Whately Town

Whately Town

Situated on the western slope of the Connecticut Valley about two miles north of Whately village, is a broad plateau midway up the mountain side, which is known as Indian Hill. The point of its location, opposite the abrupt termination of the Pocumtuck range, renders the view unsuqiassed. It includes the great lake basin whose outlet was the narrow pass between Mt. Tom and Mt. Holyoke. while across the meadow and beyond the intervening band of the Great Swamp woods runs the old Indian trail from the fort of rmpanchala, at Hatfield, to Sugar Loaf or Mt. Wequomps. It was to the broad level of.

this western plateau and the mountain solitudes above, that the Indians, crowded from their valley hunting grounds, made their last camp. The Roaring brook swarmed with trout and the heavily timbered heights were a natural game preserve which amply supplied their simple needs.

Into this sylvan solitude the white man came, and in the mouth of the gorge where the bropk first flashes into the sunlight he built a rude mill, catching the rushing waters in a little lake upon whose ancient bed the city now enjoys its lunch at the picnic tables. The site of the dwelling house hard-by is still noticeable. Here came the settlers on horse-back or in their rude farm wagons, bringing the grain of their own raising; and the Indians brought their scanty harvest also and begged grain of the kind-hearted miller.

In later years a dam was laid across the stream farther down, and a saw and gristmill under one roof were built. The old-fashioned up-and-down saw was a wonder in its day and played a prominent part in furnishing lumber for the houses of those early times. Hidden in a hollow of the hills, the roaring, hurrying brook became a tranquil lake over whose grassy banks the trees leaned to watch their own reflection in its crystal depths. At its outlet the escaping waters ran their course through the raceway of the mill. The noisy stream was well known to the Sanderson children who played in its clear waters on scorching summer days and went fishing in the spring and fall. They called it "up the brook." But the beauty of the place, with its grandeur of primeval forest whose mighty monarchs stretched their giant arms high over the long vista of foaming waters, remained unnoticed.

In 1836 there came to the town and was installed as pastor of the little band of worshipers, the Rev. John Ferguson, a strong and noble character, with the burr of Scotland upon his tongue and the love of nature and nature's God in his heart. "Priest" Ferguson his people called him, and his wise, forceful and witty sayings are still remembered. The picturesque scenery of our rocky township was a remindei of his boyhood home in far-off Berwickshire. The drive over Chestnut mountain and the view from Dickinson's hill and the Old Oak were favorites of his, and he was not long in discovering the roaring brook with its wild and rugged surroundings for which he conceived a deep and ardent admiration. He came again and again, bringing his friends to enjoy the place, and it was he who first named it "The Glen."

One of his daughters, Mrs. Margaret Allen, was the heroine of an almost fatal accident during one of these excursions. While crossing the stream on the trunk of a fallen pine that bridged the chasm, she slipped and fell upon the jagged rocks below, escaping death as by a miracle. To reach the roadway by following the brookside path was an impossibility, and by almost superhuman exertion her senseless form was carried up the precipitous bank, and she lives to tell the story to her children's children who come from afar to visit the place and recall its memories.

There are tragic tales too, of the old Conway road, where just below Staddle hill a plain black headstone is inscribed : "Killed on this spot by being thrown from a wagon, Philo Bacon, July, 1825." It was right against these ledges that the bruised and lifeless body of the sturdy farmer was found.

One summer evening in the long ago, the family at the old homestead heard the sound of a wagon lumbering along up the hill and creaking past the house ; but they did not know that the driver was dozing on the seat, nor that slow-going faithful Dobbin had taken the old mill road and was wandering further and further out of the way; past the tidy tiers of lumber; past the piles of slab-wood and the gristmill door; past the log-way ot the mill ; on a little further yet, over the bank and down into the brimming pond. The horse, snorting and terrified, turned instinctively in an effort to gain the shore, and the luckless driver, wakened from a sound sleep by the overturning of the wagon, bewildered by the darkness and unable to swim, struggled helplessly beyond his depth and sunk to rise no more. The astonished miller found the horse the next morning, and suspecting the truth, drained the pond and recovered the body.

In later times tragedy has given place to comedy, and many the luckless one who has dried his garments over a broiling fire on a hot July day, or gone home clad in make-shift habiliments. It is recorded that several parties of girls who went wading in the water above the upper falls, found their shoes wholly un wearable and were forced to return past the picnic grounds in barefoot procession, to the undisguised delight of the camera fiend who happened to be along.

