WH AT A S I T E
‘The Heart of Pittsfield’ A sundial in Park Square marks the spot of Pittsfield’s Old Elm BY JENNIFER HUBERDEAU
PITTSFIELD Thwack! The woodsman’s ax sank into the tree. He loosened it from the trunk of the American elm, raised his ax once more and prepared to swing. But, this time, his blow would not connect with the tree. He would not even swing the ax, its path now blocked by Lucretia Williams. Williams, hearing the ax sing, rushed from her nearby home into the center of town and thrust herself between the ax man and the tree, declaring, “You will have to cut through me first.” Startled, the ax man stopped, much to the chagrin of the men who had hired him. The tree must fall, the town elders decreed, for this was to be the spot of the new Meeting House. Hearing the commotion outside, Lucretia’s husband, John Chandler Williams, a well-respected attorney and one of the most influential residents of Pittsfield in 1790, rushed to the side of his wife. In the moments that followed, he would strike a deal with the fledgling community — he would trade a portion of his estate to preserve the tree. The bargain accepted, Pittsfield built Bulfinch Church, named for its architect, Col. Charles Bulfinch, who also designed the Statehouse in Boston, Faneuil Hall and the U.S. Capitol building. In return, the land immediately surrounding the beloved “Old Elm” would become the Meeting House Common, or, as we know it, Park Square. Lucretia Williams was not the first to protect the Old Elm from a woodcutter’s ax. In 1752, just 38 years earlier, the tree had been spared by Capt. Charles Goodrich. Goodrich arrived, in what would become Pittsfield, in 1752, with the city’s first permanent settlers. It would be another
20 Berkshire Landscapes I SPRING 2022
JENNIFER HUBERDEAU
This sundial, donated in 1903 by the Daughters of the American Revolution, is near the original spot of the “Old Elm,” felled in 1864. At one point, the sundial had been vandalized, stolen and, when recovered, stored away. It was rededicated by a group of Pittsfield High School students in March 1992. The students, who were studying the city’s monuments and markers, located it and had it repaired and returned.
year before their small village of 200 was incorporated as Pontoosuck Plantation and nine years before it was incorporated as the township of Pittsfield. In 1764, Goodrich was hired to survey the land and plot out the village center. He chose the most obvious landmark as his starting point — an American elm that towered over all else. From there, he plotted out the roads that would run north, south, east and west. But, he would not let the men hired to clear the land remove the giant elm. As the story goes, Goodrich stopped a woodsman’s ax two blows in. Instead, he said, the road would go around the tree.
“The Heart of Pittsfield.” It was here that
A LIFE SPARED
promotion (hardly a fair), in the shade of
Its life spared, the tree and the plot of land surrounding it became known as
the Old Elm, would lead to a much more
soldiers mustered before heading out to fight in the French and Indian War. In 1777, men rallied beneath its branches before heading out to join their Revolutionary brothers, the Green Mountain Boys at the Battle of Bennington. The Old Elm also would host the nation’s first agricultural fair, in 1807. Elkanah Watson, a farmer and entrepreneur who is credited with the invention of the agricultural fair, had moved to Pittsfield to farm merino sheep. In 1807, he tied two sheep to the elm, as a way to promote his sheep and the fine wool they produced. The success of this small
ambitious fair in 1810, with a cattle show
