No Rest for Rust: Images of Becket's Hudson-Chester Quarry

Abandoned in the 1960s, the rusting remains of machines and materials dot the Hudson-Chester Quarry in Becket, on rescued land maintained for public use by the Becket Land Trust.

For more photos and information on this valuable and historic regional resource, visit the EWM post, The Historic Hudson-Chester Granite Quarry in Becket, Massachusetts.

Cylindrical Tank ~ Hudson-Chester Quarry

Top of Stiff-armed Derrick ~ Hudson-Chester Quarry

Truck Cooling Fan ~ Hudson-Chester Quarry (Nathaniel Hemingway Photo)

Steel Cable ~ Hudson-Chester Quarry

The Becket Land Trust welcomes volunteers and donations. To learn how you can help, visit http://www.becketlandtrust.org/

For more about Becket, Chester and mining in the Berkshires, check out the EWM posts, 'The Keystone Arch Bridges Trail: Magic in the Berkshire Mountains' and 'Map: Bird's-eye View of Chester, Mass., 1885.'

As always, thanks for stopping by and take care.

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The Historic Hudson-Chester Granite Quarry in Becket, Massachusetts

Becket Quarry Trail Map

You don't have to walk far up the trail into the historic Becket granite quarry to come face to face with yesterday. Less than half a mile from the ample parking lot, two abandoned trucks, a dilapidated electrical generator shed, the remnants of a stiff-arm derrick and other rusted ghosts of the granite harvesting trade greet visitors, at the area known as the quarry junction.

Electrical Generator Shed

The setting aside of more than 300 acres of Berkshire forest off Quarry Road in Becket, Mass. - including the old Hudson-Chester quarry - was made possible through the commendable generosity of town residents, whose financial contributions allowed the Becket Land Trust to acquire the plot for public recreation and historic preservation.

Hastening the process and lending urgency to the fund-drive was talk of the possible re-opening of the land for modern quarrying, a development Becket citizens preferred not see come to fruition lest the quiet, small-town character of the peaceful burg be changed.

Electrical Generator Shed (Nathaniel Hemingway Photo)

The Becket Land Trust will celebrate its 20th anniversary next year. According to the Trust's website: "The Becket Land Trust was founded in 1991 by a group of concerned citizens who were interested in maintaining the rural nature of the Town of Becket and of preserving its natural resources."

Perusing (and printing) the detailed area maps and history on the Trust's website is sure to add depth to your experience visiting the Hudson-Chester quarry. A kiosk in the parking area - maintained by the Trust - also provides printed resources to quarry explorers. To learn more about this valuable and necessary organization, and ways you can donate or get involved, head over to: http://www.becketlandtrust.org/.

Quarry Truck #1

Parked in forest pristine but for the vestiges of man, who was the last to walk away from the just-stilled engine, warm, beginning to tick its cooling contractions?

Quarry Truck #1

The Hudson-Chester Quarry was prolific in its produce, rail cars rolling blocks of granite to Hudson, NY and Chester, Mass. to be worked into monuments and tombstones, memorials carved to withstand the ages, cruel eraser of soft recollection. From the middle of the 19th century to the middle of the next, the Becket granite quarry cut stone prized for the quality of its grain.

Quarry Truck #2

Door swung open in invitation: Take her for a spin in your imagination. "Tis a drive into simpler times of hard-won, muscled reward, hearty hot meals and nights at home on porches under Berkshire stars. Unwinding, the Universe: Always unwinding.

Quarry Truck #2

No matter how many turns we make along the way, or how hard we crank the wheel, there is only one direction we are steering: Into the future.

Remnant of Stiff-Armed Derrick

The last slab of granite rolled down the track generations ago, a toppled loading hoist rests on the south side of the quarry junction, a splintered appendage once integral to mining operations. Stiff-armed derricks are also known as stiff-leg derricks, a type of crane used in quarries internationally.

Remnant of Stiff-Armed Derrick

Wood and iron and steel-braided cable return to the earth drippingly slow, layers of leaves and passed forest flora speeding to decomposition in comparison. Chronology intertwined but snowflake different: Not every moment spans the same length of time.

