Greek Revival

Catskill Mountain House, Catskill, New York

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The view of the Catskill Mountain House, around 1900-1910. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The scene in 2021:

The first photo shows the Catskill Mountain House, which was one of the most famous hotels in America during the 19th century. It opened in 1824 on a rocky ledge atop the Catskill Escarpment, and it was arguably the nation’s first resort hotel. The building steadily expanded over the years, in the process becoming a must-see attraction for any tour of the United States. Its luxurious accommodations, combined with the cool mountain air and expansive views, made it a popular summer destination. Many distinguished guests stayed here throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, and the hotel also played a crucial role in the first truly American artistic movement, which came to be known as the Hudson River School.

Prior to the early 19th century, Americans did not place a high value on the mountains of the northeast. At best, mountain ranges such as the Catskills were seen as obstacles to transportation with little agricultural value; at worst, they were seen a dangerous, hostile wilderness. However, these ideas started to shift with the rise of the Romantic movement, and popular early 19th century writers such as Washington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper began to extoll the virtues of the American wilderness. Around the same time, artists such as Thomas Cole drew inspiration from the mountains and painted dramatic landscapes of the scenery. Drawn by these descriptions and paintings, the middle and upper classes of the northeast soon began to venture into the wilderness, particularly here in the Catskills.

Geologically, the Catskills are the northeasternmost portion of the Appalachian Plateau, a large dissected plateau that runs to the west of the main ridge of the Appalachian mountains. The plateau extends from Alabama to New York, before coming to an abrupt end here at the Catskill Escarpment. The escarpment is more than two thousand feet in elevation, but from here the landscape drops sharply to the east, with rocky cliffs and steep slopes that form a dividing line between the mountains and the Hudson River Valley. The river is less than eight miles away from here, so the escarpment had long provided a dramatic backdrop for travelers heading north and south along the river corridor. And, as a few adventurous visitors had begun to discover by the early 19th century, the top of the escarpment offered even more dramatic views of the landscape.

This particular site, which came to be known as Pine Orchard, is located near the northern end of the escarpment, about nine miles to the west of the village of Catskill. Here, the edge of the escarpment dips slightly, forming a low point between the 2,480-foot South Mountain and the 3,180-foot North Mountain. Just to the west of here are two lakes, North Lake and South Lake, which are drained by a stream that drops down Kaaterskill Falls, one of the most dramatic waterfalls in the Catskills. This stream then passes through Kaaterskill Clove, a scenic ravine that separates South Mountain from Kaaterskill High Peak further to the south. So, in short, this area around Pine Orchard formed a sort of microcosm of Catskill scenery; it had mountains, lakes, waterfalls, and ravines, along with rocky cliffs with scenic views of both the narrow, wild Kaaterskill Clove and the broad, cultivated Hudson River Valley.

One of the earliest published descriptions of this area was written by Timothy Dwight IV, the president of Yale College. He visited the Catskills in 1815 and subsequently wrote about the scenery in Travels in New England and New York, which was published posthumously in 1822. In this book, he described the two lakes, along with the “stupendous and awful grandeur” of Kaaterskill Clove, which he believed was second only to Niagara Falls among the many scenic places that he visited. He then described the escarpment itself, and the expansive views of the Hudson River Valley and beyond. Although he did not mention it by name, his vantage point on the escarpment was likely here in the vicinity of Pine Orchard, and he declared that “[a] more distinct and perfect view of a landscape cannot be imagined.”

Just a year after the publication of Travels of New England and New York, made an appearance in James Fenimore Cooper’s 1823 novel The Pioneers. The book is a work of fiction, and like Dwight’s book it does not mention the site by name, but Cooper’s protagonist Natty Bumpo was clearly describing this spot when he spoke of a place in the Catskills,

where one of the ridges juts out a little from the rest, and where the rocks fall, for the best part of a thousand feet, so much up and down, that a man standing on their edges is fool enough to think he can jump from top to bottom.

Further in the narrative, he describes how one can see “all creation” from here, and how,

If being the best part of a mile in the air and having men’s farms and houses your feet, with rivers looking like ribbons, and mountains bigger than the ‘Vision seeming to be hay-stacks of green grass under you, gives any satisfaction to a man, I can recommend the spot.

