Human activity including migrations, individual people, families and the institutions they formed in Lenox. Geography, historic sites and homes in Lenox.
How long have there been people in the Berkshires? Hard to know but based on a recent lecture sponsored by Bidwell House there is evidence we had tourists as long as 4,000 years ago.
Uncovering signs of life at Kampoosa Bog
By Jess Gamari, Berkshire Eagle Staff
Posted: 07/22/2013 05:05:04 PM EDT
Updated: 07/23/2013 11:15:39 AM EDT
TYRINGHAM — Before Puritan settlers landed on Plymouth Rock, and before Columbus sailed, Berkshire Country residents were already hunting and maintaining gardens.
On Saturday, Eric Johnson, archaeology lecturer at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, gave a talk at the Tyringham Union Church about 4,000-year-old findings from an expedition to the Kampoosa Bog.
The Kampoosa Bog in Stockbridge is a dark and swampy lake surrounded by an old growth forest of hemlock, beech and hickory trees. The bog came into existence in the wake of the melting glacial ice, Johnson said, which dates back to about 12,000 years ago. Continue reading When Did People First Come to the Berkshires?→
Roselle Charlock gave a talk Oct. 30, 2014 at the Lenox Library which rounded out the information from Rick Goeld on Windsor Mountain School. Rosalie’s talk provided an introduction to her new book, Windsor Mountain School, A Beloved Berkshire Institution. Roselle is professor emerita of education at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts and the author of several books on education and on the Holocaust.
Progressive Education at Windsor Mountain with a European Flair
Her book provided additional information on the Bondy family (the founders of Windsor Mountain School) and their educational philosophy. Max Bondy had a background with the German Youth Movement which, before it was co-opted into Hitler Youth, stressed healthy outdoor living which Max and other faculty members brought to Windsor Mountain School. Their educational philosophy also emphasized learning to control violent, destructive impulses natural to all of us by experiential learning, artistic expression, and a self-defined path. Freedom was seen as key to a self-defined life. Continue reading More on Windsor Mountain School→
From 1950 to 1961 Bruno and Claire Aron owned what is now Ventfort Hall and ran it as a hotel for culture oriented travelers of all races and religions. Festival House was a precursor of many attitudes and activities important to Lenox today.
Claire and Bruno Aron
Claire and Bruno were first generation Americans in a family of Eastern European Jewish heritage.
Claire and Bruno Aron Grew Up in New York and Went to City College
They both loved culture and were very concerned with social justice. Bruno left his job at the Pittsfield Jewish Community Center in 1949 and started looking for other opportunities in the Berkshires. Bruno and his family loved the beauty of the Berkshires and wanted to increase opportunities for others to visit. While working at the Pittsfield Jewish Community Center, Bruno was often contacted by Jews traveling to Tanglewood about where they could stay when attending concerts, so he was aware of the discriminatory practices of some lodgers at the time and wanted to create a place that would welcome all visitors. Demonstrating foresight on what was to come, he and Claire also envisioned leveraging the attractions of Tanglewood to make the Berkshires a cultural destination.
Groton Place – 1905 – Became the Summer Home of Grenville Lindall Withrop and His Two Daughters
Grenville LIndall Winthrop built Groton Place in 1905 as a summer home. It encompassed the stone villa on this site from 1858 (The Elms). The new Carrera & Hastings designed building replaced the old with a classical, symmetrical order preferred by Winthrop. He had all Victorian features removed.
The formality of the design is an interesting contrast to the Carrere & Hastings designed Bellefontaine (now Canyon Ranch on Kemble Street). The Groton Place building is not only more formal but is set in a more recessive landscape. The building and landscape seem uniquely appropriate for the somewhat reclusive, 9th generation Winthrop owner.
Winthrop was highly involved in the design of the grounds. At his direction, a landscape was created that was very sculptural with massed shrubs, ornamental ponds, decorative out buildings and highly tailored hedges…..no flowers.
Groton Place Library-Everet Hale Lincoln Photograph Collection Lenox LibraryDouble House at 15 E. 81st St. Winthrop Purchased to Accommodate His Collection (Museum City of New York)
Reportedly, Winthrop’s favorite room was the wood- paneled library.The house was full of clocks and artworks. (1)
Winthrop was a discerning and extensive collector who, in addition to his Lenox summer home, moved, in the 1920’s, to a double house at 15 East 81st St. in New York to accommodate his collection.
In addition to the 150 acres he owned for his summer house, he bought large tracts near Bald Head Mountain to protect his views. He was said to employ 40 men to mow the lawns and to keep 500 peacocks and pheasants that roamed the property (2).
After Winthrop’s death in 1943, Groton Place was purchased by the Bondy’s to be the home of the Windsor Mountain School. Currently, the property is owned by Boston University and used as a summer music school and also for Berkshire Country Day classes.
