Robert E. Barrett Fishway - Holyoke, Massachusetts

Robert E. Barret Fishway, photo by J.T. Lynch

The fish are on their way. 

The Robert E. Barrett Fishway at the Holyoke Dam, Holyoke, Massachusetts is open to the public to observe an annual phenomenon: the spring migration of fish up the Connecticut River.

Robert E. Barret Fishway, photo by J.T. Lynch

American Shad are most predominant species, joined by Sea Lamprey, Blueback Herring, Atlantic Salmon, Shortnose Sturgeon, Striped Bass and other fish.  Most adult fish return to spawn in the rivers where they were born.

A mechanical menagerie awaits the fish at the Holyoke Dam (a sprawling granite structure across the river.  It's first version in the mid-nineteenth century was responsible for the establishing of Holyoke, a planned industrial city).  The fish are lifted in large metal bins over the dam to continue their journey north. 

Robert E. Barret Fishway, Mt. Tom in the background, photo by J.T. Lynch

But first, they scoot past the observation room where the public can have a look at the marvel.  The fish population is monitored, and the Fishway along the dam is at least one instance of industry giving nature a helping hand and providing laudable stewardship of our environment.  For more on the Robert E. Barrett Fishway, have a look at this website.

The fish are clearly appreciative.  That's their happy face.

Valley of the Dinosaurs (or the Pioneer Valley)

In 1939, Carlton Nash of Granby, Massachusetts opened Nash Dinosaur Land on a small unearthed quarry of dinosaur tracks. Coincidentally, in that same year I believe, the Connecticut River Valley in western Massachusetts and northern Connecticut was christened The Pioneer Valley as part of an effort to promote the history and culture of this area as a tourist destination.

There has been some discussion in the last year or so to change The Pioneer Valley to The Valley of the Dinosaurs. Not without good reason.

This swath of land that opens a wide vista in the river valley from northern Connecticut up through western Mass. is the result of the scraping down of the land when the last glaciers pulled back. It left behind some of the richest farming land in the world, and some of the oldest land as well, possibly 200 million years old.

It was once the site of the pre-historic Lake Hitchcock, named for Edward Hitchcock, a renowned scientist in the early 1800s who studied astronomy as well as geology, and was one of the first to examine the dino footprints found hereabouts with something more than tolerating a nuisance, which is how the 19th century farmers thought of them.

It’s said that the first to discover, or at least the first to publicly take note of these tracks, found up and down the Valley, was a South Hadley farm boy named Pliny Moody, who plowed up a slab of footprints in 1802. Nobody knew about dinosaurs then, but they did suspect these footprints might be terribly old. Some suggested the thin, bird-like toe imprint might have been left by Noah’s raven at the time of the Flood.

Even a couple generations later, when Edward Hitchcock was giving dinosaur footprints more credence, he thought they only might have been made by ancient birds. The idea of really, really ancient reptiles long before the advent of man was still not imagined by men of science.

Fast forward to the 1930s when young Carlton Nash found strange tracks near the old Moody farm, but he knew what they were. By this time science had come of age with respect to the study of dinosaurs, and when the boy Carlton came of age, he bought the land and made himself both a roadside attraction and a mission in life.

But, there are lots of spots here and there up and down the Valley where dino tracks can be found, from rest areas off Route 5, to the very interesting Dinosaur State Park in Rocky Hill, Connecticut, which opened in 1968. This park's 200-million-year-old sandstone trackway is a Registered Natural Landmark.

And you can make your own plaster cast of some big dino foot prints.

So, if you find yourself wandering the Valley (Pioneer Valley or Valley of the Dinosaurs), step lightly. Watch for those footprints.

For more on the Dinosaur State Park, have a look at this website.   Photos in public domain from ImageMuseum website.

Albert Sands Southworth - Photographer

(A typical "tintype" of the period where a photographic image is developed on a thin tin plate. Not believed to be Southworth's photo - see note at bottom.)

