At Springfield the Agawam River flows from the westward into the Connecticut, and along its broad bordering meadows comes the Boston and Albany Railroad. This is one of the Vanderbilt lines, crossing Massachusetts from the Berkshires to Boston, and it was among the earliest railways built in New England, being in construction from 1833 to 1842. The project while zealously pushed was then generally derided as chimerical, the Boston Courier of that time saying the road could only be built at "an expense of little less than the market value of the whole territory of Massachusetts, and, if practicable, every person of common sense knows it would be as useless as a railroad from Boston to the moon." Yet it was built, and prospered so much that, to break its profitable monopoly, Massachusetts had afterwards to bore the costly Hoosac Tunnel on the only available route, to provide a competing line. The railroad climbs up the Taghkanic range from the Hudson River Valley, crosses the Berkshire Hills, going through Pittsfield and over Hoosac Mountain at an elevation of fourteen hundred and fifty feet, then coming down a wild and picturesque defile made by a mountain brook flowing into Westfield River, which in turn flows into the Agawam. It is a route of magnificent scenery, gradually leading from a mountain gorge to a broadening intervale, where it passes the fertile Indian domain of Woronoco and the pleasant town of Westfield, noted for its whips and cigars. Then the winding reaches of the Agawam lead through broad meadows and past many mills to Springfield. The various streams around the Armory City, like so much of the clear waters elsewhere in Massachusetts, are largely devoted to paper-making, and eastward from Springfield the railroad ascends the valley of the swift-flowing Chicopee, meaning the "large spring," among more paper-mills. This is a vast industry developed by the pure, clean waters of Central Massachusetts. Farther eastward, however, the character of the mills changes, and at Brookfield shoemaking villages appear, while elsewhere there are textile and leather factories. Brookfield was the birthplace, in 1818, of the noted female agitator Lucy Stone, its Quaboag Pond furnishing the water turning the mill-wheels, and then flowing off through Podunk meadows by the Sashaway River to the Chicopee. At Spencer, not far away, was born in 1819 Elias Howe, the inventor of the sewing-machine. Farther eastward the railway route leads to Worcester, and thence to Boston.
THE LAND OF NONOTUCK.
The valley of the Connecticut north of Springfield is a hive of busy industries where are made most of the finer papers used in the United States. All the tributary water-courses teem with factories. Four miles above Springfield the Chicopee flows in from the eastern hills, there being a population of twenty thousand, and the mills, served by the power from its falls two miles eastward, working cotton and wool, brass and bronze, as well as making paper. Chicopee Falls was the home of Edward Bellamy, author of Looking Backward, who died in 1898. A few miles above the Chicopee, on the Connecticut, are the Hadley Falls, the greatest water-power of New England, and the creator of Holyoke, with fifty thousand people, the chief manufactory of fine papers in the world. In a little more than a mile the river descends sixty feet in falls and rapids, and by a system of canals the water is led for three miles along the banks, thus serving the factories, which have great advantages of position, as the river winds around them on three sides, and its flow is also supplemented by steam-power. The water, from its great descent, is used several times over. The main Hadley fall descends thirty feet, and to prevent erosion is aproned with stout timbers sheathed with boiler iron. The river is bridled by a huge dam one thousand feet long, and has a boom to catch the floating logs.
