Exploring Western Massachusetts: Maps

Showing posts with label Maps. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Map of Franklin County, Mass., c1879

Franklin County, Mass., c1879

Late 19th century Franklin County is represented in this small slice of the A. Williams & Company Railroad & Township Map of Massachusetts, published in 1879 at the Boston Map Store and printed by lithographers J. Mayer & Company.

Formerly part of Hampshire County, Franklin was relatively young in 1879, born by act of the state legislature on December 2, 1811. On July 1, 1875, according to state census figures, the population of Franklin County was 33,696. The land those folks owned had a total monetary value of $16,579,435, as recorded May 1, 1875.

The map notes both population and property value for each town. Post routes criss-cross the county, each circle along the road a post office, with distance in miles between stops noted accordingly. The offices with double circles sell money-orders.

As always, thanks for stopping by and take care.

More about Franklin County...

Here is a link to the Franklin County segment of the History of the Connecticut Valley in Massachusetts (1879), by Louis H. Everts, featured on the Western Mass. History & Genealogy website (an excellent resource): http://www.franklincountyhistory.com/everts/index.html

From EWM...

Photographs: A Fall Farm Stand in Franklin County, October, 1941: http://explorewmass.blogspot.com/2009/10/photographs-fall-farm-stand-in-franklin.html

Motoring the Mohawk , October 1941: http://explorewmass.blogspot.com/2008/10/motoring-mohawk-october-1941.html

A Walk Around Greenfield (circa 1903): http://explorewmass.blogspot.com/2009/05/walk-around-greenfield-circa-1903.html

Cemetery: Old Deerfield Burying Ground: http://explorewmass.blogspot.com/2007/07/cemetery-old-deerfield-burying-ground.html

Map source: Library of Congress Geography and Map Division; Digital ID: g3760 rr002350; http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gmd/g3760.rr002350; http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/gmd:@field(NUMBER+@band(g3760+rr002350))

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Artist's Reception And Wine Tasting This Saturday At The Wit Gallery In Lenox

The Wit Gallery, located at 27 Church St., Lenox, is pleased to announce that an Artist's Reception and Wine Tasting will be held at the Gallery on Saturday, August 21st, from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.

(Lenox, MA - PRESS RELEASE) The Wit Gallery of Art and Wine presents a reception for three artists: painter Suzanne Howes-Stevens, mixed media artist Carol Staub and sculptor Barbara Scavotto-Earley. During this event, the gallery will also be holding a wine tasting of select wines from it’s inventory of organic, artisan wines. Adam English, of Café Europa distributors will be pouring a tastes of new South American wines that we think are perfect for the upcoming fall season.

Portal #12 - Suzanne Howes-Stevens

Suzanne Howes-Stevens paints scenes of waterways in oil paint onto maps. Her paintings are subtle, filled with natural light and the atmosphere of the season during which she is working. Her paintings show us the beauty of these waterways and emphasize the importance of wetlands conservation; so much so that she has received a grant from the George Segal Foundation in the past.

Oriental Influence #6 - Carol Staub

Carol Staub’s multi media collage and paintings have garnered over 70 National and International awards and have been featured or published in several magazines and newspapers around the country. Her work is earthy and warm, often with an Asian influence. In addition to teaching workshops in Mixed Media and Collage, she serves on the Board of Directors for the National Association of Women Artists (the Florida Chapter) and is a member of several artistic clubs and societies.

Earley Choice of Freedom - Barbara Scavotto-Earley

Barbara Scavotto-Earley depicts stories of the human experience with her ceramic and mixed media sculptural work. Throughout her art career, she has modeled, assembled, painted, carved and welded virtues, intemperance, social concerns, spirituality, humor and other pieces in the epic puzzle of human conduct. A sprinkling of wit is common, even in her most reflective sculptures.

Event Date:

August 21, 2010 ~ 3 p.m. - 6 p.m.

Event Location:

The Wit Gallery of Art And Wine
27 Church St..
Lenox, Mass.
413-637-8808
info@thewitgallery.com
http://www.thewitgallery.com/

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Western Massachusetts Highways and Byways, circa 1929

1929 Gulf Refining Co. Road Map

Before the Massachusetts Turnpike sped east to west, before Interstate 91 linked north and south, before Quabbin...Western Massachusetts, 1929...

Happy motoring!

