Mount Holyoke
Mount Holyoke | |
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igneous | |
Climbing | |
Easiest route | Auto road |
Mount Holyoke, a
History
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6d/Mount_Holyoke_summit.jpg/140px-Mount_Holyoke_summit.jpg)
Origin of name
The mountain was named after Elizur Holyoke, an early resident of Springfield, Massachusetts and immigrant from Tamworth, England, who was the first European to explore the mountainous region that came to bear his name. The city of Holyoke, Massachusetts, the Holyoke Range, and the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary (now Mount Holyoke College) were all named after this mountain, Mount Holyoke, and not directly after Elizur Holyoke. However, Elizur Holyoke's name is still invoked in many references to the mountain.[4]
The Mount Holyoke Summit House
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d4/Mount_Holyoke1.jpg/220px-Mount_Holyoke1.jpg)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/84/Summit_hotel.jpg/220px-Summit_hotel.jpg)
In 1821, an 18-by-24-foot (5.5 by 7.3 m) guest cabin was built on Mount Holyoke by a local committee—one of the first New England summit houses. The property changed hands several times between 1821 and 1851 when it was bought and rebuilt as a two-story, eight-room hotel. Local entrepreneurs John and Frances French were the primary owners; between 1851 and 1900, the hotel and property were subject to a number of upgrades and related construction projects including a covered tramway to the summit of the mountain (first drawn by horse, then mechanized), a railroad from the base of the mountain to a
The summit house's 1894 annex had suffered from storm damage during the
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b1/Mount_Holyoke_south.jpg/180px-Mount_Holyoke_south.jpg)
Geology and ecology
Mount Holyoke, like much of the Metacomet Ridge, is composed of
Recreation
The summit automobile road is open for driving from April through November, and the hiking trails year-round. The Summit House is open weekends and holidays from
Every year in early fall, since 1838, students from nearby Mount Holyoke College participate in Mountain Day. On that day, at the sound of ringing bells from Abbey Chapel on a random Autumn morning, all classes are cancelled and students hike to the summit of Mount Holyoke.[9]
The area around the summit house has many picnic tables. Also, there are trailheads and memorials. One notable memorial is that to the men aboard a transport plane that crashed into the flank of the mountain. On May 27, 1944, a
The views from the top of the mountain are some of the best in Massachusetts. They have inspired artists and poets. The nearby Connecticut River Oxbow (now a lake), immortalized by the famous landscape painter Thomas Cole just four years before natural flooding and erosion separated it from the Connecticut River, was composed from sketches the artist made from the summit of Mount Holyoke in 1836.[11] To the south are the cities of Holyoke, Springfield, and Hartford. To the north are the University of Massachusetts in Amherst and mountains in Sunderland. To the east is the Holyoke Range and the town of South Hadley. To the west are the foothills of the Berkshires, the Connecticut River, and Northampton.
Conservation
Most of Mount Holyoke is located within the Skinner State Park. The Mount Holyoke Range State Park is a sister park occupying the east side of the Holyoke Range. Its visitor center is located at "the Notch", where Route 116 crosses the range in Amherst.[12]
In 2000, Mount Holyoke was included in a study by the
See also
- Metacomet Ridge
- Metacomet-Monadnock Trail
- Robert Frost Trail (Massachusetts)
- Adjacent summits:
< West | East > |
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Seven Sisters (no image) |
Cultural references
- Mount Holyoke is mentioned in Henry James's 1875 novel Roderick Hudson, in chapters II and IX.
References
- ^ DeLorme Topo 6.0. Mapping software. DeLorme. Yarmouth, Maine.
- ^ a b Farnsworth, Elizabeth J. "Metacomet-Mattabesett Trail Natural Resource Assessment. Archived 2007-08-07 at the Wayback Machine" 2004. PDF wefile cited November 1, 2007.
- ^ a b The Metacomet-Monadnock Trail Guide. 9th Edition. The Appalachian Mountain Club. Amherst, Massachusetts, 1999.
- ^ Mount Holyoke College Cited Dec. 6, 2007
- ^ from the personal correspondence of W. Rolfe Brown, August 23, 1931
- ^ a b *Mt. Holyoke Range Historical Timeline Cited November 20, 2007.
- Raymo, Maureen E.Written in Stone: A Geologic History of the Northeastern United States. Globe Pequot, Chester, Connecticut, 1989.
- ^ "J.S.Skinner State Park" Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation. Cited Dec. 25, 2007.
- ^ Mount Holyoke College Archived 2006-03-04 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Freeman, Stan. "From the archives: Lost airmen of Westover B-24 Liberator crash on Mount Holyoke get final tribute". www.masslive.com. Retrieved 12 August 2020.
- ^ Roque, Oswaldo Rodriguez (1982). "The Oxbow" by Thomas Cole: Iconography of an American Landscape Painting. Metropolitan Museum Journal. pp. 63–7.
- ^ Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation. Cited Nov. 20, 2007.
- ^ Monadnock, Metacoment, Mattabesett National Scenic Trail Study. Archived 2007-10-08 at the Wayback Machine Cited Nov. 4, 2007.
Further reading
- Horowitz, Helen Lefkowitz. Alma Mater: Design and experience in the women's colleges from their nineteenth-century beginnings to the 1930s (Univ of Massachusetts Press, 1993) .online
- Olsen, Deborah M. “Remaking the Image: Promotional Literature of Mount Holyoke, Smith, and Wellesley Colleges in the Mid-to-Late 1940s.” History of Education Quarterly 40#4 (2000), pp. 418–59. online
- Solomon, Barbara Miller. In the Company of Educated Women: A History of Women and Higher Education in America (Yale University Press, 1985) online