Mill River Greenway Initiative

A community-based steward for the Mill River

Florence

Early Summer Newsletter

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The happiest of early summertimes to you, dear Mill River friends!

We are experiencing such a surge of interest and support for Mill River work that we’re beginning to burst with pride at the seams of our all-too-small workforce garment (namely Gaby, John, and Neal). Let’s get to the news:

  1. A new park is born!! Voters at Williamsburg Town Meeting voted overwhelmingly to approve the acquisition of a new four-acre park located across the Mill River from Local Burgy, Village Green, and Family Veterinary Center in the historic “Skinnerville” village between Haydenville and Williamsburg. A THOUSAND THANKS to dear friends and supporters who contributed over $8,000 in just two weeks to secure the purchase! And thanks to our supportive partners in the Eversource Energy real estate management office for helping us put together the deal.
  2. The Williamsburg Mill River Greenway Committee has finally secured a whopping $30,000 in State Transportation Bond funds, originally appropriated through the efforts of then-Senator Ben Downing in 2014. Much gratitude is owed to Representative Steve Kulik, and State Senator Adam Hinds, along with their local staff Paul Dunphy and Jon Gould, for their dogged efforts to bring those funds home to Burgy!
  3. Smith Design Clinic does it again! Our four intrepid Smith Engineering seniors gave a brilliant public presentation and submitted a 178-page report examining the Mill River’s mischievous behavior and possible solutions at the infamous “pinch” where Route 9 is dangerously narrow heading west past the Brassworks out of Haydenville. The impressive and extremely professional report will be shared with VHB Engineers, under contract with Williamsburg for survey and design development of the Burgy-Haydenville Greenway. You can view the report here (link to Burgy committee docs page on burgy.org: https://www.burgy.org/mill-river-greenway-committee/pages/greenway-reports-maps-etc
  4. Working closely with the Williamsburg Woodland Trails Committee (WWTC) and Smith College, we have just produced the 4thin our line of self-guided tours, this one by car or bicycle. It follows the path of the 1874 Williamsburg Flood from the site of the dam on the Mill’s East Branch to the final resting place of its victims at Florence Meadows/Grow Food Northampton Community Farm. It’s available for $2 from MRGI, the Williamsburg Historical Society, Historic Northampton, or the Northampton Chamber of Commerce.
  5. …speaking of which, the WWTC has just established one of the Valley’s most outstanding historical trails, this one from a parking spot on Ashfield Road, 2.8 miles from Williamsburg Center. With a Mass Humanities grant, the WWTC has installed a kiosk and series of wayside signs that lead from the trailhead to the dam site. Eric Weber and Elizabeth Sharpe provided the text and images. Eric’s drawings and engineering analyses are eye-opening. Be sure to check it out! It’s about a mile out and a mile back. Great hiking and great history in one fell swoop.
  6. We will be celebrating the Mill River at the amazing Golden Spike gathering of cyclists and trail enthusiasts throughout Massachusetts on the 27-28 of July. Our rail trail is part of two of the longest, most historic rail trails in New England. We urge you to check it out at https://www.gs2018.org. Gaby will present a short talk on our Williamsburg project, Neal will be at the table to work the crowd, and John will be leading Hidden Mill River tours on Friday and Saturday.
  7. On June 1st, the Hospital Hill and Smith College sections of Mill River became the focus for a natural history “biothon” to raise funds for the Hitchcock Center in memory of Elizabeth J. Farnsworth, whose untimely passing last November saddened us deeply. Through the amazing efforts of Laurie Sanders, Charley Eiseman, and Julia Blyth, we now have some updated baseline information on the biota of that section of the Mill River. Chief among our discoveries were the first known occurrences of a licorice-smelling goldenrod (Solidago odora) and a wood turtle (Glyptemys insculpta). Now, if we could just find someone to lead a MRGI initiative to list all the species in our Mill River watershed…if only! Any volunteers out there?
  8. And if ecological sleuthing isn’t your specialty, we would love some help sussing out the questions and process of whether your humble servants at the MRGI should undertake the creation of a 501c(3). If this is more your expertise than identifying salamanders and wildflowers, please let us know!

Attached is a photo of the Community Gardens at the Grow Food Northampton Community Farm, on the Mill River in Florence, courtesy of MRGI champion Reid Bertone-Johnson of Smith College and his kite-mounted camera!

