Place in Massachusetts History


	Here we consider the western half of Massachusetts.

	*The Worcester Uplands*
	This region covers a broad swath thru the middle of the state. Traveling west from Worcester or Fitchburg, one gradually increases in elevation but almost imperceptibly. Elevations here reach over 1000 feet but ancient roots of mountains rise even higher; Mt Monadnock (in NH, but “barely”) reaches over 3,000 feet and Mt. Wachusett (between Worcester and Gardner) achieves almost 2000 feet. But on the western edge of the Uplands, the transition to the Connecticut Valley is quick and dramatic.
	Even through the recent sprawl (that afflicts all of the state) you can still feel the towns here that were abandoned in the 19^th century when farming became unprofitable after the Erie Canal opened the Ohio Valley open to settlement. The height of land clearance in Massachusetts and New England occurred somewhere around the 1830-1840 period. A superb set of dioramas is preserved at the Harvard Forest in Petersham where continuing research on the historical and current impacts of man on the forests are ongoing.

	*The Connecticut Valley*
	A relatively narrow valley in width but with an alignment that extends from Greenfield in the north to Springfield (and continuing through Connecticut to the shore of Long Island). This valley was formed when parallel faults (breaks in the crust) allowed the intervening land to subside forming a valley. Most valleys are formed from erosion; the rivers erode the weaker rock and you have a “river with a valley”. In this case, the valley formed and the river followed the lower elevation. Rocks which formed here are rich in iron as revealed in the distinct red soils the Valley is famous for. These are fertile soils and have been farmed from the earliest days. Valley elevations, averaging around 150-200 feet along the river, yield a warmer region than the mountains to the west or the uplands to the east.

	*(Hill Towns-Transition)*
	This is a transitional zone and that is why the dotted border line on the west; this region is clearly set apart from the Connecticut Valley on the east but blends into the Berkshires to the west. It is difficult to see when in the “hill towns” but this is a plateau region with rivers which have cut deeply into the rocks. The major rivers (Deerfield, Westfield and Farmington) flow dramatically eastward to the Connecticut from the highlands. Elevations average over 2000 feet here. Difficult topography has kept the population low and few of “us” living in the eastern part of the state have ever heard of some of these towns--Gill, Hawley, or Goshen.

	*The Berkshires*
	We finally come to Massachusetts’ “real mountains”, the Berkshires. They are not especially wide as can be seen from the map. They are, like the regions to the east and west of it, a distinct north-south trending belt. The rocks that form these ancient mountains are some of the oldest in the state—perhaps formed around a billion years ago. Very complex activity happened here but suffice it to say that this was the edge of the continent that butted up against another continent and the land in between was squeezed ‘like an accordion’. If you stretched out the land flat that is now in the Berkshire region it would stretch out hundreds of miles. The complex folding in the rocks you can see along the Turnpike in Blandford and Russell testify to the great power and time involved deep within the earth as these activities were taking place. Elevations here run 1500 to over 2000 feet but are quite variable.

	*Housatonic (Marble) Valleys*
	These lowlands, ‘sandwiched’ between the Berkshires to the east and the Taconics to the west, are formed in the easily eroded limestone and marble zones of the highlands. The limestone (and closely related marble rock), were deposited millions of years ago in shallow seas. These erosional valleys (created by the rivers that now flow through them), are not wide but are important in western Massachusetts. The principal river, the Housatonic, flows south through much of the valley all the way to the Connecticut shore at Stratford. Had this river flowed east or west how different might the connections been between this part of the state and the populated east? The very northern part of the valley is occupied by the Hoosic River which flows north through southwestern Vermont and then by a circuitous route west to the Hudson River well north of Albany.

	*Taconic Mountains*
	These mountain more properly thought of as being a part of Vermont and New York do fringe the far western part of the state in the northwest and southwest corners. The rocks were once under the ocean and have been shoved up, along with the limestone and sandstones of the Housatonic and Hoosic Valleys to the east, and now form the highest mountains of western Massachusetts. The highest mountain in the state, Mt Greylock (3500 feet), in the City of Adams, and Mt Everett (in the Town of Mt Washington in the far southwest corner of Massachusetts) over 2600 feet, are in the Taconic Mountains.