Sunday, March 14, 2010

The Eyrie House: William Street's Home in the Clouds

Stumbling upon the ruins of the strong traprock foundation astride the summit of Holyoke's Mt. Nonotuck, one might wonder what magnificent structure had perched atop these sills, what glorious architecture capped such a solid base that suggests grandeur in every stone laid. The fact of the matter is that these massive basalt walls have never supported anything but such visions and mind-pictures in the century passed, calamity and competition leaving unfinished one man's dream.

In 1893, William Street began construction of a new stone and concrete-built summit house to replace the aging Eyrie House hotel and resort he owned and operated from the lofty heights of his treasured property at the very top of Mt. Nonotuck. Street's plan to build an elegant four-story fireproof structure on the site just below the original hotel came to a blazing end around 8 p.m. on the night of April 13, 1901, when the mountain went aflame, a result of loose embers from a fire Street had started earlier as a crematory pyre for two deceased horses. Thinking the ashes of his fire had been reasonably contained, Street, alone on the summit, had gone about his evening business, the orange and red glow of the hungry and growing eraser traveling up the mountain alerting him to the pyre's re-spark too late as the barn went up, the first casualty in the ensuing path of destruction the desperate hotelier was helpless to halt.

Street, known for his frugality, was woefully under-insured. Three years of fierce competition from the nearby Mt. Tom Summit House and Railway Park, opened in 1897, and before that, years of sustained rivalry with the Prospect House, atop Mt. Holyoke across the Connecticut River, had also severely cut into Mr. Street's seasonal receipts. Unable to rebuild, broken and broken-hearted, William Street gave up his mountain perch to live out the rest of his days a recluse, to his death refusing to acknowledge the $5,000 the Mt. Tom Reservation Commission had deposited into an escrow account in his name after taking his property per eminent domain when negotiations between the two parties about the acreage's true value had come to a stubborn stand still. William Street died in 1918 at the age of 78. Having remained a bachelor all of his life, his sole heir was his sister, Ann, who inherited what was left of Street's estate, including, presumably, the $5,000, which he had left untouched for fourteen years. Mr. Street's Mt. Nonotuck has been enjoyed by visitors to its climes as part of Mt. Tom State Reservation for over a century now.

Officially opened on July 4, 1861, the Eyrie House had expanded its facilities as well as its reputation by the time this 1871 advertisement for the busy summer resort appeared in the book, Attractions of Northampton, by Charles Chandler. Patrons could visit a collection of creatures Mr. Street, an amateur zoologist, kept as a mountain menagerie. Options for viewing the valley and surrounding blue-tinged ranges were numerous, with platforms and walkways and mountain paths leading to natural lookouts. A telescope provided breathtaking views of the Connecticut River's meandering Oxbow or the growing town of Northampton, shining in the upriver distance. Bands appeared and picnics were held, the grove filled to its edges most summer days, well over a hundred folks at a time enjoying the fresh mountain air of Western Massachusetts.

William Street had begun the Mt. Nonotuck enterprise with a partner, Hiram Farnum, who sold his share in the operation in August of 1861, the architectural and recreational creation born atop the mountain thereafter the pursuit of Street's sole and personal vision. The image above shows the north face of the Eyrie House. It was taken facing the summit from the area of where the previously pictured foundation ruins of the never-to-be replacement hotel can be found today. From meager beginnings on leased land, Street's mountain resort grew and expanded each year as he sunk his heart and soul into his dream. In 1875, he purchased the property from his lessor. By 1885, an improved road was carrying Eyrie House patrons up the mountain to stay in one of the hotel's more than thirty well-decorated, wainscoted and black-walnut trimmed guest rooms. Wooden decks and promenades soared above the treetops, leading to attractions scattered around the property. Companies held picnics there and families made an annual tradition of vacation pilgrimages to the elevated retreat.

