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The Appalachian Mountain Club’s Noble View is
located on 358.5 acres on the southeast buttress of the
Russell-Blandford massif, just six miles from Westfield, Massachusetts.
Elevated around 1,100 feet above the Connecticut Valley, it overlooks
seven hundred square miles of town and country, providing spectacular
easterly views of the cities of Westfield and Springfield, with the
Wilbraham hills in the far distance.
The land on which Noble View stands was designated as common land under
a 1661 grant known as the “New Addition,” made to George Colton, Robert
Ashley, and Major John Pynchon (who helped establish a number of
communities in the Connecticut Valley, including Northampton, Hadley,
Deerfield, Suffield, and nearby Westfield).
In 1757 the unsettled common land was divided among Westfield citizens,
including Dr. Israel Ashley and Captain John Moseley. The large tracts
of land acquired by Ashley and Moseley lay west of a post road that had
been cut down Glasgow Mountain (now known as Russell Mountain) three
years earlier. Now the preferred route to Noble View, the road is named
for General Henry Knox, who traveled it in 1776 on his mission to
transport captured British cannon from Fort Ticonderoga to Boston. A
marker at the corner of General Knox and South Quarter Roads
commemorates Knox’s expedition.
Title to 100 acres of the Moseley estate was
acquired in 1801 by
Alexander Gowdy, who built a homestead there. In 1825, the southern
half of Gowdy’s holdings was bought by a prosperous young farmer named
Albert Noble. Noble replaced the homestead in 1831, setting the
hearthstone and raising the timbers of a substantial farm house that
still stands today. By 1844, Noble had expanded his original 50-acre
holding to 245 acres, purchasing the remainder of Gowdy’s property as
well as two parcels from the Ashley estate. The farm was called Albert
Noble’s View, for its sweeping ridgetop view of the Pioneer Valley.
On the death of Noble’s children, the farm passed out of the Noble
family. Over the next few decades, it changed hands several times, and
acquired additional acreage. In 1904, it was purchased by Frederick R.
Knott as a vacation retreat. Knott added to the accomodations provided
by the Farmhouse by building three cottages on the ridge--the North
Cottage (currently under renovation) and two stuctures that were later
joined by a covered breezeway into the Double Cottage (re-dedicated in
2006 after complete renovation and modernization).
Knott deeded Noble View to his daughter, Edith K. Prince, in 1914. The
Prince family continued to summer there, employing a succession of
tenant farmers to manage the farm. But the logistical and financial
burdens of managing the large property eventually became too much for
Mrs. Prince, and she began to look for a buyer.
Edwin W. Gantt, a friend of the Prince family and a member of the
newly-formed Berkshire Chapter of the Appalachian Mountain Club, had
spent much time at Noble View. He proposed to the Chapter that it
purchase the farm on behalf of the AMC as a recreational center.
Chapter members agreed, and Ganntt and Mrs. Prince negotiated a
purchase price of $3,880. A committee consisting of Joseph E.
Partenheimer, Edward K. Allen, and Horace E. Allen raised money for a
downpayment of $1,080, with a mortgage of $2,800 taken out for the
rest. On January 23, 1931, Noble View’s title passed to the AMC. The
mortgage was discharged on March 15, 1946, and a mortgage-burning
ceremony held the weekend of June 15 of that year. The ceremony is
commemorated with the annual Laurel Day Celebration.
A memorial fireplace built of native granite and
serpentine was
dedicated on November 3, 1940, to commemorate Edwin Gantt’s
contributions to Noble View and to the Berkshire Chapter. Its
inscription reads, “To Edwin W. Gantt, who taught others to love these
hills as he did.”
Since its purchase, Noble View has been used by the Berkshire Chapter
and others as a recreational property, offering the same range of
outdoor activities as it does today. It has also served other purposes.
From October 1943 through June 1944, Noble View was a military
reservation, occupied by a detachment from an Air Force fighter control
squadron, which camped under framed canvas in a field (and reportedly
did quite a bit of damage, moving stone walls and pirating antique
timbers for tent flooring). And until the mid-1950’s, Noble View
remained an active farm. Among the tenant farmers who worked the land
was George P. Forish, grandfather of past Berkshire Chapter Chair, past
Noble View Chair, and current Noble View Committee member Gary Forish,
who in 1943 was granted a license to farm a limited section of the
property, and to live in the farm house, for an annual rent of $5.00.
Land purchases in the second half of the twentieth
century expanded
Noble View to its present 358.5 acres. One of these purchases, a
30-acre tract of forest bought in 1959, was made in memory of former
Noble View Chair Malcolm B. Ross, whose dream was to protect Noble
View’s unspoiled landscape by expanding its boundaries. The Malcolm B.
Ross Memorial Forest was dedicated on June 21, 1959, and is marked by a
cairn and a plaque.
Today’s Noble View, with its modern accomodations
and 17 miles of
well-maintained trails, is very different from the uncharted land
granted to Major John Pynchon in 1661, from the prosperous farm of the
1800’s, and from the private vacation preserve of the early 1900’s. But
its pristine beauty and rural peace remain the same. As it was in 1931,
the AMC and its Berkshire Chapter, and the Noble View Committee, are
committed to preserving this unique resource, both for the present and
for generations to come.
Compiled from original
documents, Berkshire Chapter reports, back issues of the Berkshire
Exchange, and articles from AMC’s Appalachia, especially “Our Noble
View” by Warner B. Sturtevant (Appalachia, June 1945).
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