For Directions, click the Massachusetts YTA Mile Marker Numbers (below) linking you to a real-time map.

MA-000.0 New York/Massachusetts Line

MA-004.0 Hancock Shaker Village
The Shakers were one of the earliest religious cults to sprout in New York and Massachseetts. Its distinguishing tenets were celibacy, community of property, spirituality, and refusal to take oath or bear arms. The social unit was the large ‘family’ housed under one roof, but the men and women eating and lodging separately. The physical paroxysms accompanying their religious exercises gave rise to the name ‘Shaking Quakers’ later abbreviated to Shakers. WPA-NY*

A combination of communism, industry, and inventiveness built a prosperous society during the nineteenth century. Wide markets were found for Shaker herbs, garden seeds, blankets, brooms, and chairs. They were called ‘Shakers’ because of their active dancing during services. This United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing believed also in celibacy, so the sect’s exclusive dependence upon converts and the adoption of orphans to recruit its numbers led to a slow disintegration until today there is only a handful of aged Shakers left. WPA-NY*

     1843 Housatonic St. (US 20/Yellowstone Trail). About 4 miles east of the New York border is Hancock Shaker Village. Established in 1783, Hancock Village thrived as an active Shaker community during most of the following two centuries. It brings the Shaker story to life with sixteen farm buildings, including the 1826 round stone barn. The Village is a National Historic Landmark.

NOTE: MA-000.8: The probable original YT (now overgrown) headed west from Massachusetts into NY. Just within New York it passed the present Shaker Museum (not the Hancock Shaker Village in Massachusetts), which is just southeast of New Lebanon, NY, on Shaker Road. See blowup map (right) and driving note near NY-402.2 from the New York Mile-by-Mile page (bottom).

MA-007.6 Pittsfield
The town was incorporated in 1761 and named in honor of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham.
The manufacturing industries of Pittsfield include at least twenty-six separate lines of industry, and comprise about 100 establishments. Chief among these is the plant of the General Electric Co., covering 133 ½ acres of land, with a large output of electrical machines and devices. BB1921-2*

     The old Appleton Mansion, girlhood home of the wife of Longfellow, is still standing on East street; it is now the Plunkett homestead. Longfellow spent several seasons at this house, writing there the “Old Clock on the Stairs” and other poems.

     780 Holmes Rd. Herman Melville’s ‘Arrowhead’ home is the headquarters of the Berkshire Historical Society. The Society’s website says:
From 1850 to 1863 Melville and his family called Arrowhead home. It was here he wrote some of the most influential American fiction, including Moby Dick. Surrounded by nature, friends Nathaniel Hawthorne and Oliver Wendell Holmes, and inspired by majestic views, Melville settled into domestic and professional peace if only for 13 years.
     The artifact collection represents over 200 years of history, available for exhibit and research. The archives contain over 200 cubic feet of manuscripts, 170 linear feet of books, maps, 350 oral history tapes, and 14,000 photographic images.
     39 South St. Berkshire Museum. Art, history, and natural science are combined in interactive displays with an emphasis on youth activities. Greek and Chinese art, and paleontological items are displayed.

Pittsfield is located in the far western reaches of the Berkshire Mountains, an area well advertised as a “foremost destination for cultural events and natural beauty.” Some of the highlights are:

     Tanglewood, summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra;

     Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival;

     Norman Rockwell Museum;

     and various other festivals and museums.

     NOTE: MA-007.6 (Pittsfield) to MA-031.2 (Bonny Rigg Corners): The Clason Maps for 1927 and other years show the route of the YT heading east from Pittsfield through Dalton, Hinsdale, and Becket and south to Bonny Rigg Corners. YTA materials never identify that route and always indicate that Lenox and Lee are on the YT. Furthermore: Assuming the Scottish community of Bonny Rigg is the source of the name, the variants Bonnyrigg, Bonny Riggs and others are probably not correct.

     WAYSIDE – Crane & Co. Museum of Papermaking, 66 Downing Industrial Park, is a little east of Pittsfield and off the Yellowstone Trail, but is an interesting historic place. Approach it from West Housatonic St. in Dalton. Crane has been producing special watermarked paper for the printing of money, bank notes, and postal notes since 1770 and still produces paper for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in Washington, D.C.

MA-014.0 Lenox
(pop. 3,000, alt. 1,270 ft) occupies a slightly elevated plateau in the midst of a scenic highland section, mostly covered with forests, sprinkled with attractive lakes and traversed by several picturesque streams. BB1921-2*

     Lenox is a quaint, prosperous town set in a pastoral area at the base of the Berkshire Mountains.

