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.