This 1854 bridge over the Housatonic River near Sheffield is the oldest covered bridge in Massachusetts. It was used until 1974 when it was proclaimed a National Landmark. After it burned in 1994, the lumber was salvaged, and it was reconstructed over the same marble abutments. A sign on the bridge warns against eating any fish, frogs, or turtles from the river because it is contaminated with PCBs. The Berkshires (hills not mountains) of western Massachusetts, an extension of the Green Mountains of Vermont, are known for ski resorts and other getaway attractions to the city dwellers of New York City and Boston. Linda and I were drawn to their fall foliage and quaint towns, so after a pleasant drive on country roads alongside I-90 we arrived at Pittsfield, the largest city in Berkshire County (46,000 Yankees) whose motto is “The Most Secure Place To Live.”

Strangely enough the city was first named Pontoosuck for the Indian village it superceded then later named for William Pitt, King George III’s prime minister who led Great Britain into wars against Napoleon embarrassed after losing their 13 American colonies. We found it a not-too-quaint place to serve as a base of operations.

This stone monument outside Sheffield, Massachusetts, proclaims “The Last Battle of Shays Rebellion was here Feb.27, 1787.” Historic markers around Pittsfield proclaimed:

• The General Electric Company began here!

• President Teddy Roosevelt’s carriage collided with a trolley here in 1902 killing his bodyguard!

• The first baseball game was played here in 1791!

• The 1903 Colonial Theatre is the finest acoustical theater in the world!

• The Housatonic River begins here and flows into Long Island Sound!

Our first side trip turned out to be an adventure. I wanted to see where the final battle of Shays’ Rebellion took place. The site was not on any map so we stopped in Manchester to ask directions. Finally, after several “Huh? Never heard of him!” the owner of an antique shop directed us to the site, a tilting stone marker in the middle of a cornfield beside a dirt road.

A strange tribe of pumpkin-head creatures roam the Berkshire forests. During my years at A.C. Flora High School I taught that Daniel Shays, a soldier at the battles of Lexington, Bunker Hill, and Saratoga, resigned from the army and returned to his farm in Massachusetts disabled and in debt. Angry at being threatened with prison for nonpayment of debts, Shays organized fellow soldiers caught in the same bind into a full fledged rebellion against mortgage foreclosure and seizure of property.

Shays’s “army” grew to over 1,000 angry armed farmers, and the Massachusetts Militia was called out to stop the rebellion. John and Samuel Adams, heroes of the American Revolution, called for the rebels to disband or face jail without trial and execution. In a brief exchange of fire, four of the rebels were killed. Many were captured and sentenced to death. Two of Shays’s men were hanged but Shays was pardoned and eventually died povertystricken and landless.

Linda loves apples! Much to my regret I had to report to my students that my hero, Thomas Jefferson, said at the time, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”

Next week: Robert Frost slept here.