MILTON AND THE BLUE HILLS
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Milton--a town of dignity and distinction! A town of enterprise and
character! Ever since the first water-power mill in this country; the
first powder mill in this country; the first chocolate mill in this
country, and thus through a whole line of "first" things--the first
violoncello, the first pianoforte, the first artificial spring leg, and
the first railroad to see the light of day saw it in this grand old
town--the name of Milton has been synonymous with initiative and men and
women of character.
Few people to-day think of Milton in terms of industrial repute, but,
rather, as a place of estates, too aristocratic to be fashionable, of
historic houses, and of charming walks and drives and views. Many of
the old families who have given the town its prestige still live in
their ancestral manors, and many of the families who have moved there in
recent years are of such sort as will heighten the fame of the famous
town. As the stranger passes through Milton he is captivated by glimpses
of ancient homesteads, settling behind their white Colonial fences
topped with white Colonial urns, half hidden by their antique trees with
an air of comfortable ease; of new houses, elegant and yet informal; of
cottages with low roofs; of well-bred children playing on the wide,
green lawns under the supervision of white-uniformed nurses; of old
hedges, old walls, old trees; new roads, old drives, new gardens, and
old gardens--everything well placed, well tended, everything presenting
that indescribable atmosphere of well-established prosperity that scorns
show; of breeding that neither parades nor conceals its quality.
Yes--this is Milton; this is modern Milton. Boston society receives some
of its most prominent contributions from this patrician source. But
modern Milton is something more than this, as old Milton was something
more than this.
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For Milton, from this day of its birth, and countless centuries before
its birth as a town, has lived under the lofty domination of the Blue
Hills, that range of diaphanous and yet intense blue, that swims forever
against the sky, that marches forever around the horizon. The rounded
summits of the Blue Hills, to which the eye is irresistibly attracted
before entering the town which principally claims them, are the
worn-down stumps of ancient mountains, and although so leveled by the
process of the ages, they are still the highest land near the coast from
Maine to Mexico. These eighteen or twenty skyey crests form the southern
boundary of the so-called Boston Basin, and are the most prominent
feature of the southern coast. From them the Massachuset tribe about the
Bay derived its name, signifying "Near the Great Hills," which name was
changed by the English to Massachusetts, and applied to both bay and
colony. Although its Indian name has been taken from this lovely range,
the loveliness remains. All the surrounding country shimmers under the
mysterious bloom of these heights, so vast that everything else is
dwarfed beside them, and yet so curiously airy that they seem to
perpetually ripple against the sky. The Great Blue Hill, especially--the
one which bears an observatory on its summit--swims above one's head. It
seems to have a singular way of moving from point to point as one
motors, and although one may be forced to admit that this may be due
more to the winding roads than to the illusiveness of the hill, still
the buoyant effect is the same.
Ruskin declares somewhere, with his quaint and characteristic mixture of
positiveness and idealism, that "inhabitants of granite countries have a
force and healthiness of character about them that clearly distinguishes
them from the inhabitants of less pure districts." Perhaps he was right,
for surely here where the succeeding generations have all lived in the
atmosphere of the marching Blue Hill, each has through its own fair
name, done honor to the fair names which have preceded it.
One of the very first to be attracted by the lofty and yet lovely appeal
of this region was Governor Thomas Hutchinson, the last of the Royal
Governors Massachusetts was to know. It was about the middle of the
eighteenth century that this gentleman, of whom John Adams wrote, "He
had been admired, revered, and almost adored," chose as the spot for his
house the height above the Neponset River. If we follow the old country
Heigh Waye to the top of Unquity (now Milton) Hill, we will find the
place he chose, although the house he built has gone and another stands
in its place. Fairly near the road, it overlooked a rolling green meadow
(a meadow which, by the gift of John Murray Forbes, will always be kept
open), with a flat green marsh at its feet and the wide flat twist of
the Neponset River winding through it, for all the world like a
decorative panel by Puvis de Chavannes. One can see a bit of the North
Shore and Boston Harbor from here. This is the view that the Governor so
admired, and tradition tells us that when he was forced to return to
England he walked on foot down the hill, shaking hands with his
neighbors, patriot and Tory alike, with tears in his eyes as he left
behind him the garden and the trees he had planted, and the house where
he had so happily lived. Although the view from the front of the house
is exquisite, the view from the back holds even more intimate
attraction. Here is the old, old garden, and although the ephemeral
blossoms of the present springtime shine brightly forth, the box, full
twenty feet high, speaks of another epoch. Foxgloves lean against the
"pleached alley," and roses clamber on a wall that doubtless bore the
weight of their first progenitors.
