As you mount the hill and leave the Hudson, you enter the beautiful region of hills, lake and streams, upon which the city of New York long depended for its water; and you will be interested in comparing what New York has accomplished in this connection with what has been done by other great cities, as described in the article Water Supply (Vol. 28, p. 387), by G. F. Deacon. Many of the large country places you pass are the property of prominent New York men, of whom there are biographies in the Britannica.
Your brief run through the hilly northwestern corner of Connecticut, of which the physical features are described and the history narrated in the article Connecticut (Vol. 6, p. 951), takes you through Salisbury (Vol. 24, p. 78), near Bear Mountain (2355 feet), “the highest point in the State.” A few miles more and you cross the line into Massachusetts and enter the enchanting region of the Berkshire Hills. The article Massachusetts (Vol. 17, p. 851) says that “the Berkshire country—Berkshire, Hampden, Hampshire and Franklin counties—is among the most beautiful regions of the United States. It is a rolling highland, dominated by long, wooded hill-ridges, remarkably even-topped in general elevation, intersected and broken by deep valleys. Scores of charming lakes lie in the hollows.”
Great Barrington
Great Barrington (Vol. 12, p. 397) “was a centre of disaffection during Shays’s Rebellion,” an episode for which you may consult the article Daniel Shays (Vol. 24, p. 815), and the account in the historical section of the article Massachusetts (Vol. 17, p. 860). In 1786 Shays was known as having been “a brave Revolutionary captain of no special personal importance.” The State finances were in a bad condition and taxes were heavy. Mobs of discontented citizens, under Shays’s leadership, assembled to prevent the courts from sitting, so that the collection of taxes and other debts might be obstructed. “The insurrection is regarded as having been very potent in preparing public opinion throughout the country for the adoption of a stronger national government.” William Cullen Bryant (Vol. 4, p. 698), “earliest of the master-poets of America,” practiced law at Great Barrington for nine years.
Stockbridge
Leaving Great Barrington, you cross Monument Mountain (1710 feet) on your way to Stockbridge (Vol. 25, p. 929) with its famous avenue of elms—perhaps the most characteristic New England scene in all the Berkshire country. The conspicuous bell-tower was erected by David Dudley Field (Vol. 10, p. 321), the law reformer, whose proposed code of laws for the State of New York was the model on which most of the existing state codes have been based. The park was the gift of his brother, Cyrus W. Field (Vol. 10, p. 320), born at Stockbridge, to whom we owe the first Atlantic cable. In 1834, at the age of 15, he became a clerk in the great New York store described in the article A. T. Stewart (Vol. 25, p. 912); later embarked in the wholesale paper business in New York, failed, formed the firm of Cyrus W. Field & Co., and in 1853, at the age of 34, had made a quarter of a million, a large fortune in those days, paid off the debts of the paper business, and nominally retired. From that time he was chiefly occupied with the cable scheme, of which the early difficulties are described in the cable section of the article Telegraph (Vol. 26, p. 527), although he operated actively in stocks, was associated with Jay Gould (Vol. 12, p. 284) in completing the Wabash Railroad, and had a controlling interest in the New York Elevated Railroad, besides being chief proprietor of the New York Mail and Express.
When, in 1750, Jonathan Edwards (Vol. 9, p. 3), the famous New England theologian, had to leave his church at Northampton, he became pastor at Stockbridge and missionary to the Housatonic Indians, remaining there until 1759. It was there that he wrote his famous treatise on the Freedom of the Will. In a cleft on Bear Mountain, just outside the village, is the curious Ice Glen, with caverns ice-lined even in midsummer.
Lenox
On the road from Stockbridge to Lenox you pass the beautiful lake called the Stockbridge Bowl, on the shore of which Nathaniel Hawthorne, in 1851, wrote The House of the Seven Gables. His reason for adopting literature as a vocation is quaintly stated in a letter to his mother quoted in this Britannica biography. “I do not want to be a doctor and live by men’s diseases, nor a minister to live by their sins, nor a lawyer and live by their quarrels. So I don’t see that there is anything left for me but to be an author.” Lenox (Vol. 16, p. 421) is surrounded by high hills, famous for their vivid coloring when the leaves change their hues in the fall, Yokun Seat (2080 feet), South Mountain (1200 feet), Bald Head (1583 feet) and Rattlesnake Hill (1540 feet). “The surrounding region contains some of the most beautiful country of the Berkshires—hills, lakes, charming intervales and woods. As early as 1835 Lenox began to attract summer residents. In the next decade began the creation of large estates, although the great holdings of the present day, and the villas scattered over the hills, are comparatively recent features.” The township was named after the third Duke of Richmond and Lennox (Vol. 23, p. 307), “a firm supporter of the colonies in the debates on the policy that led to the War of American Independence; and he initiated the debate of 1778 calling for the removal of the troops from America.”
Among other names associated with Lenox and with its famous schools are those of the actress Frances Kemble—“Fanny” Kemble (Vol. 15, p. 724); Henry Ward Beecher (Vol. 3, p. 639); Harriet Hosmer (Vol. 13, p. 791), the sculptor; Mark Hopkins (Vol. 13, p. 684), the famous president of Williams College; Alexander H. Stephens (Vol. 25, p. 887), vice-president of the Confederate States, who, the article Confederate States of America (Vol. 6, p. 899), says, was “during the war a strong antagonist of President Davis’s policy;” and William H. Yancey (Vol. 28, p. 902), whose fortunes were influenced by a singular event. A lawyer, and editor of a little anti-nullification weekly in South Carolina, he married a wealthy woman; but a few years later, in 1839, the accidental poisoning of all the slaves on the estate forced him to return to the law; and he subsequently became one of the political leaders of the Confederacy.