Mount Everett

File:Mount Everett, MA, and Mount Race, MA, viewed from Bear Mountain, CT.jpg

Mount Everett helps divide the watersheds of the Hudson and Housatonic rivers. Its eastern slopes share a larger escarpment with Mount Race and Bear Mountain plus several related summits. This escarpment rises from an elevation around 700 feet in Sheffield's Housatonic Valley at a mean angle of about 20 degrees, although its higher reaches are markedly steeper. Everett's more gentle, western slopes begin in a valley occupied by the township of Mount Washington, where elevations average about 1,700 feet.see "topography" chapter in article "On the Geological Structure of the Mount Washington Mass of the Taconic Range" by William Herbert Hobbs, 1893 Journal of Geology (Hobbs spent two seasons on the South Taconic massif at work on this monograph, perhaps his earliest scientific field work. Hobbs later gained modest prominence as a polar geologist and would-be social critic. [https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/606222]

A seasonal auto road approaching from the west climbs past Guilder Pond and continues nearly to Everett's summit, but its upper reaches have been long closed to automobiles. The summit area features an open forest of stunted pitch pine and scrub oak.{{Cite web|url=https://www.frames.gov/catalog/19858|title=History and dynamics of a ridgetop pitch pine community: Mount Everett, Massachusetts | FRAMES|website=www.frames.gov|accessdate=21 April 2023}}{{cite web|url=https://www.mass.gov/doc/mount-everett-state-reservation-summit-rmp/download|access-date=21 April 2023|website=mass.gov|title=Resource management plan|date=March 2006}} A 40-foot fire tower was on the summit from 1970 until 2003 named "Mt. Washington Fire Tower" after the local township. Earlier towers stood there beginning in 1915."National Historic Lookout Register" Registry number US 431, MA 2

[http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/ma/mount-washington-fire-tower-at-mount-everett/]

About halfway down the eastern slopes are Race Brook Falls with a source near the gap between Mount Everett and Mount Race.

Much of the mountain is land administered by Mount Washington State Forest and the contiguous Mount Everett State Reservation,"Mt. Wa. State Forest trail map" https://www.mass.gov/doc/mt-washington-state-forest-trail-map/download which had about 10,000 visitors annually as of a 2005 official estimate."Mount Everett State Reservation Summit Resources Mgmt Plan" DCR 2006 page 2, executive summary [https://www.mass.gov/doc/mount-everett-state-reservation-summit-rmp/download] Significant other portions of Everett's slopes are privately held.{{Cite web |title=CalTopo - Backcountry Mapping Evolved |url=https://caltopo.com/map.html#ll=42.10297,-73.42266&z=14&b=oo |access-date=2023-09-06 |website=caltopo.com}}

Mount Everett is part of the much larger Taconic Allochthon, a rock structure that migrated from about 25 miles to the east and arriving at its present location via low-angle thrust faulting.Book Review: {{Cite journal |last=Potter |first=D. B. |date=1968-12-01 |title=Time and space relationships of the Taconic allochthon and autochthon |url=https://www.ajsonline.org/content/266/10/995 |journal=American Journal of Science |language=en |volume=266 |issue=10 |pages=995–996 |doi=10.2475/ajs.266.10.995 |bibcode=1968AmJS..266..995P |issn=0002-9599}}[https://mrdata.usgs.gov/geology/state/sgmc-unit.php?unit=MACAZev%3B0 USGS Mineral Resources web page] More narrowly, rocks of the upper mountain are within the "Everett Formation," a term first used by geologist E-An Zen in mapping and studying the allochthon during the 1960s. Zen modified the term "Everett Schist" (coined in 1893 by William Herbert Hobbs) "in order to include rocks of different metamorphic grades."[https://pubs.usgs.gov/gq/0507/report.pdf "Geology of the Bashbish Quadrangle"] The formation extends intermittently throughout the highlands of the southern Taconics, with metamorphic grades increasing to the west."Geologic map of the Bashbish Falls quadrangle, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York