Natty Bumpo then goes on to describe several other nearby landscape features, including the lakes, the waterfall, and Kaaterskill Clove.

While writers such as Dwight and Cooper were using their literary talents to capture the scenic wilderness here in the Catskills, other more entrepreneurially-minded individuals were working to make this scenery more accessible to the general public. By 1822, the Catskills were described in the New York Spectator as a place that was “becoming an extensive place of fashionable resort.” The article went on to explain how “for the public accommodation a house of entertainment has lately been erected at what is called the Pine Orchard.” This was the site of a grand ball in September 1822, and the following spring a group of investors formed the Catskill Mountain Association in order to build a hotel here at Pine Orchard.

Early records indicate that there were “old buildings” at Pine Orchard prior to the Catskill Mountain Association purchasing this property in 1823, although it seems unclear as to whether this refers to the 1822 “house of entertainment,” or whether there were buildings here even before 1822. Either way, the hotel was operational during the 1823 season, using temporary quarters while construction was underway on a permanent hotel.

The new hotel was opened in the spring of 1824, and it would stand here atop the precipice for nearly 140 years, although it would undergo a number of alterations and expansions along the way. The original 1824 building was 60 feet long, 24 feet wide, and three stories high, and it featured a columned piazza here on the eastern façade. It had just 10 rooms, but a successful 1824 season prompted the owners to embark on a large addition for the next year, which added 50 rooms to the hotel. This project involved building two new wings, with one to the north of the 1824 structure and another in the rear to the west. Like the main section, the north wing had a columned piazza, although this wing was set back a little further from the cliff.

After 1825, the appearance of the building remained largely unchanged until the mid-1840s, when Charles L. Beach purchased the hotel. His father, Erastus Beach, was a livery company owner who operated stagecoaches from the village of Catskill to the Mountain House. As a 15-year-old boy, Charles Beach had worked for his father during the summer of 1823, bringing guests up the mountain to the temporary hotel here at this site. Charles would subsequently go on to have a successful business career, including owning several stagecoach lines of his own, before leasing the Catskill Mountain House in 1839. He then purchased the property in 1845, and soon set about improving both the building and the grounds.

Among the changes that Beach made was a large wing on the north side of the building, along with a smaller addition to the east side of the 1825. The latter made the building’s main facade longer, which enabled Beach to construct a large piazza here, with 13 large Corinthian columns. These columns, which were joined by four matching ones on the west side of the hotel, would become the hotel’s most distinctive architectural feature, and they would remain a part of its design for more than a century. Along with these improvements to the building, Beach also made changes to the surrounding land. The hotel’s holdings eventually grew to about 3,000 acres, with a network of trails that led to scenic overlooks and other points of interest. By the mid-19th century, the hotel also offered recreational opportunities like carriage and horseback rides through the grounds, and boating and fishing on the nearby lakes.

During these early years, guests reached the hotel by way of the Old Mountain Road, which linked the hotel to the steamboat landings on the Hudson River in Catskill. It was on this road that the teenaged Charles Beach had transported guests during the summer of 1823, and it would remain in use throughout most of the 19th century, until the stagecoaches were finally replaced by railroads. During the 1820s and 1830s, fare from Catskill to the Mountain House was a dollar, and there were generally two daily trips up the mountain, with stagecoaches taking about four hours to make the 12-mile trip. The first two-thirds of this journey was over relatively flat ground, but the last portion was a strenuous climb, with the road gaining about 1,500 feet of elevation in four miles. Partway up this section of road was the Rip Van Winkle House, located alongside a stream at a place known as Sleepy Hollow. First constructed around the mid-1820s, and later expanded into a boarding house, this establishment offered rest and refreshment to travelers and horses on their journey up the mountain, while also making the dubious claim of having been the setting for Washington Irving’s short story “Rip Van Winkle.”

Over the years, the Catskill Mountain House was a popular summer resort destination for the upper classes of New York, Philadelphia, and elsewhere in the northeast, along with being a stop on the American equivalent of the Grand Tour. Many distinguished guests came to the hotel during this time, including presidents Ulysses S. Grant and Chester A. Arthur. However, perhaps the single most significant visit to the Mountain House occurred in the fall of 1825, when a young artist named Thomas Cole traveled to the Catskills. He subsequently produced five paintings of the scenery in the vicinity of the Mountain House, and these were put on public display in New York City. Cole had been only a marginally successful artist up to this point, producing a mix of portraits, landscapes, and genre paintings. With his Catskill paintings, though, he soon gained attention as one of the nation’s leading landscape artists, and he helped to popularize the Catskills as a scenic destination.

