160 IN BERKSHIRE FIELDS 



hill, discoursing liberalism and dispensing with the 

 covenant for almost a generation before he was 

 found out by the orthodox down on the plains and 

 called to account. The "old center'* discloses, like 

 so many of our hill towns, plentiful evidence of a 

 vanished prosperity and comfort. Up there are two 

 fine Colonial dwellings, one of them with arched 

 ceilings, and a ruined town house and church, each 

 of which could seat, with room to spare, the entire 

 present population of the township. Long ago the 

 town got its name because a Mr. Rowe, merchant, 

 of Boston, offered a bell to the church if the citizens 

 would rename their town after him. Previously 

 the name had been Myrafield, said to be a " corrup- 

 tion" of My-rye-field. A settler in Charlemont, a 

 town down in the Deerfield gorge (the birthplace 

 of Charles Dudley Warner), cleared a patch of 

 beaver meadow up in the hills, where he planted 

 rye. When asked where he was going he would 

 reply, "Up to my rye-field." Hence, when other 

 settlers followed and built houses up here on the 

 pleasant hills, the name clung. Such, at least, I 

 was told in the Rowe general store and post-office, 

 and I like to think it is true. 



Between Rowe and Charlemont, in the direct 

 line, lies a mountain, Mount Adams, something over 

 two thousand feet high, and noted for its blueberries 

 and raspberries. One day the then successor to 

 the Reverend Preserved Smith asked me if I would 

 like to see how the first settlers went to and from 

 Charlemont, and thence down the river to Deer- 

 field, and so on to Boston. It was, I well remember, 

 a lovely late September day, almost October, and 