Author(s): Zen, E-an, and Hartshorn, J.H. 1966 [https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/Prodesc/proddesc_978.htm] Everett Formation rocks are principally olive-gray to green, blue-quartz pebble metagraywacke and quartzite of Ordovician and older age.[https://mrdata.usgs.gov/geology/state/sgmc-unit.php?unit=MACAZevc%3B0 USGS Geology by State page][https://mrdata.usgs.gov/geology/state/sgmc-unit.php?unit=MACAZevc%3B0 "Long-term Monitoring Mount Washington (Mass.) Forest Reserve" page 9]Page 38 "Taconic Stratigraphic Names: Definitions and Synonymies" by E-an Zen, 1964 U Geological Survey Bulletin 1174 [https://pubs.usgs.gov/bul/1174/report.pdf] Everett's lower slopes are part of the Stockbridge Formation, which is generally limestone."Geologic map of the Bashbish Falls quadrangle, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York

Author(s): Zen, E-an, and Hartshorn, J.H. 1966 [https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/Prodesc/proddesc_978.htm]

In 1777 the peak was labeled "Tacan Mountain" on a map by Claude J. SauthierMap of New York and New Jersey, From topographical observations by Claude Joseph Sauthier Engraved and published by Matthew Albert Lotter 1777 :File:Albany County 1777.png

Separately, the once-famed Yale College President Timothy Dwight IV wrote of his 1781 ascent of "Taughanuk Mountain" in a travel memoir (posthumously published, 1823).{{cite book | url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=yale.39002002421833&view=1up&seq=390&q1=taghkannuc | title=Travels in New-England and New-York | publisher=Timothy Dwight }}page 79, Forest and Craig, Laura and Guy Waterman, 1989, AMC Henry David Thoreau visited mountain's western slopes briefly in 1844 and referred to it as "Bald Mountain."{{cite web | url=https://www.berkshireeagle.com/opinion/columnists/bernard-a-drew-by-foot-to-the-top-of-high-peak-in-1850/article_6f813a48-0c4b-11ed-80fe-e76162e05546.html | title=Bernard A. Drew: By foot to the top of High Peak in 1850 | date=July 26, 2022 }}

Despite this history, the name "Mount Everett" was proposed in 1841 by Edward Hitchcock in his role as chief of the state Geological Survey, after Edward Everett, governor of Massachusetts (1836-1840).Final Report on the Geology of Massachusetts 1841, page 238 Hitchcock didn't reference "Taconic Mountain" or any variant in his proposal;{{cite web | url=https://archive.org/details/60741140R.nlm.nih.gov/page/n255/mode/2up?q=everett | title=Final report on the geology of Massachusetts | year=1841 }}

he wrote merely 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 later became president of Amherst College.

By the late 19th century, "there [had] long been a protest against adopting the name that Prof. Hitchcock gave to the summit," according to Clark W. Bryan's 1886 tourist guide titled Book of the Berkshires. Bryan, with offices in Great Barrington, asserted that "the united public sentiment of the region" favored "Dome of the Taconics."see page 150, {{cite web | url=https://archive.org/details/bookofberkshired00bry/page/150/mode/2up?view=theater&q=dome | title=The book of Berkshire, describing and illustrating its hills and homes | year=1886 }} Bryan's similar 1882 book called "Hills and Homes of the Berkshires" terms the mountain

"Dome of the Taghkanics" without reference to "Mount Everett" or Hitchcock.

Yet in 1897, the United States Board on Geographic Names which determines federal usage, accepted "Mount Everett," citing published sources. It listed a half-dozen alternate names as of 1897: Bald Dome, Bald Peak, Dome Peak, Mount Washington, Takonnack Mountain and Taughanuk Mountain."Work Card" 1897, US Board of Geog. Names [https://edits.nationalmap.gov/apps/gaz-domestic-services/file/404558ac-d562-5e21-9c0e-95bad1b14a08/view Archived copy] {{webarchive|date=July 20, 2022|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220720051520/https://edits.nationalmap.gov/apps/gaz-domestic-services/file/404558ac-d562-5e21-9c0e-95bad1b14a08/view}}

