The Grave of "Josh Billings."
of God the soul naturally goes forth, and cannot endure the thought of a chain." He died at Bennington, Vt., in October of the same year. Though his connection with Berkshire was brief, the eulogium read by Miss Sedgwick at the Berkshire Jubilee, in 1844, shows what a warm place he occupied in the hearts of Berkshire people.
Henry Ward Beecher came to Lenox some year's later, in the summer of 1853, to take possession of "Blossom Farm," given to him by the people of his Brooklyn church. This farm covers a hill, since called Beecher Hill, over on the road to Lee. It was his summer home for several years. His emotions upon taking possession were thoroughly characteristic. The Old Sheffield Elm itself, the finest in all Berkshire, probably never awakened deeper emotions in mortal breast than did "The Queen," which stood out in the pasture of "Blossom Farm." The possession of the land touched him deeply; but when he thought of the tree he was filled with awe, saying, "When I whispered to myself 'This is mine,' there was a shrinking as if there were sacrilege in the very thought of property in such a creature of God as this cathedral-topped tree." Mr. Beecher did not come to Berkshire to "farm it." His love of downright hard work in a garden had exhausted itself elsewhere, and earlier in life. "The chief use of a farm," he says, "if it be well selected and of proper soil, is to lie down upon; mine is an excellent farm for such uses, and I thus cultivate it every day." Large, indeed, must have been his crop of dreams and fancies! Along his line he was most industrious. According to his own account he lay down more hours and in more places during his necessarily brief visits to Lenox, than his farmer neighbors who lived there the year round. One can easily imagine how a nature like Mr. Beecher's, so overflowing with fine feeling and sentiment,
The Old Home of Bryant, Great Barrington.
-- page 11 --
|
