Dispatches from the Beyond Place: Tales of the Hoosic River

Dispatches from the Beyond Place: Tales of the Hoosic River Hoosic River Watershed Association Copyright ©2017 Hoosic River Watershed Association Cover photo credit: Buskirk Bridge, L.Stevens Dispatches from the Beyond Place: Tales of the Hoosic River Buskirk Bridge, S.McMahon By Lauren R. Stevens with John Case & Wendy Hopkins Hoosic Subwatersheds Credit: R.Schlesinger 4 · Dispatches from the Beyond Place: Tales of the Hoosic River · 5 INTRODUCTION: River. Located about 150 miles equally Three states, one river from New York City and Boston, the The granite marker where New York, valley is neither urban nor suburban but Massachusetts, and Vermont abut stands country—and likely to stay that way. beside an unmarked former logging road Although it is not an area in which a lot of in a remote section of 2,600-forested people have made a lot of money—in fact acres. The nucleus was once a patchwork most residents work hard in low-paying of small farms, then Amos Lawrence jobs—it is an area to which some wealthy Hopkins’ 19th century private preserve, people, like railroad tycoon Hopkins, have then an experimental forest administered escaped. And, partly as a result, much of by the U.S. Forest Service, and now by the land is protected. Williams College. Williams’ students Land use in the watershed is consistently and faculty continue the forest research, wooded on the ridges, dotted by small studying the natural systems like water towns and villages along the river and its flow in the brooks, weather, leaf fall, tributaries, with the area between largely and forest regeneration. A canopy walk agricultural. This is a pattern visitors seek provides access to the upper parts of out, residents feel comfortable with, and the trees. The movement from private those who emigrate desire to return to. to government or non-profit ownership And yet peoples’ vision of the area is and the emphasis on the environment is distracted by the imaginary lines that typical of the tri-state area that comprises demark towns, counties, and states to the the Hoosac Valley. extent that we have lost our understanding The establishment of state boundaries of the congruence of the Hoosac is an important part of the history of the Valley, so that nowadays Williamstown area. Political boundaries, however, are residents, for example, rarely venture to of modest importance from the natural Schaghticoke, and Bennington folk have system’s point of view. The 720-square- little to do with North Adams. Perhaps mile Hoosic watershed that surrounds even an idiosyncratic history of the valley that marker includes eastern New will help overcome the myopia—and York north of Albany, the Bennington reveal the increasingly scarce qualities of area of southwestern Vermont, and the watershed. the Mt. Greylock area of northwestern Hoosic, Hoosac, Hoosick, Hoosuck… Massachusetts, all linked by the Hoosic The word is Algonquian and any consistent spelling, elusive. In general usage, 1943, “Miss Niles, a woman in her late Hoosuck is an older form, as in a former seventies, was doubtless, from a literary name for Mt. Greylock: Grand Hoosuck standpoint, the most talented person Mountain. Nowadays the town in New native to this small Vermont town” of York, Hoosick Falls, deploys a terminal k. Pownal, non trivial praise considering that The valley and eastern ridges that form two U.S. Presidents, James A. Garfield the valley are spelled Hoosac. The river and Chester A. Arthur, while not native, itself is Hoosic. The root word may have nevertheless taught in their youths in the meant “beyond place.” That is, living same one-room Pownal school. as the Mahicans did along the Hudson, they crossed beyond the Taconics to the Hoosacs for hunting and the like. HISTORY, LEGENDS, & NILES An idiosyncratic history of the Hoosac Valley has already been chronicled. Grace Greylock Niles’ The Hoosac Valley: Its Legends and History (Putnam’s, 1912) is an example of regional history that doesn’t clearly differentiate between the “legends,” mostly about Indians, and the “history,” matters that can be documented. It also buries its story under detail, as do Grace Greylock Niles, self-portrait (?). many regional histories, and it bestows Credit: Pownal Historical Society somewhat odd place names. Given that some contemporary historians consider it Born in Pownal in 1864 as Grace unreliable and given that over 100 years Stoddard Niles, she attended Pownal have passed, it is time to take another look schools (post presidential teaching at Hoosuck, -sick –sac, -sic history. stints), later a private school—probably Still, Niles’ book is a remarkable in Herkimer, New York—and still later, effort. Pairing it with her biography adds nursing school. She returned to teach in to its allure. After all, according to her Pownal and then began her writing career. Bennington Banner obituary, June 15, She never married. Largely