Williamstown and Williams College: Explorations in Local History
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WILLIAMSTOWN and WILLIAMS COLLEGE Explorations in Local History dustin griffin WILLIAMSTOWN and WILLIAMS COLLEGE This page intentionally left blank WILLIAMSTOWN and WILLIAMS COLLEGE Explorations in Local History DUSTIN GRIFFIN BRIGHT LEAF AMHERST AND BOSTON An imprint of University of Massachusetts Press Copyright © 2018 by University of Massachusetts Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America ISBN 978- 1- 62534- 379- 6 (paper); 378- 9 (hardcover) Designed by Sally Nichols Set in Perpetua Titling and Adobe Garamond Pro Printed and bound by Maple Press Inc. Cover design by Rebecca S. Neimark, Twenty-Six Letters Cover art: Detail from Bird’s- Eye View of Main St., Looking West. Photogravure, W. T. Littig & Company, New York, 1906. Courtesy of the Williams College Museum of Art and College Archives and Special Collections, Williams College. Publication of this book has been aided by a grant from the Abraham and Rebecca Stein Publication Fund of New York University, Department of English. Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Names: Griffin, Dustin H., author. Title: Williamstown and Williams College : explorations in local history / Dustin Griffin. Description: Amherst : University of Massachusetts Press, [2018] | Includes index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018020569 (print) | LCCN 2018024453 (ebook) | ISBN 9781613766262 (e-book) | ISBN 9781613766279 (e-book) | ISBN 9781625343789 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781625343796 (pbk.) Subjects: LCSH: Williams College—History. | Williamstown (Mass.)—History. | Local history—Massachusetts—Williamstown. Classification: LCC LD6073 (ebook) | LCC LD6073 .G75 2018 (print) | DDC 378.744/1—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018020569 British Library Cataloguing- in- Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. “The Theft of the Williams College Library” was previously published as “The Great Book Theft That Wasn’t” in Amherst Magazine, the Amherst College alumni magazine (Fall 2010). A longer version of “Alma Mater and Her Chosen Band: ‘The Mountains’” was previously published as “Alma Mater and an American Dream” in The Delegated Intellect, ed. Donald E. Morse (New York: Peter Lang, 1996), a collection of essays published in 1995 in honor of Professor Don Gifford of Williams College. Both essays have been substantially revised for this book. CONTENTS PREFACE vii Part 1 THE TOWN Chapter 1. The 1746 Attack on Fort Massachusetts 3 Chapter 2. The West Hoosuck Blockhouse, 1756– 1761 20 Chapter 3. A Short History of Treadwell Hollow 43 Chapter 4. A Short History of Flora’s Glen 69 Chapter 5. A Very Short History of McMaster’s Caves 84 Part 2 THE TOWN AND THE COLLEGE Chapter 6. Captain and Corporal Two Williamstown Soldiers in the 37th Massachusetts 91 Chapter 7. The Hoosic and the Ohio The Cincinnati Connection 110 Chapter 8. Big Days in a Small Town 135 Chapter 9. A Tale of Two Cities— and a Country Town Boston, New York, and Williamstown 154 v vi Contents Part 3 THE COLLEGE Chapter 10. The Theft of the Williams College Library 173 Chapter 11. Alma Mater and Her Chosen Band “The Mountains” 179 Chapter 12. “Yard by Yard” Line by Line and through the Years 197 Chapter 13. Windows on the Past Stained Glass on the Williams College Campus 209 Chapter 14. The Prehistory of Coeducation at Williams College, 1961– 1969 223 SUGGESTED FURTHER READING 245 INDEX 247 Notes are available online at https://scholarworks.umass.edu/umpress_williamstown/1. Gallery of illustrations follow page 134. PREFACE This book offers a new look at the local history of Williamstown and Williams College. It is a collection of fourteen separate microstudies, each of them focused on a single narrowly defined topic in the local history of Williamstown and its most notable local institution, Williams College. Some of the chapters deal primarily with the town, some primarily with the college, but in fact (given the close relationship of town and college since the latter’s founding in 1793) there is considerable overlap. Taken together, they present a picture of this prototypical New England college town, both what it shares with many other similar towns in the region and what makes it distinctive. Each chapter takes up some feature that visi- tors to present- day Williamstown might encounter—a historical plaque or a cemetery gravestone, a Civil War statue on Main Street, a town- wide holiday, a popular hiking trail, a stained- glass window in the college cha- pel, a song that alumni sing at reunions— and traces its history. The topics range from the colonial history of the town in the mid- dle of the eighteenth century to the complicated process during the 1960s, whereby Williams College made the crucial decision to become coeducational. Some chapters focus on notable events, some on notable people who have been unjustly forgotten, and some on particular places in the town, including two secluded valleys that have had a very curi- ous history. In some chapters I deal with matters that