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The Berkshires The Berkshires. The very words conjure up images of New England to anyone west of the Hudson River, of Tanglewood to the music lover, of quaint villages and country inns to generations of travelers, of sylvan retreats that have inspired artists and authors who have called the Berkshires home. The arts are centered in Lenox and Stockbridge, which attracted literati of such name and number in the mid-1800s that the area became known as "America's Lake Country." Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Adams, Edith Wharton and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow all lived here. Today, the Berkshires are unrivaled as America's summer cultural center with the foremost in music, dance and theater festivals. The storybook village of Stockbridge is America’s Main Street, as depicted by illustrator Norman Rockwell. The famed Red Lion Inn, built in 1773 as a small tavern, is its star. To its west is the Mission House, the town's first house. Built in 1739 by the Rev. John Sergeant, the first missionary to the Stockbridge Indians, it is full of American furnishings prior to 1740. Across the street and also open to the public is the Merwin House ("Tranquility"), built about 1825 and reflecting the elegant life of its wealthy Victorian-era residents. Near the end of Main Street is First Congregational Church, a striking, deep-red brick edifice built in 1824 and once the pulpit for Calvinist Jonathan Edwards. It is fronted by the stone Children's Chimes Tower, erected by town father David Dudley Field for his grandchildren and still rung from 5:30 to 6 every afternoon, per his directions, "from apple blossom time until frost." Just beyond are the Village Cemetery, where the epitaphs tell the story of early Stockbridge, and the Ancient Indian Burial Ground. Lenox, the center
of Berkshires culture and an architectural showplace, retains vestiges
of its days as "the inland Material excerpted from New England's Best, by Nancy and Richard Woodworth. Copyright 2002. Wood Pond Press E-mail feedback to: Home
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