The southwestern corner of Massachusetts, projecting westward into New
York outside the Connecticut boundary, is known as Boston Corner. To
the southward, in the northwestern corner of Connecticut, is
Salisbury, where the Taghkanic range falls away into lower hills.
Beecher described this country as a constant succession of hills
swelling into mountains, and of mountains flowing down into hills.
This is a quiet region, formerly a producer of iron ores, and it was
early settled by the Dutch, who came over from the Hudson in 1720.
They were a timid race, however, fearing the rigors of climate, and,
coming thus to the edge of what looked like an Alpine land of
dreariness beyond, they would not venture farther into the forbidding
hills. The mountainous region to the north and east they inscribed on
their maps as a large white vacant space, which they coolly named
"Winterberg." The township has two noted ravines, solitary, rugged and
attractive, and both containing cascades. In one to the westward is
the celebrated Bash-Bish Falls, and the other to the northward is
Sage's Ravine, just beyond it being Norton's Falls. The Bash-Bish is
said to have got its name in imitation of running, falling waters. It
descends nearly five hundred feet in cataracts and rapids, the finest
cascades in the Berkshires, and then flows out westward to the Hudson.
The Housatonic, going southward through Salisbury, plunges down its
Great Falls over rocky ledges for sixty feet descent, making a
tremendous noise and a fine display. To the eastward of the Housatonic
Valley, at an elevation of eleven hundred feet, on a broad plateau, is
Litchfield, consisting chiefly of two broad, tree-shaded streets
crossing at right angles, the chief buildings fronting on the central
village Green. On the southwestern outskirts is Bantam Lake, the
largest in Connecticut, covering a little over a square mile of
surface. The most famous house in Litchfield, which has been moved,
however, from its original location, is unpretentious, the old-time
wooden mansion in which Rev. Lyman Beecher lived when pastor here,
from 1810 to 1826, and where was born the famous authoress, Harriet
Beecher, in 1812, who married Rev. Calvin E. Stowe, and the famous
preacher, Henry Ward Beecher, in 1813. In the Wolcott House at
Litchfield was born Oliver Wolcott, Secretary of the Treasury, he and
his father both having been Connecticut Governors. To this house was
brought, in the Revolution, the leaden statue of King George III.,
which stood on the Bowling Green of New York, to be melted into
bullets. These were the favorite Indian hunting-grounds of Bantam
around the lake, and when Litchfield was first settled, about 1720,
the village was surrounded by a palisade, lest the savages should
return to their coveted region to take forcible possession. Litchfield
for a half-century after the Revolution had the most noted law school
in America. To the northward, at Wolcottville, where there are now
large factories, lived Captain John Brown, a noted Revolutionary
soldier, and here was born in 1800 his grandson, "Old John Brown of
Osawatomie."
Yet farther southward, but still among the hills, west of the
Housatonic Valley and near the New York boundary, is Danbury, famous
for its hat-factories, a town of about twenty thousand people. The
first hat-factory in America was opened at Danbury in 1780 by Zadoc
Benedict, three men making three hats a day. The factories now turn
out several thousand a day. In May, 1777, the Hessians attacked
Danbury and destroyed a large amount of the Revolutionary army
supplies, and it is recorded of the tragic event that Danbury was
"ankle-deep in pork-fat." On that memorable occasion it is said that
when the raiders were advancing up a hill a bold and reckless Yankee
farmer rode to its crest and shouted loudly, "Halt, the whole
universe; break off by kingdoms!" This demonstration alarmed the
Hessians, who thought a formidable force coming, and they halted to
defend themselves, deploying skirmishers and getting up their cannon
to the front. It was in an attack upon these raiders near Danbury that
General Wooster was mortally wounded, and the Danbury Cemetery
contains his monument. The constantly broadening Housatonic River
winds among the Connecticut hills in its steady course southeastward
to its confluence with the Naugatuck, a smaller stream coming down
through a pretty valley from the north, its Indian name meaning "one
tree," referring to an ancient tree on its banks which was a landmark
for the aborigines. The Naugatuck tumbles over a waterfall in the
Indian domain of Paugussett, furnishing power for the mills of
Ansonia, noted for its clocks. Near the confluence of the rivers is
the great Housatonic dam, six hundred feet long and twenty-three feet
high, constructed at a cost of $500,000 for the manufacturers of
Derby, who make pins, tacks, stockings, pianos and many other
articles. Commodore Isaac Hull, born in 1773, was the most
distinguished native of Derby, the commander of the frigate
"Constitution" when she captured the "Guerriere" in 1812. Then in
stately course the broad Housatonic flows southward, to finally empty
into Long Island Sound. The beauties of the Berkshire hills, so much
of which are made by the Housatonic's wayward course, have been the
theme of universal admiration, and their praises abound in our best
American literature. It was after a visit there that Robert G.
Ingersoll made his happy phrases in contrasting country and city life:
"It is no advantage to live in a great city, where poverty degrades
and failure brings despair. The fields are lovelier than paved
streets, and the great forests than walls of brick. Oaks and elms are
more poetic than steeples and chimneys. In the country is the idea of
home. There you see the rising and setting sun; you become acquainted
with the stars and clouds. The constellations are your friends. You
hear the rain on the roof and listen to the rhythmic sighing of the
winds. You are thrilled by the resurrection called Spring, touched and
saddened by Autumn, the grace and poetry of death. Every field is a
picture, a landscape; every landscape a poem; every flower a tender
thought; and every forest a fairy-land. In the country you preserve
your identity, your personality. There you are an aggregation of
atoms, but in the city you are only an atom of an aggregation."
The historian of the Berkshires, Clark W. Bryan of Great Barrington,
thus poetically describes the Berkshire hills and homes:
"Between where Hudson's waters flow
Adown from gathering streams,
And where the clear Connecticut,
In lengthened beauty gleams--
Where run bright rills, and stand high rocks,--
Where health and beauty comes,
And peace and happiness abides,
Rest Berkshire's Hills and Homes.
"The Hoosac winds its tortuous course,
The Housatonic sweeps
Through fields of living loveliness,
As on its course it keeps.
Old Saddleback stands proudly by,
Among Taconic's peaks,
And rugged mountain Monument
Of Indian legend speaks.
"Mount Washington with polished brow,
Green in the summer days,
Or white with winter's driving storms,
Or with autumn's flame ablaze,
Looms up across the southern sky,
In native beauty dressed--
The home of Bash-Bish, weird and old,
Anear the mountain's crest.
"And still each streamlet runs its course,
And still each mountain stands,
While Berkshire's sons and daughters roam
Through home and foreign lands;
But though they roam, or though they rest,
A thought spontaneous comes,
Of love and veneration for
Our Berkshire Hills and Homes."