Cole would make many more visits to the Catskills over the years, eventually moving to the village of Catskill, and the mountains—including the Mountain House itself—became a common subject in his paintings. Many other artists followed his lead in painting the Catskills, along with other scenic landscapes in the northeast. The result was what became known as the Hudson River School, an artistic movement that emphasized dramatic, romanticized landscapes of the American wilderness. This was generally regarded as the first distinctly American art movement, and its name is based on its origins in the vicinity of the Hudson River, particularly here in the Catskills. Aside from Cole, many other prominent landscape artists spent time in the Catskills and featured the mountains in their paintings, including Frederic Edwin Church, Asher Durand, Sanford Robinson Gifford, and John Frederick Kensett.

For the first half century of its existence, the Catskill Mountain House was indisputably the premier resort in the region. The rooms here were priced accordingly, and by the mid-19th century it cost guests $2.50 per night to stay here. This was a considerable amount of money at the time, and part of the reason for the high rates was to cover the hotel’s operating expenses, particularly the cost of transporting food and other supplies up the mountain. However, these rates also helped maintain a level of exclusivity to the hotel, and the Mountain House did not face any serious competition here in the Catskills until late in the 19th century.

This period of hegemony came to an abrupt end in 1881, when two new resort hotels opened in the Catskills. The Mountain House had long been the largest in the region, but it now found itself only the third-largest, with an aging facility that could only be accessed via a bumpy uphill stagecoach ride. One of the two new resorts was the Grand Hotel, located about 25 miles west of here in the village of Highmount. However, a far more serious threat to the Mountain House was the Hotel Kaaterskill, which was practically built in the older hotel’s backyard. As the story goes, Philadelphia patent attorney George Harding was visiting the Mountain House during the summer of 1880, and he requested chicken for his daughter, who had dietary restrictions. However, the kitchen refused to prepare a meal that was not on the menu, and Charles Beach challenged Harding to build his own hotel if he wanted chicken. There are many variations of this story, but regardless of the details, Harding went on to do just that, sparing no expense to construct a massive hotel in time for the 1881 season.

Despite this new competition, the Mountain House still benefitted from its long history and tradition, which the new hotels could not replicate. However, nostalgia could only do so much, and the building’s age also worked against it. The hotel had been constructed piecemeal over the course of many years, and its guest rooms were small and corridors narrow compared to the modern competitors. The new hotels benefitted from direct railroad service, while Mountain House guests still arrived via the same route that Charles Beach and his father had operated some 60 years earlier.

Beach had come a long way since his first trip up the mountain as a teenaged stagecoach driver, but he was still operating the hotel throughout the late 19th century, and still introducing innovations. He had expanded the hotel several more times, including a south wing, which was built in the 1860s and stands on the left side of the first photo. Then, in the 1870s, he added a much larger wing on the southwestern side of the building, creating an enclosed courtyard within the building. At some point after that, a smaller addition on the west side created a second courtyard. The last major additions appear to have been completed by the early 1880s, giving the hotel a capacity of around 400 guests, and by the time the first photo was taken, the building had largely assumed its final appearance.

To address the transportation issue, Beach constructed the Catskill Mountain Railroad, a narrow gauge railroad that connected the village of Catskill to the base of the mountain. He also reached an agreement with George Harding, and built a road connecting the railroad station at the Hotel Kaaterskill with the Mountain House. This arrangement was mutually beneficial, as it made the Mountain House more accessible while also increasing ridership on Harding’s railroad. However, the most ambitious of Beach’s improvements was the Otis Elevating Railway, a 1.3-mile funicular railroad that ascended the steep Catskill Escarpment to the east of the Mountain House, providing direct access from the Catskill Mountain Railroad to the hotel. By making use of this railroad connection, guests could now make the journey from the Hudson River to the Mountain House in 40 to 50 minutes, in contrast to the thee or four hours that it had previously taken by stagecoach.