The faint figures of people utilizing the observation deck atop the Eyrie House can be seen in this photograph. The four decade old, all-wooden building and its surrounding decks and promenades took little time to burn on that fateful Saturday night in the spring of 1901, a somber spectacle seen for miles around, like a tragic beacon illuminating the nearly 900 foot high Mt. Nonotuck summit. According to an article in the April 14, 1901, Springfield Sunday Republican: "The progress of the fire was watched by hundreds of people at Northampton, Easthampton and Holyoke, and it made a brilliant sight way up against the clouds. There seemed to be no resistance to the flames, and they rushed through the long three-story building at will, and by 11 o'clock the whole structure was in ashes." Street was badly burned on one of his hands as he bravely battled the fire and later maintained that, had he gotten help sooner, the house may have been spared the inferno. Very few items were saved before the hotel was consumed, the telescope, some souvenirs and bedding retrieved all that Street had left to remember his mountain paradise. Those and a sturdy traprock foundation begun, that sadly, would never see progress again. Unlike the Phoenix, the Eyrie House would not rise from the ashes.

Folks from all points had options for getting to William Street's Eyrie House with local road, rail and water travel experiencing giant leaps forward toward modernity in the 19th century. The final leg of the journey, though, was always uphill, the mountain road a vital link to success which Street continuously tried to improve over the years, purchasing land and securing rights-of way necessary to ease the toll of the climb on his patrons. Indeed, simultaneously with construction of the stalwart, left-behind foundation of the new hotel, a railway was being built to carry passengers from the flatland below to the heights of the resort. Remnants of the rail bed, begun around 1894, can still be seen in thick, high, stone support walls chasing time down the slopes. That endeavor, too, was abandoned as a result of the 1901 Eyrie House fire.

This radio beacon tower, constructed by the Defense Department in the mid-40s and maintained today by the FAA, is located almost in the center of where the original Eyrie House once stood. Snapped from the foundation ruins of the never-completed "new" Eyrie House, the angle of the photograph is very similar to the angle of the one three photographs up, the one depicting the north side of the hotel. Standing here, one can imagine the house at it was, proprietor William Street, the "hermit of the mountain" as he had been known, opening his doors to happy and satisfied guests for a few months of the year. Selling his creation on the mountain one night at a time to folks who returned year after year to behold the new wonders he had in store. It isn't every hotel owner who kept a bear in the basement...

Now under the charge of the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, Mt. Tom State Reservation is a place of basalt ghosts and keystone memories, specters we can revisit on snowy hikes or summer days to contemplate dreams borne upon wings to summits in the sky. Today, through doorways and beyond walls fixed in stone and mortar, we can walk among the nestled rock puzzle remnants of one man's vision: An ever-welcoming crown atop an unforgiving mount, William Street's eyrie among the clouds.

We can look off into the valley, over the hills, and marvel at all that has changed from William Street's day. We can wonder, too, of all that remains the same. And still, we pay our coin, we take our view, and some will see further than others.

As always, thanks for stopping by and take care.

For more information on visiting Mt. Tom State Reservation, including how to get there and a printable trail map, be sure to visit the mass DCR's park web page at:

http://www.mass.gov/dcr/parks/central/mtom.htm

For a great video history of the Eyrie House check out Mt. Tom historian Robert Schwobe's presentation, Mt. Nonotuck and the Eyrie House Hotel, at Easthampton Community Access Television's blog:

http://ecatv5.blogspot.com/2008/10/mt-nonotuck-and-eyrie-house-hotel.html

And here's a link to an excellent chronology of Eyrie House history by Bob Genest over at the Pine Cone Johnny blog:

http://pineconejohnny.blogspot.com/2008/07/rise-and-fall-of-holyokes-eyrie-house.html

Tony Mateus, author of the blog, in the valley, has also visited the Eyrie House and Mt. Tom, here's a link to his post, with his ever-present awesome photographs:

http://thepioneervalley.blogspot.com/2008/09/havent-foggiest.html

And another link to a great web site called, Mt. Holyoke Historical Timelines, which mentions the Eyrie House a few times:

http://www.chronos-historical.org/mtholyoke/index.html

The two vintage Eyrie House photographs and the map are courtesy of the always-expanding ImageMuseum (thanks!):

http://imagemuseum.smugmug.com/

Sunday, February 28, 2010

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.

* * *

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

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Map: Bird's-eye View of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, 1899

Pittsfield was eight years a city when this bird's-eye view map was published by A. M. Van de Carr in South Schodack, N. Y., in 1899. Printed by the Weed-Parsons Printing Co. of Albany, N. Y., the map is not drawn to scale, but does include a numbered directory of Pittsfield places of interest.

