concerning them.
The world has a singular craving to know more of
that of which it already knows much, rather than
to follow the traveller in " fresh fields and pastures
new." You may have noted that the gaping crowd
always have the readiest and loudest laugh for
their orator's stalest jokes. They are prepared for
294 TAGHCONIC.
the point the moment it comes, while the brightest
of them will not seize the gist of the most spark-
ling original witticism until the opportunity to
laugh at it is long past. So, always, the world feels
a comfortable security in enjoying that which has
before pleased and interested it: that is the advan-
tage that one has in following the path which has
already been broken out by genius. And in some
such fashion we will explore old Stockbridge.
There are many objects and localities here, the
mere mention of which suggests to you a story or a
picture, although the story may never have been
written, and the picture may never have been born
of pencil or camera. " Old Stockbridge on the
Plain" is full of these thought-compelling objects.
Cradled between hills, enriched by frequent costly
villas, picturesque cottages and handsome orna-
mental grounds, the world-renowned model village
of New England lies stretched for a mile along a
level surface formed in great part by a singular em-
bankment of the Housatonic, which, although doubt-
less the work of nature, half deceives you by its
regularity into the belief that it is artificial. The
river here moves in its most exquisite curves, and is
bordered by its richest meadows. Bryant in his
Reminiscences of Miss Sedgwick — published in her
" Life and Letters " edited by Miss Dewey — thus
describes the scene as it first met his eye in the Oc-
tober of 1816, on his first visit to southern Berkshire.
" The woods were in all tlie glory of autumn, and I well
remt;mber, as I passed througli Stockbridge, how much I waa
STOCKBKIDGE. 296
struck by the beamy of the smooth, ^reen meadows, on the
banks of that lovely riv^er which winds near the Sedgwick
family mansion : the Housatonic whose gently flowing water
seemed tinged with the gold and crimson of the trees that
overhung them. I admired no less the contrast between this
soft scene, and the steep craggy hills that overlooked it,
clothed with their many colored forests."
Wealth and time have, since Mr. Bryant's picture
was drawn, done something to adorn the original;
nothing to mar its wild beauties or its soft luxuri-
ance. It is still sought by the beauty-seeking artist.
Before artist or poet, when the pine and the oak out-
numbered the elms, the Mohegan also loved it well.
Through this superb cradle of the hills, extends,
on the north side of the river, the noble avenue
which, with a few fine subsidiary streets, forms
the old village of story. This avenue is nearly, or
quite, straight: but the variation in the spacious
court yards, with their rich shrubbery, and in the
planting of the great trees, wards off any impression
of stiffness. The elms, in particular, many of them
of more than a century's growth, are among the
most magnificent in New England. Miss Sedgwick,
in one of her letters, gives the following character-
istic instance of her remembrance of them on the
other side of the Atlantic:
" One of the cultivated women of England said to me, in a
soothing tone, on my expressing admiration of English trees,
* Oh, you will have such in time, when your forests are cut
down, and they have room for their limbs to spread.' I
smiled and was silent ; but, if I saw in vision our graceful,
drooping elms, embowering roods of ground, and, as I looked
at the stiff, upright English elm, had something of the
296 TAGncoxic.
Pharisaic ' liolier than thou ' flit over my mind, I may be
forgiven."
Stockbridge Street — I believe that is the re-
cognized name for this grand avenue — is sprinkled
all along with spots of historic or romantic interest.
At its western extremity is the old burial ground
of the Mission Indians; the scene of Bryant's poem,
" An Indian at the Burial Place of His Fathers."
" It is the spot 1 came to seek —
My father's ancient burial place
Ere from these vales, ashamed and weak.
Withdrew our wasted race.
It is the spot — I know it well —
, Of which our old traditions tell.
For here the upland bank sends out
A ridge towards the river side ;
I know the shaggy hills about,
The meadows smooth and wide —
The plains that, toward the southern sky.
Fenced east and west by mountains, lie.
A white man, g izing on the &cene,
Would say a lovely spot was here,
And praise the lawns, so fresh and green,
Between the hills so sheer.
I like it not — I would the jdain
Lay in its tall old woods again."
This ancient burial-ground has long been sacred
from the plow, and now has its proper enclosure and
monument. A few rods east of it, on the broad
church green, is the monument erected to Jonathan
Edwards, who was pastor of the Mission church here,
from 1751 to 1757: the period in which he wrote his
most celebrated works.
STOCKBRIDGE. 297
The story of this Indian mission — the most suc-
cessful in New England — is entirely fascinating,
and is worthy of a volume. Indeed Miss Electa
F. Jones has compiled an interesting book from
its records. But I must pass the story with the
briefest allusion. It was established in 1734 at Great
Barrington, but was removed in 1735 to Stockbridge
where the Indians were collected: the whole town-
ship being granted by the General Court for that
purpose.
A very few carefully selected white families were
admitted to aid in the civilization and christianizing
of the neophytes; which the wise managers conceived
could be most readily accomplished by initiating
them into the art of agriculture. The Devil — or
whatever may be his other and true name — well
understands the godly influence of a farmer's life;
and why should not they also whose mission and en-
deavor are to thwart him in his wiles. I hope you
recollect how, a great way back in the history of
our family, Satan, in the likeness of a serpent, set
about the seduction of grand-father Adam by dis-
gusting him with his excellent situation as a gardener,
and putting it into his silly head that he could shine
in one of the learned professions, or perhaps all : and
again, how the same cunning tempter, under the name
and style of Mephistophiles, played the deuce with
poor, vain Faust's virtue by persuading him that a
farmer's life would be degrading to a man of his
spirit and genius. The founders of the Stockbridge
mission showed that they had the scriptural com-
29S TAGHCONIC.
bination of the serpent's wisdom and the dove's inno-
cence when they employed the plow, as one of the
weapons of their warfare against Hobomoko; whom
I take to be the same old Diabolus under an abori-
ginal alias. The white families who were sent out
on picket in this semi-spiritual warfare did their
duty faithfully, and the mixed red and white church
which resulted was harmonious and healthful, be-
sides being strikingly picturesque. But the excep-
tional success of the Stockbridge mission was without
dispute, due to its first pastor, the Rev. John Ser-
geant, who evinced as wonderful capacity for that
work as his successor did for metaphysics. The
mixed church flourished until 1785, when the Indians
accepted a new home among the Oneidas of New
York: the separation seeming best for both colors.
We will not pry too curiously into the ultimate
cause of that voluntary exile; but the tribe has twice
since migrated from state to state — flying from the
vices or driven by the cupidity of the race which
gave them their religion — and are now in Minnesota,
a moral and intelligent community, but mysteriously
unworthy of American citizenship.
To return to their metaphysical pastor. Rev. Jona-
than Edwards: who was installed August 9, 1751;
got cleverly at work just one year later on his long
contemplated "Treatise on the Freedom of the
Will;" in nine months nearly finished tlie rough
draught of what he originally intended; completed
the work before April, 1753, and published it in
1754. From July, 1754, to January, 1755, he was
JONATHAN EDWARDS. 299
incapacited by the chills aud fever incident to all
new lands, but long since banished from Berkshire.
Between the spring of 1755 and the fall of 1757, be-
sides smaller works, he finished his two essays upon
" Grod's end in Creation " and " the Nature of
Virtue." The biographers say that he gave to these
labors, the leisure left him by his pastoral duties:
one would rather infer from the amount of his
literary work, that he gave to those duties the leisure
left him by his pen; and the steady declension of
the mission would tend to the same conclusion. But
his correspondence shows that he was "in labors
abundant" for the good of his flock; and the decline
of religion among them must be traced to other
causes than absolute neglect, although the great
author could hardly have been so absorbed in the
interests of the mission as the simple pastor had been.
