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HomeLife In the BerkshiresCONNECTIONS: Tenuous echoes...

CONNECTIONS: Tenuous echoes from Lake Averic

There are oral histories with pavilions and pine groves, cabins, casinos and horse barns. What we don’t know is exactly why locals called Lake Averic an echo lake.

About Connections: Love it or hate it, history is a map. Those who hate history think it irrelevant; many who love history think it escapism. In truth, history is the clearest road map to how we got here: America in the 21st century.

Turn on the tap in Stockbridge and your water reaches you from Lake Averic. With it comes a stream of local stories.

One Stockbridge resident was frustrated when unable to find Echo Lake on any map. She knew it was called Echo Lake; everyone said so. Why wasn’t it on the map?

Simple: “Echo Lake” is not its name.

Locals began calling Lake Averic an echo lake in 1850. The explanation was a bit of mountain lore. The American tour of “The Swedish Nightingale” Jenny Lind was from 1850 to 1852. Contemporaneous reports said the soprano was the most popular celebrity of the day and “brought high brow music to the masses.”

While visiting The Berkshires, the story goes, Lind was taken for a carriage ride by Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner. He selected Lake Averic as their destination. Lind was thrilled with the local beauty spot and burst into song. Her voice was so clear and strong that it carried across the lake and echoed back, thus the name.

Alternatively, there was a Lind concert on Echo Lake and the entire audience heard the echo. In either case, according to the book “Lenox,” “Charles Sumner came often from the Senate in Washington to stay with the Wards and Jenny Lind…”

Probably not: Lind arrived in America in September 1850. On Sept. 30, Anna Hazard Ward wrote in her diary, “Mon 30th – Moved up to Boston in the early train – Took possession of my old house in Louisburg Square.” Perhaps Lind stayed with the Wards at Highwood prior to Sept. 30? No, it was 12 days later that Anna wrote she met Jenny Lind for the first time. So much for staying with the Wards – what about a concert on the lake?

A recent photo showing Lake Averic as it is today.
A recent photo showing Lake Averic as it is today.

It was hard for there to be a Lind concert on a Berkshire lake during the summer of 1850 when Lind was not yet in America, and harder to imagine an outdoor concert on a Berkshire lake in the late fall. Ward met Lind on Oct. 12 in Boston and, in Boston on Oct. 1, Ward heard Lind sing for the first time: “The best music I ever heard,” Ward wrote.

So Lind had to rush from singing in Boston to singing in Berkshire after Oct. 12: Possible, but was it likely? Less likely if you imagine Lind singing in the open air and more likely if there was a building on the lake, a place indoors from which Lind could sing.

But if she was inside a building, how was there an echo? Is there any indication of a building on the lake?

In the mid-19th century, Stockbridge boys rooting around the lake, kicking up dirt and poking with sticks, uncovered a foundation. Thrilled with their discovery, they plumbed the depths for treasure. They were rewarded by finding old coins. As men they tried to find out what it was the foundation of – what was once built on Lake Averic? They failed but, perhaps through an association of ideas – coins, money, money, gambling – the men decided the structure had been a gambling parlor. There was no corroboration; no one knew of anything built on the lake.

In the summer of 2012, Maria Carr wrote a piece for the Stockbridge Library newsletter. It recorded the memories of Freda Bell. Bell remembered picnics, boating and dancing on the lake.

The Pittsfield Sun reported, “A large party from Lebanon, N.Y., last week visited Echo Lake and frequent picnic parties are held by many others from neighboring towns.”

Nice, but a picnic area does not explain a foundation.

The Valley Gleaner, July 25, 1888: “On Wednesday of last week a large party made up of the Fields and their friends went to Lake Averic for a picnic. Friday evening a company of 30 from this village went to Lake Averic, and after a moonlight sail they took supper at J. H. Burghardt’s beautiful new inn.”

Ah-ha, as the detectives say: a building with, presumably, a foundation.

The Valley Gleaner August 1, 1888: “The San Souci Hotel at Echo Lake is doing fine under the management of John H. Burghardt.”

And this interesting tidbit in the Gleaner: “[at the San Souci] a colored caterer and wife furnish a fine table.”

We now have a solid building that explains a foundation. Furthermore, it was a place from which Lind could sing. If only it had not been built 30 years after she left America.

According to Bell, there was a pavilion, but was it there in 1850? Bell remembered it was built by a dentist named John Burghardt. We have a John Burghardt, but ours is a hotel manager, not a dentist. We found a hotel built too late: Was there a pavilion built earlier?

In the Berkshire County directory, there was a dentist named John Burghardt listed in Curtisville. That was in 1875 – 13 years before the San Souci was built. Was the dentist the same man as the hotel manager? Was he a son, or was the name mere coincidence? Did any Burghardt build a pavilion? There was also a local Burghardt foundry. Did the family of metal workers have anything to do with buildings on the lake?

Hard to reconstruct since, today, the lake is unspoiled and undeveloped by design. From 1892 Lake Averic was the source of the Stockbridge water supply. The town acquired the lake and surrounding area from miller Stephen Curtis. The site was posted and hiking, biking, boating and certainly building were all discouraged. The area was remote, peaceful and untouched, keeping the water crystal clear. However, the site had draw backs.

August 31, 1896, the New York Times reported ”The Red Lion Inn in ashes.” Water had to be brought from Lake Averic two miles away – it took more than an hour to carry the water and, by that time, the fire was advanced – uncontrollable.

There are memories of “moon lit drives, fine roads, and picnics at Echo Lake that make the summer season delightful,” according to a local paper. There are oral histories with pavilions and pine groves, cabins, casinos and horse barns. What we don’t know is exactly why locals called Lake Averic an echo lake. What was the foundation that those Berkshire boys found, and what is the relationship between Burghardt the manager, Burghardt the dentist and Burghardt the metal worker? The life of a local historian is fraught and neither certainty nor repetition makes mountain lore true even though it causes the stories to be – endlessly – repeated.

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The Edge Is Free To Read.

But Not To Produce.

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The Edge Is Free To Read.

But Not To Produce.