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Autumn 2018 Newsletter

Devil’s Den to Lickingwater Events March-May

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March 13th 6:00 PM at Meekins Library in Williamsburg
April 18th 7:30 at Smith College
May 13th at Forbes Library

Dear Mill River Lovers,
The Devil’s Den event at Meekins Library will be at 6:00 PM. Williamsburg and the Upper Mill River Watershed will be featured.
The event at Smith College will be on April 18th at 7:30 PM.  The lecture and discussion are titled”The World As Seen From Paradise Pond.” We will send out further details on this and on
The event at Forbes Library on May 13th, which will focus on the Hidden Mill River and feature Laurie Sanders, Wayne Feiden, Dylan Gaffney, and yours truly.
Hope to see you at one or another event.

For the river!
John

Five Devil’s Den Readings upcoming for February and March

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Devil’s Den to Lickingwater has gotten a really lovely, warm reception — full houses at all events, and we had to turn away many at the door. So, we’re scheduling a bunch more presentations. I’m really looking forward to seeing our MRGI folk out there. We’ve scheduled five Devil’s Den to Lickingwater presentations between February 11th and early April in Northampton, Williamsburg, and South Hadley. Other venues and events are either in a planning stage or have been set.

  1. February 11th, 7:00 Broadside Books. This will be more a conversation between author and audience than a lecture, and there will be no powerpoint/slide show. Topics will include the early history of the Mill River and Native American perspectives on the Pioneer Valley; how the Mill River defined Northampton; and why the river matters.
  2. February 19th, 7:00 at Odyssey Books, South Hadley. We will present an overview of Devil’s Den to Lickingwater, including the creation of the Pioneer Valley from both the geological and Native American perspectives. We will discuss the Mill River and Pioneer Valley as a reflection of much of American history. The author will choose several river stories from among the many in the book about floods, diversions, industrial evolution and environmental transformations.
  3. February 21, 7:00 at Northampton Community Arts Trust on Hawley St. This will be a repeat of the December 1 talk at Historic Northampton when we had to turn away so many people. The focus will be on the Mill River and the creation of Nonotuck and Northampton. We will feature the two river diversions and dozens of flood events (not the 1874 Williamsburg Disaster). What was it like to live in Northampton prior to 1940?
  4. March 13, 6:30 at Meekins Library, Williamsburg. This presentation will be in memory of Ralmon Black. We will look at Williamsburg in the context of Native American and Colonial history and then focus on Williamsburg’s contribution to the cultural and industrial history of the Valley.
  5. March or early April on a  Thursday evening at 7:30 at Smith College, venue to be determined.The focus for the presentation will be chosen in consultation with the Landscape Studies program, which is sponsoring the talk.
  6. A presentation at Forbes is up for grabs. I’d like to see it as a panel about how to approach public history and how to integrate local history into schools.
  7. ?April or May? Hitchcock Center – there may be a forum on environmental history of the Valley in honor of Elizabeth Farnsworth.
  8. October 18 evening, Audubon’s Arcadia Refuge. This event will focus on environmental history.

We wish you much happiness and warmth in the cold of this season. Looking forward to the river connecting us,

John

Schedule for Devil’s Den to Lickingwater Presentations

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Dear Mill River Lovers,

Forgive my barging into your homes this holiday season. I was talking with several MRGI members lately, who told me that they would like to know about reading events for our Mill River book, Devil’s Den to Lickingwater: The Mill River Through Landscape and History. I hope they’re right about your interest in the book. If not, please just click this off. Here’s the lineup:

January 9, 7:00 at the Leeds School. We’ll focus on Native American perspectives and Mill River industrial history featuring all the mill villages, especially Leeds.

February 21, 7:00 at Northampton Community Arts Trust on Hawley St. This will be a repeat of the December 1 talk at Historic Northampton when we had to turn away so many people. The focus will be on the Mill River and the creation of Nonotuck and Northampton. We will feature the two river diversions and dozens of flood events (not the 1874 Williamsburg Disaster), which gave citizens a very different experience of the Connecticut and Mill Rivers prior to 1940.

March 13, 6:30 at Meekins Library, Williamsburg. This presentation will be similar to the one in Leeds in February with greater attention paid to the town of Williamsburg.

April? Date and time to be determined. I will give a lecture on Devil’s Den at Smith College, sponsored by the Landscapes Studies Program. Focus of the talk will be decided shortly.

October 8, evening at Mass Audubon’s Arcadia Refuge. This time the focus will be on the environmental history of the region, including ecological transformations, alien and native plants, fish, and animals, and deforestation.

