Why are we honoring a massacre? On the other hand, how many monuments are there to Native American maltreatment? It’s a rare admission of how fiercely we wrestled New England from its indigenous people.
There was public pressure for a better way to reach the Berkshire Heights interior. The grade-level Castle Street/railroad crossing was extremely dangerous.
The public disdained using the new roadbed for several years. You can improve our roads, but you can’t make us use them, people declared silently.
-- Reaction in 1812 to improvements in what would become Route 7