The scenery above the Hadley Falls grows more attractive; the hills approach nearer the river and rise sharply into mountains; the river winds about their bases, and, abruptly turning, goes through a gorge between them. Upon the western side is the Mount Tom range, and upon the eastern bank Mount Holyoke, with inclined-plane railways ascending both, Mount Tom rising twelve hundred and fifteen feet, and Mount Holyoke nine hundred and fifty-five feet. The Connecticut flows out between them from the extensive valley above. These guardian peaks of Tom and Holyoke bear the names of two pioneers of the valley, who are said to have first discovered the pass, and the tradition is that the broad and fertile plain above, spreading almost to the northern Massachusetts boundary, was once a lake with the outlet towards the west, behind Mount Tom, until the waters broke a passage through the ridge, and made the Connecticut River route to the Sound. The origin of these mountains was evidently volcanic, being built up of trap-rock lifting its columned masses abruptly from the level floor of the valley, and almost without foothills to dwarf the greater elevation. The broad vale beyond is the fertile land of Nonotuck, bought from the Indians in 1653 for "one hundred fathoms of wampum and ten coats." Here to the westward of the river is Northampton, a most lovely and attractive town, well described as "the frontispiece of the book of beauty which Nature opens wide in the valley of the Connecticut." The fairest fields surround it, with thrifty farmers cultivating their rich bottom-lands, and the people have a splendid outlook in front of their doors, in the glorious panorama of the noble mountains, with the river flowing away through the deep gorge. The place was named Northampton because most of the original settlers came from that English town. Solomon Stoddart was the sturdy Puritan pastor, ruling the flock at Nonotuck for over a half-century, the village being for protection surrounded by a palisade and wall. The little church in which he preached measured eighteen by twenty-six feet, being built in 1655 at a cost of $75, and the congregation were summoned to meeting armed and by the blasts of a trumpet:
"Each man equipped on Sunday morn
With psalm-book, shot and powder-horn,
And looked in form, as all must grant,
Like th' ancient, true Church militant."
This renowned pastor was of majestic appearance, and as good a fighter as he was a preacher. He never hesitated to lead his people in their Indian wars, and once he is said to have got into an ambush, but the awestruck savages, impressed by his noble bearing, hesitated to shoot him, telling their French allies, "That is the Englishman's god." The present stone church is the fifth built on the original site. During nearly a quarter-century the noted Jonathan Edwards was the Northampton pastor, but he was dismissed in 1750, because, owing to the growing laxity of church members, he insisted upon "a higher and purer standard of admission to the communion-table." Northampton is famed for its educational development, the chief institution, endowed by Sophia Smith in 1871, being Smith College for women, having a thousand students and possessing fine buildings, with an art gallery, music hall and gymnasium. There are various attractive public buildings, including an Institution for Mutes and the State Lunatic Asylum. The level land of Nonotuck raises much tobacco, the Connecticut River winding in wide circular sweeps among the fields and meadows, but making little progress as it goes around great curves of miles in circuit. Upon an isthmus thus formed, with the broad river loop stretching far to the westward, is "Old Hadley," the Connecticut having made a five-mile circuit to accomplish barely one mile of distance. Across the level isthmus from the river above to the river below, stretching through the village, is the noted "Hadley Street," the handsomest highway in natural adornments in the Old Bay State. Over three hundred feet wide, this street is lined by two double rows of noble elms, with a broad expanse of greenest lawn between, and nearly a thousand ancient trees arching their graceful branches over it. This very quiet street has perfect greensward, for it is almost untravelled, and its inhabitants grow tobacco and make brooms. Another of these wayward river loops is the great "ox-bow" of the Connecticut, where the river used to flow around a circuit of nearly four miles and accomplished only one hundred and fifty yards of actual distance, until an ice-freshet broke through the narrow isthmus and made a straight channel across it, which has become the course of the river. The abandoned channel of the "ox-bow" is now usually stored with logs awaiting the sawmill. Hadley was the final home and burial-place of Goffe and Whalley, the regicides, who fled there from New Haven. When their house was pulled down, it was said the bones of Whalley, who died in 1679, were found entombed just outside the cellar-wall. It was the house of the pastor, and they were concealed in it fifteen years, from 1664 to 1679, their presence known only to three persons. Once, during the hiding, Indians attacked the town, and after a sharp fight the people gave way, when there suddenly appeared "an ancient man with hoary locks, of a most venerable and dignified aspect," who rallied them to a fresh onslaught, driving the Indians off. He then disappeared, the inhabitants attributing their deliverance to a "militant angel." This was Goffe, and the tale is the chief legend of "Old Hadley." General Joseph Hooker of the Civil War was born in Hadley. At South Hadley is the Mount Holyoke College for girls, almost under the shadow of the mountain, amid magnificent scenery, a noted institution with four hundred students, where, during the past century, have been educated many missionary women for their labors in distant lands.
MOUNT HOLYOKE AND BEYOND.