To the Editor,
In the last issue of Stockbridge Updates, Patrick White suggested a second homeowners’ advisory board. We are all in Stockbridge together, but we have very different reasons for being in Stockbridge, different needs, different interests, and we play different parts. Historically Stockbridge always benefitted from observing and respecting the differences.
Blurring the differences backfired last year and will again. We bring different things to the table in different ways. When we respect the different roles and don’t try to make everyone alike or have everyone doing the same jobs, Stockbridge thrives — it always did.
Very Sincerely, John Hart
Thank you Carole Owens,
Your publication, Stockbridge Updates, revised this year in a better and more readable way, surely helped make the difference. The towns’ peeps are engaged, and their voices are heard through Stockbridge Updates as well as in all the public committee meeting reports. It is a treat to see “democracy” thriving right here!
Ramelle Pulitzer
Hi Carole,
Apologies if you’ve already explored this topic on previous posts, but I’m curious to know your thoughts about what I perceive to be the increase in large truck traffic on Main Street. It’s probably nothing new, but I wanted to get your take on it.
Thanks very much,
Haas Regen
Dear Hans,
I agree, it seems to have increased. I will ask our Police Chief — see his response in this issue. Thanks for writing, Carole
A Conversation about our history…
Carole Owens to Richard Koplin
In 1901, President William McKinley was shot in Buffalo, New York. In an effort to save his life, the President’s men called renowned pathologist Francis Delafield (1841 — 1915). Delafield suggested they use a new machine — the X-ray — to locate the bullet. The President’s other doctors declined to use it. They considered it too new, experimental, and potentially dangerous. McKinley died. Could the X-ray have saved McKinley’s life? Modern physicians can only guess but they wish it had been tried.
Delafield returned to New York to his practice, his books, and the bosom of his family. He was married to Katherine Van Rensselaer, and together they had three daughters Elizabeth, Julia, and Cornelia, and one son Edward.
In 1884 Elizabeth purchased a farm on East Street and was welcomed into the Lenox community. After all the Van Rensselaers were considered high society, and the Delafields were descendants from French nobility. John De La Feld came from France to England with William the Conqueror in 1066 earning himself a British title and land in Oxfordshire. Such old and noble antecedents earned Elizabeth pride of place in the Gilded Age colony.
In the first 100 years, owners the farm were from more humble stock. James Guthrie was the first purchaser in 1774. Guthrie was one of the first settlers of Lenox, and one of the original eighty-nine members of the Lenox Congregational Church. Those earliest members were described as “excellent men who contributed to the town’s formation, growth, and prosperity [noted for] becoming and virtuous behavior.”
Guthrie sold to Jeremiah Osborne. Osborn was the surveyor appointed to “make and mend highways” and the hog reeve. A reeve was a minor official, elected or appointed to oversee fences, sheep, or in Osborn’s case, hogs. That meant he was the fellow who oversaw the release of the hogs onto the streets of Lenox in fall. Why release hogs into the streets? The explanation was simple: in the 1700s, Lenox streets were lined with Chestnut trees. In autumn, when the chestnuts fell, the hogs were released to eat the chestnuts thereby making it cheaper to feed the hogs and easier to clean the streets.
Osborn sold to Jonathan Taylor on November 12, 1797. Taylor was the third owner of the land, and the first to build a house on it and establish it as a farm. That house stands to this day. In 1822 Henry Mack purchased the farm. It was 75 acres with house, barn and creamery. He paid $1800 (approximately $36,000 today) and from then on it was known as Mack Farm. Sixty-two years later, it was sold to Elizabeth R. Delafield for $4100 — two and 1/2 times the amount Mack paid. Elizabeth called it October Mountain Farm.
In 1892, Elizabeth sold to Sarah Morgan for $20,000 (approximately $436,000 today). In seventy years, 1822 — 1892, the price of the farm rose $18,200, the equivalent of $400,000 in today’s dollars. Sarah Morgan, the sister of J. P. Morgan and owner of Ventfort Hall, could afford it, but moreover it was evidence of what a fine investment land in Lenox was during the nineteenth century.
