PART I. BERKSHIRE. Geography. Physical Structure and Scenography. — Central Position of Pittsfield. - Manufactures. - Mineral Productions. - Aspect when first visited. Geographical Nomenclature. Derivation of the Name "Housatonic." THE HE fourteen counties into which Massachusetts is divided are, most of them, distinguished by physical peculiarities, which shape the occupations of their inhabitants, and mould their habits of life and thought; and among these subdivisions of the Commonwealth, in forming which the statute has, often with nicety, followed the demarcations of Nature, not even the sandy Cape or metropolitan Suffolk hardly even insular Nantucket is marked by features so unlike those of its sister shires as are those which characterize the county of Berkshire. The traveller who enters the mountain-walls of its upland valley soon recognizes the intense individuality of this region, and feels that he is among a peculiar people as well as amid novel scenes; and this notwithstanding the large infusion of foreign population into the manufacturing districts, and the constant tidal currents between city and country life, which have gone far to smooth away the strong although never very rugged lines that used to make the aspect of society no less picturesque than that of Nature. The stranger with a moderately observant eye will soon perceive that the old lineaments, however softened, are still there; and he may often find them starting into prominence, which leaves the lineal likeness unmistakable. The people of Berkshire are the true children of their home among the hills. They are very much what its geographical and physical characteristics would naturally make the descendants of Massachusetts Puritans. Our first consideration, then, is of the influences of this kind which have tended to modify in them the common type of Massachusetts man. Berkshire, the extreme western portion of the Pilgrim Commonwealth, is divided from the counties of Columbia and Rensselaer, in New York, by a right line1 which runs for fifty-one miles along the summits of the Taconic Mountains. On the north, a straight boundary of fourteen miles separates it from Vermont; but the town of Munroe, belonging to Franklin County, juts into its north-eastern corner. Immediately south of that point, the width of Berkshire is about eighteen miles. Thence a line, rendered very irregular by numerous attempts to rectify the boundaries of towns and counties, divides the Hoosac Mountains, between Berkshire on the west, and Franklin, Hampden, and Hampshire on the east. Upon the south, the line again becomes straight, and runs for twenty-four miles along the borders of Connecticut. Thus the four cardinal boundaries of Berkshire lie along four different States, including that of which it forms a part. The region thus defined, containing an area of a little over nine hundred and fifty square miles, forms a conspicuous feature in one of the most remarkable phases of New-England geography, as described, upon the authority of Prof. Guyot's observations, in Palfrey's history of that section: and no better basis for a clear comprehension of the physical conformation of Berkshire could be desired than a slightly condensed extract from that work: "Only moderate elevations," says Dr. Palfrey, "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 Connecticut 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 different 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 1 With the exception of a slight deviation at the south, caused by the cession of Boston Corner. sea, each with a width of forty or fifty miles, from which, as from a base, mountains rise in chains or in 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, 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, it is marked by the Housatonic; 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 Connecticut, they rise to an average of twenty-five hundred feet in Massachusetts, where the majestic Greylock, isolated between the two chains, lifts its head to the stature of thirty-five hundred feet. In Vermont, Equinox and Stratton Mountains, near Manchester, are thirty-seven hundred feet high; 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 Housatonic in one direction, and to an average height of little more than five hundred feet in Vermont in the other. Thus it is in Berkshire County that the western swell presents, if not the most elevated peaks, yet the most compact and consolidated structure." "2 A region thus constituted could not fail to be filled with lovely vales; but unrivalled here, and with few rivals elsewhere, stands the fame of that occupied by the county of Berkshire. And nowhere else is the combination of its grand but unfrowning circumvallation of hills, with the varied beauty which it encircles, 1 The Taconics on the west, and the Hoosacs on the cast. 2 Palf. Hist. N. E., i. pp. 3-5. to be observed with such completeness of effect as from points near the centre of Pittsfield, where the perspective softens and shapes the outlines of the view into unity and proportion, and where you are free from that feeling of oppression which is apt to result from the too close proximity of mountains. The spectator standing on the observatory at Maplewood, on the commanding hill above Springside, or upon some similar elevation, finds no words in which to express his admiration of the scenes which surround him. On the west sweep the Taconics, in that majestic curve whose grace travellers familiar with the mountain scenery of both hemispheres pronounce unequalled. On the east, the Hoosacs stretch their unbroken battlements with white villages at their feet, and, if the sunlight favor, paths of mingled lawn and wood enticing to their summits; while from the north, looks grandly across the valley to the giant heights keeping watch and ward over the pass where the mountains throw wide their everlasting gates to let the winding Housatonic flow peacefully towards the sea. On every side, the exquisite curves of this graceful stream, and the slender threads of its innumerable tributaries, embroider the rich green of the meadows and the more sombre verdure of the uplands; while not far away, although not all visible, sparkle the bright waters of six beautiful lakelets, companions to "The stream whose silver-braided rills HOLMES. Below, the not unfitting centre of this amphitheatre of beauty, lies the village of Pittsfield, with its mansions and humbler homes, its marts, schools, and churches, half hidden by noble trees; among which, alas! no longer rises the gray old elm which used first to greet the traveller's eye. A lovelier landscape one might 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 power of art. Variety the most marvellous, but without confusion, forbids the sense to tire. Colors the richest, softest, and most delicate, charm the eye, and vary with the ever-changing conditions of the atmosphere. Fertile farms and frequent villages imbue the scene with the warmth of generous life; while over all hangs a subdued grandeur which may well have pervaded the souls of the great and good men who have made Berkshire their home since the days of Jonathan Edwards. The emotion of sublimity is not often excited by Berkshire scenery, unless the feeling inspired by the excess and overwhelming profusion of beauty with which, under certain favoring circumstances, it overflows, may be properly so classed. Boldness, freshness, and variety are the traits by which it charms; and they are those which one would most desire to characterize his home, and under whose healthful influences he would wish his children to be educated. On the heights where Greylock lifts the topmost summit of the State, along the valleys of the Hoosac and the Housatonic, up the rude but flower-fringed wood-roads which penetrate the narrowing opes1 of the Green Mountains, beauty is everywhere the prevailing element. The rapidly-shifting scenes - never tame, but rarely rugged; never altogether repulsive, but 1 The reader will pardon to necessity the employment of a word of merely local authority and very infrequent use. A hope or more descriptively, without the aspirate, an ope—is a valley, which, open at one end only, loses itself at the other, sloping upward to a point in the mass of the mountains. The word is quite indispensable in the description of scenery like that of Berkshire; and its disuse has resulted in the adoption of such vile substitutes as "hole," "hollow," or even worse. Thus we have Biggs's Hole and Bigsby's Hollow, or more probably "Holler." Surely neatly descriptive ope should not be displaced by such abominable interlopers as these. WEBSTER has HOPE, n.- A sloping plain between ridges of mountains. [Not in use.] Ainsworth.”—But English local topographical writers sometimes use the word in the sense given it in the text. |