Great Barrington, the Housatonic River Walk offers a glimpse into the past.  We hiked here near Bridge Street, seeking out Mary Hopkin’s legacy building her stone castle from the dolomite quarry on East Mountain.  With the help of Gary Leveille and all my Bernie Drew books we found it.

“A roadway parallels the river north and south. The northern section as it reaches Memorial Field (where the raw quarry stone was processed) crosses an intermittent stream over a short keystone arch bridge that has all the appearance of having been made from rejected dolomite blocks. The stone was “brought down the hill and across the river to the stone dressing sheds on an especially built railway.” Bernie Drew, East Rock is Falling.

“The laying of the great foundation-stones of Mrs. Hopkins’s grand residence will begin today. They are immense flat rocks cut from the blue-stone quarry and will make the wall at the bottom eight feet thick. The super-structure will not be so thick, of course. The wall will be from 60 to 70 feet high and the foundation-stones will hold up a weight of from 12 to 16 tons to the square foot. A track has been laid to the house from the sheds on the meadow where the stone is cut, and the great blocks old stone, some of which weigh 12 tons, are brought from the quarry to the sheds on tracks drawn by horses and from the sheds to the house on a car drawn over the railroad n by a cable attached to an engine stationed at the house.”

“Once her chateau was built, the bridges and road would become a convenient private carriageway for the millionairess.”
Historical photos courtesy of Gary Leveille.

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