The city's distinctive Park Square, fed by a quartet of streets named sensibly after the four points of the compass is seen in the lower center-right of the map. For folks interested in learning a little more about the city, captioned images of the square captured over a century ago - just around the time this map was published - can be seen in the EWM post: Photographs: The Spokes of Park Square, Pittsfield, Massachusetts (c1900-1920).

For optimal viewing, you may prefer to save this image to your computer for perusal in your favorite photo program. This map (and many others) can also be found online at the Library of Congress, in the Map Collections section of the American Memory project. And, of course, there is the ever-available EWM page, Trails, Rails and Roads: Western Mass. Maps, where you will find links to this map and similar others, as well as current local maps and popular map sites like Google maps and Map Quest.

As always, thanks for stopping by and take care.

Map source:
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/gmd:@field(NUMBER+@band(g3764p+pm003182))

Sunday, July 5, 2009

Map: Hampshire County, Massachusetts, 1854

Looking at this map of Hampshire County circa 1854, one can't help but be impressed by the amount of labor of lithography and love that went into its cartographical creation. A treat to the eyes as well as the mind, the map represents a pairing of the artist's flowing hand with the surveyor's cold, honest line of fact: Homesteaders' names secured in bold town borders back-filled with pleasing yesterday colors. For a brief moment in time, all were accounted for in Hampshire County.

Map of
Hampshire
County
Massachusetts

From Actual Surveys By Wm. J. Barker

Published By

James D. Scott & Owen McCleran
116 Chestnut Street
Philadelphia
1854

E. Herrlein's Lith. 116 Chestnut St. Phila.

Just for comparison's sake with the above list from 1854, here are Hampshire County town populations from the 2007 U. S. Census estimates, with the changes in population between the recorded years noted in parentheses:

Amherst: 34,275 (+31,298)

Belchertown: 13,971 (+11,310)

Chesterfield: 1,273 (+259)

Cummington: 974 (-190)

Easthampton: 16,064 (+14,724)

Enfield: 0* (-1,034)

Goshen: 956 (+444)

Greenwich: 0* (-1,104)

Granby: 6,285 (+5,447)

Hadley: 4,787 (+2,818)

Hatfield: 3,258 (+2,200)

Middlefield: 551 (-185)

Northampton: 28,411 (+23,291)

Norwich (Huntington): 2,193 (+1,443)

Pelham: 1,404 (+421)

Plainfield: 600 (-212)

Prescott: 0* (-737)

Southampton: 5,962 (+4,902)

South Hadley: 16,952 (+14,173)

Ware: 9,933 (+6,151)

Westhampton: 1,586 (+987)

Williamsburg: 2,440 (+903)

Worthington: 1.272 (+151)

Here's a link to a handy Boston Globe article at Boston.com, "Census Releases 2007 Massachusetts Population Figures", a list of the Bay State's 351 towns and their populations in 2000, 2006 and 2007.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2008/07/09/2007_mass_population/

*Enfield, Greenwich, Prescott and the Worcester County town of Dana were all dismantled to make way for Quabbin Reservoir and were officially disincorporated on April 28, 1938.

Something seems a bit odd with a few of the figures in the above list. There are 235 teachers to 7,671 public school students, which seems to be a pretty reasonable ratio for the times, 1 teacher for every 33 students. What is strange is the number of public schools, meaning the buildings themselves: 218. This means that just about every teacher had their own little schoolhouse with a few dozen students way back in mid-19th century Hampshire County. Kind of cool, such snug local learning. Then again, consider the 8,885 polls listed for the county. That's one polling place for every four residents, going by total population (35,257). Talk about elbow room! Perchance a misprint?

Okay, let's do a little more numbers jumping between centuries. Here are some figures for Hampshire County from the 2007 Census of Agriculture from the USDA, followed by value changes in the intervening 153 years since the above "Agricultural Products" statistics were printed on the Hampshire County map in 1854:

Land in Farms: 52,756 acres (-245,446 acres, per total of both improved and unimproved land in 1854)

Horses: 1,495 (-2,487)

Cattle: 5,242 (-25,738, per 1854 total of milk cows, oxen and other cattle combined)

Sheep: 1,658 (-31,179)

Swine: 1,918 (-4,807)

For a bigger picture of the farming status of Hampshire County today, check out the 2007 Census of Agriculture County Profile PDF:

http://www.agcensus.usda.gov/Publications/2007/Online_Highlights/County_Profiles/Massachusetts/cp25015.pdf

One has to wonder about the placement of the abbreviation for "Catholic Church" on this map legend. Was it an oversight on the copywriter's part, forgotten to be tucked in above with the other congregations and added hastily at the end of the list rather than going through the trouble of a rewrite? Or was it a reflection of the Catholic faith's status in 19th century Hampshire County? An intended inflection of the pecking order of Atlas importance, falling in behind the cemetery and saw mill, the blacksmith and the postmaster? It would be nice to conclude for the former, but events in neighboring Hampden County's town of Westfield in the hot summer of 1854 bear witness to the possibility of the latter being closer to the truth.