People often talk also of the profound quiet and
seclusion in the midst of which President Edwards
was able to compose his subtile and recondite
works. They must have conceived that notion,
some dreamy summer afternoon, to the lulling music
of rippling fountains and rustling foliage, and after
listening perhaps to a less rugged sermon than the
mighty Calvinist was wont to preach: there was
no room for it in the Stockbridge of 1753-7. The
year 1752, following the deceitful peace of Aix-la-
Chapelle, was indeed a season of some quiet on the
border, and the new pastor seems to have used it to
get settled to his work. After that, came troublous
times. From Stockbridge northward to the haunts
300 TAGHCONIC.
of the iierce and hostile savages of Canada, the
forest was broken only by Fort Massachusetts and
the soon-interrupted settlements of Lanesboro' and
Pittsfield. The Mission Indians were restless, and
in the spring of 1753, the homicide of one Wam-
paum corse by white men, whom they thought in-
sufficiently punished, roused to fury the still savage
passions of the young sannaps. The emissaries of
the French and the Canadian Indians took advan-
tage of the ferment. Plots and suspicions of plots,
for the destruction of the town, followed. Horrible
orgies, stimulated by large supplies of rum from
Kiuderhook, were kept up for days in the woods
west of the village, for the purpose of further in-
flaming the rage of the young red-men. The pastor,
together with the magistrates, was constantly busy,
enquiring into the nature and reality of these affairs,
and, when they were found genuine, in ascertaining
who and how many, of the native Indians were en-
gaged in them; and what real or supposed grievances
had disaffected them: striving in every way to
sooth the passions and allay the storm which had
been raised with sedulous cunning. At the same
time Mr. Edwards, by letter after letter, piteously
implored the Provincial government to come to the
relief of the frontier by a commission of such im-
posing character that it would salve the wounded
pride of the Indians, and also with money, after the
aboriginal custom, to wash out the stain of blood.
He succeeded at last. But quiet had hardly de-
scended once more upon the troubled valley when,
JOXATHAX EDWARDS. 301
one August evening in 1754, two Mohegans who
had been out on a hunting excursion came flying
home with the startling report of burning and
massacre they had seen at Dutch Hoosac which
had been utterly destroyed by five hundred Cana-
dian Indians, who were doubtless bent southward on
the same bloody errand. All was consternation; mes-
sengers were sent northwa;-d to call in the exposed
settlers at Pittsfield and Lanesboro' — southward
and eastward, to summon aid: everywhere to alarm
the country. This was on Thursday, the 29th of
August, and by Saturday night the town was full of
armed men. Still, on Sunday afternoon, the fugi-
tives who came in from Pittsfield, on horses sent
from Connecticut to bring them off, reported that
the woods were full of the enemy, who repeatedly
fired upon them, killing one man while the woman
on the pillion behind him barely escaped by the aid
of the only settler in Lenox. What was worse,
they had picked up on the hill above Stockbrido-e
Village a fatally wounded child, and on investiga-
tion had discovered that, while the people of the
town were mostly ac church, two Indians had en-
tered the house of one Chamberlain, killed a hired
man named Owen, who stoutly resisted them, dashed
out the brains of one child, and left another with
its head cleft by a tomahawk, near the roadside,
where it was picked up.
The terror which ensued alb along the border was
pitiable beyond description, and it was months
before it was allayed. The veteran Colonel, Israel
26
302 TAGHCONIC.
Williams, declared he had never known its equal.
The large body of the enemy which destroyed
Hoosac proceeded no further south; which raised
the grave suspicion that the murders in Berkshire
were the work of resident Indians. The report that
they were the guilty parties spread all over the
Province, and in New York, till it became the duty of
their mission-pastor to sift the evidence and learn
the truth. He did so, and satisfied of their innocence
manfully become their warm defender; which —
in the excited state of popular prejudice outside
of Berkshire, and among the soldiers sent thither —
was no easy or brief task. But he gave himself
to it, and was also the helpful assistant of the civil
and military authorities as long as he remained in
Stockbridge; for during all that time it was on a
more or less threatened frontier of a province which
was constantly sending through it troops for the
war in New York and Canada.
Such was the secluded leisure and the peaceful
quiet which favored the composition of the Treatise
on the Will, and other great works of Jonathan
Edwards. I think that, if we look the grand cata-
logue carefully over, we shall find a considerable
number of illustrious books which were written
without much aid from ease, leisure, quiet seclusion,
intellectual appliances or literary companionship.
The missionary, Sergeant, first lived in a house
which still stands upon " The Hill;" but, before his
death, he built another in the village, which was
purchased by his successor, and is one of the mem-
JONATHAN EDWARDS. 303
orable points upon Stockbridge street, through which
we are making such slow progress. It is now the
property of a classical and philosophical German
gentleman, whose dreams are probably not badly
disturbed by belief in the calvinistic dogmas of its
original owner. Still the house is scrupulously
preserved in its pristine condition, and you can
Btill, if you are not very portly, sit in the little
closet, about six feet square, which President
Edwards called his " study," and in which he did
such gigantic intellectual work. It would be scarcely
ample for the easy chair and commodious desk
which modern students require; and the walls
would only hold the scantiest of libraries — so far
as number of volumes go.
You may even perhaps sleep in the chamber,
where, in the wakeful midnight hours which must
often have been his, the most severe, as well as the
most subtile, of metaphysicians must have shuddered
under the contemplation of his own terrible reason-
ing, with its awful logical results. For my own
part, his doctrines gave me too many cruel hours in
my boyhood, for me to desire ever again to come
under their dreadful shadow, even in dreams; but,
if you like, and have strong nerves, you may sleep
comfortably in the mighty reasoner's bedroom: for
his home is now but a summer hotel.
On the pleasant church green, between the Indian
burial place and the Edwards Homestead, is the site
where stood the plain meeting house in which the mis-
804 TAGHCONIC.
sionary, Sergeant, first preached the gospel to his
parti-colored flock. A handsome tower, surmounted
by a chime of fine bells — given to the town by Hon.
David Dudley Field in 1878 — marks the site. And, as
their silvery music rings out daily among the echoing
hills, it marks also time's changes since the huge
East Indian conch-shell, the gift of the pious people
of Boston to the mission, and blown by stout David
Kau-nau-nee-ka-nuk in tones which " resounded from
center to circumference of the town," summoned the
white man and the red, to worship their common
Creator in one rude but sufficient temple.
Passing, without comment, some interesting his-
toric localities, and also the handsome marble
library building among whose treasures some rich
relics of the old times are preserved, we come to
bold, beautiful, half rock, half grass-clad, oak-
crowned, laurel-wreathed Laurel Hill; upon whose
southern verge we shall find the " Sacrifice Rock.'*
Miss Sedgwick thus described both hill and rock in
*' Hope Leslie." where she first introduced them to
fame.
"They [the chief Mononotto, his prisoner, daughter, and
warriors] had entered the expanded vale by following the
windings of the Housatonic around a hill, conical and easy of
ascent, except on the side which overlooked the river, where
halfway from the base to the summit, it rose, a perpendicu-
lar rock, bearing on its beetling front the age of centuries.
On every side the hill was garlanded with laurels, now in full
and profuse bloom, here and there surmounted by an in-
tervening pine, spruce or hemlock, whose seared winter
foliage was fringed with the bright, tender sprouts of spring.*'
JONATHAN EDWARDS. 305
For the story which attaches to the spot, you
must look in Miss Sedgwick's enchanting novel.
The hill, on which the oak is now, if not the most
abounding, the most conspicuous, tree, was given by
the Sedgwick family, many years ago, to the
Laurel Hill Association, to be forever preserved as
a public resort. This famous institution — which
holds a place among village improvement societies
like that which the Berkshire Agricultural does in
in its own class of organizations — owes its existence
to this gift, and it has not only managed the dona-
tion with rare good taste; but has been a chief in-
strument in making the village of Stockbridge the
perfect thing it is.