Groton Place Today
1. Houses of the Berkshires 1870-1930, by Richard S. Jackson Jr., and Cornelia Brooke Gilder, Acanthus Press, 2006, pps. 230-233
2. Harvard Magazine, “Unveiled – For the First Time, a Recluse’s Treasures Go Traveling,” by Christopher Reed, March-April 2003
Groton Place, Home of the Windsor Mountain School – from the Berkshire Eagle Heinz Bondy Obituary
With its emphasis on experiential learning and letting the learner define the pace and structure of learning, progressive education techniques were/are particularly appropriate for young people who had trouble learning in more traditional environments. In the Berkshires there were three private boarding schools focused on progressive education techniques: the Buxton School in Williamstown, the Stockbridge School in Stockbridge, and the Windsor Mountain School in Lenox. Only the Buxton School is still operating as of this date.*
The Windsor Mountain School was also a magnet for left leaning parents – some famous – who wanted their children to have a good but liberal education. Well-known Americans who sent their children to Windsor Mountain included Harry Belafonte, Thelonious Monk, Randy Weston and civil rights lawyer Clifford Durr. **
The school was founded by educational reformer Max Bondy and his wife Gertrud Bondy who had studied with Sigmond Freud. Both their progressive orientation and their Jewish faith made them targets of Nazism. They re-established their school in Switzerland in 1937, moved to the United States in 1939, and to Lenox in 1944. **
They were able to purchase the former Winthrop estate on Old Stockbridge Road as a home for their school. In his recently published book, The People of Windsor Mountain, alumnus Rick Goeld describes the family-like atmosphere when he attended with the gifted counseling of Gertrud Bondy and a small student body (no more than 50 in the early days.) Some of the faculty were fellow European refugees that lent a unique atmosphere to the school. In the early days, classical music was played at breakfast every day.*
When Max Bondy died in 1951, Max and Gertrud’s son Heinz took over as headmaster. He continued his parents practice of sponsoring orphans and others who would not normally be able to attend a private boarding school. To address the costs of maintaining the extensive building and grounds while maintaining scholarships and excellent teaching staff, he expanded the student body to 250. Consistent with the political and educational philosophy of the school, a diverse student body was recruited and in 1970, 40 of the 250 students were African American.**
In his book and at his talk (9/25/14) at the Lenox Library, Rick Goeld commented that Lenox was quite conservative at the time and town residents criticized school attendees as “hippies,” and were very concerned about drug use and inter-racial dating…leading to a town/Windsor Mountain School meeting at Church on the Hill. He also noted the fun outings to Wendover for a burger (now Shear Design on Church St. ), Hagyard’s Drug Store, or, when parents were around to foot the bill, The Yellow Aster (now Mazeo’s).*
*People of Windsor Mountain, by Rick Goeld, Published May 14, 2014 by GGFC Properties LLC
** Wikipedia, Windsor Mountain School, September 2014
169 Main St., Church on the Hill – 1805, Site of Church on the Hill Burying Ground
Church on the Hill Burying Ground
Lenox received three acres for a burying ground in 1770 and the first burial took place the following year. The Church on the Hill Cemetery (at the intersection of Main and Greenwood Streets, adjoining the Church on the Hill), is a typical Colonial burying ground–close to the meetinghouse with single graves in rows. According to several recorders of early history, children played in the graveyard area during breaks in the long, long services and sheep grazed to keep the grass down.
Traditionally, in colonial burials, the deceased were buried with their feet to the east so that as the day of judgement dawned they could sit up and face the rising sun. The earliest gravestones show evidence of the Puritan reminders that life was brief and grim with skulls or crossed bones. As time went on, gravestone imagery shifted more toward mourning and loss with weeping willows, cherubs or vases of flowers.
When Lenox was founded in 1767 most residents would have been farmers – even if lawyering, tavern owning, shoemaking, etc. formed part of the support for themselves and their families. So initially, most lots in the village would have been large enough to accommodate a garden, a pig, chickens, and perhaps a cow plus, in many cases, land elsewhere in town for corn or wheat.
From the end of the Revolutionary War into the early 19th century, transportation improved and allowed for more specialization and trade. Village residents still probably would have had enough land for a garden and an animal or two but perhaps smaller lots. This drawing is of Lenox Village in 1839.
By the 1840’s when new territories, immigrants, and railroads had entered the picture, village residents still would probably have wanted to have a small garden plot, a chicken coop and certainly an outhouse. However, they would increasingly be craftsmen, professionals (perhaps working in the county court which was in Lenox until 1868), retail merchants, laborers in Lenoxdale, teamsters, stable keepers, or servants in the larger homes. More and more residents would have been working to earn money to buy food rather than surviving through local exchange of goods and services.
Serge Alexandrovich Koussevitzky was born July 26, 1874 to a poor Jewish family in what is now Tver Oblast Russia – about 155 miles northwest of Moscow. His parents were professional musicians who taught him violin, cello and piano. He was baptized at the age of 14 since Jews were not allowed to live in Moscow, and he had been awarded a scholarship to the Musico-Dramatic Institute of the Moscow Philharmonic Society. He became a successful bassist and married dancer Nadezhda Galat in 1902.
In 1909 he became a music publisher and gathered works of the greats of his time including: Sergei Prokofiev, Igor Stravinsky, and Rachmaninoff. He continued to conduct and perform as well.
In 1920 he left the then Soviet Union for posts in Paris and Berlin and in 1924 he left for the United States replacing Pierre Monteux as conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He was renowned for his recordings and concerts. He was a champion of new music and promising young musicians. Leonard Bernstein was a protégé.
An excellent example of the immigrants who came to work on the estates – and whose descendants populate modern Lenox.
L.C. Peters, one of 10 children, left Kent, England in 1870, when he was 20, to look for work in the United States. His first stop was Troy, NY where he had family and became part of the work crew that came to Lenox to build Ethelwynd. A skilled carpenter, he saved, and had, after four years, enough to bring over his fiancée, Martha Barnes and they raised three children to adulthood in Lenox.