Bryan, a prolific poet, daily newspaper publisher and founder of Good Housekeeping magazine, died by suicide in 1899."Clark W. Bryan's Suicide". Waterbury Evening Democrat. Waterbury, Connecticut. January 24, 1899. p. 6. Books concerning the region published subsequently in 1899, 1907 and 1939 continued to reference "Dome of the Taconics," but also preferred the official term "Mount Everett."{{Cite book |last=Adams |first=John Coleman |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0CLPAAAAMAAJ |title=Nature Studies in Berkshire |date=1899 |publisher=G. P. Putnam's sons |language=en}}{{Cite book |last=Abbott |first=Katharine Mixer |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=i7ITAAAAYAAJ |title=Old Paths and Legends of the New England Border: Connecticut, Deerfield, Berkshire |date=1907 |publisher=G. P. Putnam's Sons |isbn=978-0-7222-4977-2 |language=en}}{{Cite book |url=http://archive.org/details/berkshirehills00fede |title=The Berkshire Hills |date=1939 |publisher=New York and London, Funk & Wagnalls company |others=Boston Public Library}}

A 1987 USGS map (republished until 1997) labeled the entire mountain "Mount Everett" and its immediate summit area "Bald Peak.""Ashley Falls, Mass.-Conn.-NY 1:25 000 scale metric topographic map" Geological Survey 1987 [https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/ht-bin/tv_browse.pl?id=2fd3b5a4408ee55b6c2c3ca978dd04ad] Earlier and later USGS maps for the area don't reference "Bald Peak" on Mount Everett.See USGS online historical map collection for "Bash Bish Falls" and "Ashley Falls," etc. and current edition. [https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/ht-bin/tv_browse.pl?id=837c65fe46ddbe572e4430131cf8b3ee] A wholly separate "Bald Peak" at 588 meters' elevation is also labeled on USGS maps a few miles to the southwest of Everett.

Henry David Thoreau visited Guilder Pond and "likely" the top of Everett in 1844, according to regional historian Bernard A. Drew. During their several-day stay in the region around Bash Bish Falls, Thoreau was with his companion William Ellery Channing II (1817-1901). Both Thoreau and Channing had read florid descriptions of the falls in Edward Hitchcock's geological survey of Massachusetts (1841). Channing confirmed this itinerary in an annotation of his copy of A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, "Thoreau also mentioned passing a 'silent gray tarn … high up the side of a mountain, Bald Mountain' — Guilder Pond, no doubt," Drew has offered.{{cite web | url=https://www.berkshireeagle.com/opinion/columnists/bernard-a-drew-by-foot-to-the-top-of-high-peak-in-1850/article_6f813a48-0c4b-11ed-80fe-e76162e05546.html | title=Bernard A. Drew: By foot to the top of High Peak in 1850 | date=July 26, 2022 }}

{{Reflist}}

• Massachusetts Trail Guide (2004). Boston: Appalachian Mountain Club.

• "History and Dynamics of a Ridgetop Pitch Pine Community, Mount Everett, Massachusetts." Harvard Forest Paper No. 25 [https://harvardforest1.fas.harvard.edu/sites/harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu/files/publications/pdfs/everett.pdf]
• "The Taconic Controversy: What Forces Make a Range?" Appalachia: Vol. 73: No. 1 Article 5; available at Dartmouth EDU digital commons: [https://digitalcommons.dartmouth.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1389&context=appalachia]
• "Massachusetts Forest Reserve Long Term Monitoring Mount Washington Forest Reserve" 2009 [https://www.mass.gov/doc/long-term-ecological-monitoring-program-mount-washington-forest-reserve/download]
• "On the Geological Structure of the Mount Washington Mass of the Taconic Range" Hobbs, Wm, 1893 [https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/606222]
• A credible but uncertain claim that Henry David Thoreau visited Mount Everett [https://www.berkshireeagle.com/opinion/columnists/bernard-a-drew-by-foot-to-the-top-of-high-peak-in-1850/article_6f813a48-0c4b-11ed-80fe-e76162e05546.html]
• "Book of the Berkshires" 1886, by Clark W. Bryan (see segment Dome of the Taconics page 147-150) [https://archive.org/details/bookofberkshired00bry/page/146/mode/2up?view=theater&q=dome]
• Interactive map showing conserved properties (user must adjust scale and turn on the correct "layers" for public and private lands) [https://harvard-cga.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=7af040f9dd3f4ba2b2324ddc9bbe22ba]
• "Mount Washington State Forest Trail Map" (includes Everett Reservation) [https://www.mass.gov/doc/mt-washington-state-forest-trail-map/download]

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Category:Taconic Mountains

Category:Mountains of Berkshire County, Massachusetts

Category:Mountains on the Appalachian Trail