Every year the Association here celebrates its anni
versary, with many true, pleasant, and often brilliant,
words, both of eloquence and poetry. But it seems
to me that the grandest gathering the old hill ever
saw, was when, after the laying of the first Atlantic
cable, the people of Berkshire assembled by thou-
sands to welcome Cyrus W. Field back in triumph
to his native town, and the home of his leisure.
That looked to me like a triumph worth having;
and I still seem to hear the massive sentences —
amid whose rugged strength, poetic beauty bloomed
like Alpine roses —with which the venerable Presi-
dent Hopkins, Mr. Field's fellow-townsman by birth,
congratulated him upon an achievement which he
classed, in character and magnitude, with that of
" the world seeking Genoese."^
806 TAGHCONIC.
The stranger who comes to Stockbridge to dream
away some slumberous summer hours, and finds it
excellently well adapted to that purpose, may fancy
that he has come into that land
" In which it seemed always afternoon,
Around whose coast the languid air did swoon."
But the insight of a little familiarity with the
place will teach him better than that. The repose
of Stockbridge is the repose of caste, not of lymphatic
vulgarity. Its luxurious leisure, so indolently but
refreshingly enjoyed, is for the most part either a
lasting peace conquered in the hottest life-battle, or
the interval of needful rest between two periods of
hard work — and probably of hard knocks as well.
Frequently it is more even than that; it is a season
of quiet preparation: the pause of the lion before
the leap; nay, it is the silence before the thunder-
peal — they have been forging thunder-bolts here,
from the troubled era when Jonathan Edwards
hurled his lurid theology upon the world, down to
this present peaceful summer of — whom and what,
you will learn if you read carefully the New York
dailies of next winter.
They have a "Laura's Rest," herein Stockbridge:
it is far up a mountain steep. Had it been in Italy,
now, they would have placed it in some fountain-
lulled, luxurious vale, into which the languid maiden
could have lounged listlessly to her siesta. But
Stockbridge Lauras must climb before they rest.
Is not that the moral of it ?
The repose of Stockbridge is the repose of caste.
JONATHAN EDWARDS. SO 7
The same air of quiet, well-bred, refined enjoyment,
and of modest, well-bred pride, invests both the
place and its people. Of the class of cottages in
which it becomes cultivated people of moderate
tastes to dwell, Mr. Ruskin says, that in them " we
naturally look for an elevation of character, a richness
of design and form, which, while the building is kept
a cottage, may yet give 'it an air of cottage aris-
tocracy." We might paraphrase this instruction for
application to the class of villages to which Stock-
bridge belongs. They must be kept villages : to make
anything else of them would be to take away their
charms. But they must retain also their air of village
aristocracy : a widely different thing — be it noted —
from the aristocracy of a village. This quiet dignity
has been well maintained in the building up of old
Stockbridge, both on the plain and on the hills.
The influence which gives tone to society here is
th'at of the old South-Berkshire Federal gentry,
which has come down in much perfection of spirit in
spite of the constant influx of city folk. I do not say
that there have not been vast changes in manners
and in personnel, as well as in habits of thought,
since gentlemen went staidly about Stockbridge
street in cocked hats, knee-breeches and silk stock-
ings; and ladies, who called their hoop-skirts far-
thingales, played " Washington's March " upon
London-made Clementi pianos, that sounded like a
modern music-box. But the spirit of the old social
life and the old breeding — together with very much
308 TAGHCONIC.
of the old blood — still survives. Whatever modi-
fication it has received has come to it, not from any
absolutely extraneous source, but from those circles
of New York society which originally were chiefly
made up of, or took their color from, men and women,
who went to them from Stockbridge, Great Barring-
ton, Sheffield and Lenox : the Sedgwicks, the
D wights, the Fields, the Bryants, the Dewey s and
others of like character. Stockbridge society, as it
now is, may have been passed, for its refinement,
through a metropolitan crucible; but, if so, it was at
least one of its own- -making, and its own firing.
Undoubtedly both Stockbridge and Lenox have at-
tractions peculiar to themselves, in their locations
and scenery: but quite as certainly the great mass
of the hundreds who resort to them. every summer
are governed in their preference by social considera-
tions. In the case of Stockbridge, there is super-
added in many instances the love and pride of suc-
cessful descendants of the old village families, who
return to the home of their fathers, to enjoy and
adorn it ; while acquaintanceship, and kindred tastes,
draw after them many to whom life here may prove
as familiar as the landscape is strange.
And this brings me back to another historic spot
on historic old Stockbridge street: the mansion in
which was born, and where lived and wrote, one
whose pen has done more to render Berkshire soil
storied and classic ground than even Bryant's; and
the charm of whose presence has drawn here more
men and women of ^"are mind and character than
CATHEEINE SEDGWICK. 309
have come under any other personal influence:
Catherine Maria Sedgwick.
Miss Sedgwick was born here in 1786. Her
father, Theodore Sedgwick, served with credit in
the Revolutionary war, and won the warm friend-
ship of Gen. Schuyler with whom he had many-
points in common. He was the leader of the Federal
party in Western Massachusetts, which made him
the first representative in Congress from Berkshire,
the first United States Senator from Western Massa-
chusetts, and a Judge of the Supreme Court of the
Commonwealth, in which office he died while attend-
ing court at Boston in 1813. He was a man of
much self-assertion; and in that queer piece of
portraiture, " The Mirror of the Berkshire Bar in
1799," is dashed off as "Duke Ego the Bully."
In the " Shays Rebellion " he was a leader against
the insurgents who handled him roughly and
pillaged his house. He had an intense dread of
popular rule, and held that a Jeffersonian Democrat
was of necessity an enemy of the country. He con-
ceived that there was a great gulf between him and
the people ; yet, in such personal relations as he had
with them, he was benignant and kind. His family
affections were of the warmest and most tender con-
ceivable : a peculiarity which was inherited by all his-
children, and especially by Catherine. All his sons
nevertheless became Democrats, although of the
anti-slavery type. His abilities as a statesman,
although the admiration of his household and his
party, do not appear to have been more than re
810 TAGHCONIC.
spectable, and were exceeded by those of at least
one of his sons — the second Theodore — who, if he
did not, as is probable, first conceive the idea of a
railroad across the forbidding hills of Berkshire, was
at least its ablest early advocate.
Miss Sedgwick's mother was a daughter ef Briga-
dier General Joseph Dwight, who won distinction
as commander of the artillery at the siege of Louis-
burg, and afterwards settled at Stockbridge, as the
trustee of the Mission School. When the county of
Berkshire was established in 1761, he became its
first chief justice of the Common Pleas, and was
thus the head of the provincial magistracy as well as
the military ofiicer of the highest rank in Western
Massachusetts; so that, when his daughter married
young Esquire Sedgwick, she was her husband's
superior in social rank, as well by these considera-
tions as perhaps by family connection otherwise;
just as Miss Abigail Smith as bride outranked the
young lawyer, John Adams, as bridegroom. Lawyers
did not stand very high per se in the social scale of
Provincial times. It required ofiice to lift them.
The Sedgwick family was harmonious and united,
and the strong ties of affection and esteem between
its members were among the chief influences in form-
ing Catherine's character, and shaping her life.
Many of her intense likings and antipathies — not
to say loves and hatreds — were based upon the rela-
tions of men and things to her brothers or sisters:
although it is true that her fine capacity for righteous
india-natioii, ar.d a happy faculty for appreciating
CATHERINE SEDGWICK. 311
the noble in character and intellect, and the right in
morals, generally prevailed in matters of high con-
sideration. And if she exceeded measure in her
praises of what she admired, or in her denunciations
of that which she condemned, that is not without
precedent or apology. Miss Sedgwick was a liberal
of the liberals; and I think you will remark, if
you observe closely, that, so far as words go, there
is no intolerance so unsparing as that of liberalism,
in whatever department of life or morals it may
profess itself.