Another governor who chose to live in Milton was Jonathan Belcher, but
one fancies it was the grandness rather than the sweetness of the scene
which attracted this rather spectacular person. The Belcher house still
exists, as does the portrait of its master, in his wig and velvet coat
and waistcoat, trimmed with richest gold lace at the neck and wrists.
Small-clothes and gold knee and shoe buckles complete the picture of one
who, when his mansion was planned, insisted upon an avenue fifty feet
wide, and so nicely graded that visitors on entering from the street
might see the gleam of his gold knee buckles as he stood on the distant
porch. The avenue, however, was never completed, as Belcher was
appointed governor of, and transferred to, New Jersey shortly after.
Two other men of note, who, since the days of our years are but
threescore and ten, chose that their days without number should be spent
in the town they loved, were Wendell Phillips and Rimmer the sculptor,
who are both buried at Milton.
Not only notable personages, but notable events have been engendered
under the shadow of these hills. The Suffolk Resolves, which were the
prelude of the Declaration of Independence, were adopted at the Vose
House, which still stands, square and unadorned, easy of access from the
sidewalk, as is suitable for a home of democracy. The first piano ever
made in this country received its conception and was brought to
fulfillment in the Crehore house, which, although still sagging a bit,
is by no means out of commission. And Wilde's Tavern, where was formed
the public opinion in a day when the forming of public opinion was of
preëminent importance, still retains, in its broad, hospitable lines,
some shred of its ancient charm.
Milton is full of history. From the Revolutionary days, when the
cannonading at Bunker Hill shook the foundations of the houses, but not
the nerves of the Milton ladies, down to the year 1919, when the Fourth
Liberty Loan of $2,955,250 was subscribed from a population of 9000, all
the various vicissitudes of peace and war have been sustained on the
high level that one might expect from men and women nobly nurtured by
the strength of the hills.
How much of its success Milton attributes to its location--for one
joins, indeed, a distinguished fellowship when one builds upon a hill,
or on several hills, as Roman as well as Bostonian history
testifies--can only be guessed by its tribute in the form of the Blue
Hills Reservation. This State recreation park and forest reserve of
about four thousand acres--a labyrinth of idyllic footpaths and leafy
trails, of twisting drives and walks that open out upon superb vistas,
is now the property of the people of Massachusetts. The granite quarry
man--far more interested in the value of the stone that underlay the
wooded slopes than in Ruskin's theory of its purifying effect upon the
inhabitants--had already obtained a footing here, when, under the able
leadership of Charles Francis Adams, the whole region was taken over by
the State in 1894.
As you pass through the Reservation--and if you are taking even the most
cursory glimpse of Milton you must include some portion of this
park--you will pass the open space where in the early days, when Milton
country life was modeled upon English country life more closely than
now, Malcolm Forbes raced upon his private track the horses he himself
had bred. The race-track with its judges' stands is still there, but
there are no more horse-races, although the Forbes family still holds a
conspicuous place in all the social as well as the philanthropic
enterprises of the countryside. You may see, too, a solitary figure
with a scientist's stoop, or a tutor with a group of boys, making a
first-hand study of a region which is full of interest to the geologist.
Circling thus around the base of the Great Blue Hill and irresistibly
drawn closer and closer to it as by a magnet, one is impelled to make
the ascent to the top--an easy ascent with its destination clearly
marked by the Rotch Meteorological Observatory erected in 1884 by the
late A. Lawrence Rotch of Milton, who bequeathed funds for its
maintenance. It is now connected with Harvard University.
Once at the top the eye is overwhelmed by a circuit of more than a
hundred and fifty miles! It is almost too immense at first--almost as
barren as an empty expanse of rolling green sea. But as the eye grows
accustomed to the stretching distances, objects both near and far begin
to appear. And soon, if the day is clear, buildings may be identified in
more than one hundred and twenty-five villages. We are six hundred and
thirty-five feet above the sea, on the highest coastland from
Agamenticus, near York, Maine, to the Rio Grande, and the panorama thus
unrolled is truly magnificent. Facing northerly we can easily
distinguish Cambridge, Somerville, and Malden, and far beyond the hills
of Andover and Georgetown. A little to the east, Boston with its gilded
dome; then the harbor with its islands, headlands, and fortifications.
