I don’t know how we arrived at a place where we thought everyone would support democracy because it was an intellectually superior form of government. All of human history contradicts that notion.
A who’s who of 19th-century American authors who rented or visited Laurel Cottage includes Harriet Beecher Stowe, Herman Melville, Nathanial Hawthorne and the English poet Matthew Arnold.
She was treasurer of the Mission House for 25 years and worked closely with Miss Choate, archiving all the furnishings. She developed a close friendship with her and after Miss Choate passed away, Lucy helped open Naumkeag and was the first guide there.
Berkshire County is particularly interesting as an architectural exhibit. Given New England practicality or parsimony or respect for our history, we didn’t always tear down and build new: We save our old houses.
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.
‘Your state of society is an endless source of wretchedness… in a state of society like yours those who labour most enjoy the least, and thou who labour not at all have the greatest number of enjoyments.’
-- Stockbridge Mohican Sachems Daniel Nimham, Jacob Cheeksaunkun, Solomon Uhhaunauwaunmut, John Naunauphtaunk, as recorded by John Trusler during their visit to England
It is not without some irony that the town of Stockbridge, which harbors such an incredible history, has failed on so many occasions to preserve the symbols of that history.