I do not, however, purpose to discuss Miss Sedg-
wick's life or character at large. All this is merely
passim : being suggested by hearing, the other day,
that " they are getting tired of Sedgwick-worship at
Stockbridge " — which I apprehend can be true only
as to a limited circle: and as to that, I trust, only
refers to disgust with over-weaning and exclusive
consideration, and not to the withholding of high,
grateful and perpetual regard from one to whom it
is grandly due from all Berkshire: one to whom, at
the great Berkshire Jubilee, there was aptly applied
thd scriptural commendation : " Many daughters
have done virtuously; but thou excellest them all ! "
Catherine Sedgwick was a thoroughly Berkshire
woman. Her many virtues, her few foibles, were
all of an intensely Berkshire type; although their
manifestation was sometimes in novel directions; as
when she revolted against Calvinism with the same
boldness and vigor which her Calviuistic ancestry
exhibited m their revolt against popery. She loved
312 TAGHOONIC.
the monntain county with all her heart — loved its
soil, its scenery, its people; and sought its welfare
untiringly. What she has done for its fame, all the
world knows; but what she did to make it better
worthy of fame is not so often told. Yet the good
she effected in mollifying the harsher characteristics
of its people, in softening the asperities of their lives
and opinions, in doing away uncouthness of manner,
in implanting or extending esthetic tastes, and in
similar gentle missions, is beyond estimate.
She resented bitterly the coarse exaggerations of
Mrs. Trollope, and the impertinent criticisms of
Basil Hall regarding Berkshire and American life;
but she knew precisely to what extent they were
founded in fact, and she did what her pen could to
remove that foundation. And her success was great:
one instance may illustrate it. Mrs. Trollope de-
clared that all the bigotry in America was concen-
trated upon the Berkshire Hills. There can be no
doubt that she found a great deal of it here. But
there is as little doubt that it was reasonably miti-
gated when Dr. Channing, the great apostle of
Unitarian ism in America, was able in 1842 to de-
liver his last public discourse in the Othodox Con-
gregational church at Lenox, and when an eloquent
eulogium upon his life and character, written by Miss
Sedgwick, was received with profound feeling and
universal approval by the great throng of Berkshire
people at the Jubilee of 1844. Another incident of
the same occasion shows how the clouds of bigotry
were at that very time lifting from these hills.
CATHERINE SEDGWICK. 313
Macready, the tragedian, recited, at the table,
Leigh Hunt's well known poem, "Abou Ben
Adhem," to express his reciprocity of the feeling
which invited him, an Englishman, to participation
in this peculiarly local festival. And the committee,
of which orthodox Dr. Todd of Pittsfield was chair-
man, did not hesitate to insert it in the printed
record of the occasion, in spite of numerous protests
against so doing on the ground that the poem
placed love of man before love of God. A good
illustration, that, both of what had been, and what
was passing away. And in causing it to pass away,
Miss Sedgwick's writings had a large share.
So, in other directions, was her influence greatly
felt in making the life of Berkshire more genial, as
well as in developing the spirit of its natural beau-
ties. The local popularity of her writings inspired a
more general taste for elegant literature, and asso-
ciated it with what every day met the eye and the
ear. At a later period came her more direct teach-
ings of the good and beautiful in what are termed the
practical virtues. But in the interval she cultivated,
for her people, by precept, by illustration, by con-
spicuous example — by indirect as well as by direct
induction — a love for all that is graceful in life.
The home of such a woman is a spot to attract
the feet of all who love what she loved and taught
so well. It stands — a plain, square, brown, old
fashioned mansion — " somewhat back from the
village street," in the center of broad, level, elm-
314 TAGHCONIC.
shaded grounds. An old green-house — the first, I
believr, in Berkshire — is seen in the court yard;
and reminds us that, among Miss Sedgwick's mani-
fold services to this region, was the introduction of
new varieties of flowering plants and stimulating
the taste for floriculture in many ways. Some of
the flowers and shrubs planted by the hand which
wrote Hope Leslie were growing rank, and seem-
ingly wild, in the old garden in the rear of the
homestead, when I, with u field-meeting party, last
visited it.
Behind the mansion, with a broad strip of rich
meaaow between, winds the blue Housatonic — at
this point some six rods wide. If you cast your
eye westward, up the river, as you pass it on the
Housatonic railroad, you will get a full view of the
old place, and, if it be in summer, in one of its
pleasantest aspects.
Here Miss Sedgwick passed her youth and the
summers of her early womanhood; and under that
roof were written Hope Leslie and her other tales of
peculiarly local interest. By and bye we will follow
her to Lenox. But first we will visit two or three
of the spots to which she gave name and fame. .
With the exception of Monument Mountain there
is no locality in the vicinity of Stockbridge so widely
known as
Icy Glen.
I had long impatiently anticipated a visit to this
celebrated ravine, before I was able to gratify my
ICY GLEN. 315
longing: and now that I have repeated my explora-
tion more than once, I almost as impatiently wait
for the next. It is a deep, narrow gorge cleft
in what is known as Little Mountain, a considerable
hill a little south of the river, whose meadow-banks
here intervene between it and Laurel Hill. The
roughly-wooded sides of the glen descend abruptly
to the base of the mountain, which it completely
penetrates from south to north. The bottom an
eiglith of a mile long — is everywhere thickly cum-
bered by enormous boulders and the great trunks of
fallen trees; all mossy and slippery, all piled in huge
and wild confusion, so as to leave great cavernous
recesses, and an often impeded passage for a brawling
brook.
The air is dank, the shade gloomy and the clam-
bering arduous; so that, while attractive to the point
of fascination for an occasional visit, the gorge is
not a place to invite loitering. But when — after
tumbling and stumbling, climbing and sliding, over
and under, and among, these devil's playthings of
rocks, for a mortal hour — one emerges, just at sunset,
upon the mellow rural scene without, he is prepared
to welcome ecstatically the smiling landscape.
The glen sometimes presents a scene of grotesquely
picturesque delight; when some hundreds of people
with flaming torches and pealing music — and many
of them in fantastic costumes — traverse the ravine
at night in such broken procession as, over that
crazy pathway, they can. In that chasm of imper-
vious shade, it matters little what the moon and
316 TAGHOOiaC.
stars may be doing on their far away rounds: the
red glare of the torches flashes from the rugged
surface of the rocks to the fair faces of the ladies —
ne\cr so fair as in such fitful radiance — and if, in
the uncertain light, some light foot shall slip, the
litlle shriek which announces the disaster, has an
invariable echo of silvery laughter. I remember
well, one night, when our sole music was merry shouts
and ringing laughter, how the mad glen re-echoed
with a thousand Babelish discordances, until our
senses were almost dazed when we came out into
the moonlight that rested upon the dewy meadow
and mist-wreathed river.
It was a queer looking crowd we were: the gilt
paper rent from the cambric-clad cavaliers and their
glittering tin spear-heads bent with frequent service
as climbing staffs; the spangled fairies in still more
dismal plight; the phantoms with their ghastly
robes in tatters; and all sorts of all possible and im-
possible characters in sore disorder.
Yet each and all could soothly swear.
No merrier troop ere rarubled there.
There are four lakes in the township of Stock-
bridge, but at some little distance from the village:
Mahkeenac, Averic, Mohawk and Agawam. All are
very lovely; but we will, for the present, confine
ourselves to that which they now call Mahkeenac,
on the authority of an old Indian who came back
from the west some years ago to insist that this was
its Mohegan name: meaning The Great Water. But
STOCKBKIDGE BOWL. 317
as Mahkeenac won't work into poetry, nor very well
into prose, and as our Indian friend did not seem to
be perfect in the grammar of his own language, I
prefer the designation given by Miss Sedgwick;
The Stockbridge Bowl.
