Harper's New Monthly Magazine
November, 1871.

A New England Village.

that career of authorship which has classed her, with Irving, among those who first created an American literature worthy the name, and who has endeared herself by the pure and beautiful tone of her writings to a great multitude of her countrymen and to many abroad. The name of Hopkins also, one of the early and honorable names of Stockbridge, has more recently taken an additional lustre from the character and writings of the distinguished president of Williams College, and his hardly less eminent brother, Albert, who for forty years has occupied the chair of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy in that institution, and whose character seems to have borrowed its peculiar sereneness and saintliness from his converse with the stars.        Nor would the mention of Stockbridge, in its later days, be complete without allusion to another name which has reflected its light upon this village from different walks of life and literature. As with the Sedgwicks, so with the Fields, Stockbridge has become their historic home. Rev. David Dudley Field became the pastor of the church here only about a year after the death of Dr. West, and proved himself the worthy successor of that eminent man. He was the pastor of the church eighteen years, and after filling the like office in another place fourteen years returned to Stockbridge as his chosen home, where, only recently, he has died at an advanced age. Distinguished as a preacher and as a devoted strident of history his sons have been even more widely distinguished in various callings and professions. They have clung also to the old village home. Two of them, and the family of a third one, recently deceased, have their residences there. The old Dr. West estate, as has been mentioned already, is now owned by Dr. H. M. Field. The Hon. David Dudley Field, while owning his father's homestead, also owns and occupies, as his summer residence, the beautiful estate which formerly belonged to Sergeant, the missionary. Mr. Cyrus W. Field, more widely known than the others, though not a resident now of Stockbridge, is counted as one of her sons. When his long and persistent bat often baffled efforts to link the continents with electric bands had been finally crowned with success, and he had more than realized the promise to "put a girdle round about the earth in forty minutes," no place was more ready to participate in the general rejoicing and congratulation, and no place felt more honored by the event, than Stockbridge; and now she feels that instead of being in the midst of the wilderness, and shut out from light and civilization, as she was a hundred years ago, one of her sons has placed her in the very centre of the world's thought and movement.        Nathaniel Hawthorne resided in Stockbridge for some time. It was here that he wrote "The House of Seven Gables." There is still to be seen on a window pane in the room which he used as his study this inscription, "Nathaniel Hawthorne, February 9, 1851." This little room could only be reached through the kitchen, and had a single window overlooking the "Stockbridge Bowl," as the beautiful lake in the background was named by Miss Sedgwick. Fanny Kemble Butler called it the "Mountain Mirror." From Hawthorne's retreat he could see visitors approach on the road from Lenox, and on such occasions he frequently made good his escape by passing out unnoticed into the woods by the lake side. The house in which Hawthorne lived at Stockbridge is every year visited by hundreds of people from all parts of the world--from England especially. Herman Melville had a residence within an easy drive of Hawthorne. In 1851 Henry James, the novelist, purchased a residence in Stockbridge.        We spoke, at the outset of this article, of the combined attractions of nature and art which Stockbridge presents. The old Indian designation of the place as the "Great Meadow" indicates its characteristic feature as being an unusually wide expanse of river bottom in the midst of surrounding mountains. The peculiar conformation of the mountain ranges in this vicinity compels the Housatonic to change at Lee its southerly course for an eastern, and to keep this general direction through almost the entire breadth of the town of Stockbridge. There are indications also that what are now the meadows were once the bed of a lake, which, by some convulsion of nature, has since been drained off. However this may be, hardly 826 | Previous Page | Next Page | | Berkshire County Home |