AMHERST — A new interpretative trail in the works would include features such as foundations for mills and factories that once lined the Mill River and Cushman Brook in North Amherst, a former canal that fed water to a grist mill on Montague Road, and discarded clam shells associated with the long-vanished Cushman Clam Club.
The District 1 Neighborhood Association is moving forward with creating the Mill River History Trail, which North Amherst resident Meg Gage said will tell a story of Amherst history, from the times of Indigenous people through the Colonial period and up through the 20th century.
“It’s just a fantastic history we’re eager to tell,” Gage told the Conservation Commission at a meeting this month.
Much of the land on which the trail would run is owned by the town and is permanently preserved. The trail, as envisioned, would extend from the North Amherst Library on Montague Road to the Cushman green, with the idea “to create an annotated trail along the way that people can walk and learn about what has happened,” Gage said.
By 1775, the year before the United States declared its independence, four to five mills were already in operation, she said. Unlike more refined areas of Amherst, North Amherst was known as the Dirty Hands District due to the presence of these mills, many of which remained in operation until Holyoke became the leading center for mills in the area in the mid-1800s. Some also called this section of Amherst Little Lithuania, recognizing the large Lithuanian immigrant community there.
An earlier Community Preservation Act grant for $12,900 paid archaeologist Eric S. Johnson and archivist Kathryn “Kit” Curran to document the first four sites along the trail route. That produced a 48-page written report with appendices.
Those four sites include two Roberts Mills between Puffers Pond and Cushman, with stone foundations in varying conditions; the canal that can be seen from the present-day Mill River Recreation Area, with the earthen wall extending along past the basketball courts; and the Cushman Clam Club, a men’s social club for workers. While the club’s exact location is lost to history, it was probably on the south side of State Street opposite Puffer’s Pond, based on clamshells and other debris associated with it left behind.
Now, the Mill River Trail History Committee is asking for $46,875 from the CPA Committee that will be used to provide details about the 12 trail sites without any physical structure remaining, such as farms and businesses, and provide contextual history for the role of African Americans and First Nations people, understanding that most archives don’t include written narratives for the Nonotuck and Nipmuck people who lived in Amherst.
Bryan Harvey, a North Amherst resident, observes that the history trail will also recount that the town’s final decision, so far, on the land was making the old mill sites a conservation area that would be preserved for the future.
Jane Wald, a North Amherst resident who is executive director of the Emily Dickinson Museum, said the project is essentially marrying conservation and historic preservation.
“The overall nature of this project is identifying and making these sites that are already on conservation land more useful to the community of Amherst,” Wald said.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
