Walking the Berkshires

The Becker Collection of Civil War Sketches

The American Civil War has been a strong historical interest of mine since I was nine, and while my study has broadened to other time periods, it is still the period in our country's history that I know the best.  So many iconic images were produced during that time: particularly photographs, but also engravings of artist scetches published in the newspapers and journals of the day.  It is unusual for me to come across images from the Civil War that I haven't seen before, or which brings a fresh perspective on these well chronicled events, but recently I was alerted to an extraordinary collection in the holdings of Boston College that does both.

Sheila Gallagher, an Associate Professor at BC and a longtime friend from down the beach at Wareham, also has the priviledge of curating a collection of artist sketches made by her great, great grandfather Joseph Becker and his colleagues for Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly Newspaper.  Sheila is Co-Director of The Becker Collection, which includes 650 largely unpublished drawings by these artist reporters that covers an extraordinary scope of subjects over a broad geographic range and timeframe.  

The Collection's website includes this biography of Becker:

"Becker’s career at Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper spanned the second half of the nineteenth century. Hired by Frank Leslie as an errand boy at the age of eighteen in 1859, he retired in 1900 after supervising the art department for the last quarter of the century. At 22, he was sent as an artist–reporter to cover the Civil War, and he traveled with the Union Army recording scenes of daily military life as well as the preparation and action of battle. After the war, he traveled throughout the West to draw images for the series “Across the Continent.” It included such diverse subjects as the western landscape, Chinese immigrants in San Francisco, and Mormons in Utah. His drawings possess a liveliness and immediacy rarely achieved in contemporary photography and a wealth of information previously unavailable.

However, Becker did not work alone. Frank Leslie sent numerous artists to see and record the facts of the American experience: J.F.E. Hillen, Henri Lovie, Edwin Forbes, Frederic B. Schell, Francis H. Schell, Edward Hall, James E. Taylor, Andrew McCallum, C.E.H. Bonwill, William T. Crane, Arthur Lumley, E.F. Mullen, and others. They all sent drawings back to New York where editors selected images that fit stories, and other artists traced and altered the original work. Most of the drawings never appeared in print. As supervisor of the art department, Becker saved the discarded drawings."

He did a tremendous service by doing so, and Sheila and her colleagues have done us another by conserving and documenting this collection and making it searchable on-line.   There are sketches from seventeen states and the District of Columbia, and notably several among those depicting African Americans that manage to transend caricature and show them as part of the fabric of the events.  An excellent example can be found here in a sketch entitled "Dedication of a Monument to the memory of the New Hampshire Regiment in the battle of Winchester", recording a ceremony that took place the day after Lee's Surrender at Appomatox.  The details in the forground are sharper than the orator standing at the monument, or the hollow shell of the war damaged building in the background.  The onlookers include men and women, soldiers and civilians, and a number of African Americans dressed in their best clothes.  It rings true, right down to the small dog which alone turns its face fully to the viewer.  It also puts those relegated to the back in the forefront.

I highly recommend taking some time to explore The Becker Collection on-line, and look forward to seeing it in exhibition in the near future. 

Caption This! Reconstructionist Edition

This image from a University of Iowa collection of political photos is rather unimaginatively captioned:

"Tableau representing Confederate and Union reconciliation to free Cuba - Spanish American War"

I am confident that you, dear readers, can do far better than that!

 

Damn Yankees and Civil War Art

"Confederate stuff sells", observes Cenantua's Blog in a fascinating discussion of the Civil War military art market today.  It then then goes on to ask;

"Is there any art focused on Union military leaders and their softer side? If so, what? If not, why? Is there anything really wrong with creating military art that shows scenes that feature things other than combat? Would art showing Union leaders in similar situations actually sell?"

Well that is interesting.  There do appear to be disproportionately more Confederate reenactors taking part in living history than those depicting Union soldiers.  The sight of the US flag of 1861 leaves no impression on a modern viewer whatsoever, but the Confederate battle flag is among the most recognized, controversial, and marketable symbols of that, or indeed any era in American history.