The first photo was taken sometime during the first decade of the 20th century. The Mountain House was still a prosperous hotel at this point, but it would soon enter a dramatic decline, as would the other grand resorts in the Catskills. There was an element of foreshadowing in the fall of 1902, when longtime rivals George Harding and Charles Beach both died within a month and a half of each other. Beach’s death occurred just shy of 80 years after he had brought his first stagecoach full of passengers to the Mountain House, and nearly 60 years after he had acquired ownership of the hotel.

His death certainly marked the end of an era here in the Catskills, but there were also more subtle changes that would soon affect the hotel, including the increasing trend of automobile ownership. The Catskills had long benefitted from its proximity to New York City and its many railroad and steamboat connections, but automobiles changed the way that Americans vacationed, now that they were no longer restricted to places within easy access of railroads. The Catskills also saw changing demographics here at the old resort hotels. Once the domain of upper-class Protestants, by the early 20th century the region had become popular among immigrants, including Italians, Jews, and other ethnic minorities.

The Beach family continued to own the Catskill Mountain House throughout the 1910s and 1920s, although by this point it would enter a decline that it would never recover from. In the mid-1910s the Otis Elevating Railway closed because of low ridership, and the tracks were removed in 1918 as scrap metal for the war effort. The nearby Hotel Kaaterskill burned in September 1924 and was never rebuilt, but this loss of its greatest rival did little to improve business here at the Mountain House. While the Kaaterskill had been destroyed by a spectacular blaze in a matter of hours, the demise of the Mountain House would prove much more prolonged and anticlimactic.

As bad as the 1920s were here at the Mountain House, the Great Depression of the 1930s proved even more challenging. In 1930, the family of Charles Beach sold more than 2,100 acres of the surrounding land to the state of New York. Soon after, they sold the hotel itself, with its dramatically reduced acreage. It would continue to operate throughout the 1930s, under the ownership of Milo Moseman and Clyde Gardiner. They, in turn, leased it to the Andron family, who renamed it Andron’s Mountain House and catered primarily to Jewish tourists, serving kosher meals in the dining room.

The Mountain House managed to limp through the Depression years, but the start of World War II proved to be the final blow for the old hotel. The Androns chose not to renew their lease for the 1942 season, leaving it to Moseman—by this point the sole owner—to attempt to run the hotel by himself in 1942. As a young man, Moseman had worked as a bellboy here during the hotel’s glory days, and as owner he tried in vain to preserve the building that he had fallen in love with. However, his 1942 season proved to be a failure, and the Mountain House closed its doors for the last time at the end of the season.

The fate of the historic building remained in limbo for the next two decades. The state was very interested in acquiring the property and incorporating it into the surrounding Catskill Park, but they had no intent to preserve the hotel, so Moseman rebuffed their offers in the hopes of restoring and reopening it himself. These plans were seriously hampered, though, by a hurricane that hit the area in the fall of 1950, destroying many of the iconic columns here on the main façade. Then, a year later, Moseman decided to sell the north and south wings to a demolition company for $70,000. These wings were dismantled in 1952 and 1953, resulting in the loss of about two-thirds of the building. Moseman only retained the central 1820s section of the hotel, including the remaining columns in the portico.

Moseman had hoped to use the income from the sale of the wings to fund the restoration of the remaining section, and he floated a variety of plans for the reuse of the building. However, he died in 1958 at the age of 70, ending the last real hope of saving the hotel. His heirs subsequently sold the property to a real estate company that, in turn, sold it to the state in 1962. By this point, the badly-deteriorated structure had become an attractive nuisance to hikers and other curious visitors who ventured into the ruins, so during the summer of 1962 the state demolished the piazza and its remaining columns. Then, in the early morning hours of January 25, 1963, the state deliberately burned the remaining portion of the nearly 140-year-old building.

Today, more than a century after the first photo was taken and nearly two centuries after the Mountain House was built here, there is little evidence of its existence here. The site of the hotel is now an open field, and perhaps the only real signs of its longtime prosperity are the many names and initials scrawled into the rocks here along the cliff. However, while there are no longer any grand 19th century resort hotels here, this area remains a popular destination for visitors to the Catskills, who continue to visit places like Kaaterskill Falls, the lakes, and the many scenic overlooks along the escarpment. The only overnight accommodations are campsites at the nearby North-South Lake Campground, which is a very different experience from staying at the Mountain House, yet it is perhaps more in keeping with the way that early visitors like Timothy Dwight would have seen this area in the early 19th century.

