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)
“What have we achieved in mowing down mountain ranges, harnessing the energy of mighty rivers, or moving whole populations about like chess pieces, if we ourselves remain the same restless, miserable, frustrated creatures we were before? To call such activity progress is utter delusion. We may succeed in altering the face of the earth until it is unrecognizable even to the Creator, but if we are unaffected wherein lies the meaning?”
—Henry Miller (1891–1980)
“Today the discredit of words is very great. Most of the time the media transmit lies. In the face of an intolerable world, words appear to change very little. State power has become congenitally deaf, which is why—but the editorialists forget it—terrorists are reduced to bombs and hijacking.”
—John Berger (b. 1926)
“What is most striking in the Maine wilderness is the continuousness of the forest, with fewer open intervals or glades than you had imagined. Except the few burnt lands, the narrow intervals on the rivers, the bare tops of the high mountains, and the lakes and streams, the forest is uninterrupted.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)