October Mountain State Forest is a state forest in Lee, Massachusetts, U.S.A. The 16,500-acre (67 km2) forest, the largest state forest in Massachusetts, is managed by the Department of Conservation and Recreation with scenic trails leading to Schermerhorn Gorge.
Herman Melville is reputed as having anointed the area as "October Mountain". His home in Pittsfield overlooks some of the hills. The forest came to state ownership via the estate of William C. Whitney, President Grover Cleveland's Secretary of the Navy. Berkshireweb.com describes this acquisition as:
| “ | In 1915 a group of Berkshire men pledged $25,000.00 to enable the state to buy the 11,000 acre William C. Whitney estate. Together with State Funds this parcel cost $60,000. The same year the area was opened to the public. | ” |
Read more about October Mountain State Forest: External Links
Famous quotes containing the words october, mountain, state and/or forest:
“The autumnal change of our woods has not yet made a deep impression on our own literature yet. October has hardly tinged our poetry.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“And though in tinsel chain and popcorn rope
My tree, a captive in your window bay,
Has lost its footing on my mountain slope
And lost the stars of heaven, may, oh, may
The symbol star it lifts against your ceiling
Help me accept its fate with Christmas feeling.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“Being the dependents of the general government, and looking to its treasury as the source of all their emoluments, the state officers, under whatever names they might pass and by whatever forms their duties might be prescribed, would in effect be the mere stipendiaries and instruments of the central power.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)
““I am as brown as brown can be,
And my eyes as black as sloe;
I am as brisk as brisk can be,
And wild as forest doe.”
—Unknown. The Brown Girl (l. 1–4)