For further information, I would highly recommend The Catskill Mountain House by Roland Van Zandt, published in 1966. This book is well-researched and well-written, and contains detailed information about the Mountain House, the surrounding landscape, and its role in influencing the artists of the Hudson River School, along with many images of the abandoned hotel taken by the author in the early 1960s. It was a valuable resource for writing this blog post, and I would recommend it to anyone interested in the history of the Catskills.

Middle Street, Hadley, Mass

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The view looking north on Middle Street towards Russell Street in Hadley, around 1900. Image from History of Hadley (1905).

The scene in 2021:

Hadley is one of the oldest towns in western Massachusetts, having been first settled by European colonists in 1659 and incorporated as a town two years later. Its terrain is mostly flat, and it is situated on the inside of a broad curve in the Connecticut River, giving it some of the finest farmland in New England. The main settlement developed in this vicinity, with a broad town common on what is now West Street. This common was the town center during the colonial period, and it was the site of three successive meetinghouses beginning in 1670.

The third meetinghouse, which is shown here in these photos, was completed on the town common in 1808. This location was a matter of serious contention, as by the turn of the 19th century much of the town’s development had shifted east toward what is now Middle Street. Tradition ultimately prevailed, and the third meetinghouse was built on the common. However, this proved to be only temporary, because in 1841 it was relocated. The intended location was to be a compromise, located halfway between the common and Middle Street, but the movers ignored this and brought the building all the way to Middle Street, to its current location just south of Route 9.

Architecturally, this meetinghouse reflects some of the changes that were occurring in New England church designs. Prior to the late 18th century, the region’s churches tended to be plain in appearance. Many did not have steeples, and those steeples that did exist tended to rise from the ground level on the side of the building, rather than being fully incorporated into the main section of the church. This began to change with prominent architects like Charles Bulfinch, who drew inspiration from classical architecture when designing churches and other buildings. Bulfinch’s churches tended to feature a triangular pediment above the main entrance, with a steeple that rose from above the pediment, rather than from the ground.

Bulfinch does not appear to have played a hand in designing Hadley’s church, but its builder was clearly influenced by his works. It has a pediment with a steeple above it, and it also has a fanlight above the front door, and a Palladian window on the second floor. Other classically-inspired decorative elements include pilasters flanking the front entrance and dentils around the pediment. As for the steeple itself, it does not bear strong resemblance to the ones that Bulfinch designed, but the builder likely took inspiration from other 18th century New England churches. In particular, it bears a strong resemblance the steeples of churches such as Old North Church in Boston and the First Church of Christ in Wethersfield, Connecticut.

Aside from moving the church to this site, the other major event of 1841 that solidified Middle Street as the town center was the construction of a town hall here. Prior to this point, town meetings were held in the church, as was the case in most Massachusetts towns in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Massachusetts was slow to create a separation between church and state, and not until 1833 did the state outlaw the practice of taxing residents to support local churches. Here in Hadley, this soon led to a physical separation between the church and the town government, although as shown in this scene the two buildings stood side-by-side on Middle Street.

While the church features Bulfinch-inspired architecture, the design of the town hall reflects the Greek Revival style of the mid-19th century. This style was particularly popular for government and other institutional buildings of the period, as it reflected the democratic ideals of ancient Greece. The town hall is perhaps Hadley’s finest example of this style, with a large portico supported by four Doric columns, along with Doric pilasters in between the window bays on all four sides of the building.

The first photo shows Middle Street around the turn of the 20th century, looking north toward the church, the town hall, and Russell Street further in the distance. The photo also shows a house on the foreground, just to the right of the church. Based on its architecture, this house likely dated back to about the mid-18th century, but it was gone by 1903, when the current house was built on the site. This house was originally the home of Dr. Frank Smith, and it was designed by Springfield architect Guy Kirkham.

