This is the story of two thunderstorms. Both occurred in August in Stockbridge—one on the side of a mountain, one overlooking Stockbridge Bowl. They happened more than 80 years apart; one is remembered for literary reasons, the second for monetary reasons, and both for their impact on American arts and culture.
It was August 5, 1850—generally accepted as an important date in American literary history. On that day, at Laurel Cottage in Stockbridge (on Main Street about where the tennis courts are today), David Dudley Field introduced Herman Melville to Nathaniel Hawthorne.
After a sumptuous lunch of roast chicken, Field suggested they walk together up Monument Mountain. In addition to Hawthorne, Melville, and Field, there were publisher Evert Duyckinck and poet Oliver Wendell Holmes.
On August 7, 1850, Hawthorne wrote his good friend, his “oldest and friendliest critic,” Horatio Bridge, “Duyckinck of the Literary World and Melville are in Berkshire, and I expect them to call here this morning. I met Melville the other day and liked him so much that I have asked him to spend a few days before leaving these parts.”
From the summer of 1850 to November 1851, Hawthorne rented the “Little Red Shanty” in Stockbridge from William and Caroline Tappan. In September 1850, Melville purchased Arrowhead, a farm in Pittsfield across the road from the Holmes’ summer house.
The date of their meeting is so well remembered because, during his time in the Berkshires, Hawthorne wrote “The House of Seven Gables,” “A Wonder Book for Boys and Girls,” and began “The Blithesdale Romance.” During those 18 months, Melville wrote “Moby Dick.” Literary critics believe their friendship positively influenced their work.
Julian Hawthorne recalled, “Melville would often walk over to us from Pittsfield where he lived accompanied by a great black Newfoundland dog on whose back he would let us ride. Meanwhile Melville would talk above our heads about Metaphysical matters to my father and mother … before he went away he would usually tell us an extraordinary story.” Melville’s powers of narration were so exceptional that Mrs. Hawthorne searched her parlor for the black club that played a role in one of Melville’s tales. Hawthorne laughed and told his wife there was no real club, just the powerful suggestion of a great storyteller.
They met in a thunderstorm, and one of their last meetings was in 1851, at Arrowhead where, Melville wrote, “we were in a fine mood for smoking and talking metaphysics during a snowstorm in March.”
The date of the second thunderstorm was August 12, 1937. That summer marked the fourth time the Berkshire Symphonic Festival presented orchestral music in outdoor concerts. The first years, the concerts were presented by the New York Philharmonic, and now the Boston Symphony orchestra for the first time on the grounds of Tanglewood.
A great tent had been erected for the occasion on the crest overlooking Stockbridge Bowl. During the performance of an all-Wagner program, the thunderstorm broke. The tent top was awash and the roar of the storm was so loud that the brasses of Wagner were drowned out and Koussevitsky commanded that the music come to a full stop.
Gertrude Robinson Smith rose and, in a voice like no other, demanded of the audience that they raise the money—then and there—to build a proper concert hall. They called the second August thunderstorm “the $100,000 thunderstorm,” although only $30,000 was raised, which would equal about $600,000 today—a misnomer with a message.

Koussevitsky wanted Eero Saarinen to be the architect, but Saarinen declared that with $30,000 all Smith would be able to build would be “a shed.” Just as Smith founded the Symphonic Festival (Music Under the Stars) that thrived from 1934 to 2024( 90 years), she got the enclosure built. She called it the Shed, as it stands today. On August 4, 1938, she dedicated the Shed at Tanglewood. (You can hear Smith’s remarkable voice and the speech in its entirety on YouTube.) The Berkshire Symphonic Festival built the Shed at Tanglewood (property owned by the BSO). They worked together presenting outdoor classical music to the public for the next seven years.
In October of 1945, the Board of the Berkshire Symphonic Festival, which had raised the funds for the building of the Music Shed on land owned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, voted to present the BSO with the Shed as a gift. It was the 11th anniversary of the establishment of the festivals by Berkshire Symphonic. With this gesture, the board removed any difficulties that might have attended a dual ownership and joint administration. It was public-spirited and a contribution to the continuance of the festivals. It was comparable to the contribution they made to the Berkshires in founding the festivals 11 years earlier.