Pittsfield Students Tour Stockbridge

Their focus was on the importance of the Housatonic River to the indigenous people of the area.

I had the pleasure of leading a walk on Main Street in Stockbridge on June first (2023).

Several students and two adults from the Reid Middle School in Pittsfield arrived at noon on a school bus. The students are studying the history, present state, and future prospects of the Housatonic River.

We began our walk at the Town Offices, with its bust of John Konkapot (Pophnehonnuhwoh). I spent 12 years as a student in that building, when it was a school, from kindergarten to 12th grade. I attended Plain School, and graduated Williams High School in 1963. I explained that the elementary school was called Plain School, not because it was ordinary, but because it was located on Plain Street (now Main Street), which was the English description of the flat part of the town.

Konkapot was the sachem in the area that was included in the Indian Town (chartered in 1737), a 6-mile square that is now Stockbridge (incorporated in 1739), West Stockbridge, and part of Alford. We talked about the role of sachems, and why there were two of them in Indian Town.

The Native village of Wanantakook was located in present-day Stockbridge, and I told the students we would see why it was called that when we arrived at the other end of our journey. The word means “enclosed by the arc of the river” and that area is now the Stockbridge Golf Course.

The other sachem was Aaron Umpachene (Sonkewenaukeek), and his village was called Skatekook, an area along the Housatonic River near the present town line between Great Barrington and Sheffield. That place-name is an English spelling of the Algonkian word Pskatikook, which means “the branching of the river” — in English we would call it the confluence (coming together) of two rivers — in this case, the Green River and the Housatonic.

The people of Skatekook moved north into the new Indian Town, in accordance with an agreement between the Natives and the English Colonists.

I explained that almost all Native villages in this area had been located next to a body of water; sometimes a lake, but usually a river. The waterways provided an avenue for rapid transit by canoe. The alternative mode of travel was by foot, since the Natives did not have domestic animals to ride or to pull vehicles. Rivers and lakes were also a source of food. And rivers, by flooding every Spring and renewing the soil with deposits of silt, created ideal agricultural lands.

As we walked west along the north side of Main Street, I pointed out several landmarks on the other side of the street, such as the Stockbridge Library and the Red Lion Inn.

We paused on in the shade on the grounds of the Austen Riggs Center so that I could tell them of some of the history of the town. I pointed out the house that had been purchased in the late 1700’s by my relative Barnabas Bidwell. The small building near the house had been his law office, and later was the workshop of Cyrus West Field and was where the first transatlantic cable had been received, in 1856.

The students enjoyed examining the sundial that was near the spot in the picture above. On that location a house once stood that belonged to Jonathan Edwards, the second missionary to the Indians in Stockbridge. He had purchased the property from the two sons of Umpachene, whose wigwam was located across Plain (Main) Street.

Our next stop was the Mission House, built by the first missionary, John Sergeant, in the early 1700’s. The students explored the flower gardens, which also displayed some of the medicinal plants that Native apothecaries have used for centuries. By coincidence, a new exhibit had opened that day, as described in this article from the Mohican News:

Can you spot the error in the article? Although many Native people from various locales (including the Hudson River [Muhheconnituck] Valley) eventually came to the new Indian Town, the core group at its founding were already here, as mentioned earlier.

We walked further west from the Mission House to the town cemetery, where the group was able to examine some of the earliest gravestones, as well as other markers of interest. The Native people did not use grave markers of any kind, and the stone at the center of this picture was placed here to honor those buried in this, the oldest part of the cemetery. On one side of the stone appear words that are said to have been written by Konkapot himself.

At this point, we took a detour to visit the Sedgwick Pie, a famous circle of gravestones that includes the resting place of Mumbet, alias Elizabeth Freeman. She was one of the first African slaves (and the first female in this country) to be set free (in 1781), and her victorious court case effectively ended slavery in Massachusetts. She was sought after for her skills in healing and as a midwife, and she became a prosperous member of the community. She had been a caretaker for several of the Sedgwick children, and they considered her a member of their family. The tribute on her gravestone was written by a Sedgwick.

After a brief visit to the site of the first Meeting House (1739), across the street from the cemetery, we walked the short distance to the Indian Burial Grounds, overlooking Wanantakook. We finished our trip with a walk down the hill to the Housatonic River. One sharp-eyed student spotted a turtle in the water. I told them that the Native words for turtle include “tolba” and that “mahkeenac” is the name of a lake in Stockbridge (alias the Stockbridge Bowl), meaning “the place of the turtle.”

Pittsfield was named in its 1761 charter (the same year that Berkshire County was created). Before that, the English called the area Pontoosuc. I’ve seen many attempts to translate what that Native word might mean, but none of them has made sense to me. I think it probably means “winter fishing place” — at least that is my best attempt. “Pon-” is a prefix for north, or winter. Other Algonkian names suggest the other part — such as the Ammanoosuc River in New Hampshire (which means “good place to fish”).

As we turned back, so the Pittsfield folks could rendezvous with the school bus, I encountered two member of the Stockbridge-Munsee Historic Preservation Offfice, Jeff and his associate Sara. The three of us had a lovely conversation as the students slipped away for a promised ice cream treat.

Jeff and Sara were excited to see young people interested in the history of the tribe. They had overheard some of what I had been saying, and were effusive in their praise for its accuracy. I assured them that was because I have a very reliable and knowledgeable source for information — namely, my brother Rick.

All in all, I rate the day as a huge success. I know I had a good time, and their teacher told me the students enjoyed the trip.