From about 1825 Westfield had seen a large influx of Irish-Catholic immigrants who had come to the area to build the Hampshire and Hampden Canal and then the railroads, and many long-time residents resented their presence. Under 1854's July sun, the rising - brick by brick, board by board - of Westfield's first Roman-Catholic House of Worship on the corner of Mechanic and Bartlett Streets (now St. Mary's) brought tensions to a fine pitch, finally drawing a bristling and angry crowd to the site, ready to burn the growing church to the ground. Were it not for the persuasive words of Hiram Hull, a Protestant and well-respected man in town, the church may have been destroyed that day. As it turned out, after almost thirty years of worshiping in homes and rented buildings and even outdoors, the first Mass was celebrated in the new church five months later, in December, 1854.

The proliferation of professors, doctors and Dickinsons (Emily included) crowded into 1854 Amherst - along with the presence of Amherst College - undoubtedly establishes that town as the intellectual center of Hampshire County for the time. A visit to the poet's home, now the Emily Dickinson Museum, on Main Street in Amherst will take you back there. Here's the museum's web address:

http://emilydickinsonmuseum.org/

Belchertown center's layout hasn't changed much since 1854. Notable on the map are the carriage manufacturers clustered around the common area. Belchertown carriage-makers were considered to be in the top tier for quality in their trade. In his book, the History of Western Massachusetts (1855), historian Josiah Gilbert Holland identifies four carriage and sleigh manufacturers located in Belchertown, employing a total of 132 workers and producing over 1,000 carriages and sleighs annually. Holland reports that annual earnings from carriage manufacturing reached nearly $100,000 for all four companies combined. Industry competition led to the decline of Belchertown carriage-makers financial foundation and within a couple of decades of the publication of Holland's work, carriage production was no longer a prominent concern in Belchertown.

Belchertown's official web site has a great historical summary of the town (including more on carriage manufacturing), which, according to the page was "originally written in 1960 by Kenneth A. Dorey and revised in 2005 by Shirley Bock, Doris Dickinson and Dan Fitzpatrick." Great job, folks. Here's the link:

http://www.belchertown.org/departments/history/bhistory.htm

And a link to Holland's History of Western Massachusetts at Google Books:

http://books.google.com/books?id=kZMseBfejMYC&ots=5kYGYkkqWw&dq=holland%20history%20of%20western%20massachusetts&pg=PA1

The Western Railroad cleaves a prominent arc through Chester Village in this detail of the small hamlet nestled in the foothills of the Berkshires. Construction of the rail line between Springfield and Chester was completed in 1841, the first freight hauled between the tiny village and the bustling city on May 24th of that year.

Amherst wasn't the only Hampshire County town to lay claim to the roots of a great American wordsmith in the 19th century. Poet William Cullen Bryant was born in Cummington on November 3, 1794 and died in New York on June 12, 1878. Today, the Bryant Homestead in Cummington is maintained and operated by the Trustees of Reservations and is an excellent piece of Western Massachusetts literary history to have the opportunity to explore. Here is a link to the Homestead's web site:

http://www.thetrustees.org/pages/285_bryant_homestead.cfm

And here's a web site with a brief biography and some of Bryant's poems:

http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/william_cullen_bryant

Easthampton was enjoying an explosive era of growth and prosperity around the time this map was drawn. Samuel Williston was instrumental as a driving force behind this forward movement, opening Williston Seminary in 1841 and then, six years later, relocating his button-manufacturing operations from Williamsburg to Easthampton as the Williston, Knight & Company. One year after that, in 1848, Williston opened the Nashawannuck Manufacturing Company (next door to the button plant), whose business it was to make suspenders. From 1840 to 1850, Easthampton's total property value increased four-fold. The population took a dramatic turn upward as well, with a nearly 90% increase in souls living within the town borders between those same years. And the expansion was only beginning. As more factories opened, and Easthampton became renowned for its elastic thread mills, the town continued to grow exponentially. Easthampton's population in 1854 was 1,340, by 1870 it had more than doubled, to 3,620.

