Ruins on a river

It's finally, really spring here in western Massachusetts, and I am very happy to be back on my bicycle. One of my favorite rides -- which I took this week, for the first time since freezing temperatures and snow forced me to put my bicycles away last year -- is a street and then a dirt path, both of which run along or within sight of the Mill River in Northampton, ending near Smith College's Paradise Pond. It's a winding, tree-shaded path, slightly bumpy in spots but almost always pleasant to ride on. I encounter walkers, parents pushing baby carriages, runners, and occasionally (though not too often) other bicyclists. Occasionally, some bicycling friends and I have taken hand saws with us to cut up trees which have fallen in windstorms and blocked the path. In the fall there is one stretch of the path which has these small trees, or bushes perhaps, with leaves that turn exquisite shades of pink.

There are also some ruins along the way -- nothing terribly dramatic, but they catch my eye every time. On this ride, I stopped to take a few photos. Unfortunately, I did not have my camera with the great zoom lens on it, nor did I clamber down a few slopes to get a better vantage point for photographing one spot… so these are not the best photos.

(I should point out here that this Mill River (probably one of dozens if not hundreds in this part of the country so-named) is the same Mill River featured in Elizabeth Sharpe's wonderful book "In the Shadow of the Dam", which recounts the terrifying story of the collapse of the Williamsburg  reservoir dam and the horrific flood that caused. Ever since I read that book a few years ago, I wonder if the ruined things I see along this stretch of the river have anything to do with that incident.)

This first ruin is a little hard to see through the trees -- and I suspect that in a month or two, when the trees are dressed in their green finery, it will be almost impossible to see. This is now visible from Riverside Drive, which (per its name) follows the river for a ways. I stopped to take a few photos when I spied these ramparts across the river, high up on the far bank. I do not know what they are, or perhaps more to the point, what they were.

On my side of the river, almost directly across from the ruins on the other side, was this partial stone wall.

Could these have been two sides of one dam spanning the river, perhaps providing power to a long-vanished mill? Possibly.


About a mile further, the path begins, and not too far down that path is this:

Two slightly boxy, three-sided concrete structures, the far one with a large chunk taken out of it and bearing two sizable cracks, sit on either side of the river. Between them runs a curved concrete ledge, battered and cracked and eroded, and barely visible under the water for the most part. You can see the exposed portion of it on the left, to the right of the tree in the foreground.

And over to the right in this panoramic image, there is an odd little doorway in the bank of the river. I have always wondered about this thing -- it seems, in its construction, almost primitive.

As I stood on the river's edge, taking these photographs, I looked down into the water and gravel near my feet and saw chunks of brick, some with broken corners smoothed -- I assume by years of erosive action from the river water.

Could these possibly be from the homes and mill buildings washed away by the flood on the Mill River in 1874? Or are they from some more recent bout of destruction, probably more limited in scope?

 I don't know. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable in the history of brick making could tell at a glance.

About thirty feet to the left of the concrete structure on the left in the above photo, just off the dirt path and almost buried in last fall's leaves, there are these:

To my eye, they appear to be robust concrete and steel mounting plates… but for what? What was secured here? Did it have something to do with those aging concrete structures on the river's edges? I suppose I could ask the Northampton DPW, or perhaps someone at Smith College… and probably someday I will. But for now, it if more fun to speculate.


Moving down the path another tenth of a mile or so, I spied these on the far bank of the river:

I would guess that this tumbled pile of cut stone blocks is not the remains of a building which fell on this spot, through action of the river or inaction and neglect by its builders, but rather were pushed here, down the bank from the dirt road above, to get them out of the way. Not too far away from this location, on that side of the river, is the site of the former Northampton State Hospital, an institution for the mentally ill. Did these blocks of stone come from there? Why were they disposed in this way? Again, I don't know. -- PL