Today, the town of Hadley is significantly larger than it was when the first photo was taken more than 120 years ago. Russell Street is now Route 9, a major east-west thoroughfare that has significant commercial development thanks to Hadley’s position at the center of the Five Colleges region. Likewise, Middle Street is far from the dirt road in the first photo, and it is now Route 47. However, much of Hadley has retained its historic appearance, including its extensive farmland and its many historic buildings. Here on Middle Street, both the church and the town hall are still standing. They have seen few major exterior changes during this time, and the church is still an active congregation, while the town hall remains the seat of Hadley’s town government. Both buildings are now part of the Hadley Center Historic District, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1977.

Philadelphia Arcade, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

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The Arcade Hotel on the north side of Chestnut Street, between Sixth and Seventh Streets in Philadelphia, in January 1858. Image courtesy of the Library Company of Philadelphia, Frederick De Bourg Richards Collection.

The scene in 2019:

In 1819, the Burlington Arcade opened in London, becoming one of the earliest precursors to the modern shopping mall. It soon inspired similar buildings here in the United States, including ones in New York, Providence, and here in Philadelphia. The Philadelphia Arcade, shown here in the first photo, was designed by John Haviland, an architect who was responsible for many important buildings in early 19th century Philadelphia. Work on the building began in 1826, and it was completed a year later, at a cost of $112,000.

In the architectural sense, an arcade is a series of arches, and this building featured four large arches here on the Chestnut Street façade. The Arcade extended the width of the block to Carpenter Street (modern-day Ranstead Street), and on the interior it featured three floors The first two floors each had two parallel hallways, or “avenues,” that were topped by skylights, and these avenues were lined by shops and offices on either side. On the third floor was the Philadelphia Museum, which had been established by prominent artist Charles Willson Peale. In total, the Arcade could house 80 shops and professional offices, and it also had a restaurant in the basement.

The intent was that this section of Chestnut Street would become the commercial center of the city, with the Arcade as an upscale shopping center that would attract high-end tenants and affluent customers. From the beginning, however, the Arcade struggled to fill vacant spaces in the building, and an 1829 report lists just 33 tenants here. In general, the ground floor primarily housed retail shops, selling goods such as books, boots and shoes, clothing, confectioneries, dry goods, lamps, and tobacco. The second floor also featured several stores, but it was primarily office space, with tenants such as lawyers, editors, employment services, an engraver, and a bookkeeping teacher. Overall, these businesses here in this building offered customers a variety of goods and services, but these were hardly the exclusive boutique shops that the Arcade’s founders had envisioned.

The decline of the Arcade continued over the next few decades, especially after the Philadelphia Museum moved to a new location. The building was eventually purchased by Dr. David Jayne, who converted the upper floors into the Arcade Hotel. It opened in 1853, and it provided accommodations for men only, at a rate of 50 cents per night. Guests could also eat here at the hotel, for 25 cents per meal for breakfast or supper, or 50 cents for dinner. The Arcade Hotel had nearly 200 guest rooms, and it also featured a saloon, a reading room, and a smoking room, in addition to the dining room. The saloon was located here at the front of the building, with a balcony that was likely added during the hotel renovations.

The first photo was taken a few years later, showing the Chestnut Street façade of the building. It was still in use as a hotel at this point, with storefronts on the ground floor, but it would only stand here for a few more years. In 1863, it was demolished and replaced by three new commercial buildings. These buildings, in turn, have long since been demolished, and most of this block is now One Independence Mall, a high-rise office building that has a parking garage here on the lower floors.

Main Street, Charlemont, Mass

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Looking east on Main Street from the corner of North Heath Road in the center of Charlemont, around 1891. Image from Picturesque Franklin (1891).

The scene in 2020:

These two photos show the scene looking east on Main Street in the center of Charlemont. The town is situated along the Deerfield River, and this valley serves as the primary east-west route through the northern Berkshires. Charlemont was settled in the mid-1700s, and today the town features a number of historic buildings from the late 18th and early 19th centuries, some of which are visible here in this scene.

On the far left side of the scene is the former Charlemont Methodist Church. The exact origins of this building seem murky, with various sources listing it as having been built in 1840, 1820, or 1770. Regardless of its actual date of construction, it was originally built elsewhere in Charlemont, and it served as the town’s Unitarian church. However, this congregation subsequently disbanded, and in 1861 the Methodists purchased it to replace their own church building, which had been destroyed in a fire. They then moved the former Unitarian building to this site on Main Street. Prior to the move, they built the ground floor to house social rooms, and then placed the church on top of this structure.

