There is a grand view from the summit of Mount Holyoke, spreading
almost from Long Island Sound to the White Mountains, and from the
Berkshire Hills in the west to the cloud-capped mountains Monadnock
and Wachusett, fifty miles to the eastward. This is regarded as the
finest view in New England, for the wide and highly cultivated valley
of the Connecticut, with its wayward, winding stream flowing
apparently in all directions over the rich bottom-lands cut up into
diminutive farms and fields like so many "plaided meadows," gives a
charm that is lacking in most other mountain views. The grand panorama
displays parts of four New England States. Off to the northeast
several miles is seen the town of Amherst, with four thousand people,
the seat of another noted educational institution, Amherst College,
having over four hundred students and a fine archæological museum.
The Hoosac Mountain range in the Berkshires sends down various streams
on its eastern slopes through wild and romantic gorges into the
Connecticut Valley, and one of these is Deerfield River, coming into
the main stream some distance north of Mount Holyoke. Here is the
village of "Old Deerfield," settled in 1670, on the Indian domain of
Pocomtuck, and named from the abundance of deer found in the forests.
Its streets often ran with blood in King Philip's and the later Indian
Wars, and its young men were then described by the quaint Puritan
chronicler as "the very flower of Essex County, none of whom were
ashamed to speak with the enemy in the gate." Its guardian peaks are
the Sugar Loaf, rising seven hundred and ten feet, and on the
opposite eastern side of the river Mount Toby, nearly thirteen hundred
feet high. King Philip, in his attack upon the settlers here in 1675,
made the tall and isolated Sugar Loaf his lookout station, whence he
directed the movements of his forces, and a crag on the top is yet
called "King Philip's Chair." Nearby, a monument marks the battlefield
of Bloody Brook in 1675, where the Indians killed Captain Lathrop and
eighty young men of Essex County. The Fitchburg Railroad from Boston
through Fitchburg comes across the Connecticut Valley, and passing the
village of Greenfield, takes advantage of the winding canyon of
Deerfield River to ascend westward to the wall of Hoosac Mountain,
where the great tunnel is pierced. The route is in a wild and
picturesque defile, in the heart of which is the pleasant village of
Shelburne Falls, where the stream glides down a series of cataracts
and rapids having one hundred and fifty feet descent. Here are mills
making cutlery, hooks, gimlets and other things, and there are
sheep-pastures on the mountain sides, and the people also tap the
maple trees for sugar. There are more villages among these mountains
farther up the gorge, where it may broaden to give a little arable
land, and at one of these, under the shadow of the great Pocomtuck
Mountain, was born in 1797 Mary Lyon, the devout and noted teacher who
founded Mount Holyoke College for girls. Finally the railway reaches
the Hoosac wall, and leaving the little Deerfield River which comes
down from the north, disappears westward in the tunnel.
The Connecticut River beyond the Massachusetts northern boundary
divides the States of New Hampshire and Vermont, and its scenery, as
ascended, becomes more romantic and mountainous. At Northfield, near
the boundary, lived Dwight L. Moody, the evangelist. Above the
boundary, the Massachusetts colony, as a protection to the river
settlements, in 1724 built Fort Dummer, which was often attacked by
the French and Indians in their forays from Canada, but never
captured, and near it was made the first settlement in Vermont, a
village named in 1753 Brattleborough, in honor of Colonel Brattle of
Boston, one of the landowners. The Whetstone Brook flows in, making a
fine water-power, and the town, now having six thousand people, is
charmingly situated on an elevated plateau, surrounded by lofty hills.
Brattleboro' is the centre of the Vermont maple-sugar industry, and it
has the largest organ-works existing, those of the Estey Company. Just
south of the town rises Cemetery Hill, overlooking it with a fine
view, and here is the grand monument erected in memory of the
notorious James Fisk, Jr., who was a native of the place. It bears
emblematic female statues representing Railroads, Commerce, Navigation
and the Drama, and was executed by Larkin G. Mead, the sculptor, also
a native of the town. It is recorded that when a lad, Mead worked one
long winter night on a snow figure at the head of the Main Street, and
next morning, the people were surprised to see there a beautiful
figure of the Recording Angel, modeled in the purest snow. Southwest
of Brattleboro' is Sadawga Lake, in the town of Whitingham, near
which, in a poor log hut, Brigham Young was born in 1801. He was a
farmer's son, educated in the Baptist Church, and afterwards
emigrating to Ohio, joined the Mormons there when about thirty years
old. When Rudyard Kipling had his home in Vermont, it was about three
miles north of Brattleboro'.
From the eastern highlands of New Hampshire the Ashuelot River flows
into the Connecticut below Brattleboro', and to the northeast in its
alluvial valley is Keene, the centre of an agricultural district, and
having about eight thousand people, some of whom make leather goods,
furniture and wooden ware. The Ashuelot means a "collection of many
waters," and the place was named before the Revolution in honor of Sir
Benjamin Keene, a British friend of Governor Wentworth of New
Hampshire, in consequence of which the colonial historian recorded
that "Keene is a proud little spot." To the southeast boldly rises
Mount Monadnock, its high and rugged top elevated nearly thirty-two
hundred feet, and having a hotel half-way up its side. This mountain
is about eighty miles from Boston, and the town of Jaffrey, at its
southeastern base, has an old church, the frame of which was raised on
the day of the battle of Bunker Hill, the workmen claiming that they
heard the cannonading. The Williams River, coming from the slopes of
the Green Mountains, flows into the Connecticut on the Vermont side,
at Bellows Falls, a picturesque summer resort located at the river
rapids, where there is a descent of forty-two feet in about a
half-mile, the power being availed of for various factories. Above, at
Claremont, the Sugar River flows in from New Hampshire, and to the
eastward is the charming Lake Sunapee, nine miles long, and surrounded
by wooded highlands, which has been often called the American Loch
Katrine. Over on the Vermont side, north of Claremont, is Windsor,
where it is recorded that during a fearful thunder-storm, and with the
appalling news of the loss of Fort Ticonderoga ringing in their ears,
the deputies of Vermont adopted the State Constitution, July 2, 1777.
Southwest of the village rises Ascutney Mountain, its Indian name
meaning the "Three Brothers," being supposed to refer to three
singular valleys running down the western slope. Its summit is
elevated thirty-three hundred and twenty feet. William M. Evarts, who
was a native of Boston, has his summer home Runnymede near Windsor,
and at Cornish, nearby, Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase was born in
1808, emigrating to Ohio in 1830.