Two other readings are also being considered, one at Forbes Library and one at Hitchcock Nature Center.

Thanks for your patience, and I really look forward to seeing you at one of the readings. After all, the River Runs Through Us!

Happy New Year,

John

Autumn 2018 Newsletter

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Hello Autumn! Hello Mill River Community!

Hoping this finds you refreshed by the crisp weather and busily battening down the hatches for the winter ahead.  We three humble co-conspirators at the MRGI continue our diligent efforts to celebrate and elevate our river. To wit…

Mill River, the Book

We were delighted and humbled to see so many of you at the launch party for John’s gorgeous new book, Devil’s Den to Lickingwater: The Mill River Through Landscape & History, published by Levellers Press. Deeply researched and lavishly illustrated, the book is a must-have for Mill River lovers (holiday gift time is not so far off!).

John will be presenting different sections of the book at upcoming events at Historic Northampton at 4:00 Saturday, December 1; at the Leeds School on Wednesday evening at 7:00 January 9 (snow date January 10); on Feb. 21st at 7:00 a re-run of the Historic Northampton talk at Northampton Community Arts Trust at 33 Hawley St. (Historic Northampton is undergoing renovations); at Meekins Library in Williamsburg on March 13th at 6:30; and at Audubon’s Arcadia Sanctuary on October 8th. Additional events are in the planning stages for Smith College, Forbes Library, University of Massachusetts, and the Hitchcock Center. John would be happy to entertain invitations for other venues as well.

 You can pick up a copy at Collective Copies in Florence or Amherst or at Broadside Books in Northampton. You can also order it from Amazon.

Williamsburg Rolls Along

Team Williamsburg has been able to accelerate its progress this fall with an additional $100,000 in funds from the Massachusetts DCR Recreational Trails Grant program. Design and engineering work continues under the town’s contract with the great folks at VHB Engineering. The Phase II Pre-Construction Design Development Study has been expanded to include survey and field research toward the development of the new Skinnerville park parcel approved for purchase at Town Meeting in June.

VHB is also helping the Williamsburg Mill River Greenway Committee move forward on two fronts:

1. Improvements to the safety and accessibility of the Fort Hill Road-South Main Street intersection in Haydenville;

2. a study to qualify South Main Street for the MA DOT Complete Streets program, which funds improvements that benefit cars, bikes, and walkers as they traverse South Main Street between the Rail Trail and the Greenway (which will begin at the Library Bridge in Haydenville).

3. Surfacing of the rail trail from Leeds to Haydenville was completed this fall under an elegant partnership between Williamsburg and Northampton. Because the project spanned the town line, the two communities made an agreement to have Northampton supply materials, and Williamsburg Highway Department perform the work.  The 1/2 mile or so of pavement formally linked Haydenville into the Mass Central Rail Trail system, which will someday connect all the way to Boston. The Burgy Greenway committee hopes to create a wayside parklet at the switchback, with benches and interpretive signage to mark the terminus of the MCRT.

Smith Design Clinic Rides Again!

We’re blessed once again this year to have the extraordinary help of Smith College’s Design Clinic under the masterful guidance of Engineering Professor Susannah Howe. Our four Smithie seniors (Jess McKnight, Bea Dalton, Kelsey Hammond, and Serena Cattau) will be providing us with designs for the final grade and a new pedestrian bike bridge at the terminus of the Mass Central Rail Trail in Haydenville, the gateway to the Burgy Mill River Greenway. Everyone will have the chance to check out their work and provide feedback at a community forum in April 2019.

MRGI 2023

Your humble co-conspirators are opening a discussion on a strategic plan for the next five years of MRGI initiatives. We expect that the Haydenville to Williamsburg Center project will break ground five years from now in 2023 (fingers crossed!) by which time will need to:

1. Consider a more robust organization with its own 501(c)(3) non-profit status that can serve as a “Friends of the Mill River Greenway” advocacy group;

2. Establish the next steps in the development of a physical greenway connecting Goshen to Northampton via trail, scientific study areas, and virtual trails along reaches that need to remain off limits to active recreation.

See You in Spring, We’re Wintering on the Website

We will organize a MRGI meeting for our community next spring, but for now, we open the floor to your ideas. We have already received several suggestions about the website, which we will spend some time this winter updating. If you have any thoughts about the river or MRGI, please let us know.  Are there river reaches you’d like us to focus on for whatever reason, whether recreation, scientific or cultural study, or exploration?  After all, the river runs through all of us.

We hope to see you a book event in the coming months and to hearing from you about any Mill River thought on your mind.

May the river always flow through us!

Gaby, Neal, and John