The Project Gutenberg eBook, America, Volume IV (of 6), by Joel Cook

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Title: America, Volume IV (of 6)

Author: Joel Cook

Release Date: March 11, 2013 [eBook #42309]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AMERICA, VOLUME IV (OF 6)***

E-text prepared by Melissa McDaniel
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
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EDITION ARTISTIQUE

The World's Famous Places and Peoples

AMERICA

BY
JOEL COOK

In Six Volumes
Volume IV.

MERRILL AND BAKER
New York London

THIS EDITION ARTISTIQUE OF THE WORLD'S FAMOUS PLACES AND PEOPLES IS LIMITED TO ONE THOUSAND NUMBERED AND REGISTERED COPIES, OF WHICH THIS COPY IS NO. 205

Copyright, Henry T. Coates & Co., 1900

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

VOLUME IV

A GLIMPSE OF THE BERKSHIRE HILLS.

XI.

A GLIMPSE OF THE BERKSHIRE HILLS.

Berkshire Magnificence—Taghkanic Range—Housatonic River—Autumnal Forest Tints—Old Graylock—Fitchburg Railroad—Hoosac Mountain and Tunnel—Williamstown—Williams College—North Adams—Fort Massachusetts—Adams—Lanesboro—Pittsfield—Heart of Berkshire—The Color-Bearer—Latimer Fugitive Slave Case—Old Clock on the Stairs—Pontoosuc Lake—Ononta Lake—Berry Pond—Lily Bowl—Ope of Promise—Lenox—Fanny Kemble—Henry Ward Beecher—Mount Ephraim—Yokun-town—Stockbridge Bowl—Lake Mahkeenac—Nathaniel Hawthorne—House of the Seven Gables—Oliver Wendell Holmes—Lanier Hill—Laurel Lake—Lee—Stockbridge—Field Hill—John Sergeant—Stockbridge Indians—Jonathan Edwards—Edwards Hall—Sedgwick Family and Tombs—Theodore Sedgwick—Catherine Maria Sedgwick—Monument Mountain—The Pulpit—Ice Glen—Great Barrington—William Cullen Bryant—The Minister's Wooing—Kellogg Terrace—Mrs. Hopkins-Searles—Sheffield—Mount Everett—Mount Washington—Shays' Rebellion—Boston Corner—Salisbury—Winterberg—Bash-Bish Falls—Housatonic Great Falls—Litchfield—Bantam Lake—Birthplace of the Beechers—Wolcott House—Wolcottville—John Brown—Danbury—Hat-making—General Wooster—Ansonia—Derby—Isaac Hull—Robert G. Ingersoll's Tribute—Berkshire Hills and Homes.

BERKSHIRE MAGNIFICENCE.

In ascending the Hudson River, its eastern hill-border for many miles was the blue and distant Taghkanic range, which encloses the attractive region of Berkshire. When the Indians from the Hudson Valley climbed over those hills they found to the eastward a beautiful stream, which they called the Housatonic, the "River beyond the Mountains." This picturesque river rises in the Berkshire hills, and flowing for one hundred and fifty miles southward by a winding course through Massachusetts and Connecticut, finally empties into Long Island Sound. Berkshire is the western county of Massachusetts, a region of exquisite loveliness that has no peer in New England, covering a surface about fifty miles long, extending entirely across the State, and about twenty miles wide. Two mountain ranges bound the intermediate valley, and these, with their outcroppings, make the noted Berkshire hills that have drawn the warmest praises from the greatest American poets and authors. Longfellow, Whittier, Bryant, Hawthorne, Beecher and many others have written their song and story, which are interwoven with our best literature. It is a region of mountain peaks and lakes, of lovely vales and delicious views, and the exhilarating air and pure waters, combined with the exquisite scenery, have made it constantly attractive. Beecher early wrote that it "is yet to be as celebrated as the Lake District of England, or the hill-country of Palestine." One writer tells of the "holiday-hills lifting their wreathed and crowned heads in the resplendent days of autumn;" another describes it as "a region of hill and valley, mountain and lake, beautiful rivers and laughing brooks."