The Delafield association with Lenox was long and strong; there were Delafields in Lenox throughout the twentieth century. Elizabeth’s brother Edward found true love in the Berkshires. The New York Times reported, “LENOX, Mass., Oct. 1. — Miss Winifred Folsom, fifth daughter of Mr. and Mrs. George Winthrop Folsom of Lenox, and Edward Delafield of New York were married in Trinity Episcopal Church at noon to-day.”
Winifred was one of nine children. One of her sisters was named Frances Folsom, not to be confused with Frances Claire Folsom who married Grover Cleveland and was first lady of the United States.
Though not related to President Cleveland, George Winthrop Folsom was descendent from both Peter Stuyvesant and John Winthrop. Folsom practiced law in New York City and selected Lenox as the perfect place for a summer residence. Folsom bought the land in 1882 and built his Cottage Sunny Ridge in 1884, the same year Elizabeth Delafield came to Lenox. Sunny Ridge was designed by architect Charles Coolidge Haight who called it an American adaptation of early English architecture. In 1925 Sunny Ridge burned to the ground. Coolidge height, grandson of the original architect, was hired to rebuild.
The two Lenox dwellings, the Berkshire Cottage and the farm, were linked by more than marriage. June 18, 1904: “Berkshire Farms Retreat the home for convalescents owned and operated by Miss Ethel F. Folsom [a trained nurse] is open and a number of patients are in residence…A large fair was held at Sunny Ridge the home of her parents from which a handsome sum was realized for the benefit of the Retreat.”
From Hog Reeve to society spinster, from the decendants of Van Rensselaer to descendants of Peter Stuyvesant, from a beautiful couple to a dedicated nurse — the stories of our houses are the stories of us.
Six Degrees of Separation…
Richard Koplin to Carole Owens
Your cataloging of the Delafield’s and their Lenox connection is fascinating. And all the other characters with famed surnames are remarkable.
I am a physician, ophthalmologist and researcher, and my wife and I have been long-time (28 years) part-time residents of Stockbridge. I am the co-Chief of the surgical division of The New York Eye and Ear Infirmary (NYEEI) in Manhattan (the oldest specialty hospital in the US), and my office has resided there since the early 1980’s (in a building with a cornerstone that says 1850). Presently I am on sabbatical, and this is the first time that I’ve been able to remain in Stockbridge without commuting back and forth to NYC to operate and teach.
Your notes have confirmed my suspicion regarding the Delafield clan, specifically that Edward Delafield (May 7, 1794 — February 13, 1875), the father of Francis by his second marriage, is indeed family to the Lenox Delafield’s.
As you know Edward Delafield was a physician, primarily known as an ophthalmologist, but also for his work in obstetrics and gynecology. Along with John Kearny Rodgers (both he and Delafield were Columbia medical graduates) he was the co-founder of the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary (NYEEI) after both returned from studies at famed Moorfield Eye Hospital in London. Delafield became the first president of the American Ophthalmological Society. From 1858 until his death, he was the president of the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City. As you know his son, Francis Delafield, also became a prominent physician and an attending pathologist at the NYEEI as well.
Among my published research papers is the history of a slave who attended my alma mater — Lafayette College and was the first black to graduate from the school (David McDonogh). He was slave to a well know plantation owner in New Orleans but unbelievably came to NYC after graduation, and under the tutelage of Rodgers and Delafield attended Columbia Medical School. The Dean refused to provide a black man with a degree at the time insisting he leave for Liberia under the auspices of the American Colonization Society. David was the only slave to have gained a professional medical education. When John Kearny Rodgers died, David took Kearny as his middle name. David was not, however, given a diploma at the conclusion of his studies in 1847 (which made my blood boil). My research team found David McDonogh’s great, great grand-daughter and with a gun to their heads I was able to provoke Columbia University to award David a posthumous degree that was presented to his great-great grand-daughter 2018. Along with a $1million dollar scholarship program for students of color.
Dr. Richard Koplin
