of the quaint humorist whose memory pervades the place. The principal summer boarding house was once his home. It stands on the main road just above the centre of the village, well shaded by fine old elms, for which Berkshire County is famous. Its stately porch of imported marble and the graceful spiral staircase which adorns its broad hall give it a charm not found in the ordinary country homestead. The pleasure which
Mr. Shaw had anticipated in it was short-lived. An iron foundry was built almost directly across the road, making such a blot on the landscape that he abandoned his home. The foundry, which was three or four miles from the ore bed and five miles in another direction from the railroad, was soon closed, as might have been expected. It stayed just long enough to drive the best families from the town.
Across the fields, a quarter of a mile from the centre of the village, stands the old farmhouse where the humorist was born. The. farm lands, in front of the house, slope down towards the main road, giving to every traveller through the village an unobstructed view of the little homestead. Its location renders the house doubly conspicuous. It stands close to Constitution Hill which lies within the limits of the farm, and thus the best of the historic as well as of the literary associations of the old town cluster about this spot. The hill is visible in the landscape for miles around, and one soon learns to recognize it by the single giant tree that crowns its summit, and to watch for the first glimpse of it in the distance as he leaves the busy main street of Pittsfield behind, and turns into the Lanesborough road. Greatest pains have been taken to preserve this tree intact as a landmark, while all smaller trees and shrubs in its vicinity are kept carefully cleared away.
The neighborhood of the farmhouse abounds in interesting and picturesque nooks. One curious retreat is Constitution Cave, in which, we must believe, young Henry Shaw once found much boyish delight. The