Mobile Power Source

Where once activity whirred and roared, creaked and grumbled with stones heavy as hearts storing wishes unfulfilled, the breathing now are greeted with a silence that even the lazy-stirring August leaves can't break. They wait, these machines, broken and twisted. They wait for the quarrymen, arms strong and tan in the afternoon sun, gone these five long decades past and not likely to return.

Granite Blocks

And the garden of granite surrounds us. In the magical Berkshire hills. In the bustling cities of America. We build our caverns where we don't find them and find them where they lay. Waiting. Cold canvases ready for the chisel. Ready for a human hand to set the names, to tell the dates, to memorialize our being.

As always, thanks for stopping by and take care.

For more information about Becket, railroad development and granite quarrying in the area, visit previous EWM posts, 'The Keystone Arch Bridges Trail: Magic in the Berkshire Mountains' and 'Map: Bird's-eye View of Chester, Mass., 1885.'

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The Keystone Arch Bridges Trail: Magic in the Berkshire Mountains

In a patch of forest in the Berkshire Hilltowns of Chester, Becket and Middlefield, monoliths loom: Monuments of mechanical magic, spans of spatial interpretation, stone apparitions framed in thick-treed horizons growing from gorge walls and fording a wild, steady cascade. Visionary bridges to the tomorrow of yesterday.

A walk along the Keystone Arch Bridges Trail brings a body back to a time when dreams were coming true, as the push over and through the forbidding mountain margin of Western Massachusetts taunted engineers with its impossibilities. Surmounting the granite bounds of earth raised skyward proved a test of ingenuity ne'er faced before by the architects of human expansion. In 1841, the task was met.

Cutting through the hillside, spring streams swollen with winter run-off follow the path of least resistance to the Westfield River's West Branch, the water barrier that the Keystone Arch Bridges of the Western Railroad tamed as the drive to reach the Hudson River in New York and commerce to the west reached its 19th century crescendo.

Mimicking the track of the West Branch Gorge through torturous terrain was sensible to railroad surveyor, Major George W. Whistler, its climb in altitude lower and less of a grade than hopping mountains, but it wasn't easy. Ten keystone arch bridges were required to stitch the winding slash of cold-running rapids together 'neath silver rails of American steel.

Along the trail, Chester Blue granite smoothed and shaped by human hands and machines rounding rock, shining stone to gleam; broken pieces, rejects from the quarry now shoring up roadside embankments: No less important a task than their cemetery silent siblings or Main Street curbstone cousins. The fallible human animal in nature displayed.

Modern-time, scrap-booked structures stand abandoned in tangled trees, faded Posted signs warning the curious away, a worn path outward and onward testament to bold-lettered ineffectiveness. 'Tis important to respect the rights of others while expecting your own are cherished. The tower through the woods once held a clock that ticked a creative countdown for the residents of this one-time artists colony, built in 1961 and now but a memory and a magnet.

Humans and stone are silent partners in time, measured in mossy patina.

Roadside, four granite posts once linked with plank, chain or bar, squared no longer; pondered by passerby who see perhaps funeral plots or animal enclosures or just four stones set in the earth, mum witnesses to history.

Usually it isn't until the dwelling is gone, evidence of life left behind in stone and scrap, that we wonder: What happened here? The question raises new walls atop sill plates of the past, ghosts hidden within.

From carved granite to molded recycled resin, the ages sport a chronology of divergent materials used for bridging gaps along the path of humanity, terrain-crossing advancements made with one purpose in mind: To advance.

And, beneath the span, the water drops, the wind whips and the earth moves, delineating still and forever borders of embankments tracing deep wrinkles in the earth. It is all - everything under the sun - eroded, erosion...eroding.

A well-marked trail lovingly brought to life and maintained by the Friends of the Keystone Arches, the walk is by no means casual, nor is it too taxing; but it is interesting, every step of the way.

The passing breeze of  Pontoosic Turnpike travelers surely swept the exterior of the structure that sat upon this foundation situated along the Pittsfield to Springfield road's north side. Ah...for the illuminating flash of one day a century old spent looking out a window here...