     In the late 19th century wealthy families had summer “cottages” (mansions) here.

     2 Plunkett St. Edith Wharton’s home, “The Mount,” is in the countryside, a little south of Plunkett St. This remarkable woman was a prolific writer and designer of homes and gardens. She designed “The Mount” and lived in it 1902-1911, but she spent most of her life in France. The home is a National Historic Landmark. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Age of Innocence in1920, the first woman to win in the fiction category. The home features her library, restored rooms and three acres of formal gardens.
     6 Main St. Curtis Hotel. Built in 1829 on the site of an inn since 1770. It boasted many a famous guest, among whom were U.S. President Chester A. Arthur, Horace Greeley, William Tecumseh Sherman, and John Jacob Astor. The ground floor was restored historically, leaving it a stately colonial brick treasure. It is now senior housing.
     104 Walker St. (Yellowstone Trail). Ventfort Hall. This 1893 Gothic-looking brick and brownstone 50-room mansion was built for J. P. Morgan’s sister Sarah and it witnessed a number of influential visitors of that age. The movie “The Cider House Rules” was shot in and around the Elizabethan-style mansion. By 1997 the house was seriously damaged, but saved and returned to elegance and offered as a museum and tribute to “the Gilded Age” with tours, lectures, exhibits, and events.
     10 Willow Creek Rd. (one mile east of Lenox) Berkshire Scenic Railway Museum. The restored 1903 Lenox Station contains exhibits about railroading and the economy it built for the region.

     WAYSIDE – 297 West St. Tanglewood, the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and summer music school. Summer concerts, student recitals, chamber groups, and entertainers all perform classical, jazz, and folk music in the various venues on the campus. The 550-acre estate includes Hawthorne Cottage where Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote several books. The first concerts began in 1936, six years after the demise of the Yellowstone Trail Association, but this historic entertainment site is worth the side trip.
Tanglewood’s main entrance is 1.4 miles west of Lenox on Route 183 (West St.).

MA-018.4 Lee
(pop. 4,481, alt. 900 ft.). Paper making was established here at an early date and flourished on a large scale for many years. Though since exceeded in quantity of production by other cities in western Massachusetts, it is still the leading business. An important industry now is marble quarrying. Several hundred thousand headstones have been shipped from Lee to mark the graves of U.S. soldiers, particularly in national cemeteries. BB1921-2*

     85 Center St. Joe’s Diner has been a western Massachusetts institution since 1939. It is claimed that Joe’s Diner was the inspiration for Norman Rockwell’s 1958 Saturday Evening Post cover, “the runaway,” the little boy runaway and policeman treating him to a snack at a diner. The magazine cover is prominently displayed. It is not a classic diner architecturally, but just a very small greasy spoon with a devoted clientele. Reviewers say, “What makes Joe’s Diner special is that it is a slice of Americana. The walls are covered with photos of famous people who ate there.”
     25 Park Pl. First Congregational Church of Lee. This beautiful Italianate church was built in 1858 and has the tallest steeple in the country. It’s white and can be seen from quite a distance.
     Appalachian Trail Scenic Byway crosses Jacob’s Ladder. (GPS: 42.29036, – 73.15557). That is about five miles east of Lee and about three miles west of West Becket. There will be a sign, but don’t run over the hikers. It is called a Scenic Trail for good reason. This part of that scenic trail is especially beautiful through forests.

     WAYSIDE –  Norman Rockwell Museum – Stockbridge, MA. About five miles southwest of Lee on state hwy 102 is Stockbridge, home of the Norman Rockwell Museum. His paintings, especially those on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post magazine, reflected American culture and were popular world-wide. The museum displays many of the most popular pictures and explains how some of them were created. Most of his work was done post-Yellowstone Trail days, but this museum is included here because it is so much a picture of Americana in the 1930s and 1940s that it is a history lesson in itself.

     WAYSIDE – Jacob’s Ladder. The part of the Yellowstone Trail now called Jacob’s Ladder Trail, begins just a few miles west of Lee in the Berkshire Mountains. It is a 35-mile-long Scenic Byway through historic rural landscape beginning here at Laurel Lake in the west and ending at Tekoa Mountain, near Russell, to the east in the southern Berkshires. As its name implies, the road climbs up into the lower Berkshire Mountains. The Yellowstone Trail traversed this route and, although today it seems a bit more “tamed” than 100 years ago, it still takes one back to a slower and simpler time of travel.

MA-025.9 West Becket
Nearby is Jacob’s Pillow, a long-time dance academy mecca. The Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival is something truly special. Running from June through August, the festival features vibrant dance performances from over 50 international dance companies.