But during the war itself, and for a number of decades afterward, there was quite an appetite (in the North, at any rate) for patriotic art steeped in Victorian sentimentality and featuring the northern soldier.  Consider this Kurz and Alison lithograph of a very stylized battle of Antietam, published in Chicago in 1888.  Kurz and Allison churned out reams of this stuff, covering a wide range of events and including those that were fought by colored troops (with their gallant white officers) or were notable Union losses (though depicting the action before the boys in blue had broken).  Little attempt was made at realism - after all, no one wanted to hang one of Alexander Gardner's photographs of battlefield corpses in the front parlour.  The public clearly had an interest in the romantizied artwork, however, and it made Kurz and Allison boththe Currier & Ives and the Mort Künstler of  their era.

In the early 20th century, the Brandywine School of American illustrators tackled Civil War subjects from time to time.  Howard Pyle created the artwork for many stories in Harper's Weekly set during the Civil War.  They featured dramatic clashes of arms of the "brother against brother" variety, as well as some iconic Lost Cause portraits that would be very recognizable in today's Civil War art market.  His protege N.C. Wyeth created illustrations with a signature, dreamlike quality, though  the image of Billy Sherman, at right, is more the stuff of nighmare.

In popular imagination, images of the North are steeped in mechanization, modernity, and, as embodied by Grant, Sherman and their ilk, a ruthless determinination to pay any price to crush the rebellion.  They play the Roundheads to J.E.B. Stuart's Cavaliers.  They are the descendants of the Federalists bringing the fractious parts of the country into line.  It is a decidedly unromantic view of government and unity, and one that is clearly out of synch with the independant streak in the American character.   Unless you like Yankee pinstripes, most of us root for the underdog over the over powerful juggernaut (though as a Red Sox fan in these heady times of successful championships, I may no longer be in that category).

You see the same thing, incidently, in French and Indian war reenactments, with every 2nd unit, it seems, depicting independant companies of rangers rather than the powdered regulars of the Crown.  We like to think of ourselves as rebels, rather than just working for the Man.  Even, I daresay, when the idols of our affection are slave holding aristocrats.  A classic image that juxtoposes lost cause gentility with something that looks very much like northern deference is the 1920 painting "Let Us Have Peace" by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris.  One unfamiliar with the historical event of Appomatox might be forgiven after viewing this work if he or she remained uncertain as to just who was surrendering to whom.  The image of Washington on the wall is particularly striking, bookending the shabby Grant with the two most famous Virginians.

We do not venerate Northern leaders, aside from Lincoln, as so many do the vanguished Sons of the South.  Lincoln stands alone, and for all.  He takes on the sins of a guilty nation in martyrdom so that "that nation might live."  N.C. Wyeth manages to capture both extremes of the northern character in popular imagination in his portrait of Lincoln the westerner, with the storm clouds roiling above him, and the three carpetbackers at right.

Among the military artists working today, there is a cadre that prizes historical accuracy in minute detail.  Formost of these are Don Troiani and Keith Rocco, who go to great lengths to place their subjects in scrupulously researched and rendered settings, with kepis creased just so and every uniform button and acoutrement true to the unit in question.  Both artists also have a flair for the dramatic, and at their best manage to capture some of the swirling chaos of 19th century combat.  They do not steep their battlefields in gore, which would not serve their artisitic purposes.  Kevin Levin at Civil War Memory has taken up this subject on a number of occassions, and notes:

"In the end I think these prints are more about us than they are about the subjects they depict. The intention is to engender in us a certain emotion, which may or may not have any connection with history...Our primary interest is to be entertained by the war; in this regard I include myself. The art minimizes the horror of war, including the battlefield scenes painted by Troiani which hang on my office walls. We don’t really want to be reminded of the extent of the suffering that took place on and off the battlefield or the carnage that was left in its wake."

The idea that southern soldiers were somehow more pious and christian than their northern counterparts is a another popular misconception reenforced by some Confederate themed military art.  The 1860s were a time of fervent religious revival, and the North because of its diversity of national origins represented many faiths and denominations.  National days of prayer and Thanksgiving reflected a religious tradition with origins in the fast days of Puritan New England, but this theme of Yankee godliness is seldom expressed in today's Civil War art, with the notable exception of Don Troiani's painting of an Irish Brigade chaplain blessing the advancing Sons of Erin before the Sunken Road at Antietam.  The "Wild Geese", though, are themselves archetypical underdogs and rebels, and Irish nationalism, as Hollywood knows full well, is popular with American audiences.

There are many reasons why someone might wish to purchase and display modern renditions of Civil War subjects.  I collect toy soldiers from this period, for goodness sake, and am in no position to tell collectors what to like.  I do find it interesting, however, that "Confederate stuff sells", and am in agreement with Kevin here that such artwork, produced for modern consumers, has more to say about us and what shapes our memories of the past than about the subjects they depict.  