Aside from the church, the first photo shows a number of houses on both sides of Main Street. Most feature modest Greek Revival-style designs, and they were likely constructed around the mid-19th century. One of the largest of these houses is the one in the center of the scene, just to the right of the church, which appears to have been enlarged several times during the 19th century. The main section of the house has two stories, and on the left is a one-story ell extending toward the church. There is another one-story addition in the rear of the house, which is connected to a barn.

The 1871 county atlas lists this house as the home of Robert R. Edwards, a local manufacturer who ran a small factory in Charlemont that produced scythe snaths. During the 1870 census, he was 52 years old and living in the town with his wife Lydia, presumably here at this house. At the time, his real estate was valued at $4,000, along with $1,000 for his personal estate, so his total net worth was somewhat higher than that of most of his neighbors. By 1879, his factory employed six workers, and produced a thousand snaths per week. Aside from his business, he served on the board of trustees for the neighboring Methodist Church, and he was also on the town’s library committee. He died in 1910 at the age of 92, so it seems plausible that he was still living here in this house when the first photo was taken.

The first photo depicts the scene here in Charlemont shortly before the dawn of the automobile age. Within just a few years, early “horseless carriages” would begin to make their appearances on the streets. One of the challenges for these pioneering motorists, though, was the generally poor condition of America’s roads. As shown in the first photo, Charlemont’s Main Street was a muddy dirt road, with plenty of ruts left behind by many horse-drawn wagons.

Because of conditions like these, by the early 20th century Massachusetts began upgrading its road network, including the creation of the Mohawk Trail, which was formally designated in 1914. This scenic route, which still exists today as the western part of Massachusetts Route 2, links the northern Connecticut River Valley with the northern Berkshires. Main Street in Charlemont became part of this route, and the town center is the approximate midpoint between Greenfield and North Adams.

Today, notwithstanding the upgrades to the road, this scene has remained well-preserved more than 125 years after the first photo was taken. The center of Charlemont retains much of its historic character, and many of the buildings in the first photo are still standing, including Robert Edwards’s house and the Methodist Church. The church building has undergone significant interior changes, having been converted into a house in the 1960s, but its exterior is mostly the same, aside from the missing belfry. Both the church and the house, along with the other surrounding buildings, are now part of the Charlemont Village Historic District, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.

Florida Baptist Church, Florida, Mass

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The Florida Baptist Church, seen looking north on Church Road in Florida, around 1893. Image from Picturesque Berkshire (1893).

The scene in 2020:

The origins of the name of Florida, Massachusetts are murky, but there seems to have been a certain level of irony to it, since the town has little in common with its southern namesake. Located high in the Hoosac Range of the northern Berkshires, just south of the Vermont state border, Florida has cool weather and high elevations. The town center, shown here, is nearly 1,900 feet above sea level, and the town’s lowest point, located along the Deerfield River, is nearly twice the elevation of the highest point in the state of Florida. Because of this remote, mountainous location, the area was not settled until around 1783, and it was not incorporated as a town until 1805, when it acquired the name of Florida.

In the vast majority of New England towns, incorporation was soon followed by the establishment of a Congregational church. However, here in Florida, the town’s first church was a Baptist church, which was established in 1810 with about 20 members. The first church building was constructed in 1824, and it was used until 1861, when the building here in this scene was completed. The old building was then sold and converted into a house, and it still stands just a little to the north of here, at the present-day corner of Church Road and the Mohawk Trail.

Architecturally, the new building featured a Greek Revival-style exterior, similar to the other small church buildings in the hill towns of western Massachusetts during this period. Writing many decades later in 1907, the North Adams Transcript described how, in the shadow of the impending Civil War, “the whole parish made many sacrifices and literally bared their backs to the burden, considering personal labor, and economy in wearing apparel, thus erecting a new house of worship at the cost of $1,800.” At the time, the church had 51 members, and it had two different pastors who served here in 1861. Rev. J. M. Mace was the pastor for at least part of the year, but he was succeeded by Rev. John Fairman, who served from 1861 to 1865.

