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THE HISTORY OF STRATFORD
Golden Hill Indians THE HISTORY OF STRATFORD
Wm. Howard Wilcoxson Establishing
Title to the Land FORREST MORGAN
Lifestyles, Government, Religion and War Indian Titles and Mohegan Land Troubles Sowheag, Uncas, and Miantonomo Owenoco, the Son of Uncas THE
HOUSATONIC CHARD POWERS SMITH The Promised Land ALEXANDER JOHNSTON
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Chard Powers Smith - The The Middle or North, Branch of the
Headwaters is immediately the outlet of big The interest of the North Branch is less
in the stream than in Pratt Hill, a spur of Greylock two miles southeast of
the streams rising, that is the true head and beginning of the long chute of
the On the right are the taller Taconics,
visible even under normal haze for thirty miles down to 2,700 - Besides the eastern and western walls,
there are visible from Pratt Hill the remnants of a medial range that once
ran down the center of he valley and still puts up respectable large hills
down through Lenox. The one in the
foreground is called Constitution Hill in commemoration of a famous bonfire
and celebration which Lanesboro staged there in honor of its illiterate
delegate whose speech before the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention of
1787 is said to have carried the day for the For the most part the thirty three
airline miles of the Upper Valley, especially the part south of Monument
mountain are wide and flat, the mountains set far back on both sides, rising
on the average about fifteen hundred feet above the valley floor. The river drops from a thousand foot elevation
in Pittsfield to about six hundred in Canaan, Connecticut, but since most of
this drop is taken in a few, brief reaches, especially those which turn the
paper mills in Lee, Housatonic, and Rising, the stream for most of this drop
is taken in a few, brief reaches, especially those which turn the paper mills
in Lee, Housatonic and Rising, the stream for most of this phase is sluggish
and meandering. Indeed it winds almost
double the amount of its actual progress southward, frequently turning all
the way back and biting into itself to make little islands. Here in the flatlands is one of the best
agricultural sections of the valley, which means one of the best in The third part of the river and the
valley, which I shall call the Lower River and the Lower Valley, begins at the
Great Falls at Falls Village, in Canaan, Connecticut, about six miles south
of the state line, and runs with only one major bend for some fifty-five crow
flight miles down to Derby and Shelton, picking up many tributaries and
increasing in width from about fifty to a hundred yards. Throughout this stretch the mountains stand
in close to the river that here runs by their picturesque precipices and
through their gorges with a uniformly rapid current flecked with white water,
through with only four falls and one rapids that require carries by canoers
and fold boaters in normal times. In
rainey seasons, especially spring and fall, when the leaf covering is gone,
the cliffs along the river, and along the distant mountains where they are
visible, are draped with white bridal-veil falls of little streams and
freshets, the nearer ones rustling high up the precipices like a forest
wind. The drop at river level is from
about six hundred feet at The fourth, or Tidewater, part of the
river begins at industrial Of the four parts of the valley, the
central two, namely, the Upper Valley and the Lower Valley, constitute
together about ninety of the valley’s hundred and fifteen miles of over-all
length. It is in this main central
stretch, neglecting both the Headwaters and the Tidewater, that the qualities
of the region re most apparent, the combination of graceful, wooded mountains
and cultivated, wholly agrarian lowlands, of quiet wilderness surrounding
long-settled farms and the villages that serve them. In the past, these conditions have been
approximated in other river valleys in the east; but there is no other river
valley in the populous parts of the country where they are preserved today to
the degree that the Housatonic Valley preserves them. The region is unique in having been
occupied and farmed for three hundred years, in being closely flanked, east
and west, by two of the earth’s most highly industrialized districts, in
itself possessing the resources that at least equally invited exploitation,
yet in having resisted it in a contest of forces that make up the drama of
its history. Twenty miles to the east
the Naugatuck Valley clanks and reeks with “progress”. Forty miles to the west the beauty of the
Mohawk Valley and much of that of the Hudson Valle have disappeared under
cities, smoke, chimneys, garnish If you
have any questions email me at: |
ALEXANDER JOHNSTON
SOUTHPORT SWAMP Colonial History of Pequot Swamp COLONIAL INDIAN ARCHIVES Hon. Ralph D.
Smith David D. Fields Sarah
Day Woodward Winthrop’s Journal |