Massachusetts Main Streets and Backs Roads Has One of My Stories

Massachusetts Main Streets and Back Roads ,a quarterly publication from the same folks behind Vermont Quarterly hits the newstands this month with its first edition.  The Magazine covers the history and lore, food and entertainment of Western Massachusetts, and I was approached to contribute a story on Berkshire history.  The Spring 2009 edition features a two page article of mine entitled "Berkshire's Big Dig" about the Hoosac Tunnel, an engineering marvel in the northern reaches of the county.  Along the way,  Readers of this Blog will not be surprised to discover, I manage to incorporate a good does of natural history, a reference to the "Great Road" through a "hideous howling wilderness", and a picture of a Civil War General on a one-man pontoon boat.

When there is an on-line link to the piece, I'll be sure to steer you to it.  If you live in the region, keep your eye out for a copy.  I'm on track to write recurring features for this magazine, and am starting to think up an appropriate topic for the summer edition (ideas welcome). 

What Were You Thinkin', Lincoln?

In the crucial Presidential election of 1864, with the nation at war with itself and his own party deeply divided, Abraham Lincoln decided to split the ticket.  Faced with the disaffection of the Radical Republicans and the anticipated popularity of his Democratic rival, General George McClellan, with the all-important soldier vote, Lincoln ran for reelection not as a Republican but as the National Union Party candidate.  He selected the military governor of Tennessee, "War Democrat" Andrew Johnson, as his Vice President.  Some historians consider this choice of running mate to have been his greatest blunder, and indeed the failed Presidency of Andrew Johnson is generally regarded as one of the very worst in US history.

There has been an animated discussion over at Kevin Levin's Civil War Memory concerning alternative choices that Lincoln could have made, keeping within the political parameters that brought about the National Union Party and were in play at thetime, and whether or not the short-term outcome of a different presidential successor than Johnson would have made much difference.   This sort of counterfactual analysis is mother's milk to me, and having put in my two cents in Kevin's forum I reserve the right to expand and extend my remarks for the record in my own.

One of the many perils of counterfactual conjecture is that every alteration to historical events acts upon all those that follow, with the potential to expand exponentially into an unrecognizable reality.  This is why time travel in science fiction novels presents such hazards to those characters who attempt it and thus provides a reliable plot device.  One of the first rules of counterfactual hypothesis is to make as few changes to the conditions leading up to the alternate version of history as possible.  It is all about the "want of a nail", rather than in this case the lack of an industrial economy in the southern states, or the absence of a confederate air force.

There is also the possibility that 2nd order counterfactuals stemming from the first might well bring about the same historic outcome from a different direction.  This lies at the very heart of the question of whether Lincoln could have made a better choice than Johnson, and if that would have lead to a meaningfully different outcome during his successor's presidency than what actually occurred.  Sometimes, no matter where they begin, all roads must inexorably lead to Rome.

Lincoln could not run as the National Union Party candidate - a party made up of moderate Republicans and hawkish Democrats - without a running mate who would appeal to key voting blocks.  Then, as now, the electoral votes were the critical factor.  Lincoln needed to win a number of large states with many electors to secure reelection, as well as secure the support of the war Democrats. 

The top five states with the most electors were New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois and Indiana, and several of these states were peace Democrat strongholds. To counter Little Mac and secure more of the soldier vote, Lincoln might have turned to a War Democrat from the Midwest, such as any of several of the Fighting McCooks .

A McCook presidency has too many variables to project with any confidence what the course of Reconstruction might have been. Assuming any of the “Tribe of Dan” or “Tribe of John” agreed to run on the national Union Party ticket, they would have faced tremendous challenges from the Radical Republicans. Even if this split ticket won the election, Lincoln’s assassination might have lead to a very weak McCook presidency with a hostile congress and pressure from northern Democrats to go easy on Reconstruction and light on the rights of freedmen. Perhaps a President McCook would become even more of a hardliner (in for a penny, in for a pound). Or perhaps he would have reshuffled the cabinet, pushing some of the radicals out. There might have been no Seward’s Folly: no Alaska.  Although several of the McCooks when to to political careers after the war, as a successor to Lincoln they would certainly be no better than Johnson.