People today take photos with their cell phones. Constantly. There was a time, however, when taking a photo was a much slower process. Much slower. What it lacked in convenience, it made up for in creating an intimate and thoughtful record of a world that may not have moved as fast, but would disappear all the same.

In the late 1840s, it was called daguerreotype, and a shopkeeper in the village of Cabotville (see this previous post on the mills girls of Cabotville in Chicopee, Mass., also this post on the Ames Manufacturing Company), was destined to make an enormous contribution to the future of photography.

Albert Sands Southworth was born in West Fairlee, Vermont, 1811. He attended Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., and after a short stint at teaching, came to Cabotville to open a drug store in 1839.

In “The Spirit of Fact - The Dauguerreotypes of Southworth & Hawes, 1843-1862” by Robert A. Sobieszek and Odette M. Appel (David R. Godine, Boston, 1976) a book on the partnership of Southworth and Hawes, the authors quote from Southworth’s letters to his sister Nancy about his life in Cabotville and his “little office.”

Cabotville was still the northernmost village of Springfield at the time (until its separation in 1848 to form the Town of Chicopee), fairly quiet except for the stirrings of its new industrial life.

Southworth is described as adventurous, and ambitious. Cabotville must have been too quiet for the outgoing young man of 28, or the daily occupation of his drug store too dull, for he reported to his sister of his restlessness.

But, something was on the horizon that would change his life.

In the year Southworth came to Cabotville, a French scenic painter and physicist named Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre made a new invention public at the Academy of Sciences in France. It was a daguerreotype, a photograph produced on a silver-coated copper plate treated with iodine vapor.

In 1840, a series of lectures was given by Francois Gouraud in Boston, Providence, and New York. Gouraud was a student of Daguerre’s, and he represented the company licensed to sell Daguerre’s camera and manual.

Southworth was interested. Through these lectures, he discovered his future occupation. He traveled to New York to visit Joseph Pennell, his former roommate at Phillips Academy to discuss daguerreotype and the telegraph. Southworth studied under Morse in his New York studio, after which he and his friend Pennell returned to Cabotville to begin further experiments in daguerreotype.

They began their partnership in this new field with a capital of less than $50, and their new venture would prove quite costly. But, there was a market. Once photography became known to the public, everyone wanted his daguerreotype taken.

In those very early days, having your picture taken was exciting, and very fashionable, but a little like going to the dentist. Because the process of reflecting light onto a sensitive chemical plate was still crude, the shutter had to remain open for long periods of time. The sitter was posed against a plain background, using natural light and often taken outdoors.

It took anywhere from 10 to 25 minutes of sitting or standing absolutely still.

The subject's eyes often remained closed, because of the torture of staring without blinking. Absolutely no movement.

However, for the first time in history, average people could keep a likeness of themselves or their loves ones looking completely realistic. In sentimental Victorian days, this went over big.

Southworth, enthusiastic about his new trade, constantly experimented to improve the quality of his work. He was the first to use reflective lenses in his cameras, made for him by a Southwick, Mass. manufacturer. He later invented the Grand Parlor Stereoscope or stereopticon, without which no mid-19th century home was complete. Ancient View Master to you Baby Boomers.

In the spring of 1941, Southworth left Cabotville for Boston and the prominent figures he would photograph with his new partner, Josiah Johnson Hawes. He would photograph Daniel Webster, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Ralph Waldo Emerson, educator Horace Mann, and popular singer Jenny Lind, and President Franklin Pierce, among others.

Nearly ten years after he had arrived in Cabotville, three daguerreotypists were operating in that town within a few blocks of each other.

Now the power of photography is in everyone’s hands. Or phones.

NOTE: The above tintypes are not, to my knowledge, by Albert Southworth, only used for examples of the style of photography of the day. For more on Southworth, have a look at his photos on this website of the American Museum of Photography.