This lake, which lies on the road between Lenox
and Stockbridge, one of the most charming in the
whole county — is a mile and a half long, and by
many is thought to be the most beautiful sheet of
water in Massachusetts. I have intimated a mo-
derate dissent from that opinion; but however it
may be as to that, there can be no doubt that it is
the most famous. Celebrated by the loving pens
of Miss Sedgwick and Mrs. Sigourney, it has long
had associations which our northern lakes lack.
And, later, another and higher honor, has fallen to
it: in that on its northern shore, ISTathaniel Hawthorne
lived, while he wrote the " House of the Seven
Gables," and the " Blithedale Romance." His home
was a little red, scantily furnished cottage, loaned
him by an admirer. Notwithstanding the success
of the Scarlet Letter, his pecuniary means were still
slender; but I suspect that the years passed here
were among the happiest of his life. I am told that
he honored the mountain and the lake with far more
of his attention than he bestowed upon his other
neighbors. Herman Melville, at Pittsfield, Mr. W.
A. Tappan at Lenox, and J. P. R. James, the Eng-
lish novelist, who then resided at Stockbridge, were
among his friends; but, for the most part, he lived
818 TAGHCONIC.
in great seclusion. One is not much surprised to
learn that the creator of Hester Prynne, and Little
Pearl, Zenobia and the Pynchons, did not find his
highest pleasure in the chit-chat of fashionable circles,
or even in literary coteries. Nor need it surprise us
that a touch of melancholy, or even at times seem-
ing moroseness, tinged his manner. The knowledge
of the soul's anatomist is that which " by suffering
entereth in."
But that Mr. Hawthorne's heart was warm and
tender, I am well assured by more than one circum-
stance, w^hich I do not know that I am at liberty to
recall here. But there can be no wrong in men-
tioning the origin, as I have heard it, of the brotherly
friendship which existed between him and Herman
Melville. As the story was told to me, Mr. Haw-
thorne was aware that Melville was the author of a
very appreciative review of the Scarlet Letter, which
appeared in the Literary World, edited by their
common friends, the Duyckincks; but this very
knowledge, perhaps, kept two very sensitive men
shy of each other, although thrown into company.
But one day it chanced that when they were out on
a pic-nic excursion, the two were compelled by a
thunder-shower to take shelter in a narrow recess of
the rocks of Monument Mountain. Two hours of
this enforced intercourse settled the matter. They
learned so much of each other's character, and found
that they held so much of thought, feeling and
opinion in common, that the most intimate friendship
for the future was inevitable.
STOCKBRIDGE BOWL. 319
I have heard of another odd interview with Haw-
thorne. A lady from a distant state had expressed
an intense desire to meet the great author, and.it
was arranged that her wish should be gratified at a
Pittsfield dinner table; she not at all anticipating
that he would know her feeling. But it seems that
some friend, with a turn for teasing, apprised him
of it; and as they were sitting down at the board
opposite to each other, an expressive glance from
the tell-tale made known to the lady that her secret
had been exposed. The result was that two pairs
of remarkably fine eyes were very unquiet and that
tTvo uneasy people had their dinners spoiled. But
I dare say that the appearance of the wine restored
ease.
They are beginning to appreciate the honor con-
ferred upon the county by Mr. Hawthorne's residence
in it; and now have treasured up in the historical
museum of the* Athenaeum at Pittsfield, the desk
upon which he wrote the House of the Seven Gables,
The Blithedale Romance, and probably other works.
It is a plain, solid, handsome piece of mahagony
furniture, with an abundance of drawers, and seems
exceedingly well adapted to novelist's work. It has
a host of visitors.
But we have been drawn far away from Stock-
bridge and its lakes. Let us return, and sing in the
praise of Mahkeenac, if you still insist upon calling
it by the name which appears upon the map, the
verses composed in its honor by Mrs. Lydia H
Sigourney, and read at the Berkshire Jubilee:
820 taghco^tic.
Thb Stockbridgb Bowl.
The Stockbridge Bowl ! Ha8t ever seen
How sweetly pure and bright,
Its foot of stone and rim of green
Attract the traveller's sight ?
High set among the breezy hills
Where spotless marble glows,
It takes the tribute of the rills
Distilled from mountain snows.
You've seen, perchance, the classic vase
At Adrian's villa found,
The grape-vines that its handles chase
And twine its rim around.
But thousands such as that which boastB
The Roman's name to keep,
Might in this Stockbridge bowl be lost
Like pebbles in the deep.
It yields no sparkling draughts of fire
To mock the madden'd brain, .
As that which warmed Anacreon's lyre
Amid the Tei n plain —
But freely, with a right good will
Imparts its fountain store,
Whose heaven replenished crystal still
Can wearied toil restore.
The Indian hunter knew its power.
And oft its praises spoke,
Long er;" the white man's stranger plow
These western vail ys broke.
The panting deer that, wild with pain,
From his pursuers stole,
Inhaled new life to every vein
From this same Stockbridge bowl.
STOCK BKIDGK ROWL. 321
And many a son of Berkshire skies,
Those men of noble birth.
Though now perchance their roof may riae
In far or foreign earth,
Shall on tliis well-remembered vase
With thrilling bosom gaze.
And o'er its mirrored surface trace
The joys of earlier days.
But one that with a spirit glance
That moved her country's heart.
And ba !e from dim oblivious trance
Poor Maga waska start,
Hath won a fame whose blossoms raw
Shall fear no blighting sky.
Whose lustrous leaf be fresh and fair
When Stockbridge Bowl is dry.
xxn.
MAHAIWE.
' Here I have scaped the city's stifling heat,
Its horrid sounds and its polluted air ;
And, where the season's milder fervors beat.
And gales, that sweep the forest-borders, bear
The song of bird and sound of running stream,
Am come awhile to wander and to dream,
Ay, tiame thy fiercest, sun ! thou canst not wake.
In this pure air, the plague that walks unseen.
The maize-leaf and the maple bough but take,
From thy strong eats, a deeper, glossier green.
The mountain wind, that faints not in thy ray.
Sweeps the blue steams of pestilence away." —
I think I will escort you, this brilliant morning,
to a region worthy of the golden est sunlight that
ever came from Heaven's alchemy — down that
Washington Street of railroads, the tortuous Housa-
tonic, to Great Barrington, the greatly beautiful
early home and foster-mother of Bryant's genius.
Henry Ward Beecher extols without measure the
scenery which borders the Housatonic railroad,
particularly between Bridgeport and Lenox — being
careful to exclude from his commendation the little
MAHAIWE. 323
four miles above what was his home. And it is worthy
of ecstatic admiration. Still I think it clearly sur-
passed by that through which the Boston and Albany
road passes between the Connecticut and Hudson
rivers; especially in the magnificent gorges between
Chester and Washington. I know of no route, rail
or highway, which excels this; except possibly the
famous old Stage road over the Iloosac Mountain
between Deerfield and North Adams; the same
which iilled Henry Clay with such amazed delight,
when he passed over it fifty years ago on his visit
to Berkshire and his friend Henry Shaw.
Between Pittsfield and Westfield, the Boston and
Albany Railroad follows substantially the old Indian
trail — Unkamet's Path. Early surveyors and gov-
ernment messengers made great use of it; and
tradition asserts that one or tw^o adventurous and
spirited women traversed it. The faithful old guide,
from whom it took its name, lived near the railroad
crossing of the east branch of the Housatonic river
in Pittsfield, and has left it also attached to a brook
and a meadow in that vicinity, where a street has
also received the same designation.
