That’s black mildew in the grain of the boards. First step was to remove this with our exclusive process and cleaning solution.

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They incite the poetic instinct rather than awe and for that reason the euph- onious name “Mohawk Trail” should never have been dese- crated by introducing so unpoetic a name as Hairpin Curve to any part of it.

True, that would probably suggest itself to the mind of the engineer who, by the way, had to work out some mathematical problems in making that bend, but should this not be termed Inspiration Point? For that is just what it is.

You drive along a beautiful road lined with elms, oaks, birches and other trees too numerous to mention, to say nothing of the clinging shrubs, the ivy, sumac, golden rod and the aster, when all at once you come to this curve and a scene of beauty lies before you.

From that point you look into the States of Vermont, Connecticut and New York, and observe numerous villages quietly browsing in the lawns of nature. The undulating hills give a quaint and pic- turesque touch in their rational continuity not infrequently contrasted and in the later fall must present a picture of in- describable beauty.

We were there when Jack Frost had pinched the cheek of the stately elm or the maple, but he had none the less stealthily crept along the ground and in his merciless delight brought the first blush to the poison ivy and the sumac. Proceeding as far as Charlemont we then retraced our steps to North Adams thence to Williamstown.

As related, the impression indescribably fixed upon our minds at Stockbridge reached its superlative degree at the quaint old college town. It beggars description. Apart from its scholastic atmosphere and its tutored refinement, there is a culture that one inevitably feels and not only is this in the air, not only evidenced in its stately and beautiful buildings but even the tourists seem impressed with it and the wait- ers in the hotel were marked by it.

You cannot enter Williamstown without departing with a feeling better for having been there, and whether in man or place such a trait is an invaluable asset and a beautiful heritage.

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Its area has since been  diminished by the elimination of its boundary lines in the formation of the towns of Alford and Lee. From 1743 to 1761 this territory had a corporate existence as the North Parish of Sheffield, — sometimes called Upper Sheffield, and during that period was included in and formed a part of the town of Sheffield.

The adjoining towns on the north, are Alford, West Stockbridge, Stockbridge and Lee, on the east, Tyringham, Monterey and New Marlboro, on the south New Marlboro, Sheffield and Egremont, on the west Egremont and Alford.

The extreme western limits of the town approach within about three miles of the neighbormg state of New York, and the north lime of Connecticut is distant not more than eight miles from the southern boundary of the town. In its outline the town is of irregular form, though its average length and breadth are nearly the same, — a little less than seven miles.

The whole area of the town, as near as the roughness of its boundary lines and the inaccuracies of their recorded sui-yeys permit of computation, is 28,621 acres, or a little less than 45 square miles.

In 1778 a considerable tract of land was taken from the north-westerly part of Great Barring- ton and included in Alford. This section was 652 rods in length, — north and south — with a width of 210 rods at its northern and 266 rods at its southern end ; again in 1819, another piece, south of and adjoining to the above described tract, was separated from this town and annexed to Alford, making with the first piece, a strip of 712 rods in length, and 296 rods in width at its southern end.

In the north-eastern section, that part of the Upper Township known as the Hoplands, was taken from this town and included in the town of Lee at the time of its incorporation, October 21st, 1777.

By the setting oif to Alford, Great Barrington lost 1075 acres of its territory, which was still further reduced about 4700 acres by the aimexation of the Hoplands to Lee. By these changes the whole reduc-tion of area since the incorporation of the town has been nearly 5800 acres.

In January, 1761, a small tract, including the dwelling and part of the lands of Garret Burghardt, was, on his own petition, set off from Egremont and attached to Sheffield, and on the incorporation of Great Barrington, a few months later, fell within the limits of this town.

This change causes the jog or irregularity in the west line of the town near the late residence of Jacob Burghardt, deceased. On the south, the divisional line between this town and Sheffield, which is now commonly surveyed and considered a straight line, was formerly the north line of the Indian Reservation, and in the Legislative act of the 13th of January, 1742, investing the — afterwards — North Parish of Sheffield, with parish privileges, is thus described :

Beginning at the most north-westerly cover of the Indian Land, in the west line of the town of Sheffield, running easterly on said Indian Land till it comes to a beech tree marked, near the mouth of Green river, then turning something northerly, and leavmg to Sheffield a small piece of meadow, or intervale of said Indian Land till it comes to range the line and beech tree on the easterly side of said meadow, or intervale, and then to contmue said line till it intersects the east line of Sheffield Propriety.”

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There are, of course, the broad, general divisions of types, or styles, with which we are gen- erally familiar — the domestic architecture of the New England States, of the Middle Atlantic States, and of the South.

These broad divisions, however, would by no means serve to identify all Early American dwellings, because there were sub-styles, and distinctly local styles, many of which were radically at variance with the “typical example.” In the South, for instance, all the great houses did not have classic colonnaded porticoes.

Besides the Creole type of the far South (a type absolutely peculiar to the locality), there were a great many differing varieties of the style of the Classic Revival, and there were also the detached houses found in Richmond, Charleston, Norfolk, Annapolis, Alexandria, Baltimore and elsewhere in Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and the Carolinas. All could be classed as “Southern,” but there are wide differences in their characteristics.

In the Middle Atlantic States there are the varieties developed by the early pioneer settlers of Pennsylvania as well as by its later more prosperous families. Different, again, is the farmhouse of the Dutch colonists, who built in the northern part of New Jersey, on Staten Island and Long Island, through New York State well up into the Mohawk Valley, and, on the west bank of the Hudson, throughout the Ramapo Hills and the Catskills.

In New England is found further variety, with widely different types, seen in isolated farmhouses and in the substantial homes of the merchants and ship-owners of Salem, Newport and New Bedford.

It is the purpose of this monograph, however, to show how a particular type of house, its identity traceable through detail, appears scattered in an irregular line southward from the Berkshires to the vicinity of Danbury, in Connecticut. And a remarkable proof of the close localism of Early American types of domestic architecture is seen in the fact that the examples illustrated, although found but a few miles from Litchfield, possess characteristics pronouncedly different.

A departure of a few miles from Connecticut is made in the inclusion of the unusually interesting houses in and near Old Chatham, which is over the New York State line due west from Pittsfield and Lenox, and due northwest from Stockbridge and Great Barrington, Massachusetts.

It is permissible, however, to include these old Chatham houses with the Connecticut examples found at Sharon, Kent, Danbury and adja- cent townships, because their architectural affinity is at once apparent. The houses show far more imagination and sophistication in matters of detail than those of Litchfield, the use of Palladian windows being the most conspicuous common feature.

Nothing in Litchfield, however, resembles the fine old house at Chatham Center shown in the illustrations on pages two, four, five and six. Fan-lights and side-lights were frequently used, and the Palladian window above the entrance appears to have been the sine qua non of the really pretentious house of this type.

It was also a favorite device to plaster the under side of the hood in the forms of cylindrical or elliptical barrel vaults, instead of the plas- tered quarter-spherical treatment of typical Pennsylvania origin, the “Germantown hood.” It would seem, further, that it was the fashion to paint the plaster in these early Connecticut porch-vaults (including the Chatham, New York, examples) a rich shade of blue.

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