In the distance, camouflaged with initial disbelief, six stories of stacked stone rise from the earth in graceful granite elegance, the stalwart statue sharp contrast to the roiling, boiling wildness of the Westfield River's western arm.

Across the river and along the trail, the still-active CSX railroad tracks dart in and out of view, underlining the timbered horizon. Their trajectory through the Berkshire hills was redirected in 1912, for efficiency's sake, bypassing and rendering inactive the two massive spans enjoyed and explored today by visitors to the Keystone Arch Bridges Trail.

One-thousand men, most of them new to America, achieved what naysayers doubted could be done, building the world's highest railroad at the time. The Western Railroad traversed forbidding, remote terrain in a transportation engineering feat never before attempted. With each train rumbling through its carved mountain passages, it remains a testament to the human competitive spirit, both witness and participant to a fledgling nation's history.

Shards of crockery, rounded stones, new dead branches deposited atop centuries of silt; washed over with the passage of time and the changing of the sky.

Because of its isolated locale, naturally occurring elements were the preferred construction material for this arm of the Boston - Albany link. To the delight of builders - and the disdain of farmers - granite is found in great abundance here in Western Massachusetts. Still, each carved stone had to travel from the Chester Granite Works quite a distance away before it found its home for the ages.

Beautiful simplicity, one advantage to mortar-less construction is porosity and the ability to shed water through nooks and crannies, preventing ice build-up in brutal Berkshire winters and the frost-heave side-effects of the thaws and refreezes of unpredictable Berkshire springs.

A significant rock slide across the old rail bed illustrates the perils of mountain travel.

Brute force and hard labor conquered formidable walls faced by the men charged with the task of chasing the setting sun with ribbons of rail and the consumers who lived in its stead. Black powder explosions threw shards of rock skyward, each blast a step closer to the goal: Get to the other side...on to the next obstacle, each achievement a blaze on the trail westward. Expansion at the point of a pick-axe, grim determination to succeed in each shovelful of stone.

Spring comes just a bit later to the Hilltowns of Western Massachusetts...

One of a pair of old train signal marker bases that straddle the trail along the section of rail bed that went dormant in 1912, the unquestioned power to control movement faded into an anonymous concrete anomaly.

Keystone arch bridges weren't the only structures utilized to facilitate Berkshire Range rail travel, this giant, curved granite retaining wall an example of the nearly twenty other necessary engineered enhancements to the rugged landscape along the circuitous mountain leg of the Western Railroad.

Seventy soaring feet high above the river, passengers and freight moved east and west in a sweeping dance of daily destinations met per schedule, station platforms left with a puff of smoke behind for the next stop on the journey; each ticket, each package, a story waiting to be told.

A piece of coal spared the tender's fire.

'Tis a fair thing to say that the geographical confluence of Chester, Becket and Middlefield as experienced along the Keystone Arch Bridges Trail holds unparalleled beauty: A visit worth making if one hasn't yet been.

The first river in the country to be designated as part of the National Scenic & Wild Rivers System, the West Branch is the only one of the three branches of the Westfield River to flow unimpeded by a dam. Seventy feet seems much higher standing atop it rather than looking from below.

Huge granite blocks hewn from the planet edge the rail bed. Chester Blue granite is graded 'light' or 'dark' depending on how much black mica runs through the stone. The lines carved into the stones are from drilling done prior to blasting the stone free of its ancient home.

An idea of the enormity of this bridge, the tallest of the two along the trail at around seven stories, can be gleaned by comparing the hiker atop the span's right side to its overall height. Impressive, amazing, awe-inspiring...decades fade not the admiration for the hands that tamed the western wilderness of Massachusetts.

On Independence Day, 1841, the bridge spanning the Connecticut River between Springfield and West Springfield opened. On that day, it was second to none: The longest railroad bridge in the world. The 150-mile long Western Railroad was thus complete, souls and sustenance freighted along tracks once thought impossible to lay. Challenge and technical hardship, and indeed, the real hardship faced by the scores of men who labored fiercely to cross a mountain range in forest unconquered, was met with ingenuity and innovation, as stands the American spirit and the pioneering way. Still, to the west we roam and all points beyond, endlessly restless to know our own space and time.

As always, thanks for stopping by and take care.