The other option for Lincoln would have been to choose a moderate Republican from the Midwest, risking Democratic support but shoring up his base.  It would have to be someone with a military background but who the army could spare.  One dark horse candidate that comes to mind is Rutherford B Hayes, who could have been plucked from the field (depriving the army of his services at Ceder Creek and Winchester), making him the 17th President as Lincoln’s successor of the 19th.

A Rutherford B Hayes presidency on the heels of Lincoln’s assassination and not a decade later would have put a politician newcomer in office with something to prove. Instead of ending Reconstruction, he would have implemented it, and probably with more civil rights enforcement given his actual record as president. He had a longstanding political connection with Chief Justice Chase. Instead of cracking down on striking railroad workers, the golden spike would have been driven on his watch.

Hayes offers an intriguing, though unlikely alternative to Johnson. Basically, though, whoever succeeded Lincoln got a raw deal.

Significantly, with the single exception of Abraham Lincoln, there wasan unbroken string of mediocre and failed presents in the 19th century between Polk and McKinley.  That is a dozen presidents in over half a century and only one whole egg in the carton.  It is quite possible that there was no choice that Lincoln could have made that would come near to approaching the impact he might have made had he lived out his term.  The executive branch would not flower again until Roosevelt swaggered onto the stage.

Vermont and the Wilderness Wal-Mart

In a new twist to the saga of the Battle of the Wilderness Wal-Mart, the Vermont Legislature is being asked to take a stand in Dixie.  Howard Coffin,who served on the staff of former Senator Jeffords and is a noted Civil War historian specializing in Vermont's role in the conflict, has urged the Vermont Senate Economic Committee to weigh inon the proposed development of a 144,000-square-foot Wal-Mart on land outside the Wilderness Battlefield in Virginia.

The Burlington Free Press reports:

"[The proposed development] threatens the area near a monument that honors the 1st Vermont Brigade, which held the ground there for the Union Army in 1864...Coffin has asked the Vermont Legislature to help. He urged the Senate Economic Development Committee on Wednesday to pass a resolution laying out how important the area is to Vermont history and asking Wal-Mart and the Orange County, Va., Board of Supervisors to reconsider the project.

'This site in [the] Wilderness is Vermont's most important Civil War site, surpassing Gettysburg,' Coffin said.  There, in May 1864, the 1st Vermont Brigade held the ground, allowing the Union Army, led by Ulysses S. Grant, to move farther south to eventual victory. In 2006, a monument paid for by Vermont and the federal government was installed noting the Vermonters' role. Now, that monument sits along the road that shoppers would take to the new Wal-Mart and the inevitable other development that would come with it, Coffin said."

Coffin's statement is notable for several reasons.  His scholarship deserves considerable credit for highlighting the significance of the part played by another brigade of Vermonters - Stannard's 9-month recruits - that fired into the exposed flank of the shattered brigades of Pickett's Division at Gettysburg.  For Coffin to call the actions of the venerable "Old Vermont Brigade" at the Wilderness even more significant than Vermont's contribution to breaking Pickett's Charge is clearly saying something.

What makes the service of these Vermonters in the Wilderness in May, 1864 stand apart is the overwhelming sacrifice they made, suffering 1,234 casualties and holding an exposed position under relentless pressure until relieved.

"The Vermont Brigade advanced a short distance and was met with heavy fire. Although they were mere yards apart, the Vermonters found themselves firing at an unseen foe. The heavy timber, brush, and the growing battle smoke made it impossible to see more then a few feet. The firing in their front increased in intensity, but the brigade held fast against heavy odds. The men hunkered down behind trees and rocks returning the enemy's heavy fire. Finally somewhere about 2:00 PM elements of Hancock's II Corp began to arrive and a lull in the fighting took place as both armies began to reform their lines.