Throughout the first half of the 19th century, Florida’s economy was largely agricultural, although the lumber industry was also prosperous here, with at least 14 sawmills in the town by the mid-1850s. However, during the 1860s the town saw a population boom as a result of construction on the Hoosac Tunnel. This 4.75-mile railroad tunnel was built between 1851 and 1873, and most of it, including the eastern portal and the central shaft, is located within the town of Florida. The tunnel runs about a half mile to the north of the church, and about a thousand feet underground. The eastern portal is just under a mile away from here, although the actual travel distance is about 3.5 miles by way of steep, winding mountain roads.

The influx of workers in Florida led to a brief but substantial rise in population, more than doubling in residents from 645 in 1860 to 1,322 in 1870. Much of this growth appears to have been concentrated in the area around the eastern portal along the Deerfield River, so it seems unclear as to what effect this influx had on church membership. Given that many of the workers were Irish, and thus presumably Catholic, it seems unlikely that many would have been interested in making the long uphill climb to attend services at a rural Baptist church.

In any case, the tunnel workers left as quickly as they had arrived, and by the 1880 census the town was down to 459 residents. However, while the town itself experienced a net loss of more than a quarter of its residents between 1860 and 1880, the church saw a substantial increase during this time, growing to 79 members by 1885. During this time, in 1883, the building underwent renovations and repairs, including wallpaper, paint for the pews, and repairs to the chimney. The total cost for the project was about $400. Just after it was completed, the newly-repaired chimney was struck by lightning, but the damage to the building was minimal, and the repair costs were estimated at under five dollars.

The first photo was taken around a decade after these renovations occurred. It shows the view looking north, with the church in the center and a small cemetery next to it. In the foreground, the road is a muddy, heavily rutted path that is lined by a stone wall on the right side and some sort of drainage ditch on the left. Further in the distance, Spruce Mountain provides a dramatic backdrop to the scene. Its peak, on the left side of the photo, rises more than 2,700 feet above sea level, making it one of the highest mountains in the state.

The church was renovated again in 1907. This work was apparently limited to the interior, and it was done by Daniels & Canfield of North Adams. The dedication ceremony was held on September 15, 1907, and the event included guest speaker James McCullough from Savoy, whose grandfather Nathaniel McCullough had been the pastor of the Florida church in the early 1830s. Rev. Willard E. Waterbury of Springfield delivered the sermon, which was based on Isaiah 52:1—”Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments.”

Today, more than 125 years after the first photo was taken, parts of this scene have undergone significant changes. Perhaps the most ominous sign of the passage of time is the much-enlarged cemetery next to the church. Other changes include the old Florida Town Hall, which was built in 1923 across the street. The road itself has gone from a muddy dirt path to a paved road, but the most significant transportation change to this scene is the Mohawk Trail, which opened in the early 20th century. The Mohawk Trail made it easy for cars to pass over the Hoosac Range, and over the years it has served as a popular route for scenic road trips.

Throughout this time, the Florida Baptist Church has remained a distinctive landmark for travelers as they approach the road’s high point at Whitcomb Summit. Its exterior appearance has changed somewhat over the years, including a 1980 renovation that involved alterations to the front entryway an addition to the rear, but overall it survives as a good example of a mid-19th century rural New England church.

Vermont State House, Montpelier, Vermont (2)

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The Vermont State House, seen from State Street in Montpelier, around 1865-1875. Image courtesy of the New York Public Library.

The scene in 2019:

As explained in more detail in an earlier post, the current Vermont State House was completed in 1859, replacing an earlier building that stood here on this same site. The older state house had been built in 1838, and was designed by prominent architect Ammi B. Young. It burned in 1857, leaving only the outer granite shell still standing, and it was subsequently reconstructed by architect Thomas Silloway, who incorporated the columned portico and portions of the old walls into the new building.

The first photo was taken within about a decade or two after the building was completed. In front of the building is State House Park, which featured a liberty pole, as shown in the foreground. Behind the state house is Hubbard Hill, which provides a pastoral backdrop for the smallest capital city of any state in the country.

Today, around 150 years after the first photo was taken, the state house remains in use as the seat of Vermont’s government. The liberty pole is long gone, and Hubbard Hill is now far more forested than it had been in the 19th century, but the state house itself has seen few changes. The dome was gilded in the early 20th century, and the statue of Ceres above the dome has been replaced several times, but overall the building remains well-preserved on both the exterior and interior.