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To learn more about the Keystone Arch Bridges, the history of the Western Railroad or hiking the trail these photographs were snapped on, visit the excellent web site of the Friends of the Keystone Arches at:

http://www.keystonearches.org/

(Please remember, supporting volunteer-dependent organizations is an important way to preserve the treasures of Western Massachusetts. Thanks if you do!)

For more Town of Chester history, check out the EWM post:

Map: Bird's-eye View of Chester, Mass., 1885

The parking area for the Keystone Arches Bridges Trail is at the intersection of Middlefield and Herbert Cross Roads in Chester. A helpful informational kiosk is located there, with others along the trail.



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Map: Bird's-eye View of Chester, Mass., 1885

On October 31, 1765, the town of Murrayfield was born on the eastern edge of the Berkshire hills, established from acreage awarded in auction by the Massachusetts General Court on June 2, 1762, to William Williams, and originally known as Plantation (or Township) No. 9. About eight years later, on June 29, 1773, a chunk of Murrayfield was carved off to form the town of Norwich. Eight years after that, on May 8, 1781, Murrayfield was again whittled down, another portion of the town annexed to Norwich, growing in the east.

On February 21, 1783, the town of Murrayfield became the town of Chester, as it is known today. The name change didn't dissuade the ongoing dissection of the town, though, with newly established Middlefield in Hampshire County staking its claim to acreage in the north just a few weeks later, on March 12, 1783. The town of Worthington took its piece of the northern reaches of Chester on June 21, 1799, and Norwich again grew at its neighbor's expense on May 25, 1853, eighty years after it was first created from Murrayfield/Chester turf. Two years later, Norwich was renamed Huntington.

By 1885, the year the above map was published by L. R. Burleigh of Troy, NY, Chester was a well-established, 120 year-old Hampden County hill town with tanneries, manufactories and mines, grist mills, two hotels, a railroad station and a skating rink. The town's population was 1,318.

The following images are cropped from the map, with numbered captions from the legend.

1. Congregational Church

The Second Congregational Church at 1 Middlefield Road in Chester. The exterior of the building remains much the same today as when the church was organized in 1844. Between that time and 1901, the church was served by over twenty successive ministers, the shortest pastoral term encompassing a mere two months and the longest around nine years. Half of the ministers spent one annum or less tending the Chester flock. The isolation and intensity of the harsh hill town winters probably had much to do with the high turnover rate of holy men, as well as the fact that many pastors preached a circuit, serving more than one area congregation at a time.

2. Methodist Church

Just east down Route 20 from the Second Congregational Church, the foundation of the Chester Methodist Church was laid in 1845, with construction complete and a formal dedication two years hence, in the autumn of 1847. A keg of gunpowder planted by those in opposition to members of the Methodist congregation's very active town temperance movement severely damaged the building when it exploded on the night of February 22, 1854. Repairs took months to complete, the church formally re-opening on August 6, 1854. The church ceased operating in that function in 1921, when members merged their flock with that of the Second Congregational Church. The structure was sold to the Samoset Lodge and then the Masons, and was shuttered in 1995.

The Chester Historical Society's, April, 2003, newsletter brings the Methodist Church building to life with a wonderful and comprehensive article detailing the structure's "storied past." Here's the link:

http://www.chestermass.com/Chester_Historical_Society/Newsletter/2003_April.pdf

3. Town Hall/Public School

The manufacturing and population growth explosion of the village of Chester Factories in the late Industrial-period resulted in the relocation of the town's civic offices there in 1870 from the original Chester Center, over 3 1/2 miles to the northeast. Chester's municipal building in 1885 combined civic and educational space. Today, the Chester Town Hall, at 15 Middlefield Road, (aside from being the place to take care of town business) is where the very talented and creative Chester Theatre Company holds its performances. The Chester Theatre Company is celebrating its 20th year in 2010 and is trying something new to raise production funds with its 1st Annual Winter Online Auction, to be held this March from the 21st to the 28th. To support this worthy cause, visit the Theatre Company's web site:

http://www.chestertheatre.org/index.cfm?CFID=2159403&CFTOKEN=23869293

And here's a link to the official Town of Chester web site:

http://www.townofchester.net/chestermass/

4. White's Hotel - W. R. White

Opened around 1882, William Roland White's hotel was virtually brand-new when Burleigh's map was created in 1885. Illustrated then in its 19th century location at the intersection of Depot and River Streets, today the building presides over the corner of Chester's Main and Riverfront Streets. Never physically moved, the former hotel's new address comes courtesy of a renaming of streets. The structure has been physically altered, though, with the later addition of a second-floor porch among other changes. Here are links to a couple of postcards of the hotel when it was known as the Riverside Inn from the late Shirley Bruso's excellent collection of Jacob's Ladder images:

http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~shirleyb/jacobsladder/riverside2.html

http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~shirleyb/jacobsladder/hotel2.html

This photograph, snapped by Francis Seddon in 2003, shows the Italianate-style beauty as it enters the 21st century:

http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~shirleyb/jacobsladder/seddonhotel.html

5. Chester House - W. H. Day

Within fifteen years of being drawn into map image immortality, William H. Day's Chester House, on the corner of Main Street and Middlefield Road, was razed to make way for a new school. Isaac Stevens was the first proprietor of the tavern, opening the doors to travelers in the early 1800s. The two and a half story, red-brick Chester Grammar School, which replaced Day's inn, has been a prominent landmark as one enters town since the dawn of the 20th century.

6. Hampden Emery Co. (Upper Mill)

The industrial abrasive, emery, was first detected after a visit to Chester on August 19, 1863, by Professor Charles T. Jackson, a Boston geologist who had been poking around for mineral samples in a mine owned by the Chester Iron Company. The mine had been worked unsuccessfully for a short span in the late 1850s after Dr. Heman S. Lucas's 1856 discovery of quantities of iron ore there and had restarted ore-extraction operations not long before Jackson revealed his findings to Lucas. Lucas confirmed the emery deposit several weeks later, the first major vein recorded in the United States.

Here's a link to a great article on Dr. Heman S. Lucas and the Chester emery trade by historian John Garvey, published in the May, 2006, newsletter of the Chester Historical Society:

http://www.chestermass.com/Chester_Historical_Society/Newsletter/2006_May.pdf

And here's a link to an 1865 article in Volume 89 of the American Journal of Science by Professor Jackson, describing the discovery of emery in Chester in his own words:

http://books.google.com/books?id=o_cQAAAAIAAJ&dq=charles%20jackson&pg=PA87#v=onepage&q=charles%20jackson&f=false

Hampden Upper Mill

It is a sign of the times that in 1885, mills and industrial enterprises - complete with belching smokestacks - would be featured as map insets. Development and progress were admired and encouraged in the late 19th century, the American dream being reshaped and reformulated in a nation transformed by upheaval, content to look forward (indeed, driven to) lest the bloody past of a country divided overtake a prosperous future.

6. Hampden Emery Co. (Lower Mill)

The 1863 discovery of emery in Chester brought its own form of abrasive personal and commercial upheavals. The Chester Iron Company was quickly reorganized as the Chester Emery Company, the principals being Dr. Heman S. Lucas, Henry D. Wilcox, James T. Ames and John E. Lucas, Heman's brother. Trying to squeeze iron out of rock was soon forgotten as profitability in the emery trade ensued. No longer dependent on importation of emery from Turkey or Greece, companies nationwide contracted with the Hilltown firm to provide them with the mineral, resulting in the rapid growth of the Chester Emery Company within the first few years of its incorporation.

By 1868, James Ames was overseer of the emery company and the Chester mines - gaining the top spot per vote of the board of directors - and Dr. Heman Lucas was out. The Hampden Emery Company was formed in all due haste, with Dr. Lucas, Henry Wilcox and Professor Jackson at the helm. The industrial rivals slugged it out in court over the next several years, each asserting rights to the mines with the Chester Emery company ultimately emerging the winner of the six-year skirmish.

