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 