Enfield was one of four Swift River Valley towns and several villages that were disincorporated and dismantled to make way for Quabbin Reservoir, a major component in the fresh water supply system for the Eastern part of the state, including Boston and the surrounding metro area. Enfield began its existence in June, 1787, and was originally known as the South Parish of Greenwich. It officially became Enfield about three decades later, on February 18, 1816, ultimately being cobbled out of parts of Greenwich, Belchertown and Ware. The last town meeting was held in Enfield, Massachusetts, in the Enfield Town Hall, on April 8, 1938. Twenty days later, on April 28, 1938, per Chapter 240 of the Acts and Resolves of April 26, 1938, passed earlier by the Massachusetts General Court, and signed into law by Governor Charles F. Hurley, Enfield was gone from the map.

For more on Enfield, check out these EWM posts:

Postcards From a Lost Town: Enfield, Massachusetts

Quabbin History: Enfield's Last Town Meeting, April 28, 1938

And for lots more on Quabbin Reservoir, take a look at EWM's The Quabbin Page

When I first found this map at the Library of Congress Map Collections, I was excited because of the details of the Swift River Valley towns of Enfield and Greenwich, both erased from existence for seven decades now. Then I looked at this detail of Florence and I saw the name S. J. Truth. Sojourner Truth, the freed New York slave who devoted her freedom to advancing the rights and freedom of others, especially women, working in partnership with a God she graced with her faith. Truth lived on Park Street in Florence from 1846 to 1857, when she moved to Michigan. Truth's 1851 "Ain't I A Woman?" speech may be her most memorable. There is a memorial site, with a fine statue of Sojourner Truth located on the corner of Park and Pine Streets in Florence.

Here's a link to the memorial's excellent and informative web site:

http://www.sojournertruthmemorial.org/

And to the text of "Ain't I A Woman?":

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/sojtruth-woman.html

The town of Hadley reached an important milestone this year. Settled in 1659, 2009 marks 350 years of perseverance and prosperity for this New England gem along the Connecticut river. Events organized by the Hadley 350th Committee and volunteers are being held throughout the year to celebrate this auspicious anniversary, including a decorating contest, nature walks, plays, polka and feasts of fresh farm produce. The ambitious and interesting calendar of activities offered presents opportunities for everyone to participate and lots of close-to-home options for summer fun. Happy Birthday, Hadley!

For more information, check out the Hadley 35oth web site:

http://www.hadley350.org/

And here's a great new blog focusing on Hadley:

Save Hadley!

Hatfield's Main Street, with its well-appointed homes and welcoming charm, is one of the most beautiful scenic rural thoroughfares in Western Massachusetts. Founded in 1670 on land settled in 1660 as part of Hadley, Hatfield folks have managed to maintain small town values rooted in a love for the land and a sense of community that is laced through centuries.

For more on Hatfield, visit the town's web site:

http://www.townofhatfield.org/

And here are a couple of links to previous EWM posts with photographs of the devastation Hatfield experienced as a result of the Great Flood of 1936:

The Great Flood of 1936: Hatfield House and Barns

The Great Flood of 1936: Hatfield Tobacco Fields

On May 16, 1874, two decades after this map was published, the village of Haydenville, in southern Williamsburg, was decimated by a flood caused by the failure of the Williamsburg reservoir dam on the Mill River. The reservoir was used to store and regulate water to power the many mills and factories downstream, most of which were destroyed or damaged in the breach, including Joel Hayden Sr.'s brass works, cotton factory and foundry. Hayden was one of the local industrialists who spearheaded construction of the dam. Ironically, Hayden, who had been concerned for years about the dam's strength and ability to withstand heavy rains -to the point of monitoring the structure himself during downpours - had satisfied himself in the Spring of 1873 that the dam would last after all. 139 people perished in the devastating flood, 27 of them residents of Haydenville.