The mills of the Hampden Emery Company managed to stay open after the court decision using ore imported from Turkey. Dr. Lucas, seeking other sources of the mineral, purchased land in North Carolina where emery had been located and, shortly after, began mining operations there, securing a steady supply of the industrial necessity for his factories back home before a year had run out on the legal setback his firm had suffered. The 1883 death of his former partner and competitor James Ames brought the deeds to the Chester emery mines back into the hands of Dr. Heman Lucas and the Hampden Emery Company, the rights to the properties purchased by the firm soon after Ames's passing. Lucas himself passed away in 1900. Around 1913, the Chester emery mines were closed.

Hampden Lower Mill

Dr. Heman Lucas's travails weren't limited to acts of man. The New York Times reported on July 14, 1874, that flooding in Chester had resulted in $10,000 worth of damage to one of the mills of the Hampden Emery Company. The Hannum Edge Tool Company - another concern of Lucas's - also sustained damage during the leveling display of nature's wrath. Many farms (including Lucas's fifty-acres) were affected by the raging waters, so powerful that Chester buildings were moved from their foundations and spun, left facing compass points anew. Four bridges were swept away and many roads were washed out in the deluge, which affected just about every resident in town. 1874 was a bad year for floods in Western Massachusetts, the Williamsburg reservoir dam on the Mill River in neighboring Hampshire County bursting under heavy rainfall two months earlier, on May 16, 1874, resulting in a loss of 139 downstream souls.

Here's a link to a previous EWM map post detailing an 1854 map of Hampshire County which, oddly enough, includes Chester Village although Chester had become part of Hampden County when that county was created from Hampshire County acreage on February 25, 1812:

http://explorewmass.blogspot.com/2009/07/map-hampshire-county-massachusetts-1854.html

7. Grant Corundum Wheel Co.

According to the Report of the Tax Commissioner of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, published in 1889, grinding wheel manufacturer Grant Corundum Wheel Company, was certified an organization on November 14, 1882. Company owner Frank Grant's business, which had relocated to Chester around 1880 from Manchester, NH, was somewhat and unfortunately short-lived, burning to the ground in 1892.

8. Chester Granite Works

Although it had to be hauled into town over three miles along the Chester & Becket Railroad from where it was quarried in Becket to be worked, the blue-hued granite of Becket became known as "Chester dark" and "Chester light" to geologists, a sample's classification determined by the amount of black mica tinging the stone. In 1885, granite quarrying, cutting and polishing was growing into an important industry in Chester, the fine-grained stone highly desirable for its monument-quality texture. Today, one can visit the Chester-Hudson Quarry at Becket and step back into the past, thanks to the hard work and dedication of the folks at the Becket Land Trust and those who contribute to their awesome endeavors. Here's a link for more information:

http://www.becketlandtrust.org/quarry/index.htm

9. James Keefe's Quartz Mill

Perched on the edge of Walker Brook, right upstream from where the West Branch of the Westfield River runs into it on the way to meet her two sister branches, Keefe's Quartz Mill was just one of several commercial concerns owned by the Keefe family of Chester. Quartz exists in abundance in the area, and when ground, finds its profitability in its use in the production of porcelain. James Keefe served with the 46th Massachusetts regiment during the Civil War, one of many Chester men who fought for the Union.

10. Chester Tannery

In 1885, tanning - making leather from animal skins - was the primary industry in Chester, the tannery along Walker Brook one of three processors in town. According to the 1982 Massachusetts Historical Commission's Reconnaissance Survey Town Report for Chester, thirty-percent of Hampden County's 1885 leather production originated from Chester tanneries. Here's a link to the Commission's Report:

http://www.sec.state.ma.us/MHC/mhcpdf/townreports/CT-Valley/cht.pdf

11. Chester Grist Mill

A grist mill was a vital part of every town before the days of packaged bread and preservatives. Chester Grist Mill harnessed the hydro-power of Walker Brook to grind grain to flour. The seasonal Bisbee Mill Museum in nearby Chesterfield (66 East St.) offers visitors a chance to see a refurbished early-1800s grist mill. The museum is open Sundays 2-5, from June to October. Here's some more information, courtesy of the Jacob's Ladder Business Association:

http://www.jlba.org/Tourism/bisbee_mill.html

12 McGeoch & Co.'s Bedstead Factory

Surrounded by heavily wooded forest and graced with a strong flow of running water, Chester visionaries and entrepreneurs took advantage of the opportunities afforded them, sawmills and comb factories, bedstead, bobbin, crib and furniture makers springing up along river and stream banks, water wheels churning out the future.