self-taught as 6 · Dispatches from the Beyond Place: Tales of the Hoosic River · 7 a naturalist, she published “The Origin of but stuck to her geographical - and Plant Names” in 1902. Her close feeling name-base, writing “The Greylock Park of association with her natural setting may Reservation” in 1911, more history, to have caused her to adopt the name of the celebrate the state’s protection of the highest peak in southern New England, massif. The following year she published Greylock, located in Massachusetts just The Hoosac Valley, followed by “The south of Pownal. The commonwealth had North American Cypripediums” (orchids). recently acquired the core of the Greylock While she had been returning to Pownal Reservation (1898) as its first state-owned summers, she moved back full time in wild land. In 1904 she displayed that 1918, at the age of 54. She settled on feeling for nature and her considerable family land, which now belongs to The talent for botany in her book, Bog Trotting Trustees of Reservations and is called for Orchids, the result of wandering Mountain Meadow Preserve. Where on through the Hoosic River watershed, the property her house stood is not known, especially the wetlands between the North although the remains of a foundation by Branch of the Hoosic and feeder streams Benedict Road may have been hers. to the Walloomsac. She drew many of the Soon she began harassing her few illustrations “from nature,” as she wrote. neighbors, especially those who were This book is still regarded as an accurate setting out apple trees for what became and inspiring text. the Kalarama Orchards. A distant, In the same year she published her first younger relative who saw to her, the late history, “The Mission of the White Oaks Henry Montgomery, recollected: “She Chapel,” which was founded by Williams worked so hard she went to dope,” a College Professor Albert Hopkins, in the phrase of which the general meaning at section of Williamstown, Massachusetts, least is clear. He added: “I was the only closest to Pownal. The article, published one she let in… She carried a rifle all the in the Christian Register, provides an time. The house was full of paintings and intimate recounting of the runaway slave books. She was in terrible condition [:] no community that lived in that part of town, clothes or food or heat.” and which Hopkins’ chapel served. Perhaps she agreed. She burned She continued to publish articles on down her house, while she “sat under her flowers. She moved to New York City grapevine eating grapes,” Montgomery around 1910, to serve as a private nurse, reported. (The Benedict Road foundation shows signs of fire.) Two days after she researched was not available in any neighbors took her in she ran away. digested, convenient form, except for Montgomery found her in the rain “in college and Williamstown historian Arthur a swamp” near the Sand Springs Hotel, Latham Perry’s and a few other’s books. down White Oaks Road in Williamstown. Her hours of digging through musty He called the sheriff, who drove her to documents and old deeds in registries, the Brattleboro Retreat Center, a mental libraries, and historical societies for The institution in Vermont. There she died in Hoosac Valley are awe-inspiring, might 1943, to be buried back in Pownal, at Oak even drive someone to dope, even if she Hill Cemetery. doesn’t provide us with a bibliography If historians consider suspect her and only occasionally a footnote. Don’t Indian history, her geology in The Hoosac expect footnotes to this informal paper, Valley is based on the best available although a bibliography is attached. information of her day. Williams College, Regarding the legends, she was in part having broken free from a strict Classical set up. Her publisher, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, curriculum, had become a center of was into them. In the back of her volume science. Amos Eaton began the study are advertisements for The Mohawk Valley: of geology at Williams, before joining Its Legends and History, Old Paths and Stephen Van Rensselaer to found Legends of New England, and other similar Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Eaton’s titles. So, to some degree the inclusion student, Ebenezer Emmons, established of unverifiable or even fanciful material the Taconic System as explanation for may have been part of her assignment. mountain building and inspired T. Nelson Among her legends are those relating to Dale, Niles’ contemporary and immediate Indians pre-Revolutionary War. She found source. Oddly, Niles the botanist includes her Indian heroes, to whom she dedicated scarce information about the plants of her book, in 17th century Albany deeds. the region in The Hoosac Valley. Her The Dutch were scrupulous about accounts of 18th century settlement in negotiating with the Indians for their land, her valley appear to be accurate.

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