The mountain, called by this name, is a remarkable precipice in
Great Barrington, overlooking the rich and picturesque valley of the
Housatonic, in the western part of Massachusetts. At the southern
extremity is, or was a few years since, a conical pile of small
stones, erected, according to the tradition of the surrounding
country, by the Indians, in memory of a woman of the Stockbridge
tribe, who killed herself by leaping from the edge of the precipice.
Until within a few years past, small parties of that tribe used to
arrive from their settlement in the western part of the state of New
York, on visits to Stockbridge, the place of their nativity and former
residence. A young woman belonging to one of these parties related,
to a friend of the author, the story on which the poem of Monument
Mountain is founded. An Indian girl had formed an attachment for her
cousin, which, according to the customs of the tribe, was unlawful.
She was, in consequence, seized with a deep melancholy, and resolved
to destroy herself. In company with a female friend, she repaired to
the mountain, decked out for the occasion in all her ornaments, and,
after passing the day on the summit in singing with her companion the
traditional songs of her nation, she threw herself headlong from the
rock, and was killed.