But the Boston and Albany railroad will never
take us to Great Barrington. We might, however,
drive thither — twenty-one miles — through Lenox
and Stockbridge. If we did so we should find
scenery rivalling that on either of the routes which
I have mentioned, here or elsewhere It is certainly
richer in the tokens of wealth, as well as in his-
torical and personal associations. A host of notable
324 TAGHcojsrio.
critics firmly hold that it is easily first of all in
Berkshire. But, that we may sooner reach Great
Barrington, where we shall find natural beauty to
satiety, we will adhere to our purpose of going by
the Housatonic railroad, which, for its many ex-
cellencies, is a sort of pet, here.
We might, however, pause a long while, on our
way, at the fine town of Lee, the widely famed seat
of the paper manufacture, and also of the great
quarries of white marble from which the grand ex-
tension of the Capitol at "Washington was built, as
well as many other noted structures. The marble
of Berkshire extends through the whole length of
the county, and some of it, particularly that of Lee,
Sheflield, North Adams, and West Stockbridge, is in
the highest repute as building-stone. The remarka-
ble dark blue compact limestone of Great Barrington,
of which the uniquely beautiful Athenaeum at
Pittsfield is built, is not properly a marble. You
may see it in place at Mount Petra, whose picturesque
little rocky knoll, near the main street of Great
Barrington, Dr. Clarkson T. Collins has set apart
for the pleasure of the public. And a nice place it
is from which to obtain a view of the grand old
street and other pleasant prospects. But we are not
yet at Great Barrington.
The marble quarries of Lee, interesting to every
intelligent visitor, afford a most inviting field to the
mineralogist, although, I believe, the old deposit of
the much sought bladed tremolite is exhausted.
Fern Cliff, which holds the place in Lee which
MAHAIWE. 325
Laurel Hill does in Stockbridge, is a handsome emi-
nence near the village. I passed a pleasant May morn-
ing there once, and gathered a fine collection of large
and rare mosses. But the pride of Lee's romantic
scenery is Laurel Lake, a much prized sheet of water,
nearly a mile long, which lies on the border of
Lenox, a mile and a half from Lee Park, and at the
head of a precipitous mountain-stream thickly
studded with busy paper-mills. It is proof of the pro-
fusion of splendid scenery in Berkshire that it is
only through a recent introduction by the late Rev.
Dr. Gale, that the merits of this fine lake with its
pleasant surroundings haxe obtained general re-
cognition. It seems not likely now to fall into ne-
glect again.
A great deal of the romance of reality might be
wrought out, not only from the secluded haunts of
Lee, but from its peculiar material resources and in-
dustries; and that without any exhaustive brain-
work. But it occurs to me at this moment that we
are bound for Great Barrington, where we shall find
romance ready made, to our hands: and so much of
it that we must confine ourselves chiefly to that
which arises from the life and work there of Berk-
shire's great poet. Berkshire's poet: for if Mr.
Bryant's birthplace was not in the county of Berk-
shire, it was on the Berkshire Hills — a region whose
bounds were fixed by a wiser and mightier power
than that which defines county lines. It was in a
Berkshire college that he was educated, so far as such
minds receive their education from colleges; and it
28
326 ■ TAGHCONIC.
was in one of the loveliest of Berkshire towns that
he passed his choicest years — those in which some
of his best work was done, and during which his
fame became national, or more: the culminating
years of " a youth sublime."
I have already quoted from his own account of
his introduction in 1816 — when he removed to
Great Barrington — to that fair region with which
his name was forever to be inseparably connected,
and over which he has thrown an imperishable charm.
It cannot be said that the scenery of Southern
Berkshire inspired Mr. Bryant with that intense love
of nature which informs the best of his poems. That
had already been awakened by the scenes among
which his boyhood was passed, and strengthened by
the majestic hills and romantic valleys by which
Williams College is surrounded. These had been
the nurses of his infant thought, and the tutors of
his youthful imagination: they, with Shakespeare,
Spenser and Milton for text-books — nay, with
Homer and Virgil also.
But Southern Berkshire furnished the already
ripened poet of nature with fitting themes in abund-
ance, and fitting accessories of tradition for his
faithful portraiture of landscape: the Mohegan at
the burial place of his father; the maiden of Monu-
ment Mountain ; the murdered traveller of the lonely-
glen between old and West Stockbridge.
It may be pleasant, as well, for youthful lovers
who wander under the noble elms which give so
fine a charm to Great Barrington streets, or on the
MAHAIWE. 327
willow-shaded brink of the Housatonic, the Green
river or other of the frequent streams, to remember
that here was the scene of the poet's wooing; that,
perhaps under the very branches which over-hang
them, or on the same verdant bank where they sit
by the brook-side, William Cullen Bryant first read
from the manuscript, to her who was afterwards his
bride, some of those pleasant poems they now delight
to read together there. Does it not, my young
friends, add to your own joy in so reading Mr.
Bryant's verses, to think that he may have thus
read them on this very spot more than fifty years
ago ?
During Mr. Bryant's residence in Great Barring-
ton — from 1816 to 1825 — only a small portion of
his time, comparatively, was given to letters. He
took a creditable part in the affairs of the town, of
which he was clerk from 1820 to 1825. In 1818 he
delivered the address at the first anniversary of the
town Bible Society. He was an ardent politician
of the Federal school, and in the old files of the
county newspapers, we often find his name as secre-
tary or committeeman of party meetings. He was
an active, learned and rather fiery young lawyer,
with more practice than usually fell to the lot of
men of his age at that period. He might have be-
come distinguished, could he have overcome his
disgust with a profession in which — in his day-
much more than at present — law was not synony-
mous with justice. Finally he struck upon an ex-
perience which, if the well supported tradition of
328 TAGHCONIC.
the Berkshire bar can be trusted, was so intolerable
that he relinquished practice altogether. The case —
" Grotius Bloss vs. Augustus Tobey of Alford " is
recorded in the 2d volume of " Pickering's Reports."
Mr. Bryant lost his case through a mere technical
omission in his declaration which did not in the
slightest obscure its meaning. That his client's
cause Avas just, the court admitted practically; Chief
Justice Parsons prefacing the adverse decision by
remarking: "It is with great regret, and not with-
out much labor and research to avoid this result,
that we are obliged to arrest judgment."
Mr Bryant's just indignation against an adminis-
tration of the law which compelled its servants to
do acknowledged wrong to those who sought justice
in its highest state tribunal made him ready to
seek a more congenial pursuit at the first opportunity.
The famous first cattle-show of the Berkshire
Agricultural Society at Pittsfield occurred during
his junior year in Williams College, and strongly
impressed his susceptible youth. He continued the
warm friend of the institution, and wrote two odes
for its anniversaries. One, which was sung in 1820,
is included in his published poems, and commences
with the lines,
" Far back in the ages
The plough with wreaths was crowned."
The second, sung in 1823, seems equally worthy
of preservation, and is as follows:
Since last our vales tliese rites admir'd,
Another year has come and flown,
MAHAIWE. 320
But where her ro.^y steps retir'd.
Has left her gifts profusely strown.
No killing frost on germ or flower,
To blast the hopes of spring, was nigh ;
No wrath condens'd the ceaseless shower,
Or seal'd the fountains of the sky.
But kindly suns and gentle rains,
And liberal dews and airs of health,
Rear'd the large harvests of the plains,
And nursed the meadow's fragrant wealth.
As if the indulgent power who laid,
On man the great command to toil,
Well-pleased to see that law obeyed.
Had touched, in love, the teeming soil.
And here, while autumn wanders pale
Beneath the fading forest shade.
Gather *d from many a height and vale.
The bounties of the year are laid.
Here toil, whom oft the setting sun
Has seen at his protracted task,
Demands the palm his patience won,
And art has come his wreath to ask.
Well may the hymn of victory flow,
And mingle with the voice of mirth.