While occasional visitors sought the place, no effort was made to render its delights accessible to the world at large until i860, when Whately church installed as pastor a worthy sue- cessor to the godly men who had held the office before him. In full vigor of mind and body, with a keen perception of artistic values and a broad and comprehensive grasp on all practical problems, Rev. John W. Lane was ready at all times to minister not only to the spiritual, but to the material needs of the town. In one of his numerous pedestrian trips he followed the course of the rushing stream over the slippery boulders and mossgrown ledges into the depth and solitude of the silent forest, and was charmed with the quiet beauty of the scene. He sought to improve the place by clearing the path of brushwood and the falls from its accumulation of debris, and being mindful of the welfare of others in this as in all other things, he from time to time persuaded photographers to visit the place and secure views. These pictures given by him to many people and oflered for sale by photographers at different places, caused the Glen to become widely known and thus brought it to public notice.

In the early 'jo's the Glen was invaded by the enterprise of the age. Roadways crept along the precipitous banks, bridges stretched across the stream, log ways climbed the mountain side, and the mighty forest fell before the onslaught of steel and muscle. The old mill was remodeled. New and improved machinery took the place of slow-going methods. The whir of the circular saw was heard, the golden grain rode up to light in its Aladdin-like elevator. Old times had passed away. The Glen was a scene of devastation, with its shady sides bare to the blaze of the sun, the swift-running stream choked with rubbish, the paths rilled with brush, and desolation everywhere. The Glen passed through its Purgatory of neglect. Years went by and nature, as ever heroic to conceal the scars of her wounds, made haste to reclothe her rugged slopes and shelving banks. The spring floods came swirling down the gorge. The massive timbers of the bridges were loosened and swept away by the remorseless waters, and to-day only a faint trace of the winding roadway remains, unused save as the denizens of the forest wander down its woody ways on their nocturnal rambles.

Kven the remodeled mill, with its marvel of machinery, is but a picturesque ruin now, and the squirrels, who for generations held undisputed right to corners and crevices for the storage of their winter food supply, revel in the situation and drop saucy admonition and empty shells on the heads of those who acampiug come. The erstwhile brimming pond is a green meadow thick covered with clover and buttercup blossoms, through which the brook but Yvumes o\\ \ls way.

In the autumn of 1884, Elbridge Kingsley, the painterengraver, came to the Glen with his sketching car. The first and only artist to thoroughly understand the mystery of our Indian summer haze and color, he found the hills alight with royal welcome. Some of his most famous engravings were here conceived, and many of his daring successes in color first blazed along the banks of the stream. His fame in the world of art and his wonderful personality have brought his disciples to the place. Here too, came his brethren of the block and burin, notably John P. Davis, pioneer and leader of the Society of American Wood Engravers, and Gustave Kruell, the famous portrait engraver. It is unquestionably to Artist Kingsley that the great popularity of the Glen in late years is due. Of his impressions of the place he says in poetic prose :

"Striving for hidden values is a condition of the human soul in its earthly seeking for the infinite. The Creator dictates : 'My best is in the depths of the sea, in the fastness of the rock, in the floating summer cloud, beyond the reach of all but your highest aspirations.'

"Mankind longs for the ideal resting place while in the turmoil of practical life. The Connecticut Valley is rich in such refuge from the eternal grind, and nature spreads abroad the meadow carpet, the sylvan groves of elm and maple in the valley, digs the rocky glen in the mountains as invitation for the weary soul to rest from the heat and dust and seek once more the unknown beyond.

"Like unto a dragon's mouth is the gorge at Whately Glen, and the dragon guards the fairy fountain while it weaves garlands of fancy for the generations that come and go along its borders.

"The winter frosts build wonderful palaces of the overhanging mists among the bending evergreens, in springtime the opening buds dance a unison with the colors of the rainbow, and when summer merges into autumn a gorgeous phalanx of maples comes trooping down from the blue to be reflected in the mirror-like pools.

"But it is so restful, so peaceful, to sit in the cooling shadows of the mountain at sunset and look for miles down the smiling valley. Softly the light steals away over the hill. Gloom gradually settles over the beautiful vision and blackness issues from the mouth of the Glen. Soon naught is left but the light of the stars and the murmur of falling waters on the evening air.

And as here in the grim solitude of the rugged steep, deep in the heart of the hills, we find this rhythm of poesy rippling in its wondrous cadence from rock to rock on its way to an oblivion in the immensity of ocean, so underneath the sometimes forbidding exterior of the true old-time New Englander we find deep in the heart a love of beauty, a passion for art, a lofty conception of true ideals, that are a revelation to those who have never discovered the breadth, the depth and the fineness of character exemplified by our best types of Puritan descent. The superficial observer might cross the hills a hundred times and never find the Glen.

The message of the Glen is but the same that comes from all our hills and valleys to the wanderers who have gone forth into the busy world, and who as the river of Time broadens and deepens, can hold their early associations only as a precious memory.