Historical Collections, by John Warner Barber

71

GREAT BARRINGTON.

He was born at Waterbury, Con., and was a direct lineal descendant of Stephen Hopkin's, one of the pilgrims who landed at Plymouth in Dec. 1620. He graduated at Yale College in 1741, and studied theology with the first President Edwards, then minister at Northampton. His mental powers were strong, and fitted him for deep and thorough investigation. While at Great Barrington, and Newport, R. I., (where he settled after he left Mass.) he published a number of sermons and books on subjects of doctrine which excited considerable controversy. In 1793 he published his System of Divinity, the sentiments advocated in which were 'highly Calvinistic, and are generally termed Hopkinsinian.

The village of Great Barrington, which extends about three fourths of a mile on the western borders of the Housatonic, consists of upwards of 50 dwelling-houses, 2 churches, 1 Episcopal and 1 Congregationalist, a printing-office, and various mechanic shops. The village is well built, and deeply shaded by elms and other trees. It is 6 miles from Sheffield, 14 south of Lenox, 25 eastward from Hudson, and 125 from Boston. In 1837 there were in the town 4 cotton mills, which consumed 170,000 lbs.. of cotton; 920,000 yards of cotton goods manufactured, valued at $64,600; there were 2 woollen mills, which consumed 32,000 lbs. of wool, and 52,500 yards of cloth manufactured. There were in the town 2,657 merino sheep, which produced 6,642 lbs. of wool, the value of which was $3,321; one furnace for the manufacture of pig iron, employing 20 hands; 180 tons of pig iron were made, valued at $7,200. Population, 2,440.

The Episcopal society in this town was formed about the year 1760. The church was instituted by the Rev. Solomon Palmer, then a missionary at Litchfield and New Milford, Con., from the society in England for propagating religion in foreign parts. The society have a parsonage-house and lands, and besides the church they have a chapel in Van Deusenville to accommodate the people in the north part of the society. The Congregational and Episcopal societies were incorporated by the legislature in 1791. There are some Methodist people in town, who mostly reside in the east and north-east parts.

The most noted mountain in this section of country is Monument mountain, in the north part of this town, which rises up directly from the east bank of the Housatonic, and extends into Stockbridge. The engraving shows the appearance of this, as it is seen from the south-east on the road towards Stockbridge. It derived its name from a rude monument of stones on the southeastern point, a short distance from the county road, which it is to be regretted is now demolished. The pile was six or eight feet in diameter, circular at its base, and raised in the form of an obtuse cone over the grave of one of the aborigines. It was a custom of the Indians whenever an individual passed by the tomb of his countryman to cast a stone upon it. By this slow method of accumulation, the heap in question rose in a series of years to the size just mentioned. According to tradition " the person buried here was a female, who had thrown herself from the cliffs of the mountain through the influence of a passionate love for a cousin, whom the religion of the natives would not allow her to marry, because