13. Smith's Carriage and Sleigh Manufactory

Smith is a surname long-associated with the Town of Chester. In the 1911 New England Historic Genealogical Society reference work, Vital Records of Chester, Massachusetts, to the Year 1850, there are over five pages of Smith births, three pages of marriages and a bit more than two pages of deaths.

7. Grant Corundum Wheel Co.
14. T. Keefe's Bedstead Factory

Timothy Keefe was an active citizen in Chester trade and civic affairs. In addition to owning the bedstead factory on Middlefield Road, Keefe was proprietor of a general store, which he later handed down to his son, James, owner of the Quartz Mill on Walker Brook. The store had initially been opened by partners William Shepard and Hiram Barber in the village of Chester Factories in the early 1800s . Timothy Keefe was town clerk from 1863 to 1871, and was also important to the village's public library, serving as trustee.

By 1904, Keefe's Bedstead Factory and the remnants of Grant Corundum Company had been replaced by the brand-new facilities of the Hamilton Emery Company, under the direction of company founder, Frank Hamilton. Here's a link to the Chester Historical Society's feature article commemorating the firm's 100th anniversary in the society's, March, 2005, newsletter:

http://www.chestermass.com/Chester_Historical_Society/Newsletter/2005_March.pdf

15. B. & A. Round House

On May 15, 1833, the Western Railroad Corporation was established and charged with extending the Boston & Worcester Railroad to Massachusetts' western border. In October of 1839 the first train arrived in Springfield from Worcester. By May 24, 1841, trains were running as far west as Chester Factories, bringing a new avenue of prosperity to the village. As the massive rail transportation project moved toward the New York border, Chester's importance grew to the line, becoming a certain stop so that pusher locomotives could be added to passing trains in order to assist them in surmounting the unforgiving grades around Gobble Mountain and Walnut Hill and westward to Washington and beyond. The workhorses of the Western railroad were stored in the round house, with a turntable guiding them into their respective resting places. The Western Railroad had been renamed the Boston & Albany Railroad by the time L. R. Burleigh's map was produced in 1885. A view from Google Earth shows the dirt circle tracing of the turntable and remnants of the round house still in place.

16. B. & A. R. R. Station

The Boston & Albany Railroad Station in Chester, though never reborn with the grand architecture of others along the line, was a welcome sight before the days of dining cars, many a hungry wayfarer disembarking an ever-swaying carriage into the warm glow of the eatery located there while the yardmen went about the business of coal and water amidst the pulses of steam and the clanging of bells, the explosive clash of locomotives connecting for the climb ahead purposeful and true. Today the station is lovingly maintained by the Chester Foundation and is open for visits seasonally, by appointment or during special events. For some incredible photographs and history and more information about making a trip out to the tracks, visit the Chester Railway Station web site:

http://www.chesterrailwaystation.org/

17. Post Office

One can read books, scan reports and peruse old newspaper articles for weeks and still never know as much about a town as you would if you were a fly perched on the wall of the local Post Office for the day.

18. Skating Rink

After all of the granite-quarrying and emery-bonding and shepherding and leather-making. After all of the grain was milled and bedsteads were made and tables were waited. After the stores closed and the quartz was ground, the good folks of Chester were able to unwind at the skating rink, to strap wheels to their soles and roll away the night in spinning social circles of small town Western Massachusetts. One can't help but feel that the people who sprung from and worked this hard, rocky soil deserved every moment of joy they could find in 1885.

As always, thanks for stopping by and take care.

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For more maps - modern and historic - visit the EWM page, Trails, Rails & Roads: Western Mass. Maps. For best results viewing the above map and others at EWM, save images and view in a photo program with a zoom feature.


Map Source: Library of Congress; American Memory; Map Collections; Troy, N.Y.: L.R. Burleigh, [1885] (Milwaukee, Wis. : Beck & Pauli, litho); Digital ID: g3764c pm010820 http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gmd/g3764c.pm010820

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