     NOTE: Near MA-026.8 is a short stretch of Morse Rd. which carried the YT and old US 20, that was overridden by the building of I-90.

MA-028.9 The Cairn
Here at the summit of Jacob’s Ladder, at the corner of Fred Snow Rd., is a pile of rocks, the Jacob’s Ladder memorial cairn (GPS: 42.25860, -73.08640), which has stood for over 100 years to commemorate the 1910 opening of the road which was then perceived as a great accomplishment, opening transportation from central to western Massachusetts.

MA-031.2 Bonny Rigg Four Corners
Jacobs Ladder Scenic Byway alt. 1265. (GPS: 42.25870, -73.08595).
Here is the foot of Jacob’s Ladder; the climbing highway opens up many vistas of beautiful mountain country. WPA-MA*

On a small plateau lies Bonny Rigg Four Corners, a famous old stagecoach crossroads from which State 8 runs right. WPA-MA*

Jacob’s Well is a wayside spring dating from ox-cart days. Near the top of the Ladder new forests of white pine are slowly restoring the richness of the woodland, damaged by an ice storm in 1920. WPA-MA*

     NOTE: Near MA-034.8 where Cemetery Rd. intersects US 20 is a bit of an old highway left when the newer US 20 smoothed the curve.

MA-035.6 Chester
(town, alt. 601, pop. 1363, sett. 1760, incorp. 1765), was incorporated as Murrayfield, in honor of John Murray, treasurer of the proprietors. Ten years later the citizens voted to change the name, apparently as a result of his Tory sympathies. When Murray left the country in 1778, he was forbidden to return. WPA-MA*

Agriculture, including the production of maple sugar from 1800 trees, and the mining of mica, emery, and corundum have been the chief occupations of the people. The granite quarries are less important than formerly. The advent of the railroad here drew the population away from Chester Center. WPA-MA*

US 20 drops gradually down into a marshy valley where lies Shaw Pond (camping); along its western bank, off State 8, is a thriving cottage colony. WPA-MA*

     15 Middlefield St. (MA 20 & Yellowstone Trail). Chester Historical Society at The Old Jail, built in 1840. The Society’s mission is to preserve Chester’s heritage and historical buildings. The society maintains resources for local history or genealogical research, as well as a large collection of items from Chester’s industrial past.
     10 Prospect St. Chester Railway Museum. Their website says:
The Western R.R. was completed and it was also the largest and most difficult railroad project ever attempted. When complete, it was the highest (1458 ft.) and longest (150 miles) railroad ever built (1841) and included the longest bridge in the world, across the Connecticut River at West Springfield, Massachusetts.

     WAYSIDE – Keystone Arches near Chester. Along the length of the west branch of the Westfield River sit the first keystone arch railroad bridges built in America. They range in height to 70 feet and made possible the longest railroad in the world, the Western Railroad, in 1840. Most impressive of these edifices were ten keystone arch bridges.
     The construction of the arches took place during the late 1830s, and the line opened in 1841. “The stated purpose was to reach the Erie Canal in Albany and get in on the orgy of trade with the interior,” said David L. Pierce of Friends of the Keystone Arches Inc. “The canal traffic never amounted to much, due to the fact that The Western Railroad (later Penn Central, CONRAIL and CSX) ended up bringing about an end to the canal era and launching the railroad revolution in earnest.”
From Chester take Middlefield St. At about 2.5 miles north, an information sign for the arches is easily found.
Middlefield-Becket Stone Arch Railroad Bridge District is on the National Register of Historic Places. Middlefield vicinity.

MA-035.8 to MA-036.4 and MA-038.7 to MA-042.7 are interesting sections of the old YT with some poor gravel and mostly nicely paved.

MA-042.5 Huntington
     72 Worthington Rd. Norwich Bridge School. Huntington Historical Society manages this 1800s school which was so used until 1919. Since then it has been used for a variety of purposes. About 1971 it was restored to its original purpose and may be seen now as an old one-room school.
Huntington Village Historic District is on the Register of Historic Places. Roughly along E Main, Main, Russell, Upper Russell, and Basket.

MA-046.4 Russell
This is the last town on the east end of Jacob’s Ladder.
RUSSELL (town, alt. 266, pop. 1283, sett. 1782, incorp. 1792). Here in 1858 the Chapin and Gould Paper Mills were established. These paper mills, with those in Woronoco and Westfield, are the chief support of the area. WPA-MA*

The old highway followed Woronoco Rd. from MA-048.5 to MA-049.5.

