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Stockbridge
Massachusetts, 1890
Stockbridge
is a beautiful town in the westerly part of Berkshire County,
186 miles from Boston. The eastern branch of the Housatonic
Railroad runs across the southern section of the town, having
stations for Glendale and Stockbridge village. Near the centre
of the territory is Curtisville, the other village; and all
are post-offices. Lenox lies on the north, the same and Lee
on the east, Great Barrington on the south, and West Stockbridge
on the west. The assessed area is 13,596 acres. The forests,
containing usual flora of the region, occupy 3,835 acres.
The
highest point of land is Rattlesnake Mountain, rising grandly
at the east of the central village. Icy Glen, in the southeast
angle of the town, is a charming grotto, where the rocks are
piled together in wild confusion, and where the ice is said
to remain the whole year round. A beautiful eminence near the
centre, called "Laurel Hill," is much frequented.
Evergreen Hill rises beautifully from the left bank of Konkapot
River, at the south, and forms a pleasing feature in the landscape.
Lake Mahkeenac, of about 250 acres, is a very handsome sheet
of water in the northern section of the town. Southwest of this
there is another small expanse of water, called the "Mountain
Mirror," which is worthy of its name. A fine echo is heard
from the face of the mountain that rises over it. The Housatonic
River winds gracefully westward through the southerly part of
Stockbridge, and with its tributaries -- Mohawk, Agawam and
Marsh brooks, and Konkapot River -- furnishes valuable hydraulic
power and beautifies the scenery.
The
town has one woollen and two paper mills, a cotton mill, a tannery
and two or three grist and saw mills. There are several other
small manufactures. The value of all goods made in 1885 is given
in the recent census as $280,678. The 129 farms yielded the
usual products to the amount of $l82,078 in value. The Housatonic
National Bank, in this town, has a capital stock of $200,000;
and the Stockbridge Savings Bank, at the close of last year,
held deposits in the amount of $248,252. The population was
2,114, of whom 532 were legal voters. The valuation in 1888
was 2,700.809 -- with a tax-rate of $10.10. There were 480 taxed
dwelling-houses. The five public school-houses are valued at
nearly $30,000, and are occupied by a high school, and others
of the grammar and primary grades. The most conspicuous public
building is the handsome stone library, the gift to the town
of Hon. John Z. Goodrich. It contains the Stockbridge
Social Library of upwards of 6,000 volumes. There is also a
fine mineral collection presented by the late Prof. Albert
Hopkins. There are two Congregationalist and two Methodist
churches, and one each of the Protestant Episcopalians and Roman
Catholics. Stockbridge village is a suitable climax and coign
of vantage for its beautiful town, with its broad, level street,
grass-bordered, with rows of noble elms separating it from the
foot-walks, and shadowing many a plain but elegant old mansion.
The favorite Laurel Hill and others rise near by; and away southward
Monument Mountain rears its noble mass; while shadowy peaks
signal each other on every side. The old Sedgewick mansion still
squarely faces the world; an old red house on the Barrington
road is noted for its whilom occupancy by G. P. R. James,
the novelist; and another quaint old cottage on the Lenox road
sheltered Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Stockbridge,
whose Indian name was Housatonic, was incorporated June 22,
1739; and may have been named from Stockbridge in Hampshire
County, England. The township was granted to the Housatonic
Indians, since called the "Stockbridge Indians," in
1734, when a mission was commenced amongst them by the Rev.
John Sargeant and Mr. Timothy Woodbridge. The celebrated
Jonathan Edwards succeeded Mr. Sargeant, August,
1751; and was dismissed January 4, 1758, to become president
of a college. The site of the mission church is now marked by
a tower of gray stone, containing a clock and a chime of bells.
This town was gradually settled by the English, who bought out
the Indian rights, one after another, before their emigration.
Some of the earliest white settlers next to Mr. Sargeant and
Mr. Woodbridge were Colonel Williams, Josiah Jones, Joseph
Woodbridge, Samuel Brown, Samuel Brown, jun., Joshua Chamberlain,
David Pixley, John Willard, John Taylor, Jacob Cooper, Elisha
Parsons, Stephen Nash, James Wilson, Josiah Jones, jun., Thomas
Sherman, and Solomon Glezen.
The
house occupied by the Rev. Jonathan Edwards while he
resided in this town is still standing. Within its walls lie
completed his celebrated production, "The Freedom of the
Will," which has been thought by many to be the greatest
production of the human mind. After President Edwards left,
it was occupied by Jehiel Woodbridge, Esq., then by Judge
Sedgwick, then by Gen. Silas Pepoon, and has since
been a school-house, and later a boarding house. A beautiful
monument of Scotch granite has been erected near the First Church
in honor of the distinguished theologian who once preached to
the whites and Indians of this town. Another handsome monument
is that in honor of soldiers from this town who perished in
the war for this Union; and still another to the Mohican Indians
whose burial-place on a hill covered with locust trees has long
been a pathetic reminder of a race now passed away. Stockbridge
was attacked by a body of strange Indians in 1754, and a Mr.Owen
and two children were killed; and again in the subsequent year,
when several persons fell beneath the merciless tomahawk.
[the
Edwards Monument, Stockbridge]
From
its earliest days Stockbridge has been the home of distinguished
persons. Among those not previously mentioned are Catherine
M. Sedwick, the celebrated authoress, born in this town
in 1789, and dying at Roxbury in 1867; Theodore Sedgewick,
son of the judge, a leader of the movement which resulted in
the building of the Boston and Albany Railroad; John Bacon,
a graduate of Princeton College, associate pastor of the Old
South Church in Boston from 1771 to 1775, subsequently a magistrate
in Stockbridge, State senator, and member of Congress (deceased
in 1820); Barnabas Bidwell, Henry W. Dwight, and John
Z. Goodrich, able representatives in Congress; Judge
Horatio Byington, and Rev. David Dudley Field, pastor
of the Congregational Church, and the first historian of the
county. The sons of the latter have all attained distinction,
-- David Dudley Field as a lawyer and politician; Cyrus
W. Field as the originator of the Atlantic telegraph cable;
Henry M. Field as a clergyman, author and editor; and
Stephen J. Field at the bar, and on the bench of the
U.S. Supreme Court.
pp.
616-619 in Nason and Varney's Massachusetts Gazetteer, 1890