Mineral Springs at Stafford Springs, CT

Here are some views of Stafford Springs, Connecticut. It is a quiet community now, but long before the quiet of this autumn day, long before its rise as a manufacturing town, even before it became known for the mining of bog iron ore, this place had the interesting reputation as a resort town based on the healing properties of its mineral springs.


The young lawyer and future President John Adams traveled west from Braintree on horseback in 1771 after overwork and exhaustion left him in a precarious state of health. He wrote in his autobiography,

“I was advised to take a journey to the Stafford Springs in Connecticutt, then in as much Vogue as any mineral Springs have been since. I spent a few days in drinking the Waters and made an Excursion, through Somers and Windsor down to Hartford and the journey was of Use to me, whether Waters were or not.”

One of the first published accounts of Stafford Springs as resort location is noted in Connecticut Historical Collections by John Warner Barber, (self published, New Haven, 1836). “The Indians first made themselves acquainted with the virtues of these springs…It has been their practice, time immemorial, to resort to them in the warm season, and plant their wigwams round them. They recommended the water as an eye water; but gave their own particular reason for drinking it, that it enlivened their spirits.”

By 1899 when another account of Stafford Springs was published in The Minerals Waters of the United States and Their Therapeutic Uses by James K. Cook, A.M., M.D. (Lea Brothers, NY, 1899), we are informed that the area was known as a resort since at least 1750 for travelers seeking to restore their health. The author notes, “During the latter part of the last and for many years of the present century the place was held in high favor throughout New England and the neighboring states.” At the time of this publication, the author notes that the spring water was now being bottled.

“The water is clear and sparkling and excellent for table purposes. It has attained its greatest reputation in the treatment of blood and skin infections. It is said to be actively diuretic.” This publication lists the mineral contents: sodium chloride, potassium sulfate, sodium sulfate, sodium bicarbonate, sodium phosphate, iron peroxide, iron protoxide, alumina, lime, silicic acid, and magnesia.

By 1938 when the WPA state guidebook for Connecticut was published, the heyday of the mineral springs were long past, and we are informed only that there had been two mineral springs around the Hyde Park area from which the town got its name, and which were “in the early 19th century the center of a flourishing health resort.” The unique feature which brought native people, colonial settlers and future Presidents to visit on a health pilgrimage is reduced to a single line of type.

Stafford Springs is still as charming a town as you will find on a country drive, but there is no longer a flourishing health resort to restore you to vigor. But a quiet walk across the bridge up along Spring Street to Hyde Park and the remnants marking an old springhouse may certainly enliven your spirits.

For more information on Stafford Springs, have a look at this website.

Been there? Done that? Let us know.

Hammond Castle - Gloucester, Mass.

Here is the Hammond Castle in Gloucester, Mass. This museum, once a home to inventor John Hays Hammond, Jr., was built in the late 1920s. A replica medieval castle, it remains one of the most unusual structures on the New England seacoast.

Reportedly second only to Thomas Edison in the number of patents awarded him, over 800, Hammond worked on the development of remote control radio waves. The Hammond Castle website refers to him as “The Father of Remote Control.”



The castle, which you enter through a drawbridge, houses a collection of Roman, medieval, and Renaissance artifacts. Just closed for the season, however, you’ll have to wait until next May to visit. In the meantime, play with your remote control toys and plan a trip to the Hammond Castle.

For more information, have a look at this website.

Been there? Done that? Let us know.

Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge

In honor of Earth Day we in New England have the good fortune to enjoy and celebrate Maine’s Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge.

Photos above and below show the salt marsh and forest of this stretch between Kittery and Cape Elizabeth, which also features beach dunes and coastal meadows. Established in 1966, it was named in 1969 for Rachel Carson, marine biologist and environmentalist whose landmark book “Silent Spring” forever changed our outlook on the indiscriminate use of pesticides and gave rise to the modern environmentalist movement.

The Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge is a valuable resource, and a truly lovely place to enjoy nature. For more information, have a look at this website.

Been there? Done that? Floated along the stream in an inner tube? Let us know.