While here are spread the spoils that show
Our triumphs o'er reluctant earth.
Of the spots in Berkshire to which Bryant's pen
has given fame, the most noted is Monument Moun-
tain, which rises near the higliway between Great
Barrington and Stockhridge; being within the for-
mer towji, but considerably nearer to the village in
330 TAGHCONIC.
the latter. No description of it could be more pre-
cise than that given in Bryant's poem :
" There is a precipice
That seems a frat/ineut of some mighty wall,
Built by the hand that fashioned the old world
To separate its nations, and thrown down
When ^he flood drowned them. To the north, a path
Conducts you up the narrow battlement.
Steep is the western side, shaggy and wild
With mossy trees, and pinnacles of flint,
And many a hanging cr^g. But, to the east,
Sheer to the vale, go down the bare old cliffs. —
Huge pillars that in middle heaven upbear
Their weather-beaten capitals, here dark
With the thick moss of centuries, and there
Of chalky whiteness where the thunderbolt hath splintered
them."
The mountain has an elevation of five hundred feet
above Stockbridge Plain, or twelve hundred and
sixty above the sea level. The cliffs rise perhaps
four hundred and fifty feet, perpendicularly or a
little beetling at the top. Their face is slightly
curved inward and their height gradually decreases
to the south. At their foot immense piles of angular
flinty fragments, which have fallen in the course of
ages, are heaped up in confusion; and a detached
pinnacle, known as the Pulpit Rock, together with
a few other grotesquely shaped crags, relieve the
uniformity of the grey old wall. The pulpit is after
the tall old fashioned type which made the attentive
cono-reo-ation look like a crowd at a balloon ascension.
Cliff nnd fragment, and isolated crag are all formed
of compact granular quartz — technically " quart-
MAHAIWE. 331
zite " — the same mineral which, further north when
disintegrated by some process known only to nature,
becomes the silicious sand of commerce. Rumor of
this fact had reached the glass-makers, and I was
sent to see what could be made of it: so that my
first visit to this old poetic mountain was not for the
most poetic of purposes. No matter: it is quite easy
to weave a little sentiment into any excursion to a
place like this.
The precipice extends northward to about the
middle of the mountain, where it disappears, al-
though ^the hillside continues very abrupt. The
geological character of the rock also changes, if my
slight observations were correct, to mica-schist. At
the junction rises the path mentioned in the poem,
and by which I reached the summit. In its track,
I found some pretty crystals of black tourmaline.
Climbing this ascent, which is quite difficult enough
to give a zest to it, I bent my head dizzily over the
abyss.
' ' It is a fearful thing
To stand upon the beetling verge, and see
Where storm and lightning, from that huge gray wall.
Have tumbled down vast blocks, and at the base
Dashed them in fragments ; and to lay thine ear
Over the dizzy depth, and hear the sound
Of winds, that struggle with the woods below.
Come up like ocean murmurs."
The summit commands a noble prospect :
" The scene
Is lovely round ; a beautiful river there
Wanders amid the fresh and fertile meads.
332 TAGHCONIO.
The paradise he made unto himself,
Mining the soil for ages. On each side
The fields swell upward to the hills ; beyond.
Above the hills, in the blue distance, rise
The miohty columns with which earth props heaven.**
The scene is fair to look upon, but I confess, that,
after the mountain and its immediate surroundings,'
I was most interested in peering down to its base at
a black speck, which my guide assured me was G,
P. R. James, the novelist, who then thought of
building a residence there, and was at that moment
engaged in investigations as to the probabilities of
clarifying a muddy pond. When I used, in school-
time, to steal the moments due to drier studies to
peruse, in the old " National Reader," the poem of
Monument Mountain, with
" Its sad tradition of unhappy love,
And sorrows borne and ended long ago,"
I little dreamed that I should ever stand at its base
in the glorious light of a Berkshire morning to com-
pute the marketable value of its "bare old cliifs;"
and quite as little that I should look down from its
summit upon the wizard — a wizard still, though
years brought disenchantment to me — whose crea-
tions seemed to my boyhood, quite as marvelous as
those of Walter Scott. Ah, happy period of child-
hood's indiscriminating enjoyment: what an appetite
I must have had !
The pile of loose stones which led to Bryant's
poem, and gave name to the mountain, was destroyed
in waiitonuess or idle curiosity many years ago. I
MAHAIWE. . 333
have been told that the pious contributions of visit-
ors — who adopt the Indian custom of casting a
stone upon it as they pass — have restored it. I did
not see it; for my guide, a very literal person, in-
sisted that there was no monument, nor ever had
been. In fact the hard-headed Yankee had very
little respect for the romancings of Kate Sedgwick
and Cullen Bryant, as he somewhat familiarly de-
signated two distinguished personages.
Green River, which Mr. Bryant seems to have
taken to his heart with the fullness of poetic affec-
tion, has its fountain among the rocky hills of Aus-
terlitz, New York; passes through the fine pastoral
country of Alford and Egremont, and across the richer
agricultural section of Great Barrington, until it
joins the Housatonic near the Sheflleld border. It
was a favorite stream with the Mohegans. The
green tint from which it takes its name is communi-
cated by a peculiar clay of which some portion of
its banks is composed. Mr. Bryant intimates that
it was the favorite haunt of his leisure:
" When breezes are soft and skies are fair,
I steal an hour from study and care,
And hie me away to he woodland scene,
Where wanders the stream with waters of green,
As if the bright fringe of herbs on its brink
Had given their stain to tlie wave they drink ;
And they whose meadows it murmurs through
Have named the stream from its own fair hue."
* Yet pure its waters — its shallows are bright
With colored pebbles and sparkles of light,
And clear the depths where its eddies play.
334 TAGHCONIC.
And dimples deepen and wliirl away,
And the plane-tree's speckled arms o'er-slioot
The swifter current that mines its root,
Through whose shifting leaves, as you walk the hill,
The quivering glimmer of sun and rill
With a sudden flash on the eye is thrown,
Like the ray that streams from the diamond stone.
Oh, loveliest there the spring days come,
With blossoms, and birds, and wild-bee's hum;
The flowers of summer are fairest there,
And freshest the breath of the summer air ;
And sweetest the golden autumn day
In silence and sunshine glides away."
*' Yet, fair as thou art, thou shunnest to glide,
B^auL.ial stream! by the village side ;
But windest away from haunts of men.
To quiet valley and shaded glen ;
And forest, and meadow, and slope of hill.
Around thee, are lonely, and lovely, and stilL
Lonely — save when, by thy rippling tides,
From thicket to thicket the angler glides ;
Or the simpler comes, with basket and book.
For herbs of power on thy banks to look ;
Or, haply, some idle dreamer, like me,
To wander and muse, and gaze on thee.
Still — save the chirp of birds that feed
On the river-cherry, and seedy reed,
And thy own wild music gushing out
With mellow murmur and fairy shout,
From dawn to the blush of another day,
like traveller singing along its way/'
There ! I positively will not disturb that exqmsite
picture.
You will find much of Mr. Bryant's poetry — not
only of his earlier but of his later years, colored by
MAHAIWE. 335
the scenes among which he lived while a lawyer at
Great Barrington; and one finds it an interesting
and agreeable study to wander through those scenes,
with his volume in hand, and compare the one with
the other. I am sure you cannot but enjoy taking
with him " A Walk at Sunset; " deciphering by the
aid of book or memory, the Inscription at the En-
trance of a Wood; tracing " The Rivulet; " gathering
" The Yellow Violet " and the Fringed Gentian, and
joining in all his rural pleasures.