Florence Meadows: Community Farm and Grow Food Northampton, kite-aided photo by Reid Bertone-Johnson

Winter Newsletter

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Dear Mill River Rats,

The happiest of New Years to you and to our amazing river! Once again, Williamsburg and the upper watershed leads the way in accomplishments and will continue to be our chief focus over the next year. But first, some quick updates:

  • We’re thrilled to co-sponsor with Grow Food Northampton an eco-riverwalk with Hitchcock Center’s fabulous naturalist Ted Watt. The event is January 28th, 1pm-3pm. Register here! Meet up at the GFN Community Garden, 140 Meadow Street, Florence. Further details can be found on the GFN website here.
  • Heidi Stevens and the Leeds Mill River Greenway Committee now have a great set of historic signs in the center of Leeds that follow the MRGI brochure’s riverwalk. Pick up a brochure at Historic Northampton or the Northampton Chamber of Commerce (or contact us at info@millrivergreenway.org).
  • We’re still looking at an April date for publication of John Sinton’s book on the Mill River to be published by Steve Strimer’s Levellers Press. Working title? How about Devil’s Den to Licking Water: The Mill River in Landscape and History. If you’ve a better title, let us know! The book will have lots of cool maps and images for your delectation.
  • And now on to Williamsburg! Preparations for the 1874 Williamsburg Dam Disaster signage and brochure are on track for a springtime kickoff. Paul Jahnige and his Burgy Woodlands Trail Committee are leading the way on interpretive signs along the trail. John is coordinating contributions from Burgy Historical Society’s Eric Weber and Ralmon Black, Historic Northampton historian Betty Sharpe, and Smith student Amaya Ramsay-Malone to assemble a brochure to tell the story of the flood from Williamsburg to Florence. Heidi Stevens of the Leeds MRGC will provide graphic design.
  • The Williamsburg Mill River Greenway Committee is thrilled to be working for the second time with Smith College’s formidable Design Clinic. Four Engineering majors (shout out to Marcia Rojas, Laura Rosenbauer, Maya Sleiman, and Fereshta Noori!) are studying the hydrology of the Mill River at the “pinch” in Route 9 just west of the Brassworks and will contribute to the ultimate design of a retaining wall to widen the roadbed and make room for the Greenway as it follows Route 9 from Haydenville to Williamsburg. The students work is ably supported by a crack team of experts – Brett Towler of US Fish & Wildlife; Carl Gustafson of USDA NRCS (retd); Jim Hyslip of HyGround Engineering; and our champion Susannah Howe, Smith College Engineering Prof and director of the Design Clinic.
  • With elegant timing, the Design Clinic students are able to coordinate with and learn from the professional engineers of VHB, Inc., who were selected by the Town of Williamsburg to execute the Master Route 9 Corridor Survey for which funds were approved at Williamsburg’s 2017 Town Meeting. Surveyors can already be seen on and around Route 9 determining right of ways, flagging wetlands, establishing parcel boundaries, and laying down the baseline upon which the Williamsburg Mill River Greenway will be designed in the years ahead. Mark your calendars for a 2025 groundbreaking!
  • The Burgy Greenway received a big boost from Healthy Hampshire to the tune of a $9,999 grant awarded in November. Williamsburg will use the grant to design the future Mill River Greenway to maximize its safety and walkability, design the rest areas, viewpoints, river access points, safe crosswalks at road intersections and driveways, safety and accessibility accommodations, and to work with local partners to ensure that the final design is fully responsive to the needs of all users, with particular emphasis on the elderly, school children, and the disabled.  Healthy Hampshire is focused on improving people’s health in Hampshire County and the Hilltowns by collaborating with municipal leaders, elected officials, public health departments, planners, businesses, community organizations, and residents. It is part of the Mass in Motionstatewide initiative through the Department of Public Health, and administered by the City of Northampton. Thank you, friends!
  • More good Burgy news – the Greenway Committee received its second grant from the Recreational Trails Grant program of the Dept of Conservation and Recreation last October. Almost $50,000 will go directly to improvements to the South Main Connector, which someday will bring users of the Mass Central Rail Trail from the Haydenville dismount at the foot of South Main Street, to the beginning of the Burgy Greenway at the Haydenville Library. Grant funds will support:
    • The completion of trail surfacing between Leeds and Haydenville;
    • Conservation plantings along the trail dismount;
    • Establishment of a parklet at the dismount switchback;
    • Restoration of a retaining wall on South Main Street that will allow for further extension of the South Main sidewalk.

Once again, best wishes to all of you for the New Year, and three extra cheers for the good folks from Williamsburg!!

John, Gaby, and Neal

 

 

 

Florence Riverwalk October 1

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Nonotuck Silk/Littfield Parsons Co. ca. 1865

Nonotuck Silk/Littfield Parsons Co. ca. 1865

Florence Riverwalk Oct. 1

Join us for the inaugural riverwalk celebrating the new Florence Self-Guided Tour Brochure!

Saturday October 1st 10:00 am to 11:30 am

Meet at the Nonotuck Mill parking lot across Nonotuck St. from ChemiPlastica (do not park at ChemiPlastica!)

MRGI’s third Historic Mill River Walk brochure is hot off the press, and we’re pleased that Wendy Sinton, author of the brochure, will be our leader for our inaugural guided tour.  The walk is a mile and a half, but those who are unable to walk that far will be able to do the first half mile and then return to their car.

