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Mount Everett

Coordinates: 42°06′07″N 73°25′57″W / 42.10194°N 73.43250°W / 42.10194; -73.43250
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Mount Everett
View from Bears Den Road, Sheffield, MA
Highest point
Elevation2,608 ft (795 m)
Prominence1,663 ft (507 m)
Parent peak42° 06' 07"N, 73° 25' 57"W
Coordinates42°06′07″N 73°25′57″W / 42.10194°N 73.43250°W / 42.10194; -73.43250
Geography
LocationSouthwest Berkshire County, Massachusetts
Parent rangeTaconic Mountains
Geology
Age of rockOrdovician
Mountain typeThrust fault; metamorphic rock
Climbing
Easiest routeMount Everett Road and Appalachian Trail

Mount Everett is the highest peak in the south Taconic Mountains, rising by a locally impressive 2,000 feet above its eastern footings in nearby Sheffield, Mass. Its summit area is notable for expansive views and scrubby old-growth pitch pine and scrub oak. The Appalachian Trail traverses Mount Everett, which prior to the 20th century, had been called Mt. Taughanuk, and "Dome of the Taconics." The mountain, reaching 2,608 feet (795 meters) above sea level, dominates many views of the Housatonic Valley within southern parts of Berkshire County, Massachusetts.

Features

Guilder Pond, at about 2,100 feet (610 meters) lies about a half-mile north of the summit. A seasonal auto road approaching from the west ends near Guilder Pond; although this road formerly nearly reached the summit, its upper reaches have been closed for many years. The summit area features an unusual dwarf Pitch Pine forest. Such pines are atypical on summits in the region. Moreover, they normally occur where fire is frequent and yet there is little evidence of fire on the Mount Everett summit.[1][2]

Race Brook Falls on the eastern slopes, originates near a low point between Mount Everett and the adjacent Mount Race, and is near a common hiking route to the summit. North of these falls, a small cirque-like hanging valley cuts into Everett's slopes and descents about 1,000 feet below the summit. This unnamed valley is drained by Dry Brook and without trails while characterized by dense laurel thickets.

Mount Everett's summit and its western slopes are within the town of Mount Washington while its east slopes are in Sheffield, Massachusetts. Much of the mountain is within the Mount Everett State Reservation. Other parcels are within Mount Washington State Forest or conservation easements. The east side of the mountain is in the Housatonic River watershed. The west side is within the Hudson River watershed.

History of nomenclature

The name "Mount Everett" was proposed in 1841 by Edward Hitchcock as chief of the Massachusetts Geological Survey and an Amherst College professor in his "Final Report on the Geology of Massachusetts."[3][4] Hitchcock wrote that the mountain was "often confounded" with the local town of Mount Washington, Mass., where Hitchcock said it was known as Bald Mountain or Ball Mountain, "but in neighboring towns, I believe this name is rarely given."

Hitchcock implied that his report concerning 1841 nomenclature for the peak was complete. However, Timothy Dwight IV, eighth president of Yale College and a once-prominent author, had used the name "Taughanuk Mountain" in his posthumous 1823 memoir, Travels in New England and New York, which included a brief account of Dwight's 1781 ascent of the mountain.[5][6] Hitchcock ignored this publication — and proposed naming the peak after Edward Everett, governor of Massachusetts (1836-1840) who later served as Harvard president, U.S. senator and U.S. secretary of state.

As of 1886, "there [had] long been a protest against adopting the name that Prof. Hitchcock gave to the summit," according to Clark W. Bryan's tourist guide titled Book of the Berkshires. This book (1886) asserted that "the united public sentiment of the region" favored Dome of the Taconics ("often abbreviated to The Dome"). To confirm the claim of a long-standing controversy, Bryan purported to quote an unpublished 1850 comment (in verse) by the novelist Catharine Sedgwick of Stockbridge, Mass. (1789-1867). Sedgwick favored "The Dome," according to this quote.

Bryan, founder of Good Housekeeping magazine (1885), offered descriptions of the mountain (and its environs) in several separate passages of his guidebook, referring to it exclusively as "The Dome."[7] Yet the United States Board on Geographic Names in 1897 formally accepted the term "Mount Everett," citing four published sources that employed Hitchcock's proposal. It listed a half-dozen alternate names as of 1897: Bald Dome, Bald Peak, Dome Peak, Mount Washington, Takonnack Mountain and Taughanuk Mountain.[8] The name "Mount Everett" has since then appeared on all editions of federal survey maps for the region and has long been accepted as standard.

References

  1. ^ "History and dynamics of a ridgetop pitch pine community: Mount Everett, Massachusetts | FRAMES". www.frames.gov. Retrieved April 21, 2023.
  2. ^ "Resource management plan". mass.gov. March 2006. Retrieved April 21, 2023.
  3. ^ Final Report on the Geology of Massachusetts 1841, page 238
  4. ^ "Final report on the geology of Massachusetts". 1841.
  5. ^ Travels in New-England and New-York. Timothy Dwight.
  6. ^ page 79, Forest and Craig, Laura and Guy Waterman, 1989, AMC
  7. ^ "The book of Berkshire, describing and illustrating its hills and homes". 1886.
  8. ^ Archived copy Archived July 20, 2022, at the Wayback Machine
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