Just after 4:00 PM the "Old Vermont Brigade" was ordered to advance again. With Getty's other two brigades the Vermonters advanced thru the tangled brush towards the unseen foe. After advancing a very short distance they were met with a blast of musket fire. Once again they stood and fought unable to advance against the superior fire power. By 5:00, Hancock's men had joined the advance. The II Corps brigade to the Vermonter's left began to give way. The Green Mountain Men were now the most advanced unit in the Union army, and it's left flank was unprotected. Still the men stood and fought refusing to give ground. The men were running low on ammunition, and their ranks began to thin at an appalling rate. On some parts of the line there was hardly an officer left to guide the men. The fighting was so confused that Vermonters also took several casualties from Union Cannons posted on the Plank Road supporting the attack. As the slaughter continued, troops from the II Corp moved up to relieve the brigade, and they were finally ordered to retreat back to the breastworks at the Brock/Plank Road intersection. The 5th Vermont regiment actually charged the enemy buying time for the other Vermont regiments to retire. Finally, nearly surrounded and taking fire from three directions the men of the 5th raced back to the intersection. The brigade's work for the day still wasn't done. The Confederates continued to feed fresh troops into the fray, pressed the II Corps back, and attacked and took some of the breastworks along the Brock Road. Also captured were the very union guns that had mistakenly inflicted casualties on the brigade. Union troops including members of the Vermont Brigade made a counter charge and retook the cannons and the breastworks.

Finally, May 5 drew to a close. The II Corps was reunited with the rest of the Union army, and intersection lay in Federal hands. The "Old Brigade" had once again lived up to its reputation. They had advanced thru the tangled brush and forced a stand off with a much larger body of the enemy. When they became isolated and almost surrounded they still refused to budge until ordered to retire. The vital intersection was bought and paid for largely with the blood of the Vermonters."

There is a new monument to the Vermont Brigade dedicated in 2006not far from the Plank Road where drivers would pass on their way to the proposed Wal-Mart.  A problem with Coffin's argument, though, is that the Vermont monument is 2-3 miles away from that potential development.  The impact on the area where the Vermonters fought and died would presumably be largely from increased traffic. 

Coffin is not wrong to ask the Vermont Senate to be an advocate for the memory of its native sons who fought and died on southern soil.  Though its significance may seem trivial by comparison, I would hope that if ever the site of the northernmost skirmish of the Civil War were threatened by development, Vermont would be receptive to similar calls to reconsider from the Legislatures of the home states of the "St. Albans Raiders."  Alternatively, Vermont could find common cause with Georgia, as the site of General Longstreet's wounding is not farfrom the stand made by the Green Mountain boys.  I suspect, though, that Vermont's potential intervention in the Wilderness Wal-Mart controversy might gain more traction if it offered a solution that was relevant to those living in affected Virginia communities.  

The Wilderness Battlefield is a patchwork of protected open space within an increasingly developed landscape.  I have spent time there trying to imagine how my step-great, great grandfather's regiment, the 146th New York, could have made its charge across Saunder's Field, all the while walking on rubberized, handicapped accessible trailswith traffic passing along a busy road nearby.  It is frankly just as unimaginable to me - someone who has not experienced combat, let alone 19th Century warfare - in this state of preservation as it felt standing on the recently restored flanks of Little Round Top where the 146th NY previously fought on the 2nd day of Gettysburg.  One is park-like and retains something of the feel of the preexisting terrain, and the other is situated within encroaching development.  Neither resemble the smoking horror and screaming hell of the actual battles: places where none of us in our right minds would ever want to be.

We want our Civil War battlefields to be places of quiet contemplation, the way we like our rural cemeteries.  We fear that Lincoln's immortal Gettysburg Address got it wrong, and that "we must dedicate -- we must consecrate -- we musthallow -- this ground, or the world will little note, nor long remember what they did here."  There is some basis for this fear.  What we do not value we tend to forget, and over they years we Americans have lost much of our natural and cultural heritage through short-sighted ignorance.  Still, you know the mystic chords of memory have been plucked anew when costumed avatars of Grant and Lee start weighing inon the Wilderness Wal-Mart.

Though it is my profession to conserve land, and I have been passionate about this period in our nation's history for three of my four decades, even I know we cannot freeze these places in time.  I believe that preservation and development can and must find ways to accommodate the needs of the living as well as the memory of the dead.  Sometimes that means saying no to development.  Sometimes a part must stand for the whole.  Sometimes there can be creative conservation outcomes in the development process.  If development and preservation are able to find opportunities to conserve more land and be smarter about how and where development takes place, there could still be reasonfor hope that for places like these, "The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract." 