Long the center of Mill River industry, Florence, originally known as Broughton’s Meadow, was home to factories that produced silk thread, plastics, and brushes.  You’ll explore the unique juxtaposition of industrial activity and the abolitionist movement.  Sojourner Truth and David Ruggles once lived and worked here as part of a utopian community.  This tour ends at the farm of a noted abolitionist and the spot where the sad remains from the 1874 flood came to rest.

As usual, the tour is limited to 20 participants, so let us know of your interest.

A Stunning Spring and Summer Ahead

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We’re thrilled to announce a series of great initiatives this spring and summer:

LET’S TACKLE INVASIVES ALONG OUR RIVER!

We’re delighted to make available a new guide for land stewards in the Mill River watershed, “Making Room for Native Plants and Wildlife.” The guide, written by the New England Wild Flower Society with support from Smith College, is a plant-by-plant guide to the management and removal of invasive plants species commonly found encroaching on the banks and floodplains of the Mill River. The guide devotes one page per species to repeat offenders such as Japanese knotweed, oriental bittersweet, and multiflora rose, offering pictures and description for identification, a table of when and how best to combat each species, and suggestions for replacement plantings of species native to this region. The guide is available for free on our http://millrivergreenway.org website and will also be available in a printed, bound version at cost, $15 per guide (email us at info@millrivergreenway.org if you’re interested in purchasing print copies). We’re planning to organize educational and stewardship events along the river this summer to distribute the guide and galvanize the community to care for the river. Stay tuned for more info. We hope we’ll see you out there!

THE CONWAY SCHOOL BOOK WILL BE AVAILABLE BY MAY DAY

We’ve gotten an early peek at Armi and Margot’s work at the Conway School and it looks beautiful. The book, entitled “Building a Strategic Plan for the Mill River Greenway” is 68 pages and chock full of photographs, maps, and data. THANK YOU, Mill River Lovers, this is your gift to the river, and the river will be giving back to you. We can’t wait to get this out to you. Watch this space.

A SELF-GUIDED TOUR BROCHURE FOR FLORENCE

Wendy Sinton of the Sojourner Truth Memorial Committee, with the help of Dianne Jester-Wieland (Smith ’16), Julia Franchi Scarselli (Smith ’18), and Florence architect Scott Laidlaw have a draft prepared for a Mill Riverwalk in Florence. Designed once again by the inimitable Rob and Damia of TransitAuthorityFigures.com, we expect to have copies of the brochure early this summer. This is the third brochure in what we hope will someday be a series of ten!

BAY STATE RIVERWALK OPTIONS

Once again, Smith students lived up to their reputation for amazing projects by producing maps and data that summarize parcel data, historical features, and invasive species challenges on the Bay State reach of the river. This work will provide the basis for Bay State residents and the City of Northampton to envision the Greenway from Paradise Pond to the Cutlery Building, as well as gathering the information that will become another self-guided tour brochure. We will post their work on the website in May. Thanks, Julia Graham, Grace Peralta, and Bryn Gingrich for work that will have lasting impact!

ENGINEERING DESIGN FOR THE RAIL TRAIL DISMOUNT TO SOUTH MAIN STREET IN HAYDENVILLE

…speaking of lasting impact, Joanna Kenneally, Sophia Poulos, Jin Rui Yap, and Eliana Perlmutter, Smith seniors working through the Engineering Department’s Design Clinic, have completed an engineering study to link the end of the rail trail in Leeds to South Main Street in Haydenville (Williamsburg). They presented two options, one earthwork and one boardwalk, at a very well attended Community Forum in Williamsburg on April 9. The students’ design and analysis lays the groundwork for Williamsburg to seek the funding that will be required to complete the project. Our deepest gratitude to Smith and the College’s superb students!

 

 

 

 

Florence Riverwalks 8/15 and 9/26

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Get ready for some high summer fun on the two Florence riverwalks and prepare for a fantastic fall!

The Florence I riverwalk from Maines Field to Meadow St. Bridge will be led by Wendy Sinton of the Sojourner Truth Memorial Committee and MRGI’s John Sinton.  It’ll feature the Mill River industries that drove Florence’s prosperity with a focus on the underground railroad and the Northampton Association of Industry and Education.  That’s Sat. August 15.

The Florence II walk on Sat. Sept. 26 walk is one of our most popular, featuring naturalist Laurie Sanders and Elizabeth Sharpe, author of In the Shadow of the Dam.  It will cover the river from Meadow St. Bridge to Crimson & Clover farm across from Look Park.

Room is available on both those tours, a sneak preview of which can be found at this link, which you should simply copy onto your browser: https://player.vimeo.com/external/133577379.source.mp4?s=31561790f19a26cad582699c08cf0c56&profile_id=0&download=1

The video was brought to you by Burgy’s inimitable and invaluable Tom Adams, Director/Owner of Reelife Documentary Productions & Folktography by Tom

And get ready for a fantastic fall.  We’ll be working with new partners and old to create a path from Leeds to Haydenville, to begin some invasive management, to develop a partnership with the Conway School, and add to our Mill River History.

With all our best wishes,  John and Gaby