In dwelling thus upon the scenes -in C!-reat Bar-
rington which have been illustrated by the genius
of Bryant, I do not mean to intimate that there are
none 'of merit which he left unsung. The village,
which since his day has grown to a large and hand-
some town, has characteristic charms beside those of
its noted elnis, in the graceful irregularity of its
streets, in some fine and tasteful buildings, and a
general mingling of the pleasant features of town
and country. There are other gentle streams to
wander by, besides Green River, and majestc hills
besides Monument Mountain.
Great Barrington is also an old historic town.
It was the north parish of Sheffield, the first settled
town in the county, and when incorporated it was
the first shire- town of Berkshire. The Indian
mission was first established here. Here, first in
Massachusetts, the King's Courts were over-thrown
by the people in May 1774, with such results of
kindling feeling that General Gage wrote home to
his government, " A flame has sprung up at the ex-
836 TAGHCONIC.
tremity of the Province "— " The popular rage is
very high in Berkshire, and makes its way rapidly to
the rest." Here also the greatly erring but also
greatly wronged Shays rebels obstructed the Courts
of Commonwealth; and. on the borders of the town
they met their final defeat.
xxra.
TOWN, COLLEGE AND SPA .
Ages and climes remote to thee impart
What charms in genius and refines in art ;
Thee in whose hands the keys of science dwell,
The pensive portress of her holy cell;
Whose constant vigils chase the chilling damp
Oblivion steals upon her vestal lamp.
They iu their glorious course^ the guides of youth.
Whose language breathed the eloquence of truth;
Whose life, beyond preceptive wisdom, taught
The great in conduct and the pure in thought. —
Pleasures of Memory,
My first visit to Willi amstown was made in the
company of Samuel Bowles. It was in the days
when Mr. Bowles did some of the best reporting for
his own journal personally; and he was on his way
to the commencement at Williams College, an in-
stitution to which he gave love and honor such as
he did not scatter wastefully, and whose faculty
well appreciated his friendship. I was bound upon
a similar errand, and intended to go by railroad and
stage through North Adams, but Mr. Bowles would
not hear of that route; and insisted upon a drive up
the valleys of Lanesboro' and Williamstowii, and
29
338 TAGHCONIC.
over the ridge of hills at New Ashford, which he
pronounced the most enjoyable ride possible. I
was glad enough to accede to the proposal, and we
started at the early dawn of the most delicious of
summer mornings.
The drive was all that had been promised of it.
My companion, relieved for a time from his ex-
haustive journalistic work, was in the height of
life and spirits, and descanted upon the scenes
through which we passed with all that enthusiasm
and those quick perceptive powers which, in after
days, rendered his stories of travel across the conti-
nent so wonderfully attractive: and perhaps with
even more abandon^ and freshness of feeling. He
seemed aH alive with the spirit of the morning.
Nothing escaped his glance, from the mist-wreaths
on the surface of Pontoosuc lake and the butter-
flies that fluttered about our path, to the contours
of the Greylock group which seemed to change inces-
santly as we approached and rode along its base.
After these many years, I recall perfectly the kindling
of his fine eye, and the rich tone of his voice, as he
pointed out one striking picture after another. He
fairly joyed in the morning glories of the lake; but
reserved his most ecstatic praises for the lovely
valley in which lies the village of South Williams-
town.
By the road-side in the north part of Lanesooro' is
a little grove, long familiar to myself and other lovers
of pic-nic. The river murmurs gently through a
trreen and level space; there are grey old rocks and
WILLIAMSTOWN. 339
mossy trees; and, when we passed it, a broken
table, a dismantled bower, and other relics of recent
revelry, elicited from Mr. Bowles quaint and genial
comment that showed his hearty sympathy in tlie
simple pleasures they gave token of. Again, he
drew rein long, to admire the nice grouping of
bosky woods and single trees on a sunny hill-side.
But to tell of half the pleasant things of that July
morning ride would tire you in the reading, fleetly
as they passed in the riding.
Mr. Bowles's fondness for this region was further
exemplified the next morning when, in full view of
the laborious day before us, he was up at day-
break for a two mile walk to the Sand-Springs —
the present site of Greylock Hall. I have a theory
that, to fully enjoy sunrise views, they should not
be taken in too quick succession, and I kept to my
theory and my bed. But the vigorous early-riser
came back at breakfast-time all aglow with such
descriptive eloquence that to this day I have not for-
given myself that ill-timed indolence.
In some of his despondent moments of discourage-
ment or disgust with political affairs in those
years, Mr. Bowles often spoke of relinquishing
his interest in a daily newspaper, and retiring to
the charge of a weekly journal in Berkshire.
Whether he ever seriously contemplated so great
a change, or it was a mere passing fancy, I do not
know; but I hear that he gave much of his most
arduous and most loving work to the weekly edition
of his own paper: and he certainly had a warm
840 TAGHCONIC.
liking for Berkshire. Angels perhaps, better than
men, may judge whether it would have been well
for him to yield to that mood of longing for a quiet
life, rather than, by the tremendous intellectual
pressure which he finally chose, to condense the
alloted three-score-years-and-ten of man's growth
and effort into little more than fifty of measured
time. For him, however, it may be that no other
result was possible than that which came: no other
choice than that he made.
The impression of Williamstown gained under
the pleasant circumstances which attended my first
visit, was of an old-fashioned, quiet, uniquely beauti-
ful village. It had at that time little to boast in the
way of architecture; but, I do not know how it is,
it seems to me that, make your college edifices as
ugly as you can — and the old architects had im-
mense capacities in that direction — still, if you
plant them, with reasonable surroundings of fine
trees in a pretty New England town, they soon
acquire a classic and tranquil air wh^ch goes far to
mollify the exasj)erating effect of brick-red and
right-angles upon sensitive nerves. I remember
that the tumble-down, cheap, old wooden chapel of a
certain salt-water down-east college had an awe-
inspiring asj^ect in my boyish eyes, which I fail to
find intensified by the granite and gothic piles which
have supplanted it: and I have a similar experience
with Williamstown in its new architectural estate.
Nevertheless the imj^rovements both in town and
college, have been made with such unexceptionable
WILLIAMSTOWN. 341
good taste that the result has been a genuine growth
in beauty, until Williamstown has come to rival
Stockbridge as the model village of New England.
Its appearance from within is peculiar — unique so
far as I have knowledge — which comes chiefly from
a singular and very artistic unity of arrangement.
It is in effect a broad park, of perhaps a mile in
length, subdivided into shapely plots and wide un-
fenced court-yards of verdant turf, with shaded
avenues between: and all compassed within a rim
of college edifices, churches, hotels, private dwellings
and business structures; while, on the moderate
elevations to which the ground rises towards the
western extremity, a church, two or three college
buildings, and a soldier's monument surmounted by a
statue, stand out in bold relief. There are some
pieces of exceedingly creditable and pleasing — even
of striking — architecture. The scrupulous care
with which the village society, modelled on the
Laurel Hill Association, keeps every thing in exact
order, as well as the perfection of grass, flower and
foliage everywhere maintained, increase the attrac-
tiveness of the scene. But the characterizing
element is the unity and harmony of plan which
seems to embrace at once town and college, and to
have its counterpart in the life of those who dwell
in that charmed circle.
Outside of itself, Williamstown has another pecu-
liarity of landscape, as a college town, in the near
neighborhood of Greylock^and other mighty hills.
Our down-east friends will have their badinage at
342 TAGHCONIC.
"Fresh-water colleges." But what to the student is
the ocean, whose ordinary acquaintance he makes
through the fragrant medium of the Back-Bay —
his more familiar intercourse being confined to sea
sickness on brief holiday excursions — what, for a
neighbor to the languid student, is this moody old
sea, oftenest making his august presence known by
the heralding of east winds and slimy odors, com-
pared with the mighty mountain shapes, which greet
his eye with every rising sun, and send him health
and vigor in every breeze.
Thoreau recognized the strength of the hills;
writing, thus, from the top of the tower which