MA-048.9 Woronoco
(alt. 255), is best known as the home of the Strathmore Paper Company Plant across the river. The village is at the junction with State 17. WPA-MA*

MA-054.7 Westfield
Westfield claims to produce 95 per cent of the world’s whips, and has the largest bicycle manufacturing plant. “Crane’s Linen” paper is also produced here. BB1921-2*

     The Westfield Athenaeum (open weekdays, 9-9; Sun. 2-6), corner of Elm and Court Sts., overlooking the Green, is an attractive brick building with limestone trim, housing the library. On the upper floor is the Edwin Smith Historical Museum. WPA-MA*

     87 S Maple St. Joseph Dewey House. The Joseph Dewey House is a Georgian colonial built in about 1735 for Joseph Dewey, whose family had been living in the Westfield area since the mid-17th century. It stayed in Dewey hands for about 100 years, then went through a succession of owners. In the 1970s, under threat of demolition, it was carefully restored to its early colonial state.
     171 Main St. (US 20/Yellowstone Trail). Landlord Fowler Tavern. According to Mass.historicbuildings.com, it was built around 1761 (perhaps as early as 1755). Daniel Fowler was granted a tavern license in 1761 and the building continued to function as an inn until the 1830s. At the start of the American Revolution, Daniel Fowler served on the Committee of Correspondence, which met at the tavern. It is said that General Burgoyne, when he passed through this town as a prisoner from the field of Saratoga, spent the night at this tavern.
More recently, the former tavern has been restored and converted into apartments. The Fowler Tavern‘s original Connecticut River Valley broken scroll pediment doorway was removed in 1920 and placed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Westfield was home to several whip-making businesses, which gave it the name of “Whip City.” See Whip City History Bit. All of them are on the National Register of Historic Places, three are on the Yellowstone Trail, and all are in the expanded Westfield Center Historic District.
     1259 Western Ave. Sackett Tavern, a National Underground Railroad Site, one of 14 such recognized in Massachusetts by The Network to Freedom, a program administered by the National Park Service to recognize and tell the story of resistance against slavery in the United States through escape and flight. This tavern was built around 1776 for Stephen Sackett, who ran the tavern. It changed owners several times until William Fuller restored it in 1962 with painstaking care to stay faithful to Georgian colonial construction and detail. It was sold again in the 1990s as a private residence.

MA-061.8 West Springfield

     70 Park St. Josiah Day House is the oldest known brick salt-box style home in the United States. By 1754 the house had been built and was handed down to family until 1902 when it came to the Ramapogue Historical Society. An addition was added in 1812. It was preserved in its original state and contains an enormous fireplace in each room plus many items and furniture of the Day family. It is on the National Register of Historic Places.

MA-062.4 Springfield
(pop. 129,556, alt. 204 ft.) is preeminently a manufacturing city. Among its products are rifles and revolvers made for the U. S. government, railway and trolley cars and sporting goods of various kinds. Webster’s Dictionary has been published here for many years. BB1921-2*

Eighty-two properties are on the National Register of Historic Places and several large commercial buildings (“Blocks”) on Main St., are on the Yellowstone Trail.

     1571 Main St. (Yellowstone Trail). The Worthy Hotel is an historic hotel. Built in 1895 and advertised as “Springfield’s leading commercial and tourist house,” the Worthy Hotel was Springfield’s finest hotel until the opening of the Hotel Kimball in 1911. Located only two blocks south of Springfield Union Station and featuring 250 rooms, the Worthy Hotel’s period of greatest significance was from 1895 to 1925. It is on the National Register of Historic Places, and is currently an apartment building.
     Bridge and Chestnut Sts. Hotel Kimball opened in 1911. Built in what was an affluent residential neighborhood, the Kimball was elegant, offering 309 rooms, and a large dining room and banquet hall. In 1912, room rates were from $1.50 to $3.50 per day. In 1985 the building was converted to 132 condominiums. It is still looking good today.
     21 Edwards St. Springfield Museums: On this five-Museum Campus are the Museum of Fine Arts, Museum of History, Art Museum, Science Museum and the new Dr. Seuss
Museum. Need we say more?
     One Armory Square, Suite 2. Springfield Armory National Historic Site. This National Landmark Site houses the world’s largest collection of American military firearms dating from colonial times and offers year-round programs, exhibits, and events.
The armory manufactured arms from 1777 to 1968 for all wars from the Revolution to Vietnam. This advantageous site was scouted by George Washington and General Henry Knox for an arsenal. Thus began a long history of invention and mass production of weaponry.

Note: The entrance to Armory Square is on Federal St. Armory Square is shared by Springfield Armory National Historic Site and Springfield Technical Community College (STCC). (GPS: 42.10731, -72.58131).