Beyond that are distinctly visible various points on the North Shore, as
far as Eastern Point Lighthouse in Gloucester. Forty miles to the
northeast appear the twin lighthouses on Thatcher's Island, seeming,
from here, to be standing, not on the land, but out in the ocean. Nearer
and more distinct is Boston Light--a sentinel at the entrance to the
harbor, while beyond it stretches Massachusetts Bay. Turning nearly east
the eye, passing over Chickatawbut Hill--three miles off and second in
height of the Blue Hills--follows the beautiful curve of Nantasket
Beach, and the pointing finger of Minot's Light. Facing nearly south,
the long ridge of Manomet Hill in Plymouth, thirty-three miles away,
stands clear against the sky, while twenty-six miles away, in Duxbury,
one sees the Myles Standish Monument. Directly south rises the smoke of
the city of Fall River; to the westerly, Woonsocket, and continuing to
the west, Mount Wachusett in Princeton. Far to the right of Wachusett,
nearly over the dome of the Dedham Courthouse, rounds up Watatic in
Ashburnham, and northwest a dozen peaks of southern New Hampshire. At
the right of Watatic and far beyond it is the Grand Monadnock in
Jaffrey, 3170 feet above the sea and sixty-seven and a half miles away.
On the right of Grand Monadnock is a group of nearer summits: Mount
Kidder, exactly northwest; Spofford and Temple Mountains; then appears
the remarkable Pack-Monadnock, near Peterboro, with its two equal
summits. The next group to the right is in Lyndeboro. At the right of
Lyndeboro, and nearly over the Readville railroad stations, is Joe
English Hill, and to complete the round, nearly north-northwest are the
summits of the Uncanoonuc Mountains, fifty-nine miles away.
This, then, is the Great Blue Hill of Milton. Those who are familiar
with the State of Massachusetts--and New England--can stand here and
pick out a hundred distinguishing landmarks, and those who have never
been here before may find an unparalleled opportunity to see the whole
region at one sweep of the eye.
From the point of view of topography the summit of Great Blue Hill is
the place to reach. But for the sense of mysterious beauty, for snatches
of pictures one will never forget, the little vistas which open on the
upward or the downward trail, framed by hanging boughs or encircled by a
half frame of stone and hillside--these are, perhaps, more lovely. The
hill itself, seen from a distance, floating lightly like a vast blue
ball against a vaster sky, is dreamily suggestive in a way which the
actual view, superb as it is, is not. One remembers Stevenson's
observation, that sometimes to travel hopefully is better than to
arrive. So let us come down, for, after all, "Love is of the valley."
Down again to the old town of Milton. We have not half begun to wander
over it: not half begun to hear the pleasant stories it has to tell.
When one is as old as this--for Milton was discovered by a band from
Plymouth who came up the Neponset River in 1621--one has many tales to
tell.
Of all the towns along the South Shore there are few whose feet are so
firmly emplanted in the economic history of the past and present as is
Milton. That peculiar odor of sweetness which drifts to us with a turn
of the wind, comes from a chocolate mill whose trade-mark of a
neat-handed maid with her little tray is known all over the civilized
world. And those mills stand upon the site of the first grist mill in
New England to be run by water power. This was in 1634, and one likes to
picture the sturdy colonists trailing into town, their packs upon their
backs, like children in kindergarten games, to have their grain ground.
Israel Stoughton was the name of the man who established this first
mill--a name perpetuated in the near-by town of Stoughton.
All ground is historic ground in Milton. That rollicking group of
schoolboys yonder belongs to an academy, which, handsome and
flourishing as it is to-day, was founded as long ago as 1787. That seems
long ago, but there was a school in Milton before that: a school held in
the first meeting-house. Nothing is left of this quaint structure but a
small bronze bas-relief, set against a stone wall, near its original
site. This early church and early school was a log cabin with a thatched
roof and latticed windows, if one may believe the relief, but men of
brains and character were taught there lessons which stood them and the
colony in good stead. One fancies the students' roving eyes may have
occasionally strayed down the Indian trail directly opposite the old
site--a trail which, although now attained to the proud rank of a lane,
Churchill's Lane, still invites one down its tangled green way along the
gray stone wall. Yes, every step of ground has its tradition here.
Yonder railroad track marks the spot where the very first tie in the
country was laid, and laid for no less significant purpose than to
facilitate the carrying of granite blocks for Bunker Hill Monument from
their quarry to the harbor.
Granite from the hills--the hills which swim forever against the sky and
march forever above the distant horizon. Again we are drawn back to the
irresistible magnet of those mighty monitors. Yes, wherever one goes in
Milton, either on foot to-day or back through the chapters of three
centuries ago, the Blue Hills dominate every event, and the Great Blue
Hill floats above them all.
"I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help,"
chants the psalmist. Ah, well, no one can say it better than
that--except the hills themselves, which, with gentle majesty, look down
affectionately upon the town at their feet.
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