were once well known but about which few present- day readers will know anything. In others I take a fresh look at oft- told tales and two beloved college songs and critically examine the evidence, correct misconceptions, and vii viii PREFACE reconstruct the historical context so as to enable present- day readers to understand them better. I have not simply recycled old stories but based my narratives on docu- mentary evidence. In many places I have silently disagreed with previous local historians. Yet I have always tried to keep the general reader in mind. Some casual readers will dip into the book here and there and find the stories entertaining. Others might use it as a reference work, to check details about a historical matter. Specialist readers and future local histo- rians who wish to pursue my topics further may find extensive footnotes online at https://scholarworks.umass.edu/umpress/. I began writing essays on the history of Williams College about twenty- five years ago. After moving to Williamstown in 2003, I contin- ued to write about the history of the college and began writing essays on the history of the town. Most of the essays in this collection have been written since 2008. Versions of most of these essays were delivered as talks in the annual lecture series, from 2009 to the present, sponsored by the Williamstown Historical Museum, and I thank both the former chairs of the museum’s lecture committee (Rita Watson and Janette Kessler) and the audiences that attended the talks. Thanks also to those who provided technical support: Susan Clarke, Sarah Currie, and Gale Griffin. Parts of “The Prehistory of Coeducation at Williams” were delivered at the Williams College Reunion in June 2015. A note on the various spellings of Hoosic, Hoosac, Hoosuck, and Hoosick, all derived from an Algonquian word of uncertain meaning. I have followed conventional use in referring to the Hoosic River, the Hoosac Mountains and Valley, the colonial villages of Dutch Hoosick and West Hoosuck, and the present- day place- names of North Hoosick and Hoosick Falls. Much of the research for these essays was done with the support of the Sawyer Library and the Archives at Williams College and at the Williamstown Historical Museum. Thanks to the staff of those institutions for their unfailing courtesies, in particular Sarah Currie, director of the Williamstown Historical Museum, Linda McGraw of the Sawyer Library, and Linda Hall, former assistant director of the Williams College Archives. Thanks also to the former college archivist PREFACE ix Katie Nash. Another steadfast supporter was Mike Miller, whose inde- fatigable research into the history of Williamstown taught me a lot and who was always ready to answer my queries. For providing personal information through email, in-person inter- views, or telephone interviews, I am grateful to a number of current and former Williamstown residents, some of them sadly no longer living: Tad Ames, Hank Art, Patricia Rice Austin, Nancy Rice Bassi, Bob Behr, Sylvia Kennick Brown, Karen Bucky, Denise Buell, Nancy Burstein, Rick Ciara, Merritt Colaizzi, Albert Cummings III, Albert Cummings IV, Christian Curtis, Dick DeMayo, David Dethier, Hank Flynt, Juliet Flynt, Phil Geier, Jim George, Richard George, Mike Glier, Barry Gradman, Carrie Greene, Lee Hammond, Ken Heekin, Thomas Heekin, Rita Hoar, Bernadette Horgan, Henry Isenberg, Annette Jenks, Jeff Jones, Helen Kaiser, Tim Kaiser, Jeff Kennedy, Steve Klass, Art LaFave, Laney Langtry, Steve Lewis, Tom Lockhart, Wood Lockhart, Tom Loughman, Bill Madden, Caroline George Martel, Mick McAlpine, Chip McCann, Bob McGill, Nancy McIntire, Phil McKnight, Dick Nesbitt, Frank Oakley, Phyllis Brookman Oleson, David Primmer, Dick Quinn, Leslie Reed- Evans, Bill Rice, Dorothy Rice, Susan Roeper, Fred Rudolph, Sheafe Satterthwaite, Sandy Sepka, John Shaw, John Skavlem, Anne Skinner, Phil Smith, Jid and John Sprague, George Stabler, Bob Stegeman, Lauren Stevens, Bill Stinson, Lib Stone, Sheila Stone, Kevin Sweeney, Paula Moore Tabor, Cathy Talarico, Sarah Tenney, Jay Thoman, Jennifer Trainor Thompson, Christa Waryas, Pam Weatherbee, Rebecca Wehry, Paula Wells, Carl Westerdahl, Wayne Wilkins, and Joseph Zoito. For help with illustrations, thanks especially to Sarah Currie of the Williamstown Historical Museum and also Laura Zepka of the Archives and Special Collections at Williams College and Katie Nash, its former archivist; Rachel Tassone at the Williams College Museum of Art and Tina Olsen, its former director; and Kathy Morris and Teresa O’Toole at the Clark Art Institute. Thanks to John Chandler, Phil Geier, Laney Langtry, Steve Lewis, Nancy McIntire, Fred Rudolph, Bob Stegeman, David Stern, and Wayne Wilkins for reading earlier drafts of several of the chapters. For expert editorial advice both on these essays and on my other writings over the years, I thank my wife, Gale. This page intentionally left blank WILLIAMSTOWN and WILLIAMS COLLEGE PART 1 THE TOWN This page intentionally left blank CHAPTER 1 THE 1746 ATTACK ON FORT MASSACHUSETTS In August 1746 a small wooden fort, built under the supervision of Captain Ephraim Williams Jr.