Meaning and Losses from the American Revolution

Sometimes I come across something new in my reading on the American War of Independence that leaves me - in the modern parlance of our English cousins - simply gobsmacked.  Consider this passage from Edwin G. Burrows' remarkable study of American prisoners during the Revolutionary War:

"The impact on local communities was crushing.  Of the thirty-six men from Litchfield, Connecticut who helped defend Fort Washington, four were killed and thirty-two taken prisoner.  Twenty died in the prisons of New York, another six on the way home.  Only six returned to Litchfield - six of the original thirty-six.  Half a company of 100 men raised in Danbury, Connecticut was captured at Fort Washington and confined in one of the sugar houses.  Two survived.  Some towns may have lost everyone.  At dinner one night in April 1777, Ambrose Serle, Admiral Howe's secretary, heard of 'a little town in Connecticut' that had turned out 220 men for the American cause, every last one of whom died in batle or succumbed to disease.  Many families must have been nearly wiped out.  Two of Ruth Peck's three sons were taken prisoner at Fort Washington.  One lost both feet to frostbite trying to walk home from New York in the dead of winter; the other returned with the smallpox and died, but not before infecting Peck's husband, who later died as well."

Burrow's book is aptly named Forgotten Patriots, and even without the local connection to towns in Northwest Connecticut its grim reckoning would have haunted me.  We are talking about death rates of 60-70% in the prisons of New York in 1776.  Compare that with Andersonville, the notorious Confederate prison camp, where the death rate was horrendous at 40% of those in captivity there.  Elmira, the northern counterpart to Andersonville, saw the death of 1 in every 4 prisoners.  The numbers in the Civil War may have been larger - Clara Barton estimated nearly 13,000 at Andersonville alone - but our modern memory of the Civil War is constantly being reworked and refreshed, while these patriot dead have somehow slipped our grasp and have lost their place in narrative of our founding.

Exploring how this selective memory came to be is the central theme of Burrow's book.  I keep coming back to what the impact must have been on small, rural communities to have lost nearly everyone who marched away.  There is a welcome resource for those who ask this question about the Nutmeg State during the Civil War in Blaike Hines' statistical study: Volunteer Sons of Connecticut, in which he breaks down the "worst day" for every Connecticut town in terms of battlefield casualties and tracks those who died of disease or in captivity.  The iconic monuments of greatcoated soldiers that stand watch on our village greens bear the names of those who served, with stars beside the names of the dead.  Americans in the north chose to commemorate this war in terms of individual sacrifice. 

There are very few monuments dating from the decades following Independence when veterans were still living, and those that were contructed tend to recognize collective sacrifice for patriot ideals.  When it later became fashionable to recognize patriot leaders and ancestors, subsequent generations started to erect monuments along the lines of the Civil War memorials, but those directly impacted by these deaths did not choose to memorialize their personal grief and collective loss.

The Eye Sees What It Wants to See

(Photo credit: PAUL J. RICHARDS | AFP/ Getty Images)

With all the attention being paid to Abraham Lincoln in connection to Barak Obama's presidency, I thought for a moment when I saw the historic United States flags hanging from the west side of the Capitol Building as a backdrop to his inaugeral that one of them was a 34-star "Civil War Era" flag.  Ah, but this image clearly shows the flag has 21 stars!  What is the significance of that, you may ask?  Barak Obama, master of symbolism, chose the 1819-1820 edition of the United States Flag because it has very particular meaning. 

That was the flag when they added the star for Illinois!

A Strange and Painful Decline

I happened upon an 1885 History of Berkshire County and discovered a passage relating to farming in New Marlboro, but just as applicable elsewhere in the Berkshire and Litchfield Hills during the late 19th century:

"...agriculture just now, especially in the eastern portion of the town, is suffering a strange and painful decline.  Many homesteads have been sold for for less than the cost of their buildings, and others, the dwelling, the outbuildings, and most of the fences virtually abandoned, are being used as large pasture tracts.  The famous saying that the first settlers feared that they could not find enough stone for building purposes, now when boulders covers o large part of the surface, seems incomprehensible.  Perhaps these stones were regarded as unsuitable for building, or more probably they were then covered with vegetable mold and have since been heaved to the surface by frosts which strike deeper than when the earth was protected by forests.  Many hundred acres formerly yielding fine crops of hay cannot now be mowed, much less plowed.  As a consequence of this, and perhaps also because of the exhaustion of certain elements of the soil, there appeared, about forty years ago, a shrubby growth known as hard hack (Potentilla fruticosa) and steeple top (Spirea tomentosa), the two growing together, and this growth now covers entire farms, destroying even much of the pasture.  This is one of the most discouraging features of New Marlboro farming, since to clear the land of boulders and hard hack would cost more than its present, or subsequent value.  Much of this land, moreover, would require to be underdrained.  nature is providing some compensation in covering much of this land with a growth of pine, which destroys the hard hack and may soon become valuable for timber.