There are three broom-making firms shown on this detail of the village of North Hadley. At the turn of the 19th century, broomcorn was the most prolific cultivated plant in Hadley and the town led the nation in the manufacture and export of corn brooms. By 1854, when this map was published, tobacco had risen to the top of the farmer's planting list and the broomcorn industry was fading away.

Northampton marks 225 years as a city in 2009, having been incorporated in 1884, 230 years after being granted its charter as the town of Nonotuck (in 1654), and 30 years after this map was produced. One of the nicest features of this map detail is that the names of the streets are indicated. Inexplicably, most of the featured map's town details have omitted this important function.

Prominent in the upper left quadrant of this map is Dr. Halsted's Water Cure treatment facility. Dr. Halsted offered to cure patients suffering from nervous afflictions, curvatures, low spirits, paralysis and even constipation using a method of combined hydropathy and electrical shock treatments. This method was touted by Dr. Halsted as "magical in its efficacy" and "always sure to cure." For more on water cure spas, including Halsted's, take a look at the Worcester Women's History Project web page:

http://www.wwhp.org/Resources/asylum_for_the_sick.html#Halsted

And here is a link to a previous EWM post featuring old and somewhat amusing medical advertisements:

Advertisements: Hope in a Bottle, Circa 1885

And a past post on Northampton from EWM:

Of Icemen and Presidents: Photos of Northampton at the Dawn of the 20th Century

When the ink of this map was laid to paper, Mt. Holyoke Female Seminary, founded by Mary Lyon in 1837, was nearing the end of its second decade of dedication to the pursuit of higher education for women. Today, Lyon's dream - now known as Mount Holyoke College - is still going strong in South Hadley. For more on South Hadley history, visit the informative and excellent blog of the South Hadley Historical Society at:

http://southhadleyhistoricalsociety.blogspot.com/

The Connecticut River was both partner and obstacle to settlers along her banks as witnessed by the existence of both dam and ferry in this detail.

The village of Southampton was carved out of Northampton in 1730 and was duly incorporated as a town in 1753. One of the earliest capitalizations of Southampton's natural resources came in the late 1600s, when investors formed an outfit that began mining the lead running in veins beneath the town. The original mining enterprise was short-lived, but in the mid-1700s the digging began anew under fresh investors and by 1770 the gamble was paying off. The shot heard 'round the world and the beginning of the American Revolution in 1776 brought operations to a standstill for two decades and it wasn't until 1807 that the mining of lead recommenced in Southampton. Throughout its life, the mine invariably seemed to suffer the fate of an industrial toy easily grown tired of by investors and was closed again around 1820. Midway through the 19th century another attempt was made to recharge the mining business in town. After about 15 years of operations, lead mining in Southampton ended for good in 1865. Here's a link to the Town of Southampton's web site:

http://www.town.southampton.ma.us/

Ware was at the dawn of its most prosperous era in when this map was drawn in 1854. The Otis Company Cotton Mills and the Gilbert and Steven Woolen Mills saw the height of their firms' prosperity from around 1850 until the early 20th century when industry competition operating more efficiently began driving the companies under, despite the best efforts of the workers to keep the companies profitable.

Williamsburg was also seriously affected by the aforementioned Williamsburg reservoir dam collapse on the Mill River that destroyed Haydenville and the resulting loss of life and property caused by the disaster took years for the town to recover from. Many river-side mills were never rebuilt, erased by the flood permanently. An excellent book on the devastating flood is 2004's In The Shadow of the Dam by Elizabeth M. Sharpe. Today, Williamsburg is one of the most beautiful and peaceful towns to live in or visit in Western Massachusetts. To explore more, here's the web address of the Town of Williamsburg:

http://www.burgy.org/Pages/index

And a link to a preview of Sharpe's book at Google Books:

http://books.google.com/books?id=DunhKMAg5kMC&lpg=PP1&pg=PP1

And here is the outline of Hampshire County as it looks today. The most noticeable map changes between 1854 and 2009 are the renaming of Norwich to Huntington and the disappearance of Enfield, Prescott and Greenwich from the eastern part of Hampshire County to make way for the Quabbin Reservoir. Unless you consider the delivery system's changes as well...from 19th century ink and paper to 21st century captured crop of digitized PDF. Time illustrates the fluidity of a border, the stretching of an idea.

As always, thanks for stopping by and take care.

For more maps, new and old, on EWM and beyond, check out the exclusive EWM feature page, Trails, Rails and Roads: Maps.