The author of the New Marlboro chapter of the History of Berkshire County, Professor S. T. Frost, is a keen observer who recognizes many of the patterns and processes - both natural and social - that affected the landscape of his day.   Some of the rural communities of western New England lost more than half their populations in the decades after the Civil War, as the availability of more fertile western lands and urban migration combined with the collapse of the local iron industry and decline of agriculture in a perfect storm of cultural, economic and ecological disturbance. 

The plants he describes as invading the abandoned farmlands are actually native to our region rather than introduced exotics, but behaved invasively in the absence of competition in the wet meadows that were no longer farmed.  Potentilla fruticosa, more commonly known today as Shrubby cinquefoil , is a calcium-loving wetland indicator species in the marble valleys of the Housatonic watershed.  Steeplebush (Hardhack) usually occurs in wetlands as well.  Neither species provides good grazing (even today, deer avoid browsing cinquefoil), so in addition to the factors mentioned for their spread, the use of former cropland as pasture might have encouraged the growth of these species until they out-competed the available forage.  Although he would not have though to use this term, Professor Frost is describing the impact of a lack of stewardship on the condition of previously managed lands.

Pasture pines invading abandoned fields became a regular feature of the changing New England landscape.  Anytime I find myself walking through a stand of mature white pine and nothing else, I am certain that they grew to maturity as a plantation or in an open field.  The forest that reclaimed these previously managed lands is different in species composition and structure, the attributes of its soil and the habitat it provides, than that which had been first cleared for settlement.  Some of the bird species that would have been abundant during the height of agriculture in our region  - meadowlarks, bobolinks, and a host of other grassland birds - are in parabolic decline as the land reforests.  Others like the wild turkey that would have been rare in Professor Frost's day are now thriving and expanding their numbers.

The very next passage in this history anticipates the state of real estate affairs in the Berkshire and Litchfield Hills 125 years later:

"This present unfortunate condition of New Marlboro agriculture must be temporary.  When the best portions of the West, now being taken up so rapidly, are occupied, these deserted lands must become valuable, both for their locality and their producing power."

Proximity to major metropolitan centersin New York, and to a lesser degree Hartford, has made our land valuable as residential real estate.  A renewed interest in locally-produced food and concern about the loss of our remaining farmland to non-agricultural uses runs up against the hard fact that the land is worth more in a developed state than as farmland, and is too expensive for new farmers to obtain.  Meanwhile, Berkshire County is losing population and Connecticut is hemorrhaging an exodus of young people at one of the highest rates in the nation.  We have saved many significant lands from development but are unable to maintain them in a condition which will ensure that the very qualities that made them special will persist over time.  Without the resources to care for and steward our fields and forests, they are vulnerable to fresh degradation from invasive species and to loss of ecological productivity.

We should expect more changes in this altered landscape, not all of it for the worse.  Frost reports that "the fox and the raccoon are the largest game that now survives civilization."  Today we share our backyards with bears.

 

 

Recent Lakeville Journal Nature Notes Articles

My lastest Lakeville Journal article, readable on-line with free subscription, deals with the Housatonic River.  Fair use excerpt:

"

I drove along the Housatonic in the piercing cold of the New Year. The steam rising from the river glazed the trees on either bank in glistening sheaths of ice.  They call this phenomenon “sea smoke” in the Gulf of Maine, and it arises when water that is cold enough to kill an unprotected swimmer is still warm by comparison to the arctic January air.  

The cold streams and rivers of the Berkshires and Litchfield Hills can look like the Valley of 10,000 Smokes. At such times they reveal their kinship both to the urban vapors that rise from sidewalk grates when it’s Christmastime in the city, and to the midsummer wisps that settle in cool fens and seepage wetlands.

The Housatonic certainly seemed to be smoking as I drove past the paper mills on my way north. Not so many years ago, you could tell what color paper they were making by the stain of the water below the discharge from the mill. Massachusetts has some of the most progressive wetlands and river protection laws in the Northeast, but for most of our history we have treated the  waters as sewers for the excretions of industry and as convenient dumping grounds for the effluvia of human enterprise...."

The previous article, which ran on December 18th, was inspired by the birds of winter.